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"You look like you got some last night…" Penelope gushed as the waitress delivered a milkshake to their table. Derek let out a slightly off-kilter almost nervous laugh that told her everything she needed to know. "You did! I was just joking but it's true! I need details! Where did you meet her? Are you going to see her again? Do you know her last name?"
"Woah, woah, woahhhhh. Slowww your roll, sweetness. When have you ever known me to kiss and tell?"
"Uh, since always. Every time. You love to dish. Especially when they're hotties."
"So I'm turning over a new leaf, then."
"Now? Why now? What's special about this…OHHHHH…she works at Quantico, doesn't she?!"
"You just keep talking, I'll listen all day long. Not sayin' a word though."
That was how it started, but the longer this thing with Hotch went on, the more comfortable Derek got with the idea of sharing tidbits with Penelope.
The problem was, she couldn't keep a secret, so it couldn't be a secret once she knew. She had to be the last, not the first.
And that meant coming clean to Strauss.
"She likes me," Derek said as he and Hotch discussed just how it might work on their morning run. The very real possibility that one of them would have to transfer out of the BAU was looming like a dark cloud over their heads. Hotch going in to talk to Strauss would fuel her already raging fire against him and they both knew it. She'd cooled some, now that Gideon was gone, but this would reignite everything and provide her with plenty of ammunition to boot.
Derek might be able to use his leverage though. She'd always liked him. Always found him charming, even when he was talking back to her. Gideon once made a joke about her having a school girl crush and it had put him on her shit list for longer than it should have, but to Hotch's recollection, she never actually denied it. And how could he blame her? Everyone at Quantico, at some time or another, had developed that same schoolgirl crush on Derek Morgan. Hell, Hotch never quite got over his. He just happened to be the only person at Quantico lucky enough to have it reciprocated. (A fact that he would never quite understand or feel worthy of.)
"It should be me that talks to her," Hotch said as he adjusted his tie, continuing the conversation nearly an hour after it started and fizzled out. The tie that was, at the moment, still showing wrinkles from being tied around his wrists the night prior. The tie that left red marks on his wrists that felt just the right kind of raw this morning and were only mostly hidden by the cuffs of his silk shirt. "And if she transfers one of us, it will be me."
"No way man. It's your team. I'll go."
As it turned out, Strauss didn't mind the idea at all. In fact, she almost seemed to enjoy having that little secret to keep all to herself. It gave her something to hold over Hotch's head, should he give her more trouble down the road. Derek saw it right away, that little glimmer in her eye.
"I don't like that," he said as they left her office. "She's not gonna separate us because it gives her control over you. She can scrutinize every decision you make even harder now."
"She's my boss, she already has control. Once the shock of it wears off, I have a feeling it will actually be a good thing. She'll feel like she's part of the team because we included her, we came to her instead of hiding or going above her head. And she knows before anyone else."
"Politics are the worst," was all Derek had to say to that, but he would benefit from them and Hotch's savvy this time. Not much room to argue. And he could tell Penelope now. With Hotch's permission of course. "Who are you telling first?"
"Here? No one," Hotch replied quickly, giving it exactly zero thought. Nothing to consider. "I need to tell Haley and Jessica…and Jack."
"Seriously? You won't tell anyone? Not even Rossi?"
"Derek, there isn't anyone here who would expect me to share a private thing like this, not even Dave. It's better coming from you or not at all."
At first Derek scoffed, but the more he chewed on it, the more he understood where Hotch was coming from. It would feel forced coming from him. He didn't tell anyone about his divorce, hell he kept the fact that Haley was pregnant from everyone until she showed up in the office fit to burst because he forgot an OB appointment. (One of many, as it turned out. He missed more than he made it to. She mostly didn't care, she said, they weren't that big of a deal but she had wanted him there when they found out whether they were having a boy or a girl. He'd wanted to be there too.) Couldn't keep that secret any longer.
"I'll tell Penelope first. The rest will take care of itself naturally," was what Derek decided. Hotch said he was okay with whatever Derek chose. He was trying not to hold on too tight to anything these days.
(x)
Telling Haley was harder than Hotch imagined, and he'd imagined it was going to be pretty damn hard. It wasn't that she was reluctant to hear it, though, it was that she was almost too eager. Given that she'd started dating someone new before she'd even left him that shouldn't have been surprising, but it was. He'd kind of hoped, in some distant way, that she would be a little jealous if for no other reason than he missed being important to her. No such luck.
