Morgan laughs from beside me as I continue to struggle with my log-in, "if you need to call Garcia over again-"

"I've got it," I snap. Damn, new BlackBerry.

"Hey, don't snap at me," he says. "It's a sure way to get your name drawn for the gala next time."

I glare at him. It's been two weeks since that gala, and while he doesn't know I had a good time, Morgan doesn't stop bringing it up. We're just back from lunch and I was hoping to get some work done this afternoon, rather than listen to him drone.

As I stand up, he chuckles, "biting the bullet with Garcia, huh?"

"Lord have mercy on me," I mutter as I walk away.

I dip down the hallway, knocking on Garcia's door. She calls me in. Her strokes on the keyboard thunder through the dark room. Her face is barely lit by the dark screen in front of her. As I step closer, she closes the tab and wheels around to face me. I pass her the phone as she takes it, looking over it.

Now that I've been here almost a year, the FBI paid for it. Hotch explained I need a work phone. Apparently, lots of people have work cell phones as well as personal phones, and since they might need me after-hours, most of the cost was covered. I wanted to keep my older one as my work phone, the one without GPS, but I'll take what I can get.

She turns back to typing and fiddling with he phone for a minute. A call rings from her desk phone. She picks it up and slams it down.

"Busy day."

"Always," she mutters.

I mean, I'm not too sure about that. One of her bobble heads shakes as she types and clicks around her desktop. I watch its head move.

"Here," she says, passing my work phone back. She also hands me my old cell phone. "This one's clean of any confidential documents and contacts. I kept the marine on there."

"Did you look up my contacts?" I furrow my brow.

She grins at me, wide and bright, "only the ones I thought were interesting. Your brothers are cute."

"Bye, Garcia," I wave at her as I leave the room.

The thundering continues before I even make it to the door.

I try my best to match her energy for the rest of the day, working as hard as I can. Morgan doesn't get another chance to bother me, and on time I'm out the door, hitting the elevator before anyone else. My hands ache. I stretch them while I walk home. I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to be able to do it, now that it's early September.

Once I'm home, I fumble with the locked door. My hands still hurt. I finally get the key in, and before I can twist it, the door swings open. Estelle hugs me in the doorway, her grip tight. Her hair is longer than it was before and it smells like coconuts. She grins.

"How are you?" she nearly squeals. "You look good."

"How are you?" I counter. She's home a two weeks earlier than I thought she'd be. We were worried we might not even see each other because I'm flying to New York to see my siblings that weekend. "You're the one who's been around the world?"

She smiles. We head inside the apartment. She's already stalked the fridge with groceries. Estelle gets me a drink from the fridge as if she isn't the one who was on a twelve-hour flight to get here. She is dead tired, clearly, but she's determined to go to bed at eleven to fix her jetlag.

"Sorry I didn't give any notice," she says. "My supervisor wanted me to come back early. I'm the head TA for a class and I'm not really prepared for it. Undergrads are already two weeks into classes."

Estelle won't sit. If she sits, she'll fall asleep according to her. Begrudgingly, I let her continue cooking. The house already feels better. She's put up new trinkets, swept the floor. It wasn't as clean as I would like it to be, but it was nowhere near as messy as it was in May. The last four months of her life have been a crazy whirlwind, more so than mine even.

"And you?" she says. "How've you been?"

"Good," I offer. "I went to Spain with Bastien last month. Not much else has changed."

"I knew you couldn't stay in one place for a whole year," she rolls her eyes. "We'll put up slideshows on the TV later. How's work?"

"Nothing new," I shrug.

"Dr. Reid still mad after Nouvelle Orléans?" she chews on the word for a second. I can tell she is waiting for me to correct her pronunciation and tell her to say it the American way and not like it's French.

Instead, I shrug, "I think we're okay. Morgan's giving me more trouble."

Reid was so quiet today that I barely noticed him. No more quiet than usual, but I was working so hard. Did I even say hello?

Estelle's glance hardens. She scans my face, all the way down my shoulders. Then, she shakes her head and turns back to her rice, "I don't for a single second believe Colette Marie Claude Bouchard did not get up to anything interesting this summer."

"I did go to Spain," I offer. "I also got Stéphane to help me save a few hikers from serial killers. Everyone in the office is obsessed with him."

She smiles at me, "now that's something."

Over dinner, she tells me more about her trip, and then we do share photos. Having her back is every breath in my lungs again. It was weird living here alone. The few times the team left the office, I wouldn't speak to anyone that day. Now the clock is ticking to find a nicer apartment somewhere closer to my work but farther from Georgetown. I'll show her the buildings I'm interested in tomorrow. The sun sets while we share photos of our trips, and I call it a night before she does.

As I brush my teeth, she stands in the bathroom door.

"You're not mad, are you?"

I look over at her, spitting out the toothpaste in my mouth. I sip from a cup and shake my head, "what, why?"

"Well," she hesitates. "I mean, we haven't spent this much time apart since we met."

I spit out the water into the sink.

She's right. During the year I was in France, she got a work visa and tried to do some work with an NGO. It was terrible for her. I know she hated it. We were thick as thieves in our master's program, two of fifty people, both speaking French, both Rhodes Scholars, both dealing with imposter syndrome and faculty members who wanted us to pivot to different research topics. It was us. Every night in the library, every meal, every lecture. Every holiday away from our families, every sunrise where we were still drunk from the night before, tears wiped across our cheeks from the other one burshing away our tears haphazardly, drunken fists and sweaty bodies. All of it. Us.

She followed me to France. It was my turn to follow her, even if it meant I ended up back in the US.

"I know," I tell her. "I'm glad you saw your family and got to work on your research."

"Did you end up scouting any PhD programs while I was gone?"

I look over her. That is what this is about. Maybe that's what all the meals were about. Having her here with me. Not feeling untethered.

"I'm not really sure I want to get a PhD right now," I tell her. "The work experience I'm getting is pretty good. I'm still researching part-time at Georgetown anyway. It's nice to save money for once."

"So real," she sighs, "after that summer, I'm broke again. I haven't been this broke since undergrad."

"No new apartment then?" I grin.

She sticks her tongue out at me, "you wish. We're moving. I cook and commute farther. You pay more rent. We both get to bask in bigger windows and more space."

"You're just trying to bind me to you legally for another year."

She skips out of the room, "no. I'm just using you to get to your brother."

"Quel gros écœurant!" I shout down the hallway. "Ferme ta guele! You're joking."

She laughs as she shuts her door.

There isn't a lunch made for me in the morning. Not that I was expecting one. I was worried she'd push herself too much and make me more food. I'm out of the door before she is even awake. We might be physically together, but our time zones aren't. We're separated by jetlag and college time.

When I get to the office, no one is around. I brew coffee. I repeat in my head over and over that I'm going to actually say hello to Reid today. I must have said hello in the morning. He took an early lunch. Did I piss him off again?

I sit down at my desk and boot up the computer. There is a blue sticky note over the power button. I peel it off and pull it up to my face.

Don't expect us today. JJ will send you a briefing of our expected timeline.

- Reid

So, he isn't mad.

~~~~~

I feel like Estelle is underrated, no fault except my own. I like her. And also, I like where all of this is going! I can't wait for you to share it with me!