Just Breathe: Garcia
Just Breathe - Garcia
Prompt: Lost - "Left Behind"
Anything to make you smile;
It's a better side of you to admire...
No one's gonna love you more than I do.
-Band of Horses, "No One's Gonna Love You"
I hate being left behind. No, really, I hate it. I sit here in my little cubby (though it’s a much nicer cubby than my original cubby, and for that I’m grateful) while the rest of the team goes gallivanting off to Hera-knows-where, and I have to…listen. And watch. And wait. And worry.
Goddess knows how I worry.
I think everyone got a little peek at what my life is like when we listened to Hotch and Haley’s last, horrible, beautiful phone conversation. When we heard the gunshots. It was like the time in New York when I knew a bomb had gone off, but I didn’t know where my team was. Or, later, when Derek drove that ambulance filled with explosives…why does it always have to be Derek?
I love my job. I’ve never been happier doing anything than I am doing this. I love my team. They’re my family. That’s why it’s so hard to stay behind. I want to be with them, even though I’ve only held a gun once in my life, and then I was almost more afraid of it than of the man trying to kill me. I want to be able to put my hands on them and to see them in person and hear their voices not made all squiggy by technology. I want to smell them, even Derek after he’s been kicking down doors.
When Hotch invited me to Wyoming, I was thrilled. Surprised, but thrilled. Then he asked me to question that kid, Christopher, and I thought I was going to have some sort of stroke. I liked that kid. I knew he wasn’t the UNSUB. I got his email address, and we talk some; I think it helps him to know that he can still be a wicked-ass hacker and make a decent living.
What am I most grateful for? I mean, besides my loves and Kevin and my amazing fashion sense, of course. I’m grateful that I have a job where I can still be me. I have a bigger collection of baby animal pictures on my external hard drive than any one woman can possibly get through in a lifetime, and I need them. My job makes my heart hurt, but it also makes my heart full. My heart is full of my team and the good work that they do. My heart is full of pain for the victims, and joy for people like Christopher, the ones we save.
My heart is full of life despite all the death that I see every day. When I wake up in the morning, I know I probably won’t make it through the next twenty-four hours without seeing something icky, but at least I know my team has my back. No matter what. I know that no matter how horrible the images on my screen, I just have to keep breathing. I have to keep breathing because my team needs me, just like I need them.
They leave me behind so they have someone to come home to.
Knowing that makes being left behind, as much as I hate it, much more bearable.
Wow, hi, blast from the fanfic past here. I haven't written on "Just Breathe" in ages, but the prompt caught me. :)
Also, I know religion is rarely mentioned on the show, but Garcia seems like a Goddess-worshiping type girl to me. So she is. Here, anyway.
Review me, please, dear readers. It makes me smile!