Hey, guys! I know it's been forever and I'm in university now but I think about coming back to this story all of the time, so here's chapter 14! I know you all don't owe me anything but if you guys could read and review I really would appreciate it!
I sit with Peekay and her friends at lunch which is one less thing to worry about. Braving the cafeteria on the first day is one of the worst parts of starting a new school. It's a small group of kids, one of which is familiar.
"Hey, Syd," Sammy says "How's your first day going?"
Peekay and I set down our trays and sink onto the bench attached to the circular table.
"It's been great," I say. This is a hyperbole of course. My day has been mediocre at worst and okay at best, but Sammy got me in and I'm not about to strut around being ungrateful in front of the locals. Despite the trainwreck that was my first period, my last two classes were decent. I look around the table so Sammy can't see the honest to god panic on my face.
I really hate cafeterias.
At Truman I joined five clubs, one for everyday of the week. Model United Nations Monday, National Honor Society Tuesday, Writing Club Wednesday, Theater Club Thursday, Friends of Rachel Club Fridays, with student government on the last Wednesday of every month. I managed to make it through three years of highschool without every really eating lunch in the caf.
I get the feeling that that will no longer be an option.
"I like your lunchbox," I compliment, hoping to spark a conversation that will distract me from the mind grating sound of silverware on plastic. My eyes hone in on the green Slytherin decal. No matter what the books say, the Slytherins deserved better and if that is the Harry Potter hill I die on then so be it.
She grins at me, looking a lot more relaxed now that we aren't one on one.
"Thanks."
Peekay takes this as her cue to jump in.
"Oh, my god. You like Harry Potter?"
I stare blankly at her.
"Are there people who don't?"
She laughs and does an excited little dance in her chair.
"Yes! I knew we would get along! Have you taken the official quiz yet? Do you know what house you're in? I'm a Gryffindor, Sammy is a Slytherin- obviously- and my boyfriend, Travis- he's in your third period- is a Ravenclaw. Speaking of-"
She says this all in one quick breathe, waving frantically to someone in the crowd to join us at the table.
A gangly redhead, at least six foot four, with a crew cut, and slathered in freckles slips in next to Peekay. They kiss causing the boy who walked over with Travis to fake a gag. He settles in next to Sammy, directly across from me. He's tall too, maybe a little taller than Spencer, but its hard to tell when he's sitting. When Peekay and Travis come up for air she asks again.
"Hufflepuff." I reply biting into my state subsidized mashed potatoes.
The boy acrossed from me snorts and I give him a sharp look. Not a glare or anything, just one of my looks that lets you know that I'm staring directly into your soul. I've been giving people these looks since I was old enough to hold my head up on my own, and my Nonna has the family photo albums to prove it. He stares back at me for a second, eyes like brown river stones, before he looks away.
Hufflepuffs drew the second shortest stick in the lot, and only because it's preferable to be seen as useless as opposed to evil. In my personal opinion, at least.
I look him up and down slowly.
"Who's the Gryffindor?" I ask mildly, not really addressing anyone. He opens his mouth, looking like he wants to tell me why being a Gryffindor is great and being a Hufflepuff is so laughable. Travis jumps in, arm wrapped loosely around Peekay's shoulders.
"That's Cameron Holmes, he never bothered to take a deeper look into the series outside of the golden trio."
He nods at me.
"I'm Travis Walsh, by the way. Ravenclaw."
I nod in return.
"I'm Sydney-"
"And she's hardworking and loyal, if her house is anything to go by, which it most certainly is." Peekay assures everyone at the table, like she was trying to sell them on me. I wrinkle my nose a little, never being one to accept compliments with any real meaning, usually because they're so rare and the more interesting a compliment is the more likely it is that the person giving it is mocking me. But Peekay doesn't know me and she seems harmless enough, so I try not to look too unsettled.
"I've never liked that Rowling made hardwork and ambition qualities in the least valued houses of the wizarding world." I say suddenly, mouth moving without my consent. I've never quite liked my voice, always a little too reedy and taut no matter what emotions I'm feeling, but I don't mind hearing it today. Probably because it's the only sound my brain recognizes as familiar.
"See!" Sammy says, gesturing at me "That's what I said! The Wizarding world is so deeply rooted in laziness and anti muggle sentiments that they could have just dyed Sirius' hair blonde, gave him a new name, and set him back out into the world and no one could prove who he really was."
"Oh, Jesus Christ can we not get started on this again-" Cameron starts only to be cut off by Peekay.
"That's not technically true-"
We don't quite have everything figured out yet in the way of where I need to be after school and Spencer says the team wants to know how my first day went, I hop the bus and then a train to get to the BAU. I've already got a paper due tomorrow, which I'm okay with because I started school at the tail end of January, so I may as well hit the ground running.
When Garcia charges me with her arms outstretched and attempts to crush my ribcage like an empty soda can, I only have a mild panic attack so I give myself a pat on the back in congradulations. I also made it through a full eight hours without having an allergic reaction and allowing nature to take its course, which Spencer seems relieved about. To be honest, after everything I've lived through, if a walnut is the thing that finally takes me out I'm going to be about fifty shades of pissed off. I consider telling him that but, as nice as he is, that is a joke for friends, which we aren't. I've got too much sass in me; that's what Zia Antonella- Nonna's sister- always tells me when she isn't bitching about how I should have applied to Harvard Medical School if I was worth a singular damn or how my no good baldracca of a mother should have drowned me at birth like a basket of kittens. We do the whole song and dance of greetings and small talk, I am pushed into Rossi's office , which- judging by the look on Hotch's face- was carefully thought out decision. I feel pretty good about myself and my poker face because I get the distinct impression that had the team known about my academic crush on David Rossi, they would have put me with Morgan.
