chapter one.

In Which There Is A Sleepover And A Bad Rerun

George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Derek Morgan shut his last case file and leaned back in his chair with a sigh. Finally. The last case had been incredibly draining: the UnSub had had a physcotic break, believing that children had to be eradicated after he'd lost his own son in a car accident... six boys no older than eight were all dead. They could have saved one if they'd just been called in earlier...

Morgan considered himself good at his job. He saw himself profiling monsters two, five, ten and twenty years from now. But this was one of the worst cases he'd ever come across, maybe not in gore, but - the sight of those kids in their shallow grave had been tough. On all of them. It had taken ten days of getting no where with the profile and another victim for them to make any progress. Those were the worst cases, where they could only wait for someone else to die before giving the profile. And those boys had been completly mangled...

Despite this, he had no doubts about his ability to continue doing his job for quite some time. He wanted to put monsters behind bars for as long as he possibly could, and enjoyed doing it.

Paperwork, not so much.

Sighing, he surveyed the bullpen for anything to take his mind of the six boys. Prentiss was playing solitaire on her computer, too tired to even get up and give Hotch her paperwork... and then there was Reid, hurrying to his desk with what had to be his twentieth cup of coffee. He'd finished his own reports ages ago, of course, and had already helped Morgan out with one or two of his, so if Morgan had to guess, he was just about to finish the last of Emily's. He'd taken his contacts out and was wearing those stupid glasses that managed to make him look like some hipster. You knew you were staying late if Reid took off his glasses. The coffee, on the other hand, was no big surprise.

"Pretty boy, slow down! I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure your heart's supposed to be pumping blood, not caffiene."

"Shut up," Reid muttered mildly. There was a pause, filled by the sound of his pen scratching paper, before he continued: "Did you know ten grams of caffiene is considered a fatal dosage? The average American consumes 250 milligrams of caffiene every day, but in Finland and Sweden, the average daily consumption is closer to 400 milligrams. That's -"

"Reid, have you ever noticed that you only go on your caffiene rants when you're tired?"

Spencer blinked owlishly at Prentiss and rubbed his eyes, somewhat self-conciously. "I..."

"She's right, Reid." Hotch walked up to his desk and shut the file Reid'd been working on. "I want all of you to get out of here and get some rest. None of us has had a decent sleep in at least a week."

"I'm not done with that last report!" Reid whined as Morgan dumped his messenger bag in his arms. "Wait! Guys!"

Morgan laughed at him and clapped on hand on his shoulder, steering him out of the bullpen. "Come on. We're done here."

Reid could only yawn in response.

"Kid, I couldn't agree more."

By the time Reid got to his apartment, the sky outside was darker than he would have liked and his eyes were itchy with exhaustion. Already he could feel the headache creeping up on him - but he couldn't got to sleep, not yet. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the pale faces of the boys in Arizona, drying blood staining their visages. Children weren't meant to die. Not Riley Jenkins and not the little boys whose only fault in the UnSub's eyes was their youth.

He dumped his bag by the door, where it landed with a harsh thump, and went straight to his fridge for a beer before collapsing on the couch, flipping on the TV to some mindless informercial about a blender. Television helped slow down the brain's production of melatonin, after all. He could just sit and listen to all th perks of owning your very own Samuri blender for only -

He jumped nearly a mile when the shrill ring of his phone peirced the air, fumbling for it for a moment before he composed himself.

"Reid."

"Hey, Spence..." His foggy mind only needed a moment to pinpoint the voice.

"JJ? What's wrong?"

JJ was silent for a moment before she replied, her voice stronger than before. "Nothing. Well - not nothing." She sighed. "Nothing's wrong... I just wanted to talk."

Spencer frowned, glad she couldn't see him. "Um - don't you usually go to Prentiss for that? I mean - I mean, it's just - she's a woman, you're bound to understand eachother better, aren't you? Not that I -"

"No, no, you're right. I do usually call her." Another pause. "But Henry's sick and Will's asleep and I know she went out with Morgan and Garcia and I was wondering if you would just want to come over, actually. That case just got to me, you know?"

