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Now, on with the show...

A Few Good Men

She sighed.

And then sighed again.

It was on her third exhale of breath that she realized that she was beginning to sound, and feel, like her great aunt Ivy. The woman had been known to sit alone in dark rooms, sighing at nothing, simply because the world had not chosen to go her way.

And Emily was smart enough to realize that she had something else in common with batty Aunt Ivy, much as she hated to admit it. Neither one of them had ever found that perfect man…the man that could stand head and shoulders above the rest. A man that was the personification of good.

A man that was truly worth sighing about.

But unlike her Aunt Ivy, she really wanted to find that guy before her heart hardened into a shell of bitter regrets. Her favorite aunt had not been so lucky.

Catching herself, Emily shook her head as she glanced around the half-empty bull pen. She had allowed herself to become lost in woolgathering for the past half-hour, the reasons for such idleness truly escaping her. It wasn't as though she didn't have a hundred and one better things to do with her time. But no matter how hard she tried to shake herself out of the doldrums, she couldn't seem to move forward. Her mind kept being drawn, over and over again, to the seeming lack of character in the male species.

Maybe it had something to do with yet another failed first date from the night before. She should have known that the evening was not going to end well when the conceited bastard had shown up at her door with his eyes glued to his Smartphone. For a full ten seconds after she had opened the door, she had wondered if she was going to have to send him a text message to make first contact. But she had given him the benefit of the doubt, which had turned out to be a colossal mistake that she had realized fifteen minutes into the evening. When she had finally made her escape into a taxi, claiming a sudden onset case of the hives, she had promised herself she would swear off the male species for good.

And yet, here she was…still considering the opposite sex, for some reason she could not explain even to herself. Her best friend would probably note that it was a human imperative to find a mate, to travel in pairs with a pack-like mentality, she smiled to herself. Personally, she thought her best friend might share a few qualities with her Aunt Ivy..the one her mother had consigned to a very nice facility in upstate New York.

What was it called again? The Loony Bin?

Her eyes flitted once again, this time landing on the dark, bald head of her teammate. Surely she could find something positive about Morgan, couldn't she? Some redeeming characteristic that would save her from believing all was truly lost. But how could she even consider a romanticized Derek Morgan? She threw back shots with the guy every Friday night, for Cripe's sake. The most romantic thing she could say about him was that he did at least have the manners to say, "Excuse me," after he belched.

Shifting her gaze to Rossi's open door, Emily sighed. Now, there was THE master player...the grandfather of the players, actually. If Derek Morgan played the game, then David Rossi had created it, using and discarding women with a stunning alacrity that for some reason, ironically, always left them wanting him more.

Though she was hard pressed to see what it was they so obviously saw.

Perhaps she just knew him to well. While unfailingly kind and sympathetic when she'd needed him, David Rossi didn't allow anyone too close. She suspected he'd loved once and deeply, and after that woman, whoever she was, something in him had simply shriveled and died, leaving him incapable of offering himself to another for more than a little while.

Moving on, she peered up at Aaron Hotchner's office. Now, there was a man that had qualities she admired in abundance. Steadfast, loyal and true, Hotch was everything a woman could want - on the surface. Then, as you peeled away the layers, you found that he guarded his privacy ferociously, even from those he cared about the most. He guarded his heart equally furiously...which meant breaking down his well fortified defenses took work. Lots of work. And when you coupled that with the fact that she was already exhausted from doing her actual job, a relationship with that taciturn man had failure stamped on it with capital letters from the get-go. Nope, she was definitely not meant to adorn SAIC Aaron Hotchner's arm.

Smiling as she heard the familiar creak of a rolling chair coming toward her desk, she turned her head to meet her best friend's curious gaze.

"Why are we people watching the people we already know?" Spencer Reid asked, his soft voice precise as he halted at her desk, propping his elbows on the edge and resting his chin in his hands as he followed her gaze to Hotch's office. "So far, I've watched you observe Morgan, Rossi, and Hotch. What gives?"

"You can appreciate this," Emily whispered conspiratorially, leaning toward Dr. Spencer Reid. "I'm analyzing them."

Brightening, Spencer's eyes widened. "Ohhhh, I wanna play," he said enthusiastically as he grinned.

"Go for it," Emily chuckled quietly, careful not to draw any attention to their impromptu powwow. Twitching his lips from side to side as his intelligent gray eyes moved from one man to the other, he murmured, "What attributes are we looking for?"

"Actually, we're looking at a few good men to try and figure out why I can't seem to have a successful date with somebody to save my life," Emily admitted reluctantly, certain that her friend would hold that admission in confidence.

"I take it that your date with the day trader didn't exactly pan out?" Reid asked sympathetically, shooting her a sidelong glance.

"Let me put it this way," Emily sighed, rubbing her fingers against her forehead, "The next time I talk about going on a date with my dentist's cousin, stick a fork in my eye and try to pierce my brain."

"That well, huh?" Reid snorted.

"Worse," Em clarified tersely. "Don't ask."

Reid nodded, his lips twitching.""I won't."

"Don't you dare laugh at me. My love life has become a wasteland in the Sahara Desert, Spencer. There are tumbleweeds blowing across my woo-woo."

Flinching, Reid held up a hand. "Please, no graphic images. I had Mexican for lunch."

"Har, har," Emily grumbled. "Anyway, I was trying to see what qualities I liked in the men of our unit..."

"...and find the ones you didn't," Reid said as he nodded. "That's easy," he grunted. Pointing at Morgan, he postulated, "Protective but overbearing. And a commitophobe. Let's face it. If Garcia can't bag him, then nobody can."

"Accepted." Emily nodded, loving the sound of Reid's factual voice.

"He," Reid stated, nodding toward Rossi's open office door, "is a good ally to have...friends in high places and all that, but at heart, he's a loner. I'm betting his heart is in either a literal or figurative grave with some woman from his distant past."

"Hey," Emily said excitedly, slapping the back of her hand against Reid's arm, "I thought that, too."

"Great minds think alike," Reid murmured, shifting his gaze to Hotch's office.

"And Agent Hotchner?" Emily queried, poking Reid in the ribs.

"Ohhhh, the toughie," he breathed, clapping his hands together and rubbing them vigorously. Turning to look at her, he murmured, "Strictest confidence, right?"

"It's in the vault," Emily said, miming zipping her mouth before offering him her pinky.

Pinky swear complete, Reid nodded, "Weeeeellllll...in my qualified opinion we are looking a man with the strongest moral compass I know. He's hard on other people, but hardest on himself. Maybe a slight inferiority complex probably given to him by his father whom he never discusses even in passing. Oh, and he's a workoholic."

"You forgot someone," Emily teased, her eyes twinkling as she grinned at her partner.

"I don't think so," Reid frowned, his eyes touching on each male member of their team.

"Well, unless you're keeping one hell of a secret, you have a penis, thus, making you male. Analyze yourself for me, Dr. Reid."

"Oh, Emily," Reid said, covering her hand and patting it gently as his eyes gleamed. "I'm simply too smart for you," he said, batting his long lashes at her.

Bursting into laughter, Emily noted several heads turning to stare in their direction. Trying valiantly to control her giggles, Emily choked at Reid's next words.

"But, evidently," he added as he grinned, "I am good for a laugh. I'd say you break even."

And blinking back tears of mirth, Emily decided that maybe her circumstance wasn't as dire as she'd predicted. The ideal man had been staring her in the face all along.

Finis