If there was a better way to go then it would find me

I can't help it, the road just rolls out behind me

Be kind to me, or treat me mean

I'll make the most of it, I'm an extraordinary machine

'BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP'

What is that?

'BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP'

I roll around until I can actually grasp the small menace before chucking it across the room. I hear it hit my bookshelf and land in the garbage can. Fantastic. I get up, my face sagging with tiredness and laced in a fine pattern of pink blood rush. I stumble across the room, my feet agilely dodging things like a tossed hairbrush or a wrapper of something that I forgot to throw away. I fish my phone out of the wastebasket to read reluctantly in giant block letters across the screen.

'SLOAN

(Annoying nerd boy)

DO NOT ANSWER'

Why would he be calling me? Why now? Why this early in the morning? I check the time sitting just below his name and see that it is indeed not morning, but three in the afternoon. Still. Why would the whiny annoying boy from flight amp be calling her? Sloan was short and skinny, with square glasses the same thickness as PVC pipe. He was a know it all, a baby, and a snob. And sadly, He took to me like a mutant fish to toxic waste, which was to say, well. He would always congratulate me when I got good grades and then proceed to offer me 'tips' and 'pointers' even though I hadn't asked for any. He would offer me countless times for a study date for our next test over every type of delivery food you can think of. I had a lovely habit of getting headaches or scheduling skype sessions with home at the exact same time he invited me places. Sloan was the type of person who would order a dish with very specific standards and then send it back if it didn't taste how he thought it would taste, even if he had never had it before. In other words, getting rid of him was the best thing that came out of my discharge.

I sigh and pick up the phone, ready to say 'wrong number' and hang up.

"Hello?"

"Hey! Charlotte! It's me, Jerry! I hope you're adjusting well to the job search life! However, it sound like you're not doing very well, your nose sounds all sniffly and your voice sounds lower, so you've probably been crying, huh? Why not tell me about it? We never talk anymore!"

I sigh again, resisting the sudden urge to eat glass.

"Hello Sloan."

"C'mon, Char. Call me Jerry!"

"Charlotte." I mumble. I'm not one of those people who necessarily has issue with nicknames, but only with people who know me well enough to nickname me.

"I'm fine, Sloan. I am fine. I haven't been crying, and I literally left three days ago. I am tired"

"Tired? It's three P.M. And I thought you were a morning person!"

I should stop. I should tell him that my (nonexistent) cat is dying or that someone just paged in that Elton John was in my apartment complex and that I just had to see him or…

"I am, Sloan. I tried getting up this morning, but after doing a few chores, I just fell back asleep. I think I'm sick."

Not entirely untrue, I watered my plants and fed my fish and put an apology note on my downstairs neighbor's door, but then the whole 'fall back asleep until an unhealthy hour' thing was more my own will and design.

"Oh! You see, I figured. Coach took us to the FBI and CIA one day to see how the techies there work. I got to check out the BAU. I didn't mention this to the others but they were outspokenly impressed." Oh, I bet they were, you never ending talk box of a man. And then, he keeps going, unsurprisingly.

"You know, I was going to ask if you were on your, You kno-"

I hang up. I expect that he'll take the hint and not try that hopefully, ever again in his lifetime, but it seems that he doesn't know better. After four calls go unanswered, he starts texting me

BING

HEY

BING

WHATS UP

BING

Sorry for the caps lock XD

BING

BING

BING

I turned my phone off. I'll fix this later. Make an excuse, maybe get a new number. Doesn't really matter now. Sleep. Well, sleep, a record on the player, and late-late breakfast, which was a staple of the opportune-less life.

And long live the Queen.

Spencer's POV

I wake up to my alarm, the familiar beeping drawing my head from my pillows and launching my hand to the off button. It's still dark outside except for the city lights twinkling through my curtains. It's cold outside of the bed. It always is. I have the overwhelming desire to stay in bed, to forget everything, to sleep, but this seems a fruitless cause, because:

A) I can't forget, and I doubt I ever will

B) The city will awaken soon, the cars beeping and planes landing and I won't be able to concentrate enough to even close my eyes.

C) Hotch will kill me if I don't get up.

And so I rise, attacked by the cold and darkness of the room I sometimes rarely sleep in. I run my hands through my hair and try to find my light switch, my hands running over my walls until it's underneath my fingers. I flick at it and flinch, for my eyes weren't ready for the quick transition. I wipe over my eyes, sweeping the sleep away, and start getting ready.

I remind myself of the nimble Felis Catus (House cat) when I get ready. Mostly in that I find it extremely easy to fall over and stumble over myself when I'm trying to be swift, tripping over the clothes I don while trying to keep my balance.

I believe myself to be ready when I do a final check in the mirror. Great. I seem to have changed- for the most part- into my work clothes, but not out of my PJs. And no matter how cool I think Star Trek is, I wouldn't be caught dead wearing Starfleet fleece in front of Derek Morgan, or any of my coworkers, for that matter. The clock is running out and if I'm not quick I might actually be on time, instead of my usual early manner, but I shouldn't fret. I'll be early. I always am.

Once my actual pants are on, I go to the bathroom to wash my face and brush a comb through my hair. I think it looks fine, but both Prentiss and JJ have suggested putting it in a ponytail. It's occurred to me, but I don't really like it. It makes my hair all tight and really uncomfortable. It's funny. Ponytails are typically looked at as being feminine in today's day and age, but ponytails can be traced back as early as the eighteenth century when men wore their hair up in ribbons. It wasn't until the twentieth century until women wore them, and even then, they rarely wore them outside of the boudoir. A lot of things weren'-

My thought process is thrown off track when I realize the water coming from the sink spicket isn't getting warmer, even though the hot water dial is turned all the way up. The cold water dial isn't even on. I feel my hands. They're ice. I've probably had my hands here for two or three minutes and I haven't noticed. My thought process has been a bit dazed recently, I've been less aware of my surroundings. I can't let this happen when I get to work. I assume the hot water's out or something, maybe a broken heater or busted pipe. Even though washing your hands in cold water isn't the most efficient for killing germs, it'll have to do. I swipe an old physics book from my shelf for the metro and head out the door.

There's a note there. It's blue and it has terrible handwriting on it, but it's big, so I can read it. Well, considering my mom's a schizophrenic, I've had plenty of experience with illegible writing. I used to find it everywhere, on the walls, traced over itself in childhood books I used to read, in permanent marker on the dashboard of our car…

The writing says

"Sorry about your hot water! I accidently used it all while trying to hand wash some of my clothes. Won't happen again!

-Your upstairs neighbor. (5G)

P.S.- If there are any crazy water bill charges showing up on your bill instead of mine, please tell me. I'd be happy to pay it."

Well that explains that. I don't think I'll talk to them, even if there is a bill. It's all just superficial stuff, nothing I wouldn't have to pay eventually. I check my watch and start running down the hall. Only fifteen minutes early. If I catch the right line, I can make it back to twenty. I run back to the door and take the note, then proceed to throw it in the trashcan next to the elevator. I know it doesn't make a difference, but having something on a door in a public hallway inclines the public to read it, even if they don't know they wanted to. It's human nature to want to know other people's business, even if I, personally, have never felt it egregiously. It's the type of simple thing that could lead to obsession or danger or death or calling the FBI to investigate and making me pull and pull my own sanity apart to find who would do something like this to a person.

Stop. I need to stop. Stop and get on the subway and this is my job. I've seen a lot of things like this before, why does it bother me so much?

Because it reminded me of what I could be, who I could be, a schizo with a foggy mind and an unclear sense of right and wrong.

Which is why I do what I do every day, help clear right and wrong.

So I'll never be one of them.