𝖊𝖕𝖎𝖘𝖔𝖉𝖊 𝖙𝖜𝖔:
𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖙𝖊𝖌𝖊
MYKIE'S MEETING WITH AGENT HOTCHNER WAS SCHEDULED FOR EXACTLY 17 MINUTES FROM NOW. Her foot tapped insistently, and she took a deep breath in. She sat in the hallways of the Behavioral Analysis Unit's bullpen, the shadowy hallways giving solace in her stress. She'd printed out past cases of the BAU, read them, analyzed them before seeing how the team had analyzed it.
Comparing, she'd realized how actually awful she was. Sure, she'd gone to school for psych & sociology. But profiling wasn't just reading books and acing college exams. It was taking things in practice, and applying them to real behaviors. Psychology isn't always exact. Typical and pattern-following, sure, but it was like medicine. A practice, not exact. The brain doesn't have a map of reactions to follow every time, there's no pamphlet. It was unsure, and Mykie did not favor unsure.
She'd gotten a few right. A few small, insignificant parts of the profile correct. She studied some of the most famous cases, and Leah had given her access to some of the more restricted files, per Hotchner's approval.
She could get down the basics, race preferences, gender preferences. She could figure out when a murder was based on a substitute of someone in the unsub's real life. But those were the basics, anyone with a third of a brain cell and a psych degree could figure out. This was hard, and she knew this wasn't going to be easy. It was also, to say the least, beyond disturbing. She was unfazed by many traumatic things, but some of the details she'd read and the pictures she'd seen, as much as she hated to admit it, had gotten to her.
Mykie really pondered whether this was the job for her. Of course, she knew how hard it was, and nearly impossible it was, to be a fresh intern and be considered for the BAU. It was one of the smaller units, and one of the most prestige, but she didn't want to take the opportunity just because she could. She wanted to do her best work, or else they wouldn't keep her anyways.
She would be the youngest on the team, she knew that. Along with the most inexperienced. Of course Agent Hotchner knew that she wasn't experienced, but what if she didn't catch on as fast as he'd expected? What if she messed up terribly? In the Bureau, respect was eerily earned and never given twice. If she screwed up, getting it back would be nearly impossible.
She heard heels click, and her head snapped up, out of her thoughts. She recognized who the heels belonged to, and a smile reached over her face. "Emily Prentiss, in the flesh." Mykie was beyond relieved at the friendly face.
"Mykie, how's my favorite little minx? It's been what, a good few years since I've seen you?" Standing up, Mykie and Emily held a tight, loving embrace. They didn't talk often, but they truly did have a good bond. Emily was easily four inches taller than her normally, but with heels, Mykie was child-size standing next to her.
"Yeah, it's been a while, I've been decent. It's really good to see you here, someone who doesn't glare like no tomorrow." Pulling away, Prentiss really got a look at Mykie. She was still really young the last time she'd seen her, but she had changed very little. She had definitely grown up, though.
Prentiss grimaced, "Yeah," she laughed ironically, "about that. You haven't met Hotch before have you? He's not the happiest little villager. Very good man, just not a very hugs and rainbows type of guy."
Gauging Mykie's reaction, Emily saw her emotions falter momentarily. She was worried, it was clear as day.
"Speaking of, he sent me down to get you. Figured you'd freak out a little less if you'd see someone you recognized."
Mykie balanced her weight off of one of her feet and onto the other. God, she hated heels. And hers weren't even that high. She was nervous, to say the least. Was he a hard ass? How terrible was Hotchner? How was the rest of the team?
"Oh god," Mykie breathed in, trying not to panic. "Hey, I promise, he seems bad at first. Once you warm up, it's not as terrible. You'll do great. Just don't lie, and communicate well. You'll be fine. Come on." Prentiss calmed her, placing a supportive hand on her back, ushering her forward.
It was one of the shortest walks of her life, which Mykie truly despised. At some point, her hands were shaking a bit. Walking through the bullpen, she saw at least a dozen desks, with agents sputtered all around. Some were talking, some socializing.
She took notice of a small group, mostly because of the woman with a very spunky wardrobe, which Mykie took a liking to immediately. She was talking to a darker skinned man, who was sitting on the desk of a brunette younger looking agent, with a pen twirling in his hand.
They all turned once they heard the doors open, and a lot of the muttering died down. Eyes were all over her, and she could feel her face reddening. Thank god for full-coverage foundation. The part of her that yearned for attention, her "inner minx" as Emily used to call it, loved it, though. She was purring from all theattention she was receiving.
Walking up the stairs together, it wasn't long before they reached a door, in a room with drawn curtains. Mykie sucked in a hot breath, and Prentiss let a soft knock on the wooden door. A stern "come in," sounded, and the door was gently opened.
