A League all its Own Chapter Two
A/N: I'm trying to spit out these chapters as fast as I can. There will be a set schedule later on, but for now they'll just come as the will. Thanks for the reviews!
"Talking"
Thoughts/Telepathy
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. ~Khalil Gibran
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. ~Kelly Clarkson
Chapter Two:
She had been twenty-two when she first met him, a college student struggling by on ramen noodles and soccer scholarships. He had five years on her, a young cop with a sparkle in his eye. They met in a bar, when he had challenged her to a game of darts. She had given him a sweet smile and said, "Sure," then proceeded to cream his sorry ass. He fell in love with her the second she turned to him and gave him another seemingly innocent smile, asking if he wanted to play three out of five.
He had asked for a second date, and it had gone amazing. Then there was a third, a fourth, and before they knew it he was on one knee asking her to marry him. Her eyes had lit up and he knew that on the tip of her tongue had been an enthusiastic, "Yes!" –but then she hesitated. She had stared at the ring in his hand.
"Will, do you love me?" she asked.
He had looked at her like it was the dumbest question ever. "Of course I do, JJ."
She was still biting her lip nervously. "No matter what?"
Will captured her hand in his and stared her directly in the eyes.
"JJ, I will keep on loving you until I die. Even if you walk out of this room right now and go get married to some handsome billionaire (she smiled a bit and giggled) with a Porsche and enough money to buy you the world, I will still love you. No matter what."
She stared at their hands entwined together.
"Even… even if I could do this?"
Will jumped up in shock and stared at her.
"Wha…wait… what did you just do?"
"What, this?"
"Yeah!" He sat down, still stunned. "JJ, did you just, ah, talk in my head?"
"Yes."
"Woah, ok."
What do you see to a person who just talked to you in your head?
"So… have you had this- erm- ability for a long time?"
Gosh, that sounded lame, even to him.
She gave a small smile and glanced down to her lap.
"Yeah, for about as long as I can remember."
He was relieved that she had spoken in her normal voice.
She laid her hand on his. "Hey, are you ok with this?"
He vaguely noticed in the back of his bewildered mind that her hand still felt small and warm. He stroked the hand on top of his lightly with his thumb, reacquainting himself with it. Yes, there was the odd callous on the side of her right pinky, and the slight pucker of the scar on her thumb. This was still his Jayje, superpowers or not.
He smiled and said in a smooth Southern drawl, "'Course I am, darling, but you still haven't given me and answer. So," he pulled out the ring from his pocket once again, "Will you marry me?"
JJ embraced Will and whispered in his ear.
"How could I say no?"
.
.
Penelope Garcia may not look like it, but she is scheduled. At six forty-five AM she pulls herself out of her soft, warm bed at the sound of her tropical birds alarm and jumps into a hot shower. Then she does her hair and makeup and watches early-morning cartoons as she eats her breakfast. Finally, she drives her car to her favorite coffee shop, Spill the Beans, orders her poison of choice, and is at the office by eight thirty. It's a fairly foolproof schedule—but today; today Murphy's Law seemed to hate her with a passion.
Her alarm had sounded thirty minutes later than normal. She had jumped into the shower… and nearly jumped out! The water was freezing cold! Her toaster and microwave didn't work correctly so she was forced to make her breakfast the old-fashioned way on her barely-ever used stove. She had absolutely no time left, so she jumped into her car—only to find that it didn't start. She had called a taxi, hoping and praying that Lady Luck would find her in favor again. It seemed to have worked, for the taxi showed up right then. She jumped in and collapsed into the car, happy to just rest for a while. She was contently doing touch-ups on her makeup when the taxi jerked to a halt. She slammed forward, bashing her head on the front seat and successfully smearing her newly-applied lipstick.
"What the…? Why are you stopped?"
"This is your stop."
"No," she glanced out the window just to make sure, "No, it's not."
