chapter thirteen / season three episode eight.

IN RECENT WEEKS AMELIA LEVINE HAD DEVELOPED A ROUTINE.

A strict routine that she had to stick to on the weekdays, because if she didn't stick to that routine she would undoubtedly freak out and end up in the small space between her toilet and sink.

The routine had been adapted the day after her panic attack on the jet so that she didn't wake up every morning with the fear that she'd have another one, instead of focusing on that fear she focused on the time constraints placed between each and ever step of the routine.

It was working for Amelia, so far.

She had five minutes wrapped up in her duvet after her alarm, before having to get out of bed and spend ten minutes in the shower and so on.

Amelia couldn't tell you if her methods were healthy, but they worked and that was all she really cared about.

The only time Amelia had really feared that she would have another attack was when she was on the jet, the mode of transport didn't call for any routine and she often found herself crowded with thoughts about how she'd end up back in that small space, tugging at her ears for the ringing to stop or throwing up into the toilet.

The case they had recently finished in Montana didn't help either. Amelia had been drinking water non-stop meaning that when she had to go home, she desperately needed the toilet.

She didn't go.

Amelia held it in the whole trip home.

Her doctor (and body) were definitely not pleased.

Amelia just did what she had to make sure she didn't have another attack. And whether that was healthy or not didn't matter her.

What was healthy, though, was Amelia leaving the house at the correct time (on the dot) so that she could meet Penelope in the coffee shop before their work day started.

It had been Amelia who suggested the idea after she realized her and the technical analyst lived in close range to one another and the agent was desperate to make new memories in the coffee shop she had been left stunned by Jason Gideon.

And who better to make new, and good memories, with other than Penelope Garcia?

(The answer was no-one. She was the absolute best option)

The worst part about it though was that Amelia's best friend was desperate to pay for both their drinks every morning. In the twelve mornings they'd actually been able to make it to the coffee shop, Amelia had only payed for one of those coffees and the agent had had to threaten Penelope with her badge to do so.

Today was no different. "Penelope Garcia, I swear to whoever is listening, if you try to pay again I will harm you."

Penelope merely scoffed and began pulling her purse out of her yellow bag.

"Penelope," Amelia warned with her card in hand. "Alison might be filling your coffee cup up over there but I will get her to kick you out of this place."

Penelope gasped, "You wouldn't dare!"

"Then put your very cute purse away and let me pay for once." Amelia took the item in her hand and noted the brand down so that she could look at the other cute purses they might have to offer. Or, maybe she'd buy a similar one for when Penelope's birthday came around.

"Come on!" A voice said, exasperatedly, from behind them, "You got to be kidding me."

The two women turned in sync to see a man (who Amelia had only seen in their recent visits to the shop) sat frustrated at one of the tables with bar stools.

A questionable decision for the start of the day, considering those stools would make your back ache before the clock even struck nine o'clock.

The man continued to click at his keyboard, even if it didn't seem to be working.

Amelia raised her eyebrows at Penelope, "Tech problem, that seems like your type of thing. Plus, that means I can pay without any sort of disruption."

Penelope rolled her eyes and recalled the time she had promised to let Amelia pay with her fingers crossed behind her back and then plucked her card out of thin air and payed for the drinks before Amelia could even realize what was happening.

Amelia noticed how the blonde, stood next to her, seemed to be admiring the man with tech problems.

"Earth to P." Amelia waved her hand in-front of Penelope's face, causing the blonde to turn and fave her friend who was now wiggling her eyebrows suggestively, "Go save the day."

"I don't know—"

Amelia pushed her friend in the guy's direction and accepted their coffees from Alison, and paying the bill for only the second time.

The agent sipped on her coffee and watched Penelope talk (flirt) with the man with a wide smile on her face. Oh, love. The awkward small smiles, the watching the other very closely when the other wasn't looking, the asking out on a date!

Amelia loved this for Penelope and how the woman's cheeks had blushed when they exchanged numbers.

Penelope had been so excited that she had nearly walked out the coffee shop without her mug of coffee and her Amelia.

But, Amelia had followed Penelope out and had the most perfect smile on her face.

