Quantico, Virginia.
FBI Headquarters.
2005 - Age 21.
I stepped out of the elevator, first-day jitters coursing through my veins, staring at the large glass doors in mild awe. Well, mild awe was an understatement. I was in front of the actual Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI, and I was the newest recruit to the unit, fresh out of the Academy; I was the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed rookie agent.
I had been waiting my whole life for this moment, preparing even more than I had before in the past three years, and now that it was here, part of me was terrified.
Completely and utterly terrified.
I thought I knew exactly what this entailed up to this point, what with how many punches in the gut life had to offer, but it hit me in the chest like a sack of bricks: today was the day that made it all real, even more so than it had been before. The realization made me feel like I was standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, with no handrails above the gaping abyss to hold me back, to keep me safe. The kid gloves were off, and they weren't coming back; the feeling from that night all those years ago, the night I sobbed myself to sleep as a kid, hit me like a brick and settled in the pit of my stomach like a stone. This wasn't just a story anymore; this wasn't just a series of scripts, one after another, until the series reached its conclusion. These were real people, real people who all had their own individual lives and pasts, real people who could feel pain, real people who could die.
I wasn't going to let them die.
With a deep breath to steel my nerves, or at least to try to, I opened the doors to the BAU, stepped inside, and let the moment sink in. The air felt like it was brimming with electricity, although that might've just been my nerves. Nobody had looked up at me yet, which made sense, considering agents were coming in and out of the unit all day long. I kept to the edge of the room, going up to the raised walkway where Hotch's and Gideon's offices were. I gently knocked on the door to Hotch's office, which was open just a crack.
"Come in." He replied and I opened the door slowly, feeling my heart start to race. Hotch was sitting at his desk, and Gideon was standing in the corner of the room, his arms crossed as he watched me like a hawk. "Can I help you?" Hotch asked, furrowing his eyebrows ever so slightly, and I nodded.
"I'm Agent Archer; Section Chief Strauss sent me an email telling me I was being placed with the BAU upon graduating from the Academy, and that I should talk to SSA Hotchner, who I'm assuming is you, sir." I answered a bit sheepishly. I knew how he felt about Strauss meddling in the BAU's affairs, and throwing an agent who was practically still a child into the mix would definitely be considered meddling.
Hotch sighed, and I knew that meant he was going to have a strongly-worded conversation with Strauss at some point. "I received the same email. You don't have to call me 'sir'; Hotch is fine. This is SSA Jason Gideon. There's an open desk between Agent Morgan and Dr. Reid for you. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask." He explained, a not-so-subtle suggestion for me to go get situated at my new desk and to get out of his office. I stepped out of his office with a curt nod, heading back down to the empty desk in the bullpen, putting down my backpack. I felt it was a more functional type of go-bag than a duffle bag, as it had two straps, which made lugging it around much easier than the single strap of the latter. Gideon followed me out of Hotch's office, keeping his distance, but still observing me nonetheless.
As I began unpacking my things, I noticed that my new desk-mates were staring at me. "Um. Hi?" I greeted awkwardly.
"So you're the newest recruit to the BAU?" Morgan asked, and I nodded. Gideon gave me a slightly-long-overdue once over, and I was fairly certain he wasn't entirely sure what to say. I noticed that he didn't see me as a part of the team, only as an employee of the BAU. I was new, an outsider, some green agent who hadn't been field-tested, and, more importantly, one who had not yet earned the team's respect or trust. I did my best to not let it hurt my feelings.
After all, I knew it was just Gideon's infamous lack of manners, but part of me was worried that he recognized me from the lecture three years ago. Surely he couldn't remember every student he gave a lecture to, but I sort of stuck out like a sore thumb during our first meeting. Hopefully having a different hairstyle was enough to throw him off my scent, but I doubted it would be. When we first met, my hair was dyed red and much shorter than it was now. I had gone back to my natural brown and grew it out; when my hair wasn't in a ponytail, it reached my mid-back. Hopefully, it was enough to throw Reid off my trail too.
"Yep. Agent Archer. It's nice to meet you all." I confirmed.
"I'm SSA Greenaway, but you can call me Elle." Elle introduced herself, only taking a moment to glance up from her paperwork. "This is Dr. Spencer Reid, our resident genius." She didn't look up from her paperwork as she introduced Reid to me, the young man giving me an awkward wave in greeting.
"I'm SSA Derek Morgan." Morgan offered a hand to shake. I didn't take it, glancing down at his hand before looking up and meeting his gaze, a more than slightly sheepish smile on my face.
