A.N. Watching some of the shows from the early seasons reminded me of the JJ who managed to be both competent and caring at the same time. She looked after her teammates, and took special care of a very young and naive Reid. She valued her role as a liaison because she wanted to be an emotional support to the families. I miss that JJ. Reid does too.

Set roughly half way through season seven.

The Clone

Chapter 1

Something is not right. She's not right. And it's been that way for many months now. Spencer Reid was worried about his erstwhile best friend.

He thought back again to what had happened this afternoon. They'd been called to Dallas to consult on a potential serial killer. He'd noticed what he thought was a pattern in the locations from which two bodies had been recovered, but was explaining to the locals how they would need a third body to establish it as a true pattern. The locals had winced at that, and so he gave them a (not so) short lesson on how pattern recognition occurs. The locals were looking back and forth among themselves, in over their heads with his long-winded explanation.

The other team members simply smiled indulgently, but JJ rolled her eyes. Again. Reid was hurt, again. She seemed to do that whenever the team was in public, meeting with other law enforcement. Before, she'd be supportive of him, decoding his labyrinthal explanations for the others. But now, it seemed, she ridiculed him. Every time.

He'd even asked her about it once. "JJ, is there something wrong?"

Her eyes were wary. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, did I say something wrong…..back there? Did I do something wrong?"

"Spence, I don't know what you're talking about." Now she'd broken eye contact.

"Well, are you angry with me, then? Did I do something to offend you?"

She almost looked annoyed. "Why are you asking me this?"

"Because you rolled your eyes. When I was explaining the maps to the police, you were rolling your eyes. Like you couldn't believe what a jerk I was. Was I being a jerk?" He was genuinely torn. The JJ he knew wouldn't deride him…..so maybe he had been a jerk. But he was no longer sure this was the JJ he knew.

She'd laughed him off, saying, "I'm just trying to bond with the other officers, Spence." As though that explained everything. As though bonding with the others needed to come at his expense.

He didn't believe her. When had he ever not been able to believe her? Oh, that's right. About Emily. When she'd returned from her time away with the State Department. Reid became more and more disturbed whenever he thought about it. Something was definitely not right. And it needed investigating.

Thinking back, Reid realized that JJ had been distancing herself from the team…or, more precisely, from him for months now. Ever since she'd returned from State she'd seemed different to him. It seemed like that time away from the team had put a rift into their relationship in way he hadn't understood. At first, he thought he'd put the distance there. He'd been so upset about how she handled Emily's 'death'...…and mostly about how she'd handled him during that time. She'd been outwardly supportive but inwardly deceitful. He'd been more affected by that than by anything else. How could he continue to trust her after that? And how does one cope without being able to trust?

Eventually they'd worked through it. Or tried to. Mostly, he thought, it was a survival mechanism on his part. He simply couldn't continue to work side by side with her and not try to regain some of what they'd had before. But something in him felt like the reconciliation was one-sided, coming only on his part. JJ had kept some kind of shield up between them, and the closeness, the intimacy of their friendship, was lost behind it.

He tried to remember when he'd first noticed anything. When JJ had announced Emily's 'death' to the team, he'd tried to flee from the room. She'd pulled him back, taken him into her arms and let him cry on her shoulder. And it had all been artifice. As had every time it had happened again, over the ensuing months. He'd been inclined to deal with his loss by burying himself in his books, isolating himself from the possibility of pain. And JJ had reached out to him, brought him into her home, and into her arms, again and again. For all of his masterful intelligence, he couldn't fathom why she would have done this. Why not let him be alone? Why insert herself into his life in this way, when she knew every moment of it was a lie? And why do all of this only to repeatedly ridicule and reject him once the deception was over?

It had affected his work. He'd grown accustomed to testing his statements against her reactions. Usually he stole a glance in her direction to tell him whether he'd been understood…..or even to figure out when he'd been, inadvertently but bluntly, insensitive. In those instances, she helped him smooth it over, and later explained what had gone wrong and how to amend it the next time. But she no longer accepted eye contact from him, no longer helped him in his interactions with the public. She'd virtually abandoned him.

This wasn't the person he'd known all these years. She looked like JJ, but she certainly didn't act like her. She may as well have been a clone. Something was very, very wrong. And, inexplicably, he still cared enough to find out what it was.

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In the Dallas police station, JJ caught the look of hurt on Reid's face and then quickly shifted her eyes before he could catch her glance. It couldn't be helped. There are bigger issues at stake, she kept telling herself. But it didn't make it any easier to know that she was causing him pain. Really, when you think about it, there are no bigger issues than how you treat those you care about. And yet…..

Paradoxically, it was all the more difficult because he was the only one she would have wanted to confide in…..and, therefore, the one person she couldn't allow to get close. She knew he needed her in the same way. She hoped he'd decided to turn to someone else on the team, but feared he was simply absorbing the hurt on his own. This couldn't end soon enough. Please wait me out, Spence. I promise it will get better. It's got to.

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Reid finally decided he needed more input. Garcia was too close...it might get back to JJ, and he didn't want that to happen right now. So he went to his usual resource on all things female.

"Hi, Emily." Now that he'd approached her, he wasn't sure how to bring it up.

"Hey, Reid. What's up?"

He stood there staring at his feet for a moment. Emily wasn't sure what was troubling her young teammate, but it was clear that something was.

"Reid, something's bothering you. What is it?"

Slowly, he lifted his eyes. They held that sadness she'd seen in them on many occasions. He swallowed.

"Emily, how does JJ seem to you?"

She was confused. "JJ? She seems fine to me. Why?"

He narrowed his eyes. "I think there's something wrong with her. She doesn't seem like…well, like JJ." He found he couldn't bring himself to say "because she's mean to me," even if that was precisely the issue. It sounded too childish. Maybe it was childish. Maybe the problem wasn't JJ, maybe the problem was him.

"Can you be more specific, Reid?"

He gave up. He wasn't going to start turning the team against JJ. Maybe it was just something between them. Maybe she'd not forgiven him for being angry about the Emily issue. Maybe he'd lost one of the friendships he valued most in his life. Or…..maybe there was something really wrong. Maybe she was in trouble and needed him. He was at a loss as to how to figure it all out.