A/N: This is for the "JJ's Departure" mini-Challenge in the Chit Chat on Author's Corner Forum.
I'm still so new to the world of fanfiction that I feel like I'm totally re-discovering myself, and what I'm capable of. It's an awesome, scary feeling. This is another story I had no idea I could write!
A very special 'thank you' to KricketWilliams for her incredible beta-read of this story - you made it so much better!
Disclaimer: I own nothing of Criminal Minds. I'm just playing a little :)
Leaving her office, JJ walks slowly along the corridor to the glass doors of the BAU. She has all the time in the world for what she wants to do tonight. At nine-thirty on a Friday night, the BAU is deserted, bearing silent testimony to the knowledge that while serial offenders don't necessarily take nights off, the people who hunt them sometimes have to.
Their team is on stand-down after a solid three weeks of back to back cases, and both other teams are out of state tonight. There isn't even a single file clerk, operator, visiting agent or anonymous pencil pusher still here. None of the offices on the upper level are tenanted tonight, not even Hotch's. His workaholic tendencies have been tempered somewhat by the loss of Haley, and his promises to her in the last moments of her life.
Tapping the small stack of plain white envelopes in her hand softly against her hip, she stands in front of the glass doors, and her mind's eye observes an echo of herself in that very spot. It's been three years, but she still tries her best never to stand there anymore. She hopes no one has ever noticed, but she cannot help the involuntary dip her hand makes to the gun at her side … every single time.
It is happening now. She expects it, however, because she is here deliberately this time, and so it doesn't freak her out.
Taking a deep breath, she steps forward and pushes the door open, entering the empty bullpen. One by one, she visits each desk – all bedecked with files and folders, all of them having meaning to her.
At Spencer's, she remembers a birthday party in a much more innocent time, a first date that didn't begin a relationship, but instead had cemented a friendship; the surprised joy on his face when she had asked him to be Henry's godfather. She can be thankful that, this way, he will always be a part of her life. She tries not to focus on all the times that she has almost lost this young man, who is the closest thing she has ever had to a brother.
At Emily's, the sweet warmth of shared girlfriends' joys and sorrows threaten to overwhelm her. It is a friendship she had never expected, but treasures now with all her heart – wondering whether it will hold fast or not. She thinks about hanging out together, rare shared downtime between cases - meeting a 'real' FBI agent; teasing her about a certain sexy British agent. She thinks about what Emily deserves – the love of a good man, the understanding of one made to be her match, the chance to be a mother.
That is enough for now.
Purposefully, she turns away from the desks and heads to the heart of the BAU – the conference room. How much of her professional life has been spent right here, facing these screens covered with images of the depths of horror humanity can proffer to the world? How strongly has this room influenced who she is … and who she would much rather be? The answer to that can be found in the one thing she knew she had wanted to do for her little family – bring her son to meet them here, bring a little bit of light into the room they could all hold onto when the darkness of what they see here threatens to drag them down.
Turning on her heel, she heads for the catwalk that has seen miles of her tread, arms full of cases to evaluate, distribute … make judgment calls about. She has had too many sleepless nights of wondering whether she has made the right choices. It doesn't matter anyway. Somehow, she knows that on some level, it was always out of her hands before the files ever even reached her desk.
Besides, there's no use in second guessing now.
She goes to Rossi's office first. His reputation has never mattered to her. The shadows that inform his life are what does. She is about to walk in, but stops for a second in the doorway instead. She remembers following Morgan and Prentiss into a bar in Indianapolis. It had been the first time she had seen there was a real human being under Rossi's usual tough shell. It was something she couldn't let go of. She has always had a soft spot for the older profiler ever since that day.
Morgan's office brings a deluge of memories – most strongly, one of conspiring with Garcia to create it for him in the first place. She traces her hand over the picture of Penelope that he has prominently displayed. Seeing it in its accustomed place again tells her that they will be fine. There are many tougher memories of him that she will have, however. Having to tell him Elle had been shot, his censure when she and Reid had split up during a case, leaving the latter vulnerable to Tobias Hankel. She tries not to think of the dogs, and uses another memory to banish the images – Morgan asking her to take care of Penelope during a trying case in Alaska, where their friend had had the foundations of her world rocked hard. She also thinks about years earlier, when she had to force her friend to delve into Morgan's private life in order to save him. How far her friends have come since then.
