Chpt. 16

"I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love." (Marilyn Monroe)

At Morgan's house it was 3am. They had only been back in Quantico for a matter of nine hours; nine hours at most. He snapped awake when he heard the shower cut on….again.

Penelope had taken three showers already…this was her fourth one. She still hadn't talked about anything related to what happened when she and Alecta had gone missing. Penelope hadn't talked much at all since being found. When they initially found the girls and got them to the hospital, most of what Pen had said was in reference to asking how Alecta was doing. Anytime that Derek brought up how she was feeling or asked her how she was or what happened, she brushed him off with questions about Alecta or to talk about some of the adventures Alecta and her 'associates' had been on over the years. To hear Pen tell the stories, one would have thought that Alecta was some sort of urban myth….a modern day Paul Bunyan.

Earlier tonight they had ordered delivery from Pen's favorite Chinese restaurant, and watched some old Cary Grant movie….'Topper' from 1937, with his lady co-star being Constance Bennett. It was actually quite a funny movie; poor old Mr. Topper trying to go through life with these ghosts of a deceased couple pestering him every day. He even had to go to court for what seemed to be a physical altercation with police.

After that film was finished, Morgan could tell Pen was getting tired, he wanted to talk to her though, but she insisted they watch the 1934 version of Les Misérables. Whatever she wanted, he'd do. All was fine and well until the moment that he figured out it was all in French with subtitles. She wasn't in the mood to talk dirty to him in French, so she'd torture him this way.

Not even half way through, she had zonked out, curled up resting on top of Morgan as they shared the couch. Without a word Derek shut off the movie, and got up off the couch, carrying Pen to the bedroom. She had long ago showered and changed into her pajamas so that was taken care of. He pulled the sheet and a light blanket up over her and then climbed into bed on his side. He slept curled up behind Pen, one armed only lightly draped around her waist, he didn't want her to freak out in the middle of the night, but he had to hold on to her….he couldn't bear the thought of her disappearing again.

But here she was at just after 3:20a.m., coming out of the bathroom, having scrubbed down again, and scrubbed so hard that her skin was now red as far as Derek could see. Derek shook his head and sighed. He knew, depending on how bad things were for her while she was being held by Jake and the others that it might be a while before she was back to being anything like her old self…and even then there may be some tell-tale differences.

Derek sat up as she re-entered the room, leaning against the headboard.

"Oh. You're awake. I'm sorry I thought you were out cold….I didn't mean to wake you." Pen said in a quiet voice.

"You have nothing to apologize for Baby Girl. You have to do what's right for you, if you take 12 showers a day, if that's what makes you feel better, then do it, until you no longer feel like you have to. I will still be here when you get out."

Right about now, he was feeling like a real bastard though, he knew he had to put his foot down and make her talk it out, at least some of it, or she would clam up for good and they would never get the entire story, and she may never find a way back to her old self. It had been several days since everything happened; talking about at least a portion of it shouldn't be too much to ask….he just didn't want to push her too far. What am I going to do to get her to talk? Morgan kept thinking to himself.

"Baby, come on back over here with me, we can sit up for a while and just…..I want to talk about what happened. I don't want to force you to talk about anything that you don't want to talk about. But some of it has to come out sometime….even if it's just small bits….just something. It doesn't even matter what it's about. But it's not going to help you to keep everything inside."

Penelope dropped her head, looking at the floor, standing three feet from the bed.

"Do I really have to? Ordinarily she and I and the other girls talk to each other and hash things out….can't I just wait and talk to the girls?"

"I would really like for you to talk to me, at least a little bit, tonight." He could see the anxiety building up in her eyes. "If you would really like to wait though, I can wait. Maybe you can go out with Alecta tomorrow night or the next day and have a girl's day out doing whatever it is you ladies get around to doing. And, I will wait on you for however long you want."

"Okay. Can we go back to bed now?"

Morgan nodded that they could indeed go back to sleep. Luckily they still had some time left over from their 'vacation', nearly a week's worth, so he didn't have to worry about lack of sleep on the job…not that that was even a thought in his head currently. On the contrary, Pen was the only thing he had been able to think of or see for days. Crawling back into bed, Derek sincerely hoped that Alecta or one of the girls was able to make headway with Garcia.

************************************CM**********************************************

After breakfast with Rossi and Mrs. King, Hotch and Alecta had gone out shopping after all. They had thought about going to see some of the historical sites around town, but Alecta had seen almost all of them at least twice already and wasn't really impressed with them in the first place. The ones she wanted to go see were at least a day's travel, if not more, in one direction.

