Chapter One:

Aster walked down the hall coolly, carrying a small cardboard box. They came to a pair of double doors and stopped. Carefully, they moved the box in order to grab the door handle. Their fingers grazed the door as they struggled. "Here, let me get that," a voice came beside them, opened the door for them.

"Ah, thanks," they said, entering the office. A tall black man smirked down at them.

"You're a fresh face here. The name's Derek Morgan."

"Aster Green," they replied simply.

"Well, Aster Green, welcome to the BAU," Derek said, and walked ahead.

Aster let out a short sigh, "Thanks..." They murmured, glancing around the room, until they found a small nameplate on the desk labeled 'Aster Green'. Assuming this was theirs, Aster began unpacking the box, which held a few books, their laptop, and a small potted plant in a green ceramic pot.

"Agent Green," a voice said behind them. Aster turned, seeing a tall man behind her. He was tall, white, and cleanly shaven. His outfit and posture absolutely screamed authority, but Aster saw the ring on his finger and the remains of baby powder in his nails. Definitely a family man then, and with only one child - if were more than one, he'd appear more than he was, or wouldn't be in such an authoritative job.

"Hello," Aster smiled, putting out their hand to shake. "You must be SSA Hotchner. It's good to meet you, sir."

"Nice to finally meet you as well, and please, just Hotch. This way," he motioned to a short flight of steps, and started moving. Aster quickly followed, as he led the way to an office with a cluttered desk. Aster inhaled at the mess and Hotch probably heard because he said, "Sorry about the mess. We've been a bit busy lately."

"That's what I'm here for," Aster said. "To lighten the workload, I guess."

Hotch chuckled, "Right. Have a seat," he waved to the chair and Aster sat, their posture intimately perfect. "So," he pulled out a file folder. "You specialized in... Child murders in Los Angeles and New York?"

"Yes," Aster replied. "I worked mostly with gang members in those areas, and more as I was shifted from place to place. I also dabbled slightly in homocides involvings false suicide notes, or messages in those regions, and a select few times, the missing child branch of child pornography."

"That's a very wide variety," Hotch said honestly and Aster could help a laugh.

"I'm what they'd call 'jack of all trades'," Aster laughed, and Hotch have a slight nod, agreeing.

"Well, it's good to have you on the team," Hotch said, and Aster smiled slightly.

"My pleasure."

Ω.Ω.Ω

As Aster returned to their desk, they noticed a small group of three people had formed around it. Aster rose an eyebrow as they approached. One of the people there happened to be Derek Morgan from earlier.

"Hello," Aster said, as they turned to greet her.

"I told them that a newbie was coming in," Derek smirked, crossing their arms. There was one man who looked a few years younger than herself, and a woman in her earlier thirties, late twenties. The woman had straight blonde hair with a teal blouse, black blazer, pencil skirt and three inch heels. Aster knew immediately that this woman was not on the field - at all.

The young was skin and had combed back hair, a white button down shirt, and black slacks.

"Jennifer Jareau, but everyone just calls me J. J.," Astee nodded and shook her hand.

"Spencer... Ried," Spencer said, adding his surname as if it were an afterthought. Aster nodded at him, but didn't take his hand.

"Aster Green. New to BAU, but not to the work," they smiled. "It's nice to meet you all. Anyone else I should see?"

"Probably Garcia, but she'll be out of her cave soon, and Gideon, if you haven't met him."

"'Cave'?" Aster asked curiously, a tad bit confused.

"She's our techie, and an absolute genius at her job," Derek told them. "You're going to get along fine."

Aster smirked, "I hope we do."

"What kind of flower is that?" Jennifer asked, motioning to get flower pot.

"Oh! They're... Asters," Aster laughed, rubbing behind their head. "They're hypoallergenic, in case anyone's allergic."

Jennifer nodded, "Well, welcome to the team. We just got back from a case two days ago, so we're just doing paperwork at three moment." She turned to Derek and Spencer, "Speaking of, I gotta go. I have a ton of work to finish." The two men nodded, waving as she left.

Aster sat down, and began unpacking her box. "So, what did you do before coming here?" Spencer asked.

"Well, I pretty much dabbled in a bit of everything. My main locations were New York and L. A., but I worked child murders, false suicide notes, notes left behind from unsubs, and a bit of missing children cases."

Derek rose an eyebrow, "That's a lot."

Aster laughed, "The cases interested me, so I took them."

"The false suicide notes one is intriguing. How did you do that?" Spencer asked.

"Uh... Like this," Aster looked around for a pen, and grabbed one off the desk beside they, and used a single sheet of printer paper.

They laid the paper out and wrote their name. "Okay, now write something different." They said, handing the pen to Spencer.

Spencer wrote 'The cat runs fast' in scraggly handwriting. "Okay, now let me see." He handed her the paper, and she looked at it for a moment before writing, 'The day was a cold dark one, and the night brisk.' Their handwriting had changed and now looked just like Spencer's.

"Whoa," Derek murmured, impressed.

"Hmm..." Spencer nodded, impressed.

"I used to do calligraphy, when I was a kid. Turned out that it was a stupid thing to do, but it taught me a lot on handwriting, which lead to fogery. With notes like these, it helps me profile the unsub."

"Interesting," Spencer murmured. "Can I keep this?"

"Go ahead. I don't like trash, and clutter," they shrugged. "Welp. That's me. What about you, Mister Ried?"

