The bullpen was empty at 8:30 am when a new face to the BAU office got through the glass doors. The brunette woman was clearly looking for something and after a few minutes of searching, she knocked on Aaron Hotchner's office. A muffled "It's open." was heard from the other side of the door. With that confirmation, she straitened her jacket ever so slightly and proceeded to open said door.
"It's a pleasure to be working with you, I'm Dr. Elise Freud. We spoke earlier on the phone." Elise extended her hand towards the stern-looking Unit Chief. They shook hands and the man named Hotchner opened his mouth.
"I'm SSA Aaron Hotchner. And the pleasure is all mine. I've heard a lot of good about you." She sat down in front of him while Hotchner opened a manilla folder, that had her name on it. "And your folder really speaks for yourself. Two doctorates and a master." They fell into a rhythmic conversation for about 30 minutes before he wanted to introduce Elise to the rest of the team.
"Everyone, this is Dr. Freud," Agent Hotchner opened his mouth to introduce the half-German woman to everyone sitting at the round table.
"Wait… Like Sigmund Freud?" the black man questioned.
"Yeah… He was my great-uncle on my dad's side," the brunette woman told him, "I get that a lot. And I think from him comes my enthusiasm for psychology. I have my PhDs in forensic and clinical psychology. And please call me Elise" Everyone around the round table nodded to acknowledge her explanation.
"Here are Agents Prentiss, Morgan, Rossi, Jareau, and Dr. Reid. Then we also have our technical analyst, Penelope Garcia." They all shared a few welcome to the teams with handshakes and their preferred names. The other doctor didn't want her to shake his hand.
"The number of pathogens passed during a handshake is staggering. It's actually safer to kiss." he started to ramble a bit. Elise just settled to nodding at him while smiling.
Hotchner sat her down after meeting everyone in his office, just to go over the protocol. After that, she was assigned a desk in the bullpen. It wasn't a big one, but large enough to store her computer and files with some personal items. She put on few picture frames on the desk: the first one was her and her parents Klaus and Vicky at her FBI graduation. All three of them were smiling, even Elise who just left her abusive ex Peter last night. The second image was of her with all her two sisters on the day she left for the University of Denver for her studies. Emelie and Erica looked happy, so did Elise too. She was so excited about a new chapter in her life to start. She fell quickly back to her university life, someone would say it was the time of her life, but she thought otherwise. Most of her days went to studying instead of partying. And on top of that, she fell into an abusive relationship. It wasn't a physically abusing one, but he managed to get a fair amount of damage to her self-esteem and left few bruises to her body in addition to the abandonment issues.
Elise didn't get a lot of time to reminisce about university when she heard a familiar sound behind her.
"Who are they?" it was Reid's voice, and he was pointing the picture in her hand.
"My sisters, Emelie on the left, me in the middle, and then Erica by my side." She pointed each one out, "Erica is a few years older than me and Emelie is younger. Let's just say that I'm a classical middle child, hence the two doctorates…"
He laughed at her saying: "Yeah, although I'm not a middle child, I have a fair share of degrees myself. There are lots of ways that sons defeat their fathers. I just keep getting PhDs."
Both shared a chuckle with a look. That was the moment she finally felt safe for a while.