They hit the big mall down town. Alecta had to admit that seeing Hotch dressed casually was a switch. Even after being around each other this past week or so she still always thought of him in his suits at work. Hotch in a black leather jacket, blue t-shirt, his jeans, and a pair of tennis shoes was an awkward sight…..not a bad sight…just awkward.

"So do I call you Aaron today?" Alecta said with a smirk.

"You can call me what you want when you want." Hotch arched an eyebrow and smiled back at her.

"Smart ass."

They rode the rest of the way to the mall in silence, almost.

"I don't even know how to shop really.' Turning to Hotch, "What am I even going to shop for?"

"Don't worry, we'll find something that you like I'm sure." Hotch smiled at her as he turned back to his driving.

"If you say so."

Once they arrived at the mall they walked around for maybe 20 minutes before she settled on a store to dive into. She was starting to get frustrated rather quickly though.

"Lex, what's wrong? You're getting all worked up."

"Nothing in this store will fit me."

"Everything will fit you, you must be exaggerating."

"Boss….Aaron…I mean…the tags say they are my size, but I can tell you right now, that if I try this blouse on, it might fit me through the waist, if it ever makes it past my rack."

Hotch laughed out loud when he saw her face, her eyes went wide with shock, "I said that out loud didn't I?"

Hotch could only nod, a grin still on his face, "Yes, yes you did."

"Grrrrr….well it's the truth. And those jeans, will never make it past my ass. I told you I have to have nearly all my clothes tai…..OOOH! Jackpot!"

She darted over to a couple of racks that had larger sizes of clothes, not larger by much, but something more 'normally' built human beings wore.

"The pants a little long, but so what, I can either have them hemmed up or just roll with it."

Hotch shook his head ruefully. On a woman JJ's height or the height of Alecta's daughter Rachel, the pants would have fit nearly perfectly. But since Alecta was nearly six inches shorter than either one of them, they would make her look like a child playing dress up in her older sister's clothes.

By the time that Hotch had snapped out of this thought, Alecta had managed to scrounge up 10 or 12 different things to try on; for somebody that didn't know how to shop, she could fake it really well. She had even managed to find a really gorgeous (at least he thought so) rosy pink blouse that had low cut cleavage with a bit of a cowl neck, it was sleeveless, so she could wear it in warmer weather or with a jacket….he couldn't wait to see it on her, especially when she paired it with those dress pants she picked up…one pair was black and one pair was a chocolaty brown. He knew for a fact she had a jacket that would go well with either pair.

"Hold this." Alecta shoved her purse at him as well as her sunglasses and took off for a dressing room.

Hotch took a seat in a chair near the dressing rooms and waited for her to figure out what she wanted.

"Your girlfriend is quite a character,' a sales associate said to him after helping Alecta find her dressing room.

Without even missing a beat, 'You have no idea." Hotch smiled back at the lady, causing her to chuckle lightly as she walked away.

A few minutes passed and nothing….Alecta never came out of the dressing room.

"Hurry up, I want to see what it all looks like."

"I don't do that in public Mr. I'm not an exhibitionist. Besides, if you see all of it at one time, how am I supposed to keep you tripping over the floor? You know I love it when you can't even walk straight."

Hotch started turning beet red in the face….people were starting to look at them funny….God only knows what all of these people thought they were talking about. And that damned little minx, she was laughing. It was quiet, but he could hear her giggles. She knew she was putting him on the spot.

"Although I will say I think I have found my next pair of 'ass' jeans, so you should maybe pad the furniture at your house…."

More giggles.

"There will be payback when we get home."

"Sure there will be. Talk, talk, talk. Alright, I'm coming out, if you laugh, I'm kicking you in the shins….because that's usually as high as I can reach unless properly motivated."

Hotch could only shake his head, face still red, tears almost rolling down his cheeks from trying so hard not to laugh out loud.

All the funny of the situation was knocked out of him though when she stepped out of the dressing room and came out to where he could see her. She was in the brown pants and the pink blouse….the blouse fit like a glove; Hotch knew he was in serious trouble.

Not seeming to notice, Alecta was looking herself over, 'The pants need to be altered, or they will fall off, but I had to get something that would fit over all the junk back here." One hand still held the waist band of the pants to keep them from falling completely off of her…which if it hadn't been for the fact that they were in a public place, would have been just dandy by Hotch.

"Ooh! What size is that dress?" There was a dress hanging on a rack not too far away. It was in shades of blues and greens. There was a Middle Eastern sort of flare to it. It had spaghetti straps, and….It was becoming apparent she was trying to kill him.

"What size do you need?"

"It doesn't matter.' Alecta slouched onto the small bench in the dressing room. "It's not like they have it in my size anyway."

