"If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk through my garden forever." -Alfred Tennyson
It was six am, and the building was mostly silent and still, the fluorescent lighting casting the industrious neutral color palette of the building in cool light. There was only a few people roaming the halls besides the security guards making the morning rounds.
One guard paused as he passed the doors to the designated bullpen for the Behavioral Analysis Unit, glancing with mild interest at the elevator that had just dinged. The doors slid open smoothly and out shuffled six weary individuals, led by a tall middle aged man in a suit.
"Good morning, William." The tall man greeted the security guard in a deep, quiet voice. William nodded in acknowledgment before going about his routine.
"You know, I don't think I've ever heard William talk." An older man joined the first, salt-and-pepper eyebrows arching in curiosity.
The tall man didn't shrug but the severe lines in his face softened as he smirked slightly. "Neither have I."
They walked towards the doors of the bullpen, followed by a well-muscled black man wearing a t-shirt instead of a suit. "The brother has talked to me before."
The woman walking next to him, with raven hair and striking features, rolled her eyes teasingly. "'The brother'? Oh please, you probably just forgot his name."
"You just don't understand, princess. It's a black thing."
"You said that three times on the plane." She scoffed. "You've used up your quota for the day."
"I've got a quota for being black?"
The brunette gave her companion a dry look. "I meant how many times you've called me 'princess', but if you wanna go there…"
A pretty but disheveled blonde woman groaned from behind them as she rubbed her face. "It's too early for you two to be arguing already."
"Uh-oh, JJ hasn't had her coffee yet. Somebody alert the White House about a possible terror threat." The black man joked. The brunette laughed quietly as the blonde glared at them half-heartedly.
"I don't need coffee, I need to go home, take a hot shower, and sleep in my own bed." She paused to think. "Then I will need about a gallon of coffee."
The dark-haired woman ignored her shorter friend's grumpy tone as she glanced back at the final member of their procession; a tall, lean young man sporting old, fraying Converse high-tops and some truly alarming bedhead. "I think Reid needs sleep even more than JJ. He looks like an advertisement for that new indie zombie flick."
Reid was ambling along at an excruciating pace, staring blankly at the screen of his cell phone with a slight smile on his face.
The black man's eyes gleamed with mischief and he started towards Reid, but his female companions grabbed his arms in one swift, obviously practiced maneuver. "Leave him alone," JJ scolded. "He took this case harder than almost all of us, and he was up practically two days straight figuring out where the unsub was hiding." Her voice gentled. "Just let him be…"
The brunette's tone was much more amused. "Reid sure doesn't need Derek messing with him right now, but I don't think we should just leave him alone." She nodded to where the young man was about to very slowly walk himself into a wall.
Derek sprang to his friend's side and slung an arm around his shoulders, tactfully steering him through the sliding doors instead of the wall. "Hey kid, you sure you okay to drive home?"
Reid looked up and blinked. "Oh, yeah, sorry. Um… what was the question?"
Derek laughed and shook his head. "Just try not to die by driving below the speed limit into a telephone pole before our next case, alright Reid?" He ruffled his friend's hair before sauntering away with their brunette friend, already teasing her about something.
JJ however, stayed and watched in concerned bemusement as Reid came to almost a complete standstill just over the threshold, back to staring at his phone. "Did someone hypnotize you over text?"
His head jerked up. "What?" Then, to her confusion, his face flushed slightly. "Oh, um, no. It's just… a math problem…" He cleared his throat, "Also, it's highly unlikely that someone could be hypnotized with the use of text because of all the factors that -"
JJ laughed and held up her hand. "Sorry, Spence, but it's also too early for facts." He smiled in apology. She sighed. "I have to go to my office, then I'm getting the hell out of here before we get another case. I'll see you later."
He nodded absently, already looking at his phone again.
JJ walked away, shaking her head fondly at their sometimes scatter-brained genius, but as she glanced back to suddenly see him stride purposefully to his desk and rifle vigorously through his mail.
JJ frowned slightly. There was something odd about her friend, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it…
Her phone suddenly buzzed and she swore viciously before seeing that it was just her husband, saying he was on his way to pick her up, armed with her favorite donuts and some coffee. She beamed, completely forgetting about Spence in favor of her husband who was going to get so lucky later…
...as soon as she had gotten some sleep.
