A.N. A little diversion, inspired by an exchange on one of the boards, based on 'that' scene in 'Painless'.

Mean Girl

"Wait….were you one of the mean girls?"

"No!" Caught off guard, she sounded defensive.

"Valedictorian, soccer scholarship, corn fed, yet still a size zero…I think you might have been a mean girl."

"I was actually one of the nice girls, even to guys like you."

The conversation had taken place hours ago, a throwaway exchange made during a routine search of a crime scene….yet neither of them could let it go.

I knew he wasn't over it. He only came to that stupid pasta party because Emily twisted his arm. He made it look good, all smiles and clinking glasses. But I knew it wasn't real. The first chance he had to get in another dig at me, without anyone else knowing…..and I'm a mean girl?!

JJ stewed about it. The barb had come, seemingly, out of nowhere. And he'd pushed her, past the point where she'd denied it. She replayed the entire exchange in her head.

If I hadn't been so surprised that he'd noticed my clothing size, I'd have had a better comeback.

As it was, all she'd been able to do was to launch a barb of her own. 'Even to guys like you', implying that he was of a type…..a type that was often mistreated by 'mean girls'.

Which is only partially accurate. There is no 'type' like Spence.

An alternative explanation came to her, but she liked that one even less.

What if he wasn't lashing out? What if that's what he's thought of me right along?

It sent her on a journey of self-examination. Was she a mean girl? Had she been, and not realized it? Had she lost her way, set her priorities wrong? Had she been 'mean' to someone who, until a couple of weeks ago, had never spoken an unkind word to her?

JJ made a quick change in her hotel room and headed out for a run. The exercise always cleared her mind.

Today I need it to clear Spence out.

Down the hall, in his own hotel room, Reid ran his fingers along the same page for the third time in a row, and then had to turn back two pages to re-read what he'd already been through, but failed to absorb. Finally, in a moment of frustration, he slammed the book shut.

Has it been that way all along? Have I just been too blind to see it? Too enamored?

'I was actually one of the nice girls, even to guys like you.' What does that mean..…guys like me?

It was as though none of the intervening time had elapsed. Internally, Reid had reverted to his too-young high school self, the one who had been, seemingly, the natural outlet for every bully's streak of meanness. He'd counted the 'mean girls' in his school among those bullies, the ones who'd so unthinkingly baited him into falling prey to the others.

His logical mind had long since come to realize their actions as those of typical, internalized adolescent insecurity masked by external beauty. They went along to be popular. It was rare that the 'mean girl' instigated his torment. But it was even more rare for one of them to try to stop it.

Is she saying she would have? That she would have stepped in, or not gone along?

Maybe. Or maybe she meant exactly what she said. That she wasn't one of them.

But then why the 'guys like you' remark? Is that how she's looked at me all this time? All this time that I thought I'd finally broken the curse? Have I fallen prey to the beautiful woman once again?

It had taken him a long time to get past his preconceptions about his fellow team members. He'd been too defensive about what he'd assumed were their preconceptions of him. Morgan and JJ in particular had fit his stereotypical image of the people who'd hurt him in the past. Even Elle, although her rough edges set her apart from the Alexis Lisbons of his high school days. Mean girls were soft on the outside.

To protect himself, he'd stayed firmly in the shadow of his mentor, until time and experience had told him it might be safe to venture out. Still, he'd had to actively parry every reflex that told him not to trust them. Ever so gradually, he'd allowed the others to open up to him…..always that first, for safety….. and then he'd begun to open up to them.

With Morgan, he'd found a most unexpected sense of kinship. Never in his life would he have expected to find himself bonded with a buff, athletic, kick-the-door–in alpha male. And yet, that was exactly what had happened. A shared sense of responsibility, a common core of integrity…..even, sadly, a mutual understanding of what it meant to survive a perilous childhood…..all of these and more had brought out a kind of brotherhood between the two.

If Morgan had become his brother, then Elle had become his big sister. The one who'd rebelled against all of the house rules and ultimately run away from home. He'd worried about her, and tried to reach out, not knowing if he was overstepping the boundaries of comradeship by breaking uninvited into her personal dilemma. He'd suffered her loss as one would that of a wayward sibling, with the hope of her one day making her way back into the fold.

With Emily, it had been a hard won love. Her arrival to the team after the loss of Elle had been a difficult pill for all of them to swallow, because it had reflected Elle's absence as permanent. Not long after, Reid had been in a battle for his life, and then his sobriety. That it had played out against the backdrop of her newness to the team had put an additional wall between Emily and Reid. There had followed a gradual thinning of that wall, until it had melted away completely when they'd been in peril together in a cult compound. After that time, they'd developed a true, deep friendship, marked by mutual respect and caring.