"Ah, sorry, I don't do handshakes. Other than the fact that they spread more germs than kissing, I think handshakes are just weird, like 'hey, I'm going to take my hand, squeeze your hand, and then cause both of our arms to wiggle for a few seconds'; like, how is that not totally bizarre?" I explained, trying to play off my awkwardness with a bit of humor, a bit that didn't land as well as I'd hoped it would. Despite everything I had to prepare for in the past three years, the one thing that didn't improve was my small talk.
Elle furrowed her eyebrows at that and Morgan raised his. "Looks like we have a girl genius to match with Pretty Boy." He commented and the other members of the team glanced over to where Gideon was standing. I pretended not to notice.
"There's no way she can be a profiler, she's even younger than Reid." Elle denied the thought, seemingly either forgetting or ignoring that I was sitting right there, her gaze still lingering on the files she was filling out. "How old are you anyway? Eighteen?" She asked after a moment, turning back towards me as she pulled her focus away from the papers on her desk.
"I'm twenty-one." I answered her, leaning toward her slightly as I plugged in my phone charger into the extension cord I brought. "I am a profiler, and I don't know if I would call myself a genius, but I would say that I know just enough about a lot of things to make myself… interesting." I added. "Nah, that description is a bit... heavy-handed. I'm just well-read and have a passion for learning." I corrected myself, downplaying my intellect a little more than I usually did. I knew I was smart, and I wouldn't necessarily label myself a genius as I didn't know my exact IQ score, but I didn't have to bend over backwards to prove it; I did want to keep my intelligence stowed away until I needed to show that card, after all, once I pulled it out, I couldn't put it back. Once you're seen as a brainiac, there's no going back to being the unsuspecting rookie agent. Being underestimated by everyone around me was annoying, sure, but it had its advantages.
Reid was staring at me, almost as if he was trying to figure out if I was familiar to him. I knew he'd figure it out eventually, but I wasn't about to give him any hints. It'd be a game he didn't know he was playing. "Something on your mind, Doctor?" I inquired and Reid shook his head slightly.
"It's nothing." He lied.
I raised my eyebrows at him in an obviously disbelieving look. "No offense, but has anyone ever told you you're a terrible liar?" I asked in return.
"So, newbie, what do you do for fun?" Morgan inquired suddenly and I looked up at him from where I was still organizing my desk.
"Uh, I'm fond of the arts, including martial and culinary, archery, laser tag… listening to music is always good, kayaking is fun, and I was in a whole bunch of school clubs throughout grade school and college, but I'd say my biggest passion has always been words. I was an early reader, reading at a college level by eight years old, reading anything I could get my hands on; and I love writing… especially poetry." I answered, rambling a little. "So really, a little bit of everything." Reid was staring at me harder. "Something on your mind, Dr. Reid?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Does Pretty Boy have a crush?" Morgan teased, nudging his elbow towards Reid.
"Morgan, I do not." Reid protested, but the flush his face took on told another story. Honestly, I didn't blame the guy. Even though he looked like a pipe cleaner with eyes, I still had a massive crush on him that I didn't know what to do with. Would I age out of it by the time that Maeve came into the picture? Probably not. I planned on saving her, after all, which meant that my chances with regard to dating the young profiler were slim. After all, it was like Maeve was made for him. She was perfect for him, and I was just... me. I dismissed the thought with a slight shake of my head, logging into the desktop computer in front of me with the user information I had been given and checking my email.
Nothing.
There was nothing for me to do in the moment. No emails to reply to, no paperwork to fill out; no profiles to write up, because I was still the newbie and hadn't been assigned any cases to look over. I drummed my fingers on my thigh, something I did when I was growing anxious.
The doors to the BAU opened and a blonde woman walked in, holding a stack of manila folders. She headed up to Hotch's office and dropped the files off with him after a brief conversation I couldn't quite make out. She headed back down into the bullpen, approaching my desk. "Hi there, you must be Agent Archer. I'm Jennifer Jareau, the communications liaison for the BAU, but you can call me JJ." She introduced herself, but Morgan cut in before she could go for a handshake.
"New kid doesn't do handshakes." JJ nodded in response to Morgan's interjection.
"Yeah. It's nice to meet you, though." I offered her an awkward smile.
She looked me up and down. "Has anybody given you a tour?" She asked and I shook my head. "Come on, I'll show you around." She offered, and I stood, following her out of the BAU as she showed me around the rest of the seventh floor. "Aren't you a little young to be an FBI agent?" She wondered as we walked.
"I'm twenty-one, which, I'd assume, is about how old Dr. Reid was when he joined the Bureau." I answered casually, ignoring the way the comment made me feel. JJ gave me an apologetic look, which made me realize that maybe my tone wasn't as casual as I had wanted it to come across as, and the tone that had come out of my mouth was closer to that of 'annoyed'. "Sorry if that came off as snippy; I just get that question all the time. Baby face, y'know; apparently it's great when you're older, but right now, it's just a pain in my ass." I apologized, trying to push past my anxiety and just be conversational.