Amelia wasted no time in squealing in the early hours of the morning as people covered their ears as she passed. "P, did you see how he was looking at you! You are amazing! He was so nervous and he was so blushing when your hand like accidentally touched his! He's a lucky guy to get a date with Penelope Garcia."

"When are you going to go? Oo, what will you wear?"

"And he better get you flowers and open every single door for you, or he is not the man for you." (He would certainly not be the man for Penelope) "He better worship the ground you walk on or me and him will be having stern words."

Penelope chuckled, breathlessly, "Amelia, you don't need to do any of that. We just met, and I'm not sure when we'll go on our date, or if we'll even go on one at all." She admitted shyly.

Amelia grabbed into her hand and made them stop in the middle of the sidewalk, "Stop that, right now, Penelope. You deserve to go on that date with a man who could not take his eyes off you. Okay? And he certainly doesn't have a problem with you, or else he wouldn't have asked."

"But... this doesn't happen for girls like me."

Amelia frowned and brought Penelope's hands into her own, "P, men are the worst and don't know how to handle a beautiful, intelligent and incredible woman like you. And you won't know if this guy is able to unless you go on that date, okay? And if he's a complete and utter douchebag we will get him blacklisted from every single one of his favorite companies and stick his face on a dart board."

"You hear me?"

Penelope nodded, "I hear you."

"Good. You are magnificent, Penelope, and deserve this so much."

Amelia probably should've taken a closer look with the guy, she probably should've asked for his fucking name and she probably should've done a lot more.

But she hadn't.

And that was her first mistake in her routine.

The second was her and Penelope walking in only a couple seconds late, which was the exact time that Derek would walk past them with a steaming cup of coffee in his hands. "Good morning, Princess, good morning, Sunshine."

Amelia had been far too happy for Penelope on the way over and hadn't stopped talking, she had been discussing what Penelope might wear when she gets asked out on her date.

The tech analyst was not going to feed into Amelia's delusions at first but had soon realized she would be quite (very) excited for the call to come in and had to outfit plan with Amelia now just incase a case came in.

"Good morning." They both responded with much less enthusiasm as they usually do for Derek, which meant they were hiding something or nervous about something.

(It was both. Penelope was nervous but extremely excited and contemplating whether she should hide her date from Derek, and had ordered Amelia to hide it until the analyst was ready to tell him)

"Pump your breaks."

Amelia and Penelope had immediately paused their movements and turned slowly to face Derek, who wagged his finger telling them to come over to him.

"Everyday I say 'Good morning'. Everyday, Princess, you say 'I'll show you a good morning, hot stuff' and, Sunshine, you say 'It's not a good morning now that you're here'."

"Everyday. Not today?" He looked between them with a questioning brow.

Amelia focused on the carpet beneath them so that she would not spill the truth to Derek.

"I hate profilers." Penelope sighed, wincing when Amelia elbowed her in the side.

"Spit it out. Before Amelia spits it out for you."

"Fine." Penelope caved, "I met a guy."

Derek pulled back, "You did what? Where?"

Amelia looked at him with furrowed eyebrows.

"Coffee shop. Smoking hot. I fixed his computer, and then he asked for my number."

"And you just..." Derek sounded a bit too judgemental for Amelia's liking.

"Gave it to him." Penelope confirmed with a smile, "Do you believe that? A complete stranger. Did I mention he was smoking hot?"

"And, and! He could not stopping looking at Penelope, it was so so so cute!" Amelia gushed, finding pride in her role as Penelope's cheerleader.

"Yeah, yeah. Okay. It happens."

Penelope shook her head, "No, it's doesn't. Not to me. Not like this."

"Not like what?" Derek asked, confused.

"I'm not the girl men see across a smoky bar and write songs about." Amelia searched for Penelope's hand a gripped onto it tightly before squeezing it.

"Sweetheart..."

"It's okay! I do just fine, but it takes a minute, you know?"

"Okay, so what's the problem?" Derek asked, "You think it's all happening a little too fast or something?"

"Yes. I don't know. Maybe. Amelia tried to pump me up for it." She admitted, now finding that all the fashion talk had really distracted from her real feelings on the situation, "What do you think?"

