A/N: This is a blanket disclaimer for the rest of this story. I sadly do not own any little bit of Criminal Minds or its characters, I merely use them for my entertainment. As far as I'm aware, the plot belongs to me but it could have been subliminally suggested by someone else. All in all, I think it's safe to say my ownership rights are less than none.
Wednesday morning in the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit dawned gray, blustery, and boring for SSA David Rossi. After finishing a grueling week long case in Michigan in the early hours of Monday morning, the team had been taken off rotation for the rest of the week to finish paper work and catch up on some much needed sleep. Theoretically, it would also allow the agents to enjoy some personal time, as though the Profilers had meaningful lives on standby they could resume at will. For the normally active senior agent, being forced into desk time was made especially tedious by the recent completion of his latest book. He lacked even his usual clandestine editing to entertain him. Perhaps this idleness justified how he inexplicably ended up in the break room sipping coffee and chatting with the ever cheerful Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia.
Rossi would be the first to admit that he had thought very little of the young woman upon his return to the Bureau. Her shocking hair, makeup, and wardrobe choices screamed unprofessional to a man who had built his career under the powerful influences of chauvinism and patriarchy within the halls of the FBI. Then she opened her mouth and he couldn't decide whether to scream or laugh. The woman could take inappropriate to new levels, even as she fulfilled her assignments above and beyond the call of duty. Eventually he realized that the famous David Rossi might actually have met his match when it came to making trouble and scandal within the workplace. Rather than shredding each other to pieces as many betting pools had surmised, a truce formed and the pair became partners in crime. And, as usual, the day's crime involved their unsuspecting coworkers.
"I swear, for a bunch of profilers, you people are totally delusional when it comes to your personal lives!" Garcia huffed in what had become a familiar refrain between the two. "How do you manage to be so blind to everyone around you?"
He followed her line of sight and chuckled lightly as his eyes rested on the way JJ was perched on the edge of Reid's desk as they talked, occasionally leaning in to brush his shoulder with her hand or flip her hair out of her eyes. The genius's eyes remained locked on hers, totally oblivious to her not so subtle hints at flirtation. After the conversation, Rossi knew the young man would be able to repeat her words verbatim but lack entirely an understanding of the context in which they had been said.
"And you know they aren't the worst of it," she hissed.
Her heavily jeweled fingers jabbed towards their Unit Chief carrying on a conversation with Agent Prentiss, both appearing to be engrossed in the files they held. Ostensibly their conversation revolved around the paperwork they were completing, but every moment or two a pair of eyes would stray to the other's face, catching a stolen glance before quickly looking away. Although this had been continuing for weeks, somehow neither had ever caught the other in their little game. Ever subtle to nuances among her small surrogate family, the undercurrents of hidden feelings were beginning to drive Garcia insane.
"Rossi, we have to do something. I'm starting to imagine the naughty thoughts they're all having about each other and I'd like to go back to my own fantasies before I'm seriously scarred. Emily gets this dangerous glint in her eye sometimes and believe you me, no one should ever have to imagine what she's thinking about doing to Hotch."
"Then this is serious," he intoned, attempting to keep a straight face. Dodging a swat at his shoulder from his irritated companion, Rossi continued, "Luckily for you, I think I may have a plan to jump start things around here. I won't tell you about it, but when you see it go into motion back me up without acting like you see an ulterior motive. I need them to go into this totally innocent of our real intentions, or it will never work."
Smirking red lips gave him an affirmative with a matching wink from behind rhinestone glasses as Morgan wandered into the room for another cup of coffee. Although she hadn't spoken, he narrowed his eyes and looked at her a moment.
"Baby girl, who are you after this time?" he laughed, stirring the sugar into his coffee and resting against the door frame.
"You, of course, my delectable hunk; just wait until I get you alone!"
She giggled as she made her retreat, throwing a suggestive wink over her shoulder just as a tease. Derek Morgan turned to the older profiler and shrugged.
"Someday that woman will be the death of me," he smiled.
"Probably of us all," Rossi mused.
EPAHJJSRPGDM
"Hotch, have you got a minute?"
Aaron Hotchner looked up from his paperwork at his longtime friend and mentor. He was fairly surprised to see him standing in the doorway to his office, considering the general lack of things they could need to talk about. Assuming something must be wrong, he waved the older profiler in and offered him a chair.
"What is it, Dave? Everyone alright?"
Rossi smiled at the question, so typical of the careful profiler and team leader. As always, he was reminded the sacrifices Aaron had made to the BAU and their little family. A divorced father of a son he rarely got to see, constantly embattled with the Bureau hierarchy to protect his subordinates, the man had absolutely no concept of personal life. Maybe it was about time for that to change.
"Everyone's fine, don't worry. I was just thinking that our down time might be a good opportunity to try out a new team building exercise I've had in mind. I'd like to recommend it to the Academy for training new recruits, especially among the BAU teams. Since we have the best and the brightest, I figured out why not test it on us first?"
The reasonable tone Rossi used put the Unit Chief at ease and he leaned back in his chair to contemplate the amount of paperwork that would be needed to close their last case. With their usual level of efficiency, there was no way the team couldn't complete it in less than a day after working on it the majority of the previous day and all of that morning.
"I suppose it couldn't hurt, as long as it doesn't cut into anyone's paperwork or personal time."
With a covert eye roll, Rossi smiled at his progress and gently clapped his hands together in victory.
"Excellent! Shall we gather them in the morning and brief them on the exercise?"
"Dave, it's your project, I'm just a humble participant on this one," Hotch slightly grinned.
Well that couldn't have gone better if I'd given him a script, Rossi smirked to himself as he sauntered out of the office, ready to put his plan into action.