"Yeah. I do. But... you don't think Will would understand?"

"No - he's great. Will's great. But he's asleep and Henry's had this fever for a while and he's been dealing with that and I just... I really didn't want to wake him. Please, Spence? I've got beer. And if either Will or Henry wake up, I'm sure they'll be pleased to see you. You never come over with Garcia anymore."

"I know." And with this, he felt slightly guilty - it was true, he hadn't come over in a while. It had originally been a big deal for him and Garcia to bring over gifts for their godson, but... somehow he had sunk into himself and his books and the cases and not sleeping and he hadn't come by. He hadn't seen any of the team outside of work in a long time, actually. "I'll be over in twenty minutes, okay?"

"Alright. I'll see you then."

She hung up without drawing out the goodbye, and he got his coat.

"Hey," JJ said as she swung the door open for him to enter. "Sorry... I didn't realize what time it was. Time sort of gets warped when I'm thinking about work."

He managed a small smile and took off his shoes; snow had started to fall halfway through the drive from his apartment and by the time he'd gotten to JJ's, there was a good inch on the ground. "I brought something for Henry..." he handed her the plastic bag from the local general store. "It's a coloring book and some new crayons. I figured he already blew through the other ones?"

She nodded and grinned. "You have no idea. I keep trying to tell him that he doesn't need to do twenty in one sitting, but..." she shrugged.

Something about her was off, though. Reid tilted his head and tried to pinpoint it as she led him to the kitchen - "Beer?" "Sure" - the normally poised and professional JJ seemed more worn down, more weary.

"JJ, are you sure you're alright?"

She gave a weak laugh and leaned against the counter. "Yeah. I think I was overreacting a little. Just - the house is too quiet when they're all asleep. And that case..." She bit her lip. "I know we see stuff like that all the time, but... one of those boys was named Henry." Reid nodded. That hadn't failed to bother him, either. "I don't want to go to sleep thinking about how a person could do that to a child. And -"

Reid suddenly found the floor very interesting and kept his eyes on the tiles he found there while he spoke. "I know. You - you probably don't want to understand how a person could understand. I wish I didn't."

"You're right." She took a sip of her beer and Reid did the same. "I don't know why this one got to me so much, though."

Reid shrugged. "Some things just do." They were both quiet for a moment. "Robert Henz is going to spend the rest of his life in jail. Or recieve the death penalty. No one has to worry about him anymore."

"Except his victim's families." Her voice was the bitterest he'd ever heard it. "I don't know, Reid. Maybe I'm just letting this job get to me."

He downed the last of his beer. It was probably time to change to subject. As socially inept as he was, he did't invision a world were following this train of thought would lead to anything good. JJ was good at her job and he couldn't imagine the team without her. And his tendancy to fal back on small talk when he didn't know what to do had never failed him before... (well, not badly.)

"How's Henry? He's not too bad, is he? Fevers can escalate quickly in small children. Do you know how many kids were hospitalized in the year 2000 alone?"

There, there was the smile. It was weak, but it was there. "No. And I'm not sure I need to, but thanks. ...He's only had the fever for the past two days, but it hasn't gotten very high. Will's taking him to the doctor tomorrow."

"The very longest you would want to go without getting him checked would be three or four days... unless his fever was higher than -"

"Spence, I think he'll be okay." But she was smiling.

"Yeah. He will."

An hour later they had both gone through at least two beers each and had exhausted both all acceptable conversation and themselves. "You can sleep there," JJ said, pointing in the general direction of the couch. He was too tired to argue

Everything was so dark. But after a minute, he thought he could hear voices, vauge and unintelligible. There were soft thumps, too - someone was moving around, but he didn't care. Whatever he was laying on was warm, and soft...

"Spencer?"

Arrrgh. Where was that voice coming from?

Suddenly little Henry from the case in Arizona was staring down at him. "Spencer. Hey, Spencer."

"Whaddizit."

"Wake up. Spencer."

He shot upright and sat perfectly still for a moment. Where the hell was he - oh... JJ had asked him over and they'd stayed up drinking and talking until one in the morning and he'd fallen asleep on the couch while she went upstairs and now it was morning and -

"Hi, Will."

