Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds.

Summary: Garcia blushed and repeated what she just said in a more…non-hormonally charged way, "I was just saying you looked very nice with your beard, sir." HotchGarcia, oneshot

Again, another kind of tag to the premiere kind of thing. I just wanted to address how…well, omg Hotch looked with his beard. I know it sounds really, really dorky, but yeah. Loved it. So. Much. Anyway, here's a little fic based around it. With a healthy dollop of HotchGarcia. It's not very long, but I had a lot of fun writing it. Anyway, please enjoy!

Scruff

"Garcia!"

"What, JJ. I was just saying - "

"She does have a point, Jay."

Penelope Garcia pointed at Jennifer Jareau with a triumphant finger. A grin spread wide across her face, she started to giggle uncontrollably. "Of course I'm right. I'm always right, dollface."

Emily Prentiss, however, was shaking her head, "I understand where you're coming from, but we're being a bit loud with our discussion, don't you think?"

"Not at all."

"Yes."

JJ and Garcia then looked at each other and started laughing, their answers having come at the same time and in the same cadence of tone. Prentiss soon joined in, and Garcia was struck at how much she had missed all of this. It just hadn't been the same since JJ left, and then everyone thought Prentiss was…was…

But that was a thought for another time, she told herself as she pushed the awfulness of that train of thoughts to the back of her mind. Garcia leaned back in her chair and looked at the computer screens in front of her, smiling as she heard Prentiss and JJ begin their conversation once again.

Garcia grinned as she tapped away on the keyboard, thinking how lovely it was to have everyone back together again. It was a most peculiar feeling, one that she would like to bottle and sell. She'd make a ton.

"I do think Garcia was right." Prentiss pointed out, nudging JJ with her elbow. "And just because you have Will doesn't mean you have to deny it. You're in one of those look-don't-touch scenarios."

"Isn't looking just the same as being unfaithful?"

"Well, no…"

Garcia laughed as she started typing some code into the computer, getting ready for some case JJ had brought out of the woodwork. "It's okay, JJ. Just bring all the sexual tension home to Will instead of some random guy in a bar, and it'll all be okay. That's what Tyra Banks says."

"Since when did Tyra become a credible source of information?" JJ quirked an amused eyebrow.

"…um, good point."

"I mean, though, seriously?" Garcia continued, avidly staring at the screen, "Hotch needs to know just how hormonally stimulating that beard of his was. I mean, he can't have known, since he…well, was so aloof about it. He just came back and was like," she lowered her voice in an imitation of her boss's, "'Yo, I have a sex-machine beard and I don't care that all my colleagues are freaking out like they are ten-years-old and at a Justin Bieber concert.'"

"Garcia…" came JJ's reproachful voice. If Garcia knew better, she would have stopped then, but she just kept talking.

"Aw, JJ, you can't deny the power that beard had. All those interns and random people….yeah, they wanted to maul him just as much as I did."

"Garcia…" this time it was Prentiss who spoke up, but her voice held a slight edge of humor, as if she were on the edge of bursting into laughter. Still, Garcia plowed on.

"At least Prentiss will freely admit it! Hotch's beard was a," Garcia finally spun around in her chair, and was she saw made her words come out in a strangled tone, "…complete…babe…attractor…"

"Hello," Hotch said.

Prentiss couldn't stop laughing, and JJ was right behind her, erupting into a fit of giggles as they left Garcia's tech room. Prentiss managed a wink in her direction as she closed the door behind her. Their laughter could still be heard even through the closed door. Garcia figured she was at least five shades of red - and that didn't include the bright red hairpins in her hair.

"Keeping the place professional, are you?" he asked in a very wry manner, his lip quirking. Was he joking? Oh, he came back with a beard and jokes? Garcia just might explode.

"Er, sir, I was, uh…well, you see…"

"What do I see?"

"A very embarrassed computer geek."

Hotch tried to fight it, she saw, but his lips lifted in a smile. Garcia suddenly felt the urge to validate herself. To at least make it look like she wasn't just some crazy, love-deprived nerd.

She blushed and repeated what she just said in a more…non-hormonally charged way, "I was just saying you looked very nice with your beard, sir."

Hotch didn't say anything else. He just looked at her with knowing eyes, smiling in a way that kind of made her crazy, but she couldn't let him know that. Wait, hadn't she already let him know that? This whole thing was more confusing than it should be.

"Right," he said, smiling still. "Well, thank you for that, Penelope."

His eyes were very amused, and he turned, leaving her sitting at her computer, staring blankly at the space that he once occupied, flushing and flustered and just all around embarrassed. She pursed her lips for a bit before yelling after him.

"I'm only human, sir!"

Garcia then turned back around to her computer and began furiously typing, while his voice saying Penelope rang through her head.

End.