The First Year

The first Christmas, the gift is tiny and mostly generic.

They celebrate, of course, as a team. She's so new, still an unknown entity. She can't fault them for being more than a little wary considering how the last agent departed.

But the thing is, she knows this is her place. This is her thing. So she forces herself to sit there while they all open gifts from each other, while she opens little cards with generic messages and gift certificates. Her thank you's to each team member are genuine, even if her smile's fake.

And then they get down to the bottom, to the last few gifts Garcia's hidden in the branches of the tree. One of them is for her. The box isn't very large, just a little big bigger than her hand, but she finds her breath catching. It's a real, genuine gift.

She peels the gold paper back slowly, steadily. It drives every one nuts, but she's always been so careful to savour her presents (because as soon as Christmas was over, her mother went to work and her father disappeared. She's a champion at drawing out Christmas morning). The box is white, plain, and if she weren't surrounded by a bunch of people she barely knows she'd wonder if maybe one of her teammates had chosen some sort of jewelry.

What's inside is so much better.

A tiny bird, painted beautiful gold, lies nestled in cotton, perched on a blossoming branch. She laughs a little as she draws her fingers over it, tracing the little pear at one end. She pries at the cotton a little, tries to find a card, but there's nothing there. Instead, a tiny slip of paper is wedged into the lid. She curses their law enforcement background as she reads the typed words.

You'll fit here just fine.