SSA Scottley - A collection - S.R.

Kind, strong, loyal

Date night - Part 4

Tara remembered her first day at the BAU. She was nervous, of course. She wanted this job more than anything, but her interview with Hotch had been put on hold because the team was working on an active case. That was, until Tara had, somehow, ended up wrapped up in the case as well and helped them out, enough that Hotch had decided to hire her on the spot.

Tara had never felt happier in her life, but, since she was the new one in the team, she had tried to prove herself worthy of her position, which was how she ended up finding herself late at night in the office that day, trying to figure out the best way to do her new job.

"Oh, hey." She remembered Lily saying as she left her office that night and looked over at Tara, still hunched over the papers in her new desk. "Tara Lewis, isn't it? I'm Lily Scottley. I don't think we have been properly introduced yet, with all the mess of the case going around, but I did take a peek at your file since I was helping Hotch with possible new people for our open slot and it really is impressive."

"Thank you." Tara had said then. "I heard a lot about you too. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Oh, I hope you've heard all good things."

"Of course." Tara had smiled, before frowning when she noticed a little bandage on her arm. "What happened there?"

"A bomb went off nearby. I scratched my arm on the pavement, but I'm good." She had shrugged as if it was nothing. "I heard you did a great job on the phone earlier."

"Oh, yeah, I... I did what I thought was right."

"That's why Hotch hired you." Lily said. "Smarts go a long way of course, but, in this job, you need to have a good gut instinct. If you have that, you really don't have to worry about proving yourself to anyone, Tara. And you especially don't need to stay here late at night every night."

"You're staying late at night." Tara had pointed out as Lily laughed, with a shrug of her shoulder.

"I'm pretty much the definition of do what say, but don't do what I do." She had joked. "But in any case, welcome aboard, Agent Lewis. Whenever you need me, my office's door is always open."

Lily had smiled as they shook hands and Tara remembered how safe she had felt just then. Lily was like that. She had the most impressive curriculum, and not just academically speaking - even though it was obviously impressive -, but also being part of the famous BAU for so long, she had quite the range of solved cases under her belt, all the while still being a rather calming presence and always making sure Tara felt comfortable and accepted in the team.

A while back, Tara had even made a joke about the fact that Lily Scottley was possibly the youngest person at the FBI with the most amount of solved cases and, as impressive as that was, right now, it really wasn't helping them at all.

"Lily's worked too much." Tara said, sitting on the table of the conference room with Luke, Matt and Garcia as they all went through files and files of cases that Lily had been apart of. "She's pointed guns at too many people. She's arrested too many people. This is impossible..."

"It can't be." Garcia shook her head, her fingers frantically flying over her keyboard as she tried to find any type of overlap with Cat's prison staff with all the other possible unsubs that the three of them found. "We have to find something. Anything... We have to, we..."

"We will." Luke assured Garcia gently, noticing how she started to spiral a little, too worried for her missing best friend, but far too valuable for this team to step back. "But Tara is right. This is gonna take too long. Lily have doing all of the official reports on our cases for the local P.D.s for almost a decade now. Everything that goes out to the public has gone through her first. If this unsub is seeking revenge for how the media portrayed him, it could be virtually anyone."