Natalie

Chapter 19

Once the elevator doors opened, Natalie was greeted by none other than, Penelope Garcia. The woman seemed more chaotic than normal. It was like Natalie's arrival was a complete inconvenience to her. Understandable though, the team had just left for a case and Garcia was in the middle of analyzing a list of patients at a hospital. Clearly, she had a lot to cover.

"Hey, Spen said I could start once I got off from school today," Natalie had picked a new nickname for Spencer. It wasn't much different from 'Spence', but for some reason she liked it better. 

Picking up on the new nickname, Garcia seemed to loosen up. She laughed, and replied, "C'mon, Hotch said to set you up in my office until they get back,"

"So, pretty much status quo then?" Natalie asked, following Penelope down the hallway.

"That is correct, my love!"

----

Once the team gathered on the plane, Spencer sat down on his own to go over what Detective Miller sent him. It was just some personal notes that he seemed to take like Rossi always did in his notepad. Oddly enough, there wasn't anything that related to Miller's behavior over the phone. Before he could get too deep into it, Spencer was interrupted by JJ's shadow suddenly hanging over him.

Yeah... she really wanted him to admit something was going on. Truth be told, there wasn't anything going on. There really weren't any leads in this case. How do two people just disappear and leave no evidence behind? Suddenly, something dawned on Spencer. He looked up with his mouth wide open.

"I'm assuming this has nothing to do with the case we're actually working on," JJ said.

Ignoring what she just said, Spencer said, "They wanted to disappear,"

"Spence?"

"I think Natalie's parents willfully left the night they disappeared."

----

According to Hotch, Natalie would just be an assistant. This meant she would just sit around until someone told her to do something. That included coffee runs, something Natalie was not very keen about. She wasn't mad about it though, this was probably the best job she could be offered. 

Her job was even less of a hassle when it was just her and Garcia. Those days, she just had to sit around and grab a file or two if Garcia couldn't leave her office. Though, the hardest part of that was not letting Natalie's curiosity get the best of her. Every once in a while, she just wanted to see what went on in those files, but Garcia insisted that she didn't do that.

Natalie had just grabbed a paper sent to Hotch's office for Penelope. It was just a list of names one of his contacts had pertaining to the case. It was probably a strange sight to see a teenage girl running through the bullpen of a federal office, but that's what was happening.

Thankfully, Natalie remembered to leave the door of Garcia's office propped open because she had no access otherwise. She pushed the door open, and then the second door where Garcia sat thoroughly looking through a list of names. 

"I don't understand why Hotch couldn't just have this sent to your office," Natalie said, panting. The file was in her hand, waiting for Garcia to take it.

"You didn't look at it did you?" Garcia asked, taking the file. The woman was seriously concerned about Natalie seeing all the intense things that the team sees on a daily basis. 

"Course not," Natalie sat down next to Penelope, but quickly moved back after she noticed the look Penelope had just given her. That warning expression that told Natalie not to look, or be near her screens. She wasn't offended or anything, it was just strange being needed, but not being able to help. 

"Good... you're too young," Garcia said.

For some reason, hearing that bothered Natalie. She wasn't being unrealistic, Natalie knew that the contents of all the files she handled were completely off limits. There was just something frustrating about hearing that she was too young. Especially when she spent most of her time on her own, doing adult things.

Natalie gave Penelope a sort of half-smile, and decided to take a walk. Not far, just to Spencer's desk. She figured it would be nice to be out of the darkness of Penelope's office for a bit. "I'll be back in a few," Natalie said.

Standing up, Natalie gave Garcia a tap on the shoulder, and headed for the door. Once she left, the brightness of the outside hallway was almost too much to handle. It's like that every time she leaves Penelope's office, even in short intervals.

It was a quick walk over to Spencer's desk, but once Natalie got there she basically fell into the seat. She didn't even realize how late it was getting already, and it definitely had been a long day. Six hours at school, then straight to the Behavior Analysis Unit. Those six hours ended about seven hours ago now. 

Sighing, Natalie leaned forward and looked through the books on Spencer's desk. The first one she grabbed was a book about Pavlov's dogs. As if Spencer didn't know enough about Classical Conditioning. Natalie shook her head, and put the book back in its place, but as she did, there was something that caught her eye right under her arm.

It was a piece of paper with Spencer's handwriting on it. That in itself probably caught her eye, considering how odd his handwriting was, but once she picked it up, Natalie's whole mood changed. Suddenly, her interest was peaked, and she was much more awake than she was before.

Detective Raymond Miller- 751-555-9034

"He's investigating my parents case?"

A/N. I'm just gonna point out now that this chapter is all over the place, and I apologize for that. Also, it may seem like she's working a lot, but technically it's mostly just her sitting around doing nothing. That's why Hotch is paying her in stipends.

Anyways, leave me some comments... thanks for reading :)