"This is your stop!" the obviously foreign cabbie insisted.
"No! Now go, I'm going to be late for work!"
"This is your stop! Get out!"
"No!"
"Lady, out!"
"I will not you irritating piece of… hey!"
The cab driver had shoved her out of the door and dumped her on the sidewalk. She got onto her feet and dusted herself off, muttering some choice words about the cabbie under her breath.
She tramped down the sidewalk for a while, reminding herself why you never wore seven-inch red pumps on a jog(no matter how hot they made her legs look) when a heavenly smell caught her attention.
Coffee.
She floated along as if in a dream until she was in the warm, bright, coffee shop. The line was short (for once) and soon she had her cold hands wrapped around a deliciously hot cup of coffee. She was just bringing it up to her lips for a sip when…
~bump~
"Holy…!"
Penelope stared, distraught, at the young man she had just poured her scorching-hot coffee on. He was performing a weird dace as he batted at his now brown-stained shirt.
"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! Is there anything I can do? Um…"
Garcia grabbed a napkin and began patting the coffee off.
"No, no, it's fine, really," the gentleman insisted.
"I'm so sorry!" Garcia apologized again, not knowing what to do.
"Trust me," the young man said, "this thing happens to me all the time."
Penelope, now feeling better, smiled at the easy-going gentleman who had been so kind to her—and he was pretty cute, too!
"Still, I feel like I gotta make this up to you somehow. Here, let me buy you a coffee, my treat."
The kid shook his head. "No thanks, I'm good."
"Baby-cakes, let me rephrase that. I am going to buy you a coffee. So what kind do you like?"
Despite the endearing and unexpected nickname, the young man only blinked once, then smiled and nodded. Yep, she had probably just scarred an innocent being for life—again.
He liked overly-sweet coffee, she learned, and had just moved here from Vegas. He had worked at some kind of lab for some big fancy sounding industry—Bio-something. He was also totally cute and so huggable she just wanted to shove him in her purse and run, although those long legs probably wouldn't fit in. She ended up telling him a lot more than was probably safe… man, she really hoped he wasn't a criminal.
.
.
David Rossi had been here for two hours. Two. Hours. The BAU had obviously not heard of the word magazine, he had misplaced his just-in-case-of-an-emergency book he always stowed away in his bag, and the TV mounted on the wall only showed the Golden Girls and PBS programming. He liked Sesame Street as much as the next guy, but two hours straight and he was ready to show Big Bird some of his own little birdies.
"Who do they have running this joint now?" he wondered aggravatedly. "Because I will have to be sure to inform them that David Rossi and his superior experience don't take kindly to being shoved into a corner and forgotten."
A brisk click-clack of heels sounded down the hallway.
"Finally!" He thought. "A professional!"
He stood up and smoothened his rumpled shirt out—it had been clean and ironed in the morning when he put it on—making sure he didn't look like he had been sitting in a chair for two hours, even though he had. A flamboyantly dressed blonde in what seemed to be twelve-inch high heels approached—then rushed passed him with a harried look on his face, barely acknowledging his presence. Really! He thought agitatedly. He slumped back into his seat with a sigh.
A few minutes later, another tap-tap of shoes could be heard. This step was different, not the sharp clap of heels or the sophisticated tap of Italian loafers or other acclaimed dress shoes, but rather the soft, muffled beat of rubber on linoleum. Rossi watched as a form rounded the corner, hope rising in his chest… and his glimmer of hope was smashed. A young, gangly man dressed in truly horrendous clothing stepped into the room. He shyly smiled at Rossi and took a seat. Rossi watched enviously as the man pawed through his messenger bag before taking out a book. Smart.
Another minute passed.
Two minutes.
They were closing in on ten minutes when he finally heard a clip-clap of heels once again.
