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THERE WAS NOTHING she hated more than the smell of coffee.


It wasn't the fact that she didn't like the taste of it, because she did. But the smell of pure, black coffee without any sugar or cream made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Maybe it was because she never understood how people could drink it straight from the pot without any sort of flavor or because it smelled like manure to her but she hated it more than anything.


And the fact that the FBI smelled like it every morning didn't help at all.


It filled every hallway and crevasse of the government building, making sure that even the walls sweated its dark color by nighttime.


Luckily, she made sure that the mailroom never smelled like it with cans of Febreeze to cover it up. She made sure to never drink the occasional cup of coffee that she had inside the room and to always have her spare toothbrush around to wash the aftertaste out.


Five spoonfuls of sugar and half a cup of milk was how she took it.


And it was good enough for her.


"Good morning, Wiley." She heard from behind as she typed away at her computer, logging in the mail count from yesterday that she forgot to do.


That's when she smelled it.


With a quick swift, she turned around and made contact with the large, open mug of coffee that was clearly made in the break room because it smelled the rest of the building.


"Gordon, what's the number one rule for my office?"


The man scoffed, "C'mon Scout, this isn't your office. This is the mailroom, so stop being so over dramatic and pass me the cart. I still haven't gotten the load today."


"Probably because you were getting that cup of dirt." Scout mumbled under her breath, standing up and pushing the large laundry-looking cart over to Gordon.


The push was forceful, causing him to almost drop the ceramic cup.


She narrowed her eyes at him, "Hey! Don't you dare look at me like that; you're the one who pushed it."


"If you dropped that, you would've been so dead to me."


Gordon scoffed, "Aren't I already?"


"Don't push it."


***


The FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia first hired Scout Wiley when he father died of lung cancer back when she was a junior in college.


She took over his job after she failed to graduate because of the devastating loss. Somehow the people in the shades and dark suits let her into their world and thankfully, the mailroom was as far as she went with the murder cases that happened behind the four walls she was so secure in.


Scout grabbed the clipboard that was hooked on to the wall next to her. It had every department listed along with the names who worked inside of it.


She never met the people who these names belonged to and she'd rather keep it that way. Being a people person was something she never was.


Her eyes glanced at the clock; it was almost time to distribute the mails and Gordon still wasn't back with the shipment and they still haven't stored through the letters for each department.


Then the door swung open with the large cart filled to the brink and letters escaping to fall out. Gordon pushed it from behind with his usual pale face reddened from the physical labor. The sweater that he wore was now hanging from the side of the cart.


"What the holy hell? This is double than our usual round, why are they're so many?" Said Scout, tugging in a stand of her brown hair and standing up to help Gordon.


She pulled the other side of the cart and brought it into the room.


"It's almost Christmas time. Remember, this is the first time you're working through December. You'd be surprised how many people send Christmas cards to the agents who save their asses. Some get around 20 a week this month."


Scout sighed and wiped her sweaty hands against her jeans, "Well, shit. Maybe I should've taken the month off then. From the looks of it, you might have to make like 5 rounds back and forth to finish in time."


"Nu uh, no way missy," Gordon said with a stoic face. "You are working outside of your box for the rest of the time being. I'm not going to do half of your job for you."


Her jaw dropped, Scout walked around the cart and straight towards him. The room suddenly got warmer and she could feel the sweat on her neck start to form.


Scout didn't like to talk to people unless she had to, and most of the time in her life, she never had to. She was terribly shy when people forced her to interact with others. When it was on her own terms, it was different.


She swallowed hard, "You can't make me do that. You're not allowed to."


"Oh ho, watch out. In case you forgot, I am your superior. Which means that I can do as I please, and do you know what that means?" Gordon pushed one of the carts towards her, hitting Scout in the gut.


However, the glare that she was sending him wasn't enough to make him change his mind.


"Fine, you win." She huffed.


He smiled confidently, "I knew I would. Now, that cart goes to the BAU on the fourth floor, okay? You remember where that is, right?"


Scout grabbed the clipboard off the wall again and scanned over the names quickly before throwing it in the cart. The small baby hairs brushed into her eyes for a second before she tucked it behind her ear quickly.


"If I said no then would I still have to do it either way?" She joked.


Gordon gave her look that was as if he was giving her a warning and pointed to the door. That was the last straw and Scout knew it.


No more jokes and no more complaining.


With a quick nod of her head acknowledging her leave, she was off.


While the mailroom was on the ground floor, Scout scurried her way towards the elevator and crossed he fingers in hopes that no one would want to go on too.


She pressed the up button and waited impatiently, ready to push the cart into the elevator. When the doors opened and revealed very mature and adult looking people, her face turned beet red.


It was embarrassing to her that she had to pull the cart back to let the people pass through and it didn't help that they frowned at her.


'They probably think that I'm crazy, or even a kid. Fuck, that was terrible.' She thought to herself.


When she was able to get into the elevator, Scout glanced at her reflection against the clear metal wall. From the way she was dressed, it wasn't a big shocker that people thought she was a kid.


Jeans, t-shirts, dirty black converse, old flannels, and a beanie is really all that her wardrobe consisted of. Most people wore business clothes like pencil skirts and suits.


Scout stuck out and she knew it.


Once the elevator dinged, she pushed the cart with all her might and tried to get through the hallway without anyone noticing her.


The glass door with the imprint 'BAU' was an indicator that she knew that she had done her job well so far.


"Oh how the FBI love their acronyms." She mumbled under her breath.


Scout walked through the sea of desks as if she was walking to her death. The pounding in her chest was so loud and intense that she could feel it all over her body; in her head, mouth, and fingertips.


It was an extraordinary feeling, but one that she hated and still gave her adrenaline.


Before she could really try to make out what she was feeling, Scout quickly grabbed through the stacks of letters and placed them on the empty desks of the agents.


The clipboard was the only way she was able to make of the names of them and their corresponding desks and thanked he lucky stars that it wasn't as hard as she thought it was.


That is, until she felt a body bump into hers and something warm splash all over her clothes.


The smell of coffee washed over her, literally.


And the second she opened her brown eyes, she could see an empty mug in the hands of a very tall man. Panic rushed in her veins again and she held back her instinct to gag.


There was that smell again.


"I-I'm so sorry. I didn't ev-even see you there." A stuttering voice spoke with the kind of nervousness that she couldn't relate to.


Her eyes darted towards the man with a harsh glare before she turned back around to what she was doing.


No one was a quick to anger as Scout was and this man clearly was not getting the clue.


He stuttered another apology before grabbing a handful of napkins off of his desk, "Look, let me help you. I- I really am sorry. I was just reading my book as you're just so short that-"


"I am not short." That made her water boil over.


At the height of 5'1, Scout Wiley refused that one main fact about herself. She was in fact, short.


The plaque on the surface of the man's desk was in large bold letters:


SPENCER REID


Ignoring his constant dosing, she grabbed a stack of 6 letters and a package and threw it on his desk.


That is what finally made him shut up.


His eyes widened before starting to stutter one more time but she stopped him with a hand up.


"Just," She started to say before she sighed, "shut up."


Scout gave him one last hard glare and left with the now empty cart, heading towards the bathroom and as far away from the BAU as she could get.



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