Criminal Minds: Danika

Bomb

The team heads to the hotel for the night and I wait for my key card at the desk. Tapping my finger on the counter annoyed at the front desk lady as she checks the computer.

"I'm sorry, I'm not seeing you on the list." The lady at the front desk apologizes in her false tone.

"Look again." I huff not knowing why this would be happening.

"I'm sorry, but-." She starts saying.

"Danika, what's going on?" Hotch asks as he gets his bag from the car.

"Wanna tell this lady that there's been a mistake? She says I don't have a room." I explain with a huff.

"Oh, right. You're sharing with me." Hotch says with a straight face.

"Yeah, right." I scoff, not finding his joke funny.

"Let's go." He says and motions for me to follow him, realizing that he's not joking.

"You have got to be kidding me!" I complain as he opens the door to the room.

Luckily it's nice and large and there's two beds. Hotch goes over to the bed closest to the door and sets his stuff on it. He starts taking his jacket and tie off and hangs them up.

"What? Afraid I'm gonna try to sneak out?" I mock.

"Actually, yes. Plus I don't like being by the air conditioning unit." He confesses and I roll my eyes.

"Look, if this is about the damn parking spot-." I start saying.

"It's not. This is your first case outside of the building, outside of the state. Actually, your first official case in general. I need to give you a run down of how things go when we are in other cops turfs." He explains as he takes some flannel pajama pants out of his bag.

"Run me down then." I huff sarcastically and flop on my bed and he starts unbuttoning his shirt.

"Well, first thing you need to know is when we work with other cops we need to try to show them respect. Even if they're the dumbest cops of all time, kindness goes a long way." He starts explaining from the bathroom as he changes his clothes.

"So do bullets and sass." I counter and looks at me around the corner deadpan.

"Second thing is, they need to respect you. If you want to get information as soon as possible, you're going to have to act like you deserve it, like you know what you're doing." He continues as he walks out of the bathroom in some plaid pajama pants and a white t-shirt.

"Which also means you need to be a team player. And so far, I'm not seeing that." He states.

"Maybe because you haven't let me out of your car, other than going to a prison." I counter with sass.

"Well, that changes tomorrow. We got some new leads and witnesses we need to talk to. Which brings me to my next point. You need to treat the people you talk to with respect. If you don't, they'll become hostile and closed off, and we won't get the information we need." He continues his lecture.

"Yeah, I know, it was on the written test, remember." I scoff and he looks at me.

"A test is a lot different than the real thing. Remember?" He counters with a bit of sass attached.