He straightened up from the slouch his chair seemed to have been sculpted in and leaned forwards in slight anticipation—only slight, though. He now knew not to be too hopeful. The steps were hesitant, slow, but still firm. A dark-haired woman rounded the corner. Rossi felt his heart lift. She looked hopeful…and then he noticed the laminated pass clipped onto her shirt was clearly marked, VISITOR. He was able to conjure up a half-hearted smile of greeting at her. The man a few seated over barely glanced up from his book.
More waiting.
Endless agony!
Could a person really die of boredom?
Just as he finished deciding what the inscription on his gravestone would be when (not if, when) he died of boredom, a smartly dressed young lady with professionalism written all across her face stepped into the room. He dully glanced up from the corner of his magazine in which he was scribbling R.I.P. David Rossi.
"Sorry for the wait," Wait! The two and a half hours of boredom he had been forced to suffer through was merely called a wait! ", but the Director is ready to see you now."
Thank God!
Rossi practically jumped from his seat. But wait—the nice woman was still talking.
"-due to some…developments, the director asked to see all of you." Everyone in the room looked at each other warily.
"Will that be a problem?"
A few seconds of silence passed. The woman (David no longer felt inclined to call her nice; in fact, he was barely civil enough to call her a woman) took that as a yes. She nodded her head abruptly and began walking down the hall. There was a moment of disorientation, then the three others began hurrying after her. They passed through several corridors, walked up numerous staircases, and finally arrived at a imposing metal door, menacingly labeled Conference Room 8. The secretary opened the door.
David barely kept his mouth shut. Well, this was just the icing on the cake, wasn't it?
Standing uniform and poised in the room was Director Erin Strauss.
.
.
In the Sewer Tunnels of New York City…
He was a street rat. Scum, useless, thief, hobo, good-for-nothing idiot—he had all been called all these names and many more. And he had believed it.
He had heard it from his drunk-ass father, his prostitute mother, his mother's dealer down the street, the man on the corner shop, he heard from everyone he met. And after twelve years or so, it had become customary. So he accepted it.
Then his parent's debts caught up with them, and he was left crouching in a puddle of his parents blood with a gun pointed at his head. He had stared straight into the gunman's eyes and waited for death.
It never came.
The gunman had chuckled, put the gun away, spat at him and said he wasn't worth the bullet.
They had burned his house to the ground—not that it had been worth much to him—but that night he had been forced to sleep outside in the cold.
It had rained that night.
And his life had changed forever.
Because the day after he had killed for the first time.
He had been in the store, standing in line, minding his own business, when a muscle-bound thug (typical in this part of town) had quite obviously cut right in front of him. Anger risen up in him but instead of it instantly simmering down, it grew hotter and angrier and more intense until…
BOOM!
…he had—quite literally—blew.
27 people had been killed that day. He had woken up in an abandoned alley on the other side of town, scared out of his mind.
He resolved to never,ever do that—whatever that was—again.
And he had succeeded. For around 25 years he had survived without that happening again. He had grown up, gone to school, met a girl, made a name for himself, raised a family, and for once in his life he was truly happy.
And in the blink of an eye, everything he knew was gone.
He had been so mad. It was an explosive anger that he had only felt once before, once on that day, that terrible day. He had tried so hard to control it—and then it had occurred to him.
Why should he control it?
There was no real explanation, was there?
He was given this power for a reason and he should be allowed to use it however he saw fit.
And he knew exactly what he wanted to do.
So he had walked onto the train calmly and released his anger in a very…explosive… manner.
Oh yes, the X-League was going to pay.
They were going to pay for his pain.
They were going to pay in blood.
A/N: And so the plot thickens... we see a little of JJ, Will, Garcia, Rossi (P.S. He is the last new team member), with small cameos by Spencer, Emily, and Strauss. No Morgan or Hotch, we will see them next chapter though, so be patient! :) I want to involve as many Criminal Minds characters as I can so if you have a suggestion, please tell! And... did we get a glimpse of our villain at the end there?
R&R stands for Read and Review!