AN: I wrote this silly thing a long time ago (March) and was waiting for after Sunsets and Sheep to post it, when lo and behold, Ilovetvalot and Tonnie posted this Freaky Friday prompt...LOL...This completely fits the bill..It's a touch cliche, but I still hope you love it like I do...

Chapter 1

Penelope swirled her finger in the glittering amber liquid of her rum and coke. It was strong drink night at the bar. She was irritated at Kevin, sad about Emily, and not exactly pleased with her best friend, the agent sitting on the stool next to her, at the moment.

"I'm telling you," he said, taking a long pull from his bottle of beer. "You girls have it easy."

"Girls?" she retorted with a glare. "It is women, mind you, Mr. Chauvinist, and we do NOT have it easier."

He scoffed and made a face. "Yes, you do."

Narrowing her eyes even more, she glared at him. "Explain, mister."

"Okay," he said, rising to the challenge. "Take my girlfriend, Kayla. We've been dating for..." He paused to think, took some time, but still looked blank. "What is it? Six weeks?"

She quirked a grin at him. "If you have to ask me, Hot Stuff, that ain't a good sign."

He laughed, and continued, "Anyway, the other day, she talked to me about taking a trip together. Going on a little Spring break holiday, some dancing in the sun…" He brought his hands up, started doing a little groove while still sitting on the bar stool.

She rolled her eyes. "So what is the problem?"

"Kayla doesn't realize that I need to put requests for time off way in advance," he said. "She wants to go right away, and I can't do that."

She nodded. "True."

"So how did she handle it?" he asked, his eyebrow raised in an all knowing fashion. It made her hesitant to hear what he was going to say next…

"She started to cry," he answered, giving her a knowing look. "It worked like a charm. I felt so damned guilty, I started up with all those Honey, please don't cry statements and all that…"

"That's your problem you caved," she retorted with a disgusted chuckle. "Kayla's not a woman; she's a spoiled brat."

"And you would've handled it differently?" he asked, that superior brow raised again.

She scoffed, insulted that he'd think she'd pull a Kayla. "Of course, I would've."

"Hmmm," he said, tapping his chin with a long finger. "I seem to remember you crying to Kevin over a few things...like not wanting Christmas in Nebraska..."

She gasped in outrage. "That is different, Derek!"

She couldn't believe he brought that up. She'd had a massive argument with unreasonable Mrs. Lynch, JJ had just left the BAU, and her systems had crashed. If she'd gone, she would've been in a piss poor mood the whole time. She simply couldn't have tolerated heading out there this year.

"Really," he said flatly, taking another pull of his beer, shaking his head.

"Dammit, Morgan!"

"I disagree." He narrowed his eyes at her, like a prosecutor did to a criminal on the stand. "You used your feminine wiles, your emotions, just like Kayla did."

"I did not!" she huffed.

He took another drink of his beer. "Actually made me feel sorry for the poor bastard…"

That was unforgivable. Morgan knew if she didn't do all the work in her relationship with Kevin half—no, three quarters of the time, there would be no Kevin and Penelope. Kayla cried all the time over nothing. For her to cry once...there was no comparison.

Chugging the rest of her rum and coke, she slammed the glass on the counter and stood up. "Derek Morgan, you are an egotistical, self-centered, rotten, chauvinistic-"

"You forgot lovable."

"ASS of a man!" she yelled, drawing the attention of other people in the bar. "The day you have to worry about arranging relationships, keeping order, doing everything that men are mentally incapable of doing, then you can say how you have it harder!"

He looked absolutely contrite. "Baby, I was teasing—"

She didn't stay to listen to any more of his prattling. Instead, she hurried out the door.

"Women have it easier," Penelope muttered to herself, viciously scrubbing the makeup off her face. "If he had one iota of a clue as to what it was like to be a woman-"she glared at her reflection in the mirror "-he'd be running scared!"

Padding into her room on her yellow fuzzy slippers, she sat on her bed, kicked them off, and slid under the covers.

Her last thought, as she pulled her blanket up under her chin, was I'd change places with him in a heartbeat.

Derek finished with his shower. He'd thought if he took a warm shower, he'd feel a lot better.

He knew he shouldn't have talked to Penelope that way. He'd known he hadn't been in a good mood before the night started, but it had just spiraled into a worse situation. Usually he went out with Penelope to have fun—she was the light in his life—but that hadn't seemed possible from the get go tonight.

He'd argued with Kayla on the phone minutes before he'd entered the bar. She really wasn't a good match for him, he knew it, but she was pretty and good in bed. He seriously hadn't had a decent girlfriend since Tamara Barnes, and that had been very temporary.

His problem was Penelope, and how she treated him. He was only her best friend, and yet she doted on him, making his favorite cookies and teasing him to distraction. He assumed Lynch had even better treatment from her. Because of that, he compared his girlfriends to her. He kept thinking to himself how much he wished Kayla was more like Penelope, more warm and approachable, more easy going. Kayla cried over nothing; Penelope didn't get upset at half the crap Lynch put her through.

Seriously, Penelope deserved a lot better than Lynch, but he was done thinking that better was him. After nearly six years, he knew it was beyond pathetic to moon after someone he was never going to get.

He crawled into bed, naked as usual. She was damned wrong. Men had it a lot harder. They had emotions, but they didn't really have anyone to talk to them about. He couldn't exactly share all this with Hotch or Reid or Rossi—Hell, no!—so he had to stifle it, and man up.

Yet another thing women had easier.

He yawned, and flipped over, his last thought being, I'd change places with her in a heartbeat.