Chapter Four: In Which There is a Spot of Blackmail with Breakfast

Garcia, who seemed to be dealing with her hangover the best, looked mutinous. Her sparkle lined brown eyes were narrowed, and the trademark red pout was tightly pursed. Rossi was frankly rather afraid of her at that moment, well, more afraid than usual. You don't mess with a woman who has the power to wipe you off the map.

"That is it! It's bad enough that Strauss terrorises you all as much as she does, but this is a new low for her!" Wild eyed, she started rooting through her handbag. "Well, this time, she's going to pay. Because you guys? Are my babies. And nobody puts one of MY babies in the corner!" Wrenching a bedazzled rainbow PDA from the depths of the neon yellow bag, she began tapping the keys in a most violent fashion.

Rossi surreptitiously leaned over towards Reid.

"What's she doing?"

"I, ah, I believe she's sending an email."

"Saying what?!"

Garcia began to speak without looking up or interrupting the flow of her typing.

"Gossiping isn't polite boys. Rest assured, I know what I'm doing. I have friends in high places."

*

For what felt like the ninety-fifth million time that day, JJ's phone let out a sharp buzz in her pocket. Sighing, she opened the email Strauss had just sent her...

*

From: estrauss

To: jjareau

I apologise for my actions this morning. I was out of line and unprofessional. I hope you will forgive me.

E. Strauss

P.S Please inform Ms Garcia that there will be no need to release those files.

*

"Garcia, how did you do this?"

"The Strauss, I mean uh, Strauss apologising? Unheard of."

"Baby girl, what strings did you pull?"

Garcia leaned back into her chair, and tucked a stray hair behind JJ's ear. A wicked grin crept up her face.

"Well, I couldn't let her get all uppity in my Jayje's face like that, so I decided a spot of... reminding was in order. You may not be aware, but I have the pleasure of having the best of the bureau's CCTV forwarded to me regularly."

Seeing the paling of a few faces around the table, the grin widened and she continued. "Well, our dear boss lady has a few that she doesn't want the rest of you seeing, and so I simply informed her that if she stepped over my pretty pink line again, they'd find their way into the email inbox of every federal employee in the state. And that, my most fuzzy of friends, is that."

Morgan shook his head in disbelief. She was like a wildfire that girl, or a tornado. Both completely and utterly uncontrollable and unstoppable. A wild, rainbow, tech-savvy tornado. He looked at the group, despite the headaches they were all laughing, smiling, and eating like there was no tomorrow. They really had needed this, especially after that last case... he shuddered involuntarily at the thought of it. He didn't need to think about it now.

Suddenly, Derek was brought back to reality by the team standing up to leave, and finalising plans for the day. As they all headed out, he hooked his arm around Garcia's shoulders, and whispered into her ear.

"Sweet thing, now I know you're going to tell me what those screenshots were of..."

"Let's just say that I can never look at Agent Anderson the same way."