CHAPTER 4

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

"Sorry I grabbed your ass earlier." Bryan apologized, as soon as the high from the race had worn off and they were all chilling on the ground, covered in mud, waiting for their breathing to go back to normal.

He had literally had no other choice. This had happened during the rope climbing obstacle when Angie was about to fall on top of him, hadn't he steadied her and helped her start climbing again. Plus, he wouldn't have let her fall. It was just a bit weird that his reflexes were to hold her butt, but that was the first thing he saw in the air.

"If my ass is falling, I'm always glad to have support. Even if it means you grabbing it." She chuckled, not wanting to make him feel uncomfortable. "Oh, and one more thing. I'm not going to have sex with you. So, if that's your intention, you can walk away now. Please?"

He was caught off guard. "Don't get me wrong. You are attractive as Hell, but those were not my intentions."

"Ouch!" She pouted, fixing her hair in a very dramatic way. When she saw him nearly panic, thinking he had offended her, she laughed. "Got you!"

"You sneaky little…" He did not end that statement.

The same male voice from before was heard on the loudspeaker again. He announced the first five to have finished the race and he informed everyone that this was only a test run. This year they had decided to give them a rough start at the Academy, only to have them repeat the race in a few weeks, after specific FBI training, and then allow them to compare their results.

It was now time for everyone to go check into their rooms and meet their new roommates. Each trainee got a folder with important information and their AT cards, with limited access to the FBI buildings. Angie wore hers with pride.

"Hallway A, East wing, room 101." She read out loud while navigating through the building.

"Okay, here it is. Home, sweet home!" She opened the door with a smile that quickly faded away.

"Eww, you look gross." Her new roommate stated, as soon as Angie walked in.

That girl had somehow managed to beat Angie to the room, clearly choosing her bed first.

"Thanks. That's the price of being on top." Angie smirked. "You look dapper yourself. What were you, fifth?"

"Fourth." The other girl corrected her in annoyance. It was true, Angie had worked her butt off to finish first, while her roommate looked drastically more clean, yet, she only came fourth. Which was not too bad, anyway. But still, she wasn't first.

"So, you're the girl with the bow in her hair." The roommate stated, as if to annoy Angie.

"Yup, a bow and a ribbon dangling down, both pink. You'll see them in their perfect glory, back up in my hair, as soon as I wash them off." Her response was calm and nice.

"Ugh, great. I got Barbie as a roommate." Some eye rolling was happening.

"Ugh, great. I got a bitch as a roommate." Angie imitated, still calm and collected.

It was obvious she wasn't going to tolerate any bullshit, from anyone.

"Now that we've both insulted each other…" Angie continued. "Do you wanna be friends?"

Her enthusiasm was kind of cute. She seemed quite innocent, after all. Maybe it was the bow.

"No. I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to win." The girl replied without even looking at Angie any more.

"Win what? A whole bunch of us are getting hired after this, so if you think about it, yes, we are competition, but we are not competing for the same spot. Plus, I bet you're not even interested in the division where I'm going to end up at. So, it is really just your bad attitude keeping us from being friends." Angie put her gym bag on the floor. After the race she had grabbed it from her car and it was now all dirty from where it had touched her muddy clothes as she carried it. Plus, her whole trainee uniform was covered in mud. Good thing she found a spare uniform, folded and waiting for her on her bed.

She did not receive a reply, so she headed to the shower instead, realizing she didn't even know the girl's name.

Half an hour later she was a new person, quite literally. Her hair was now clean, she changed into a nice pair of shorts, complimented by a blue top with frills on the shoulder area. As soon as her hair was dry, she put a nice new bow in it, light blue, with white lining on the side. A touch of light make-up and she was ready to go.

"So, do you want to come out and party with us or do you prefer to stay here and be a bitch to the walls you'll be surrounded by?" Angie offered.

"Us? You have no friends. Who are you going to party with? That's lame." The girl sat comfortably on her bed and pretended to be reading a piece of paper that Angie assumed she had found in the folder from earlier.

Angie dialed a number and got an instant response.

"Yo, how did you even get my number?" Bryan said, as soon as he picked up.

"Easy. You went to get water and I inserted my number in your book, after that I called myself and voilà!" Angie was already grabbing a few items and putting them in a small evening bag. "Oh, and I saw your passcode when you unblocked your phone earlier. Now, are we going to party?"

"Impressive." Bryan then muttered something to his new roommate Jack and then confirmed that they were both interested in a night out.

"So, Girl, I even scored you a possible hot date. You in or what?" Angie smiled insistently.

"My name is not Girl." Oh, someone sounded offended.

"Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I never managed to catch your name, so I'm going to call you Girl from now on. I'm Angie. Call me whatever you want, but please, be consistent with it. If you want to call me Ugly, call me that and only that, otherwise I might not reply or even realize you are addressing your next rude statement to me. That would be a failed opportunity to diss me and that would suck for you." She grinned. "I don't see you getting ready, Girl!"

