CHAPTER 12

I WON'T HURT THE MUGS. I'LL HURT YOU!

After the training, it was time to study. At 8:29 Angie was already sitting in what would turn out to be her signature seat for the rest of the Academy – front row and center.

She opened her notebook and made sure she was ready to take notes. Soon, Bryan, Jack and Amanda surrounded her, with Amanda smartly pointing out that those were the "nerd seats". To that, Angie had replied that she sat there strategically, so that everyone else would be behind her, so they could look at her pretty bow all day long and that would give them some good vibes. That, or they could kiss her ass, being way behind her.

"Is there anything, anything at all in this world, that could actually make your blood boil? Or are you just chill about everything?" Bryan whispered to her right after that.

"Yes." She smiled innocently. "But I won't tell you what it is."

"Tease!" His elbow nudged her and it made her giggle.

Their first lecture started and it was on criminology, brushing up on the basics and quickly getting into specifics. They were all required to have at least the basic knowledge in that field, so the lecture went on pretty smoothly and quite fast.

All trainees received an e-mail from their professor, containing all sorts of required reading for the course, some power point presentations that he would be using and, what made Angie most excited – a due date for the final test, along with a detailed summary of the course expectations.

"What are you doing?" Bryan asked curiously, watching her put a check sign in front of most of the required books.

"I've already read those." She replied calmly.

"Nerd!" Amanda had become much more open to Angie, but apparently, snappy remarks were of nature to her.

"Thank you." Angie said with pride.

Dan popped by at the end of the lecture, informing them that, at 3:30 pm, they were finally allowed to go get lunch. Most of them did not get the chance to grab food between training and the morning class, so to say that they were famished would be a huge understatement.

After lunch they would come back to the auditorium for the second part of the same criminology lecture before having to gather up at 10 pm outside the dorm rooms, for an activity that Dan refused to give them any sort of information about.

Angie's proposal for healthy lunch had been trumped over by her three friends, so she had to give in and follow them to the canteen instead. To her surprise, there were quite many healthy options to choose from. After checking the menu very carefully, twice, she ended up with a huge piece of lasagna on her plate, on her way to find a free table for four.

"I thought you only ate healthy." Jack teased her, watching her sprawl grated cheese on top of her dish, like there was no tomorrow.

"I never said that." She only stopped when there was very little cheese left in the jar. Maybe someone else would need it, too. "I only said that we need to eat healthy. But, you see, in life there is pizza, then there is food. Pizza trumps everything. And yet, sometimes there is lasagna. Then lasagna trumps everything, with pizza being close second." She laughed at her own statement.

"Nevermind, sorry I asked." Jack rolled his eyes. Much like Bryan, he never really figured out how a woman's brain worked.

"I liked that first class." Bryan changed the topic.

"I didn't. It was quite boring, we are already required to know all of that stuff. I hope the pace gets picked up from now on." Angie said after chewing the first bit of her lasagna and savoring its taste.

"Oh, it will." Jack smirked and Angie found that to be suspicious, but she didn't comment on it.


"Finally!" JJ whispered, seeing Emily open her eyes.

She had been there with Rossi all day long and Emily had not moved a muscle.

"Am I dead again?" Emily looked around and saw everything white, with an irritating bright light pointing right in her forehead.

"Again?" Her colleague found that question to be very oddly specific.

"What happened? Why am I here? Where am I?" Emily tried to sit up in the bed, but her muscles failed her. She did not have the strength to move.

Rossi looked at JJ. It was partially her mess, so it was her responsibility to break it to Emily.

"Garcia did what!?" Emily gasped when she heard the end of JJ's story.

"Yeah, that was our reaction to it, too." Literally, both JJ and Rossi had said the same words.

"I need to go back to the office. I only have two more days until the deadline." Typically of her, her mind was on the job.

"You are not going anywhere. The doctor prescribed a lot of rest." Rossi spoke, once again allowing JJ to break some more news to her.

"Also, now you only have one day left. It is Friday afternoon. So, yeah…" JJ shrugged.

"What? Oh good Lord, have mercy upon my soul!" Emily rolled her eyes, because no matter how hard it was to move any muscle of her body, she would always be able to roll her eyes. It had taken her years, but she had finally perfected that task, to the point where it was now second nature to her.

"How is it Friday yet? It was just Thursday, we had lunch." She argued, but decided to just drop it.

"Is there anything you want us to bring to you?" JJ figured Emily would be hungry, thirsty, maybe she would like a fresh batch of clothes to change into.

"Garcia!" Emily replied. "And a gun!"