A tall man stood in the center of the room, his face fixed and emotionless. It kind of intimidated Mykie. Walking forward, she held out her hand, to which he shook. "Mykie Rivers, sir. Pleasure to meet you,"
"Aaron Hotchner, pleasure is all mine."
His voice was bleak, which for some odd reason upset Mykie. She turned to Prentiss, and she smiled. "I will be back in a few minutes. Good luck, Mykie." A smile and a pat on the shoulder, and she was gone.
Hotch, Mykie let it roll of her mental tongue, rounded his desk and sat down. "Please, take a seat, Ms. Rivers."
Slowly, she sat down, crossing her legs— a habit she'd gotten from her aunt, who had an obsession with lady-likeness and posture. That led for an interesting childhood. She took notice of his posture, his breathing changes. She'd subconsciously became more observant.
"I hope you do understand how quite odd this situation is. The BAU usually does not reach out to look for vacancies, let alone interns, even in the Bureau. Leah—excuse me—Agent Rensi, gave us your individual file for evaluation, and obviously were quite impressed." Hotchner kept his face stoic, even as he spoke.
He eyed her up and down, but not in a seductive way. In a profiling sense, he sized her up. He also noticed that even with heels on, she was inhumanely short, at least compared to him. All the women on his team were at least 5'7, which most of the time had heels on. With heels on, Mykie stood at a meek 5'3, was his guess.
"Thank you sir, that means a lot." Mykie's voice was soft, and she held a small, tight smile. "Could I ask why? I mean—no disrespect—I'm just a little confused as to why I got the opportunity many others haven't."
Hotch pursed his lips, and started to shuffle files around. Mykie stayed silent, clasping her hands together and swallowed thickly. She was curious, truly, but she also wanted her ego stroked a little. Aaron knew that, and in his mind, he smiled a bit. She was giving away parts of her personality without even knowing it.
"Agent Rensi had originally consulted me on a place to put you, and requested I take a look at your file. What I saw was incredible initiative, incredibe skills in observing social and interpersonal setting. Analytic and processing skills, the ability to de-escalate situations. We heard about your lead hostage negotiations in the Portland and Webinwreck and Proctorn cases, and the interview with the Robin Street killer, which ultimately led to his confession of twelve murders. All work interns usually never do, and you handled with ease." His words were like music to Mykie's ears, and the praise she was receiving made her peel off a layer of her insecurity.
Continuing, Hotch said again, "I saw some of your essays while you were in college, and I have to say, I am not easily impressed. Your freshman year, you wrote an essay on the sociological effects of high poverty and high crime rates. The same year, you did another essay on the the major factors of social cognition within families. Junior year, you did another essay on the role of aggression and violence in social psychology. You did over a dozen essays, I only managed to read a few, although those three I was quite impressed with. I've seen agents with better credentials, but with the ones you have, you have shown impressive perserverence and risen to the challenge. With your degree, I figured we could test your hand at profiling."
Mykie didn't have much to say, basking in the information. He delved far into her past. Freshman year of college? That was well over seven years ago, and frankly she was frightened at what the essays could have been about. She felt a spurt of confidence, and smiled at the still stoic man. "I hope we made the right choice, giving you this opportunity."
"I promise you have, sir," Mykie breathed in, a new door in her life opening. "If this unit truly is for me, I promise it will be worth it. You won't be disappointed."
Hotch paused for a moment, pursing his lips, and slid the file under some other papers. "Alright. You will mostly rely on Prentiss, as I know you too are familiar, and anything beyond that feel free to ask. We start on a new case in the morning. Be here at seven AM, no later. We meet in the round table room, two doors down from my office. Bring a bag with enough clothes for a trip, and any essentials."
"Okay," she breathed, taking in everything Hotch was saying, "but sir, if I'm being honest, I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm not going to be good at this, at all. I am going to try, but I don't want you to mistake my ignorance and surface level understanding of profiling for non-willingness to learn."
"Trust me, I understand. This is going to take you a while to perfect. Profiling is an inference, its just pulling facts you know based on psychological and sociological behaviors together to build profile. We don't expect you to get things right the first, or twelfth time. This is going to be a process, and we are willing to help you learn. We are going to be patient, and remember you are new to this. Mistakes are good. We aren't going to judge you. I have faith in you, otherwise I wouldn't have offered you a potential place on my team, Agent Rivers."
It was only a few seconds before Prentiss knocked, and walked back in. Mykie turned to her, quite glad to see her again, and she asked excitedly, "Do you want to meet the rest of the team?"