Seventy-Two Days

Fifty-three. That's the number of times that Reid appeared on JJ's doorstep.

Four. That's the number of times JJ went to him.

Twelve. That's the number of nights the team was away on a case.

Three. That's the number of nights JJ was sick with the stomach bug that Henry had brought home from daycare.

Seventy-two days. On the seventy-third day Reid called to tell JJ that he was doing better and that he didn't think he needed to come over. It was that seventy-third day that broke the ten-week-long string of nights that Reid had sought solace from JJ.

She would never admit it, but on the seventy-third day, JJ felt like she could finally breathe. It had been seventy-two days of watching Spence break down piece by piece. She tried to put those pieces back together with platitudes, hugs, and reassurances that the pain will ease. Each time she looked into his red-rimmed eyes another weight piled onto her chest. Every hug, every sniffle, every time he said her name, Emily, it felt like the vise around her chest tightened.

It wasn't just Spencer that was falling apart. Everyone and everything around JJ seemed to be crumbling. She tried to keep it all together, but at a certain point, something had to give. JJ learned the hard way that she can't always choose what that something is.

She never even made it off the table. Her voice wavered; the knowledge that she just broke five hearts in one sentence made her own feel like it was shriveling up in her chest. Reid looked so lost that night that JJ offered to take him home with her. He agreed so quickly that JJ knew this wouldn't be the only time they'd end up on her couch mourning for Emily.

That night JJ cried just as much as Reid did. She cried because they had nearly lost Emily on the table. Twice. She cried because her friend hadn't woken up before she had to go tell the team that she was dead. She cried because Emily was in pain and she couldn't be there to help her through it. She cried because at a time where she probably needed her family most, Emily was lying in a hospital in an undisclosed location with no one at her bedside.

She cried so much for Emily that night that she didn't have any more tears to shed for her other friends. Those would come the night of Emily's funeral. Each rose placed on Emily's grave was a reminder of each person that JJ was hurting.

#

After nine straight days of Spence showing up at her doorstep, JJ was naturally worried when he hadn't knocked or called.

"Spence? Where are you?" JJ had asked when he picked up the phone.

"I don't want to be a burden," he had replied. His voice was nasal and his breaths were coming in the staccato rhythm of someone who had been crying. As the mother of a two-and-a-half year old, JJ knew that pattern well.

"You're not a burden," JJ insisted. "Do you want me and Henry to come over?"

Will was in New Orleans. He had claimed that he didn't want to get in JJ's way during all of this. Apparently he thought that providing support to JJ while she supported the team was getting in the way. So JJ talked with Henry. Of course with his propensity for repeating things he has heard, she didn't want, My mommy is a liar and Emily is alive and well in Paris. Or maybe Brussels, to come up in conversation. Not that his speech was sufficiently advanced for that, but certainly Mommy lies, Emmy is alive was very much a possibility.

So for the most part, JJ wasn't actually talking to anyone. She went to work, performed her duties in a perfunctory manner, came home, took care of Henry and Reid, and then went to bed where she would imagine that Will was there to comfort her. But he wasn't. Phone conversations with Will were short and terse as JJ tried to reign in her emotions. She didn't want to make Will feel like he needed to come home to take care of her. Except that was exactly what she wanted.

JJ took Reid's silence as a yes. "We'll be over just as soon as I pack a few things for Henry."

Reid only lived twenty minutes away, but JJ figured she should be prepared to stay over. With a toddler, you need to be prepared for any situation.

"Thanks," he whispered just before hanging up the phone.

#

Two days later, Will came back from New Orleans and JJ collapsed into his arms. She cried the tears that she had been holding back for days, the tears she felt guilty sharing with Reid. For JJ, guilt was not simply an emotion, but a physical pain that she carried in her chest. She couldn't cry with Reid because she barely felt she could breathe when he was around.

But when she saw Will, standing in the doorway, she knew exactly how Henry felt when he fell down at the playground but the tears wouldn't come until JJ with in his line of sight. In the safety and comfort of Will's embrace JJ could let go. Between sobs she tried to tell Will how she was feeling except that she had to give the redacted version since Will was on the long list of people she was lying to.

"Cher?" Will drawled, taking her to bed. "Why do you feel so responsible for Spencer?"

"Because I am the one who stood there and broke his heart. I am the one who told him one of his best friends was dead and that she was so badly injured that he couldn't, shouldn't, go see her."

Because I'm the one who is lying to him.

"Surely he doesn't blame you. You were, after all, only the messenger. It's not like you're the one who…" Will stopped himself, but JJ knew what he was going to say.

"He doesn't have anyone else, Will."

"But why does it always have to be you?" Will pressed. "There are six other people on the team that he could go to."

