Okay, this is 4 in the morning so I'll give you the short version.

- I ship Reid and JJ

- I don't like how the show keeps pushing Reid in the worst situations and then brushing it off as if there will be such limited lingering effect on him of any of that trauma. In this story, JJ helps Reid through it all. And falls for him in the process.

- This will be set during season 14

- This scene is basically an introduction to set up the premise, set in the jet when they're going to save Reid (14X01)

- Romance will develop. But be warned for slow burn. Character authenticity is my first priority.

- I hope to update at least weekly. Can't tell how many chapter yet.

Hope you all enjoy.

Disclaimers: Characters are not mine

Update: 2 days later- I just reread the first chapter and thought there were some points I didn't get across very well, so I rewrote parts of it. Next chapter coming soon, hopefully. And love you for the favs, follows and reviews!

Emily is giving me that look again.

I am in the process of very carefully directing my mind towards a kind of detached blankness, letting every rushing thought flow through without providing a hold for any of them to latch onto. It's a technique I developed to cope with… with times like this, but it takes hard work to get to that state. And Emily distracts me.

We are in our jet as it flies through the fading night. The air inside is taut with tension, no one is talking. Rossi leans back with his eyes closed, so does Luke. Simmons is looking at something on his tablet. Lewis sits beside him, stealing a glance at the screen out of the corner of her eye. And Emily, Emily looks at me with that face, that I'm-concerned-about-JJ-God-I-hope-she-holds-it-together-okay face. And I love Emily but right now it makes me want to scream.

I take a deep breath instead. And Emily doesn't look at me like that for more than a couple of seconds anyway. She turns away, looking out the window at the deep purple nothing sky.

I know what she was thinking. My blank-mind trick collapses like a card house and I am undefended, flashing back to our conversation in the washroom earlier. I am the calm, quiet, grounded kind, usually. I can keep it together, usually. But in that moment it was suddenly all too much, all too soon, and I had to talk about him.

I had to talk about Spencer.

So I grabbed on the first memory my mind offered up and started babbling to Emily. Heard the story of our first and only non-date falling from my own mouth; the one all the guys in our team had ushered him to, giving him ideas, tips, even the game tickets and God knows what else. And I had been clueless enough to have taken Penelope.

I watched Emily's face as I said all this to her, her eyes down in secondhand embarrassment before coming up to meet mine, finding the idea of Reid and I on a date unthinkable. I heard her talking about how that day had created something even more wonderful and how the three of us have been inseparable ever since. But no, I wanted to say, no, no. That was not it. That was not the story. That was not why I was standing there in the washroom, my eyes wet, palms curled, talking about a decade-old memory. No.

I love Penelope. She is one of the few people on this earth who are given the exceptional gift of always finding the light even in a vast sea of seething, twisted darkness. She is one of my closest friends. But that Redskins game, that night, that was not when we became friends. That was not when we bonded. It came later, over late nights at office, days of me standing behind her chair in her tiny room, watching her do her magic on a screen, her fingers flying over keyboard, mind flying even faster; over shopping trips and girls' nights out. Over me saving her life with a single gunshot.

But that Redskins game, that night I looked at Spencer.

Spencer, the scrawny boy in a sweater vest with a satchel, with a mind burning too-bright. I was in awe of his intelligence like everyone else. I thought he was a nice person. That summed up my idea of him. I was used to seeing a data-spouting, problem-solving, wonder genius. I was used to seeing a man who was very obviously but obliviously exceptional- comfortable in all his quirks and differences; reciting facts and making lightning fast connections while looking at you clear-eyed, even expectant; frowning if you were confused as if you puzzled him; uncomprehending or easily dismissive of your jokes and teases.

But that night I saw beneath that. And beneath that self-assured almost-cocky capability was a cloud of confusion and hurt.

There's something I left out while telling the story to Emily, and that is- Spencer never stayed for the game. He only had two tickets, you see. VIP Box. Present from Gideon. Spence doesn't watch sports; he had no idea about the teams or anything else. He was only there because I was a fan, and he wanted to spend time with me. When he saw I had Penelope with me, he just gave the tickets to us and left.

I say it easily, but it was awkward. Penelope being the woman she is, got all flustered and embarrassed when the situation became clear and wanted to leave immediately, ensuring us over and over it was okay. And, I, I watched Spencer- nodding but barely listening, lips tight, eyes determinedly not on my face, softly saying 'No, it is all right. Really.'

