A/N: This story will have at between five to seven chapters, and it will feature the team's insights into what I think is the most adorable thing about profilers: their own blindness to seemingly innocent behavioral cues. First off, Garcia.

Omniscience in a room full of experienced profilers

Penelope Garcia is nothing if not intuitive. Underneath a lifetime of electronic metaphorical crutches and retro accessories is someone not entirely unfamiliar with her own talent for innate omniscience. Such a talent, however, when it comes to a room full of well-trained profilers, is an asset better used as a concealed weapon. Mind you, a pink, fluffy, used-for-good-and-for-good-only concealed weapon, but a kickass advantage nevertheless.

Ironically, Penelope Garcia forgot the most important rule about omniscience: the one thing it does not prepare you for is for its own consequences. And that's because omniscience can read into everyone's life except her own. With great power comes great responsibility, and all that crap.

Crap indeed. Hotch just stood up and nobody gave it a second glance. He gave his chair to JJ, as any gentleman would, but then he lingered. He lingered. And she smiled. Not to him. Not to them. She smiled into her shoulder, into his lingering. And neither saw either. Damned omniscience and its owl-like wisdom and insights.

"Garcia, did you ask the sheriff about both victims' sealed records?"

Oh, yes, focus on that chocolate beauty of yours. Eyes like those should be forbidden to roam the earth among mere mortals.

"Of course. As I was saying…"

Maybe she can fool them with creepy words and scary stories. That always seems to do the trick. Blood, and guts, and brains, and knives, and headless bodies, and bodiless heads.

"Damn, that's one hell of an angry guy." Reid's thoughtful faraway look is proof enough of her success. Nobody noticed her poorly masked stunned look, or her squeak-of-surprise-turned into-a-sneeze. Not even Rossi, with all his frustratingly accomplished past of penetrating the most unreadable minds of the planet.

"Or woman." Prentiss adds, almost as an afterthought.

"It's unlikely, but not impossible." Reid concedes. "Although the degree of rage, the highly physical MO and the victim's ages all point towards a very fit male unsub."

"Or a very fit woman. Rumor has it there are some… in very remote parts of the world..." JJ smiles provocatively, and pats her growing belly affectionately. Garcia absolutely does not see Hotch eyeing the blond in silent, but playful, disapproval.

"All pregnant women are beautiful, kid." Rossi chuckles and closes his file. "So when do we leave?"

Everyone looks at Hotch, who just nods, and they all seem to know what to do. Garcia observes fondly from a distance. A family with procedures, as she often thinks of them. Only while everyone is focusing every available neurone on where their go-bags are or on cracking the case before setting foot on the jet, Garcia's omniscience is running at full blast.

And it catches a glimpse of uncensored behaviour. A tiny glitch in an otherwise perfectly nonchalant manner of being. While her own body functions on autopilot, her eyes shamelessly scan the scene in front of them.

Hotch, in his gentle but firm way, subtly guides JJ away from the rest into a corner of the room.

"Do you want to stay behind on this one?" Although Garcia is quite sure the tone Hotch was going for was stern, she is even more certain he wanted his body language to match his spoken message. Which is not happening. At all. Not judging by his slightly fidgety feet or his hand hovering – without touching – JJ's back.

"Do you want me to?" Garcia also knows that the innocent-somewhat-submissive-yet-hurt look has a certain certified effect on the opposite sex. Judging by JJ's lack of breathing and faintly parted lips, however, the tech suspects it is not a conscious flirting effort on the blond's behalf. Oh, damn. It would be so much easier if it were something she could tease JJ about and be done with.

"It's not about what I want. It's about what is safe." Garcia actually smiles at that. Their boss, ever so gallant and honourable, his honest intentions getting betrayed by the subtlest sigh of relief as he read into JJ's behaviour even before she got to respond.

"I feel safe with you." And thank all the heavens for the English pronouns and their merciful way-outs. Maybe JJ meant the team. You, as in all of the team. The entirety of the team, as a group. You, as plural, and not as a sole person. omniscience can go take a long walk, and come back only when it is time for trivia night with Kevin. If JJ and Hotch can pretend not to hear what they're both actually saying, then so can she. And so she will.

And as everyone but Garcia is entering the jet, she is left thinking – unamused, one might add – that omniscience, in a room filled with experienced profilers, rather than a must-have skill, is incredibly overrated.

A/N: The first of five is done. I just love this pairing. Tell me what you think!