Note to Readers: Sorry I stole/changed the physics magic scene, but it's one of my favorites from the show and I couldn't resist. As always, please comment and vote. :)
The only reason I wasn't technically late for work the next morning was because there was an accident on the highway I usually took to work, so Prentiss had been late, too, and Morgan of course. No need to explain to the team that I'd barely gotten any sleep last night so I overslept this morning.
I pulled open the glass door to the bullpen and walked in, my bag over my arm and a quite disgusting energy drink in my hand that I'd gotten from the vending machines. Suddenly, something came flying through the air and smacked me square on the forehead.
"What the--ow," I exclaimed, rubbing my forehead before I bent down to pick up the bottom half of an old film canister.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," Reid apologized, but I could tell he was trying to hide a laugh.
I strode over to his desk and set it down but then noticed the cover, a syringe of water, and a package of Alka-Seltzer on his desk, Garcia and JJ watching over his shoulder.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Magic," he answered conspiratorially.
"I thought you said it was physics," JJ argued.
"Physics magic," Reid reiterated before commanding, "Now turn around."
"What?" I asked.
"A magician never reveals his secrets," he said with a smirk.
"Trust me, it doesn't pay to argue with him," Garcia added, turning around and putting a hand on my shoulder to turn me with her.
I listened carefully while he was setting up his 'physics magic' trick, and we all spun back around when he said, "Okay."
The film canister was upside down on the desk, and he said mystically, "Observe," as he wiggled his fingers over it, as if he was the one coaxing the bubbles to leak out between the cover and the container.
It fizzed and then popped, shooting into the air and spraying all four of us with water before sailing across the room to land promptly at Hotch's feet.
The hands-caught-in-the-cookie-jar expression immediately morphed onto JJ and Garcia's faces, and they quickly busied themselves with the files stacked nearby as Hotch walked over to Reid's desk.
"Reid, what have I told you about shooting these off in here?" he reprimanded as he set it down.
"Sorry, sir," Reid said sheepishly.
"You're starting to get some distance on those, though," he remarked and then turned to me and said, "And I need to see you in my office," before turning and bounding up the stairs to his office.
Garcia and JJ turned away from their files and JJ asked, surprised, "So he does have a sense of humor?"
"Sometimes," Reid said with a shrug.
I turned to follow Hotch up to his office, still listening to their conversation.
"You have to tell us how you did that," Garcia demanded excitedly.
"I told you, a magician--"Reid started, but I paused halfway up the stairs and couldn't resist explaining, "Alka-Seltzer, water, and a film canister. You shake it up so the Alka-Seltzer reacts with the water, it causes bubbles and releases gas, which results in a build up of pressure, and when the pressure gets too intense, it forces the cap off and makes a rocket."
"How did you..." JJ started, and Reid accused me, "You looked, didn't you?"
I shook my head and replied, "Nope, science," with a gloating smirk before continuing on my way to Hotch's office.
I rapped my knuckles on the frame because the door was partially open but then went in without waiting for an answer.
"Close the door, please," he said. I did and then went to stand in front of his desk, feeling like a little kid in the principal's office. Albeit a much older, more defiant version, because I slouched and stuffed my hands in my pockets.
"I think you know why I called you in here," he said, setting down the pen he'd been using to fill out some paperwork on his desk.
"Because I disregarded a direct order and risked my life and the lives of my team members," I said boredly, quoting almost verbatim what he'd told me at least three times before since I'd started working here.
He nodded and said, "I know I've given you enough warnings before this, so if it happens one more time I'll have to suspend you from active duty, at least temporarily. You're a good agent and an excellent profiler, McDowell, but you've got a lot to learn yet, especially about working with a team. I'll be keeping tabs on you until you can prove to me that I can trust you to act responsibly," he told me evenly, straight to the point.
I wanted to argue that I was responsible--I'd saved the kid, hadn't I?--but decided it'd be wiser to tread lightly for a while, so instead I nodded once and responded, "Yes, sir."
He returned to his paperwork, which I gladly took as my cue to leave, only to see the rest of the team watching raptly from their desks' in the bullpen as I left Hotch's office. Morgan and JJ quickly returned their gaze to their computers and Reid buried his head in a book, but Prentiss, who had just come in from the break room, confronted me at the bottom of the stairs.
"What was that about?" she asked.
"Nothing important," I lied with a shrug before plopping down in my desk and sifting through the file folders of reports from past cases that I still had to complete.
Hotch was right but that doesn't mean I had to like it, though I guess if I didn't want to get stuck on desk duty for a month or so, I wasn't allowed any more impromptu rescues of poisoned children. I held back a sigh of frustration, I know everyone else in the bullpen would have been able to hear it, and flipped open the file on top of the stack in my basket and got to work.
I was glad when JJ got a call at 4:30 in the afternoon, a half hour before our 'normal' work shift ended, with a case that needed our immediate attention. I was almost dreading going home to another cryptically threatening letter and sleepless night.
I was less glad, however, when once we'd all gathered in the conference room and JJ had passed out the files, a picture of a dark-haired mid-20's woman flashed up on the screen. Garcia started presenting, "This is Jean Neal. Her body was found two days ago in New York, in a dumpster. The local boys in blue think it may have been a man she reported was following her a week prior to her disappearance and," Garcia cringed and looked away from the screen before finishing, "Brutal murder."
A picture of the same smiling woman we'd seen in the first picture popped up on the screen. She was sprawled on the ground, stripped naked, with the words, 'I SEE YOU' sliced into her stomach.