Chapter Text
It all started a few years ago when Penelope was approached by a tech company asking if she was interested in joining their team. She is happy at the BAU and has no intention of leaving anytime soon, so she moved to delete the email without a second thought. As her mouse moved across the screen, though, her eyes snagged on something. The email included the job description and there at the bottom under a heading that read ‘education requirements’, the words ‘Master’s Degree’ glared at her.
Due to her unconventional track to joining the FBI, Penelope never saw any formal requirements for her position. Never even thought about it, to be honest. But seeing this job description prompted a bit of searching where she learned she isn’t even technically qualified to hold her current role. So although Penelope is very happy with the BAU and is in no way looking to leave, the job offer was the impetus for some research into what it would look like for her to get her degree.
At first, Penelope didn’t tell anyone because it was all theoretical. She was doing some cursory searches into schools. Plus, it was a bit embarrassing. Every person on the team has at least one advanced degree, if not more, and are all exceedingly qualified.
Then, she was applying for an online Master’s program but still she didn’t say anything. Eventually she was accepted into the program, and a few months later she started her full-time course load, in addition to her work with the BAU. Some might call her crazy for taking on so much at once, but she was confident she could handle it.
But she still didn’t tell anybody. It wasn’t intentional, at first. She had been planning to tell her friends when they returned home from the case they were working when she started her first classes. But that case ended up being quite the doozy and although they ended up catching the unsub, no one was in a celebrating mood, so she waited.
Eventually it got to a point where it had been so long that it would’ve been weird to bring it up now. And it was kinda nice to have something just for herself.
So Penelope stayed quiet about it. She worked on her school work while her searches were running, days off, in between cases, any time she had to spare. None of the work was particularly difficult given her expertise. She wasn’t called The Black Queen for nothing.
Every once in a while, Penelope would have to beg off of a girls night or a family dinner to finish a paper, but she tried to do that only when absolutely necessary because she loves her family and would never want to neglect their friendships. Very rarely, she would ‘have a headache’ or ‘need a nap’ to allow herself the time to get her schoolwork finished without raising any red flags with her friends.
It was a lot of hard work and a lot of sleepless nights, but after 2 years, she completed her program and is now graduating with her Master’s Degree tomorrow. Technically she’s already finished and tomorrow is just the ceremony, but Penelope is looking forward to it. Her high school graduation was only a few months after her parents died. She was so disassociated through most of it that she has almost no memory of the ceremony. The only reason she even knows she attended the ceremony is from a single photograph taken by a friend’s mom.
By the time she graduated from undergrad, she was The Black Queen and had deemed herself too cool for something like graduation. Now though, she’s excited to walk across the stage and receive the diploma for the degree she just spent two years working toward.
She told Emily she needed the day off a few weeks ago, and because Emily was buried in paperwork when she made the request, Emily didn’t ask any further questions. There was a moment where Penelope briefly considered inviting her friends to the graduation ceremony. She knows they would be supportive and excited to celebrate her. But in the end, this is something she did for herself, and it would be too much to explain after so long of keeping it to herself. So when JJ asks her why she has a random day off, Penelope makes an excuse about having a dentist appointment. She even managed to be believable, despite her notorious inability to lie, because she prepared an answer ahead of time in case anyone asked.
The day of graduation arrives and Penelope proudly walks across that stage when the Dean calls her name. She shakes his hand and is passed her diploma. She sits back in her squeaky folding chair as the rest of the students are called, but it all passes in haze because Penelope is staring at her diploma with wonder in her eyes. It’s just a simple piece of paper, but she worked so hard for it. It represents the many hours of blood, sweat, and tears that went into earning this degree.
After the ceremony, it’s bittersweet seeing all of her fellow graduates with their families. She feels a pang in her heart at the sight of a student being hugged by her parents, one on either side, and a teen sibling taking the trio’s photo. It’s been so long since she’s had that, but it doesn’t hurt in the way it once might have.
