"In light of the recent events, I'm putting your team on mandatory leave. Six weeks. Starting now." AD Barnes' voice was strict, and emphatically not to be argued with. However, it betrayed her lack of profiling experience, because convincing Prentiss that she and her team needed a vacation was not what one would call a challenge at this point in time. They had been kicked so hard recently, Emily knew she needed to get her team out of the heat for a while. Or, she thought, into the heat depending on where they decide to go get that vacation.
"Thank you ma'am." Emily nodded and exited the de-briefing as swiftly as she could without being obvious that her goal was to get as far away from Barnes as quickly as possible. She called the elevator bring her back down to the bullpen and her team. Even though she had dismissed them, Emily was sure not a one had left, and they were anxiously waiting on Barnes' assessment of their most recent arrest. It hadn't gone smoothly, per se, and the team could feel the ragged nerves hanging in the air between them.
They were huddled around JJ's and Spencer's desks, speaking in hushed tones of worry, anticipating the worst their sentence might result in. Luke seemed to exude the most obvious jittery energy. He'd never been on the wrong side of the establishment before he joined the BAU, and he hadn't accustomed himself to the trips to the principal's office quite yet.
Knowing her news was actually a positive scenario, Emily stopped short of the group and savoured their pregnant silence before she granted them their reprieve. "Six weeks mandatory leave guys." The concurrent exhales soared through the air at her announcement and the giddy high of relief surged through the assembled agents. Garcia and JJ actually made small fist pumping motions before tapping each others' knuckles. Matt, Luke and Tara exchanged relieved smiles, and Rossi just settled back more firmly in his chair, flipping through his phone. Spencer was the only one who still looked vaguely irritated. He didn't know how to stop working as effectively as his team mates. Emily smiled brightly, her eyes shining in an echo of her team's consolation.
"Okay everyone, get out of here!" Emily made shooing motions, and she didn't have to tell them twice. The gaggle began to gather their belongings and filter towards the elevators in pairs and trios.
"Does anyone want to get pizza?" Garcia threw out the option as they crowded an unwise number of team mates into the elevator cabin.
"Oh I could murder a pepperoni right now," Emily's voice leaked with what might be considered an inappropriate amount of desire based on the conversation topic.
"We can order to my place? Girls night?" Penelope reached out for JJ's hand and swivelled around to catch Tara's eyes.
"If you have wine to go with that pizza then I'm in," Tara smiled. "JJ?"
"I think I can spare some time before I get back to my boys," she weighed. "They're about to be stuck with helicopter mom for six weeks after all."
"All right, girls to Garcia's!" Emily shouted as they filed out of the elevator in the parking garage. "Any boys want to petition for an exception?" Emily called walking backwards to her car.
"Not tonight," Rossi called back. "You ladies have fun."
"I've got my own ladies' night waiting for me at home, but thanks!" Matt chuckled.
"Spence, Alvez?" JJ prodded.
"You know what, I think I'm gonna go see the new Avengers movie," Luke answered checking his watch. "I didn't think I'd be home for the release but it's only nine, plenty of time to wait in line." The girls all laughed as the characteristic excited puppy expression crept onto Luke's face. "Reid, how 'bout it?"
"You know what, why not." Reid nodded and adjusted his bag on his shoulder. "Text me the theatre address?"
"Done and done. See ya there man," Alvez moseyed to his car, tossing his keys between his hands as he went. Spencer waved back in acknowledgement, heading towards his own car.
Three varieties of pizza and several bottles of wine later, Emily and Penelope were draped across Garcia's couch, while Tara took over the armchair, and JJ huddled into the bean bag next to the coffee table, cradling her glass of wine close to her chest.
"Emily," Penelope drunk whispered (so the volume was really more suited to stagecraft than intimacy), "we should just stay like this forever. We should just spend our vacation on this couch, with pizza and Sergio and never leave." Emily laughed, stoking Garcia's hair like she was a cat herself.
"I should go to a beach," JJ mused. "I haven't been to a beach that didn't involve corpses in years."
"Ugh, I know!" Emily commiserated. "I thought for sure we could sneak in some time last time we were in California but no…" Emily drew out the vowel in a long mocking complaint. "'Get your unit back right away chief. We want your report on the AD's desk before tomorrow night chief.' Blah blah blah."
Garcia giggled at Emily's robotic impersonation of the office bureaucrats. Then she nearly rolled off the couch in her excitement as her intoxicated brain attempted to communicate her newest scheme. JJ and Tara jumped to catch her, as Emily's own laughter essentially pushed Garcia further towards the fuzzy carpet. "Guys, guys we should go! We" Penelope's drink free hand flailed around to indicate she meant the friends surrounding her, "should go to the beach! Like, on a vacation!"
"You know," Tara mused, "I could be up for that. Sun, sand, shirtless men…" she trailed off and swallowed any elaboration on her point with her next drag of wine.
"Exactly!" Garcia pointed her finger enthusiastically. "What she said!"
"Just a girls' trip? I don't know if I want to go away for too long without my boys, we get so little time off as it is." JJ cut in.