Amelia decided she wasn't going to advocate for this date if Penelope wasn't feeling up for it anymore.

"I think you should always trust your gut." Derek shrugged his shoulders, "So sure, if he seems a little too smooth, or maybe even a little too smoking hot, then maybe you should walk the other way."

JJ came past them with files in her hands, passing them out she passed, "Hey, we caught a bad one."

"How bad?" Derek asked.

"Florida."

Derek sighed.

Amelia tried not to gag.

Derek walked away while Amelia remained beside Penelope, squeezing her hand to remind the analyst she was still there.

"P, it's up to you. It's your decision. Date or no date, I'll wait with a tub of ice cream and we can either talk about how you felt about the date or watch trashy rom-coms." She offered and squeezed the blonde's hand again. "Whatever decision you make, it'll be a good one, no doubt."

Penelope nodded, "You better get going."

Amelia smiled softly, "Yeah. Text me, okay?"

The nod was not convincing from the blonde but, regrettably, Amelia had a briefing to get to.

Even if the case was about Florida.

Amelia had lived there from three days old, to three years old. And she couldn't tell you more than one thing about those three years and she was incredibly grateful for that.

"Bridgewater, Florida. Local girl, Abbey Kelton, 19." JJ presented once everyone was sat down in their seats, "Left her parents' home to go to the local junior college. She never came home. Three days later joggers found her, part of her, in a nearby park."

"What did that to her?" Emily asked as pictures came up on screen with only the top half of Abbey's body,

"Bridgewater is off of I-75, which is often referred to as Alligator Alley, for reasons that are now apparent. Everything below the waist had been eaten."

"The circle of life." Rossi mused.

"Suddenly, I don't feel so guilty about my alligator wallet."

Amelia frowned as she remembered the friend she had made of an alligator when she was little.

Rest in peace, Allie.

"Alligators didn't cut off her fingers, slit her throat or carve this into her chest." Hotchner passed an image around the table of Abbey's body in the morgue.

Amelia was grateful she'd only had toast for breakfast.

"An inverted pentagram." Derek said.

"Locals believe the killing was committed by a satanic cult."

"Some things never change." Rossi said.

"Killer satanic cults don't exist. They are debunked as a suburban myth." Emily told him, plainly, Rossi nodded his head. "What?"

Amelia noticed how the Unit Chief's lips upturned as Reid spoke. "Rossi's the one that debunked them."

Emily nodded her head, "Oh, right. Thanks."

"Cult or not, the killing was ritualized. This will turn serial if it hasn't already." For some reason, Rossi turned in his seat to look back at the pictures on the board.

While the pictures were important to look at, Amelia didn't quite feel like doing that at nine o'clock in the morning.

She likes to wait to at least quarter to ten.

"So, killer satanic cults don't exist, but satanic serial killers do?" JJ asked.

"That's what it said in his book." Amelia smiled at him, remembering that was the book she was supposed to get signed before she (literally) walked into Jason Gideon.

Rossi winked at her before speaking in Italian.

Amelia nodded her head.

"Well, thanks for clearing that up." JJ said sarcastically.

"It's from Dante's Inferno." Reid informed them.

"Abandon hope, all ye who enter here." He and Amelia quoted at the same before fist bumping over the table.

"So, that was a yes?"

"A big yes." Hotchner confirmed.

Derek furrowed his eyebrows, and kicked the back of Amelia's chair, "You speak Italian?"

Amelia nodded her head and twisted in her seat to face him, "And Spanish. And French. And German."

"You wanna add one more to that list?" He sensed another one coming.

Amelia furrowed one brow, her thinking face (as Derek liked to call it) "Yeah. But, I can't remember which language. I used to be good at it too, but I've forgotten."

"Wow, you must've learnt it really well." Derek said sarcastically.

"I was like nine and had nothing better to do." She shrugged her shoulders.

Derek stood behind her chair and shook it a little, "That explains so much about you."

"I swear to—"

Their Unit Chief cut them off with the clear of his throat, "Wheels up in thirty." He could not take anymore Amelia and Derek bickering.

It was killing him. Very slowly.

