A/N: one-shot, silly, in response to the April Fools' Prompt on Fanfic Challenge Round 10 proposed by tonnie2001969.

"What's the matter with Reid?" asked Rossi, making a late entrance to his office. He'd passed the young doctor in the hallway, storming out with a grim look on his face.

"April Fool's joke," Morgan commented. "Sort of."

"I see." Rossi waited, and when no explanation was forthcoming, lifted an eyebrow and proceeded into his office. The bullpen was quiet enough that Morgan could hear the lights fizz on.

"You know," Rossi's voice drifted down from above, "for an April Fool's joke, this isn't very subtle."

Prentiss and Morgan shot up from their chairs as though someone had pressed an eject button. Glancing at one another, they half-ran up the stairs to Rossi's office. They froze at the door and stared.

David Rossi stood behind his desk. His face wasn't sure whether it was amused or irritated, though it wavered more towards the former at the expressions of the two agents who'd collided in the doorframe. "Relax. I'm pretty sure it's nonlethal." He held up a small blue pot containing a completely round plant with long, sharp spines. Something dangled from one of the plant's needles and a sticker was pasted on the front. Seeing as Morgan and Prentiss hadn't said anything yet, he continued, "I found this on my chair." Eyebrow raised.

"Well? Did you think I was going to sit down without looking?"

Prentiss and Morgan looked at each other, looked back at Rossi, and started speaking at the same time.

"Sir, I don't know why you think we -"

"Why do I automatically get suspected when anything goes wrong -"

"Relax, relax," Rossi muttered. "I suppose it wasn't you after all. But it doesn't seem like Reid's style, either."

"Reid?" they chorused. "He just left," finished Prentiss.

"I know that," Rossi reminded them, patiently. "But look here." His finger tapped the bottom edge of the pot. The sticker was a name tag, but most of the space beneath "Hello, my name is" was blank. Block capitals ran along the bottom, stating, "PROPERTY OF DOCTOR SPENCER REID."

"Rossi, normally, I would say, just return it to him – confront him with it, or not – but I don't understand what is going on here today," Morgan admitted. "Reid is pretty upset about those notes he's been getting." Which then, of course, required an explanation of the morning's events. The three agents stood silently for a moment.

"Well, I'm not much for houseplants," Rossi decided aloud, "so, despite the risk, I think I'm going to return this one to its rightful owner. Assuming it's not lying about who that is." He walked down to Reid's desk, dutifully trailed by Prentiss and Morgan, and set the little pot down with a thunk. The three of them stared at it.

Conveniently, Reid had chosen that moment to return, and burst through the door, accelerating at full speed once he saw Prentiss and Morgan had been joined by Rossi at his desk. His voice rose even higher as he confronted them. "Cactus?" he said, disbelievingly. "A cac- did you see, did you guys see who put that there?" He swallowed.

"I did," Rossi confessed. Reid looked at him, completely dumbstruck. "No, I mean, I found it in my office, with your name on it. On my chair, to be exact. I figured I should return it to you, although Prentiss and Morgan here weren't so sure." Morgan actually flinched. Reid opened and closed his mouth without saying anything. Once. Twice. A third time. He cleared his throat.

"I, uh. Okay." They stared at him. He stared back. "At least no new notes have appeared," he commented, attempting to restore some logic to the situation.

Prentiss' eyes widened. He turned towards her. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing!" She waved her hands and backed away. Rossi looked at the three of them, and shook his head, sighing. He walked back up to his office, muttering something to himself about "team".

Reid and Morgan remained facing each other for a long moment.

"Kid, I swear, I have nothing to do with this."

"Yeah, okay. Okay, Morgan. Thanks. Let's just, let's just get back to work."

"Right."

Morgan sat down, leaving Reid staring at the plant for a few moments before he followed suit. He picked up the pot and studied it. The handwriting from the post-its appeared to match the handwriting from the sticker. "Genus Ferocactus," he mused to himself. He poked experimentally at the soil with a long finger, and then realized he wasn't actually sure how to tell when to water a house cactus. He studied the cactus for a few moments. It was aesthetically appealing, he admitted to himself. And it had clearly been potted and prepared with care. He opened the tiny card.

"SORRY ABOUT THE NOTES" it read. "BUT I DON'T DRINK COFFEE. IRREGULAR WATER AND SUNSHINE. I LIKE TO DO LOTS OF THINGS – EVEN MOVIE MARATHONS!"

A corner of his mouth quirked upward in a grin. He carefully removed the card, nad placed it on top of the pile of post-it notes on his desk. He cleared a small space for the pot, and paused a moment to admire the effect before returning to work.

- SCENE BREAK -

At the end of the day, each of Morgan, Prentiss, and Rossi wished Reid a good night – and not a Happy April Fool's Day - before they left. Nothing unusual had happened to Prentiss all day, if you excepted her accidentally tripping over Morgan's foot when she got up for coffee herself.

Hotchner merely lifted an eyebrow at the pot, asking "Redecorating?" before proceeding home. When the bullpen fell silent and darkened, Reid picked up his phone. He dialed an internal number.

"Speak! And be blessed with the answers to all your questions."

"Garcia."

Silence.

"I know it was you."

Silence.

"Garcia?"

A small voice. "How did you find out?"

"Well, I figured you had someone else write the notes, because they clearly weren't written by you. But I hadn't told anyone what my plans were for the weekend. You were the only one who could have known that I had ordered the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy on DVD."

"Are you mad?"

"No, no, I'm not. Not anymore."

"I'm really sorry, Reid – I didn't mean to make you feel bad! I just thought it would be funny to leave you little notes from the plant, like she was talking to you. And I had them all written out, and so it was too late by the time I came to check on my work. . ." she trailed off.

"No, that's OK. I'm, uh, glad you didn't write more than four, though." Silence.

"You didn't write more than four, did you, Garcia?"

A pause, then, "Hang on, Boy Wonder."

Several moments later, he heard high heeled shoes hurriedly clicking along the corridor. Garcia paused, looking ashamed, when she first met his eye, but then hurried determinedly up to him and stood at his side. She reached an arm out, and for a moment, Reid thought she might have been going to hug him.

"I guess Morgan didn't point this one out, huh?" She pulled a final note from the back of his jacket. "I asked Rossi to stick it on for me." Reid's face flushed, a little, as he imagined his colleagues filing out of the office without commenting on the note stuck to his back.

"Go on, you might as well read the last one."

He fervently hoped it didn't say, "kick me" or something similar.

Written in Garcia's own hand, this note was much longer.

"I just wanted you to know that you have good friends who care about you. We know an unusual exterior can disguise a friendly heart. You've been awfully. . . well, extra awfully quiet, lately. So, you know, if you ever want company, some of the rest of us like Lord of the Rings, too."

Reid looked up at her. "Thanks, Garcia. This – is really nice."

She blushed and looked down at her feet. "I didn't mean to intrude. I just wanted you to know you have friends here."

"I do know that," he said, bending over to place this last note on top of the others. "I do."

Real friends are those who, when you feel you've made a fool of yourself, don't feel you've done a permanent job. ~Author Unknown