EPAHJJSRPGDM
Thursday morning appeared a little brighter to Rossi's eyes as he gathered all of the team, including JJ and Garcia, in the conference room. Light conversation took place among the three women who were speculating what might be going on while Reid rambled to Morgan about the reproductive habits of North American Hummingbirds. Hotch wandered in last, his nose stuck in a file and Rossi cleared his throat to begin.
"Alright everyone, thank you for helping me test a new exercise that will help train our next generation of BAU profilers and staff. As you know, the BAU has always had its own unwritten set of rules that govern our behavior. They're necessary to keep a room full of profilers from killing each other in new and horrifying ways."
Morgan shot an exaggerated look at Reid making Emily and Penelope giggle while JJ returned a semi-stern face warning him to play nice. He lifted his hands in surrender, relinquishing the attention back to Rossi.
"As I was saying," he continued with amusement, "one of these rules has to do with profiling team members. There's been a moratorium on that one since the early days due to some, er, incidents that may or may not have occurred."
Hotch raised an eyebrow from behind his folder, murmuring, "Yes, and we're all lucky that agent didn't sue us for sexual harassment."
Rossi scoffed defensively and fussed, "Well, how was I supposed to know that he wasn't out of the closet when he insisted on wearing those suits? He practically had it on a billboard with the choice and amount of that cologne anyway!"
The younger agents stared at each other open mouthed in shock as Garcia dissolved into a fit of giggles and had to hide behind Hotch's extra folder that lay near her on the table. Once she had composed herself, Rossi took back control of the conversation.
"Yes, well, all of that aside, there are one or two downsides of the policy that are increasingly coming to my attention. In our attempts to refrain from profiling our colleagues, I think we have the potential to become disconnected as teammates, a dangerous position for a BAU team. If we practice, from the Academy on, how to differentiate between profiling and normal reading of body language and nonverbal cues then perhaps we'll be able to remain connected as people without the danger of going overboard."
"So, this exercise is going to involve us profiling each other… without actually profiling each other?" Emily asked somewhat skeptically. Rossi wasn't surprised, having anticipated her reluctance to let another person in on her personal territory.
"Emily, I understand your objections to this particular exercise. It is essentially the same game that you grew up playing in the diplomatic circles. This ability, manipulated by skillful players, is how politics works on all levels of the system. We, however, are not going to be manipulating anyone – you all already know how, you're profilers, but you go beyond tactfulness to assure it doesn't happen. This will just be like tuning an old radio. You know each other's stations already; it's just getting rid of the extra static that comes from being out of sync with each other."
Sighing in defeat, Emily turned to shoot Hotch a look at putting them all through the exercise. He just quirked his lips at her in a half-smile and gestured that he was just along for the ride like the rest of them.
Rossi continued, "For this exercise I'm going to place you into pairs based on my understanding of how your abilities will balance out. To begin, you will write down no less than three and no more than five signals that you believe you may have been sending your partner in recent weeks or months. They must be real and something that someone looking for them should be able to notice. Be honest, because your assignment is not to change your own behavior in the slightest. By Saturday night at the latest, you will have compiled your own list of any signals you believe you have been receiving from your partner."
"Agent Rossi," Reid broke in, "we have an odd number of people if Garcia is joining us. I'd be happy to sit out if need be, so the number is even."
"Thank you, Reid, and nice attempt, but I've already factored that in," Rossi grinned. "Now, to continue, an uninvolved third party, namely the lovely young lady who gathers my mail when we're on a case, will be given all the lists. She will compare signals being sent and received by each pair. You will ONLY know what the other person's list contains if you guess correctly. Otherwise, your secrets are safe."
The team glanced nervously around the table at each other, imagining all the ways this could potentially go wrong. Each person was thinking the same thing: who had he paired?
"So, pairs!" Rossi rubbed his hands together for dramatic effect. "Our first pair will be Reid and JJ. Reid, you've never been a natural at reading body language. You know the science but not the art. JJ, however, has a natural talent for profiling without the scientific training. Working together should teach both of you some things. Remember, Reid, it's not a personality study. Watch her behavior as it relates to you, compare it to known constants for meaning, and draw a conclusion. No more."
With worried eyes the young man looked at JJ, clearly already worrying about how he could screw this up. She smiled gently at him, reassuring him without a word, though it seemed to escape his notice even as he felt the effect on his troubled mind.
Pleased, Rossi continued, "I believe it only fair that Penelope, Morgan, and I form our own little group."
"And why, exactly, would that be?" Hotch inquired impatiently.
His eyes twinkling, Rossi declared, "We never followed the rules in the first place. We'll be a control group."
Garcia and Morgan leaned over and high fived each other before looking around smugly at their colleagues. Emily gave them a withering look.
"You're not supposed to be proud about it, you guys."
"Oh, princess, of course we are! Just think how in sync we are with each other compared to the sad little mess the rest of you are," Garcia cooed to her friend, patting the back of her hand in a seemingly comforting gesture. Eyes around the room flew to the ceiling as Derek just laughed at the women next to him.
Emily buried her face in her hands and let out an exasperated huff. Her looks hadn't gotten her into an Ivy League school – she had been three steps ahead of Rossi since his instructions to Reid. As the most collected and withdrawn members of the team, it only stood to reason that Rossi would pair herself and Hotch. In no way whatsoever, though, did that logic change her reluctance to engage her superior in this little fact finding expedition. Desperately, her mind hunted for any ulterior motive Rossi could possibly have that would get her out of this predicament. She couldn't think of a thing. Damn the man.
TO BE CONTINUED...