But, Florida here we come! (Even if the alligators might just eat them)

✺

Rossi was speaking, and Amelia would have to apologize the moment she stepped off the jet for unintentionally ignoring him.

Amelia hadn't meant to get sucked into a world of her, it had just happened. She had got wrapped up in her fears and she found herself gripping tightly onto the armrest beside her.

The jet journey in itself was smooth. So, Amelia couldn't use flying anxiety as a cover up this time, not like she had for Montana (even if she knew Agent Hotchner had seen right through her)

She didn't pick at her nail polish, or tap her fingers in a succession because she didn't feel compelled to, which meant something was seriously wrong with Amelia.

Amelia had mistakenly chosen a seat much closer to the onboard toilets. In-fact, she chose the seat opposite Hotchner and the toilets were right in her line of sight.

Last trip, she'd sat furthest away from the toilets on purpose.

That was a case of Amelia falling into bad habits and ignoring her attack altogether and thinking she could get on a plane and not even have the tiniest of reactions.

Realistically, Amelia's strict routine that she stuck to five days a week was just another name for ignoring the fact she could have another attack.

Amelia had sort of promised her Unit Chief she'd promise to talk to someone about her attack and whatever she felt surrounding it and the most she had done was write down the word 'shit' and hope for the best.

It hadn't worked.

Which is why after her attack and when they had got the case in Montana ignoring the attack seemed all the better.

But, when Amelia has to go to Florida she finally decides to realize that the attack has affected her just slightly. (Majorly, she's currently staring at the open door of the bathroom and replaying moments in her head, continuously and imagining another attack)

She gripped the file in her lap a little tighter with her free hand.

No-one had noticed your little freak out.

(Agent Hotchner had been watching her since they started debrief)

"I saw the exorcist, I hear you." JJ raised her eyebrows and nearly shivered at the memory of the film.

Amelia's own eyebrows furrowed, how did they even get to talking about this?

They must've debriefed on the two types of satanist: teenagers and adaptive satanist. But, that's all Amelia could really imagine them having to say.

Derek gave Amelia a once over and plucked her tight grip off of his armrest and held his hand in hers under the table, "This whole Devil thing doesn't spook me at all."

"Maybe that's because you never truly bought the God part either." Spencer commented.

Amelia's eyes widened and suddenly found interest in the glass of water in-front of her.

"No offense, kid, but you don't know what I believe."

Reid stumbled over a few words, "Well, I mean, logic dictates that if you believe in the one, you have to reconcile the existence of the other."

"People's reactions to Satan is what gives it appeal to these offenders. It has power, and it would be a mistake to underestimate it." Hotchner said, in some attempt to end whatever could spark between Reid and Morgan before he got up to make a coffee, for who Amelia believed to be himself.

The second he stood up, Rossi took his chair and asked Amelia, "So, you moved around a lot as a kid. Was Florida ever one of your destinations?"

Derek smiled when he realized what Rossi was going to do depending on Amelia's answer.

"It was home for three years but that was all. We actually left on my third birthday."

David Rossi smiled. If he remembered correctly (which he did), after everyone had finished painting Amelia's apartment they discussed and went through all her snow globes, a collection she had started at nine years old. David also realized she hadn't got a Florida one.

Probably for the best.

But he didn't mind changing that.

"Plus, our house was pretty close to this lake or something, so sometimes really early in the morning there'd be this one gator that just sat in our garden," Amelia smiled and the other agents couldn't help but smile at the woman who talked of a childhood memory happily, for once, "I called it Allie."

Derek laughed, "Of course you did, sunshine."

"To be honest, Allie is the only thing I can remember about Florida." She frowned.

"You were three." Derek said, "You probably shouldn't remember it that well."

"Yeah," Amelia rolled her eyes, "obviously. But, it feels like something big happened in Florida, I just can't remember."

Reid shuffled and leaned forward, with what Amelia's liked to call his thinking face on, "The year would've been 1980 and the only major thing I can think of is the baby that went missing in September of that year."

He clicked his fingers as the case came back to him, "A baby girl went missing from a hospital and was found in a diner three days later, exactly like Daisy Adler. The BAU explored the theory that it was to remind people that whoever stole Daisy was still out there and that they could come back at anytime."