"Five," JJ corrected. Will just stared at her.

"There are only five other people that Reid could go to," JJ clarified. "The sixth was Emily."

Tears filled her eyes. She had felt guilty for wanting a few nights off from Reid. She wanted to spend a night, just one night, with Will holding her while she cried. But hearing Will voice her thoughts out loud made her feel even guiltier. She broke Reid's heart; it was her responsibility to fix it.

JJ slid her hand under Will's t-shirt and started tracing circles on his stomach.

"I don't want to talk about Spencer right now," JJ said. "I want to just be with you. I want you to hold me and tell me that everything's okay."

"I think I can manage that," Will said, placing a kiss on the top of her head.

#

Twenty-nine days. It had been twenty-nine days since JJ took Spence into her arms for the first time to comfort him. Since then, he'd come over twenty-six times and three times JJ had come to him. JJ would be lying if she said that Reid's grief wasn't starting to wear her down. So not only did she feel guilty because she was the cause of his pain, she also felt guilty because every time she heard a knock on the door her stomach sank and her chest tightened.

But that didn't matter because as soon as she saw Spencer's red-tipped nose and splotchy face indicating that he had cried the whole ride to her house, she wrapped her arms around him and made a futile attempt to make everything better.

I didn't get a chance to say good-bye.

It was a common theme in their discussions.

She knew, Spence. She knew how much you cared for her. You two had a special bond, and I know that your friendship meant the world to her.

JJ tried to reassure him, but there were nights that those reassurances fell on deaf ears. Those were the nights that Reid slept in their guest bedroom. Those were the nights that JJ lay awake, trying to ignore the pain in her chest. She would look over at Will, who was sleeping so soundly he barely moved when she picked up his arm and wrapped it around herself.

#

Thirty-two days after Emily died, JJ, Will, and Henry were eating dinner.

"Mommy, what are patistics for mac and cheese?" Henry inquired mid-meal.

JJ laughed so hard she almost choked on a noodle. "I think we should wait for Spence to come over and you can ask him that question, ok?"

"You, uh, don't think he's spending too much time here?" Will asked.

JJ would be lying to say that she never thought how nice it would be to not have a constant reminder of how deeply she had hurt her friends. Seeing Spencer every day never allowed the pressure to ease.

"I can't tell him not to come, Will," JJ said. "He's hurting and he needs support."

"One night, JJ, one night so that we can be a family. Just the three of us," Will pressed. "You're different after he comes over. After he leaves you're wound tighter than my mama's girdle."

JJ started to deny it, but every word he said was true. She was even starting to feel anxious around the time Reid was due to show up: five o'clock on Mondays, seven o'clock on Tuesdays, five o'clock on Wednesdays…

She glanced at her watch. It was twenty minutes to seven. Now that she knew the time, JJ's heart started beating faster and she could not only hear, but also feel each beat in her ears. She took a sip of water, trying to swallow the lump in her throat.

"Cher, your hands are shaking and I can practically see you churning up inside. If you don't say something to Spencer, I'm gonna have a word with him."

"I just really need your support on this, Will," JJ pleaded.

Will just sighed a long-suffering sigh.

"Sure, Jen," he said flatly, pushed his chair back and took his plate to the sink.

"Will," JJ called as she watched him walk silently out of the kitchen.

She leaned forward and put her face in the hands. She felt the tears running over her palms.

"Peek-a-boo!" Henry shouted.

JJ picked up her head and saw her son, covering his eyes with hands covered in orange cheese sauce.

"Peek-a-boo!" He shouted again, breaking into peals of laughter.

JJ couldn't help but laugh when she saw remnants of orange cheese sauce on Henry's cheeks and forehead.

She heard the familiar knock on the door and stood up to answer it.

"Is everything okay, JJ?" Reid asked as he walked through the door.

"Yeah, Spence, it's just been a long day," JJ sighed. "Henry has a question for you."

They walked back into the dining room and found Henry with orange cheese sauce smeared on his face like war paint.

"Hi Pence!" Henry called out.

"Do you remember your question for Spencer?" JJ asked gently as she ducked into the kitchen to get a damp rag to clean off her son.

"Pence, what are patistics for mac and cheese?" Henry asked.

Reid paused. "Well, there are approximately two million boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese sold every day."

JJ reappeared with the damp rag and raised her eyebrows at Reid.

"But I think the most relevant statistic is that the orange cheese sauce only has a seventeen percent chance of staining clothing. And a one-hundred percent removal rate from hair," Reid continued.

JJ just shook her head as she wiped the orange off of Henry's face. "See, honey, I told you that Spence knows his statistics."