"I always thought there was something going on there," she said after two glasses of crisp white wine. Water dripped from the gathered condensation on the outside of her glass and left a ring on his coffee table. Jessica looked even less surprised, if that was even possible. In fact she looked almost bored.
"I knew it."
"How?" he asked, narrowing his eyes at Jessica. "How could you possibly have known?"
"I'm clearly a better profiler than you are."
"That's blatantly false."
"Oh yeah? So how did I know then?"
"You can say anything you want but you can't prove you knew before I said something."
"Actually, Aaron," Haley interrupted with a sly look on her face. "At Thanksgiving three years ago, you brought him down remember?"
"His flight was canceled. O'Hare was snowed in. He had nowhere to go for the holiday and it was our first Thanksgiving off in a couple of years."
"Uh huh."
"You insisted," he said to Haley, his tone clipped and desperate. She giggled. That was the wine.
"I know I did."
"Well then what is your point?"
"When you two went out with Sean and our dad to help the neighbors with their escaped cows, she said she thought you two were flirting. I told her she was insane."
And that was that. He couldn't argue, he was sure Jessica probably had said something like that. It was likely she was just being facetious, she'd been drinking pretty heavily - a classic move on a family holiday at home. Whether she meant it or not couldn't be proven, but he believed she'd said the words.
"Do you mind if I tell Jack?" he asked, conceding defeat. Jessica could have it.
"No Aaron. I don't mind. He loves Derek. He'll be happy if you're happy. You are…"
"What?"
"Happy, Aaron. You are happy?"
"Yes."
"He's pretty hot," Haley said as Jessica topped off her wine glass. "Smokin' hot. Have you seen those abs?"
"Solid ten," Jessica concurred. "So what the hell is he doing with you?"
Hotch glared at her, and found himself suddenly shuffled between the past and present in a way that made his head spin. He was sixteen and sitting in the grass outside the Brooks' back door helping Jessica fix the chain on her bike, sixteen and listening to Jessica tell him that Haley was a ten and he was a solid six, seven if he cleaned himself up a bit. He told her she was a four and she pushed the bike over on top of him.
"You don't think Aaron is a ten?" Haley asked innocently. Jessica burst out laughing.
"Solid six."
His head spun and before she could finish what she was going to say, he opened his mouth. "You're still a four. At best."
(x)
Derek suffered a lot less when he told Penelope. She thought he was joking at first, tried to pry it out of him who he was actually seeing, but eventually she had to give in and accept that he was telling her the truth. Absurd as it were.
She didn't care that she never knew he liked men, that didn't even land on her radar. It was just that Hotch was…Hotch. He was so serious all the time, he wore suits like armor, no one really knew him. How could someone like Derek fall in love with someone like Hotch? It wasn't exactly opposites attract, it was something else entirely.
"How much do you really know about him?"
"A lot," he said quietly, so sincerely that she was lost for words. There wasn't even anything defensive about the way he spoke. "I know him. Believe me babygirl, it's all good."
"I didn't mean anything by it," she said, realizing she'd probably offended him. He let her off the hook easily. "It's just that he's so…private." And she was very protective of Derek. The person who finally got him to settle down was going to get one hell of a partner, and she was skeptical of just about everyone who came looking for that prize.
"Can you blame him?"
"I guess not. So what's he like? Outside of Quantico. Does he live in suits? Does he sleep in them?"
"No way. He looks like he just stepped out of an L.L. Bean catalog."
"Shut up!"
"Last Saturday, I woke up late and he was making us breakfast in my Northwestern sweatshirt."
"No wayyyyyyyy. Derek!"
"Shhhhh. Quiet you." They were at work, and he'd almost forgotten that once insignificant fact that now seemed very important. You never knew who might be listening.
"How can you expect me to contain all of this JOY?!"
"You're gonna have to try. We're at work."
"It's late, no one is here and if there are people snooping I say we give them an ear full. What are they gonna do, tattle on Hotch? Please. No one here has the balls. Tell me more!"
He looked around anyway, but the bullpen was empty. The catwalk was deserted. The lights were dim in all of the hallways. Hotch's office light was still on, but he wasn't in it, he'd left it open and gone to several meetings in DC. Eventually he'd come back and Derek had hoped to still be there when he did if only to make him lock up for the night.