"Spencer," the former detective drawled. "I would have let you sleep, but I've got a feeling you'd want to get going. Before Henry wakes up and throws a fit about his sore throat."

(Was it just him, or was Will's tone just a little bit forboding?...)

"Right. Right. Yeah, I probably should... do that." Suddenly, the idea of going over to a married woman's house in the middle of the night to have a few beers while her family slept upstairs seemed incredibly stupid, and not to mention sleazy. Almost as stupid and sleazy as falling asleep on her couch afterwards so that her husband could find her to wake you up and send you home. They hadn't even cleaned up the beer bottles.

Will seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "Looks to me like you and JJ had few last night."

"Um... yeah. Sorry. I'll clean them up. Sorry. He rose and yawned, stumbling over to the kitchen.

"Looks like one of you had a few too many..."

"I'm clumsy, not drunk, don't worry." The bottles clanked loudly as they fell into the recycling bin. "This looks really bad, doesn't it?"

Will cracked a smile. "It might. But I trust JJ with my life and you're not too shady a guy, either."

"Oh." Thank God. He wasn't going to see any of the girls on the team alone ever again if he could help it. "Thank you. I'll, um, go now." He snatched his coat from where it lay on a chair and made his way to the door. Never ever ever again.

Just as he was about to shut the door behind him, Will stopped it from closing.

"Look, Spencer, I do 'preciate you looking after Jayje. And you have my blessing if you find yourself in the position again."

How much had he had last night? "What?"

"I'll see you around, Spencer." And he shut the door, softly.

"Everyone in the confrence room, now."

Reid, Morgan and Prentiss all rose from their desks to follow Hotch's lead. JJ stood in front of the moniter with a remote control in one hand and their files in the other, which she began to pass out as soon as the team sat down.

"Local PD in St Paul, Minnesota discovered the remains of Amy Gold and Marsha Reddy two days ago." She pressed a button, and the smiling faces of the two young girls appeared on the screen, one with long, brown, curly hair and one with short blonde hair. "On the left is Amy Gold. She was reported missing two weeks ago by her single father, Martin Gold. She was found two nights ago facedown in a ditch, along with Marsha Reddy, who went missing one month ago. Amy's arm was severed and found a few feet away, and she had multiple stab wounds on her face and chest. Marsha's hand was nearly severed, and her face and chest have been so badly beaten and stabbed that they had to use dental records to identify her. Locals don't know what to make of it. They're checking if the girls were sexually assaulted, but so far nothing's turned up. They've been able to keep it out of the media so far, but they're worried about a panic if anything gets leaked."

"If he's killing two at once, panic's going to be hard to prevent," Prentiss muttered, examining the crime scene photos"

"We've got to work fast," Hotch said. "Wheels up in twenty."

AN: Reid and JJ: It's not a romance, folks. I just can't leave the opportunity alone. So if you mind good ol' budding around and maybe some super vague, super light, super obscure Will bashing, leave now.

Arizona case: I'm not trying to be super dramatic here, but I think all of the cases where children are killed affect the team more than usual, and when I go into more detail about that particular case, I think the team's reaction will make a lot more sense. I know that they deal with completly messed up stuff every day, so I figure their reactions would take a little bit more time to manifest, instead of immediate revulsion. Hopefully I get the balance right.

Charectization: I really hope I didn't turn JJ into a simpering, oblivious Mary Sue. I like her more and more as I continue watching old and new episodes of the show. I'm experimenting (bwahaha) with her and Reid's relationship, not trying to make her go completly OOC. Call me on my crap, if there's any.

Rossi: I'm not a huge fan of him. I didn't see where he fit in in this chapter, but he's in the story, all right. He just might not get as much screen time. I will try my hardest to keep it fair and natural, so if one character is in a chapter much more than the other, it's not grounds for wigging out. :)

Other: It's my first CM fic. The plot probably sucks already, and the writing could use some major nip/tuck. But I'm writing this for fun, and this is what it is. I hope very much you enjoy it, despite my personal opinions. Please review.