𝓼𝓪𝓯𝓮 ➣ 𝓼. 𝓻𝓮𝓲𝓭

𝓷𝓲𝓷𝓮

Two painfully slow months passed and Mara finally fell into a rhythm that is comfortable.

No Reid. No men. Only focusing on work. Rossi tried talking to her when she turned down their family dinners and drinks they went out on. He told her that not opening herself up to the team was going to lead to mistrust and that they loved and missed her.

She only scolded him for profiling her and left him there, heading home to the same apartment she had before she "died." The only thing she could entertain herself with were books. She'd spend night after night awake with her head in a book. She'd go to work exhausted the next day from staying up all night reading. At work, she'd be engulfed in a book.

Reid couldn't help but watch her bite down on her fingernails as her eyes slid over the pages so quickly. He watched her finish a book and then start another one. He knew that things were going to be different between them, but he hadn't expected her to cut him off completely.

Mara thought that it was easier to keep their relationship professional. Reid wanted to work towards forgiveness, he wanted to understand what she went through, he wanted to learn to love her again. He wanted his best friend back.

Instead, he essentially got the cold shoulder.

One thing she'd learned over the seven months in Italy was compartmentalism. When she was feeling the most upset and angry at how everything went down, she shoved it deep down in her heart and put everything into the case she was put on. When things got tough bring undercover, she also tucked that away in a box and didn't open it.

"We have a case." JJ said, walking past Reid and Mara and heading into conference room.

Reid noticed that Mara hadn't heard JJ, completely engulfed in her book. He set a hand on her shoulder, causing her to jump and pull her attention from the book in her lap.

"Round table's ready." Reid spoke quietly before heading into the conference room, taking his normal seat at the table.

Mara sat down too, opening the personal file and taking a look as Garcia clicked her remote, presenting the case. "Somerville Military Academy in Oceanside, Florida. Five boys were found hanging this morning. The bodies are at the medical examiner's now."

"There's no photos?" Mara asked, flipping through the file.

"School personnel thought they may still be alive, so they cut them out of the trees." Strauss said suddenly from behind them.

"Jimmy Burbage, Philip Mumford, Jerry Bowden, Jack Briggs, Tucker Calhoun." Garcia said, clicking the images of them onto the screen.

"So we're walking into a contaminated crime scene?" Morgan scoffed.

"They don't have anything solid?" JJ asked.

"'We're sorry' was carved into a tree branch nearby." Garcia offered.