Instead of coming back, though, Derek got a text.
Stuck in traffic. Two accidents on the bridge, I'll be here a while. Headache is worse so I'm going to head home. Would you lock up for me?
I'm sorry.
Derek sighed and tapped out his response quickly, without looking up or even giving much thought to what he was saying.
No problem. Feel better. See you later.
Derek did believe he had a headache, he'd had one all day. In fact, he'd had one for almost two days now. The problem was that he knew Hotch wasn't nearly as cool as he tried to let on about Derek telling Penelope, and he knew what he'd be walking into so there was a little part of him that wondered if it wasn't a convenient excuse not to face it. Derek thought it was a little cowardly, and he felt bad for thinking it, but it was probably true.
"He's not coming back?"
"He's stuck in traffic on the bridge. He's going to head home instead of fighting his way back here when it clears."
"And that upsets you?"
"Not really. I was looking forward to seeing him, that's all. I knew he was gonna come back here with some pile of work to get done and I was gonna walk up those stairs and force him to go home."
"Okay so he cut out that middle step. You could just go to his place."
"He said he has a headache."
"And you don't believe him?" She was trying to dig into his reaction, trying to figure out why he'd suddenly gone so cold. It wasn't like him.
"He's had it since yesterday. Sounds like it got worse."
"So him having a headache doesn't mean you can't show up at his house…"
"No."
"Don't be stupid. Go and kiss your boyfriend's head all better. Bring him some tea and get him a heating pad and be a gentleman, you idiot."
"What if he doesn't want that? What if he just wants to be alone?" It was a valid question, at least he thought so. Hotch valued his time alone.
"Did he say he wanted to be alone?"
"No."
"But he told you his head hurts, and he told you he was going home?"
"Yes."
"That sounds like he wants you to come make him feel better."
"Oh you speak Hotch now huh?"
"I think I do, yeah." She paused and shook her head. "You don't have any idea what you're doing, do you?"
"Not a clue. Is it that obvious?"
"Painfully, babycakes."
He had plenty of experience in the early stages of dating, in one night stands or even two or three weekend whirlwinds but this was a whole new level. In truth, Derek had never been in a real relationship, he always ran before things got too real. Before he might have to trust someone with his secrets.
Hotch already knew his secrets, and he kept them close. Hotch let Derek make all of the first physical moves, he let Derek take the lead without hesitation. He knew, and yet he didn't say anything, he never made Derek ask for it. There had been nights that Derek couldn't go through with it no matter how badly he wanted sex, nights when that raw feeling was too much to bear, and on those nights Hotch just sat with him in silence, understanding and asking for nothing.
"He gets it," Derek said after a serious moment of contemplation. "He's the first person I've ever been with that doesn't treat me like I'm arm candy first and a person second."
She smiled sweetly. "I suppose it's probably the same the other way around, too, right?"
"No, he's definitely arm candy," was Derek's quick and silly reply.
They talked more, and she asked questions about he and Hotch that elicited answers that made her giddy with delight. Derek called him hot at one point and she thought she might explode. The word had never entered her vocabulary in relation to Hotch - handsome, sure. Gorgeous, stunning, elegant, all words she might use. But hot? Hotch was hot? She needed more details.
And when Hotch showed up looking like death warmed over with his arms full of papers, both of them stopped what they were doing and watched him walk around the bullpen and straight to his office. He didn't look at them, just kept his eyes trained ahead of him, a man on a mission.
"Do you think he heard me?" she hissed when he shut his door. She'd just exclaimed how adorable he sounded, never imagining that he'd be the one getting off of the elevator at that exact time.
"Probably." But then Derek shrugged. "Who knows. His hearing has been shot since the bomb in New York, maybe he didn't hear you…"
"Shit!" she exclaimed, knowing that was a line of bullshit he was feeding her. Of course Hotch heard. They both knew it.
"Don't worry about it. It's fine. He's not gonna fire you for calling him adorable. People have called him worse."
"He might. Go, go see him. He doesn't look okay."
"He doesn't, does he?"
"I'm going to go get a few things from my office. Don't let him go yet."
Derek stood and arched his back, stiff and sore from sitting for the last two hours practically gossiping with Penelope about his love life. He jogged up the stairs and into Hotch's office, finding him hunched over his desk, head in his hands, trying to read the memo tacked to the top of the stack with bleary, unfocused eyes.
