✓ 𝐑𝐄𝐈𝐃'𝐒 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋, 𝘴. 𝘳𝘦𝘪𝘥

CHAPTER ONE.

chapter two — greetings, pretty girl
"Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." — George Bernard Shaw

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EDITED: December 1st, 2020
Tessa's POV

HOTCH LEAD ME TO HIS office, where he asked me several questions since he wasn't the one who interviewed me the first time and wanted to gain an understanding of who I am and such. After about thirty or so questions, Hotch dismissed me. The stern looking man showed me where my cubicle was, and gave me the paperwork I had to fill out to make sure everything worked out in the best way possible.

"You will need to take your gun verification test in a few weeks, so until then, you'll be watched over by someone on our team," Hotch began, stopping in his tracks as he was walking in front of me. I nearly ran straight into his back, but I stopped on my toes. "And speaking of team, we should go meet them, are you ready?"

I nodded slowly, the nerves still bubbling in my veins, and Hotch started walking away again, and I skipped a few steps to keep up. He's lucky he has long legs, he looked as if he could be 6'2 or so, and me being 5'6, I'm much more smaller than him.

"Everyone is in the conference room, that's also where we meet when we have a case," Hotch explained, staring down at the young woman.

We walked towards a room that is slightly down the hall from Hotch's office, with two wooden doors, the right one opened by the man. He held it open for me, and I silently smiled at him thankfully. As I entered the slightly big room, with an oval table that had five or six chairs surrounding it. There were some files on the table, scrambled a bit, and then there were five people. Only one I recognized, and that was Dr. Spencer Reid from earlier this morning.

All eyes were on me as I walked into the room—self-consciously swearing at myself while swallowing a nervous gulp—and thankfully, I didn't have to be the one talking.

"Everyone, this is Dr. Tessa Carter, I expect everyone to treat her with respect. You were all new once," Hotch glared at every single one of the people carefully, and then lastly glanced at me.

"Well, aren't you just a ball of cuteness! Penelope Garcia, at your service, I sit in the bat cave while all you sexy crime fighters go and catch the bad guys!" A bright women exclaimed, walking up from her seat, bringing me into a huge bear hug. The affection took me off-guard, but I ended up hugging the stranger back. She pushed up her baby blue coloured glasses, and smiled a toothy grin. "I'm a technical analyst, you beauty."

Hotch rolled his eyes dramatically at Garcia, and waved for the rest of the team to come over to greet and introduce themselves.

A rather young beautiful looking woman walked up to me next. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. "Hello, I'm Jennifer Jareau, but please, call me JJ," she held out her hand, which I gratefully accepted with a nice smile.

"Nice to meet you, JJ."

A man stepped forward this time, and an African American and quite handsome, but definitely not my type. "Hey, girly," he winked, and took a step forward. "I'm Derek Morgan, but I don't care what you call me."

I hold back a burst of laughter, and only a small, stifled chuckle came out. Most of the time, I'd have a great, smart-butt reply, but this is my new team and my new boss, I'll have to wait awhile before I let my snarky, sarcastic self out.

Another woman greeted me next, and looked to be in her mid-forties. Black hair. I couldn't tell her eye colour, but they were darker. "I'm Emily Prentiss. It's about time we got a new face," she chuckled, pursing her lips.

Now, another man stepped forward, and held out his hand respectfully. He was a much older man, with grey hair and soft eyes, but he looked strangely familiar. "David Rossi, nice to meet you, Dr. Carter."

"David Rossi? How could I not notice it's you!" I squealed, then sucked in a deep breath in an attempt to keep my excitement under control after regaining the eyes of everyone. "I read all your books since I was teenager. They're amazing, sir."

"I like her already," Rossi laughed, turning around to face the crowd of people. A few of them laughed and smiled, and Hotch just shook his head, but there was a hint of a smirk on his face.

Lastly, the only person who hadn't introduced himself was Spencer, who was shoved forward by a laughing Morgan, and a slight blush appeared on his face.

"Y-you never told me you were a Dr.," he commented, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly, his eyes fluttering from from the floor to me.

"Who doesn't like surprises?" I smiled, and a bigger blush appeared on his face after my response.

"You two know each other?" Morgan gasped, slapping Spencer on the back with a big, mighty pow!

"We met this morning in the elevator," I explained, switching from glancing at Spencer over to Morgan. The man made a whistling noise, and smiled happily while everyone else either groaned, rolled their eyes, or laughed along with him.

"So you aren't the only baby anymore, pretty boy," Morgan teased, raising his eyebrows at both Spencer and I. I wanted to narrow my eyes a bit at him, how he already knew how old I was.

A phone ringtone buzzed off while everyone was still greeting me, and soon a few seconds later I found out it belonged to Hotch. Everyone seemed to go silent, waiting for Hotch's response at the end of the call.

"I'll be out for a couple of minutes," he announced, returning the phone to his left ear, and walked out the conference room before anyone could say anything else. I let out a deep breathe I didn't realize I was holding in, and I hear a few chuckles from the people around me.

"Don't worry, you'll get used to tight suit Hotch pretty soon," Morgan joked, letting out another chuckle.

"He is kinda scary, isn't he?" I laughed awkwardly, pinching up the bridge of my nose.

"Kinda is an understand statement," Spencer muttered playfully, which made another round of laughs echo throughout the room.

We all went silent as we heard the door open again, and Hotch walked back in. He put his phone back in his front jacket pocket, and glanced at us again.

"We just got a case."

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a/n: i feel like this is how the team would rlly welcome someone to the team haha