This is just something I wrote awhile ago that has been lurking on my hard drive. It was just an idea that floated into my head when I first started planning out Uncharted. I just wrote it down. It's not really part of any events I currently have planned for Uncharted, but I was thinking about some aspects of Reid and my OC Rebecca's friendship and this just kinda appeared. The events discussed were a case idea I had tossed around a bit but have never really fleshed out, so it would probably never get used. Just thought I'd post it as a one-shot of sorts. Who knows maybe one day I'll decide I like this case idea again and use it.
The bullpen of the BAU was empty. Well, almost empty. A lone agent sat at her desk; a tall stack of files piled haphazardly next to the phone. New case files and a backlog of paperwork just waiting to be dealt with and not enough hours in the day it seemed. The agent sighed heavily and leaned back in her chair. She stared up at the ceiling, deep in thought.
She was about twenty-six. Her dark brown hair, which rarely behaved the way she wanted it to, was currently piled atop her head in a terribly messy bun. She glanced at the watch around her wrist, the position of the hands telling her it was already past midnight. She knew that she should head home and get some sleep. The rest of the team had already gone home to rest but here she sat. The case they had just returned from had her wound up. Sure, the bad guy had been caught and was now on the fast track to rotting the rest of his existence away in prison but she couldn't shake the feelings that the images of the victims had given her. She didn't really know why these victim's had stuck in her brain so firmly but she couldn't shut them away like the others.
'You have to stop letting this bother you,' she thought to herself. 'You gotta let it go.'
She sighed again. She couldn't just let it go.
Suddenly her cell phone rang, causing her to jump slightly before she reached out to pick it up.
"Dennison," she said as she placed it to her ear.
"Are you still at the office?" came a male's voice from the other end.
"No," she lied; going back to the file she had been looking at just a few moments earlier.
There was a stretch of silence on the other end before the man sighed. "Becca," he groaned. "You should go home at get some sleep."
"Maybe I'm not tired Reid," she countered before her body went all Benedict Arnold on her and she starting yawning.
"Are you sure? Because that-"
She cut him off. "I fine," Rebecca said firmly "just finishing some paperwork."
"You really shouldn't lie to one of your teammates."
"And you really shouldn't tell people who are older than you what to do."
"You are barely two years older than me!" Reid exclaimed on the other end.
"Oh, please. I've got a whole 25 months of life experience on you Spencer. If anyone should be the boss in this friendship it is totally me."
"You can't boss me around just because you're a few months older."
"Oh, I am so the boss of you." She smirked in the phone.
There was paused and she knew he was making a face on the other end.
"You're just trying to change the subject." Reid said finally. "You're still at the office because of the case."
"I am not."
"I know you can't stop thinking about those kids Becca," he continued.
"I'm fine," Rebecca said lowly, her tone threatening him to leave it alone.
"No, you're not."
"I'm not talking about this with you right now Spencer, just drop it."
Reid sighed into phone. "Fine, fine." He relented. "But will you at least go home and sleep?"
"Do you promise to not bring this up when I see you tomorrow?"
"Sure." He agreed.
Yeah, she totally knew he was so full of it. He'd bring it up again the second they were alone. She smiled though, she found that quality of their friendship almost as endearing as she found it annoying.
"Fine, I'll see you tomorrow. But I don't think we have anything to discuss about my alleged problems with what happened in Kansas, so if you bring it up I will punch you." She warned.
"Completely understood."
"I doubt that it is," she replied. "Why are you still awake anyway?"
"So I could check on you."
Normally Rebecca would have been annoyed, complaining that she didn't need to be checked up on or babysat, but Reid's concern made her heart swell a little bit with love and appreciation. And she didn't even care how cheesy that sounded.
She just smiled into the phone. "Goodnight Reid."
"Night, Dennison."
She hung up the phone and tossed it back onto the desk. Still for a moment as she thought about those kids one last time. She stood up with a sigh and began to gather up her things.
Tomorrow would bring another case and another set of victims. She tucked those six kids away in the place in her mind where she kept all the cases that left a mark on her. Where they would never be forgotten and where they could be used as a reminder for why she worked so hard at what she did.