Disclaimer: Who thinks I can take down ABC and get the rights to Criminal Minds? Surveys hands up. Awww, you're all sweethearts. But no, I can't; takes out gear for a raid. Not yet, anyways. Wish me luck!
A/N: Isuzu is busy right now, so she asked me to do the intro. Natsumi also has another thing to ask you all: if she does the characters that have left the series, should she include what they're doing now? When you give your review, just give her your opinion. Thanks and happy readings.
Penelope Garcia rarely gets nightmares from her job, mostly because she makes it a point to make work a little less dreary and a lot more fun. She goes to work in an awesome outfit and a super cute pair of shoes. Her office is overflowing with personality and a crap load of insane awesomeness that it gives joy and color to the otherwise dreary and depressing world of the BAU. And she tries to spread what joy she has to those she loves, to help those that face the horror that she knows they face out there while she stays behind, safe in her office, surrounded by her babies, her computers, in her domain, as she helps them to solve the case and put away the newest slim ball.
She even devises a way to keep everything separate from herself, or as best she can. She knows that of all of them, she's the one that is usually the most affected by the case, partly because she lets herself care, actively, knowing that in doing so, she's opening herself up to others. But she knows that she has to, because if she didn't, it wouldn't feel right. It's part of the reason that she goes out to help the victims once a week, trying to do more to help the world. Because she, of all people, knows what it's like to lose the ones you love, the gaping wound it leaves behind, never truly closed, because every day she wakes up is another day that they aren't there, that she can't hug them, tell them she loves them, and that she wishes so badly that they were here, to see how far she's come, and what she's done to help others in her own special way. It helps, knowing that for every person that she helps the team to bag and tag is another family she's saved from grief and despair and pain and loss that she never wants anyone to have to know. It helps her to come to terms with so many things that she sometimes has to do, has to see.
But that doesn't always stop the pain. Knowing that what she does is saving lives doesn't stop the pain she sees so many people go through as they try to continue on in life, without their daughter, their husband, their wife, their son, their lover, their friend, their home and security and community and identity and so many things that one person can hold in another. It breaks her heart, to know that she has to be the one to sometimes end the innocence of a wife who thinks that her husband is a good, wonderful man, only to find out, after extensive digging into his life, that he's a sadistic, vile, killing machine that does not love her at all. It can't stop her pain of watching so many lives flash before her eyes, as her many babies process the information of all the lives of victims, who are not always so innocent, and killers who didn't seem to have a chance to beat the odds and have love and affection and hope and praise from parents, who either beat them or abandon them. It doesn't end the pain of having to do so many things to so many people just to make sure that the person who did it would never do it again.
And it certainly didn't stop the nightmares.
Nightmares that plagued her worse than anything else, on the "rare" (after cases that would leave her shaking, shocked, and the beginning of doubt that there was good inside of everyone) case that made her confront things she'd rather not. She'd see so many things that she didn't want to, things she'd never want to know, and things that went against all her morals and beliefs and made her stomach churn and her breath catch in her throat as she tried hard not to vomit. For her, one of the worst ones she'd remember was the pig farm. He had documented everything, down to the last, bloody detail. After she'd gotten over her shock, she ran for the bathroom, dry heaving a few times before she felt a cold, detached shock overtake her, as she walked over to Rossi, to tell him what he did. The things he did to all those people, how he forced his brother to butcher those men and women, some of them no older than seventeen. Just thinking about it still made her ill, wanting nothing more than to go into her apartment, turn on her videos of her family and just loose herself in the happier times, when serial killers didn't exist, and anything scary could be chased away by her parents, encased in their warm and loving embrace.
But when she does have the nightmares, the landscape is never the same. Sometimes, it's in the forest, the trees tall, ominous corpses, their dead eyes following her as she runs through them, trying to escape some monster in human flesh that wants to watch the light leave her eyes, and then eat her or dismember her or make her like his coffee: ground up and in the freezer. Other times, she's drowning, hands wrapped around her neck as she is held down by some woman, her face blank, save for wide eyes, mad with rage and insanity. Once, she even dreamed that someone was forcing her to watch all her teammates die, as she sat helpless in a chair, restrained by chains as she cried out to them, begging for them to be spared, to kill her instead, only to be met by eyes that were so cold, so distant, that she felt her dream self freeze up, as she stopped breathing as she looked into those eyes.
Whenever she awakens from the hell she was trapped within, the first thing she does is do a quick look around: still in her apartment, no strange men inside, the door securely locked and everything where she left it. Next, she'll go into the showers, light a few candles, and get the bath running. By the time she slips inside, she's stopped shaking, but can still feel the terror running through her, as she relaxes in the bath, allowing the healing powers of lavender and sage to work their magic. She reminds herself that they've got the guy, that her friends (the only family she really has anymore, all of them holding a piece of her heart, she loves them so much) are safe, and that if they're hurt, they've been taken care of, and are at home, (or at work, if it's Hotch or Morgan) safe and fine, and that it's okay, it's okay.
She'll close her eyes and sink into the water, until the water is just past her nose, so she can blow bubbles into the water. When she comes up for air, she'll open her eyes, pushing away the demons that haunt her at night as she drains the bath, watching them all slip away with the water, down the drain to where they belong: with all the waste, far from people, far from her, far from her loved ones, where they can't hurt them. As she washes off, each and every one of them will leave her.
When she's done, dried off and dressed, she'll look over to her projector, which holds the memories of her parents, flick it on for a few shots, and then turn it off as she heads to bed, with images of her parents to help chase away any more bad dreams. And if that doesn't work, then the photo of her friends certain will.
Besides, nothing can keep Penelope Garcia down for long, and she's got a team to get back to tomorrow morning. After all, who else can be the wonderful goddess of technology, information and awesomeness besides herself? Besides, she's still got to go flirt with Morgan in the morning and remind him that he owes her a dinner.
The wonderful, sexy and smart goddess is now finished. For now. Next up is Rossi.