A/N: A tag to episode 6x07 "Middle Man" where Garcia gives the team iPads and when Hotch asks where the money for them came she says she did "a thing". This is my take on what "the thing" was (and obviously, it's not a good thing, since there's spanking in this one.)

"We're going to talk about 'the thing' now," Hotch said from behind his desk, sitting perfectly straight and studying Garcia with piercing eyes.

"Do we have to?" Garcia asked, shifting on her feet. 'The thing' was the thing she had done to procure four iPads for the team and it was a thing that her superiors definitely wouldn't appreciate.

"Yeah, we do," Rossi replied from his position leaning against the side of Hotch's desk. He sounded just as stern as the Unit Chief and Garcia found herself shifting even more. "What did you do?"

"I… uh… I submitted a request."

Rossi raised his eyebrows, crossing his arms over his chest. "The Bureau doesn't give out money for tech like this because of a request."

"It… wasn't a request from me," Garcia admitted. Hotch's eyebrows drew together in a deep frown.

"Explain," he ordered tersely.

"I hacked Assistant Director Abrams' e-mail."

Garcia hadn't thought it was possible, but Hotch's frown deepened. "You hacked the Assistant Director's e-mail account?"

"Penelope," Rossi said, "That's illegal. How many years in prison is fraud, Hotch?"

The man shrugged. "Given that Abrams is a federal agent, up to five. And you'd lose your job, obviously."

To her embarrassment, Garcia's eyes began stinging with tears at the two men's words. She hadn't really thought of it that way.

"I know a lot of what you do skirts the edges of the law," Hotch continued evenly, "and I accept that. But this time you crossed the edge, more than a little. For something we didn't need."

"It's more than unacceptable," Rossi took over seamlessly. The two of them really did make a good team. "We can't let this go."

Garcia swallowed. "I understand."

"How much money were the tablets?" Hotch asked after a few seconds of Garcia just shifting on her feet under the two men's forbidding gazes.

"Two thousand one hundred. And fifty."

Rossi's eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. "Two thousand?"

"It's actually a pretty good price," Hotch said after a moment's thought, probably having done the calculations. Then his face returned to pure sternness. "But that doesn't make it any more acceptable."

"Here's what we're doing," Rossi said after having shaken his head for a while at the price of modern technology. "You know the way to my cabin, right? Go there and wait for me. Here's a key."

"Well, it's not gonna go any further," Rossi announced as he entered the hallway, shrugging off his jacket, "You don't have to worry about any official reprimands."

Garcia gave a relieved sigh. She hadn't really doubted that the string-pulling abilities of her superiors would be enough to fix the situation, but it was a relief to have it confirmed.

What wasn't a relief was how Rossi emphasized 'official'. Because Garcia was pretty sure that meant there would be an unofficial reprimand and knowing Rossi, she would find it very unpleasant.

"Come on," Rossi said, "We're gonna talk."

He headed for the living room with brisk steps, throwing his jacket over a chair on the way, and Garcia followed quickly, almost at his heels. She had no intention of making the man even angrier.

"Take a seat," Rossi said once he had stopped, nodding toward an armchair, "and explain to me what the hell you were thinking."

Obediently taking a seat, Garcia folded her hands in her lap and looked down at the floor. "I… I wasn't thinking, I guess. I just… I wanted to do something nice for the team!"

"Penelope…" Rossi's voice was suddenly a lot more gentle and when Garcia dared a look at him, his face was kind rather than angry. He sighed. "I get that. But you could have just made us cookies or something. Defrauding the Bureau wasn't necessary."

"I…" Garcia hesitated for a moment. "I wanted to do something useful."

"Oh, kitten… you're always useful," Rossi said, angling Garcia's head up with a finger under her chin. "Look… JJ leaving was a loss, but you don't need to do anything more to compensate for that than you're already doing, okay?"

Garcia wasn't sure whether she was annoyed or not at how insightful Rossi was. In a way, it was nice not to have to explain her reasoning to the man, since he would obviously find it somewhat lacking. But it was also… disconcerting to have your motivations laid out bare before you.

