Estelle brought me back chocolate from Côte d'Ivoire. She made sure it was Fair Trade since she doesn't like buying things there all the time. It's a small but kind gift. We weren't planning on doing any gift exchange though, so at least I don't feel guilty that I hadn't purchased her anything. If this new job weren't paying so incredibly well, I would feel more weight crushing me. Groceries, rent, transportation, all of it in DC which isn't known for the ability to live frugal lives. Gits are expensive. I've mostly worked in academia up until now, and the jobs there aren't known to offer the best pay for people without tenure. Sure, it's better than some, but not others. I can't complain though, because I could be someone in Côte d'Ivoire who is harvesting cocoa beans.

I go back to work on Thursday. The days here feel very strange. All the universities where I've worked shut down for at least two weeks during the winter holidays. That is not the case for the FBI, and I suppose I'm lucky I even had a couple days off for Christmas itself. Here in the office, everything is almost in a liminal space. It's dark even in the middle of the day with the winter storm above our heads. The lights buzz above us, the windows shake from the wind, and it's too cold in the office. The profilers continue to sit on edge. It's been a month since their last field case. This is not the weather nor the time of year to catch a flight. No one will speak about the next time they'll have to fly out, at least without being near wood to knock on, but something big feels like it's brewing.

That isn't how life works, but I don't know that they care. Maybe they think they can predict human behaviour, but they certainly cannot predict the future.

On Friday, Agent Hotchner tells us that we aren't going to be expected to come in until Wednesday, barring any emergencies. Consequently, we will be off for New Year's Eve. Everyone seems so elated that I imagine they would go out for drinks this evening if they weren't planning on having fun together in a few days.

During lunch, most of us eat in the break room together. Dr. Reid leans against the counter. Rather than spoon sugar into his coffee, he pours it from the opening in the Tardis. I try not to swear. I imagine the sugar rush he gets is more effective than the coffee.

"So, who's crashing JJ's on Monday?" Morgan asks. He leans with his elbows on the table. "I hope you'll be in a pretty little number, Garcia."

"Anything for you," she winks back.

Over the past five weeks that I've been here, their flirting has become a background that I can tune out. It must be what the others do. No one else in the room reacts to them. I can be accommodating, so I won't either.

"What is the theme, anyway?" Morgan asks, looking around.

"JJ and her roommates rotate every year on the dress theme," Dr. Reid begins a spiel, turning to me for my benefit. "Last year the theme was 80s cocktail. I wore a green blazer and a shirt with a patterned orange shirt. This year it should just be a standrard dressy casual, a mix of business and casual clothing, but not to be confused with business casual."

"You can come wearing jeans and a nice shirt, or dress pants and a turtleneck, or a dress as long as it's not too business or too casual," JJ offers. "It was my turn to pick, so it's nothing too crazy."

"Amy is very particular about the dress code," Dr. Reid says to himself.

It takes a lot to constraint myself. I refrain from asking what social rule he violated that prompts him to make such an observation. After all, stooping to his level just to humiliate him would be rather cruel, I think. There is no way I am going to start playing his game along with him. Besides, it's just a mean guess. I don't actually know why he made the comment. I'm not a profiler.

"I see," Prentiss says, nodding her head.

"Man, I am so glad I don't have roommates anymore," Morgan says. "I can just go home and kick back. Nobody to complain."

On my salary, I could not afford to live alone in this town. Not even if I bought chocolate that wasn't fair trade. Besides, I couldn't leave Estelle. I came here with her, by her side. It would feel wrong.

"It's nice to come home to people who complain about policy briefs," JJ shrugs. She's not a profiler so maybe she makes less money like I do. She wraps her fingers tightly around her mug. "Sometimes I forget that people live normal lives out there."

"I agree," I say, mostly because the number of times since November that Estelle has saved me with a home-cooked meal is ridiculous.

Her birthday is in late February. I'm going to blow it out of the water.

"You two are freaks for that," Morgan laughs, pointing from JJ to me with the end of his fork.

JJ laughs, so I try to join along. I don't think I'm a freak. At least, I'm certainly not a freak for enjoying my roommate's company. Perhaps I'm a freak for half a dozen other reasons. Does Morgan think I'm strange, or am I just reading into a joke?

We continue to chat about what to bring to help out JJ. All that she asks is that we bring our own drinks. She lets us know that people will be coming over around nine and clarifies for Dr. Reid that he should show up at ten, or maybe half past ten just to be safe.

My brain is elsewhere for the rest of the day. Yesterday I mostly categorized a couple of new cases that were imported through UCR that I thought would be helpful. We are in limbo now. Any project I start will be on hold until we return on Wednesday, and I certainly won't be able to think of anything else in the meantime. So instead, I try to organize my desk and my desktop. Categorizing my personal files and my email only takes an hour. Then, I move on to fidgeting with the two succulents from Agent Hotchner.I don't need to water them often, but I suppose if anyone should have plants that needed watering it ought to be me. Garcia's room is pitch dark and I am the only other person who doesn't hed out into the field. Maybe Agent Hotchner was right about my space needing to feel more welcoming. I'm here all the time and this desk barely feels mine. I don't belong here even if the women who work here are nice.