Amelia grimaced, "A lovely memory then."

Spencer nodded, "It was actually incredibly helpful to the FBI's profile of the kidnapper."

Amelia didn't feel like informing the boy genius that she believed it was two unsubs.

A cup of coffee was placed down in-front of her by a sleeved arm, making her eyebrows furrow, "What—?"

The Unit Chief just shrugged his shoulders, picked up his file and moved to sit elsewhere (after his seat had been stolen by Rossi) and begin trying to profile their unsub.

Amelia watched him go and sipped on the coffee.

Holy shit.

That was some good coffee for being made on the jet. What was his secrets?

Amelia immediately got up, with her mug in hand, and sat opposite the Unit Chief at the back of the jet, "Did you work as a barista before joining the BAU?"

He looked up from the folder, "No."

"Are you sure? This is really good coffee, thank you, by the way, you didn't have to." She smiled into the mug as she sipped on the drink.

While she wasn't looking, Hotchner's lips upturned. When the mug came back down the smile immediately vanished.

"Do you want to talk about what we were discussing earlier? I noticed you were preoccupied." His lips curved downwards, and Amelia saw the permanent fixture on his face: a frown.

Not his usual, 'I'm working', or 'This is my usual expression' frown.

It was more of a concerned frown.

Amelia didn't like it either way.

She thought he should smile more. It suited him better.

Amelia had frozen when she realized he knew she'd stopped listening and felt the need to apologize.

Her arm gripped onto the armrest.

"I'm sorry, it's so unprofessional." Her voice was full of regret, "It won't happen again, Sir, I promise."

Sir. All the progress Hotchner thought they had been making seemingly disappeared when she called him sir.

He was nearly begging for 'Hotch' to fall from her lips.

"Amelia," he placed his file down, "it's perfectly fine if you find yourself distracted given circumstances, I'm not going to shout at you for it. I want to help get you back on track and make sure you have someone to talk to."

"So, get your files and we'll go through some things together."

✺

Florida was a bad place to be in general, but this case seemingly made it worse.

Abbey had been eaten by alligators, that much was obvious. But, there had been fingers inside her stomach contents, a pentagram drawn into her skin after death, her throat slashed eight hours before being found and due to the alligators eating her bottom half there was no way to determine if she'd been sexually assaulted.

So, the ME report had been informative but still made them feel like they were miles away from any real answers.

Amelia was busying herself with her files when she felt her phone vibrate in her back pocket.

FROM JJ: [11:10 AM]
Will you talk to Derek?

TO JJ: [11:10 AM]
Why? I'm not his mother, what's the matter with him?

FROM JJ: [11:11 AM]
11:11 make a wish
He was glaring at the priest and Rossi since we left, he's got a stick up his ass

Amelia only read the first half of the message considering she had an important wish to make, the same wish she had been wishing for since she was fourteen - the same wish which hadn't come true yet.

(And she can't tell you what it is because then it won't come true!)

Amelia had opened back up her messages and realized JJ was complaining about Derek, her eyes widened a fraction and didn't even hear the footsteps coming from behind her.

Somebody tapped her on the shoulder causing her to gasp and drop her phone on the floor.

"JJ!" Amelia turned around frightened, "You know, usually people say 'Hello!' instead of sneaking up on them."

The liaison raised her eyebrows, "You were in a world of your own, on your phone," she picked it up and handed it back to Amelia, "I didn't realize you were so interested in my texts."

Amelia smiled, "If it's to ever do with any of you guys, believe me, I'm interested."

There were much louder footsteps coming up from behind and past them.

Neither of the women had to turn around to see the unimpressed, and particularly moody, Derek Morgan walking into the station by himself.

"Isn't he just a ray of sunshine?" JJ questioned with a sarcastic undertone.

Amelia hummed, watching him avoid Rossi and make himself a cup of coffee as the rest of the team started to gather in their set up room, "I'll try and talk to him in a minute or two, he wouldn't appreciate me asking during a debrief or anything like that."

JJ nodded and squeezed Amelia's shoulder before heading towards the Unit Chief.

