A/N: Heads up people- it's about to get really angsty in here. Unfortunately, Adriana's approach to making friends is taking 1 step forward, and going like 100 steps back.
This chapter is very OC-centric, so if you're bored by that, feel free to skip this chapter and wait until the next one. (Just know that if you actually skip this chapter, somewhere a puppy will die.)
As per bloodyrose1294's suggestion, I've removed all chapter titles so they're just numbers. Sorry if this bothers anyone, but I just suck at figuring out titles, and I'm far too lazy to come up with more in the future.
Disclaimer: New plan- I will destroy Leslie Moonves's life from the inside. I'm going to have an affair with her husband, destroy her marriage, and when she is at her most emotionally vulnerable, I'll request the rights to CM. It's totally foolproof.
"We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict." –Jim Morrison
...
February faded into March without incident. It was so placid a transition, Adriana barely noticed she had worked at the BAU for a month now.
No cases arrived that required the BAU to travel, and Adriana could see that the rest of the agents were getting restless. They would look hopefully at Hotch or Garcia every morning, expecting one of them to say "conference room" or something. Each of them wondered how could there possibly not be someplace in America that needed their help. Reid tried to point out that statistically, serial offenders showed evidence of having off-seasons much like hunters have gaming seasons, but Morgan told him that statistics didn't make them disappear.
Adriana, meanwhile, was glad of the monotony. The routine she eventually settled into of going to work, writing until her hand cramped, and coming home- it felt safe. She wouldn't attract attention this way, she wouldn't stand out.
The last real interaction she had with the other team members was weeks ago, when Reid asked her if she knew Heinlein. Since then, all Adriana would say was a short greeting and maybe a farewell. The others tried to learn more about her and draw her into conversation; they would pretend to want a second opinion on a case, or they would comment about something innocuous, but Adriana would only answer with quiet gestures or monosyllables. Even Garcia, whose vivacious personality always won people over, found herself rebuffed in her friendly attempts. That was disconcerting.
...
"Again?" Morgan asked Garcia as she headed back to her lair in defeat.
"I don't get it," she said despondently. "Is it me?" She thought back if there was something offensive she had done. All she did was complement Adriana's… something. Hair? Shoes? Whatever, she just wanted to start a chat.
"Nah, definitely not you, babygirl. No one can resist the charms of Miss Penelope Garcia. You know that." He held her in a one-armed hug and rubbed her arm comfortingly.
"You mean usually no one can resist my charms," she sniffed.
Morgan just looked at her helplessly. He knew that it may not seem like a big deal to him, but Garcia wanted the new agent to like her. Garcia had the incredible ability to burst into someone's life and dazzle them, but that wasn't the case with Missy. Morgan didn't want to believe it, but it looked like she was trying to avoid them. And he knew that cut Garcia deep.
It frustrated the rest of them, too.
Prentiss tried casually asking her about what she used to do at Missing Persons, but Adriana winced and said "Not much," and effectively cut off the conversation by turning back to a report. Reid feebly attempted commenting about the weather, to which Adriana just nodded and went away. Morgan persisted in calling her "Missy," even though it took him a couple tries until she actually responded. She tried not to cringe when Morgan called her that, but he noticed. It sort of made him mad. Why didn't she just say something if it bothered her?
Even Rossi and Hotch noticed. Rossi occasionally worked at a desk in the bullpen with them, but he wasn't much for chatting. Still, he was puzzled along with the rest of them about Adriana's unsociable behavior. And if Hotch happened to encounter Adriana, he would politely ask her how she was that day, or how she was finding the BAU, and Adriana would say, as respectfully as possible, that she was fine, that the BAU was fine, that everything was fine.
Hotch was starting feel unsure about her. Of course, he couldn't doubt her usefulness anymore after the last case, but even he was troubled by her unwillingness to socialize even slightly. He knew that a team that didn't communicate well wouldn't function cohesively, and he considered the possibility that Adriana could become a burden. When he interviewed Adriana, she didn't profile as chronically shy. She was nervous and jumpy for sure, but she didn't exhibit the shyness that he recognized in emotionally stunted adults. No, there was something to her psychopathology that he was missing.
...
Eventually, they stopped trying. She wanted to be left alone, and that's what they allowed her.
As March wore on, it brought a sense of apprehension to Adriana, like it did every year. She would wait anxiously for a particular date, the way someone standing on a cliff nervously peers over the edge. They know they'll have to jump sometime, but they hate the anticipation. And they dread the fall itself, but expecting and waiting for it makes it even worse.
On March 23, Adriana came to work on time. Nothing in her morning routine changed, and she felt a little proud that she didn't falter once. It was as if it were a normal day. She worked through cases all morning and through lunch.