"Uh, it's Doctor Ried, actually," Spencer corrected politely, gently putting the sheet of paper in-between a binder.

"He's a genius," Derek boasted proudly, smacking Spencer on his back, grinning.

Spencer winced slightly, "Not for long, if you keep trying to fracture my spine," He muttered and Aster laughed, covering their smile with their mouth. Both of them went silent for a moment, and Aster caught on.

"So, thanks for the introduction, but I should probably start actually working now," they smirked, going over to her desk. They finished unpacking the last item, then walked over to J. J., who had also been at her desk.

"Hey, Aster, is everything alright?" J. J. asked.

"No, everything is fine. I just wanted to know if you have any paperwork you'd want some help with?" Aster asked, chuckling.

J.J. smiled, "Yeah. Of course, here," She moved to pick up a small stack of file folders and handed it to her. "Some of our past cases that still needs the ends tied. So you think you can manage it?"

"Yeah! Thanks," Aster said gratefully than went back to their desk and got to work.

Ω.Ω.Ω

Aster was slightly impressed with the cases she browsed as she went through the paperwork. The team's intelligence and perception was astounding, and it intruiged Aster.

Hours had gone by without Aster's knowing. They hadn't known it had been late until a hand touched their shoulder.

They nearly jumped out of their skin, turning around quickly. Their right hand flinched, wanting to go to the gun at their waist, but they didn't move. "Whoa, I didn't mean to scare you," Derek said, hands raised.

"Oh, sorry. Course you didn't," They let out a laugh, but it was forced and awkward.

"It's getting late, do you need a ride home?" Derek asked, but Aster shook their head.

"No thanks, I got have a car," they pushed a strange of curly dark hair behind their ear. "Thanks for the offer, though."

"Anytime," he smiled. "Are you alright?"

"Why do you ask?" Aster rose an eyebrow.

"You jumped just then, and almost reached for your gun," He said, his hand pointed to her waist where her government-issued gun was strapped.

"I just... Wasn't expecting that. And, you scared me," they shrugged. "Besides, enough experience from this job taught me to pretty much never let my guard down." They smirked, and stood, stretching for a minute, before going to collect their things. They put the papers in their bag, taking it with them.

"You're taking it home with you?" Derek raised an eyebrow.

"Well, I might as well. I want to learn more about you guys and how you work. This, to me, is the best way to get at that," they shrugged, and continued to pack their bag. When they finally finished, they looked up. "You know you don't have to stay here, right?"

"I thought I'd walk you to your car," he shrugged and Aster let out a laugh, beginning to walk out. "What? Is it not custom that men walk beautiful young women to their cars?"

Aster shook their head, "What makes you think that I need to be walked to my car?"

"Maybe the fact that you haven't told me I shouldn't yet?"

"Ah, I see," Aster rose an eyebrow, "So if I tell you to go, then you'll leave?"

"If that's what you want, but," he grinned, "I wouldn't suggest it."

"You're so silly," they shook their head, but walked to the elevator, and pressed the button to get to the parking garage. Aster leaned against the elevator wall, resting their head against it as the elevator moved.

"So, where are you from?" Derek asked curiously.

"Uh, L. A.," they said, after a moment of confusion. "Then, we moved to New York."

"'We'?"

"My parents. My father got a great job opportunity, so we picked up and moved," they shrugged.

"Damn, that must've been hard as a kid," Derek commented as the doors opened and Aster stepped out into the garage. It was best empty execpt for a select few cars. It was also cold, and Aster's voice echoed in the quietness.

"It was, yeah," Aster agreed, "But it always gets worse before it gets better, right? I lived."

Derek nodded, agreeingly, and Aster asked him the same question. "I'm from 'Cago."

"Oh, wow," Aster rose an eyebrow. They were generally aware of the statistics and crime rate from the infamous city. It was shocking to hear that Derek had came from such a place.

"Ah, that's the look," he chuckled.

"What's the look?"

"The 'You-Came-Out-Of-The-Hood-And-You-Work-For-The-Government' look," He shrugged. "Don't worry. I get that everytime I mention it."

"That must get annoying," Aster commented.

"I prefer to think of it as an interesting conversation starter." Aster laughed, shaking their head.

"You're a strange man, Derek Morgan. Unfortunately, I won't be able to learn much more about you." They turned to their car, "That's my ride. It was nice talking to you, though, thanks for walking me here." They smiled and moved to their car, opening the door and sitting down.

"No problem," he shrugged. "Have a good night," he said, then turned to leave.

Aster easily found her keys and started the car, heading home.

Ω.Ω.Ω.Ω.Ω.Ω.Ω.Ω.Ω.Ω.Ω.Ω.Ω.Ω.Ω.Ω.Ω.Ω

Ta-da! New story, and it's going to be much different than my usual ones, lol.

I know a lot of you wanted the sequel for Fading Echoes, but I'm not quite ready for it yet, there's still some loose ends I want to tie up in the story line, and I still haven't written my SuperWhoLock story as well - which is why you've been seeing me update GAW and SIF more frequently.

Since I kinda finished SOC first, I might write the SuperWhoLock story first, however, nothing is certain.

The next chapter is going to go over scheduling and the different options for this story, but since it was really long, I'm just going to put it in the next chapter, and then let y'all decide on what you think might be best there. When we've got a final decision, I'll delete it and work on the story!

That's all I got for now y'all, I'll see y'all next time, and remember...

Don't melt~!
- Happyritas OOO