Interlude-a short piece of music that is played between the parts of a longer one

Tonic: Graduation

Pomp and Circumstance.

High school graduation is one of those milestone moments in just about everyone's life, no matter where you fall in your class standing. You either looked forward to high school ending or moving on from high school.

Or some combination of both.

On the morning of my high school graduation, I felt apathetic more than anything else. I just wanted the whole debacle to be over with so that I could put high school and its associated memories and events behind me. I knew that I couldn't forget everything, and I didn't want to. I just wanted to stop being the walking freak show.

Returning to school after recovering from my attack by George Foyet gained me an unhealthy amount of attention and gossip. People whispered behind my back, pointed me out in the hallways to their friends…some even walked up to me and asked to see my scars.

I could have taken my finals early and then just showed up for graduation as Principal Finley offered me, but I had decided to get the novelty of my return out of the way in school so that it wouldn't be as bad at the ceremony itself.

Wandering around the school's front lawn to pick up my cap and gown, check in, and find my place in the line up, I kicked myself for my optimistic delusions.

"What do you think it was like?"

"I would be so scared."

"He's still out there, right?"

It wasn't even that any of the comments were cruel, I just was sick and tired of people talking about me and my life like it was reality TV.

"Five hours and counting," Michael muttered in my ear.

With our last names—Garrett and Gideon—we were assigned to the same row of bleachers, waiting for the procession to start. Michael was sitting on the first row, but leaned back into the second. Impervious to my classmates' comments, I was settled between Michael's legs on the bench, using him as support. Physical and emotional.

"Five?" I asked him.

"Who knows how long the speeches are going to last," he pointed out in resignation.

I groaned. "Crap."

Michael squeezed me a little tighter; I could feel him glare at the nearby gawkers over my shoulder. Most everyone avoided us after that, at least until it was time to line up for the grand procession. Will Gerhard took his place between Michael and I and I checked my cap and gown one last time before I heard the familiar opening chords of Pomp and Circumstance.

I walked forward, just one in a long line of black-robed teenagers about to end a long chapter of our lives. Given the crowd of parents, friends, teachers, and other family members, I couldn't immediately spot Hotch, Garcia, or Reid. It wasn't until we were all seated and enduring the first speech from Principal Finley that I finally saw them.

And then I immediately wondered how I could have missed Garcia's bright purple, orange, and white patterned dress with the matching pom-pom barrettes in her hair. I smiled to myself, but then sobered when I spotted Reid right next to her, seated on the end of the row with his crutches propped up next to him.

Hotch and I weren't the only ones who had landed up in the hospital and recovering from surgeries on the same day. While on a case, Reid had been shot in the knee. He and I hadn't seen much of each other since we had both been discharged, so I was really happy to see him. It almost made graduation worth it.

Sad to say, I zoned out during most of the ceremony. Sure, I enjoyed watching the video put together by a group of other seniors mostly for the clips from Annie rehearsals. And then finally, it was time to get our diplomas. There was definitely a hint of pity in Principal Finley's eyes when she shook my hand and handed the roll of paper to me, but since she meant well, I didn't resent her for it.

My next bit of luck happened as we returned to our seats. Will Gerhard stepped to the side for a brief moment and gestured for me to take his place right behind Michael. I nodded my thanks and slipped into the seat right next to him. Michael smiled and took my hand in his own. I leaned against him and passed the rest of the ceremony in relative comfort.

We both declined to throw our caps in the air and once we were free, Michael and I slipped our way through the crowd of hyped up graduates. Somehow, Garcia was able to find us, rushing up from the side and capturing both of us in one of her patented, enthusiastic hugs.

"Oh my babies!"

Michael wasn't one for affection in usual circumstances, but Garcia could worm her way past anyone's defenses.

"I'm so proud of you, look at you!"

"Thanks, Garcia," Michael said.

Then the tech goddess turned from gushing to business. "All right, my ducks, I've already called ahead to the Crown Café, they are setting up our table to celebrate. Hotch is pulling the car around—"

"I'm going with Michael," I interrupted. "We'll meet you there in twenty minutes."

