Front Lines| Spencer Reid + Anne Grey

thirty six

Anne Grey and Aaron Hotchner sat in a black SUV, on their way to a more populated part of Wichita, Kansas. They had mutually decided to simply drive around for the most part, stopping when they'd happen to see a decent amount of sex workers crowding an area.

They had barely made it onto the highway when Hotch took what was approximately his tenth glance at Grey's face since they had gotten in the car. He was presumably looking at her stitches, since that was the only thing off about her look.

"Why don't you take a picture," Anne gruffly jokes, raising her eyebrows at him as some kind of challenge.

Taking her seriously, Aaron starts, "Sorry, I just keep seeing it in my peripheral-"

"I'm joking." Grey laughs, finally making her sarcasm clear. She didn't care about a small amount of staring, considering she had gotten her fair share of looks from, well...everybody. Most people took her resting expression as an invitation to not ask, though, which she appreciated. The only person who had managed to irk her was the sheriff.

When Hotch smiles slightly, and makes it visible that he understands, she goes on, "So, what are you thinking we'll get out of this?" Her unit chief normally wasn't one to go over covered ground, so the choice in going back to the streets was baffling.

"A name would be nice," he answers, clearly having his expectations low, but his hopes decent.

Anne nods. "Yeah, you'd think he would've made his rounds with most of the brunettes until he found ones that he liked." She shares a laugh with the man before looking up at the road. She had felt the SUV's speed declining, and wanted to know why that was happening. Her question is quickly answered by the blue car directly in front of them, going a painstakingly low speed.

"Can you please pass this guy already?" she asks, staring at Hotch. "You're going 40 in a 55."

"Grey, it's a veteran," he counters, taking his left hand off of the steering wheel to gesture toward the bumper sticker on the back of the vehicle, that matched his statement.

He was fairly distracted by the sticker, which gave Anne enough time to lean across the console. Aaron didn't notice, up until she was leaning over his right arm."Grey-" He tries to cut her off and swat her away, but fails to do such before her left hand lands on the horn.

She finally pulls away after about three seconds of laying on the horn. Openly smiling, she says, "Now you're gonna look like a jackass if you don't pass them."

"Damn it," Hotch mutters, pulling into the left lane and beginning to pick up speed. He knew that Grey had technically helped, but he didn't like the way in which she had done it.

Her grin only gets wider as she happily returns, "Oh, I got you to swear! Lemme call Gideon so that he can yell at you." She pulls out her phone to accentuate her statement, before laughing it off and shoving it back in her bag.

"You're awfully giddy today," Aaron replies, pulling back into the right lane as he spoke.

Grey holds her smile. "Oh yeah?"

She couldn't help it, as she was genuinely quite happy today. She was great at keeping herself neutral around people she wasn't familiar with, but found no reason to hide her contentedness from Hotch.

She and Reid had talked out the idea of getting married last night, which was the source of her current mood. It had been about eleven P.M., and they had just gotten in bed for the night, at a hotel.

They had spent about thirty seconds staring at each other before either of them spoke, taking in each others facial features, although they had each done it enough before to know them perfectly.