"No, no, them too!" Penelope's drunk excitement hadn't been dulled but the planning oriented portion of her brain pushed past the alcohol wall to actually push her idea into the realm of a viable option. "All of us, girls, boys, JJ's boys, like BAU goes to the beach. Like together!"
"If we can go somewhere close-ish I'm in, I just don't feel like flying, we spend too much time on a jet," Emily put in.
"Road trip! Even better!" Penelope clapped her hands incredibly enthusiastically as she ran to grab her laptop from the formica countertop of her kitchen, bringing another bottle of red with her in the same trip.
"Virginia has beaches, we can drive there, they literally have a place called Virginia. Beach. That's totally a place we can go." Garcia settled herself on the couch again with here laptop on the coffee table so everyone could see the screen while she googled options for beach rentals in Virginia Beach. JJ was already texting Will about asking for a week off.
At the indecently early hour of 4:30 Spencer's phone began vibrating against the base of the lamp it was resting against with entirely too much energy. The violent clattering sound jolted him awake and he grasped blindly for the offending noise, hoping to stop it before anyone else woke. This was not accomplished, however, as jerking his phone from the tabletop caused thee charging cord to topple the lamp onto the hardwood below, very effectively waking up the dog sleeping at the other end of the little room.
Roxy's growling and Reid's swearing and scrambling reached Luke in the next room, who stumbled incoherently towards the sleep disrupting noises.
"What the hell, man," Luke grumbled, pulling a hand over his face to wipe the sleep from his eyes. His search for the noise lighted on Reid trying to untangle his phone from the lamp, while Roxy paced around him trying to grab at the wires as if they were chew toys. Luke batted Roxy away from Reid as the other agent finally managed to disengage his phone from its cable in order to answer it. The Caller ID on thee screen informed him who was making this irritatingly early call and he groaned.
"Garcia, if you tell me we have a case right now, I swear, I'm quitting." Reid grunted as he settled himself on the floor with his back leaning into the couch that had been serving as his makeshift bed.
"Reid we're on leave, we can't have a case."
"Well then there is no good reason for you to be calling me at-" Reid pulled the phone away from his ear to check the time, "4:32 am." Spencer was unconsciously mimicking Luke's earlier gesture of rubbing his hand across his face to encourage his muscles to reawaken and help him process what the hell was going on. He caught Luke's eye as he was petting Roxy on the other end of the couch.
"Garcia?" He mouthed, ruffling the fur behind Roxy's ears. Spencer nodded and put the call onto speaker just as Penelope was protesting.
"No, this is a good reason. A totally good reason, I promise."
"Garcia, how much have you had to drink?" Luke cut in, his louder than necessary voice causing Spencer to flinch.
"Wait why is Luke there, are you guys having a sleepover?!" Garcia squealed and ushered all the girls on her end closer to the phone.
"His couch was closer than my bed. Calm down."
"No but you're bonding, that's great!"
"Garcia, was there a purpose for this call?" Spencer groaned, smooshing further into the cushions behind him.
"Yes, yes there is, vacation. We're going on a family vacation!"
"What are you talking about?"
"Vacation. Us. BAU family. At a beach. BAU goes to a beach."
"Genuinely, Garcia, how much have you had to drink?" Spencer laughed.
"That is immaterial to this discussion."
Luke raised his eyebrows, impressed at Garcia's ability to recall both that vocabulary and that serious tone this far into the wine bottle he assumed she had stationed next to her at this point.
"Pipe down newbie, I can hear your eyebrows from here." Luke's brows moved even further back into his rumpled hairline if that was at all possible. Spencer snorted his laughter into his fist. "But, you have distracted me from my totally awesome plan, which is vacation, which you're coming to."
"Where…" Spencer had long ago learned the prudence of being cautious but optimistic about most of Garcia's plans for team morale and bond building.
"Virginia Beach."
"Why…?" Spencer didn't really understand what hat she was pulling this out of yet.
"Because we're on leave and we all need a break and the beach is great and it's not that far." Penelope huffed, she didn't like being doubted. Her plan was brilliant.
"You know, I've never actually been to the beach," Spencer mused. A chorus of 'what!s' and exclamations shot through the tinny speaker on his phone, met with a completely perplexed expression from himself and Luke.
"What do you mean you've never been to the beach?" JJ slurred accusatorially.
"I mean, it's not like Las Vegas is on the coast, guys." Reid shrugged, he hadn't thought of it as a big deal, clearly he was about to be corrected.
"Well that settles it" Garcia said, "the pasty professor is coming, he doesn't get a choice anymore. You in newbie?" Spencer looked over at Luke, who was sitting fairly stunned, idly petting at the air where Roxy hadn't been for a solid thirty seconds at least.
"Um… I guess?" His confirmation definitely sounded like more of a question but that didn't stop Garcia.
"Great! I'll text you the details and car pool set ups when I finish. Night night sleep tight!"
The line went dead and a discordant dial tone rang out for a moment before Spencer hung up on his end as well, shaking his head in amusement and exasperation but primarily exhaustion.
"What just happened?"