And then, there was JJ. His armor had been raised around her from the very beginning. She'd looked like every mean girl he'd ever met….beautiful, cool, collected. But the armor had begun to peel away when she'd reached out in kindness, making him a birthday cake, bolstering his confidence, supporting him through minor gaffes like his clumsiness with chopsticks. Those were not the things a mean girl would do.

Very briefly, he'd fancied her, wondered if they might one day be more to each other. But he simply hadn't had the gumption to find out, despite a not-so-subtle push from Gideon. It had been far more comfortable…and far less threatening…. to let the friendship deepen, and savor the experience. And so, he had.

In some ways, he'd let JJ get closer than he had anyone else. Or maybe it was that she'd let him get closer. He'd been aware she kept a studied distance between her personal and professional lives. They were all aware of it. And yet, somehow, she'd decided to let him in. Maybe it had been a result of their frequent pairings during cases. Maybe it had been due to some sense of shared trauma. Maybe it had just been that she'd needed a means of ventilation, and he'd been the least threatening member of the team to provide it. He didn't know. All he knew was that she'd embraced him in the most important way possible, by inviting him into her family.

That's what being a godfather is, isn't it? Becoming part of a family?

He'd been surprised, and flattered, and nervous, and elated, all on the same day that he'd walked away from one of the most emotionally battering experiences of his life. On that day, JJ and Henry had seemed like a lifeline, and he'd grasped them with both hands.

He'd done the same just last spring, with the devastating pseudo-loss of Emily. In the very moment they'd learned of Emily's 'death', JJ had pulled him into her arms. And she'd continued to do so, for weeks, as he'd mourned the loss of his 'sister' and friend. He'd been amazed at JJ's strength and fortitude in handling the incident that threatened to emotionally devastate him. And then he'd been utterly repulsed to learn why.

He'd removed himself from JJ's life almost immediately. He hadn't known how to be near her without exploding. All he'd been able to think about was that he'd fallen for the mean girl's wiles yet again. Been flattered into thinking she truly cared about him, only to learn that she could have alleviated his suffering, but chosen not to.

But, this time, he'd made sure it was different. He wasn't a kid any more. He wouldn't simply suffer at the mean girl's hands without fighting back. He'd lashed out, confronted her lie, confronted the fact that she'd told it. It should have felt good, standing up, at last, to a bully. But he'd only felt sad and, later, guilty.

She'd hurt him. It was probably the only thing he was sure of. He couldn't know the truth of her argument that it hadn't been by choice. He would have to either accept it, or not. It had taken him several days…..days during which he'd gone through all five stages of grief…..but he'd accepted it. Many things had happened to Spencer Reid over the years. One of them was maturity.

Or so he'd thought. Where did that even come from today? 'Were you one of the mean girls?' It's not like we were talking about anything related to that. It just came out. I just went after her.

Despite the content of his internal conversation, Reid did know. It had happened because he still wasn't sure. He might have reached the stage of acceptance, but it wasn't a static stage. He still, in spite of every good intention, waxed in and out of it.

And then she came right back at me. Was she just returning in kind? Or has it really been that way all along? Have I been one of those 'guys' she talked about? Has she been nice to me out of pity? Have I misread our friendship all along?

It was only 9 o'clock, but he could already tell it would be a sleepless night.

"No, Sweetheart, I don't think so….well, maybe Daddy can….. Honey, I'm sorry, I just have to work."

Reid was wondering why a hotel's walls would be so paper thin as to allow guests to hear a full conversation from the hallway, when he realized that he recognized the voice. It was JJ, obviously talking to Henry. An obviously upset Henry.

His curiosity and concern got the better of him. Reid rolled off the bed he'd never actually gotten into, and went to the door. He opened it just a sliver, but it was enough to see that JJ's door was also open. Before he gave it any conscious thought, he was on his way across the hall and knocking on the jamb.

"JJ?" He pushed the door open wider, in time to see her jump.

"Wha…..oh, Spence. You scared me. Did I leave the door open?"

"Yes. And you shouldn't. But….what are you doing up? And what's wrong with Henry? Why is he up at this hour?"

She put her hand over the receiver. "He woke up and begged Will to call me." Then removing her hand, she spoke so her son could hear. "But he knows he's supposed to be asleep right now. Right, Henry?"

Reid watched as JJ listened and responded.

