Reid's pencil nearly snapped between his fingers. He twiddled it in concentration; the harder he concentrated, the harder he twiddled.
He had decided that he was going to speak to Ella Deliliah—the young girl who was tapping away at her keyboard—but he couldn't figure out how to break the ice. Getting up, Reid began slowly walking over to her, racking his brain for something to speak to her about. His eyes studied her desk, landing on the few little bits and bobs she had on her desk, finally landing on a framed painting of a rose that sat beside her computer. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips as he realized he figured out the subject of his first solo talk with the team's new intern.
"Did you know that there are over one-hundred species of the rose, and despite the common phrase 'a rose's thorns,' they're actually called 'prickles' because they are on the surface of the stem rather than being deeper rooted into the plant." Reid spoke quickly, more as a statement than a question, causing Delilah to look up at him. He gestured to the framed photo, her eyes following his gesture and smiling.
Reid fiddled with his hands as his mouth stretched out into a line. "Are they your favorite flower?" He asked.
Delilah smiled and picked up the frame. "You could say that." She turned the frame in her hands, gently sliding the back of the frame off with her thumbs as they glided over words that were written on the back of the painting. "My mom painted this for me while she was in cancer treatment," her glittering blue eyes flicked up to the tall boy who was standing next to her, "and I think that, since then, the rose has been my favorite flower."
The day was coming to an end. The team had just solved a case and everyone was ready to head home and sleep it off.
It was the day after Reid's conversation with Ella Delilah, but neither of them could get the idea of speaking to one another a second time out of their mind. When Delilah had made her way out of the conference room, she noticed that Reid had already left. Her shoulders slumped, due to her earlier plans to catch him before he went home, eager to have another conversation with the boy who knew everything.
As she made her way back to her desk, she noticed something lying across her keyboard. She took her glasses from the neck of her shirt and slid them on, a gentle gasp leaving her lips as she noticed what the foreign object on her desk was. She made her way over and picked it up, twirling it between her fingers as a big smile found it's way onto her tired face.
A single red rose.