Beautiful You

This is a Criminal Minds fan fiction story starring Dr. Spencer Reid and Agent Jennifer "JJ" Jareau. The other members of the BAU team will be present, but are not crucial to the overall story.

Chapter One

The BAU bullpen was completely pitch black. It was almost ten o'clock at night, and everyone had already gone home. Only Dr. Spencer Reid remained, his eyes darting over the words on the case file in front of him for the tenth time. There had to be something he was missing. His intelligence had never failed him before, but the preliminary profile he had formed seemed too straight forward. There had to be something else at play here. Nothing was this cut and dry. Cases involving children were always hard to cope with, especially when the violence towards the victims was this extreme, but they were flying out first thing in the morning, and Spencer refused to go home until he felt confident with his profile of the killer.

The girls that had been abducted and then killed in Boston, Massachusetts were between the ages of seven and nine. All three of them were brunettes, had blue eyes, and lived in single parent homes. They were abducted from their after school extracurricular activities while waiting to be picked up by their nannies. They had been held for two days, during which they were sexually abused, tortured, and then finally killed by a fatal stab directly to their hearts. Their bodies were then dismembered and tossed in playground sandboxes less than a mile from their abduction sites.

His instincts told him that there were two unsubs, a man/woman team, maybe a husband and wife, who had lost their young daughter (who the father had been secretly sexually abusing) in a similar way and were reliving the event over and over again. Maybe the woman could no longer conceive a child, and the man needed a child that looked like his daughter to continue with his desires.

But it just seemed too simple, and it was starting to give Spencer a headache.

A half an hour later, he gave up. He refused to look at the violence anymore. It would probably give him a nightmare tonight. Child abuse cases this severe always gave him nightmares. He gathered up his things, shoved them deep inside his leather messenger bag, and headed out. But he saw a light on out of the corner of his left eye and it caused him to stop dead in his tracks.

He had originally thought that he was the only one still in the office, but he should have known better than to think that she would be gone. Will had taken Henry down to New Orleans, so she had nothing pulling her home. Spencer knew how hard she was taking their separation, especially since Will was putting their son in the middle of every argument, but JJ was strong. She wouldn't let the pain she was feeling in her heart affect her work. He had always admired that about her, among many other things that he was always too embarrassed to admit.

She had worn a pair of dark jeans to the office today, the ones that so tightly wrapped around her curves that it left absolutely nothing to the imagination. When he made it to her doorway, she was standing with her back to him, and his eyes slowly drifted down to the spot where the hem of her crimson shirt hit the denim of the jeans. He knew he shouldn't be looking at her this way, because they were friends, and friends didn't look at each other the way he looked at JJ, but he couldn't help it. She was beautiful, and he wondered if she knew it.

"Long night?" he said out loud, but instantly regretted it as he watched JJ jump a mile up in the air. When she turned to look at him, the only thing he saw was her eyes; normally blue and vibrant, they were now red, bloodshot, and puffy. She had been crying.

"Spence, hey," she said, wiping under her nose with the back of her hand. "What a nice surprise. I thought I was the only one still here."

"That's funny," he said back, stepping over the threshold, "because I thought the exact same thing."

"This case we have tomorrow in Boston is pretty gruesome, huh?" JJ said as she walked over to him. "I hate cases that involve kids."

"That's because you're a mother and you can't help but personally feel the pain that the parents are going through because you can actually put yourself in their shoes," Reid said.

"Oh," was all JJ could say back.

"Not that that's a bad thing," he quickly countered. "I'm just saying, there's a good explanation as to why you're feeling that way. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you."

"You didn't," she said to him, "not in the least bit."

"Well that's good to know."

"You're probably wondering about…" she said as she motioned towards her face. Now that she was closer to him, Spencer could see black lines of makeup falling down her cheeks. He reached out with his thumb and wiped away one of them. "I must look like a complete mess…"

Actually, you've never looked more beautiful, Spencer said to himself, but he didn't dare say it out loud. He knew she didn't feel the same way about him that he felt about her, and he had been doing a damn good job for the last six years of keeping his emotions to himself.

So he settled with simply saying, "You look fine."

"Thanks Spence."

"Why don't you go home and get some sleep? We've got an early flight tomorrow."

"I've still got a ton of things to do," she said. "I don't see myself going home any time soon. But that's okay, part of the job, right?"

She waved at him and turned around, heading back to the file cabinet she had been standing beside when he first got there. But Spencer could see how tired she was, and there was no way he was going to leave the BAU without her. He grabbed the strap of his bag and lifted it over his head, placing the leather accessory on the floor beside the door. "What can I do to help you?"

"No, Spence, that's not necessary," she said. "I wouldn't even know how to start explaining it all to you…"

"Well then I'll just sit here and keep you company," he said, sitting behind her desk.

"Spence…"

"I'm not leaving knowing that you'll be here by yourself. Not a chance, JJ."

So he sat there in her office, watching her go through and sort files for another hour and a half. At times he found his eyes growing heavy, but he forced himself to stay awake. He focused on watching her do her thing: the way she tucked her blonde hair behind her ear as she read over documents, the way she rolled back onto the heels of her shoes and her butt stuck out just enough for his pulse to quicken, the way she snuck glances at him when she thought he wasn't looking at her. And when she did see him looking at her, she smiled the most adorable smile, where she crinkled up her nose and pursed her lips together. And what beautiful lips they were…

"Okay, I can't keep my eyes open anymore," he finally heard her say around one-thirty. "What do you say we get out of here?"

"Sounds good to me," he said. He picked up his bag from the floor and, after she closed the office door behind them and locked it, the two of them headed towards the elevator.