Spencer was usually a very observant man, given that his profession relied on piecing together virtually undetectable psychological clues to create a specific and accurate profile on any particular person, but that morning he was utterly oblivious to any of his teammate's however brief scrutiny because he was completely focused on the succinct and somewhat cryptic text from one rather lovely librarian:
Welcome home, doctor. Check your mailbox.
He hadn't talked to her for two days (actually 53 hours, 32 minutes, and 5 seconds), since that late night phone call, except for one brief text to say they were flying back, to which he had received this response upon exiting the plane.
He was confused and a little perturbed about the second half of the text. She didn't have his home address and he wasn't in any phone book or easily accessible database, and she didn't seem like the type to hack into the FBI's personnel files or do anything else so stalkerish… at least he hoped. He really liked this girl so far, and it would be a huge bummer to find out she was a lunatic.
Then he realized.
He sprang into action, practically running to his desk and grabbing the modest stack of mail that had amassed since they left on the case. It was mostly memos and some minor paperwork, but there was one slightly thick white envelope addressed to him in familiar penmanship, practical and precise but graceful.
His finger slid under the seal to rip it open before an abrupt awareness of his surroundings gave him pause. He glanced around to ensure that his colleagues weren't paying attention to him before casually breaking the seal, keeping his face blank as if this were any other piece of work-related mail.
His brow furrowed in confusion as he pulled out an odd assortment of paper; a sheet of notebook paper, a piece of torn purple construction paper, some delicate and flowery stationary, a receipt or two, a napkin, and a few post-it-notes.
One plain sheet of printer paper stood out, neatly folded.
Spencer,
Even though you broke your own cellular isolation rule while on a case with that very lovely phone call, I decided to be a good civilian and abide by a government agent's decision and not initiate contact via text or whatnot.
He smiled at her brisk and businesslike prose that was very proper but had an obvious warmth and levity to it. The next paragraph improved in that area even more so:
However, I have grown rather attached to you rather quickly, and I find I enjoy talking to you so much that I have begun to mentally inform you of my opinions of everything in my mundane everyday life. Since you were regrettably not there in person and I could not text you, I fell into the odd habit of simply writing down whatever I wanted to say to you at any given moment on whatever bit of parchment was readily available (I actually started this practice by writing on a napkin at a cafe, can you imagine!). This would have been much simpler, albeit probably very annoying, if I could have just texted you... but they say absence makes the heart grow fonder and I am inclined to agree with whoever "they" are… also, this was much more fun ;)
So here you have all my increasingly random and pointless collection of thoughts I wanted to share with you while you were away. And provided such an intimate glance into my psyche does not frighten you away irreparably, I do hope you text me when you return because I am quite looking forward to that first date :)
Yours,
Hermione
Spencer knew he was probably grinning like an idiot but he totally didn't care as he carefully put down the letter and picked up the napkin, upon which the slightly-bleeding blue scribbles (blue seemed to be her color of choice) compared whatever cafe she had been at to Miss Muffin's Teapot and finding it lacking, apparently. He laughed quietly at her frustration with the, quote, 'unoriginal and profoundly lacking in taste' decor and her humorous transcription of the conversation two teenage girls were having about a boy, complete with doodles that made up for what they lacked in skill with creativity and some helpful captions.
Spencer found himself sitting in his not-entirely-comfortable desk chair, sorting through Hermione's notes, the random mathematical equations and quotes from literature and the odd knock knock joke, piecing together her life while he had been gone... and the warm and bright feeling inside him was like reading a really good story that stays with you long after you finish reading. It was like when he was a kid, going on epic adventures in his own backyard that didn't end even when he was called back inside for dinner. It was like coming home.
Then he heard Emily laugh at something Morgan said, and it brought to his mind another laugh, and he realized all he had to do to hear it in person was get in his car and drive.
Spencer jumped to his feet, quickly but carefully gathering up Hermione's wonderful, beautiful, simple gift back into the envelope and it felt like he had caught a firefly in a jar. He rushed out of the bullpen, barely remembering to say goodbye to the remaining members of the team.
Hermione was waiting for him, and he was going to ask her out on a date.