"Yes, it's your Uncle Spence. Henry, I don't think…"

Reid's instincts told him Henry was asking to speak with his godfather. He waved his permission to JJ, who handed her phone to him with "All right, I give up. Here he is."

Reid took the phone from her. "Henry? Aren't you supposed to be sleeping? It's the middle of the night there."

"I needed to talk to Mommy, Uncle Spence. She has to make my costume."

"Costume?"

"For our play, Uncle Spence! Are you coming? I'm a leaf!"

"A leaf?"

"Yep! And I have to fall off the tree! I get to jump all the way down!"

"And your mom has to make you a costume?"

The youngster remembered his prior distress. "Mommy has to make it! Daddy said he doesn't know how!"

Reid heard the rise of anguish in Henry's voice. "Calm down, Buddy. I'm sure we'll be done in plenty of time. When is the play?"

"Not tomorrow, but the next day."

JJ was looking at Reid, already knowing what Henry was telling him. Her look said, 'You see what I mean?'

Reid fudged. "Well, don't worry about it, Henry. We should be done here in plenty of time." He tried to ignore her waving to him not to make promises. "And, if we're not, I'm sure your Aunt Penelope can help you out."

He threw a self-satisfied look in JJ's direction. Garcia's attire was largely self-made. Of course she could help her godson with his costume.

JJ's smile widened as she grabbed her phone back from Reid. "Your Uncle Spence is right, Henry. Aunt Penelope is an expert at sewing. She'll make sure you're the best looking leaf on the stage."

To Reid, she turned and mouthed, 'Thank you.'

Henry seemed to be saying something more to his mother, because she responded with, "I'm going to try very hard, Honey. We both will, okay?"

After another pause, she said, "All right. I'll call your Aunt Penelope in the morning. Now, I want you to get to bed. It's very late….all right….yes. I love you too, Sweetheart. And Uncle Spence does, too."

Uncle Spence shouted a quick, 'I love you' to Henry before JJ closed out the call.

"Thanks. I'd forgotten all about Pen's skills at the sewing machine. That was a lifesaver!"

He gave her a half smile. He'd been distracted from the reason he'd come, but now was remembering. "You're welcome. And I hope you make it to the play."

"We."

"We?"

"He wants both of us there, Spence. Well, and Will and Pen, of course. So I hope 'we' make it to the play. Which isn't going to happen unless we get some rest. Hotch won't appreciate us being zombies in the morning."

It was an opening, of sorts. "Can I ask what had you walking the halls so late?"

She hesitated just a fraction of a second before lying to him. "I went to the ice machine."

She saw him looking around for her ice bucket. And winced when he spied it on the counter, obviously empty.

"All right, it wasn't ice. I got them to let me into the fitness center. I needed to run."

She knew he would recognize her usual strategy for reducing tension. She just wasn't sure she was ready to acknowledge the cause of that tension.

"I thought you went running earlier, didn't you? A few hours ago?"

"How did…. Never mind. You notice everything, don't you?"

"Not everything. I just know your footfalls, that's all."

She decided to challenge him in return. "And how did you happen to hear them just now? I wasn't being that loud on the phone. You were still awake, weren't you?"

He shrugged. "I was having a little trouble sleeping myself."

Their eyes met and, after a moment of probing, each sent an apology. They spoke almost simultaneously.

"I'm sorry."

Reid held up a hand to stop her. He'd come here for a reason, and he wanted to get it out.

"I didn't mean to hurt you. I don't even know why I said it. But I'm sorry."

JJ sat on the edge of her bed and patted the area next to her, inviting him to join her. When he did, she shifted sideways, so she could see him better.

"The thing is," she started in, "that I've been thinking about it ever since. Wondering if maybe you were right. Maybe I'm not who I thought I was. I'm certainly not who I used to be."

A soft response came back. "Who was it that you used to be?"

Her laugh was tinged with bitterness. "I used to be the good girl. The one who had to make up for the fact that her sister made her an only child. Never got in trouble, always got good grades. I definitely wasn't one of the mean girls."

He was immediately apologetic again. "I'm sorry about that, JJ. It was a stupid thing for me to say."

She was shaking her head the whole time he was speaking. "No, it wasn't. Because….. maybe I wanted to be one of the mean girls. I know I wanted to be one of the popular kids. I wanted to be someone who didn't get whispered about all the time."

He was surprised to hear that she had been. "What were they whispering about?"