Henry looked at her quizzically as she picked him up from his booster seat.

"Do you want me to give him a bath?" Reid offered.

Henry started clapping.

"That would be great, Spence, thanks," JJ said, looking forward to having the few extra minutes to talk with Will.

After showing Reid where the bath essentials were located, JJ slipped into the office where she knew she was likely to find Will sitting in the armchair that he'd managed to rescue from his father's house. JJ had it reupholstered as a surprise and she was convinced that if he could motorize the chair and drive it to work, he'd never get out of it.

"Where are your sons?" Will asked, barely looking up from his book.

JJ climbed onto the chair, straddling Will's lap. She put her hand over his book. "That's not fair."

"I agree. It's not fair that you've adopted a 28-year-old baby," Will said, looking her straight in the eye.

"Will," JJ whispered. "Not now."

"Then when?" Will asked.

"Later tonight after Spence leaves and Henry goes to bed," JJ said.

"So he's not sleeping over?" Will asked.

JJ shook her head. "Even if he is, he's not sleeping in our bed."

"But what if he gets a nightmare and crawls into bed with us?" Will's question was laced with sarcasm and disdain.

The vice around her chest just tightened and she felt like she could barely breathe. There were no words to respond to Will. She leaned forward, buried her face in his chest, and burst into tears.

"I need you Will," JJ managed to get the words out between sobs. "Please."

The pressure in her chest eased slightly when she felt Will's arms wrap around her.

Will didn't say anything. JJ knew he was still angry. But she let herself pretend that his silence was comforting. That he was telling her how much he cared and how much he loved her simply by being there. She didn't want to think about the fact that the only reason Will didn't storm out of the room was because he was raised a gentleman.

When in doubt, delude yourself. It was one of Emily's favorite phrases.

JJ felt like it had become her own personal mantra for the last thirty-two days.

It wasn't until JJ heard Henry's voice, pleading with Reid to stay in the tub just three more minutes, that she extracted herself from Will's embrace. She got out of their bed and went into the bathroom to wash her face.

She needed to remove all evidence of her breakdown so that she could go help Reid get through his.

#

The next day JJ got a call from Reid saying that the team had been called out on a case and that he would call when they got back.

"You can call me anytime while you're away, too," JJ insisted. Once again she had that strange mix of relief and guilt.

When she was talking to Garcia that evening JJ learned that while yes, the team had been called about a new case, they were still in D.C. and wouldn't be talking off for Tulsa until tomorrow morning.

Maybe Spence was doing work at home. Or that they were taking off super-early in the morning. Or maybe had heard her conversation with Will.

"Pen, will you keep tabs on Reid? I worry about him," JJ admitted. Garcia knew that Reid was a frequent visitor to JJ's doorstep, although JJ had never told her just how frequent. "And will you let me know when the team gets back to D.C.?"

"Sure thing, mon ami," Garcia chirped before hanging up the phone.

JJ sat back at her desk and closed her eyes, expecting to feel a sense of relief. Her night was her own, to share with Will and Henry. Or to take a long, hot bath and lose herself in a book. She expected to feel relieved that she would have the time to do all this.

If only she didn't feel so guilty.

#

The team was away for four nights. Nine phone conversations including one at two in the morning. Four nights with Will and Henry could have meant one night at the movies, one night building Lego skyscrapers and crashing into them with Matchbox cars, two meals that included wine, one night where she seduced Will, one night where she allowed herself to be seduced, one night where she let herself be convinced to read one more story three more times.

Unfortunately, Henry had picked up the stomach flu from daycare. So it ended up being three days of non-stop diaper changing, cleaning up vomit, and rubbing her son's aching tummy so that he could get some sleep. Will had an overactive gag reflex and tended to be a sympathetic vomiter which meant that either JJ took care of Henry herself or that she was cleaning up twice the vomit. Both she and Will preferred the former.

When Garcia called to let her know that the team was coming home, JJ almost burst into tears. One day. JJ would've given her kingdom to have just one day to herself.

#

"Hey Spence," JJ called out when she heard Reid come through the door.

Reid made a beeline to the couch and JJ was close behind carrying two cups of tea. "How was the case?" she asked, settling in next to him.

Reid shrugged. "It sounds horrible, but I was relieved that the victims had blond hair and blue eyes."

That was definitely something she did not miss from her time at the BAU. All those victims who reminded her of her friends, her cousins, herself. It was hard to see six women on a victim board and not be able to relate to at least one of them.

"I didn't mean…" Reid said quickly.

"Don't worry about it Spence. Emily and I used to talk about it all the time. It's funny because when I first started at the BAU, I couldn't stand the cases with the blond-hair, blue-eyed young women. It was too easy to see myself in their pictures. But when Elle joined the team, it became the brown-haired, brown-eyed women I came to dread seeing in those files," JJ explained.

