A/N: Hello! I am back! Sorry I forgot to post this yesterday, it completely slipped my mind. School has been a NIGHTMARE and it drains me of all my energy :( but I am here! Chapter 5! Also if you want to know what I listen to while writing this, you can find the playlist on the pinned post of my tumblr blog! (thestrawberrygirl) Please read and review!
If you're lost out where the lights are blinding
Caught in all, the stars are hiding
That's when something wild calls you home, home
If you face the fear that keeps you frozen
Chase the sky into the ocean
That's when something wild calls you home, home
Something Wild, Lindsey Stirling
"Vonnegut, a classic I see," Morgan commented as he walked up to Emily flipping through the favorite book in a dark corner of the shop.
"You knew that already," she replied, still focused on the book in front of her.
"Still true," he replied back, sitting on the small stool next to her. "You doing anything next weekend?"
"Don't think so. Why?" She was still focused on her book, Sergio sitting happily on her shoulder, purring away.
"No reason, just curious."
"Uh huh," he couldn't tell if she was being skeptical or just not being very attentive to their conversation. Probably both.
"How's the tiger?" That was Derek's nickname for the cat. He didn't know where it had come from, but it fit the feline and so it stuck.
"You mean the evil bastard on my shoulder? Well he threw up on my coat yesterday, so that was wonderful. Can't hold a grudge against him for long though. I guess it's his looks."
"Princess, are you talking about the cat or me, because that last part applies to both," he grinned widely as he poked her shoulder.
"I'll have you know a hardback book makes a very good weapon," she said, her voice dripping with false-annoyance. If he was actually bugging her, she wouldn't beat around the bush. This was just how their relationship was. Teasing and sarcastic remarks. It was nice.
"Alright alright. Talk to ya later Princess."
"Bye Derek." For the first time since they had started talking, she looked up at him. "And just so you know, Sergio has the better looks. Sorry."
"Alex, please just tell me where we're going," Emily complained as Alex drug her by the hand, blindfolded, towards an unknown location. "This is how people get kidnapped, you know. If you turn out to be a human trafficker, I'm going to be pissed."
"Calm down, god you're dramatic. We're almost there." In her annoyance, she didn't look where she was going and accidentally ran Emily right into a metal street lamp.
"Ow! What the fuck Miller?"
"Sorry about that one."
"I will forgive you if you tell me what this is."
"Not a chance Prentiss. You should invest in some patience one of these days."
"I'm patient! But right now, I'm being dragged by my wrist through an unknown area, blindfolded, by my coworker, on my day off. My patience has seen better days."
"Alright, that's fair. Quit your bitching, we're here." She felt the familiar whoosh as she stepped into the air conditioning of a building. Her skin quickly raised with goosebumps at the sudden chill. "3, 2, 1!" The blindfold was ripped off.
"Surprise!" All of her friends were in the restaurant, gifts piled high on a nearby table. There was even a piñata sitting on a chair for later. A cake with 'Happy Birthday Emily!' was sitting in front of the others.
"Happy Birthday Gumdrop!" Garcia rushed forward to engulf her in a hug. Emily was momentarily surprised, but after the initial shock wore off, she returned it.
"You guys really didn't have to do this…" she normally didn't do anything for her birthday, instead just eating a family-sized pack of Oreos with no shame and pizza while watching her favorite movies alone. She was so used to her birthday being a politician event with her mother, that she tried to do the exact opposite when she finally escaped the Ambassador. But she did get lonely sometimes, and seeing the only people she cared about go through so much effort to make her smile… it brought tears to her eyes.
"Nonsense, it's your birthday! We had to do something," Penelope insisted. "Do you like it?"
"I… I love it. Thank you." Garcia smiles at her before passing her off to JJ. Due to the size of their group-13- the restaurant had to push three tables together just so they could all sit together. It was a small establishment and wasn't very prepared for a party so large. They would have gone somewhere larger but this was her favorite pizza place. She just wasn't normally here with all of them.
JJ ushered her over to the table and forced her down into a chair with balloons tied to the back. Garcia has definitely been in charge of decorations- everything was colorful. They talked for a bit before the waitress brought out three pizzas. One cheese, one pepperoni, one veggie. The order they got no matter where they were.
The table was a large rectangular in the back of the restaurant. Emily sat in the middle of the table, with JJ on her left and Rossi on her right. Next to Rossi was Gideon, then Elle, then Garcia, then Derek, then Tara, then Kate, then Spencer, then Alex, James (of course), and Hotch sitting next to JJ.
"This is really sweet, you guys. Seriously, I was just planning on eating junk food and watching Aliens."
"Alone?" Spencer asked her quietly.
"Yeah, I don't normally make a big fuss about it. Actually, how did you guys even know it was my birthday?" All of their eyes slowly shifted to Garcia.
"Seriously? You hacked me?"
"I had to! How else was I supposed to know when your birthday was?"
"You could have asked me."
"Would you have answered me?"
"...probably not."
"See? Anyways, I didn't look at anything else Ms. Tall, Dark, and Mysterious, so don't worry about it. Now, I believe it is time for presents." The pizza plates were all collected and put into a pile at the end of the table, making room for Penelope to start putting gifts in front of her friend.
Rossi got her a gift certificate to their favorite restaurant, JJ got her a new cardigan (black, of course), Morgan had even managed to find a Kurt Vonnegut book she hadn't read yet.
"You were talking about it a few days ago."
"Thank you Derek. It's great.
Elle got her some new stickers for her laptop, her favorite being, "I fight like a girl who fights back." Tara got her some iron-on patches for her backpack, most of them being embroidered landscapes, but with a few sassy sayings mixed in.