"Spence, you're from Vegas. You don't know what it's like to grow up in a small town. It had already been a few years, but they were all still talking about my sister. It had been the talk of the town when it happened. As far as I could tell, they were still talking about it when I left."

No attempt to hide the bitterness now.

He'd known the facts about her sister, but not the fallout. Reid was sympathetic.

"That must have been hard. I guess I never pictured it. I just thought…you know….beautiful, smart…"

She smiled. Spence was the only male who could call her beautiful and make it sound like an objective fact. But he was wrong about something else…..

"And I wasn't a size zero then, for your information. I still had too much baby fat."

His eyes widened as they struggled to picture it. "Well….anyway….I'm sorry for assuming."

His words triggered a response. She shifted toward him.

"That's just it, Spence. I just….. why did you assume it? Is there something about me now? Do I seem like a 'mean girl' to you now?" Making finger quotes.

He took a moment to gather his thoughts. He'd already created too much distress with a careless comment, there was no need to add to it.

"No….no, JJ. There's nothing. It just came out without me thinking."

"Spence….." He didn't need to look at her face. Her tone told him she didn't believe him. "Tell me. Please."

His eyes cast away from her, he took so long to respond that she reached over and tapped his knee.

"Whatever it is, it's obviously already between us. Just tell me."

He nodded slowly as he heaved a sigh. "All right. But I'm sorry if this is bringing up something that's supposed to be behind us."

Immediately, she knew what it had to be. "Emily."

He nodded again. "Emily. I know I need to get over it, and I heard you when you said you had no choice. I guess…. I guess it's just taking more time than I thought it would."

Other than their semi-public argument, they hadn't talked about it at all. They'd each assumed that Rossi's pasta party was supposed to have put a punctuation mark on it, even if neither of them felt that way.

JJ took a moment to link the deception about Emily to her supposed role as a mean girl. And she was distressed to see how easy it was to connect the dots.

"You think I enjoyed being 'in' on it. Like I was part of a clique?"

He could only shrug.

"But… wait, and you think I purposely didn't want you to know? To keep you from being on the inside of the circle?"

He responded with another question. "What did you mean when you said, 'guys like you'?"

"What? Oh." It had just been a barb launched in retaliation for his, but now she realized it had struck a nerve. "I didn't mean anything by it, Spence. I was just hurt, so….."

"But it came out so easily. What did you mean by it? What kind of 'guy' am I?"

Time for more soul searching on JJ's part. He gave her the time she needed, because he needed to know.

Finally, she seemed ready. "You're not any kind of guy, Spence. Except for the kind, gentle, noble kind. I was thinking more of how it was in high school, and how there were always these kids who…"

She'd begun to stumble on her words, so he finished for her.

"The kids who didn't fit in with anyone. I know. I didn't even fit in with them. I was at least a foot shorter and five years younger than any of my classmates. I guess I was 'the' guy."

Now it was his words that were infused with bitterness.

She reached out and touched his knee again. "I'm sorry."

He laid his hand over hers for a second, and gave her a small, wistful smile. "I've missed this."

She tried to make light of it. "What? Talking about the tortures of our high school social lives?"

He laughed. "No. No….I just…. I liked what we had. Being so easy with each other, being able to talk. It...it was just so different from before."

Encouraged by the look of curiosity on her face, he continued.

"Every other time in my life, every other time I believed the beautiful, popular girl... she duped me. Me, with my 187 IQ. I had no learning curve about them. You'd think, after the first time, I would have known. But no, I was…. I guess I was too hopeful that things could change for me. That I wouldn't always be on the outside looking in."

"You aren't, Spence. Not any more."

"I know that. But… with you, it was the first time I found out I could trust that beautiful girl. And I loved that. I loved that we could be comfortable with each other, and tell each other almost anything. But then…"

Tears flooded her eyes without warning, even as he was still speaking. Now they began to run down her cheeks. "But then…. you felt like I betrayed you."

He couldn't look at her, couldn't trust his voice. It was in their past, and yet it wasn't. He could only try to swallow it back down.

She didn't bother trying to hide the shakiness in her own words.

"Spence, I can't change what's already happened. I can't even say that I think it would be right to try. And I know that's not what you really want to hear. But this is about being honest with each other now. And, honestly, I don't know that I could have done anything differently. Not that I didn't want to. Not that I still don't desperately wish I could have. I would have given anything for you not to have had so much pain, for so long."

"That's just it, JJ. You saw it. You knew what I was going through. And you knew it didn't have to happen."