"It's Amanda." She said, already hopping out of the bed. Ten minutes later she was dressed up and ready to go.

Soon they were in a cab, smartly choosing not to take one of their own cars to a night out. It would suck if they got a DYI on their first day of FBI training.

The plan was to hit a couple of bars and then maybe go dancing. None of them was familiar with the city, so everything would be new and exciting to them. Their taxi driver later told them the names of a couple of bars where fellow FBI agents liked to hang out at. He had been a taxi driver all his life and he had taken hundreds of agents from the FBI premises to those bars uptown.

"I like the sound of Devil Child. Let's go to that one!" Angie smirked. "Oh, this is going to be one Hell of a nigh!"

The driver left them there and Bryan paid the whole thing, which Angie considered to be a nice gesture. He was, indeed, with two girls on a night out. But it was when he offered the first round of drinks when she got suspicious.

"I can pay my own drink." She said defensively.

"It's okay, first round is on me." Bryan smiled as he made his way through the crowd to where they had been indicated to go find a free table.

"No. I pay my own stuff. I never get offered. By anyone." She said firmly.

Angie hated it when people expressed a wish to buy her stuff. She felt like they thought she wasn't good enough to pay for her own things.

Right when their drinks arrived at the tiny table that they had found, near the toilets, moreover, they started noticing how groups of people were walking in. Most of them had their own table of choice reserved, even if the website of the bar said that no reservations were being made - Angie had checked it on the way there, from the taxi. Bullshit. Those were clearly some fellow FBI agents who were regulars at that place and who would always have a table reserved for them. Angie would be one of those, someday, hopefully.

"Here you go, SSA Prentiss." A well-behaved elderly man personally showed one of the groups of agents to their table. "Enjoy your evening, everyone. Sides are on the house."

"Thank you, Mr. DeVille. Very kind of you, as always." Emily smiled and sat on her favorite chair, facing the door of the bar.

Angie was not too far from their table and, given that it was still early in the evening and there was not much noise and music around them, she could hear what they were saying.

"DeVille?" Angie thought to herself. "Devil Child. DeVille? He must be the owner. He looks like a bar owner. His shoes are shiny."

"Angie?" Bryan tried to catch her attention. "We're going to dance. Are you with us or what?"

As soon as she heard the word dance, she was practically on her feet already.

The music was a little weird. It was something that she would expect the elder agents to enjoy, but she could not complain. She liked all sorts of music.

The four trainees held their cocktail glasses in one hand while with the other one they pretended to be dancing shyly. Nobody was dancing, like, giving it all kind of dancing. It kind of sucked.

"Come on, everyone! It's the first day of FBI Academy! LOOSEN UP A LITTLE!" Angie urged them and as soon as her new friends turned around to see where she had disappeared off to in just two seconds, they found her on top of the bar, gulping the last bit of her drink quickly and handing the glass to the bartender, so she could move freely.

Another one of the bartenders, the youngest one, who had somewhat good taste in music, followed her lead and did something very unusual for that bar - he closed the Rock'n'Roll playlist that had been on repeat since the bar had opened doors years ago, and he put on something more…well, fun.

"Oh, I love Daddy Yankee!" Angie said to herself and started dancing to one of the most hated and commercial Reggaeton songs of all times.

For the first half of the song everyone just stared at her, shaking their heads lightly, wondering exactly how drunk she must have been to be acting like that. But the more people looked at her, having fun, the more they started to loosen up and shake a little more. By the end of the song everyone who claimed to hate it, was now singing along and basically grinding on someone that they weren't sure they had ever met before.

The playlist continued with some more reggaeton, then some r'n'b, some 90's slow jams, some hip hop.

Emily had been forcefully dragged to the bar by JJ and Garcia, who had created a special Girls chat, along with Tara, where they spent every second of the day trying to figure out ways to help Emily out, not so much with the budget situation, but with what was going on inside of her. She had not been herself lately and it wasn't only hurting her directly, but everyone else around her, as well.

That first song had been a great start, but JJ noticed that Emily got even more sad when she saw the wild dancing scene unraveling in front of them. The second song had been fun and, also, one of Emily's favorite Summer tracks, but it hadn't helped her get up and dance, which was what everyone was doing by the time the third song came up.

Even Rossi got up and started singing along with some song he had heard one of his 90's wives listen to on the radio. Reid had been forced to stand up by Alvez and Simmons, the BAU hulks. They refused to go have their fun without making Reid part of it, against his own will.

Tara was now grinding against Garcia and probably drunk enough to think that there was a cute guy behind her, instead. She was never one to hold her liqueur.

So, that left JJ and Emily, still sitting awkwardly at the table.

