When You Least Expect It | Aaron Hotchner

one

Olive

"We've got this handled. We don't need any help." I narrow my eyes challengingly at Rob, my unit's chief.

If it were anyone else, this level of defiance would probably not fly with Rob, but he was like a father figure to all of us. I guess when you put together a team of broken teenagers that were recruited at such a young age, we end up latching on to the first person we could look up to. We might be older now, but Rob will always be the person who took us under his wing and treated us like we were his own.

Rob sighs, "I know you don't, but the bureau thinks this would be a good chance for you to learn a thing or two from each other."

"We don't need another team meddling on a case that we've worked so hard on building, Chief." My teammate, Gabe cuts in. "We're in arguably the most crucial stage of our investigation. The smallest mistake can mess everything up for us- they'll only mess this up for us."

A series of agreements sound around the room from the rest of our team and Rob holds out a hand to silence them.

"Guys, I know that none of you are fond of the idea of having a bunch of strangers in your space, but this could be beneficial for both parties."

Danny snorts from the corner of the room, "Beneficial, my ass."

"Watch it," Rob warns, though it lacks its usual bite. "I'm still the one in charge."

"Oh, trust me. We know." Mia rolls her eyes in mock annoyance.

Mia was the youngest in our team of six. Most of us were recruited before we had even graduated from high school, but Mia was taken in fresh out of middle school. Being the tech genius that she was, the recruiters felt like she was too high a commodity to pass up despite her age.

Some would say that our team was put together as something of a social experiment; recruit the members as young as legally possible to see if it was easier to mould us into the perfect agents.

I guess in some way, it'd worked. Our team was considered one of the best in the country. But the public outcry questioning the ethics surrounding our recruitment- since a lot of us were barely even seventeen- had prevented the government from putting together another team like ours.

Though there was nothing more to our team than being recruited young and being pushed to train harder than others probably did, it still doesn't stop the other diversions from eyeing us like we were some kind of science experiment gone wrong.

Even now that we're already in our twenties, the stares still follow us everywhere we went, like we were somehow anomalies to choosing to sign our lives away to the force at such a young age.

All things considered, is it such a wonder why we would rather stick to ourselves?

The phone on Rob's desk goes off before anyone else gets the chance to argue.

He picks up the phone and all of us listen intently to the one-sided conversation.

Rob doesn't say much aside from the occasional grunt in acknowledgement to whoever was on the other side of the line, before he finally says, "Got it, we'll be right there."

He hangs up the phone and I eye him warily as runs a hand over his face and lets out yet another sigh.

"What's going on?" Adrian is the one who breaks the silence.

Rob doesn't answer his question, which only sets alarm bells off in my head.

"Just spit it out, Rob," Bran urges impatiently.

"Well, I guess this works out since it'll leave none of you any time to argue." He replies cryptically.

Gabe and I exchange a look, and my partner looks just as suspicious as I felt.

"Argue about what?" I ask, even though I think I might already have an idea.

Rob exhales sharply, straightening his shoulder as if he was preparing himself for battle. Knowing my team, I'd say what was about to ensue wasn't that far off.

"The BAU are already here."

I wince on Rob's behalf when my team members all start protesting in unison.

"Enough!" Rob bites out, "Give them a chance. If it still doesn't work out, we'll discuss this again when the time comes." He meets each of our eyes conveying his point, "I want all of you to play nice, do you understand me?"

A series of 'yes, sir's sounds across the room and Rob grumbles out, "Good." Before he gestures for us to follow him.

As he leads the six of us out of the room, Adrian falls into step beside me and nudges me with his elbow.

"I say we come up with a plan to run them out of here."

I roll my eyes at his suggestion. Adrian has always been the more mischievous one out of all of us. Despite already being at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, the guy still hasn't matured much.

Bran scoffs from behind us, "Rob will have your head before you could even try anything." Then, he leans forward, inserting himself right into the middle of our conversation. Literally. "You know, I hear that there's this guy on their team who's around our age. Dude has a genius level IQ, and their chief used to be a prosecutor."

"Yeah?" Adrian quirks a brow at him, "And where'd you hear that?"

"Unlike you hermits, I actually socialise." He answers in return, "And you'd find that people like to talk. A lot."

"Alright, that's quite enough from the bunch of you." The warning comes from Rob just before he pushes the door open to one of our many conference rooms.

He immediately steps forward to greet a man in a suit.

The guy is an imposing figure, one that screams authority the moment you lay eyes on him.

I also note that he's quite easy on the eyes, but can you blame me for noticing? I was only human.

He did look like he was in his mid to late thirties, in other words; too old for my twenty-six years.

"Agent Hotchner, it's good to see you again," Rob greets him with a firm handshake. "Let me introduce you to my team. These are Lieutenants Daniel Lopaz, Adrian Lee, Brandon Harrison, Mia Thompson, Gabriel Scott and Olive Grey. We're honoured to have your team here with us."

I almost laugh at the blatant lie. Not even ten minutes ago, we were just talking about what a bad idea we'd thought this was.

"We're honoured to be here," Hotchner replies, his smooth, deep voice reaching my ears. "This is my team; SSA Derek Morgan, SSA David Rossi, SSA Emily Prentiss, SSA Jennifer Jareau and Dr Spencer Reid."

Then, he steps forward, approaching me first. His brown eyes take me in before it finally meets mine as he holds out a large hand for me to shake.

As I reach up to clasp his hand in my smaller one, I get the feeling that my initial attraction to this guy may be harder to resist than I thought it would be.