"That's where we differ, Spence. I was under orders. It's not that I wanted you to suffer, but I didn't see a way around it. All I thought I could do was to try to give you comfort. It wasn't because I didn't want you 'in the club'. It definitely wasn't because I was playing you for the fool. God, please don't believe that. It was because I was told to keep it confidential. If I'd failed in that, what's to say they wouldn't have decided I wasn't trustworthy enough to be in the FBI? Would you have asked me to risk my career?"

"Of course not. But I would have expected you to trust me to keep it confidential as well. Between us. I thought you trusted me enough for that."

All she could do was apologize. "I'm sorry you went through it all, Spence. I'm sorry you went through any of it."

He wasn't satisfied. "It wasn't just the grief, JJ. I was afraid. It hurt me to lose Emily…. But it also scared me, because I nearly relapsed."

He saw the expression on her face change, to one that said, 'Stop talking now, I'm not supposed to know'.

But he didn't stop talking. "I know. I know it's supposed to be a secret. But here I am, trusting you. Just like I did that day."

'That day', she'd been nearly as troubled at the fact of his having said it aloud, overheard by others, as she'd been at the news that he'd considered using the drug. The FBI frowned on its agents using illegal substances, sometimes to the point of dismissal.

"Spence…. I was stupid about that. I never even thought of it."

"Why would you have? You weren't supposed to know."

"But I did know. And I should have. All I can do now is ask you to forgive me."

He scanned her face with squinted eyes. "But you can't promise it won't happen again."

She looked away for what seemed a very long time, then sought his gaze.

"If you'd asked me that this morning, I would have said you were right. But, now, I don't think so. Not any more. I've spent the past four hours doing nothing but thinking about who I am. Who I was. Who I want to be. I don't think the 'me' that I am now is all the way there. But I know who I want to be."

"Who is that?"

"The girl that Spencer Reid can trust with everything, and for everything. The one who doesn't try to fit you into a type. Because, you know, you're one of a kind."

She smiled at him, hoping for one in return.

She was rewarded. "Well, I'm counting on the 'with everything' part, considering what I just admitted. And I'm willing to work my way toward the 'for everything', if you're serious about it."

Her eyes were earnest now. "Do you think you can get there?"

His were earnest as well. "I can only promise that I want to, and that I'll try. All I know is that I need to move away from where I am now...where we are...and moving toward trusting you is as good a direction as any."

She grinned her gratitude at him. It wasn't everything, but it was far more than they'd had at the beginning of their day. Relief washed over JJ and her body became limp. She fell backwards on the bed.

"Whoa…it just hit me like a brick. I'm exhausted. I think I need to get some sleep."

Reid stood, and grabbed her arms to pull her up. He turned her around by the shoulders and brought her to the nightstand.

"Get into bed. I'll turn out the lights."

She did as ordered, and smiled when he tucked the bedcovers in around her.

"Thanks, Mom."

"That's 'Dad', to you, young lady."

Her smile widened into a yawn. With her arms outstretched, she beckoned him. "C'mere".

He bent forward and allowed her to pull him closer, her hands on either side of his head. She brought his face down and planted a kiss on his forehead.

"I love you, Spence. You're a part of my family. Please don't ever forget that. And, no matter what, families stick together."

He'd seen just the opposite happen too many times to agree with her, but he wasn't about to argue the point. Like JJ, Reid was exhausted, the tension of the day finally spent enough to allow his muscles...including the one between his ears...to relax.

"I love you, too. Never stopped."

He waved his goodbye as he reached the door. "Sweet dreams…..see you in the morning…well, in a few hours."

"Sweet dreams to you, too, Spence."

He made his way back across the hall and into his room, and fell into bed fully clothed. But sleep was still elusive. His brain may have been relaxed, but it wasn't shut down.

I guess there really is no such thing as closure. Nothing's really any different, is it? I still think she should have told me, and she still thinks she had to follow orders. Not that it would really change anything, if either one of us conceded. What happened, happened. We can't undo it. We can only move forward. And we can try to grow from it, I guess. That's what life is about, learning from the past, and finding a way to carry on. I'm just glad that it sounds like we'll be carrying on together, instead of apart.

He tried to quiet his mind so he could sleep. But it had one more thing to say.

Someday, when he needs to hear it, I'll tell Henry the story of 'The Mean Girl and The Guy'. The one where they both got it wrong, by not looking beneath the surface. I'll tell him about how they were each looking for someone who didn't really exist, and almost missed out on each other. And I'll tell him how they ended up finding the most important thing of all... somebody who loves them, faults and all. And I'll tell him about the true hero of the story...the one named Forgiveness.