Instead, she simply holds up her diploma and her phone to take a selfie with all the graduation banners in the background. Even if she can’t take the traditional family photo, she wants something to commemorate this moment. An elderly man nearby sees her attempting a selfie and offers to take a photo for her. She smiles her thanks and hands him her phone.
A few hours later, Penelope has already printed out her favorite photo of the bunch to add to her scrapbook along with the ceremony program and her ticket. She tucks her diploma into her work bag to join the Bachelor’s degree on her office wall, hung with pride along with art prints of all kinds.
A few weeks pass and nothing has changed. The team gets a new case, Penelope presents the case, the team does their magic, they catch the unsub. Rinse. Repeat. It’s a rare occasion when any of the team members have a reason to be inside Penelope’s office. Most of their information comes from over the phone or in the round table room, so it takes some time for anyone to notice the new addition to Penelope’s wall.
Unsurprisingly, Luke is the first one to notice it. He had walked into Penelope’s lair to drop off a laptop and a handful of USBs they had found on their latest unsub when he was arrested.
“Hey Garcia, I have the tech from….the Wilson….case. Is something different in here?” Luke questions, eyes scanning around him. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but something is different about the small space inhabited by their resident Technical Genius.
“I rearranged some things on the wall.” Penelope tosses over her shoulder absentmindedly, preoccupied with cataloging the laptop Luke deposited on her desk. The sound of fingers dancing across a keyboard fill the small space as Luke turns to the wall to investigate further. He’s met with the familiar sight of photos of Sergio and Roxy, brightly colored posters with fun and motivational phrases, and a lot of Taylor Swift lyrics. A smile plays at his lips as his eyes catalogue the familiar view.
His smile freezes when he spots something different, something new. It looks like a diploma of some kind, hanging next to Penelope’s undergrad degree. Is that new? Luke can’t think if he’s seen it before, but he’d bet money that this is a new addition to the wall. He steps closer to investigate further and finds a date printed on the document, proudly declaring Penelope earned it only last month. Luke’s jaw drops.
How did she keep this from them? Sure, she still acts bristly around him sometimes, but he thought they were making real progress. And what about the rest of the team? They are her family. If she had told them, they would have done something to celebrate. But instead, crickets. He’s never known Penelope to keep something like this to herself. Usually, she distributes pieces of her life with the team like candy, so excited to share anything and everything whether it be bad or good.
“Uhh, Penelope?” Luke questions, still staring at the framed paper mounted on the wall in front of him.
“Yeah?” She responds, still mostly distracted by the screen in front of her.
“Did you get another degree?” At this, Penelope’s head snaps up. It’s a simple question, and one she should have been expecting. But she’s still caught off guard. Luke turns to look at Penelope in her silence. She turns towards Luke, looking sheepish.
“Yes?” She says weakly. If anything, this only confuses Luke more.
“What? Why? Why didn’t we know about this?” Luke tries not to bombard her with questions, but he can’t help it. This new information has knocked him off his axis.
Penelope gestures to the empty chair next to her and Luke sits across from her. Penelope starts to explain, “It started when I was approached by a company who wanted me to join their team and I realized I didn’t have the proper degree and then-”
Luke’s eyes bug out of his skull. “Wait, you’re leaving?!”
“No!” Penelope is quick to reassure him. “No, I’m staying here. But it was that job approaching me that made me realize I didn’t technically have the educational requirements for my current job.
“I’m not going anywhere, promise, but I just thought I should have the degree that’s required for the job I’ve had for over a decade. I didn’t exactly take the traditional path to this position. Hotch offered me a job as an alternative to jail, and he knew my skillset. It didn’t occur to me to even think about any of the rest of it. And now that I’m here not as an alternative to jail but instead because I want to be here, I decided to get the degree every other Technical Analyst is required to have. It didn’t seem fair otherwise.
“I want to feel like I earned my spot instead of just being given something I don’t deserve. I know I can do the job, with or without a piece of paper saying I’m able to, but now I can prove it. And now if I ever do, sometime, far in the future, decide to leave the BAU I can apply for better jobs because I have the fancy paper to show them.”