"Fine, fine, fine," Garcia waved me off. "But no dawdling. Natasha told me she has a whole tray of brownies ready for us."

"So where do you think Reid was just now?" Michael asked as we walked away and headed for the parking lot.

"Crutches in a crowd? Pain in the ass," I pointed out from experience. "That's probably why Hotch went to pull the car around for him. We'll see him soon enough."

"Right."

On our way, both Michael and I pulled off our caps and gowns, folded them, and then stuffed them into the backpack Michael had brought along. Given the warm temperature of the day, both Michael and I were much more comfortable in our day clothes. For the day, Michael had put on clean khaki pants and a dark blue, short-sleeved button down shirt. My own outfit consisted of black capri pants and a gauzy pink blouse with sleeves that covered the bandage I still had to wear around the knife wound on my upper arm.

Once we reached Michael's parking spot, he secured the back pack and then handed me one of the two helmets in his hands. He then swung his leg over his new pride and joy: the 1987 Kawasaki Vulcan 750 motorcycle he had spent the last year repairing at the auto shop. And this was the reason I was in capris and not a dress like pretty much every other girl at graduation. Not that I minded as I got on behind him and held on as Michael peeled out of the parking lot.

There was still a crowd at the café when we arrived, but I saw a table outside under an umbrella with a "Reserved" sign proudly displayed. Reid was already seated and stirring packets of Splenda into his iced tea.

I took a seat next to him and smiled at his startled look.

"Rachel, congratulations!"

I leaned into the arm he draped around my shoulders, feeling unexpected pleasure at the pride and joy in his voice. Reid had graduated high school when he was twelve years old, but it suddenly occurred to me that he probably had not had anyone in the stands watching him. As my sympathy overcame me, I reached my own arm around his back and bumped my head against Reid's shoulder.

He looked down at me in surprise but must have read something of my thoughts across my face because he smiled shyly before ducking his head away.

The arrival of Emily, Garcia, Colin, Matilda, and Natasha bearing a large tray loaded with food rescued Reid and me from our sentimental moment.

I stood up and traveled the rounds of hugs and other well wishes. As everyone started to take their seats, I asked, "Where's Hotch?"

Garcia's exuberance dimmed slightly. "Oh, he had some work to do, sweetie."

I didn't let myself show how hurt I felt. Not that I was surprised. Even though Hotch hadn't officially returned to work—he had another two weeks to go before his medical leave was up—he was spending most of his time at home working at his desk. I didn't need to look to know that he was working on Foyet's file.

One of the many reasons actually that I was avoiding the apartment by sleeping over with either Natasha or Michael a lot of nights. Hotch never commented on it since he wasn't happy about me sticking around to make myself a target. So I wasn't surprised that Hotch had left the celebration that Natasha and Garcia had been planning.

He probably thought he would just bring down the celebration by his extremely dour and grim mood.

"So, dig in, folks," Natasha ordered cheerfully, setting out platters of her excellent trade: chicken salad on croissants, bowls of ginger-lime coleslaw, broccoli salad, and fruit salad, a huge Cobb salad with hard-boiled eggs, avocado, blue cheese, and bacon, and savory cheddar-scallion scones along with pitchers of iced tea and homemade lemonade.

"Rossi is on his way," Emily informed me after she passed the glass of half-tea, half-lemonade. "He needed to stop for something."

I nodded that I had heard her, but I couldn't help but feel like she was only telling me this to make up for Hotch bailing.

Luckily, Natasha and Matilda had taken over my previous job of heckling Michael into pursuing some kind of degree or even mechanic schooling. I couldn't help but smile as my friend started to wilt from their tag team.

"All right, all right, all right," Garcia interrupted, coming to Michael's rescue. "I propose a toast to our two wonderful graduates. You are both about to embark on the next amazing and new chapters in your lives. Try to remember everything you've learned already, be open to new experiences, and know that no matter how much you will continue to grow, you will always have the love and support of those here at this table and others."