Hotch looked around, not seeing anybody much around, he walked in and sat on the edge of the bench beside her. 'What's wrong? I know that tone of voice."

"Nothing's wrong. Nothing whatever. Let's go, there are more stores to hit here. Get out. I have to change back into my own clothes." She gave him an impish smile that she hoped he bought, and it seemed to work. He began to leave the dressing room.

Turning back to glance at her over his shoulder as he left the room, 'This discussion isn't over."

Alecta just arched a brow at him, 'Whatever you say."

Hotch knew he was going to have his work cut out for him. She didn't always like to talk about what was bothering her. He may have to just let her come to him when she was ready. Anytime she said 'whatever you say' what she really meant was 'come at me bro'.

During their time shopping they meandered through several other stores before coming upon a store that sold everything under the sun ever created for a baby.

"Why don't we stop in here for a few minutes and see what they have?" Hotch posed the question as carefully as possible. Alecta looked up at him with a little bit of shock in her eyes.

"For real?"

"Yes, for real."

"Well alright. But we aren't buying anything, I don't have anywhere to put it."

"Yes, actually you do."

Alecta looked at him like he'd gone off his rocker.

"My place. You're staying there. Why not?"

"I can't stay there indefinitely. Eventually I will have to get my own place, and then there will be all this packing and junk."

"Why can't you stay?"

"Trust me, you don't wanna be stuck with me indefinitely…."

"What if I did? Want to be stuck with you indefinitely, I mean."

"Then I'd tell you to see about getting some medication for that. I told you before….I'm not a safe, normal girl. I was never the head cheerleader that dated the captain of the football team. I was the 'accident prone' kid that those little snots pushed down the stairs at school. I'm not the kind of girl most men are proud to show off to their friends and families. I've been bought and sold more times than blue chip stocks. Currently I have six children from three different fathers. I am my own Maury Povich segment, the only thing that makes me any better than women that go on that show is that I actually do know who the fathers are.

There are days on end when I don't eat or sleep because I can't….My mind is somewhere else…on a case or whatever….I am more robotic than human some days…I keep going 'til I just crash basically. Except for lately; I think this pregnancy is slowing me down. Jury's still out on whether that's a good thing or not…."

"Jury returned with a verdict. It's a very good thing. You can't keep going at break-neck speeds forever."

"You haven't seen one of the bad nightmares. The one last night was a merely a preview. They have been bad enough in the past that, not only do I wake up screaming my lungs out, but I have been known to piss the bed while I do it. I'm almost 40; do you know how embarrassing that is to have to say?"

"I can help you change the sheets."

"You're not listening."

"Your arguments are not valid. There's little that you can say or do to change my mind. If I want you to stay around, outside of you just flat out saying 'NO', there isn't much you can do to change how I feel."

"What about Jack? Am I the kind of woman you want around him? How would he feel about you bringing a woman that he barely knows to live in the house all of the sudden?"

"He loves you. And he loves Sofie and Emma. He thinks it's fun to have all these extra kids around to play with."

Hotch watched her shake her head and sigh….

"I can talk to him if you want me to, see what he thinks…But I know he's going to love it. He's growing fond of your stories, you know the clean versions. I think he looks at you and your friends sort of like comic book super heroes. Sort of like 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'."

"Oh God. It is bad, you're using the kid against me. That's low."

"You've left me little choice." Hotch smiled at her slightly.

"I see, good sir, that you are not above subterfuge."

"I like it when you call me 'Sir'…."

"Don't get used to it; it was like, one of them Freudian slip kinda things."

"Sure it was."

"Shut up, we have shopping to do…You're falling down on your teaching duties."

They made their way through the baby store; they mainly focused on some of the furniture, considering Alecta didn't even know what she was having yet.

"Do you think it's going to be a boy or a girl?" Hotch asked her as he took a sip of the drink he got when they swung past the food court.

Pinching off a bite of the huge soft pretzel Hotch had bought her, 'I think it'll probably be a Volkswagen."

"No, seriously."

"You think I'm joking? I shit you not. I have huge babies. Rachel was just slightly above average when she was born. Sasha and Eva were both nice sized, and they were premies. If I remember correctly, they were both around 8lbs."

"And you said they were premies?"

"Yes, born about a month, maybe 1 ½ months early. And they were both about 22 inches long. God only knows how damned big they would have been if they went full term. The doctor would have had to pry them out with a pound of butter and a crowbar. And my darling boy, Oleg, he was the biggest baby I have had by far. He weighed in at 14lbs and 22inches long, and I nearly had my tubes tied 'johnny on the spot'. I woulda done it myself if the doctor hadn't stopped me. Sofie and Emma weren't so bad. Surprisingly, since they were twins, they went almost to full term; but still, the two of them together didn't weigh as much as my baby boy did. I don't think either one of them even hit 6lbs. My little teacup babies….so now it's time for a moose again."

