The weekend is over before I know it. It was cold, but Bastien managed to drag us all around the park. We went rock climbing together, and went canoeing, and hiking. I need another weekend to recover, but instead, I'm forced back to work. I bring one of the books by David Rossi to read on the subway. I get so caught up that I almost miss my stop. It makes me smile. I like the routine of not having a routine.

In the office, I make my coffee less obnoxiously, and then I get to work. The others are at their desks already by the time I return.

"How'd your hot date go?" Morgan asks as I sit down.

"You mean the cabin retreat with my siblings for my brother's birthday?" I ask. "Great. Really sexy, being trapped in a cabin with my sister's obnoxious boyfriend. Too sexy, actually."

He laughs, "I should have asked what your plans were."

"Well, you didn't," I say.

I punctuate my sentence by putting the mug on the desk while I sit. The sound is louder than I had thought it would be, the thunk dull and heavy. The office is busy, bustling, and already I've got a headache.

"You can't hate us as much as you pretend to," Morgan grins. "No one can hold that much anger without getting a wrinkle. You're using your mug gift from us."

"From Dr. Reid," I correct.

Dr. Reid looks up at me past his computer. He offers a curt nod, his lips pressed tightly together. It's the best reaction I could hope to get from him, I think. At best, he's cold, and worst, he's overly familiar. While he might dress like many of the academics I know, with buttoned up cardigans and collared shirts with ties underneath, and horned rimmed glasses pressed tightly covering his eyes, he's not like them that much. Then he pauses.

"David Rossi," he points to the book I left next to the mug. "His use of psycholinguistics while investigating the Scarsdale Skinner is incredibly fascinating. One of his books discusses the case, and I have a copy of it at home if you want to borrow it tomorrow."

"I'm good," I say.

"Reid, most of us can't finish a book in ten minutes," Morgan reminds him.

"I'm good because I have a copy," I say. I don't actually know what the other book I have is about, but it feels like an easier way to exit the conversation.

"Do any of you ever work?" Agent Gideon asks, walking through the bullpen.

The two of them stop talking. I'm able to avoid most conversations for the rest of the day. Tuesday is much of the same. Garcia and I eat lunch in the breakroom together though, which is a nice shake-up in my routine.

"I've never seen that kind of stew before," Garcia says, pointing to my lunch. Her eyes are wide.

"My roommate is from Côte d'Ivoire and she loves cooking," I say. "It reminds her of home."

"I love making soup," Garcia says. "Is it vegetarian?" When I nod, she grins. "Ask her if she'd let me have a copy of the recipe."

I look down at her lunch. She has brought a wrap, and she has yet to take a bite.

"What's in that?" I ask.

"Avocado, mozzarella, and pesto," she says. "It sounds better than it tastes."

I offer her my container. She actually gasps.

"If I am a damsel in distress then you are my knight in shining armour," she says.

We switch meals, and she gushes over the food. It's actually interesting to hear her talk about homemade soup. If I didn't live with Estelle, I wouldn't eat anywhere near as well as I do. I'm lucky if I throw together some cut up cucumbers on a plate instead of just eating ramen. Chatting with Garcia makes the day tolerable.

Then, Tuesday ends again and Wednesday happens. Even if I'm making headway with categorizations, it still is dreary. The metadata in one of my files is corrupted and so I have to get Garcia to come and fix it. At this point, they should put me at a kindergartener's desk in the corner of her room so that she can check up on me every so often. Now that the file is uncorrupted, the dataset still isn't working.

I groan.

"There's an error in your code," Dr. Reid says.

I nearly jump. I hadn't realized he was behind me.

"You made a typo," he leans in, pointing at my computer screen. "You put an angle bracket where there should be a period. If you do that, your chi-squared test should run fine."

I scan the code, ignoring his finger, and see the error. Then, I fix it and run the test again. This time, SPSS cooperates and gives me the results I wanted.

"Interesting," he is still lingering over me. "You're trying to link the psychodynamic model of aggression with insecurity. The data set is too small for finding statistical significance with a chi-square. You should use a t-test."

I hate that he is right, but I cannot help myself, "well, I also need a p-value."

"True," he agrees. He still hasn't moved. "How are you valuing aggression and insecurity? Those concepts are hard to quantify objectively, and your data set spans years as well as different researchers. Also, how are you accounting for the Hawthorne effect?"

"They're interviews, so the Hawthorne effect isn't applicable," I point out.

Morgan chuckles beside me. I try my best to ignore him.

"I was referring to the fourth point in your data set. I know the study in question. It involved observational research of a killer who went to prison, did it not?" he says.

If it wouldn't be extraordinarily rude, I would turn off the monitor so he couldn't look. Maybe, I'd power down the computer. I'm not going to go postal today, but every day I get closer, "that study represents one data point out of the sixty points I have, and I have it weighted less because of the problems with that particular study. It would be more accurate to express concerns about the interviewer effect, rather than the Hawthorne effect."

