"i watch tiktoks"

For Florence's first night home, Garcia and Morgan tag-teamed her for the night. Once everyone else had gone home, they helped her get ready for bed. While she had been happy to be surrounded by the people she loved, Florence was exhausted.

Garcia changed out her bandages, doing her best not to make a disgusted face when she saw the wounds — Florence had never actually looked at them, so she didn't want to give away how bad they were. Then, Morgan helped her get back into her bed while Garcia fixed all the medicines she needed to take. She also laid out the second dose that they'd have to wake up in six hours to give to her again.

"Do you want me to stay in here until you go to sleep?" Garcia asked, brushing some of her hair back.

Florence shook her head and yawned. The pain medicine was keeping her sleepy. "I'm alright. Thank you both for staying."

"No problem, Sunshine," Morgan said, leaning against the door frame. "We'll both be down the hall and will hear if you need anything."

"I am so glad we have you back, Sweetie," Garcia said, kissing her forehead. "Goodnight."

"Night," Florence muttered tiredly.

Morgan flicked the lights off, and then he and Garcia went to sit in Florence's living room. It was still a little early for them to go to bed. They stayed up for another two hours, just watching tv and talking. Eventually, though, Garcia got up to go to sleep in the guestroom — Morgan had oh so kindly offered to take the couch.

"You know, I thought that with all that pain medicine, she'd be knocked out so much that she wouldn't snore," Morgan said, grinning. "But no. It sounds like there's an abominable snowman loose in her room."

"At least you're farther from the sound than me," Garcia said, chuckling. "I should've brought some earplugs."

"Yeah, well—"

Morgan stopped, hearing Florence's snores suddenly cut off and turn into a scream.

"No! NO, PLEASE! HELP!"

Morgan was on his feet in a second and running back to her bedroom, with Garcia quickly following. He rushed into the room and saw Florence thrashing around in her bed, trying to fight off the danger in her dream. Her screams were like the ones from the video Hallowell had sent of her.

Morgan ran over and held her arms down to keep her from hurting herself more. "Florence. Baby Girl, I need you to wake up," he said in a calm voice.

It took several more moments for Florence to snap awake, yelling in alarm as she did. She tried to pull away from Morgan's hold, still thinking she was in her dream. Garcia quickly turned on the lamp in the corner so that Florence could see them. Florence finally saw that it was Morgan holding her and not Halliwell and she froze.

"You're okay. You're safe," he told her. "Take a deep breath with me."

They sat there for a few moments, Florence just copied Morgan's breathing trying to get her own under control. When she calmed down, she threw her arms around Morgan to hug him tightly. He rubbed her back and shared a concerned look with Garcia over her shoulder.

Morgan slowly got Florence wack under the covers. "Do you want one of us to stay with you?"

"Please," Florence croaked out. Her throat was throbbing from screaming so hard. Before Morgan could even ask which one of them she preferred, Florence had grabbed his hand tightly and shoved her head in his chest.

"I'm right here, Sunshine," he whispered, leaning against her headboard.

Neither he nor Garcia said anything until they heard Florence start snoring again.

"Are you okay to stay in here all night?" Garcia asked.

"Of course," he whispered. He sighed and looked down at Florence, who looked peaceful except for the dried tear stains on her cheeks, and frowned. "We never have to see this part. We save the victims and get to go home. It's easy to forget that the fight isn't over for them. Halliwell may be dead, but a part of Florence is still trapped with him."

|||

Florence managed to sleep through the rest of the night without any more fits of screaming. Garcia woke Morgan up in the morning so that he could go to work while she stayed with Florence for the day. The team agreed that Garcia should get her day out of the way so that if a case came up, they would have at least one of their technical analysts.

She had a whole day planned — well, as much as she could have planned when the only places Florence went were her bed, the bathroom, or the recliner in the living room. Florence was delighted to wake up to pancakes. They were heart-shaped for the most part, minus a few that were just misshapen blobs. She hadn't felt great when she woke up, but once she had the food on her stomach, she could take her medicine.

Then they moved to the living room, where Garcia had a long list of early 2000s rom-coms for them to watch. They watched movies until they were hungry for lunch. After that, Florence asked for help painting her nails blue so that they'd match her cast. She had also declared that blue was going to be her new favorite color.

It was a wonderfully non-stressful day off of work for Garcia, and she got to be with Florence which made her even happier.

"So," Garcia said in a mischievous tone.

Florence looked at her warily with a spoonful of ice cream in her mouth. "What?" she mumbled, raising an eyebrow.

"Do you wanna talk about the thing?"

"What thing?" Florence paled, not ready to talk about what had happened in New York.

"Um, the totally adorbs I love you thing with Reggie last night," Garcia said, grinning. "It's one of the big relationship milestones!"