I haven't put up the gift Stéphane got me for Christmas and I do feel rotten about it.

Morgan, JJ, and Prentiss decide to go on a coffee run together, as a late Christmas gift for the team. They invite me along. I would have said yes if Morgan hadn't smirked and cocked his eyebrow when he said it. Fucking men.

Then, it is just Dr. Reid and me in the bullpen. Well, Agent Gideon is also in here. He seems to lean in deeper. His office is being repainted this week and he's commandeered part of the bullpen. Whenever anyone talks he gets aggravated. I swear, he has less of a sense of humour than Agent Hotchner. At least Agent Hotchner will speak to me on occasion.

"Have you decided to come?" Dr. Reid asks, looking across from me. "To... to JJ's tonight?"

"I'm pretty busy," I mumble.

"You've been moving those cacti around your desk for the last seventeen minutes. You don't seem busy," he offers.

Holding grudges is like holding your arm in the air. It seems easy at first, but eventually, it grows tiring. Fortunately for me, I'm just coming off my training, so I am stronger than most women of my stature. I could hold my arm in the air at least until we get off the clock. Maybe if I positioned myself properly I could hold it upright while I slept.

"You've got to be aware that you are incredibly insulting," my jaw is slightly ajar. "You may be able to control your tone well, but it's obvious you are trying to get a rise out of me."

Agent Gideon pulls a set of headphones out of a drawer and plugs them into his MP3 player, "you'd think that I would be more worried about seeing a fistfight in the field than the office, yet here we are."

Dr. Reid opens his mouth to speak, and then he closes it. Then, he stands up, shoving his hands in his pockets. He looks at me.

"Come with me," he says.

"Are you actually going to take me outside and fistfight me?" I roll my eyes.

He shakes his head, "no. That doesn't seem very productive. Besides, you would win."

I try to force myself not to smile. He hovers a second longer, and so I begrudgingly stand and follow him out of the bullpen.

The pair of us duck into the elevators, and he presses a button, tapping a key card. We head down into the basement. I try to run my head through where he could take me. These profilers are always in my damn head. All I remember being down in the basement is the gun range, but that seems insane.

"You trust me with a gun around you?" I ask.

The doors to the elevator ding, and we enter the downstairs area. He leads me with him down a corridor, and then we end up at the gun range. It's a small space, not the official range but one that's only available for three people at a time and in twenty minute blocks. We begin to register. At this time on a Friday in the middle of the December holidays, I'm not surprised that we are the only two down here.

"I know you are familiar with the psychodynamic model of aggression," he says. "I thought it was best to put the theory to the test. Maybe, if you can get out your pent-up anger toward me, we will actually have a chance of moving forward as two vital members of a team."

He signs out a gun and passes it to me. He shrugs off his blaizer, revealing a gun in his holster. I can't imagine he wears that around the office all day. When did he decide to come down here? Before I can ask, he passes me goggles and ear muffs as well. All ready, the two of us enter the gun range. There already is a target set up. Reid stands in the same booth as me, even though two others are open.

"You can shoot first," he says.

"Are you here to judge me on that too?" I take the gun. He stands behind me as I fill it with ammunition. I widen my stance, my hands wrapped around the trigger.

The first time I shot a gun was when I was fifteen. I thought I was phenomenal back then. I always hit the sheet of paper, but that was the best I could do. Getting on the actual target was mostly a shot in the dark, pun expressly intended. My father was proud. Bastien was too little to come along, which he whined about. Caro was just a year to young to join in. She never came with Dad and me later. Cletus seems like the type to shoot, so maybe she's gone with him.

Stéphane was the only sibling who tagged along. It was originally envisioned as a father-daughter date, but I didn't mind. I was nervous. My hands felt sweaty. My heart pounded as my hands gripped the trigger. I feared it would be so loud. Stéphane shot first. Our Dad patted him on the back. The sound didn't bother me, but Stéphane went pale. He put the gun down on the table and left the room. He was a decent shot, better than me that day, but I was the one who kept going. Apparently he took it up again while working in the parks because of the wild animals.

It's strange. When I pick up the gun, I don't think of the training the FBI gave me. I don't even think about my father. I think about why he brought me out to pick up a gun in the first place, and I feel more frozen than this winter could ever make me. Stiff limbs, solid muscle, the tears in my eyes from the wind frozen and poking me. I am ice.

"I'm not going to judge you," Reid says quietly, but I can hear him even with he ear muffs.

Then, I shoot the gun. It hits the target, but only barely. Even after all of the FBI training, my aim has not improved by much. There's no point in me keeping up with it either because I'm never in the field. If I fail a recertification, no one will care.

"I'm worse," he admits.

He clears his throat. I put the gun down on the ledge before us and take a step back, leaving him a clear line. He pulls out his gun and shoots. The bullet goes straight through the skull of the red outline.