Kate got her a new black charm bracelet, Gideon even got her a $25 Amazon gift card. Alex got her a signed copy of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, one of her favorite novels. Alex was always good at the personal gifts. James got her a new pair of earbuds, since her current ones were being held together by tape and stubbornness. JJ got her a beautiful small silver necklace with a black dahlia hanging on it. Penelope had knitted her a colorful scarf made from very soft yarn. Normally, she didn't like a lot of colors, but the scarf was so gorgeous and soft that she knew it would be worn a lot.
"Oh Penelope, it's beautiful." It really was. The scarf was made from dark blue, purple, pink, and a soft, almost sunset-like orange. The colors flowed into each other like water. It had a braided fringe on the ends.
Hotch's was next. He had gotten her an eyeshadow pallet and some new liquid eyeliner.
"I asked JJ and Penelope and they said that it was good-"
"Hotch, it's great. Thank you," she laughed. He was clearly feeling awkward about his gift. The only one left was Spencer's. It was rectangular, she could tell that much. It was very poorly wrapped in a simple black paper with white speckles all over it. It wasn't much bigger than her hand.
"I watched a video on how to wrap it, but it was so confusing! They moved so fast!" He explained. Spencer, while a genius, often had a hard time applying that to practical things like sports or, in this case, gift wrapping. Emily smiled at him before opening the gift. It was a framed picture they had taken about a week ago. Everyone was there, even Rossi and Gideon. Alex had her arms wrapped around Spencer's neck and her chin resting on his head. James had a hand on her back and was smiling happily. JJ, Penelope, and Emily were all smiling, arms over one another's shoulders. Rossi was on the far left, standing next to Gideon who had his hand on Elle's shoulder. Elle had her hand on her hip, next to Tara and Kate. Tara was standing behind Kate, her arms folded on Kate's head jokingly. Tara and Kate were so different in height that they would often joke around, Tara pretending that Kate was an armrest and such. Kate had her arms crossed over her chest. Hotch was standing next to Emily on the side that wasn't being hugged by Garcia. He was slightly behind her, since he was taller than her. That had been a good day. They had all been so happy.
"Aww, Spencer it's perfect. Thank you."
"You really like it?" He asked, his excitement peeking through.
"Really, it's great." He grinned widely at the confirmation before Penelope jumped up.
"Cake time! We got half chocolate and half vanilla because some people here don't like chocolate." She shot a pointed look at Gideon, who held his hands up as if he was surrendering.
"You don't like chocolate? How do you not like chocolate?" Emily asked, astounded.
"It's just not for me."
"It's chocolate. What do you mean it 'isn't for you?'"
"Did you know the love chemicals, controlled by Phenethylamine, are also found in chocolate? That's why it's such a widely liked food."
"Huh. Who knew?"
"And peas! It's also found in peas!"
"Peas?" Emily asked Reid skeptically. He nodded fervently, to which she just nodded with a small, "huh."
They all ate their cake quietly, although Penelope did smear icing over Derek's head at one point. He smeared a bit on her nose in retaliation, but they all knew he wasn't really mad at her. He never was, not at his 'Baby Girl.'
"Piñata time!" Penelope announced excitedly. Emily looked… apprehensive? Nervous? Awkward? It wasn't really one emotion.
"Yeah, ok, this is kinda embarrassing, but I've… never had a piñata," she admitted, in an uncharacteristically unconfident tone.
"You've never had a piñata?" Hotch asked incredulously. She shook her head, looking down.
"Actually, I've never had a piñata either, but I've read about the tradition and I think I have a fairly deep theoretical understanding of how they work," Spencer piped up.
"Of course you do," Alex joked lightheartedly as she pulled him into a light side-hug. He blushed and looked down at his hands. Emily smiled at the small interaction. She was only 6 years older than him, and yet she was so maternal, which was good for him, seeing as his actual mother was lacking in that department. She tried, she really, really tried to be a good mother and she did love her son dearly, but her sickness simply made that hard.
"Well then, come here, you doof," Elle said as she tugged Emily by the arm. "We're doing this outside, right Pen?"
"Yes we are, Ellie." Elle made a face.
"Don't call me Ellie. I'm not six."
"Whatever, let's go," Penelope said as she ushered the others outside. Hotch and James, being the tallest, hung the piñata from a small bar in the alley. It probably used to be a flagpole.
"There you go, shorties," James joked as he playfully elbowed Alex.
"Shut up, you're not that much taller than me," she rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.
"Uh, hate to break it to you Al, but I'm almost a foot taller than you. You're, what, 5'5"?"
"5 foot 7. You're ten inches taller, not twelve."
"Alright alright, I'm ten inches taller. Because two inches really makes that much of a difference."
"It does! When you're short it does make a difference!" The rest of the group looked at each other with a look that clearly said how on earth are they not together yet?
"Anyways, since we have some people who don't know how to use a piñata, I guess I should explain. You get blindfolded, and then you take a stick and you try and hit the piñata. Oh, and you get spun around so that you don't know where it is."
"That sounds like a really easy way to whack someone with a stick," she pointed out.
"Bonus," Elle said with a shrug. Tara elbowed her in the ribs, hard. "Ow! It's true!"
Penelope blindfolded her and pushed her towards the piñata. She stumbled a bit but ended up getting a few good hits. She almost hit Spencer in the head, but Alex pulled him out of the way. They went around the group, but it was Tara who got in the final hit and knocked it down.
"Thanks guys. This was the best birthday ever."
A/N: I also made a playlist for this story! If you go to my tumblr, thestrawberrygirl, it's on the pinned post. There's also some headcanons there! Please ask me things! And thank you to xgoldentigerlilyx, sweetkid45, and victoriacostaveria for reviewing the last chapter! It means the world!