"There are milestones?" Florence asked, finishing off her ice cream. She was relieved, but still didn't want Garcia prying into her relationship.

"Yes! First date, first kiss, first I love you," Garcia listed off. Then she smirked. " Other first things. Which, I assume you haven't done because I would like to think you'd tell me about that as the cool older sister figure in your life."

Florence's cheeks heated up and she rolled her eyes. "Not that it's any of your concern — like, it is so not your business — but no, we have not. And I'd rather not have this talk."

"But it's only natural that it follows after the first I love you," Garcia told her. "Just know you can come to me if you have any questions before—"

"I have a concussion, a broken arm, and two broken ribs. I can't even walk up a flight of stairs without feeling like I'm dying right now. I can guarantee that fucking Reggie is the last thing on my mind right now," Florence declared loudly. God, she was glad that no one else on the team was there to witness it. "And it's probably not on his mind either."

Garcia chuckled. "Oh, you naive baby. It's on every boy's mind. Why do you think Derek doesn't like him? It's not Reggie's fault. He just knows what he was like at his age."

"Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure that Der came out of the womb as a whore, so forgive me for not taking him seriously," Florence muttered, laughing.

Garcia giggled, knowing she was probably going to tell Morgan about that comment. "I just want to make sure that you know it doesn't exactly happen like it does in Lord of the Rings fanfiction," she said, only partly joking.

Florence groaned and threw her head back. The movement kind of hurt her neck, but she didn't want Garcia to worry. "I want you to know that I hate this conversation, and if I were physically capable, I'd run away and lock myself in my room to get away from it."

"Ah, that's how I know the talk is working. So..."

It felt like Garcia had been talking to her about her own personal sex life for hours when really it had only been about thirty minutes. It was horrible, and no matter how deep Florence shoved her head into a throw pillow, she could still hear. She certainly wouldn't be looking Kevin in the eye anytime soon. There was no way to unhear all the freaky things that he and Garcia were into. She could only hope that her pain medicine-induced mind would let her forget it soon.

Rossi arrived to relieve Garcia and was greeted with quite a sight. Florence had her hands covering her ears and she had her face shoved in a pillow while Garcia was describing something a bit too obscene even for him.

"What did you do to her?" Rossi asked, crossing his arms. "Penelope, you broke her. That was the opposite of all our instructions."

Once Garcia left, Florence uncovered her ears. She was thankful that Rossi had arrived to swap with her. Her time with him was much calmer, with very little excitement. There had been a bit of a squabble when he started making dinner for her though.

"Florence, where's your spice rack?" he asked, going through all her cabinets. When he had cooked dinner the night she had returned from the hospital, he had brought all his ingredients from home.

"Oh, I don't have any spices," she called, not looking away from the TV, which was playing How I Met Your Mother.

Rossi stopped stirring the pot of rice he had started to cook and narrowed his eyes at her. "What do you mean you don't have any spices? You can't cook without spices."

"One, bold of you to assume that I cook," Florence muttered, chuckling. "And two, I don't like spicy food."

"Not all spices are spicy," he said, shaking his head in disappointment.

"Then they shouldn't call them spices. It's very misleading."

"I'm calling the grocery store and having some delivered because this is ridiculous," Rossi muttered. "I can't cook under these conditions."

"Hey, Ro-Ro, I've got plenty of butter and salt. Is butter a spice?" she asked, just messing with him now.

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm gonna pretend like you didn't ask that."

|||

The rest of Rossi's stay was rather uneventful. Though Florence had woken up in the middle of the night screaming again — Morgan had made sure to warn the entire team about it when he got to work. It was a good thing they were all well-practiced at calming people down when they were scared.

The next team member to watch over her was JJ, who went into her mother-mode and tried to clean up the apartment. It had started to get messy with so many people coming and going.

"Ren, when was the last time you cleaned your shower?" JJ asked. She was about to grab a shower but noticed that the tiles on the wall looked a little dingy.

"You don't clean a shower, JJ," Florence said, scoffing. "It cleans itself when you use it. Duh."

JJ rubbed her forehead and sighed. "You've lived here for almost two years and never cleaned the shower? Where do you keep your bleach?"

"Under the kitchen sink," she muttered while sipping a Capri Sun.

"Do you ever do any kind of maintenance on this place?" JJ asked, which Florence shook her head. JJ shook her own head and smiled. "Well, I think I know what Morgan is doing on his day."

And JJ was correct. She had reported to him all the issues she could find in Florence's apartment. When he arrived to switch shifts, he had a toolbox with him and a few other supplies. He fixed just about everything — her squeaky bedroom door, a crooked cabinet, and the water pressure in the shower.