Luke has been quiet through Penelope’s explanation, clearly soaking in each word that passes through her lips. He is much less tense by the end of it, relieved that she is not leaving him the BAU.
When she’s done speaking, Penelope watches Luke as he digests this new information. She has to remind herself that while she’s been working toward this goal for two years, this is all new to him. The new information swirls around Luke’s head. What she is saying makes some kind of sense, but there’s one piece of the puzzle that just won’t fit.
“But, why didn’t you say anything? You spent 15 minutes last week detailing the difference between two brands of cat food and the specific reasons you switched from one to the other. Why did you keep something this huge from us for so long? Were you ever going to tell us?” There’s something gnawing at Luke’s chest that he can’t identify at first, but as he speaks he realizes he feels…betrayed? Penelope tells everyone on the team everything; it’s how she shows them that she values their friendship. So if she kept this a secret, then what does that mean for where he stands in her life?
Penelope looks down, something akin to shame keeping her from maintaining eye contact. “I don’t know. At first I didn’t say anything because everyone was so busy and I wasn’t sure if I was actually going to do it. But then it was happening and all my free time was taken up with classes and school work. I know everyone would’ve been supportive, but I couldn’t shake the idea that you all would think it was a dumb idea. I already have this job, why now get a degree when no one is requiring it of me? It was irrational, I know, but you all earned your spot here. I didn’t want to remind anyone that, technically, I didn’t.”
Luke lays his hand on Penelope’s hand fidgeting in her lap. ‘You know nobody, and I mean nobody, would ever be anything other than enthusiastically supportive, right? No one thinks you didn’t earn your spot here. You’ve been on this team longer than any of us, minus Dave. We wouldn’t catch half the unsubs we do without you and your technical wizardry. If this was something you wanted to do, we would’ve wanted to be there by your side through it all.”
Penelope doesn’t look up at him, instead she studies the way his hand softly envelops hers, offering her the small amount of comfort he can without spooking her.
“I know. I should’ve told everyone a long time ago. But after a while so much time had passed that I didn’t know how to bring it up. Plus, it was nice just having something to myself for a change. But yeah, I know I should’ve told them. I should tell everyone now, I just don’t know how.” Her voice gets impossibly small, and Luke has to lean in to hear her, “What if they hate me for not telling them sooner? For keeping them in the dark for so long?”
Luke feels his heart break at her words. It doesn’t sit right with him that Penelope thinks the team would be anything other than supportive of her and anything she does. Luke is a relatively recent addition to the BAU family, but even he could tell from day one that Penelope is the center of their family that keeps them together. She’s the home base they all return to, literally return to after out of town cases, but also emotionally. Penelope is their beating heart, without whom their family would fall apart. Just once he wants her to let them be that for her.
He reaches up and caresses her cheek with his palm. When he speaks, his voice is barely louder than a whisper. “Hey, they’re not going to hate you. They’re going to be so proud of you and everything you’ve accomplished. But no one is as proud of you as I am.”
Penelope’s head jerks up, brows furrowed, eyes searching his face for any trace of a joke. But no, all she finds is adoration and love radiating from his every pore. Her face relaxes and she allows herself to lean into his hand still cupping her cheek, her eyes falling shut.
“If it would make it easier, I’ll help you tell the team. You’re not alone, and they could never hate you, but if you would be more comfortable with someone by your side, I’ll never say no to that.” Luke offers tentatively, hoping he didn’t just cross a line. Penelope is one of the strongest people he’s ever met and he has no doubt she doesn’t need his help. But sometimes even the toughest people need a hand to hold; someone to draw quiet strength from.
Penelope opens her eyes in surprise at his words. A beat passes and suddenly she reaches up and wraps her arms around him in a hug. Her words are muffled into his shoulder, but he still hears her clear as if she is speaking directly into his ear. “Thank you, Newbie.”
Luke’s face relaxes into a smile and his arms wrap around his Chica. They have a plan to make, but right now they both revel in taking comfort from being in the other’s arms.