It had been a long, long couple of days. She was beyond relieved when Hotch told them they had the next two days off to relax and recuperate.
She took an extremely long, extremely hot bath, put on her most relaxing music, turned a romantic comedy on for background noise and settled in with her computer eager to lose herself in her favorite past time.
It was a Thursday night, which tended to be the busiest night on her favorite RPG, Sweetly Sinful and she was more than ready to take on the role of Cynthia Stewart.
Cynthia, or CiCi as her fellow players tended to call her, was a gorgeous, smart, sexy thirty year old with chestnut locks and piercing green eyes. She was strong, opinionated and determined which she showed by becoming the youngest assistant district attorney in the history of Las Felicos.
Unfortunately it seemed that no one was around to play with Cici tonight. There wasn't one person in the chat room….not one single person. How was that even possible?
She hit the refresh button hoping that when the page opened again she would find at least three or four residents of Las Felicos to play around with.
Still there was nothing.
Annoyed she went to the kitchen to get herself a drink. It took her twenty minutes to get the margarita just right and she finally headed back to her computer, sure that there would other people around by now.
She was wrong again and found herself staring at a blank screen. This was getting ridiculous.
Then….Eureka…someone was finally here!
She was so excited at first that it took her a minute to realize she didn't know who the person was. Sweetly Sinful was a pretty small group, it wasn't that they didn't let new people in; it's just usually she knew about it before they just showed up in a chat room.
"Hi there, Cici," popped up suddenly on her the chat screen.
She looks at it with confusion. The chat name read Evan Towers. Finally she shrugged and figured she should get to know the new guy.
"Hi," she typed back, willing top play the game, "So how do you know my name?"
"I just moved here recently. My names Evan Towers and I just bought Teleco. I make it a point to know the important people in my town, especially the gorgeous and successful ADAs."
She giggled a little and clicked to bring up the main page of the RPG until she got to the character list. Sure enough she found a picture of the gorgeous "Evan Towers" with an in depth character description.
He was 35, a businessman and filthy rich. He'd bought the town's huge corporate conglomerate. They'd been looking for a new owner since the previous owner, Sandy Smith, had died (aka gotten too busy for the game).
"Well," she typed, eager to be the first to get to know Mr. Towers, "I'm flattered to know you think me important. Unfortunately I have to admit that I hadn't even realized Teleco had sold and to such a….successful and attractive businessman."
"Now, I'm flattered," he wrote back.
She smiled, "How long have you bee in Las Felicos."
"About a month and I must say I have searched for you to no avail."
Her eyes widened, "Searched? Where?"
"Anywhere. There was a big party I was sure you'd like be at last week. I spent all night hoping for a dance with you."
Damn, she suddenly hated her job. She'd had to stay late that night, well after the rest of the team had gone home, because she'd found a virus on one of the computers. By the time she got home she was exhausted.
"Sorry I got in…involved in work. I'm sure you can understand how demanding a job can be."
"Can I ever sweetness?" the nickname caused a jolt but she ignored it.
"Well, I'm here now," she said.
"That you are. Guess we can't dance in the middle of Main Street. How about we get some coffee instead?"
She agreed and they flirted until someone else joined the chat. Soon it was filled with people like she'd earlier wanted and suddenly she wished it was empty again.
They continued chatting within the RPG room for days. Until finally he e-mailed her and asked if it would be okay for them to chat on their own. She eagerly agreed and soon they'd talked every night. Discussing their likes and dislikes, favorite movies, sharing music, and watching late night infomercials together. It felt like she was in high school again with that giddy feeling of first love.
There was just one problem.
Every time she imagined her hunky Evan Towers she didn't see a made up image, or even the picture he'd posted. Instead she saw….Derek.
More and more her mystery man sounded like Derek. From his belief on justice to him calling her sweetness or goddess once and a while just before signing off for the night, she couldn't get her co-worker and her mystery man to separate themselves in her mind.
Still, this was the most romance she'd had in what seemed like forever so she forced herself to push away any thoughts that might ruin it.
But then suddenly her mystery man disappeared. He stopped signing on, stopped sending her e-mails, and just seemed to drop off the face of the planet.
She tried to tell herself it was no big deal that he'd probably just got caught up in the real world for a few days. But after about a week she started to feel like she'd done something to drive him away.
That's when the deliveries start. She received the DVDs first. They were of her favorite show, Battlestar Galactica.
Then tickets to Wicked which she'd wanted to see forever and two first class plane tickets to New York.
But still there was no e-mail, no letter with the gifts, no way of her knowing who was sending them to her.
It had to be Evan, there was no one else, but she'd never given him her real name, or told him where she worked. She was completely lost about what to do next.
She was staring into space trying to figure it out when suddenly a single red tulip appeared in front of her face.
It was her favorite flower. Only two people knew that it was, Evan and J.J. She spun slowly in her chair, anxious, yet afraid to see who was holding the flower.
She was unable to speak as she found herself face to face with Derek Morgan.
"I believe this is for you…..CiCi," he said and waited until she finally reached out and took the flower.
"Derek?" she asked, "'Are you…..Evan?"
He smiled, "It took you long enough."
She continued to staring at him, still not sure this was actually happening, "I don't…I don't understand. How did you?"
"I talked to J.J. She filled me in on the name of your favorite role playing game, found it, joined and well….waited for you."
"But…why?" she asked, "Why didn't you just ask me out? You must have known I'd say yes."'
He smiled, "I hoped." He kneeled down next to her, "I also knew that I didn't just want a date from you. I didn't want you to think you were just like any other woman I've dated. I wanted to do something special, to make you feel special, because you're special to me."
She couldn't have kept the smiled off of her face if she tried and she lunged forward to kiss him as his arms came around her body.
She pressed her face into his neck as he pulled her up against his body, "So," he whispered in her ear, "Are you disappointed you're Evan Towers?"
"No," she said, "In fact I'm thrilled that he turned out to be Derek Morgan. It's who I wanted all along."
He smiled and kissed her again, better than any mystery man.