"You've seriously never even changed the air filter?" he asked. He had just swapped the used one out for a new one and he was holding up the gross one. "Florence, you have asthma. All you have to do is call the landlord and ask him to do all this stuff."

"But calling people makes me uncomfy," Florence whined.

"So you just live like this because you don't wanna be uncomfy ?" he asked, putting air quotes around the word uncomfy. Then he scoffed and shook his head. "How do you even get through the day?"

"That's what I have you for," she said, grinning. "Also, I've been instructed by Garcia to take pictures if you have to take your shirt off to fix something."

Reid was the one to relieve Morgan, who wished him luck. He had brought along his travel chess set, figuring that it was a good time to teach Florence more about it. Of course, he beat her every single time, but that didn't mean it wasn't fun for the both of them.

"You know, I think you're a little better at this when you're on the pain medication," Reid said, teasing her.

"That's surprising. I extra don't think about my moves on this stuff," she admitted, grinning. She decided on moving one of her few pawns left forward, but then Reid immediately took it out with his bishop.

"You're not - I mean," Reid paused and frowned, taking a minute to think over his words. "You're not having any kind of trouble with your medicines, are you? It's just that it's highly addictive. You're not wanting to take more than you're supposed to, right?"

Florence shook her head and chewed on her lip. "Been taking everything right on time according to that schedule you made."

"That's good," he mumbled, moving one of his knights. "You um, you seemed to calm down a little quicker last night."

Florence glanced up at him before staring back at the board. He was referring to her nightmares, which she had woken up screaming from every night since. It had happened twice the night that JJ stayed with her. Last night, it didn't take too long for her to realize that she wasn't still there in that room, and instead was safe in her apartment with Reid.

"Yeah, uh, s - sorry you had to wake up to deal with that," she mumbled.

Reid frowned, before moving to sit next to her on the couch. "Florence, don't ever apologize for that. What you went through was horrible, and your mind is still trying to process that it's over."

"It just... I feel so stupid. I mean, the things you guys see and go through on all of these cases... I feel like I shouldn't be scared now that it's over," she said, sniffing. No, Florence didn't want to talk or think about it, and that was probably the most any of them would get out of her for the time being.

"Did you know that just a little over a year before you came to the BAU, I got kidnapped by the unsub we were hunting?" Reid asked her.

Florence looked up at him with wide eyes. "What? No, w - what happened?"

"Tobias Hankel had dissociative identity disorder, which made it difficult for us to decide if it was one unsub or a team. JJ and I went to his address, unaware of the danger, and he ended up taking me. He drugged me. I had nightmares every night for such a long time, and even now I still get them sometimes. After I was rescued, instead of talking to the team, I turned to the same drug he used on me."

Florence's eyes watered, having no idea that Reid had gone through something so horrible, and he seemed to have done it alone. "Oh, Spence."

"I'm telling you because I want you to know that I understand how you feel. I never want you to feel like you're weak or like something's wrong with you because you're still scared. And I don't want you to make the same mistake that I did. Everyone on this team loves you, so never feel bad for relying on us."

Florence hugged him tightly, well, as tightly as she could without hurting herself. "Does it get any better?"

"I don't think we can ever really get over the things we've been through, but over time, it won't be as bad. Maybe when you're comfortable, you can try to talk to someone? A therapist or counselor maybe? Perhaps if I had talked to someone, I wouldn't have turned down such a self-destructive path."

"I wish I'd have known you then," Florence mumbled. "I wouldn't have let you go through that alone. You wouldn't have been able to get rid of me."

Reid smiled softly. "I wouldn't have wanted to get rid of you."

After Reid's day was up, Prentiss took his place. When she came through the door, Florence eyed all the stuff in her arms. Aside from her go-bag, she also had a huge shopping bag from some beauty supply store.

"What's that?" Florence asked as Prentiss set everything on the coffee table.

Prentiss grinned up at her. "Well, I've heard from the others how much you hate your hair now. I was a bit experimental with my hair in high school, so I thought we could have some fun."

She pulled out some scissors as well as all the things necessary to bleach and dye her hair. Prentiss then held up a tube of blue hair dye.

"Want to show off your new favorite color?"

Florence grinned excitedly and made her way to her bathroom as quickly as she could — which admittedly wasn't very fast. First, Prentiss evened out her choppy ends leftover from when Halliwell cut her hair off. Florence was frustrated that it was so short now, and she could only pull half of it up in a small ponytail. After cutting it, they talked about what Florence wanted. Instead of dying the ends like they had been when it was pink, she instead decided on two blue strands to frame her face.

"Ah. The e-girl look," Prentiss had said, smirking.

"How do you even know what that is?" Florence asked, laughing.

"I watch TikToks."