Michael grabbed my hand and squeezed. I knew that he was more than overwhelmed by Garcia's words because he wasn't used to having people in his life that he could rely on. I squeezed back, reinforcing the speech with my unspoken promise.

"Enough with the touchy-feely nonsense," Colin said to break the emotional tension. "Give the kids their presents so we can reap the gratitude."

Natasha and her grandmother cleared the nearly empty platters while Emily and Colin pulled out the wrapped boxes and sealed envelopes hidden in the corner of the fenced in patio area in front of the café.

Garcia, Emily, Reid, and JJ apparently had all chipped in to buy new laptops for Michael and myself. We were both stunned.

"I can't accept this," Michael blurted out in stunned disbelief.

"I know people and got a discount," Garcia assured him, rightly realizing that it was the expense of the gift that had him balking.

Colin and Matilda had combined gift certificates for us both that would work for either free books at the shop for free meals at the café. As Michael was secretly an avid reader, I wasn't so sure as the rest of them that his certificate would be used more for food.

"Please tell me I didn't miss dessert," Rossi commented, sneaking behind our group from around the corner of the sidewalk.

"Nope," Natasha reassured him. "Just in time for the gifts, and you'd better tell me that you brought the second half of our present."

Now that made me frown in confusion and surprise. I could think of less-likely pairings than Rossi and Natasha to go in together for a gift.

"I am suddenly very intrigued and very worried at the same time," I said slowly.

"I'm more worried than intrigued," Michael added.

"Well, if he thought the laptop was huge…" Emily commented mysteriously while she, Reid, and Garcia all sported face-splitting grins.

"Oh God, just spit it out already," I begged.

"Well, thanks to my genius, I've solved a lot of problems with this one action," Rossi started, taking a seat directly across from Michael and me and placing an envelope on the table. "See, no one could come up with a compromise between you and Hotch about where you're going to live that keeps you safe, doesn't endanger anyone else, and also doesn't involve witness protection."

So far, he wasn't saying anything I hadn't racked through my brain cells trying to find a solution. I agreed with Hotch that I shouldn't continue to live with him, though my motivation was more along the lines of having flashbacks every time I saw the portion of carpet where I had almost bled out than anything else. And I also agreed that the dorm buildings at Strader were too risky given Foyet was still alive and stalking.

"And I took a look once at the hole in the wall that this young man thinks is adequate housing," Rossi continued, though his tone didn't convey any actual criticism. It was probably just that Rossi thought that Michael deserved more in his life than what he had, just like I did.

"To that end, I have just recently bought two apartments not far from here across the hall from each other. In this envelope are the lease agreements that you will each sign. This isn't charity or a hand-out, though I'm quoting a lower rent in exchange for car repair services."

As both Michael and I did impressions of fish out of water, Rossi kept going.

"Morgan will be giving both apartments a thorough going over and make any necessary repairs. They'll be ready for habitation in four to five weeks."

Michael visibly shook off his shock and then opened his mouth, poised to say something in argument.

"This is not up for debate," Rossi cut him off at the pass. They locked eyes and even with my experience of reading non-verbal communication, I had no idea what messages they were passing between them. Eventually, Michael nodded once, a quick jerk of assent, and then leaned back into his chair.

"And my contribution will be to stock your pantries and refrigerators," Natasha jumped in breezily, deliberately turning attention away from the awkward silence that had just started to settle. "Giving you no excuse for living on take out food."

This time, Michael mustered a smile as I started to thank everyone. While Michael still didn't have an ounce of body fat on him, he wasn't the stick figure he had been years ago. And that was definitely due to eating Natasha's food on a somewhat regular basis.

We ended the celebration with double-layered brownie cheesecake squares and then people started to disperse. I offered to stay and help clean up, but Natasha and Emily shooed me away to Michael, explicitly telling us to scram.

I secured our shiny new laptops in Michael's laptop and donned my helmet. By unspoken agreement, I went home with Michael to his "hole in the wall" studio apartment.

