Short one-shot because it's early and I'm board. This has nothing to do with my Reid/Leah world.
Erin Strauss stretched and got up from her desk piled with mounds of paperwork. It seemed that was all she had been doing since coming back from rehab. She grabbed a mug and filled it with coffee, watching the most famous of the BAU's teams at work beneath her.
She smiled to herself. They thought that she knew nothing about them, and that they knew everything about her, when in fact it was quite the opposite. They weren't so unalike, she and them. She shared things with every member of that team, whether they knew it or not.
Outside of the sound of their respective names, she shared with Agent Aaron Hotchner the fact that they had both done the job that she was doing now. She knew that at one time they had both had spouses that had left them. Hers had come back after she made it clear she was done with alcohol. His never had. And many a time they had had the shared experience of sitting alone in their respective offices when the Bureau was dark and silent, everyone else all ready having left, sometimes because of work, sometimes because they simply didn't want to face their lives outside of their jobs.
She shared more with SSA David Rossi more then either one of them cared to ever admit, and neither planned to ever do so. She sometimes wondered if it would occur to the people she was watching that at the time the fraternization rules were implemented, something correctly attributed entirely to Rossi, that she had been the only female working in the BAU. She sincerely hoped not. The thought made her cringe.
With SSA Derek Morgan she shared growing up in a single-parent household, and, admittedly, a temper. Also, outside of Agent Hotchner, he was the only one who knew where she had been involved in her "vacations". And for some reason, she trusted him to keep the destinations of those "vacations" secret.
With Agent Emily Prentiss she shared the experience of having to work hard at getting to the points where they were in the BAU. And now they both had to do it all over again since coming back from the dead, so to speak. Agent Prentiss, literally, Erin herself was waking up after a long standing addiction to alcohol. She shared a growing attraction toward someone above her in the BAU chain of command, someone she would never dream of actually pursuing. The team meant to much to her for her to risk that. Erin was glad to have overcome her similar attraction toward Rossi long ago.
Succumbing to and overcoming an addiction, was what she had in common with Agent Dr. Spencer Reid. Oh, she knew she wasn't supposed to know about the addiction he had overcome, but it took one to know one. He knew she knew about him and she knew he knew about her. She felt the weight of the one-year medallion she had pinned to the inside of her suit, out of sight, but always there, always a reminder. It had been left for her in her office during the low point in her addiction and had helped her fight it. Who else could have left it there for her but him?
With the newest profiler, but one of the longest-standing members of the team, SSA Jennifer Jareau she shared confusion. Confusion about how people could be so cruel, how you were supposed to deal with everything without becoming jaded. How you were supposed to stop at night, knowing that these things still happened all around you, that they never stopped. How you were supposed to get up in the morning every morning and fight, knowing that there were those waiting for you to fall.
And with technical analyst Penelope Garcia she shared a very real terror that one day all of this would overwhelm her, choke out any good she might still have left inside. She shared hidden feelings, sometimes disgust, toward this job, this place, and, some days, the world at large, over all the wrong and horrible things that the human race was capable of.
No, they really weren't all that different, she and the members of the team. Not that she would ever dream of telling them that.
Erin sat back down to her paperwork.
Please reveiw! Okay, I realize I have some people miffed at me at the moment because of how I handled my recent poll, so I want to apologize for that. I did intend to use it, but as I got to looking into the later storyline, I couldn't figure out a way to do that and work it all out the way it's supposed to go. So, again, sorry. Also, as I've been saying, as of March 20th, you won't hear from me until April 20th, unless something changes. I have no idea what to do after this anyway. :(