"She did so much!" Garcia said, "I just want to make sure everything works as well as when she was here. Without Hotch having to do too much."

Rossi took a seat on the couch next to her. "I realize that. And I've spoken to Hotch about not overworking himself." He ran his knuckles over Garcia's cheek, giving a small wry smile. "If there's one thing this team is good at, it's setting too high standards for themselves."

He was silent for several seconds before he sighed and seemed to compose himself. "But wanting to help doesn't excuse what you did. Wanna guess three times what gonna happen now?"

Garcia swallowed. "A… a spanking," she whispered.

"That's right. Wait here!" Rossi ordered, standing before he headed further into the house. Garcia had to admit that she found that a bit worrying.

It turned out the worry was warranted; when Rossi returned he was carrying a heavy-looking hairbrush in his hand and Garcia felt her eyes widen.

"Sir…"

"You defrauded the Bureau, Penelope," Rossi replied, unsympathetic to her plea. He took a seat on the sofa and put away the hairbrush – for the moment, Garcia assumed. "Come here."

She would have liked nothing better than to do the exact opposite, to be honest, but she wasn't stupid so with a gulp she did as Rossi ordered; getting up from the chair and hurrying over to his side.

"Take off your shoes," he said, but he must have seen her confusion because he quickly added, "You won't be keeping still."

That sounded even more ominous than anything Rossi had said so far, but, again, Garcia wasn't stupid and disobeying Rossi when he was using that tone of voice would definitely be stupid so she quickly took off her pumps before she let Rossi pull her down over his knee. In yet another worrying development, he then pushed her skirt up to leave nothing but her thin panties as protection against the coming punishment.

Before she even had time to get used to her new position, Rossi started the spanking with a hard smack to the middle of her butt. Garcia drew a sharp breath. Rossi was strong. The next swat landed in the middle of her right buttock and the one after that in the middle of her left, and after that Rossi continued systematically covering every inch of her butt and upper thighs with stinging smacks.

Soon she understood Rossi's instruction to take off her shoes; staying still under the continued onslaught to her backside was becoming more and more difficult. And Rossi hadn't even started with the hairbrush yet. Maybe he had forgotten about it?

You could always hope, Garcia supposed.

"Tell me why I'm spanking you," Rossi ordered after some time, not pausing the spanking to let Garcia compose an answer.

"Because… because I h-hacked the AD's e-mail account."

"And why can't you do that?"

"Because – ow! – because it's illegal," Garcia replied, her voice more than a little unsteady by now and tears starting to sting in her eyes.

"And could have cost you your job," Rossi agreed. He gave her another ten hard smacks before he stopped, "All right. How much did you say those tablets were?"

"Two thousand one hundred and fifty," Garcia said, sniffling and squirming over the profiler's lap to bring some relief to her poor backside.

"Okay. I'm going to give you twenty-one smacks, then. One for every hundred."

"But, sir…!" Garcia protested, but was quieted by the feeling of cold wood resting on the scorched skin of her butt.

"We could make it one for every ten," Rossi threatened, "Try to stay still."

"Yes sir."

The first smack fell in the middle of her right buttock and she drew a sharp breath at the impact. It hurt, a lot more than just Rossi's hand had. Before she had quite processed the added pain, the brush landed again.

"You do not," Rossi lectured, punctuating the words with a hard swat, "disobey me or Hotch" – another swat fell – "and especially not when it involves breaking the law."

Feeling the tears in her eyes swell over and run down her cheeks, Garcia tried to convince herself that just because she could barely handle the pain after four swats, there was no reason to think she would die from the sting in her backside before Rossi reached twenty-one. Could you die from a spanking?

Before she could finish the thought, Rossi brought the brush down again and Garcia couldn't hold back a yelp and another, louder, one at the next swat.

"It could have cost you your job" – another swat – "and possibly landed you in jail. And not to mention what that would mean to you personally, think about what it would do to the team."

Garcia was pretty sure that the smack that followed those words was harder than the ones preceding it, but by now it was getting hard to tell. Rossi didn't say anything more as he continued, laying down swat after swat. Garcia had stopped counting apart from noticing that it had to be more than twenty-one swats for it to take this long.