"There's no evidence that any of the local kids were into Devil worships or the occult." Amelia heard Derek answering Emily's question as she got closer to the group situated around the table.

"No, this is not a group of teenagers." Despite the topic they were discussing, Emily smiled at Amelia who had chosen the seat next to her.

"It's a serial killer." Derek said.

"And considering what he did with her fingers, a sadistic one."

"That I wouldn't say just yet." Rossi inputted.

"He cut off her fingers and he made her eat them." Emily said slowly, as if to try and make her see the logic behind her point. "If that isn't sadistic."

"If it was, the only sign of sadism present in the crime." Rossi told her.

"If he was purely a sadist, there would have been more signs of torture." Emily nodded her head as she understood him now.

"The fingers are a message."

"What the hell's the message?"

Their Unit Chief came into the room, "She's not my first." He told them, "None of the fingers found in Abbey Kelton's stomach were hers. And six of them were index fingers."

Way to make your stomach feel funny.

✺

TO P: [12:39 PM]
Date or no date?

FROM P: [12:39]
Got a cold, not happening.
[READ]

Amelia looked up at the sound of Derek's phone ringing from beside her, she had yet to get an opportunity with him alone and ask the question that had been nagging at her since JJ brought it up.

"Hey, what you got for me, baby girl?" He asked, putting the phone on speaker for the agents around him.

"I just sent you ten separate IDs belonging to the ten fingers found in Abbey Kelton's stomach." That definitely wasn't the voice of a woman with a cold. And their unsub was definitely sick! "No two fingers belonged to the same woman."

"Ten? And you ID'd them already?" Rossi looked up in alarm at Derek's question.

The older man wasted no time in hunting down the rest of the agents.

Penelope hummed, "Forty plus prostitution arrests made it easy. They worked truck stops and rest areas in the county surrounding Bridgewater."

"Well, the unsub knows the area well." Derek thought aloud.

"Clearly. Got to go, bye."

Derek wasn't just going to let that go, "Hey, whoa. What, no snappy retort? What's going on?"

A cold, apparently.

"Not in the mood."

"Penelope?" Amelia raised her head from the file she was highlighting, it wasn't often Derek called the analyst by her first name.

"That guy from the coffee shop asked me out," she admitted sadly when she heard Amelia huffing over the speakerphone, "and I took your advice and I blew him off."

Derek and Amelia made eye contact, the female agent shrugged and mouthed, "Her choice."

Derek rubbed his bald head, "Oh. Well, good, smart move. Something was definitely wrong with him."

Amelia's eyes widened. Not the right thing to say! He hadn't even met the guy.

Amelia had only looked at him for 0.2 seconds and didn't deduce anything to be majorly wrong with him, the agent had just been too happy for Penelope to spend time nit picking the things she didn't like about her friend's supposed date.

Amelia liked to wait until the third date was done to form a real opinion on her friend's romantic choices.

"Wow, you are some profiler." Amelia sensed an undertone. "You could tell how wrong he was from what little I told you."

"Garcia, I didn't mean..." Amelia shook her head at him, it was useless for him to say anything now.

In Penelope's mind, he'd already said enough.

"I wonder, was it that he was too handsome or too interested in me that tipped you off on how wrong he was?"

"Garcia, I..."

"Just 'cause you wouldn't cross a crowded room to hit on me, does not mean that a more perceptive, less superficial guy wouldn't. Hey Derek, you want snappy?"

"You suck."

And there was the dial tone.

Amelia texted the tech analyst to just give Derek a minute or two.

TO P: [12:45 PM]
A cold, huh?
Wear the red dress we talked about

Amelia might not have an IQ of Spencer's number but she could definitely tell you Penelope Garcia was ringing her date's number right this second.

Amelia could read women like the back of her hand.

FROM P: [12:46 PM]
Sorry for lying, definitely going now.

TO P: [12:46 PM]
👍🏻
You okay though?
[READ]

Derek huffed and tossed his phone onto his files. He looked up at Amelia, "You gonna get snappy with me as well?"

Amelia's eyebrows furrowed, "Why would I do that?"

