Andrea Bocelli – Can't Help Falling In Love
A/N: After tending to my sick horse for a few days (she's better now), I guess my mind was still in the horse neigh-bourhood. .P (Oh God, that was bad even for me).
Keeping a healthy safety distance to the large animal pawing away at the ground, Blake tried to focus on talking to the young girl grooming it. The girl, Amy, couldn't be more than fifteen, petite little thing, and she was bent down dangerously close to one ironclad hoof of an animal that had to be at least six feet tall. Blake found herself nervously fiddling with her cell phone in case she'd have to call 911. The girl didn't seem at all concerned; in fact, when the horse stomped the ground, she gave it a little smack;
"Knock it off, Jim."
The name was so unexpected – Blake had guessed an animal like this was named Devil or Thunderclap or something else intimidating – that she lost her train of thought for a moment.
"His name is Jim?"
Amy straightened up and ran an affectionate hand through the creature's thick mane.
"Yeah. Well. It's short for Jiminy Cricket."
Blake momentarily closed her eyes. Jiminy Cricket. Seriously.
"Of course. Seems… fitting."
"You never hung out at a barn as a kid, did you?" Amy giggled.
"Uh, no," Blake said, looking around for Rossi to come and save her, but unfortunately he was busy speaking to a woman, probably the mother or big sister of this girl, given their close resemblance.
"Come here," Amy said.
"No, it's alright, I'm fine over here," Blake replied, holding up both hands in averting gesture.
"I thought FBI agents weren't afraid of anything," Amy said, shrugging a little. "I mean, going after serial killers and terrorists and stuff. Guess I was wrong."
Blake looked in Rossi's direction again, but he walked off with the other woman, leaving her with one child, one monster, and the prospect of either imminent death or forever being branded a coward. Amy looked at her with amusement.
"It's not gonna bite me, I hope," Blake said as she threw caution to the wind and took a couple of hesitant steps closer; almost close enough to touch the animal's smooth neck.
"Nope."
Blake very slowly reached out one hand, embarrassed to notice that it was shaking a little, and touched the shiny black neck. It was smooth under her fingertips, almost like silk. She ran her hand across the fur several times. Amy dug through her pockets and took out a carrot. Upon the sight, the horse's ears perked up in interest.
"Give it to him with open hand," Amy said, shoving the carrot into Blake's hand. "No, he won't bite," she answered the unspoken concern.
Blake fed the carrot to the horse almost in a daze, mesmerised by the gentleness in its dark eyes. When he chewed, she gently touched the white spot on his forehead.
"I've never been this close to an animal this size," she said. "It's…" She shook her head. "Wow. He has very beautiful eyes."
"Yes, he does. Wanna ride him?"
"That's not quite what I'm here for, but thanks for the offer. So, you didn't notice anything out of the ordinary on the night in question? Other than the horses being unsettled?"
"No," Amy said. "I'm sorry."
"Okay," Blake said, realising she was still stroking the horse's muzzle, and had to force herself to withdraw her hand as the girl clucked at the horse and began leading him out to the pasture.
She stood looking after them for a long time, until Rossi suddenly spoke behind her, making her jump.
"None of the staff saw a thing either, so our unsub probably just passed through the barn. What's with you, Alex?"
She blinked, visibly snapping back to reality.
"What?"
Rossi grinned.
"I do believe the lady is falling in love."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"Oh I've seen the girl-meets-horse thing before. I took Garcia to the race track once."
"With all due respect, Garcia falls in love with every creature on Earth. I'm not like that."
"Okay…" he said, looking down at her hands, still sticky with a combination of horse drool, pieces of carrot, and horse hair. "If you say so. There are wet wipes in the car if you need to clean your hands."
Blake looked defiantly at him but couldn't think of an answer, so she just walked past him towards the car. Rossi chuckled. Oh, how Blake hated it when someone caught her being emotional. And how emotional she secretly was…!
Alphaville – Forever Young
Aaron Hotchner looked out the window of the jet, into the darkness of the Midwestern night. Most of the team were asleep; JJ had been the first to take a blanket and curl up in the back of the plane, Morgan had surrendered to sleep about half an hour later. Blake and Reid had tried to stay awake and play some online word game with each other, but were now asleep in their seats, Reid leaning his head on Blake's shoulder. It reminded Hotch of long drives when Jack would fall asleep with his head resting on Hayley. Blake had been good for Reid after the events surrounding Maeve. JJ had always been taking on the motherly role a little, but she was too close in age to really be able to offer that maternal maturity that Reid – whether he knew it himself or not – needed.
Hotch sighed. It was easy to forget that Reid too had gotten older; to the old-timers in the team he was still a kid, although he was older now than Hotch and Rossi had been when they first started working with profiling.
Rossi put a tumbler of fine whisky down in front of him, rousing him from his thoughts.
"You were far away," he remarked in a low voice and took a seat. "Care to share?"
"It just struck me how young we were when we started doing this," he said. "It seems impossible."
"That we were ever that young?" Rossi asked. Hotch scoffed.
"Something like that. It's been quite the journey, hasn't it?"
Rossi nodded.
"It certainly has. You know what I find most remarkable about it?"
Hotch raised his eyebrows.
"That you and I are still doing this job, together, after all these years."
Hotch smiled one of his rare smiles.
"I think it's just the fact that we're still here at all, considering all we've encountered."
Rossi nodded thoughtfully.
"That, too. What's a couple of grey hairs and wrinkles, but proof you've met your share of challenges and lived to tell the tale? And hopefully learned something that will be useful in the future."
"There is one thing I never seem to learn, though," Hotch said as he emptied his drink.
"Oh? What's that?"
"If I drink this stuff at night, I'm going to fall asleep."
Rossi grinned.
"Why do you think I poured you some? You need the sleep, Aaron. We can't stay forever young without getting rest."
"You know me far too well."
"That's mutual. Let's get some shuteye."
Hotch agreed.