"Thank you for staying with me, Spence," JJ said as the metal doors shut in front of them and the elevator began to lower towards the lobby. "You were great company."

"I was happy to oblige," he laughed. "You're not so bad yourself."

"Listen, why don't you just come and crash at my place? Your house is so far away, and I only live ten minutes from here…"

"No, I couldn't put you out like that…"

"Spence, I insist!" she said, reaching out and grabbing his hand. Her smile dropped, and Spencer had a strange suspicion that she might start crying again when her bottom lip began to shiver. "I can't be in that house alone for another night. I need…I need someone to stay with me…"

"Okay, okay I'll stay there," he said. She surprised him by collapsing into his body, and he slowly wrapped his arms around her to comfort his friend. "You do know that crying women make me extremely uncomfortable, right?"

"Why did he leave me, Spence? Was I not enough for him? I thought he loved me…"

"Shhh, it's okay," he said, stroking her hair. "Trust me, I ask myself the same thing every day. If I were him, and you were my girlfriend…fiancée…whatever you guys were…I wouldn't ever let you go."

He regretted it the minute he said it, because he knew that, if she read between the lines enough, she would discover that he had just admitted his feelings for her. His pulse raced and he could feel sweat collecting in the palms of his hands, but he tried to ignore them by holding on to JJ even tighter.

When minutes went by without her mentioning it, he thought he was out of the clear; that she hadn't heard his words they way he thought they had come off. They reached her car, and he opened the passenger door, planning to climb in, but found a set of keys dangling in front of his face instead.

"Do you mind driving? I'm just so tired…"

"No problem," he said, even though he was tired too. He helped her into the passenger seat, and then hurried over to the driver's side. He had only been to JJ's home once, six years ago when they had gone on a date to a Washington Redskins game, but he still remembered how to get there like it had been yesterday. He hadn't liked football then, and he really didn't like it much more now, but he went and sat through it because he knew she liked it. And he honestly had had so much fun that day.

So he wondered, after all these years, why there hadn't been a second date? Maybe one day he'd have the courage to ask her, but not tonight. No, tonight was about getting JJ home and getting her into bed.

Getting her into bed to sleep.

Getting her into bed to sleep alone.

Getting her into bed to sleep alone without him.

Getting her into bed to sleep alone without him because he'll be on the couch.

His brain went through this in about five seconds, before he had even turned the ignition. He had to remind himself that he was staying at her house solely because she did not want to be alone, not because she wanted him on a romantic level. Although with what was going on in her romantic life right now, which had been at the core of her breakdown in the elevator, he was surprised she hadn't made any kind of sexual act towards him. Surprised, but happy, because he knew that if she did anything remotely sexual to him, even something as small as kiss him, he wouldn't be able to contain the reaction his body would have to it.

A little over ten minutes later, Spencer pulled up to JJ's home and parked in her reserved spot. It was a small, but extremely quaint, three floor town house in the heart of DC, with brick on the outside and black painted shutters on the windows. JJ had planted flowers in boxes underneath the two windows flanking the black front door. A small bicycle was sitting on the porch, which must belong to Henry, her six year old son and his godson.

"We're here," he whispered to JJ, nudging her shoulder a tad. She had fallen asleep almost immediately after he began driving. She moaned, obviously disgruntled in the fact that she had to wake up. "Do you want me to carry you in?"

"No, that's okay, I can do it," she said, opening the door and sinking out onto the sidewalk. They walked up the stairs together and, after JJ unlocked the door, entered the home.

The main foyer was as far as Spencer had gotten six years ago, and it did look surprising different than it had then, but only in the sense that there were toys scattered around the hardwood floors that were a four year old's dream. Pictures hung on the wall to his left of his head of the whole Jareau-LaMontagne family, but Spencer noticed that only one of the pictures contained all three members. It had been professionally done, he noticed, but recently. He winced when he saw JJ's smile in the photo, because it seemed so forced, so unnatural. She was uncomfortable being that close to Will.

"I'll show you to where you can crash for the night," he heard JJ say, and soon her blonde hair was passing by him and heading up a set of stairs on his right.

"I can just sleep on the couch," he said, pointing behind him to the living room and what looked like a very comfortable piece of furniture; one he was sure he'd have no problem falling asleep on.

"Nonsense," JJ said. "We have a perfectly good guest bedroom up here. You'll have your own bathroom in the morning so you can take a shower before we leave." He didn't argue further, knowing he wouldn't win. JJ was already halfway down the hall when he reached the top of the stairs, standing in front of an open door. "I just changed the sheets four days ago, after Will left. He's been sleeping in here until he can find a place. I can probably go grab you a pair of his sleep pants if you'd like. I don't know what you like to sleep in…"

"JJ, I'm fine. You've done more than enough by letting me stay here. Go to bed, I'll be fine." He placed a light kiss on her forehead, focusing on the words of a Lord Byron poem to distract him from moving his lips to any other parts of her body.

One shade the more, one ray the less/ Had half impair'd the nameless grace/ Which waves in every raven tress/ Or softly lightens o'er her face/ Where thoughts serenely sweet express/ How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.1

"Good night, Spence," JJ whispered in his ear, returning his kiss with one of her own on his cheek. He noticed how dangerously close she had placed her lips to his, and how it seemed to be on purpose. He closed his eyes as he felt her pull away, but he knew she was still there. It took him a good fifteen seconds to open his eyes, and sure enough, he was looking right into her hazel eyes. They were screaming at him to kiss her.

"JJ…" he started, but that was it. That was all he could get out before JJ wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

1 Excerpt from "She Walks in Beauty", by Lord Byron (1788-1824)