"Come on, Ems. You heard the girl. Loosen up a little. Le'ss go git it on, gurl!" JJ tried to sound tough, but as usual, she failed.

"JJ, please don't embarrass yourself." The ice wall around Emily finally melted and she broke into laughter, watching JJ struggle with her hand gestures, trying to imitate a rapper whose name she did not even know, but she had seen his current song on TV and she liked the music video, minus all the naked butts.

"Please?" JJ had the cutest puppy eyes Emily had ever seen. There was just no denying JJ anything.

Soon Emily was on the dance floor, no inhibitions, just pure Emily Prentiss, exactly the way her team liked her. But not before another round of shots - liquid courage, as she liked to call it.

"Yas, girl! Get it!" JJ yelled, the moment she saw a random guy approach Emily and ask for a dance. And his way of asking was basically him getting in between Emily and Tara as they danced and slowly eliminating Tara from the picture while cornering Emily to the side of the bar.

"JJ, I swear to God-…" Emily started with her famous line once again.

"Yeah. Yeah." JJ waved her hand dismissively, knowing that Emily enjoyed the guy's attention and probably even took pride in what JJ had yelled at her.

"You are a miracle, Jareau!" Matt came by her and kept on dancing, leaving Garcia with Alvez and Reid, while Tara was on the lookout for a new dance partner somewhere near them.

"I know, right?" JJ made an impression of a bubble head girl as she said those words.

Lately, she had been all about humiliating herself in public and making the weirdest impressions of people or stereotypes. Everyone noticed that change in her. What nobody noticed was that she did it all for Emily, in hopes of maybe making her laugh once again, if she made a fool of herself. It hadn't worked. Until that night.

"Careful not to break anything, ol' man!" Alvez teased Rossi when he saw him get wild on the dance floor.

"I'll show you old man!" David laughed. "Back in the days I was the most athletic dude around the block. I went to all the parties and danced all night long."

"That's where he met the ladies." Tara barged into the conversation and wished she had known him all those years ago. Partying with a young David Rossi would surely have been fun.

"…And then you do the wave." Garcia, who was right behind Rossi, was showing some moves to Reid. "Uh-huh. Like that. But with feeling. You gotta feeeeeeel it. Like a wave. Like a tsunami of magical 1's and 0's hitting your screen until there is nothing else left to do but to give in and just flow with it. Uh-huh. Just like that. Come on, try it!"

Reid was barely moving anyway, but her words made him stop and stare at her for a second.

"And they say I'm weird." With that, he excused himself and pretended to not be disgusted by public toilets, as he made his way to the rest-room. It was only an excuse. There was no chance he would be seen doing the wave, or the bounce or whatever that other thing was that the girls always talked about.

"TWERK! Twerk! Twerk! Yeaaaah!" JJ and Tara cheered for some random girl whom neither of them knew. When the girl turned around, they realized it was the firecracker who had started the party by being loud and weird, up on the bar. In reality, her moves had nothing to do with the actual twerk dance move, but it helped people's mood to just shout that word out to her. She was dancing in a way that most would not find offending at all.

"I can't watch this!" Emily looked away, when everyone else was staring at the girl in the middle of the dance floor, the one who was having a great time and who would have given young David Rossi a run for his money at the club, back in the days.

"Awh, since when are you such a prude?" Alvez, being the Latino Macho of the bunch, walked to Emily's side and disapproved of her decision to look away.

"Damn, look at her. She's got a great ass. I bet she trains like hell. A little running, a little jumping jacks, a little riding. Uh, horses. Yeah." He ended off lamely.

"Luke, if you don't shut up, I'll make you!" Emily's face was almost green after hearing those words. "Plus, aren't you in a serious relationship?"

"In a relationship, yes. Serious? Not so sure anymore." This was the first time in two weeks that Emily realized that she wasn't the only one who was going through something.

Luke had been so happy to date this Lisa girl, he had told everyone at work about her. But when, some time ago, Garcia had invited everyone to Luke's house to meet Lisa, she had suspiciously been called in for work that same evening. And now that he was drunk, more of the truth was coming out.

"Aww, I'm sorry." Emily pouted, her hand rubbing his shoulder. "But please don't be one of those guys who talk about another girl's ass before they even dump the girl who is an ass to them. Still, be done before you keep going."

It didn't take a genius to read between the lines. Emily had been deceived by men her whole life. She never said it out loud, but everyone kind of knew.

"Day one, bitcheees!" Angie was now starting her third drink and she was on a roll.

Jack, Bryan's roommate, could not stop laughing. "Man, she's even crazier than you described her." He leaned towards Bryan, making sure Angie wouldn't overhear.

"Oh, that girl is definitely something, alright!" Bryan smirked.