"Come on, Prentiss. She never meant to harm you." Rossi couldn't help but defend the poor woman. Earlier, she had left the hospital, crying. It broke his heart.

"How long do I have to stay here for?" She said, finally getting some tactile sense in her hands, so she could move them around and feel a little more alive.

"The doctor was waiting for you to wake up, so he can run a few tests and then he could answer that question." JJ informed her while checking her phone.

"Great. Just marvelous." Emily grunted and decided to pretend to be sleepy again, so that she could convince both of them to get out of the room and give her some privacy.

If she had to be honest with herself, she did not care at all about the whole spiking her drink part of the conversation. Garcia was a sweetheart and she would never harm anyone, so if she did something to Emily, it would not have been with bad intentions. Yes, the consequences sucked, but Emily got to sleep through a whole night without waking up, shaking and sweaty from her nightmares. She was actually kind of happy Garcia had been so reckless.


After the second part of the lecture, the trainees went back to the dorms to get ready for the evening. Angie was not sure how she could prepare for something that she did not know a thing about, so she decided to go sporty. They were only told that they were not required to be in their uniforms, so she went with black leggings and a t-shirt, with a rain jacket on top. She grabbed a bag with a water bottle and a few more things stuffed inside and she urged Amanda to leave faster.

When everyone met outside, Dan explained what was going to happen.

"What? A night of survival in the woods? Is he crazy? None of us is prepared for that." Amanda exclaimed when they learned the news.

"Well, I guess none of our future enemies would be kind enough to give us a heads up for when shit would hit the fan, so think of this as a very useful practice for what is about to come." Angie said calmly.

Something about the way she always justified things in a positive light was both inspiring and annoying to her fellow trainees.

They received further instructions and one emergency radio per team of five, to call for back-up if they needed it. Although, that would be very, very bad for the team.

This time they were free to choose their teammates and that meant that Angie's little group only had to find one more person for this adventure.

"Can you, guys, squeeze me in?" A guy in his late 30's approached them as they were sitting on the ground, strategizing.

"What's your field of expertise?" Angie asked, just as Bryan had nodded and opened his mouth to say Yes.

"Uh, I have prior military training, Marine Corps in Miami, Florida." The man replied.

"Angie, what are you doing? What does it matter anyway?" Jack whispered to her.

"It does matter, actually." She argued, silently. "We have me on the team, I'm very athletic and I can run and climb like a monkey. I'm also very good at orientation within big open spaces. We have Bryan, who is very resourceful and highly adaptive to different unexpected situations. We have Amanda, who, well, she'll keep us entertained and she'll make sure our brains don't stop working properly in case of a natural disaster. I mean, she's really good at putting someone in their place, so her words would keep our spirits alive. Then we have you, honestly, I don't even know why…" She trailed off.

"Ouch!" Jack cringed.

"Just kidding. You're full of surprises. You said you grew up in Montana, so you surely know how to survive in the woods." Angie added before turning back to the new man. "What are your hobbies?"

"I like roller skating with my son. When I was young, my parents made me take dance classes because my older sister was doing that, but I switched to football. Obviously." He laughed. "I had much better luck in culinary school, later in the years."

"See? Jack can hunt us an animal and, sorry, I don't know your name, but you can cook it for us!" Angie stated contently, once again turning to face the new guy.

"Relax, it's just a few hours of hiking in the woods. You're preparing for it as if it were a survival mission on a stranded island." Jack wanted to push her buttons, he wanted to hear what she had to say.

"Oh yeah? What if it's not? What if Dan only told us half of what to expect? What if this is really a survival mission and they want to find out which one of us can make it out of the woods with no support, for more than just a few hours?" She argued and the more she spoke, the bigger the dimples on her cheeks became. They weren't as visible when she spoke normally. One could see a hint of dimples when she smiled lightly, but now, they were just out there.

"Samuel, that's my name." The man introduced himself. "She does have a point." He added, trying hard not to smirk.

"Well, Samuel, welcome to team." Angie shook his hand formally. She had a thing where she would act very cordial to anyone whose age was even slightly superior than hers.

They opened a map that was given to them and started to make their way into the woods.


"I can't believe she kicked us out." JJ shook her head as Rossi parked his car in front of Emily's apartment building.

Garcia and her had went to the hospital in the ambulance, so none of them had a car available. Garcia had to go back by taxi and she hated those. JJ was lucky she got to ride in Rossi's amazing car.

"She's got a lot on her mind. Cut her some slack." He replied with a shrug. Emily had a mind of her own and she would do and say what she pleased.

