A/N

I'm apparently in the mood for trying on slightly different things. This is a little one-shot from Strauss's point of view as she watches Blake and JJ.

Personally, I quite like the way this fic turned out, so, I hope you'll like it too.

Reviews are appreciated. :)

They think I don't know, and I'm not going to let on that I do. It hurts a little to see them, but the biggest part of me is just happy for Alex's sake. I could never love her the way she deserved, the way she needed to be loved, not the way Jennifer Jareau can. But I did love her though, in my own selfish, insufficient, absent-minded kind of way.

Nowadays she has grown up and calmed down on many levels, but when she was requited to the FBI she was a hothead, always on the verge of going rogue. Quick with her fists and more than a little trigger-happy. Keen on taking unnecessary risks. It was just about that time that she lost her mother, and they had always been incredibly close. Alex was very angry and very vulnerable, and intelligent enough to know just how vulnerable she was. Which in turn made her even angrier. I saw the signs and I kept a watchful eye on her, knowing that one day or the other she would make a fatal mistake if she didn't get that sizzling anger under control.

Luckily that mistake occurred when she worked a case with me. Our suspect didn't stop when she called on him to. Alex caught up with him and hit him so hard he passed out. She then kept hitting him. The only way I could make her stop was by slapping her in the face. Hard. She returned the favour, to put it mildly, but she did so automatically, there was no malicious intent behind it. She was crying and quivering the whole time. After cuffing our suspect and calling for backup, I put my arms around her and rocked her back and forth while she cried. She never told me why she boiled over like that, but I knew. It was life, how unfair it is. How could Dorothy Miller, who was still relatively young, die for seemingly no reason when her only daughter still needed her so much every day, while this good-for-nothing murdering asshole was allowed to live? How could life be so unfair? How could Alex Miller even be expected to cope with it? Yes, she was a federal agent, but you have to keep in mind that she was just 24; it wasn't that long since she had been a teenager. And we all know what a confusing and often hurtful time that can be.

No, we didn't end up in bed that day, but I ended up covering for her to make sure she didn't lose her chance to make a career within the Bureau. I'm not sure if our relationship sprung out of her gratitude, but I hope not. At least not all of it. I prefer to think there was something a little more genuine to it than that.

I used to know her very well back in the day, and it's surprisingly painful to realise that I no longer do, nor will I ever know her that way again. Some things about her that used to drive me insane no longer seem annoying at all; in fact, some of her quirks and traits even seem cute. She was never an early riser; she detested getting up early in the morning and it sometimes made me question how she even got through school. If she had a chance to sleep in, she would set an early alarm only so she could wake up, turn the alarm off and mutter something like "You're not the boss of me, so shut the fuck up" to the alarm clock. Then of course she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep anyway; she smoked like a chimney for a couple of years and started every morning with a terrifying, whooping smoker's cough that more than once had me wondering if I should call the paramedics or just the funeral hearse.

Quite the pair we were, with our respective vices/addictions. Alex with the cancer sticks and Erin with the booze. Unlike me, though, Alex grabbed herself by the collar and quit with her poison of choice. I think her willpower was so strong she can even have a single cigarette at a party and yet not fall back into the bad habit altogether. I could never do that. If I start drinking, I can't stop. It seemed to me Alex could do anything that I could not do, and I guess part of me hated her a little for it. That's one of the explanations - excuses, to be honest - that I have for cutting her rope during the Amerithrax case, anyway. Our affair was over by then; she had gotten married and I had somehow managed to convince my husband not to leave me. I had felt the winds of change beginning to blow months earlier; Alex slowly distanced herself from me, little by little, her anger had gone out like a flame in a storm… she had grown up. There comes a time when the student no longer needs the teacher, and her time to move on without me had come. It wasn't like I hadn't expected her to, I knew perfectly well that our relationship was nothing more than an affair, but I had believed I would be the one to end it. I suppose that's the main reason why I cut her rope when she really needed me - just to see her face when she realised that I would not unconditionally have her back. Yes, I know it sounds petty and mean, and it was. It really was, and I regret it. If I didn't, she never would have made it to the BAU.

Although she never seemed like that type, she was always a bundle of nerves. The smoking was one tell, the nail-biting another. Actually, the biting all in all. She would chew on everything she could get hold of; pencils, toothpicks, ice cubes, straws, chewing gum, and if nothing else was available she would resort to her lips or nails. I didn't see her very often for a few years after the Amerithrax fiasco, but the few times I did, she was always chewing on something. Even as everything else about her radiated calm entitlement, her jaws were constantly working on something. I remember thinking that if she hadn't picked up smoking again already, she would soon, and would go straight back to her old habit of two-packs-a-day and the resulting bottom-of-the-lungs-hacking every morning.

The next time I saw her, several years later, she was calm and collected. Perhaps she had only learned to control her tics better, but I don't think so. I think, somehow, Alex had worked through her difficulties and learned to harness her vices before they took hold of her again. She was mistrustful of me and kept her distance to others, but I didn't think that was written in stone. She was just being careful, looking out for herself, because this time there was no Dorothy and no Erin who could do it for her.

She had grown again, figuring herself out in the role of a middle-aged career woman. And upon meeting her again, I thought she would discover the best parts of herself in working with this team. She used to be a diamond in the rough, but all the chafing her life had brought her had polished her, and I thought this team would be able to reveal to her what a beautiful diamond she had turned out to be.

Now, as I watch the glances exchanged between her and Jennifer Jareau, I know I was right. It hurts a little to see her with someone else, to see her flash that dazzling smile at someone else, but it's a good kind of pain. I want her to be happy.

You see, I did love her a little. I don't know if I said that before, but… I did.