"Thought you were headed home…"
"I was, but the Director called while I was stuck on the bridge and asked me to take care of a few things tonight. Change of plans."
"You - "
"Did you tell Garcia?"
"Yeah."
"Is she upset?"
"What? Why would she be? No, she's happy. Aaron you look terrible. You shouldn't be here."
"Director Rome doesn't see it that way. I'll be an hour."
(x)
An hour turned into two hours, and when Derek ran out of things he could do to occupy himself at his desk he wandered down to Penelope's office. She was still in there, tasked with helping Hotch put together the reports for the Director.
"Sorry I didn't get back to you," she said as he entered. She smelled him before she saw him and didn't even look up when he walked in. She was busy staring at her screen, lost in work. "Boss man needed some help. I figured I should get on it quickly so he can leave."
"He should have said no."
"Oh puh-leeze. You wouldn't have. When The Director says jump, he jumps. Can't blame him for it."
He sat on her floor and scooted beneath her desk, pressing his back to the wall. His eyes were burning, he was exhausted, he just wanted to go home and sleep. They were in it now though. The BAU was not a 9 to 5 and they all knew that. Hotch better than anyone.
"I'm almost done. The system is running the final reports for him…" she said, clicking away at her keyboard. Derek closed his eyes.
"Tell me your favorite thing," she said as the system rolled slowly through her reports. "The best thing about him."
"He's the most thoughtful person I've ever been with," Derek said with a sleepy smile, eyes still closed. "He remembers dates and these stupid little details. He's always holding doors open and giving me flowers. He sent my mom a gift for her birthday."
"She's a sweet woman," Hotch said, appearing in the doorway looking somehow even worse than he had the last time either of them had seen him. She thought about Derek calling him hot and found it a little amusing, he was the furthest thing from it right now. Unless he was running a fever, in which case she could understand it.
He was a mess.
"Sir! I'm almost finished. Ten more minutes. Maybe fifteen."
"I'm going to leave," Hotch said quietly. Admitting defeat wasn't something he was used to, but he'd reached his limit and knew the quality of the work he was doing would be unfit to turn in even if he did finish it. Derek jumped to his feet as he spoke, reinvigorated after his half-nap beneath Penelope's desk. "We can finish in the morning. Go home."
"Let me drive you home," Derek said, taking a moment to step closer. "You shouldn't be driving."
"I'll be okay," he said, brushing off Derek's concern. "You should go enjoy what's left of your night."
"Sir?" Penelope asked, standing up and looking him in the eye. "I don't mean to overstep, but you really should let one of us drive you home. You look awful."
He didn't have any fight in him, not at this point anyway. Pressing his fingertips to his forehead, massaging his eyebrows, he sighed. "Alright."
(x)
Penelope gave them both a ride back to Derek's place. He lived closer, and Hotch didn't seem to want to go back to his own apartment anyway. Neither of them could blame him, it wasn't much of a home. He hadn't bothered to unpack some things, there were still boxes everywhere. Derek's house was a home and Clooney greeted them at the door. Hotch walked into the house like he'd been there a thousand times, like he practically lived there, and made his way back down the hallway toward Derek's room disappearing behind the door without a word. Penelope stood in the doorway for a moment stunned, patting Clooney on the head.
"Does he stay over a lot?"
"He and Clooney have gotten pretty close."
As if on cue, Hotch appeared again but this time in sweatpants that hung low on his hips and a sweatshirt that fell down over his hands and swallowed him whole. He was taller than Derek by a little, but Derek's bulk meant his shirts were a little larger and Hotch preferred the fit to his own. And frankly, when he didn't feel good, there was some extra comfort in wearing something that still smelled like Derek. His glasses sat high on his aquiline nose, his hair was a little ruffled from putting on the sweatshirt, and then she saw it. What Derek saw. Adorable, she thought again. And painfully human.
"Thank you for the ride," Hotch said to Penelope, breaking her from her trance. Clooney licked her hand quickly and trotted over to where Hotch stood looking about as un-Hotch-like as she could ever imagine. In fact, she wasn't sure she even could have imagined this. "I appreciate it, Penelope."
"You're so very very welcome, sir. I am happy to do it. Do you need anything? I have peppermint oil in my purse, and lavender, and some other things that are good for headaches…"
"I just need to sleep. That's all it is. I haven't really slept in three days and my body is loudly reminding me of that fact."