She had begun to squirm already when Rossi reached five swats and by now she was twisting violently, kicking her legs and slapping her hand against the couch. Rossi suddenly stopped spanking.

"Stay still, Penelope," he ordered.

"I can't!" Garcia said.

"Yes, you can," Rossi replied inexorably.

"Y- yes sir."

After five more hard swats, she could no longer obey and began kicking again, tears running down her cheeks as she sobbed freely. Could a simple spanking really hurt this much? And could a hairbrush really light something on fire?

Rossi tightened his hold around her waist. "Settle down, Penelope," he said. "I mean it."

Garcia really tried to obey, not wanting to anger the man spanking her even further, but it was impossible. For the next few swats she cried out with every single one, kicking wildly and twisting, until she simply gave up and lay limp over the profiler's knee. After two more swats – that were really closer to being pats – Rossi stopped spanking.

After a moment, the older man gently adjusted her shirt so it once again covered her backside and then his hand began rubbing small circles on her lower back.

"Shh," he soothed, "It's over. You're fine. You did well."

With a few deep breaths, Garcia slowly calmed down. The sting didn't abate much, but Rossi's soothing hand on her back helped and soon her sobs faded off into sniffles and then just slightly hitched breathing.

"You okay to get up?" Rossi asked softly. Garcia nodded and let Rossi help her to her feet before he settled her next to him on the couch, not commenting when the sudden increase of pain made her draw a sharp breath. Instead he pulled out a handkerchief and dried away the worst of her tears before he pulled her into an embrace, resting her head against his chest.

"You okay, kitten?"

"Yeah," Garcia said, "I guess. But it really hurts."

"It's supposed to," Rossi answered, unsympathetic. "It's the point of a spanking."

"It won't happen again," Garcia promised after a while of just soaking up the comfort the older man's embrace provided. Rossi gave her neck a light squeeze.

"I hope not. And if it does, you'll end up right over my knee again."

"I understand."

Rossi pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "I'm pretty sure you do, actually. You seem to be a faster learner when it comes to staying out of trouble than any of the boys."

With a small frown, Garcia pulled back from resting against the older man's chest and gave him a bemused look. "What?"

"You don't make a fraction of the trouble Reid does, or Hotch did. And Morgan's ahead of you as well." He gave her a small grin. "If all of you were as well-behaved my hair would still be completely black."

"Thanks, I think," Garcia replied, smiling back as she raised a hand to wipe away some tears still left on her cheeks, "Sir? Will we get to keep the tablets?"

"Yeah, we will."

"If you don't mind me asking, how did you manage that?"

Rossi grinned. "I had Alex call Abrams up and chew him out for not noticing that his top team needed new equipment. And then for not noticing straight away that he'd been hacked, then for not having good enough security to avoid being hacked in the first place and then probably for having badly shined shoes, un-pressed suit pants and not standing at attention when addressing a superior officer, as well."

"Really? And that… made him want to let us keep them?"

"Alex can be very convincing," Rossi replied, smiling, and then added as further explanation: "Abrams worked under him for a while."

"I'll need to thank him," Garcia said, leaning forward to rest her head on Rossi's shoulder.

"He probably enjoyed it. He likes playing officer." He kept stroking her hair in silence before he spoke again. "Do you want to take a nap before dinner?"

Garcia nodded, realizing that she was in fact a bit tired, probably from the emotionally draining experience the spanking had been.

"Good. You fine with sleeping on the couch?"

With another nod, Garcia slipped out of Rossi's arms and swiped a hand over her eyes. "I didn't mean to cause you guys any trouble."

Rossi snorted. "I know you didn't. You just weren't thinking. And don't worry about it. You've been punished: everything's fine. You're forgiven." He got to his feet, bending down to kiss the top of her head before he straightened. "Let's just hope we don't need to have this discussion again."

"Oh, we definitely won't, sir," Garcia hastened to assure him. Rossi chuckled.

"Good. Get some sleep now, kitten."

A/N2: Please take time to leave a review. :)