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A/n this is just a little ficlet I thought of this morning while doing chores. Please enjoy.

Longing to be Normal

He sat alone, swinging in his chair from side to side in a slow, lazy pattern that soothed his racing mind. Rather, it soothed his mind as much as was possible for him. He rarely spent one minute in placid calm, the kind of peace other people took for granted. His brain constantly raced around, searching for answers to questions other people pushed to the back of their minds because they had other mundane concerns. He didn't have the distractions other people lived with, so his mind raced on.

His eyes, the color of melted milk chocolate, stared into the small circle of light that glowed over his desk. Every other light in the bullpen was extinguished because every other agent was gone. It was after ten pm and he should have left hours ago, but he couldn't make his legs stand up and take him to the elevator. Somehow, he'd been caught in the trap of just sitting and thinking, concentrating tightly on his racing thoughts, while the time slipped by without his notice, like misty rain falling so lightly you barely felt in on your face.

He'd never lost the longing to be normal, to know what it was like to be bored. He was never bored, not in the true sense of the word. Just once he longed to feel the sensation, others felt, the sensation of looking around a room and wondering what to do next. Even if he didn't have something to do with his hands, or a book to read, his brain occupied him all the time. It showed him books he'd read, brutalities he'd never forget, and memories he hated and cherished. If only he could relate to what other experienced with their normal minds.

He stopped swinging in his chair. It was time to go home, to an apartment filled with books, but empty of the human contact he avoided and longed for at the same time. He reached for his messenger bag with hands that any concert violinist might envy and stood up. He left the light at his desk burning because he couldn't bring himself to walk to the elevator in the dark.

His brain began, against his will, to spit out statistics on wasting energy, on the life of a light bulb, and other facts that would make his friends here, his family roll their eyes or laugh. He wished, as he hurried to the elevator, that he could trade places with one of them just for an hour, just to feel what it was like to be normal, to feel the peace of a placid mind.

He sighed, punched the down button, and stuck his hands in his pockets. His friends said he was unique. They said they wouldn't change him, that they cared for him just the way he was. His mother said he was perfect.

The elevator door slid open with a ping and he stepped inside, turning to push the button for the ground floor and wondering why the human mind always longed for what it couldn't have instead of appreciating the things it did have.

He stared at the elevator doors as the cab began its smooth and slow descent. A smile crept across his face because suddenly, without trying, he realized that he was just like everyone else!