I cross my arms. He says he's worse than me.

Dr. Reid swallows, "I was aiming for where you shot."

"Sure," I say.

"Here, I'll aim for the chest," he turns back to the target, squares his shoulders, and shoots. The bullet barely knicks the bottom of the paper.

"So, there are two things you are bad at, then?" I ask. "People and guns."

"There are more," he says. "I can't use chopsticks either."

He moves out of my way, and then I shoot the gun again. This time, I am aiming for the head. My aim isn't great, but I do manage to strike a decent distance from the head.

"Also, I only learned how to do programming when you joined us," Dr. Reid offers.

"Just to show me up, huh?" I ask, and then I fire the gun once more.

There was no need for him to learn programming when I was coming. All he does is spite me.

"I am very bad with computers," he admits. "It took me three weeks of struggling before JJ told me Garcia's trick for multi-factor authentication. Morgan was content to laugh at me the whole time. Fortunately, I only checked my email once at the beginning of the day. The others had gotten used to asking me for favours instead of sending me emails."

I shoot the gun once again. This time the shot goes wider. I put down the gun, and now it is his turn.

"How long did it take you to learn SPSS?" I ask.

"Well, I do have a doctorate in mathematics," he says, shrugging.

I roll my eyes, "it took me a year at my second master's to figure it out."

"Oh, I don't think I would be able to type out any code at a sufficient speed," he stops talking for a second to fire. He misses the target entirely again. "My typing speed is quite lacklustre. I prefer physical copies of all our files. You should see how long it takes me to shred everything at the end of a case. Hotch prefers that all of our files stay digital. He says it's more secure. Cybersecurity also confuses me."

"All it takes is one clever online hacktivist or digilante getting past Garcia and the entire BAU would be compromised," I say, nodding.

Reid squares his shoulders and shoots the gun. It misses. I think maybe he is putting on a show of being this bad. Otherwise, I'm not sure why they let him have a gun at all.

"I read your master's thesis," he agrees.

I feel my back stiffen. It shouldn't, but it does. Not many people have read it at all. No one I'm related to has looked it over, although I don't really care. Estelle has read it, of course, and some other professionals in the field. There hasn't been a lot of research on digilantism, but as the internet expands it's becoming a more burgeoning field.

"We're you reading it to profile me?"

"No," he smiles, just a bit, looking back at me. "I like reading. Besides, you write well academically. It didn't surprise me though, given that you were a Rhodes Scholar. Not many people study at Oxford, let alone are Rhodes Scholars."

"Correct," it's all I can manage.

He didn't seem to know any of this when we went to the bar. At some point between then and now he looked me up. I wonder what else he's read.

He shoots the gun again, hitting the target, even if low on its body. The torso is usually the best place to aim, just because it has the largest area. He might be better than me.

"Your research was quite ahead of its time," he says. "It was interesting. You are a valuable asset to the team, so I wouldn't recommend leaving. Your research is quite a burgeoning area however, so you should consider doing a doctorate part-time, while you work. It would be a shame for the field of criminology to lose a mind like yours, even if you do good work here."

"I have," sometimes, he says things to me as if I never could have possibly considered them. "Considered getting a PhD, anyway. Currently, I'm a research assistant at Georgetown. My roommate is a doctoral candidate there. We met at Oxford."

He pauses. He puts his gun down and looks at me, "forgive me, is it Estelle Ouattara?"

There are no thoughts in my head. How much does he know? How much does he know? "How could you possibly know that?"

"A series of coincidences," he says. "Garcia told me about how excited she was to try an east African stew recipe from your roommate. Estelle was at my guest lecture in late September. She introduced herself as a PhD candidate, and she had an East African accent but her English had a more British leaning than an American one. When she talked to me after my lecture, she was insistent that my entire presentation on criminal psychology was nonsense. I can see why you two are friends."

"She struck a chord with you, it seems," I can feel my heart racing. They all are too good at this guessing game.

"I have an eidetic memory," he offers. "I will say, she seems like the kind of person I wouldn't forget if I didn't."

All I can do is nod my head. Estelle is wonderful, and hardly forgettable. Reid returns the gesture, more curtly. We are both basically out of rounds, so he packs up our guns. I follow him upstairs, replaying all of the moments of our conversation. He took the time to read my master's thesis. Well, I suppose he probably read it in less than ten minutes, but he read it all the same. Only Estelle has read it. Not even Stéphane. Dr. Reid seems to remember most things. Yet, he cannot stop pissing me off.

I hate to say it, but I'm frightened.

We barely sit down at our desks when the othersreturn with coffee. My head is buzzing with thoughts, none of them coherent.All they seem to agree on is that I need to get out of here.

~~~~~

This wasn't originally this long, but I like to add words. I hope you like to read them! Anyway, this is a bit of a turning point. Two chapters from now, there will also be big moments. Is there anything you are keen to see? Where do you expect this to go? Let me know in the comments!