be the one ⇢ s. reid

viii.

Melanie hadn't had a chance to spend time with either her brother or any of her FBI friends since arriving to the east coast. The BAU seemed to have been swamped with cases but she did get a chance to hang out with Sam and help him with some work he was behind on. She missed when the two of them would swap work or help one another when things got swamped. The two only trusted one another when it came to their work.

It wasn't until Penelope had invited her to her "lair" at the BAU while the rest of the team was away on a case. It had been a slow developing one so one could say the blonde tech analyst was a little bored and Melanie was a good source of entertainment for her.

Melanie had been talking to Penelope about her life out in San Francisco as well as her new found friendship with Matt, which Penelope described as a "Derek Morgan and Penelope Garcia relationship."

"A what?" Melanie questioned.

Penelope laughed. "Morgan and I have a special relationship. We'd say crude things to one another which made people assume we're together. He'd call me baby girl and I'd call him chocolate thunder. Honestly it came to the point where the whole department have a small assembly from HR about sexual harassment."

Melanie giggled. "Are you serious? Now that's hilarious. I'm not sure if Matt and I will ever come up with nicknames like that with one another but we do jokingly flirt with one another but I don't think it'll ever get passed that."

"You just hang tight there, Little Bear. You two will be the new Morgan and Garcia." Penelope stated.

Melanie raised her eyebrows at her friend. "Aren't you and my brother the new Morgan and Garcia? Well...my brother being your new Derek Morgan?"

Penelope just looked at the journalist with wide eyes as her cheeks started to turn a light shade of pink. Melanie couldn't help but to giggle at the blonde's reaction.

"Oh come on! You practically walked in on his date earlier!" Melanie exclaimed.

Penelope scoffed and rolled her eyes. The typical reaction she would give the journalist whenever she would bring up her theories or really tried to push the fact Penelope had a thing for her (Melanie's) brother.

"Because we had a case and he wasn't answering his phone and me being me found out where he was and went there to make sure he was okay and not dead in a ditch!" Penelope explained. Melanie found the blonde being quite flustered amusing.

"I'm only giving you the benefit of the doubt here because you care about everyone here on the team and I can't imagine the panic you go through when no one answers the phone." Melanie told her. "But I'm not letting it go that you have secret feelings for Luke."

Penelope threw one of her stress toys and threw it at the journalist, which she ended up catching and laughed at the blonde's action.

"Alright alright. Don't let me call the authorities on you." Melanie joked. She leaned back against her chair and began to play with the stress toy. "You know, for such an interesting case it's a slow one."

Penelope laughed a bit. "It's still light outside. Werewolves only come out at night."

Melanie let out a hearty laugh. She knew she shouldn't be laughing at a brutal, yet interesting case, like this one. It was about a person (though presumably a man) who went out ripping out their throats - very werewolf like.  A story that Sam and her would be writing about and throwing around jokes here and there. Of course they both know how horrible it was but this unsub had to be on some kind of drugs to act the way he did.

"I see those wheels of yours turning, Alvez. What are you thinking about?" Penelope asked.

Melanie sighed softly with a shrug of her shoulders. "Just thinking about how great a story this would be for Sam and I. I miss knowing these kinds of things. You guys are the ones giving us the stories that made our jobs wonderful. Sure I could do that back in San Francisco but it wouldn't be the same. I should stop whining right?"