counting stars | criminal minds [discontinued]

2 5 | V O L C A N O

[5.12]

"i already snagged a boyfriend. no need to put in effort now"

When Hotch walked into the bullpen two days before he was officially scheduled to return from his leave, everyone looked at him in surprise.

"I thought you weren't coming back until the beginning of next week," Rossi said, walking up to Hotch. Prentiss also got up from her desk and joined his side. Both glanced warily at his office, which had the blinds closed.

"Way to make me feel welcome, Dave," Hotch said, rolling his eyes. "Jack went back to his Preschool and I didn't feel like sitting at home alone all day. Thought I'd come in and get a head start on some paperwork."

As Hotch started to walk to his office, they followed quickly behind. Morgan grinned mischievously but stayed put at his desk. JJ too watched from the sidelines, smiling at what he would find.

"Before you go in your office," Prentiss said, clearing her throat. "We all agreed that it would be best to not treat you differently given the circumstances."

"And I would appreciate that," Hotch said, frowning. "What?"

Prentiss sighed. "Well, Florence may have taken that as "annoy Hotch more"."

Rossi snickered into his hand. "In her defense though, most of this was going to be cleaned up by the time you returned. But you got here early, so you can't be that angry."

"And, she and Reid are technically on their lunch break, so they aren't wasting company time," Prentiss added.

Hotch had no idea what he expected, but what he saw wasn't it. His office was in disarray. He had never seen something so chaotic. There were countless different coloring pages taped to his walls of different cartoon characters. Friendship bracelet making materials were in a tangled pile in the corner. Empty Capri Sun pouches overflowed the garbage can. There was a paper sign hanging crookedly from the ceiling that read "Welc Hocotch!"

But what really drew his eye was the fact that Florence and Reid were sitting on the office floor. In between them was a medium sized paper mache volcano, which they had painted to look like a real one. It was sitting on top of a deep metal pan, and when Hotch saw the containers of dish soap, baking soda, and vinegar, he knew exactly what they were doing, unfortunately.

"Thanks for helping me, Reid," Florence said, adding the baking soda. They had no idea that the others had entered. "I always saw these on tv shows but never got to make one myself."

"I don't mind. This has been very enjoyable. Did you know that the largest volcano in the solar system isn't even on Earth? Olympus Mons, which is on Mars, is a giant shield volcano that rises to an elevation of twenty-seven kilometers, and it measures five hundred and fifty kilometers across. It was likely able to grow so large because there are no tectonic plates on Mars."