Bryan had always been the cool, athletic guy, the guy everyone wanted to hang out with. He had a touch of arrogance, but it was just for appearance. On the inside, Bryan was an amazing guy and, somehow, Angie had figured it out earlier that day when she decided to make that pact with him, about going through the ups and downs of the Academy together. She had always imagined herself in the FBI academy on her own, focused and kind of nerdy. But, being there…it changed her perspective from the first moment. Amanda came off as what Angie thought she would be like and she was quite a snooze, before the second drink had kicked in, anyway.

"Happy birthday to me!" Angie let out, unintentionally.

"Oh my God, it's your birthday today!?" Bryan was surprised. He had spent the whole day around her and she had never even mentioned it. After she nodded in reply, he asked how old she was. Because, really, it was the only possible moment when a guy could ask for a girl's age and be excused.

"Twenty-three!" Angie cheered happily.

"Wow, she looks 17." JJ pointed out, because, that girl was making quite an impression on everyone and she had numerous sets of eyes on her, one of which was JJ's.

"Actually, she could not be any less than 23. Legally, in order to join the FBI, one would have to have completed the age of 23, and to have a series of other qualities on hand, before even starting the Academy." Reid's nerdy self re-appeared from hiding behind the column and pretending like he had been to the toilet and that he was just now coming back. The toilets were in the opposite direction, anyway.

"Yada, yada, Reid. We've all been through it. We know how the process goes." Luke rolled his eyes, wishing that Reid would just shut up and give in to the rhythm.

"I think 23 is a little young to even have the mental preparation to join the FBI." Simmons shrugged. He had always been curious about joining the FBI, but he had been older than 23 when he entered the Academy. He had done service elsewhere beforehand, gaining all the experience he possibly could.

"Ha!" Emily scoffed and turned around, so nobody could see her grin like the devil.

Time went by and people started to leave the bar. The bartenders' job switched from mixing drinks to calling cabs, so that everyone could get home safely.

"Jack, why don't you and Girl go grab a few bottles of water? We could all use some sobering up." Angie received a very nasty stare from Amanda, who did not appreciate being called Girl, now that her name was known.

It was, by far, the most fun night the bar had ever hosted. Usually people would drink, chat, play some darts or poker, pretend like the jukebox in the corner is actually working well, while the sound of it was painful and the whole thing was just rusty and old.

The staff started to prepare for closing and Angie finally sat down and slowly finished the bottle of water that Amanda had given her earlier.

"Well, that was fun!" Bryan cut through the silence at some point.

The more time they spent were sat on their butts, the more tired they were getting. All the adrenaline from the day had slowly vanished and all that was left was four sleepy young party people. Nothing wrong with that.

A cab was soon at their disposal and they hopped in after making sure everyone was sober enough to not get sick in the car. That would have been extremely lame.

Bryan and Jack insisted on walking the girls to their room, even after Angie informed them that, as future FBI agents, they were more than able to defend themselves. The guys still accompanied them.

The rest was a blur. None of them remembered the moment they hit the bed, which was also the moment they had instantly fallen asleep.

It went something like that for the BAU members, as well. Minus one.

Emily would twist and turn in her bed, unable to fall asleep, no matter how tired her body was feeling. She now only had four days left to present her new budget plan and things had just gotten more complicated.

Finally, early in the morning, as the sun started to rise, she was able to close her eyes.

In her sleep, she saw scenes from her past. Some were nice, some not so much. Everything was moving so fast that she was unable to tell the different scenes and people apart. It felt like she was watching her life on a tape, fast-forwarding it all the time.

The one scene that she saw somewhat clearly was with someone else. They were at a bar, Emily felt like she was happier than ever before. The other person held out their hand and Emily stood up. They danced. It was dark and hot, very humid, it smelled like cigars and scotch, but Emily loved it. Nobody else was around, not even the staff. Emily could only see a smudged vision of the other person, but she knew exactly who it was. What she managed to see clearly was the vision of her own face, smiling, laughing, as if she had no care in the whole wide world.

"I'll always love you." The other person said to her softly and it made her cry, both in her dream scene and as she was dreaming about it.

Before the Emily from the dream could say those words back, the other person had vanished. The bar was now suddenly busy, full of strangers, loud music, smoke in the air. But, no matter how hard she looked for that person, they were gone and, even surrounded by the whole crowd, she felt empty and alone.

"I'll love you forever!" Emily whispered, waking up from her nightmare and realizing it was too late for those words. They meant nothing now. There was this intense feeling in her stomach that she would never be able to say those words back to the other person.

She checked her phone, in case it was 3 pm again and in case JJ had called her 23 times, like the previous day.

It was only 9 am. She had slept for a total of 134 minutes, which was by far the most she had managed to sleep in a row for the past two weeks.

Knowing that she wouldn't be able to close her eyes one more time, and maybe she was also scared to see those images once again, she hopped out of bed and prepared herself a good, healthy breakfast.