Wild Nights, Wild Nights || s.reid

13. Almost a Loneliness

Rarely did you walk into work refreshed and fully awake, ready to face whatever the day would throw at you, but as you walked through those glass doors, you felt like you'd woken up from a years-long-sleep.

You'd spent over an hour sitting at your piano the previous night, allowing yourself to revisit the part of you that you'd shut down for fear of what it might awaken. You played through andante sonatas and morose nocturnes, never venturing to the quick-paced and loud pieces that your younger self favored. That long-abandoned girl played to impress. You supposed that the woman you were now would play to say the words that you couldn't find yet.

Music is the language of the silenced, after all. Perhaps you could use it to find your voice again, to process the pain that now came with that instrument.

"Hey, hey, she's back," Morgan said as you walked by him to your desk, raising his coffee mug in a toast. "How was your vacation?"

You scoffed. "Believe me; that was anything but a vacation."

Morgan grinned back at you from behind his mug and took a sip as you began unloading your things onto your desk. You glanced across the aisle to find Reid's desk empty.

"Where's Reid?" you asked Morgan, scanning the bullpen for signs of Spencer.

He shrugged. "He probably just stayed up too late reading A Brief History of Time again, or something. He'll show up soon."

Just as Morgan rose from his seat, the telltale sound of Garcia's heels crescendoed towards you. She rounded the corner, her hand held high in the air with colorful pieces of paper in them. Garcia handed one to Morgan as she walked by, waving for JJ and Prentiss—both of whom had been chatting at the coffee station—to approach her as well. She began to speak as she passed you a paper, too. It was crafted from red construction paper and decorated with green glitter glue.

"Ladies and—" She gestured to Morgan, "—beautiful specimen, you are all cordially invited to my Christmas extravaganza."

"What's this?" Rossi asked as he ambled over from his office, drawn by the commotion.

Garcia rolled her eyes, handing him what you now knew was an invitation. "Like I said, my Christmas extravaganza! Come over for fun, friends, and food, and you—" She turned towards you, now, pointing an accusing finger, "—are not getting off the hook this year. It's BAU mandatory; all agents must attend."

During your first December with the BAU, she had planned something similar, and you'd given her an extremely vague reason that you could no longer recall as to why you couldn't attend. She'd actually caught you on the security cameras the following day, working well into the night filing reports and scouring through extra cases for ViCAP, Cyber Crime, and the Anti-Trafficking team. When she had confronted you about it, you had just said "sorry" and walked away. You overheard Prentiss chastising Garcia about "crossing boundaries" later on, but truthfully, you couldn't have cared. At the time, you liked the idea that Garcia would have a reason to dislike you; you thought it would make her try less hard to be your friend.

Clearly, you were wrong, and you were better for it.

The idea of spending the holidays doing anything but drowning in work and drinking yourself to sleep up until recently had been abhorrent, but now, your usual plans made your chest feel hollow.

So you shrugged and said, "Okay, I'll be there."

The team collectively froze and stared at you.

That was fair.

You tried again: "I'm serious. When is it?"

Slowly, Garcia's lips spread into a grin. She shook her head slightly as if to shake herself out of a trance, and, still smiling, said, "It's, um, it's on December 22nd. I didn't want to take up the actual holiday." She gave pointed looks to JJ, Morgan, and Rossi. "Some of these adults have spouses or kids, ugh!" Though she ended with humor, you could see the light shining in her eyes as she looked at you.