Spencer nodded. "I kept thinking about Emily because specific things didn't remind me of her. There weren't any children to interview, no doors for her and Morgan to break down, no locals who needed to be put in their place with a single sarcastic comment.

"And then I felt bad because it seemed too easy to work the case without Emily. It should have been harder. There should've been things we missed, the things she would have noticed, that she would've paid attention to," Reid said, staring at his lap.

"You guys were out there for four days, Spence," JJ pointed out. "The team's average is two-and-half days."

JJ could see a small grin forming on Reid's face.

"Did you just tell me a statistic?" Reid asked with a chuckle.

"What? You think you have the monopoly on random facts?" JJ asked, faking offense. "Not to mention the fact that I was the one writing those quarterly reports."

"It's really not the same anymore," Reid said softly. "First you, then Emily. It's… it's harder."

"I know, Spence," JJ whispered putting her arm around him.

For a brief moment she considered telling him that she was thinking about taking the profiling course. Rossi had approached her about re-joining the team as a profiler. He never used the word replacement, but it hung in the air during their whole conversation.

But she didn't want to get Reid's hopes up that she might rejoin the team. Because she might not even take the classes. And even if she did take them, she might not do well enough to qualify for the position.

"It gets easier," she assured him. It was something she often told families and victims.

She wasn't entirely convinced that it really did get easier. But it was still one of those platitudes worth repeating.

#

Eight days later, JJ sat in her office, her stomach tied in knots. It had been eight days of Reid sobbing. Not just crying, not just coming over because it was obvious that he didn't want to be alone. Heart-wrenching sobs that shook his entire body. Returning to the field was hard on him and even though the team was away on a case two of those eight nights, JJ didn't get any sleep either of those nights, which were either spent listening to Reid's heartbreak or laying awake worrying about him.

It was wearing JJ down. She had no appetite, had barely eaten anything in the last day, and now she just felt sick to her stomach.

She closed her eyes, trying to regain her composure so that she could finish the reports that had been stacking up on her desk. She pulled the top file from the stack and started to type. Mid-way through the report, JJ suddenly felt warm, like the room was getting stuffy and starting to close in on her.

She reached for her garbage can and emptied her stomach contents into it. As she dry-heaved at her desk, she realized that she must have caught the stomach bug that Henry had last week. She remembered what a miserable two days those were and retched again.

"Ms. Jareau? Are you all right?" It was Allison, her secretary.

"Apparently not," JJ managed to say between retches.

When her stomach finally settled and she looked up from her garbage can, she saw Allison standing there with a bottle of water, some paper towels, a can of ginger ale, and a box of saltines.

"Thanks," she said meekly.

"Is there anything else I can get you, ma'am?" Allison asked.

"I'm going to work from home for the rest of today. Will you reschedule all of my meetings today and tomorrow? Even the phone ones?" JJ asked.

"Henry had the stomach flu last week," she added when she saw Allison looking at her quizzically. The last thing JJ needed was for there to be any office gossip about a pregnancy.

JJ walked out of her office, carrying her garbage can to the bathroom. When she got back to her office, she saw that Allison had set aside a small stack of files labeled "Priority". It was the one thing that the DOD had over the BAU; JJ had her own secretary. She packed up her briefcase, grabbed those files, and headed home.

Between bathroom trips, JJ called Reid. "Spence, it's me."

"JJ, are you okay?" His voice was full of concern.

JJ knew she sounded terrible. Her throat was raw from her repeated bouts of vomiting and she was worn down her cramping stomach.

"I got the stomach flu from Henry," she explained. "I don't think it's a good idea for you to come over tonight." She would be of no comfort to anyone in her current state.

"Do you need me to bring you anything? The risk of dehydration in the case of a stomach virus causing both emesis and diarrhea is significantly higher than in cases of isolated emesis," he explained.

"Will's on his way home. He's going to bring me Gatorade and crackers," JJ told him. "And, Spence, please don't say emesis and diarrhea again."

"Sorry, Jayje," Reid said. "Call me if you need anything."

"Thanks, Spence, I'll call you tomorrow."

She didn't even wait for him to say anything before she hung up the phone and sprinted to the bathroom.

It took JJ three days to get her digestive system back on track. She texted Reid to let him know he could come over that night and as expected, he showed up on her doorstep, looking gaunt and as though he hadn't eaten in three days.

"Come on in, Spence. Will made soup for dinner," JJ offered. "And the guest room has new freshly cleaned sheets and towels."

It was clear that Reid was not ready to be left to his own devices just yet.