Emily and Morgan watched Reid run out of the bullpen like he was on fire, faces a matched set of bafflement.
"Okay, we're all profilers, so I can't be the only one that sees it, right?" Morgan exclaimed. "Reid is being weird."
"Reid is being weird? Alert the media." Rossi deadpanned as he strolled from Hotch's office into his own.
"Oh no, I don't care what the media needs to know, I'm off duty!" JJ declared as she walked up to her teammates, jacket and purse in hand.
Morgan shook his head. "The media doesn't need to know anything. I'm just said Reid is being weird." He explained.
"Oh." JJ frowned. "What does the media have to do with that?"
Morgan sighed. Something that could have been a chuckle came from the direction of Rossi's doorway.
Emily's contemplative gaze had stayed where their friend had disappeared. "I think Derek may be onto something, actually." She said thoughtfully. "Reid has been off this entire case."
"I already said he had a harder time with this one." JJ said. "We all saw that."
"No, this is different." Emily insisted. "The first few days, Reid kept getting more and more frustrated. We all were, but he was really taking it personally. That day Hotch made us go home, I was almost afraid to leave him alone."
Morgan nodded, his expression concerned.
"But," Emily continued, warming to her topic, "The next morning, he was like an entirely different person. Alert, focused, professional, and almost happy. Not that, exactly, but it was definitely something closer to that than the desperation we saw the night before."
"Yeah," Morgan agreed. "He was calm, and… confident?"
"I think the word you're looking for is positive." A new voice joined them. The three looked up to see their team leader closing his office door behind him. Hotch started to walk over to them as he spoke. "Reid was being positive."
Emily nodded, pointing at Hotch in excited agreement. "Yes, exactly. But the question is, what brought this change on?"
They fell into brief contemplation. Then Morgan shrugged and said, "Maybe he just got a good night's rest. Or had an epiphany. Or finished another doctoral degree. Who knows what goes on in that boy's head?"
Emily laughed. "Yeah, it could be something small. Whatever it was, I'm glad it happened. Reid really came through on this case."
"He always does." Hotch said, then on that note he nodded at them in farewell and calmly strode from the room.
Morgan and Emily took that as an end to the conversation and began to gather their things. But JJ said, "I think it has something to do with what he was looking at on his phone, or at least it's connected."
Morgan and Emily looked at each other in mild surprise. "I hadn't thought of that." Emily admitted.
Morgan pulled on his leather jacket. "Well, ladies, then the solution is simple."
They looked at him, dubious.
He smirked. "If it has to do with technology…" Their faces lit up with realization. "...Then there's only one person for the job."
They grinned at each other. "Garcia."
Leaning against his office door frame, Rossi watched his younger teammates begin to conspire and scheme amongst themselves and shook his head. "At the very least, this will be interesting." Then he sighed.
"I need a drink."
"Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back." -Plato
Author's Note: I could not come up with a single word for this chapter for weeks, then finally I just sat down and wrote it all in one sitting. I'm beginning to see a pattern in my writing process… joy. But I'm quite pleased with how this turned out, so I won't complain too much.
Anyway, I'm so excited I got to introduce the team in this chapter! Our story's about to get a lot more fun. To answer some review questions...
I haven't set up a concrete timeline for either the Harry Potter or Criminal Minds elements of this story, and probably won't. But I definitely fudged some math to make my dream story work. I don't know how long it's been since the final HP book, or what specific season it is on CM, but for some basic context: Hermione and Reid are in their late twenties, she's probably 27 or 28 and he's probably 29. And the BAU lineup (if you haven't guessed) is Hotch, Rossi, Morgan, Prentiss, JJ, Garcia, and of course Reid. That's my favorite group so that's what it will be.
Yes, Reid and (maybe? probably?) the team will find out about Hermione's magic. I just haven't decided how yet.
No, Hermione is not JUST a librarian. *wink*
On that note, to all of you that reviewed, THANK YOU. I got some of the most touching, fantastic, helpful feedback. It is truly an amazing thing to know that so many people like my story. I treasure each review, and will try to reply to each one personally from now on because you guys deserve it.
As always, thanks for reading, I hope you liked it, and please share your thoughts!