I hadn't started to spend much time there until Foyet for fairly obvious reasons. Michael wasn't a slob, but his home was fairly spartan, boasting a double bed, a futon couch, one set of bookshelves, a mini-fridge, and a set of cabinets for food storage.

Waiting for us—and proving that not only was he an expert profiler, but an expert on us—Hotch had left us another package under the door.

Michael opened while I placed our helmets on the hooks by the front door.

"Gas cards, rolls of quarters, road maps, and guide books for a cross country road trip," Michael summarized.

I took the books from him with numb fingers as I put it all together. I had intended to take a trip out to California to see my brother and his family after graduation since they hadn't been able to get enough time off from work to come out for the ceremony. Hotch had told me that he would take care of my plane ticket—I hadn't seen it yet, but my trip wasn't for another two weeks so I hadn't been concerned.

"I guess we're driving to San Francisco," I commented, trying to keep my voice steady. Michael hadn't planned on coming with me, but Hotch's intentions were clear.

Michael sat down hard on the futon as if his legs had turned to jelly. I brought the books with me and collapsed next to him. Not that I hadn't had ample proof of my adopted family's generosity, but it could still catch me off guard, especially when they went to these lengths.

"I wonder if the apartments are coming fully furbished," I wondered out loud. "Otherwise, we'll need to go furniture shopping."

"Jesus, I hadn't even thought of that."

"Have you thought about telling me what happened in your staring contest with Rossi?" I asked. If he told me to butt out, I would, but I was curious. "You managed to do that longer than serial killers, you know."

Michael sighed and then pulled me sideways until my legs and feet rested in his lap for physical contact.

"He got two apartments because us living together full time is too much, too fast," he finally said.

I acknowledged the truth of that since despite our friendship, the romance was still a little uncertain and brand new.

"But if I'm across the hall from you, that's someone to watch over you and keep an eye out for that sick bastard."

"That shouldn't be your responsibility," I objected. "I don't need you to protect me."

Michael looked bleak. "But I need to feel like I can protect you."

I had known within hours of waking up in my hospital room that Michael would always feel blame for leaving me the night Foyet had attacked. It wasn't rational and it wasn't truthful, but it was there. And that guilt was now a near-constant presence in our relationship, one that both of us tried to ignore and refused to acknowledge to each other.

That desperate need to make up for his perceived failure flavored his kiss when he pulled me forward and our lips met. I felt the need for assurance in his touch as his hands tried to remove my clothing gently and ghosted around the bandages and stiches that still held my body together. Michael didn't flinch from my still-healing wounds, but he didn't accept that they weren't his fault.

I couldn't confront him on this without breaking whatever spell it was that kept the flood waters at bay in both of us. Something warned me that it would hurt us both very much and I couldn't afford to lose him from my life.

But I knew that wouldn't hold forever. Soon, we would have to address the issues between us, no matter how much we feared the outcome. That was part of growing up, too.

Notes:

Yeah, I couldn't stay away long. But my problem was that I had events that I wanted to have happen after Mvt IV but before Mvt V because they really didn't fit with either season. So I'm trying something new with Interlude. None of these chapters are episode-specific since they take place between seasons four and five and as the number just so happened to work out, each chapter is titled with a scale degree which also works because simply playing up a scale transitions music between octaves.

About scale degrees. Most of you actually know what I'm talking about more than you think. You just probably know the Solfeggio names better than the musical theory terminology. Instead of Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, when analyzing music, musicians will write Tonic, Supertonic, Mediant, Subdominant, Dominant, Submediant, and Leading Tone. For shorthand, Roman numerals are also used for each scale tone and chords based on each tone. We even differentiate between major and minor chords using uppercase and lower case numerals. But that's probably more of a music lesson than people are looking for when summer break is approaching.

And that's probably why I decided to go ahead and post this chapter now, even though I only have four of the seven written. It's graduation season and I thought this chapter would be appropriate timing.

Thanks for joining me once again. I'll have the second chapter posted next week Saturday or Sunday.

Cantoris