"Yeah, I get that." JJ agreed, leading me down another hallway. "So, you'll primarily be up here, on the seventh floor, but you'll probably have to head down to the fifth floor if the IRT needs extra hands. That's the International Response Team, led by Jack Garrett. They're the profilers who deal with international unsubs." She explained, coming to a stop and knocking on the door we found ourselves in front of.
"Enter, intrepid adventurer!" A cheerful voice called from inside. JJ scanned her ID to open the door, letting us both into the famous lair of the BAU's favorite technical analyst, Penelope Garcia. "JJ! I wasn't expecting you to pop by! Who's this sweet thing?" She greeted JJ before turning towards me.
"Garcia, this is Agent Archer; she's the newest addition to the BAU." JJ introduced me. "Archer, this is Penelope Garcia, our technical analyst. She's in charge of anything tech related, and she's the one who keeps the BAU running. We'd be nowhere without her." She introduced Garcia to me.
"Jaidyn. Nice to meet you." I gave Garcia a smile.
She grinned. "Oh, you are just too cute! I know you're a big, tough agent who can take down all the baddies, but you're just adorable! JJ, please tell me we're keeping her!" She fawned, and I smiled a little bigger. I'd been anticipating this moment for years, and it was even better than I imagined.
"Respectfully, good luck getting rid of me." I winked, teasing her a little bit. "I'm wicked stubborn."
"Well, we better get going, have to finish showing Archer around." JJ piped up after a moment. "I'll swing by later, Garcia." She promised, verbally shepherding me towards the door.
"Aww, okay! Nice meeting you, Jaidyn!" She waved at me as I left the room.
I waved back. "Right back atcha." I agreed as I stepped into the hallway. JJ and I finished the tour around the seventh floor, took a quick trip down to the fifth floor, and headed back into the bullpen, settling back in.
"So, if you have any questions, just give me a call." JJ handed me her card; I glanced at it before putting it into my pocket.
"Will do, thanks." I nodded in appreciation, and JJ headed out of the bullpen, likely back to Garcia's lair.
I sat at my desk, pulling out my cell phone and putting JJ's number in as a new contact. "Archer?" Reid's voice piped up from beside me and I looked up at him from my phone.
"What's up?" I asked.
"Have we met before?" He questioned, and it took all of my willpower to not freeze in place. If I gave him even the slightest behavioral cue that we had met before, there would be questions. Questions that I wasn't prepared to answer. "Your face looks familiar." He added.
I shrugged. "Could've crossed paths at some point." I answered, hoping that the vague and nonchalant answer was enough to satisfy his curiosity. If he started to pry, I didn't want to lie to him and say we'd never met. I was generally an honest person, but I knew that the best lies were also mostly true. Saying we could've crossed paths at some point fell under that category: 'could've' wasn't mutually exclusive with 'we definitely have'.
The rest of the day was relatively uneventful. Morgan, Elle, and Reid taught me about the forms I'd be filling out, the nitty-gritty details of writing up a profile and consulting on cases for police departments where we weren't being shuffled off to, and all of the rest of the basics of being a part of the BAU machine. When the end of the day rolled around, Morgan pulled me aside. "Hey, Archer, a bunch of us are going out tonight, and I was just wondering if you'd want to come." He offered and I gave him a smile.
"Appreciate the offer, but I'm wicked spent. Next time, promise." I gave him a casual wave as I headed for the elevator.
I luckily made it all the way to my car before I had to fight off the encroaching panic. I managed to get home safely, getting in my front door before I sank to my knees, hyperventilating as the impact of the day finally crashed into me like a tidal wave. If this was what the first day was like, a day where I didn't have any paperwork to fill out, profiles to write up, or cases to solve, what would it be like when I finally got into it?
I knew I couldn't afford to second guess myself about any of this; second guessing meant death, and death wasn't an over-exaggeration in this case. People could die if I wasn't completely sure of myself, if my resolve wasn't steeled beyond steel; people would die. It was a fact that I had to wrestle with for the rest of my life. I lost track of time as I sat on the floor, hyperventilating and trying my damnedest to not start sobbing. I had to pull myself together. I had to. People's lives depended on it. I wasn't going to be the weak link in the chain; I couldn't be the weak link in the chain.
I forced myself to take a deep breath, screamed for a solid thirty seconds, and got up, getting myself a glass of water before turning my TV on. Was it a healthy coping mechanism? Probably not. Was it effective? Absolutely.
I threw together dinner, grabbed a blanket, and curled up in front of the TV, trying to decompress one last time before the world threw the hardcore plans it had for me right in my face.
I was going to be strong enough.
I had to be.
People depended on me, whether they knew it or not.