"Three days! SIR!"
"I know," he admitted wearily. "It wasn't intentional."
"Go! Don't stand here another minute talking to me. Goodnight!"
She watched as he smiled softly and patted Clooney on the head, a silent invitation to follow him down the hallway toward Derek's bedroom. Just before they were out of sight, Derek stopped him and gave him a kiss right in front of her. It was delicate, a quick hand hooking the back of his neck, a soft kiss on the bridge of his nose, right beneath his glasses. It had to be the cutest thing Penelope had ever seen.
"I'll be in soon," he whispered. Hotch nodded and disappeared from view, leaving Penelope dumbstruck. Derek wandered to the kitchen and poured them each a glass of wine from a bottle he'd had open for a day or two and practically flopped onto the couch. She followed a little more daintily.
"I can't believe this. How serious are you guys?"
"It's pretty new, couple months maybe. But we get to skip all the getting to know you stages…I don't know mama. I think if I tried to nail him down on something it might scare him away."
"I don't think I've ever seen Hotch scared."
"Yeah well you've never seen him staring down the idea that he might fuck up another relationship…"
She sipped her wine and watched the way he practically melted into the overstuffed couch. His house was tidy but less so than usual. He ran a tight ship, was neat almost to a fault, and on top of his own cleaning he had a housekeeper that came by twice a week just to get everything he missed. Bringing dates home meant not scaring them off with mess, he'd said. But there was a level of comfort here now, shoes kicked off beside the door, a few dishes in the sink from that morning's breakfast and coffee, blankets draped over the arm of the chair rather than folded neatly and put away. For the first time ever, she thought the place looked lived in. It had always had all the warmth of an upscale furniture showroom. Hotch had changed that, he made the house a home in small ways that added up.
She finished her wine and went for another while they talked, while she begged him to give her more. Anything. She had to know everything she could. Every crumb. By the time he was passing out mid-sentence, she was a little too tipsy and a lot too tired to drive and they agreed she should sleep in the guest room. They could get up in the morning and have breakfast together and she could drive them all in to work because she was the only one with a car.
(x)
3am. She wasn't often startled awake at 3am by the sound of footsteps and it took her a few seconds to catch her breath. Gathering her bearings, she remembered that she wasn't in her own apartment, she was in Derek's house and that meant the footsteps weren't necessarily nefarious. They could have been Clooney shuffling his way toward the living room or Derek getting up to pee. It took her a minute to remember that it could also be Hotch, and some nosy little part of her really wanted to see who it was…especially if it was him.
She couldn't tell you what she actually expected, but she was not prepared for the sight of him. Bedraggled and worn after only four hours of sleep, padding around in the kitchen for a glass of water to take a pill with. She watched in awe for a moment from the hallway before making her presence known.
"I'm sorry," he whispered as he swallowed the pill and followed it with a gulp of tap water. "Did I wake you?"
"No," she started with a yawn. "Well, yes, but not because you were loud. I'm not used to the sounds of another person where I sleep. Living alone, you know. Is everything alright?"
"Fine," he said, leaning against the counter like he needed the support.
"You know four hours isn't long enough right? Three days is a long time to go without sleep."
"Falling asleep has never been my problem," he replied with a weary smile. "The trouble has always been staying asleep. It was helpful when Jack was a baby, Haley got plenty of sleep because I was already awake when he would cry all night long. I have spent more time with Jack in the middle of the night than I have during daylight hours."
"I bet she liked getting to sleep!"
"It was probably the only thing I've done in recent history that made her happy."
For a moment she had forgotten that his divorce was still fresh, she forgot until the grief was written in the deep lines around his eyes. He missed his wife. No matter how happy he might be with Derek, he still missed Haley. She wondered whether that bothered Derek at all.
"What do you think is keeping you awake?" she asked, making her way around the kitchen to throw on the kettle. His silence was a dead giveaway that he clearly didn't want to answer that. "I'm sorry. I'm overstepping."
"No, it's fine," he lied. "I'm not sure." Another lie. "I've always had trouble sleeping." A truth.
While she busied herself with the kettle, Hotch closed his eyes and followed the path of the pain pill down his gullet and into his stomach, willing it to begin working its magic. His head was killing him and that made it impossible to sleep. Or do much of anything. Another few hours and he'd be completely incapacitated and bed bound, which he could not afford when he had assignments for the Director on the line.