"What about this crib?"

It was a beautiful cherry crib….the dark wood had a beautiful grain to it…there was a matching changing table and a little chest of drawers that went with it. It was convertible, so when the baby out grew the crib it could be changed into a toddler bed, and then later on into a twin bed for when the child was older.

"Ya know, I don't think that any of my other kids ever had a crib….at least not one of their own. When Rachel was a baby and we still lived at Heather's house, I would let her sleep on my bed, with the pillows that I had accumulated piled around her to keep her from falling out…."

"Where did you sleep?"

"Duh, on the floor, at the foot of the bed."

She kept circling the set, as well as checking out a couple other pieces close by. She continued to talk a little more as she went.

"Sasha and Eva shared a crib that had belonged in Impatiev's family for a while. It was old, Eastern European design, not even up to any kind of code at the time….and Oleg slept in it, too….it was a lovely old crib….but it was sooo old."

"What about Sofie and Emma?"

"We were staying in Istanbul at the time that I had them….my contact lived in one of the old neighborhoods in the city…..small living quarters….they slept in two drawers that were part of the cupboards in my room. They had to sleep in those old rickety drawers for months before it was safe enough to smuggle them into the States."

She came back over to the cherry set of furniture…

"The only baby I ever had that ever had his own crib was…."

She stopped mid-sentence, it was like she almost forgot for a moment.

"Um, look, we should get going." She grabbed Hotch by the hand and started dragging him out of the store.

"But don't you want…"

"I'm getting tired and hungry…."

Hotch only nodded. Luckily, while she had been talking, he had the forethought to write down the item numbers of the pieces that she seemed to like the most….and he had noticed her eyeballing some of the decorations as well….the crib gear...he snapped a few quick pictures with his cell phone for later. He would have to talk to Rossi and the team about this later. She was going to have a real nursery with a real crib for this baby if it killed him.

They had gone to have an early dinner; Mexican…she seemed to be craving it. Hotch had learned the hard way to not to come between a pregnant woman and a craving, it could get ugly. He had called over to JJ's and talked to Jack for a few minutes and checked to make sure he had been behaving himself.

"Of course Jack has been behaving,' Alecta poked Hotch in the ribs when he hung up the phone. "I've never known the kid to be anything less than an absolute angel since I met him….meaning, don't leave him around Sofie and Emma for too long. Emma isn't so bad on her own. But Sofie….she's enough to drive a preacher wild."

"A family trait?"

"Don't you know it."

They ate until Alecta thought she would bust wide open. Hotch had never seen her eat so much.

"So the kid's into Mexican. Who knew? So the little jumping bean likes Mexican food and Sushi….Lord is this kid gonna be screwed up or what…..No worse than Sofie and Emma. They are fluent in Russian and have a love affair with Middle-Eastern food that Ajax can't wash away."

They had made it back to Hotch's apartment by 6pm. Alecta got a quick shower and changed into her pajamas. She really was tired after all, that much had been the truth. Hotch went ahead and did the same thing after she finished. While she watched a little TV, Hotch would email his brother, Sean and a couple old college buddies that he still kept in touch with from time to time.

Alecta was sitting on the sofa next to Hotch; she had found some old silent movie that was on. She kept the volume turned down on the low side; the background music on these things was usually atrocious. Hotch had looked up from what he was doing at the time and noticed that the lead actress in the film was a dead ringer for Alecta. It was nearing the end of the film….the title of which was 'The Plastic Age'. The female lead was Clara Bow. He'd have to ask Reid or Garcia about it. Looking down, he noticed that Alecta had dozed off sometime during the film laying her head against his chest, one arm draped around his waist.

Smiling a bit to himself, he maneuvered around until he was able to put away his laptop and pick her up carefully, trying not to wake her. It was only 9:30 at night. But she had had a stressful few days lately, and with the insomnia she sometimes was known to suffer, she needed the extra rest.

Hotch carried her to the bed and laid her in it, having shut the TV off before leaving the living room. He remembered to put her on the side away from the door. Curling into bed beside Alecta, Hotch turned out his bedside lamp and wrapped an arm around her, settling his head on the same pillow with her.

As he fell asleep, Hotch couldn't quite help the smile on his face as he thought about the surprise he was going to plan for her.

POST AN: Ok…could have been longer, but….them's the breaks. There is actually a movie called 'The Plastic Age'…and Clara Bow was actually in it. Look it up…she was pretty freaking cool. Let's see where the next chapter takes us shall we.