Disclaimer: I do not own any rights whatsoever to the wonderful television franchise Criminal Minds.
Summary: Adopted challenge from the Candyland Challenge on Chit Chat on Author's Corner. Prompt: JJ/Morgan and Three Musketeers.
So Not a Goodbye
As Jennifer Jareau walked down the hall from the Behaviourial Analysis Unit Chief Erin Strauss's office and unto the awaiting elevator, she thoroughly realized that today had been her last as a Special Supervisory Agent - Communications Liason with the Behaviourial Analysis Unit. She took a deep breath and silently repeated to herself that this promotion was not a punishment no matter how much it felt like it, but a reward for her hard work and numerous sacrifices that had been done in the last six years.
She crossed her arms against her chest and slightly shook all over as if to shake all doubts, insecurities, and fears away. She knew that she would be qualified and capable in her new job, but that did not mean that she had wanted the opportunity. After all, hadn't she turned two promotions down in which one of those had incidently been the same promotion that she had been ordered to accept? JJ had the distinct suspicion that Strauss had once again set her sights on destroying the team and she would do absolutely anything to achieve her goal even if it meant transferring people out without their knowledge let alone agreement. There had to be some rule or regulation that Strauss had disregarded when she had ordered her to accept the promotion to the Pentagon that had already been accepted and processed on her behalf.
She winced at the sound of her phone or more specifically the custom ring tone that emanated from it. She had almost forgotten that Penelope had wanted to walk her out. The emotions that she was experiencing were overwhelming her. She knew that she would have to submit an exit interview, but the act of actually doing it had been almost more than she could bear. She had been in denial then shock since the order had been issued that she would have to leave the team, her makeshift family. It had taken her more than an hour to complete the simple exit interview that should have taken more than thirty minutes, but she found herself reminiscing about past cases and moments with the team. Memories that had laid dormant for several years had resurfaced such as ones with Elle and Gideon. As she wrote about her experience with the team in her exit interview she had wanted to cry, but she restrained from doing so, because if she began to cry she would not be able to stop and she would not have been able to complete the final task of her career with the BAU.
She retrieved her phone from the case on her belt and took a shaky breath as she read the email that had been sent from her best friend, the god mother of her precious son Henry, Penelope Garcia.
"Hey girly, it's been almost two hours since we talked in my office, did the she-devil brainwash you into forgetting about me and the team? I'm the last to leave, but Derek waited around for a bit before he left. He wanted to talk to you so call him in the morning or something. Rossi was cursing the she-devil as he left. Hotch left a card on your desk as he was leaving, but Reid was the first to leave. I think that you leaving must be the hardest on him. Not that it isn't hard for the rest of us, but you know what I'm saying. Jeesh, Jayje, I'm not sure what we're going to do without you, but I know that regardless of where you work, you're still my sister from another family and I'm still Henry's Fairy God Mother. I love you, Jayje, but I refuse to say goodbye, because I'm holding you to what you said about lunches and such."
The email effectively made JJ lose what control she had over her bustling varied emotions. Tears that she had suppressed were silently flowing from her blue eyes. The elevator doors opened and she stepped out. The clear double door entrance to the BAU bullpen taunted her. The memory of her shooting through this entrance three years ago in order to save Penelope tackled her not because Battle had been her first kill, but because she had saved her best friend from being killed. A loud sob exited her mouth and she placed a shaky left hand over her mouth and with her right hand she scanned her ID badge in order to enter the secured unit for the last time as an official member.
She walked to her office that now was in the BAU bullpen, which was between Hotch and Rossi's offices, and not within the Media Liason Unit as it had been all those years ago. She was startled when she turned around from closing the door to see Derek Morgan sitting in one of the two chairs in front of her desk. The strangled sob that had exited her mouth upon her startled realization that he hadn't left without saying goodbye to her made him stand, walk over to her, and wrap his arms around her comforting. She sniffled and started crying harder as she returned the hug. She placed her right cheek on his leather jacket clad right bicep that was wrapped around her shoulders. They stood holding each other as she alternated between soft sniffles and heavy sobs to silent tears and back again.
He placed his chin on the top of her blonde head and a couple of stray tears escaped his dark brown eyes. He could not accept that she was leaving, but he knew that she had to, because of Strauss's insecurity that the BAU would outshine her or more importantly Hotch would outshine her. He had always known or rather suspected that Strauss was intimidated by Hotch, but he had not realized the extent to which it went to until he, himself, had temporarily replaced Hotch as the Supervisory Special Agent in Charge during the Foyet debacle. Derek had no doubt that Strauss had wanted to use the Foyet debacle or more the fact that Hotch had killed Foyet with his bare hands after he had the chance to bring Foyet in on a long list of charges, but with the details surrounding the debacle coming to light and the fact that the FBI brass did not want to punish someone that had been punished enough especially a someone that they had on a list that an extremely few would ever grace and Chief Strauss was definitely not on that list.