"Fifty-seven data points," he mumbles. "Not sixty."

I turn to glare at him. He looks into my eyes and walks away.

"Sorry," he says.

"That's another apology mug you owe Cole," Morgan says. "We should just get a jar and make him put in a penny for every time he makes you angry. You'll have enough money to retire by Christmas."

I turn off my monitor and get up from the table. Truly, there are few places I would rather be than stuck at a desk between those two. I end up going all the way down the building, passing through security who doesn't pull me in for a secondary check for the first time since I started working here and standing outside. If I were more French, I would smoke a cigarette, but alas I hate the language and this job, and I hate every choice that has led me here. I hate this cold weather. Still, all I feel is the flush of anger in my face, and I'm so hot that I keep my hands out of the pockets just to watch the colour fade from my fingers and my knuckles begin to burn as the cold sets in. After ten minutes, I have cooled off thanks to the snow, and I am able to return to my desk.

The rest of the day goes without a hiccup. When I am starting to leave, JJ invites me to go to lunch with her and Prentiss the next day. I agree because I am too tired to argue with them. Estelle always stays late at Georgetown on Wednesdays to do work with her study group. I leave her a note asking for her recipe and spend the rest of the night curled in bed regretting my life choices.

If I wanted to talk to someone, I could text Stéphane. He'd appreciate it too. Yet, I cannot bring myself to do any of that. Really, I cannot bring myself to do anything except seethe.

In the morning, I see that Estelle had left me the recipe. She wants to meet a co-worker of mine who is obsessed with soup. I write back that we do not have the space for a dinner party, because we don't, and then I head out.

Garcia appreciates the recipe. She tells me that when she makes it, she'll bring in enough for me to bring home for my roommate and me to critique. Estelle wouldn't have the heart to say anything bad about it anyway; she's happy enough with people trying their best. It's one of the very few points on which we defer.

Dr. Reid doesn't bother me. Morgan is leaving tomorrow for Chicago, so I get through the morning by thinking about how nice it will be to have at least one empty desk beside me.

At lunch, I had almost forgotten about the outing with JJ and Prentiss. We agree to grab shawarma nearby.

"How often do you all fly out for cases?" I ask.

JJ sighs, shaking her head, "you jinxed it. There's no wood nearby."

"We're pushing our luck right now, so I've been told," Prentiss offers. "It's usually every two or three weeks. We just had two weeks back-to-back of chaos though, so everyone is hoping to get a break."

"I know some homicides can be seasonal, but most of that data doesn't have a lot of statistical significance. Do serial killers operate seasonally?" I ask.

Prentiss shrugs, "maybe you should run those analytics next week."

"Maybe," I agree. "I know sexual violence is thought to be seasonal, but trends vary every year. It probably has more to do with reporting than anything else. UCR data for that is extremely unreliable, but I'm preaching to the choir."

"You know, Reid would probably be interested in this," JJ offers.

If he is, I don't care.

We get to the shawarma restaurant and place our orders. Soon enough, the three of us have wraps and we are sitting at a table. The place is small, but I feel less trapped than I did at the bar, so it's an improvement.

The three of us get chatting about things that aren't work-related. JJ mostly calls Prentiss by her first name, Emily. The naming conventions here are quite strange. Maybe I'm just the one who isn't following along. Prentiss has good French though, and Spanish, and she can speak a whole bunch of other languages. I don't know a lick of Spanish but with my French knowledge, I can almost piece together a few things she says. It would be easier if I knew Italian maybe. JJ only knows Spanish.

Then, the conversation turns to the strangest men they've dated.

"One guy I dated used to wash his car more frequently than his own hair," JJ chuckles to herself.

"Please, I dated one guy who stored his golf clubs in his closet. All his clothes were stuffed in drawers. He looked like a mess when he went to work," Prentiss adds.

"One of the guys I dated works for the RCMP," I shrug. "He works in victim services, apparently. He was on my brother's hockey team. We dated in high school."

"A classic brother's best friend story," JJ jokes.

"It would certainly make a salacious novel," Prentiss agrees. "Brother's best friend, working for different governments, reunited once again?"

"Does the RCMP hire dual citizens?" she asks.

I nod, "they're more lax up north."

Although, I don't add that I doubt he's a dual citizen. He's probably just Canadian.

And he wasn't my brother's best friend. None of us talk about him.

We don't have much more time before we are forced to pack up and head back to work. The lunch keeps me rejuvenated for the rest of the day. It occurs to me that maybe it's not profilers that I hate. Prentiss is pretty kind. Maybe it's profilers who are men that fill me with rage.

~~~~~

She's a fun anti-hero. Who are you most excited out of the main cast to see the most of? Besides Reid (obviously).