A/N: Okay first off, the title is very tentative. This just popped into my head, and I wanted to get a reaction. Continue, yea or nay?
She was back and better than ever. Maybe she had been right. Maybe her sabbatical from the team in London had been exactly what she needed. Whatever she had done over there, she was a completely different person now. She was in a completely different headspace. She was more confident, he thought, if that were possible. She was definitely more focused. And she had clearly been training pretty hard. She had always been fast, but now she blew him out of the water. Derek was a competitive man, but he had to admit that Emily would win in a foot race.
He couldn't help but wonder what exactly had made the difference. She'd only ended up staying on at Interpol for a little under a year before she had transferred back to the F.B.I., and it had only been a few months before Hotch had managed to negotiate her return to the B.A.U. Morgan knew that she wanted to be in the field, and there weren't really many other options department-wise. There was Counter Terrorism, sure, but it was mostly desk duty these days. As was White Collar Crimes, and most everything else the F.B.I. had to offer. She had refused an administrative position, so they put her in homicide. The director had been clearly disappointed with her decision, saying that it was a waste of talent. She'd compromised by agreeing to spend some time with new recruits. She wasn't an official instructor, but she didn't have anything better to do with her spare time anyway. At least that's what she had said to Derek.
It was nice having her back, a bit like having a family reunion every day. Even when she hadn't been on the team, she would visit them in the office when she could and vice versa. He'd found it hard to believe, but she had even bonded with her replacement. Not surprisingly, it turned out that Emily Prentiss had a lot in common with Alex Blake, if only the other agent had a few years on her. He could easily see Blake playing a maternal role in Emily's life. Not that it was necessary, that was just how the pair fit together. God forbid he do something that irritated one of them, because both of them would retaliate. Leave it to Emily to steal his new partner.
She was still paired with him more than anyone else, but the new dynamics to the team lent a group of three more often than not. Hotch seemed to like the results they got, so it wasn't likely to change any time soon. Between the two of them, he'd swear that there wasn't a language they didn't speak fluently. That meant a lot of hasty field interviews where Derek had found himself digging deep into his brain for that high school Spanish.
It was days like this that he really enjoyed. They were on a case in New York. While the last time that they were there had led to a very close call for both himself and Hotch, this time it was a run of the mill case for them. Derek, Emily and Alex were on the street. Their boots on the ground, they were asking questions and looking for connections. It was a small neighborhood, and extremely reclusive when it came to cops. He was having to use all of his charm just to get old ladies to talk to him, not an issue that he normally had.
His partners, on the other hand, had gone about it in a completely different manner. He came out of the stairwell to find them on the third floor, gleefully carrying on a conversation with an Italian immigrant. They had teamed up. Pooling their most pleasing attributes in order to strike up a discussion with unsuspecting tenants before revealing their identities, and then inevitably getting the information that they were looking for. He shook his head. He should have known that they'd ditch him.
He hung back until the Italian man had retreated into his apartment and closed the door. "Tell me that you guys have something?" he pleaded.
"Oh, wow." Blake put a hand to her chest. "Are you doubting us, Agent Morgan?"
It was always the same with these two. As he rolled his eyes at the question, he simultaneously prepared himself for the backslide from Emily. "Nah," she drawled. "He's just frustrated because he can't get anyone to talk to him." She laid a hand on his arm with a mock frown in place. "Poor little guy."
"Little?" he accosted, removing her hand with a swat. "I'll have you know that I moved a china cabinet by myself today. And I did it without breaking a single dish." It killed him to have to admit that that was the only reason he had gotten the old lady to talk to him, and that he still hadn't gotten anything actionable from the exchange.
"Oh," she just about chuckled. "Well then, we've got a killer to catch." She wagged her finger between herself and Blake as the two of them began to walk toward the stairwell. "But I'll be sure to call you if we run in to any heavy furniture along the way." They both veritably cackled as they disappeared behind the door.
He ran his hands over his bare head, interlacing his fingers at the back before following after them and letting out a labored sigh. Yeah, it was days like this that he enjoyed.