"Tea?" she asked when she pulled the kettle off the stove just before it started to scream. She didn't want to wake everyone up. He didn't want tea, he didn't want anything, but he said yes anyway because she looked so hopeful and he knew she was just trying to help. She rummaged around in her purse for a little jar full of loose leaf tea…at least he hoped that was all it was…and watched as she filled little sachets with the mixture and dunked them into the water. It should have surprised him that she kept all of the supplies needed to make tea right in her purse, but it didn't. Not even a little.
It smelled herbaceous and astringent, burned his nostrils when he hovered over the mug a second too long.
"I use this when I need to calm down," she said. "I keep it on hand for the bad days."
Now more than ever he was concerned at the legality of all the herbs, and she saw that written all over his features.
"It isn't anything bad!" she said quickly with a grin and a giggle. "Promise. It's all legal. It's ashwagandha, cinnamon, holy basil, motherwort, damiana…"
"I don't know what any of that means," he muttered, waving his hand in defeat. "I trust you." It tasted awful. Bitter and abrasive, it coated his tongue and burned on the way down. He didn't just not like it, he hated it. But he took another sip to appease her before setting his mug down and beckoning Clooney to him. "Do you need to go out?" he asked as if the dog might answer. Clooney's tail whacked the floor, thump thump thump. "Let's go outside."
He needed some fresh air. His guts were churning, the pill doing its job on an empty stomach. As he walked to the door with his mug of tea in one hand, he snagged a blanket and tossed it over his shoulder. "Would you like to join us outside?"
"I would love to," she said in a way that made it seem like her dream had always been sitting in Derek's backyard in the middle of the night with her boss. It was startling how genuine she sounded. He didn't even want to be there.
The air was brisk and everything was blanketed in an eerie silence. The smell of autumn hung on the air though leaves hadn't yet begun to fall. She thought the temperature was nice, a little cool but comfortable. He had wrapped himself in a blanket and seated himself on the edge of the deck, watching Clooney nose around in the bushes that lined the small fenced yard. She had the feeling this, like with baby Jack, was a routine for the two of them. How many 3ams did he know intimately? How many of his secrets did 3am keep?
"Sir," she said, taking a seat beside him. Not too close. "I know it isn't my business, but I just wanted to say that…well…what you have here is special. I know you miss Haley, and I know that the divorce has been hard on you both…but this thing with Derek? It's good. And it's solid. And he's just the best…he deserves the world…I hope you know what you have."
"And if I hurt him you'll fill my shoes with concrete and make me go swimming in the Potomac?"
She grinned. "Something like that."
"Message received. Loud and clear." He let out a soft sigh, taking another sip of his tea. To his surprise he was starting to feel tired. Whether it was the tea or the pill he took kicking in and taking the edge off of the insomnia headache or Penelope's presence, he couldn't say. What he could say was that he thought he could go back to sleep for another couple of hours, which at the moment felt like a miracle. "For what it's worth…I'd like to give him the world. I do know what I have." Of course, he knew what he had with Haley too. His track record wasn't impressive. He would try, though. He would do his best to learn from his mistakes.
"I know," she replied sweetly. "I just think maybe…you might need to think about letting people in. You're here and that's great, it's a good first step, but your walls are still up. Even if you can't ask for help, you need to try to accept it when it's offered. People love you. People want to help you. They want to be there for you when you're sad and celebrate with you when you're happy." She paused, gazing up into the still black sky. "You could have told us that your marriage was in trouble. Maybe we could have helped."
"By the time I realized how serious Haley was, it was too late."
"I refuse to believe that."
"Transferring to white collar crime was my way of trying. It was too little, too late. I failed and she knew it was going to happen."
"Well, I definitely didn't help that one…"
"No. You didn't. But I think, even if my transfer hadn't been mysteriously held up…if Derek had called, I would have gone just the same. She knew it too. I never could say no to him."
"Don't start now, sir. He's the best and I'm totally jealous."
"I don't deserve everything he does for me."
He punctuated it with a yawn, a big jaw-cracking yawn, and she leaned to the side, bumping his shoulder playfully. "No you don't, but that's not the point. We don't earn people's affection, honey, it's a gift. You should go back to bed now. I'll stay with Clooney until he finishes doing his business."
"Thank you Garcia. Goodnight."
"Goodnight sir."