In the afternoon, though, is when Adriana screwed up. She was in the middle of deciding whether or not there was a serial shooter in San Diego when she suddenly brought out her go-bag. She unthinkingly pulled out the frayed file stuffed at the bottom of the bag and placed it on her desk, and nobody noticed that she read and reread the same file for two hours.
She was about to read it a third time when she realized what she was doing. She was at work. Around people. She couldn't read this now! Adriana quickly stuffed the file in a corner of her desk and ran a hand sloppily over her face, suppressing a groan. That was wrong. I can't look at that here. Making sure no one saw her, she went back to work.
It was with a strange mix of anxiety and hope that Adriana looked at going home that day. Like the cliff-diver, she dreaded it and longed for it at the same time, because she knew exactly what would happen when she came home, but knowing didn't make the reality of it any pleasanter. Adriana did her best to mask what she was feeling, though. She packed up her stuff, quietly slipping the file into her regular bag, and left the bullpen normally enough. She even did the same leaving the FBI building. By the time was she near her home, however, Adriana found herself sprinting up the stairs to her door.
She jammed the keys in the lock with too much force, and practically crashed into her apartment when she flung open the door. She threw her bag across the room, where it landed with a smack on her couch, and after she nudged her cat off the coffee table, Adriana allowed herself to lie down and read the file again.
The creased and yellowed pages were even more tattered from being roughly stuffed in her go-bag. She turned the pages more carefully, trying to preserve each slowly fading word, and read it undisturbed for hours.
Finally, she noticed, it was almost time. She replaced any loose papers back in the file, and tidied it up. Then she sat up, back rigid but fingers trembling.
At precisely 8:43 pm on March 23, Adriana Messers let herself cry.
A long time ago, Adriana decided in a rational state of mind that tears were like currency, and they needed to be held in until an appropriate time. There was no use for them on normal circumstances, so on one day of the year, she withdrew all her saved tears and spent them. Really, Adriana wanted logic and empiricism to dissolve her tears into nonexistence, but she wasn't nearly impassive and unfeeling enough for that.
At first it was just silent tears that rolled down her face, but as certain memories smashed their way though her subconscious, her small body started to shudder with the violent sobs of all that she wanted to cry about, but never allowed herself to. She tried her best to stay upright, but ended up curling into herself like she always did.
Ten years… It's been ten years. What can't I do anything right?
And she cried because she was weak. Because she worthless. Because she deserved everything that happened to her. And even though this definitely wasn't her first time crying on March 23, nor would it be her last, she never found more to cry about before. She never hated herself more.
Adriana's cries grew louder and deeper, like they were threatening to rip out from her chest. She thought about the BAU, and how they tried to get to know her. They extended out introduction, and Adriana shot them down. And now they've given up on her. She hated them in that moment, for being friendly and then stopping. She hated JJ, who was right about them being good people. She hated the circumstances that made her join the BAU. She hated herself for being so pathetic that she couldn't trust people anymore, for being sacred all the time, but most of all, because she'd had ten years, and done nothing further for the file. It was a whole decade since she had received it, the date exact to the last second, and she hadn't done anything.
Her cell phone's alarm sounded an annoying vibrating buzz. It was usually her signal to stop crying and straighten up. Instead, Adriana grabbed the phone and hurtled it across the room, where it smashed against the wall. She stayed on the couch, curled into the fetal position, until her sobs lessened and she fell asleep.
...
The harsh morning light found Adriana asleep in her clothes from last night, rumbled and tear-stained. Groaning as the light stung her raw eyes, she stumbled off the couch and into her room to change. Before she turned the corner, though, she looked back at the living room. The smashed cell phone lay pitifully on the floor, but the file was still perfectly in place.
Adriana looked at the file sitting on the table, the file that was the cause of so much of her agony, and wondered if it was worth taking around anymore. She was so tired of looking at it every time she felt weak, only to feel weaker. Adriana wasn't normally a quitter, but right then, she wanted to quit everything so badly. Her heart panged longingly at the thought of her obligations, her job, her fears, hell, even her life, just disappearing.
Instead, she carefully pinned up her hair again and went out the door so she wouldn't be late for work.
Whether she knew it or not, though, this was a step in the right direction.
...
"Bear patiently, my heart- for you have suffered heavier things." –Homer
A/N: Review if you like/hate angst! (either one, I'm not picky) Oddly enough, writing the angst was still fun. And sorry if this is kind of a tease, but her full story won't be revealed for awhile. Next chapter will begin a new case, and it's not as bloody as the last one, but it's weird as hell.
Songs Listened: I'm So Sick- Flyleaf, ¿Viva la Gloria? (Little Girl)- Green Day (ultimate angst bands)
Nuwanda31- thanks x the amount of times I used the word "angst" and how often it's going to reappear in this story (btw- that's a lot)