"Derek." He heard her whisper after she had been silent for several minutes. She started to pull away from the hug and he let her.
"Yes?" He replied as tilted her chin so that he could look into her eyes. "What is it JJ?"
"I don't want to go." She replied as she sniffled then continued as she looked away from his probing gaze. "I'm being so immature acting this way,"
Derek interrupted her and titled her chin once more to make eye contact with her. "JJ, don't. You are not immature. This isn't something that you wanted and it's okay not to want to leave something that you've known for years. Your tears just prove that you're an honest and sweet human being who is being coerced into doing something that you don't want to do. This isn't as simple as being forced to take some much needed time off. You're being pushed out by an insecure woman that loves making life changing decisions for her subordinates who are really only subordinates on paper, because we both know that she can't do what we do for a few hours let alone the amount we do almost twenty-four seven."
"Derek, I'm scared." She confessed quietly as she walked around him and sat on the other chair in front of her desk a few feet away. He followed her and took the seat that he had occupied for the better part of an hour after he had returned from leaving earlier.
"It's okay to be scared." He replied as he took her hands in his. "But you're a bright, intelligent, resourceful, and a beautiful woman who can accomplish and perfect anything that you set your mind to. I am so proud of what you've accomplished since joining the team. No, I'm proud of the person that you've become since then. You're the best mother, excluding my own of course," He grinned.
She smiled in return.
He continued. "That I've ever known. You're a great friend to all and spectacular to those close to you. You're independent, empathetic, and strong. You handle the media flawlessly. You have every member of the team's back regardless of why they need it or if they actually do need it. You're a great shot and you saved my baby girl and killed the bastard before I could. But more importantly JJ, you are you and I love you for that."
Her breath caught and her throat started to burn from the raw emotion that she felt with his admission.
He continued as he removed on of his hands from hers and slipped it inside one of his jacket pockets to retrieve something. "I'm not going to tell you goodbye like Reid and the others did earlier, because I have no plans to let you ride off to the Pentagon and forget about us at the BAU." He sighed. "If I had known that you were leaving the team, I would have gotten you a much more suitable present to show you how much you mean to me and the team, but with everything that went down in Cali, and the abrupt announcement that you were leaving, I had to improvise."
She looked at him in confusion then in realization as he pulled out a Three Musketeers candy bar from his jacket pocket that he must have gotten out of one of the numerous vending machines in the building. She started giggling which turned into soft happy cries. She took the proffered candy bar and wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered. "Thank you so much Derek. I didn't realize that you would remember, it's been such a long time ago. I hadn't thought about it for a while until earlier today." She pulled slightly back to make eye contact, but she did not remove her arms around his neck. "What made you remember that in my early days Gideon used to call you, me, and Penelope the Three Musketeers? Whenever he had to go searching for us, he found at least two of us together if not all three of us?"
"I remember everything, JJ." He replied with a grin then he kissed her forehead. "And I won't forget that we are so not saying goodbye, because this isn't the end of our friendship, but only a chapter of our careers together closed to make room for a new chapter, a new hello."
She smiled in return as she tightened her grip on the candy bar and wrapped her arms around him tighter than she ever had and he returned the firm hug as their knees intimately touched the others. She sighed as she laid her head on his shoulder as she thought about when she had first joined the team and how she had wanted his approval that he did not want to give. She had thought that she would never receive his stamp of approval or his forgiveness when the unsub Tobias Hankel had kidnaped, drugged, beat, and almost killed Reid. She had almost not forgiven herself. In actuality it had taken both Derek and Reid sooner to forgive her than it had for her to forgive herself. However, somewhere down the long road he had given her his silent approval, but she couldn't place when that had been and it no matter was of consequence to her, because she now had it and would never be lost.
This moment meant more to her professionally than anything and it came in her top five personal moments. He had more than given her his approval, forgiveness, and trust but he had tonight given her something that she didn't know she had lacked; his recognition of whom she was not only as Supervisory Special Agent Media Liason Jennifer Jareau, but that of the mother, friend, and woman, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau.
They each sat in their own respective chairs in her office for a better part of another hour as they held unto one another as if that would prevent the chapter from ending entirely too soon before they had wanted it to, but with this ending it would create a new start for them both individually and collectively.
Thank you for taking the time to read this fanfiction.