"You and Penelope are thick as thieves, I'd be surprised if you didn't take a rip at me right now." He confessed.

Amelia laughed, quietly, "I mean you've got a stick lodged up your ass ever since Penelope even mentioned the guy from the coffee shop, so I'm not gonna snap at you, I'm just gonna ask why?"

He shrugged.

Amelia tilted her head to the side, "Did you really just try to lie to me?"

"Do I need to make you breakfast or something to make you spill your guts?" The mention of their breakfast over two weeks ago brought a small smile to his face, even if many tears had been shed during the moment it had brought them close to one another, and opened doors into their friendship that allowed them to be honest with one another.

Or so Amelia had thought. It must've been a one-way door.

"If not, I'll just leave you in here to pout and mellow on all the things you've said today, which could've been potentially incorrect." She shrugged and began to pile her files together.

Derek shook his head, "Don't go."

Amelia smiled, "I don't even need breakfast to get you talking."

He pointed at her, teasingly, "Hush your mush if you want me to talk."

She held her hands up in innocence as he began to talk.

"She's my best friend." He winced at the kick to his shin, "She's one of my two best friends."

"And I just... I just want the best for her because that's what she deserves, the best."

Amelia's eyebrows raised, "And because she met this guy in the coffee shop, he's not the best?"

"No, it's not like that. I don't know the guy, and I don't trust him with my best friend." He explained, "Like, what if she goes on this date and he's a complete douche but I couldn't stop her from going on it?"

"And it's your fault he's a douche?" Amelia questioned, sitting up straighter in her seat and making direct eye contact with Derek.

"Derek, it's not your fault if this guys a douche, and it won't be P's fault. It's the guy's fault, and believe me if that guy even puts a foot wrong we'll both have some words to say but Penelope can also hold her own. As we just heard. She'll rip into that guy if she has to."

"You want to protect her but at some point that crosses a line into not letting her do anything because you're being too overbearing." Amelia told him, "And Penelope is a grown woman, Derek, she doesn't need as much protection as you think."

"I just want to keep her safe, you know?"

Amelia nodded her head with a quiet laugh, "Oh, I know. You wanna keep the woman who keeps us safe away from all harm because she doesn't deserve that. But, you can't keep her from everything, Derek."

"And if the date goes well, you'll be the first person she'll want to tell and you have to listen and take away your stone cold, protective brother face and be happy for her. And if it goes wrong, you have to be the first person round there with a tub ice cream cursing that man's name." Amelia could already envision the two wrapped up tightly in blankets and crying over Marley and Me or something along the lines.

Derek's eyebrow furrowed, "Just me? You don't think she'll do a group call or that you'll be the person to tell me to get the ice cream and meet me at her apartment?"

"No...?"

She could've imagined it earlier.

But not now.

Derek kicked her under the table, "Ow! What was that for!" She exclaimed.

"Now you're being stupid."

"I never said you were being stupid." She corrected him.

"No, you didn't, but I certainly felt it when she hung up." Derek shrugged his shoulders.

"Both of us love that woman like no tomorrow and would do anything to see her happy, so it would be both of listening to her talk about her date, and it would be both of us with that tub of ice cream." He informed her with a stern look on his face, his beaten down expression from early suddenly disappearing.

Okay... Amelia tried her best when speaking to people about their emotions and such but she didn't think she could just make them disappear like that.

"You got that, sunshine?" He asked as Emily walked into the room.

"Yeah..." she nodded slowly and raised an inquisitive brow at him, "I'm gonna keep watching you, though, that stick might come back to your ass."

"My mighty fine ass." He teased.

Emily rolled her eyes, "I'm going to ignore that. Look at this: the last known locations of the ten victims."

"Hotch is about to give the profile."

"Let's go then."

AUTHOR'S NOTE:
amelia has so not fixed derek and that stick is so far dislodged up his ass it's incredible

also started the walking dead last week?? the rick grimes brain rot is real that i planned a fic for him and i'm in love (with the oc and him)

and it's so crazy editing these chapters back, because amelia's about to hit peak sadness and yet she's happy in the chapters i'm currently writing

anywho clara background info in two chapters time, who says no?