Rossi's office is awesome, with the usual FBI sanctioned desk and chairs like Morgan and Hotch, but also a leather couch and a huge flat screen tv hooked up to a playstation, but those aren't what catch my eye.
"Holy Hell, is that an original?"
I move quickly over to the wall where hangs a painting, it's small and in a plain grey frame but it pulls me back in time all the way to 'Art History, Volume Two' page 104 and my mother. I can see it like a photograph in my head and the caption spills out of my mouth without any hitches.
"'Man Lying on a Stone SLab,' Andrea Mantegna, Circa 1475-1485. Is it real?"
I bounce a little on my heels, feeling my hands flex in excitement. This is what serotonin does to me when my brain finally offers me a single fucking iota of proper neurotransmitters. It almost makes me glad that it happens so rarely because it is embarrassing. My face flushes under my makeup but I can see it all so clearly.
"Do you see this one, Peaches?"
Mom gestures to the page in her book, resting her chin on the top of my head. We're in our booth at Gully's, her blue waitressing uniform rubbing against my arms, her hair tickling my nose. I had been absently playing with the three badges on my blue Daisies vest while my mom studies on her break but now I push the purple plastic frames of my first pair of glasses up higher on my face and trace the photo with my finger tip. The lines are so sharp and beautiful and I tell her as much. She smiles and kisses my cheek and I can see the sunlight glinting through her hair. I can see all of the separate strands and the crinkles around her eyes. The school said I should have gotten glasses before kindergarten, and first grade just ended, but I don't care because the world is just so pretty and I finally understand why Mom likes this book so much. She traces the lines of the man's body, her finger following my own, before burying her face in my curls for a minute while I play with the stuffed Beanie Baby Turtle I've had since I was born.
"My smart baby," She murmurs just loud enough to hear.
And this is how it always is with me, something will remind me of when I was little, and the weight of just how much I miss my mom- not Maria, but my mom- will hit me like a freight train and knock all of the breath out of my lungs. For a moment I can feel the rough canvas of my vest and smell my mom's coconut conditioner, then I rub my index finger along the thick white scar under my chin, skimming right over my carotid artery and off the side of my neck in a straight line.
Any good feeling is sucked out of me instantly.
My mom loved her boyfriends and her drugs more than she ever loved me, or Nico, or Luca; and the thing is, I loved her anyway.
Now I have this scar and a couple dozen others.
If Rossi notices my general internal struggle he doesn't comment, just laughs and says that I really am Spencer's daughter. The air whooshes out of my lungs at the shock but there is a small place in my stomach that twists a little. It's a good feeling, like he gave me a compliment. And I guess he did because, as far as I can tell, Spencer is a good person. It's the opposite of how I felt the last month of sophomore year when Sebby said "You can't keep doing this shit, Syd, you are acting just like your mom."
I didn't talk to Sebby for a few months after that, until the day of my brother's funeral.
Rossi sits himself down on the couch and I take the swivel chair, spinning just enough to twist me side to side and then he hands me a controller for the Playstation. It turns on to Call of Duty Black Ops 2, which isn't my kind of game but I have played it a million times before with Sebby and his younger brothers when their Ma, my godmother, is at work and I can't bear to go home to her ex-bff. I pull myself up and sit cross legged on the chair, laying my jacket on my lap to protect my dignity (as Nonna would say) and hunch forward, putting my elbows on my knees. Rossi laughs and starts the game and the more I hang out with him the more he reminds me of my Uncle Tony; sparkling brown eyes, big personality, italian shit talk, all of it. But I think the thing that reminds me of him the most is the lingering impression that he's peaceful. And notice I said peaceful, not harmless.
There's a difference. And believe it or not, it's a big one.
Peaceful people are capable of violence, but they don't use it. Harmless people are exactly that; people incapable of harm through no choice of their own. I like peaceful people more, because I'm acquainted with several harmless people who want nothing more than to be able to hurt others.
I know, even if I hadn't read his books, that David Rossi is more than capable of violence. There's something rough about him, even with the designer clothes and the softness in his body that tells a tale of several years without hunger. Uncle Tony called that quality -the unshakeable sharpness of a person who has been through immeasurable suffering- 'American Street.'
My uncle and I are both like that, a little too sharp, a little too poisonous at our cores.
When I think about the rest of the team, Morgan is the only other one who comes close, and even then it took me a minute to pin him down. JJ and Garcia are too soft, Hotch and Blake are too tired, and Spencer, well…
I know that Spencer has killed people. He's FBI, for one, but the way he locks up his gun as soon as he gets to the apartment, like he hates it just a little, is what really gives me the impression that Spencer wouldn't hurt his worst enemy unless he had absolutely no other choice.
I don't think I can say the same for myself.
We play as a team, which is a nice change from when Sebby and I play against each other, cussing and trying to distract each other. We're laughing and talking in mostly italian loudly enough that it drowns out the sound of gunfire and I'm worried someone will come and tell us to shut up. I don't want to be the reason that my childhood hero gets in trouble, but from how Garcia talks, Rossi is the reason the FBI has about half of the rules and restrictions it does.
When Spencer comes in and tells me it's time to go home I'm surprised to find that two and a half hours have passed. Rossi pulls me into a bone crushing hug, pressing a scratchy kiss to my forehead and I feel the same rush of affection I feel for Gramps, and Uncle Tony, and Teddy. I get the feeling that Rossi would really like them.