As she leaves Morgan's office, she begins to steel herself for what is coming next, and her pace unconsciously slows. It is the last place she has to go. She's been to Garcia's office already. She has run her fingers over the silly knick-knacks, the feather-topped pens, and the photographs, lingering for a long time on the one of the two of them together. She has had wonderful times in that office with her best friend – in the early days, they had been often thrown together when the rest of the team headed out. She had laughed in there – at her friend's determination to wrest information from the CIA's databases, among other things. She had cried in there – in the days after Penelope's shooting, hiding herself away from everyone where she knew no-one would look for her. She'd gone into labor in there – and her best friend had been there to override her silly objections and help her through one of the hardest but most rewarding times in her life. There are many reasons why Penelope Garcia is Henry's 'fairy' godmother. She is grateful to have Pen in her life. They have held each other up many, many times.
It's time now. It's almost over.
She has been standing on the catwalk outside her final destination. She knows that she has been putting it off by reminiscing about her visit to Garcia's lair. Taking a deep breath, she opens the door to Hotch's office and walks in. The moment the door closes behind her, she is overwhelmed by the memories, and has to sit down. For the moment, she can't bring herself to go close to the desk, so she moves instead to the couch against the other wall. Lowering herself to the seat, she sits stiffly, as if in pain. And it does hurt. Just being here hurts, in a purely visceral way that feels like nothing else ever has, or ever will.
Against her best intentions, she remembers:
- Having played the dumb blond to so many detectives, agents, media persons and countless others, in order to get what she had needed from them for the team to succeed. Turning around to be met with understanding from her team leader.
- The long stare and the look in his eyes when she had fired her gun, and for the first time in her life, the bullet had found its home in another human being. In that one look, he had told her how much he felt for her.
- Him saying to her, "But as someone I greatly respect suggested…" She has heard that phrase in her head many times over the years.
- Telling him about her sister's suicide – letting him in to that part of her. Trying to use it to give him comfort after Haley's death.
The snippets flash in and out of her mind, oddly soothing. It is the newer memories that threaten to break her spirit.
She remembers Will, telling her of leaving Virginia to return to New Orleans, of missing his home, his life there. She remembers meeting Hotch at the door of the FBI's daycare. She was dropping off Henry, while he had brought Jack. It is how he had found out, how anyone had found out that Will had left. She remembers crying on his shoulder, while the children played unconcerned at their feet in the local park in the middle of the day.
Maybe it was because they are the only ones with children. Maybe that was why they were able to connect with each other. He was there for her, sharing babysitters, favorite children's stores – even pediatricians. All the things she had to re-organize for Henry after Will had gone.
What she does not remember is when she had known she was falling in love with him. One day it was just there – and it has become the centerpiece of her existence. She can no longer imagine a world – her world – without Aaron Hotchner in it. Nonetheless, she also knows that she will have to.
She knows she is a coward for doing this when her colleagues are not here. They will be on stand-down for a week. Tonight is only the first night. By the time they return, she will already be gone. She cannot face them. She will call Spence and Garcia when she is settled. She knows that they will forgive her. The others … who knows? She's not sure how much she cares anymore, or so she tells herself, the lie winding its way through her brain, pulsing to the rhythm of her heart.
She is leaving for New Orleans with Will on Sunday night. Yes, Will is back. He has said that he loves her, that he cannot imagine life without her and Henry. He has told her he was a fool for leaving without asking her to go with him, and if there was any way she would consider it. It has been two weeks since he did that. She thinks back to how she made him wait for her answer. How she never told him what she had to do before she could answer him.
She remembers that morning as if it were happening in front of her right at this very moment – walking into the bullpen, heart in her throat, fear warring with hope. As she closes her eyes, she is there again, walking into an almost empty room. A different empty from tonight – that one had borne the promise of a new day starting.
As if she is somewhere else, watching events unfold, she sees her two-week-ago self, heart full of an emotion she dare not name, making the walk to his office, nothing around her registering. She tells herself that if she had been less caught up in her own feelings, she would have noticed something was off. You spend a lot of time with profilers, you must pick something up.
She remembers being almost at the door when the soft sound reached her. In the present, behind her eyelids, on the couch in Hotch's office, she sees herself take one step closer to the door, which is partially opened. What she sees there will change her life forever. It is a cliché, but sometimes only a cliché will do.
Though it is early, Aaron Hotchner is in his office, standing in front of his desk. That in itself is nothing unusual. Two other things are unusual however. He is tenderly cradling Emily in his arms … and he is smiling down at her.
JJ says yes to Will the very same day, and secretly hands in her resignation to Strauss, asking that she be allowed to tell the team in her own time.
By the time they return from stand-down, she will already be gone. Rising from the couch, she studies the last white envelope for a moment, before she goes over and places it on the desk, centering it neatly. She has already left a similar envelope on everyone else's desk. Only the contents differ. Only one of them has the truth. It is not the one she has just put down.
She turns and leaves, without a backward glance. Though she will likely never be back here again, there is nothing to look back for.
She is already taking with her everything she can.