Penelope hated how she couldn't find the necessary joy to celebrate Erin's graduation from the program, as she deserved to have someone who was completely present and completely overjoyed at the work she had put in over the last thirty days to get to that place. Her mind, though, was divided, thinking about Aaron and what she was going to do about their relationship. As she listened to the director of Erin's program extol the hard work she had put in over the last four weeks, she smiled and nodded at appropriate times, trying to keep her focus in the moment and on Erin.

At last, the ceremony finished, and she was standing to applaud Erin, seeing that the woman was beaming with delight. The expression took years off her features, and Penelope found herself responding with a grin of her own as the woman came over to her side and hugged her tightly. "I'm so glad that you were able to come see this. It means the world to me, Penelope."

"And that is why I'm here. Now, let's head up to your room and finish getting you packed. We have to drag our feet a little, since I have a surprise for you, but it can't happen until one this afternoon, and it's only ten."

"It's not going to take me three hours to pack two bags, dear."

"Well, it will take me about twenty minutes to drive to our destination, so we only need to waste around two and a half hours?"

Erin rolled her eyes affectionately as she held out her hand. Penelope clasped it and allowed the woman to guide her upstairs and into her room. Erin was right about there not being much to do there, since the room was so small, but Penelope tried to ignore that as she took a seat on Erin's bed and gazed over at the closet. "I'll start with my lingerie if you'd like to work on everything else?"

"Of course, Erin." She smiled at her as she once more rose to her feet, taking the bags from Erin's hands and opening them on the bed before going to the closet and taking out articles of clothing piece by piece, carefully folding them before placing them in the larger suitcase. "So, what is the first thing you're going to do when you get home?"

"This is going to sound thoroughly boring, but I'm going to curl up on the sofa and watch The Sound of Music. It's one of my comfort movies, and I need something to help soothe me into my two weeks of doing nothing, since I'm not retuning to work until July."

"Ooh, do you mind if I stay and watch with you? I love that movie!"

Erin beamed at her, nodding as she placed the last of her underwear into the smaller bag. "I'd love that. We can order in food, too, since I don't have anything in the house."

"We could go shopping after my surprise. I mean, if you want me to be thoroughly mundane with you," she teased as she folded the last dress and set in inside the suitcase before zipping it closed.

"Mundane can be nice."

Penelope nodded as she watched Erin do a final sweep of the room, picking up a thin notebook and dropping it on top of her lingerie before she closed that bag. "All right, that took so much less time than I had hoped. How about we do the shopping before we head out to lunch? That's the only thing I can think of to kill the time, since neither of us are dressed for taking a walk in the park."

Erin nodded as she laughed lightly, grabbing the handles of the bags before motioning to the door with her head. "I think I can be flexible enough go with that, Penelope." She gave Erin a sheepish smile as they left the room, and headed out to her car. Erin placed the bags in her trunk before getting into the passenger seat, and Penelope got behind the wheel, setting her phone in the hands free clip before she backed out of the parking spot and then pulled onto the street.

As she drove to the closest grocery store, she stayed quiet, wanting Erin to lead any conversation they had, since this was her first free time in thirty days. The woman seemed content to sit in the silence, and so Penelope went with that, allowing the quiet to soften things between them. She was glad, though, that after she'd parked in the closest spot to the door, that Erin turned to look at her, an open look on her face that stole her breath for a moment. "We're here."

"We are. And I don't have a shopping list, so this is probably going to be an expensive trip." They exited the car and made their way inside, Penelope pushing the cart and following Erin to the back of the store. "We are going to stop by home to drop this off, yes?"

"That's the plan, yeah. I figured that you'd want to get perishable stuff, like milk and eggs."

"You figured right." Erin nudged their shoulders together, and Penelope grinned as they started going up and down the aisles, Erin dropping things into her cart as they passed them. "All right, now to the frozen food aisle."

"Ooh, that means ice cream!" she exclaimed, listening to Erin giggle as she nodded. "Can I pick out something to keep at your place? I mean, if you want me over while you're off work."

"Of course you're welcome at my home, you've been such a dear to support me through this trial." Erin's smile turned pained for a moment, and Penelope reached out to squeeze her shoulder affectionately, knowing that Erin wouldn't permit anything more affectionate than that in public. "Let me guess, butter pecan?"

"No, mint chocolate chip. Though butter pecan does sound sort of good right now."

Erin nodded as they turned down the ice cream aisle, and Penelope stopped short, seeing Aaron at the other end of the aisle. He was talking on the phone to someone, and in her heart, she knew that it was Kevin on the other end of the line, since he would be able to track her whereabouts quite easily and would have no qualms about telling him that information. "Why am I not surprised to see you with her," he said angrily as he stalked over to them.

"Aaron."

The way Erin said his name caught both of them by surprise, and she watched her partner swivel his head around to glare at her friend. "What, Erin?"

"If you're going to be angry, be angry with me. I asked her to accompany me home today, since it's been a month away for me. Penelope is a dear friend who wants to help her friends as much as she can. Why would you have a problem with that?"

"Because she lied to me. She said that she was picking up a friend from the airport and bringing her out to lunch with another friend."

Penelope caught the quick quirk of Erin's lips, which told her that she had figured out the surprise Penelope had in store for later that afternoon, but she found that she wasn't quite as upset with that as she was with Aaron for tracking her down. "Where is the lie? Was it that she didn't tell you that I was the friend she was picking up?"

He nodded roughly, still frowning deeply at them. "Yes. She was needed in the office today."

"And so were you, and yet, here you are, hunting me down like I'm some sort of elusive Pokémon. This is such a violation of my privacy, and I cannot believe that you strongarmed Kevin into doing this for you!"

"How did you know that Kevin helped me?"

"Who else do you know that's proficient enough in computers to find me by my cellphone GPS?" Aaron flushed guiltily as he looked away from them. "Exactly. Now, I'll thank you to leave us to our shopping so that we can get to lunch with our friend in a little bit. And forget talking to me tomorrow, beyond work. I'll think about talking to you next Monday."

"Penny…"

"You heard your partner, Aaron. I'd leave before things get worse." He glared at Erin before turning on his heel and stalking away from them, his shoulders tight. "I'm sorry," Erin said the moment he was out of view, and Penelope shook her head. "No, I caused this fight, and I will understand if you want to go after him and make things better."

"No, because my surprise requires me to be there, too. I mean, I think you sort of figured out what's going on, but I'm not going to spoil it. And I am going to need a few cartons of ice cream now, since I have the feeling that I'm going to devour an entire pint once we're home and watching our movie."

Erin sighed a little as she nodded, looking furtively around at the others shopping near them. "Thank you," she murmured before tugging Penelope into a quick, tight, hug. The embrace was so quick she almost missed the feel of Erin's lips caressing her cheek as she pulled away to head further down the aisle, past the popsicles and Klondike bars to stop before the cartons of ice cream. Penelope gazed after her, her feelings wildly oscillating between anger, sadness, and overwhelming happiness, and knowing that she was fast reaching a fork in the road concerning the relationship between herself and Aaron.