Florence was feeling much better at the end of the week. On the last day that she was required to have constant supervision, Hotch came over. Prentiss was in the back, getting her things ready to leave, so Florence got up and opened the door — she was still moving very slowly, but the fact that she could get up unassisted was great progress.

"Your hair," was the first thing Hotch said when he saw her.

"Prentiss did it," she said, smiling. "Makes me feel a little more like me again."

Florence almost let Hotch in, but then she frowned. "Wait, Hopscotch, you shouldn't be here. You don't get a lot of days off. Y - you need to be with Jack, not taking care of me. A - ask Anderson to come. I haven't seen him in so long. I miss him."

Hotch smiled softly. Even after almost dying, she was thinking about the wellbeing of his son. "I actually agree with you, which is why I brought him."

Jack then poked his head through the door as grinned widely up at Florence. "Daddy said we can have a sleepover!"

"A sleepover!" Florence said, excitedly. She wanted to crouch down and hug him, but that would no doubt kill her ribs. "What all do you wanna do for the sleepover?"

"I asked Daddy to bring Meet the Robinsons. Daddy, did you bring Meet the Robinsons?" Jack said, turning and tugging on Hotch's pants.

"Yeah, Hopscotch. Did you bring Meet the Robinsons?" Florence asked, tugging on his shirt sleeve to annoy him. She had only been out of the office for a week, and Hotch had already started to miss her presence.

The trio spread out across Florence's living room and popped in the movie. Of course, Jack ended up falling asleep before the big Goob reveal at the end. Hotch got him up, changed him into his pajamas, and put him to sleep in the guest room. Then he came back out and joined Florence. There were only a few minutes left to the movie, so he was surprised when she paused it. She glanced at him once before starting to scratch around the edge of her cast nervously.

"Um, I really am glad that you brought him because I don't ever want you to miss out on time with Jack, especially after Haley," she said quietly. "But I mean, it's just... whenever I have the uh, the - I'm loud—"

"Jack's a very heavy sleeper, Florence," Hotch told her, knowing what she meant. "Sometimes I worry that he'd sleep through the fire alarm. If I need to come and wake you up, you won't disturb him."

Florence nodded to herself. "Okay. That's good. Not the part about sleeping through a fire alarm though. You should work on that."

"Florence, how are you doing?"

"I mean, I'm okay," she said, shrugging. "I'm moving around better, and I'll get my stitches out next week. My throat doesn't hurt much anymore—"

"You know that's not what I meant," he interrupted. "You know, not only will you have to be medically cleared to come back to work, but there will be a psych eval that you'll be required to pass as well."

Florence's eyes widened, not having known that little tidbit of information. In all honesty, Florence hadn't been left alone long enough to see how she was actually dealing with what had happened. The only time she had been alone was when she was asleep, and they all knew how that was going. The past week, she had been watching movies and playing games and purposefully trying to distract everyone from the fact that she wasn't okay — that she wasn't completely terrified. Of course, they were all profilers and knew it wasn't true. After Hotch's shift, they would all go back to work and she was worried that things would get even worse.

There was no telling what her mental state would look like in a month in a half.

Looks like she was about to use all her free time to become an expert in lying because there was no way she was staying away from the BAU longer than necessary. Hotch narrowed his eyes at her, seemingly understanding her thought process.

"You know, you always offer to listen if I ever need to talk to someone. I'd like to think you know that you can do the same with me," he told her. "I can't go back and undo what happened to you—"

"We've been over this, Hotch," she said, sighing. "I am alive because of our team, and none of you should feel guilty about what happened. You have a huge problem with taking on massive amounts of unnecessary guilt."

"And you have a problem with distracting others so that they don't focus on how you're actually feeling. You can make jokes and try to annoy me and play with Jack, but know that you're not expected to bounce back and pretend that everything is fine. We will all be here for you as long as you need us."

Florence had only really opened up to Reid, and that had been for no longer than two minutes. And she had hated how uncomfortable it was the entire time. However, this was Hotch. It was her Hopscotch, and if she could be honest with any of them, it would be him. But still, she didn't want to tear down the wall she had put up in order to block everything out.

"Hotch, when I am comfortable talking about it, I will. I promise," she said, sighing. "But not right now, please."

"Alright," he said, nodding. Before Florence could turn the movie back on, Hotch spoke again. "I know that you have a rather interesting eye for interior decorating, but why do you have a big plastic dog in your guest room? I mean, Jack's a big fan, but it's not something in a typical bedroom."

Florence chuckled to herself. "Did you know that you can just walk out of an Old Navy with the dog and no one will stop you?"

Hotch sighed heavily and rubbed his forehead, trying to keep off the headache that would no doubt accompany the story he was about to hear. "Florence, did... did you steal the Old Navy dog?"

Florence sucked on her teeth. "Technically, Reg carried it out of the store, so he stole it."