JJ opened the door and walked straight into Emily's bedroom. She stuck a few clothing items in one of Emily's "go bags", as they called them, and then she added a few toiletries too. The plan was to have the bag ready, for whenever they would be welcome to go visit her again.

After that, Rossi drove them to the BAU where they had to come up with some lame excuse for their absence. JJ informed everyone that Emily had been assigned a project that was above everyone's security clearance, so they were asked not to raise any questions about it.

Soon it got dark outside and everyone started to leave. JJ stayed behind, closed up in Emily's office, trying to help with all the paperwork that she found there.

"SSA Prentiss?" An obnoxious voice sounded from behind the door and JJ was pissed.

"Oh, Agent Jareau…" The woman once again invited herself in. She loved getting on Emily's nerves, but annoying JJ would give her just as much satisfaction. She had, after all, been breathing down Emily's neck for the past few days, so it was getting old. She appreciated the change.

"Doing someone else's work for no recognition at all? Again?" She started, but JJ refused to give her the pleasure of getting riled up.

"What can I say? I like to stay in the sidelines." She replied sarcastically.

"Well, that's good to hear, because that is exactly where you will remain – in Prentiss' shadow." The woman smirked. "So much wasted potential…"

"As if you care." JJ muttered to herself, pretending to be writing something on a piece of paper.

"I just wanted to let SSA Prentiss know that I have received the files and they have already been processed and approved. I must say, I am impressed she managed to come up with such a detailed plan in such a short time. Please, salute her from me. Have a good weekend, SA Jareau." The Chief left and JJ picked the phone, extremely aggravated.

"Garcia!?" She nearly choked from anger as she spoke her name.

"Ye-yes?" A timid reply followed.

"What did you do this time?" JJ knew it must have been Garcia.

Emily never had the chance to write down her own or to sign the propositions she got handed at lunch, since she fainted right after that. So, that left Garcia.

"I fixed things…maybe?" Garcia mumbled while making sure the very last mug was hidden, so that JJ wouldn't go after Mr. Crocodile, one of her favorites.

"Exactly what did you do?" JJ pushed it.

"I hacked into Emily's computer and downloaded a few files. After that I cyber-copied her signature and I used your proposal, on different stationary, and then splashed her signature on top and then ever since I hit the Sent button I've been praying to God and all mythical creatures that this would not lead to me getting fired…And I also drank too much tea. Please don't hurt my mugs!" Garcia ranted and JJ could almost hear Garcia's heartbeat on the phone.

"I won't hurt the mugs. I'll hurt you!" JJ was about to lose it.

"Well, before you do, I should just let you know that it was a group effort."

"Huh?" JJ said, now confused.

"The team decided that this was the best thing to do. Emily is being ridiculous. She can't risk her life, for a pretty penny. We can't let her keep on sacrificing things. You know how she is. So, we decided to send your proposal." Garcia explained.

"What, the whole team is okay with your idea?" Somehow JJ did not believe that.

"It was not my idea. It was Rossi who suggested it. I just forged the signature and sent it in from Emily's computer. And yes, we were all on the same page." Garcia took a sip of yet another cup of tea, her nerves were getting the best of her.

"And you guys did not include me in that conversation?" JJ was unsure if it was the deed they did, that annoyed her, or maybe the fact that she had been sidelined, as a part of the team.

"No. Because you always do what's best for Emily, the person. And right now we only needed to think about Emily Prentiss, the Unit Chief. You wouldn't have let us go through with our plan. You'd know how much it would upset Emily, and we did, too. But we had to do it. It was the right thing to do." JJ hated it when Garcia was right. Sometimes, not too often, Garcia would put her bubbly persona aside, and come up with the most valid, emotional speech, one that JJ could not argue with.

"But Emily is also our friend. We can't do this to her. She needs to take her own decisions. This is not fair!" JJ argued anyway.

"See? This is exactly why you weren't part of the conversation. God, Reid was right about you…"

"Spencer!?" JJ's jaw dropped. "It was him who suggested leaving me out of this?" At that moment, her heart sunk. It hurt. How could he do this to her?

"None of us wanted you there." Garcia bit her lip as she spoke the rough, hurtful truth.

JJ took a moment to think about it. And the more she thought, the more she knew why they did it, but it didn't hurt any less. All she could do now was accept it and move on. She was not one to hold a grudge and neither was Emily, so maybe this would work out just fine.

"You better pray that Emily takes this as well as I almost did…" With that, JJ hung up and started praying to God and all mythical creatures, too.