And what I realized is this: if any other man of his age and acquaintance had told me 'Let's go to your favorite team's game that I got us tickets for', I would at the very least have wondered if this meant a date. But in Spencer's case, it had not even crossed my mind. I had not been able to factor human attraction and feelings into the geeky boy-wonder super-smart entity.

This was not lost on him. And it made him shrink, it hurt him, it made him feel, probably not for the first time, that having superhuman-level intelligence could push you so far apart from the rest that suddenly you're less than human, not emotions and feelings but only facts and efficiency.

So in the middle of Penelope saying yet another sentence starting with, 'God, so sorry-', when he shoved the tickets in my hand, turned around and walked away, even if I knew this was a misunderstanding and I could not be faulted for this, I felt bad. Worse, I felt guilty.

And I vowed to fix it.

So I apologized. And then I made a point of making friends with him. At first he was still embarrassed, still shy. But I think he was also grateful.

So much has changed since then. And I only chose to talk about this memory because it was the first thing that came to my mind. It was our start, yes. But our story is not at the start. It is in every place in between then and now. Spencer is my best friend, a part of me. No, more than that- you know when you have someone who is just your… person? It's whom you think of discussing with first when you're fighting with your partner; it's whom you can call at 3 in the morning and know that they're going to be there for you, it's who knows your voice as well as your silence, it's who knows when to tease and when to treat you, when to push and when to stop.

Spencer is my person.

And it seems like I keep losing him. The first time was the Tobias Hankle nightmare- we split up and I lost him. I remember that feeling- sitting there with the team, seeing him drugged, knowing that he was ripped away from me and I could do nothing. And it seems like I keep reliving that. Reid shot. Reid taken and his girlfriend killed in front of him. Reid in prison. And now, Reid abducted by a cult. Again and again, things piling up, and in the washroom earlier, standing there, I had to talk about him, anything about him, because every time he's gone all I can think is- is this the time our luck runs out and I lose him forever? I had to talk about him because doing it made me feel like he was closer, alive, in the middle of us- even if only in memories, but still real, still there.

And all this on top of an already-growing concern…

I know trauma. I was bombed by terrorists. Tortured by professionals. I lost a sister. I lost a child. I buried friends. I know how this works. You don't get over it. You just learn to live with it. It takes time. It takes hard work. And more than that, it takes support.

I had my family- my husband, sons. I had my BAU family. I also saw a therapist. And I still wake up screaming in the middle of the night sometimes.

But Spencer… I don't see what he has. His relationship with his father is limited to Christmas cards. His mother keeps getting worse. My tentative question asking if he was seeing any therapist was answered with a clipped 'No.' And he doesn't talk to us, to me.

I still don't know what happened in that prison, what he faced when he was there. I don't know if his mind has been affected in any way from the whole experience. I don't know how he feels about teaching. He doesn't want to say. He doesn't talk, not about any of this. It makes me feel angry, and hurt.

And above all, I feel dread. I feel him pulling away. I remember him emotional when I went to see him at that prison, I remember him shaking as we stood holding each other when I went to get him out, his breath coming fast as if he'd run a race. I remember him talking about his horrifying experiences in the past, letting me in, trusting me as I tried to help. But lately he has been unwilling to do that, acting too cool, shutting himself out to some faraway space in his mind when I try to bring these subjects up.

He's hasn't rejoined fully yet, so he's spending time alone now more than ever. He has no friendly neighbors, no other friend in the city. He has even stopped coming to my place.

What if he's struggling, sinking, drowning on his own?

Would I know if he doesn't let me?

Would I realize if after one hit after another he learns to hide his wounds a little too well?

Yesterday, it hurt when I asked for his reassurance that I didn't have to worry about him and he wouldn't even look at me. But by last night, I felt a lot better. I felt I was making progress, he was putting the new walls down, letting me reach in. His hug felt so good, and only him pinning my arms to my side kept me from hugging him back as fiercely as I wanted to.

And then, this.

He's taken. He's about to be sacrificed, his throat cut and hyoid bone removed, and every second we're not there is another second closer he is to his death.

Emily thinks I'm sad. To be honest? I'm angry.

This is too much, too soon. His parents are as good as gone. He has lost the woman he had loved. He has been drugged. Framed. Jailed . Tortured. Isn't it enough?

How much more can a mind take before it shatters?

How much longer before he snaps or sinks so deep into himself he's not here anymore?

And he's not even letting me help.

It is not right. It is not fair. It fills me with frustration, desperation and fury.

So I promise to myself, right here and right now, that I am going to save him.

Save him from the cult, yes. But also save him from himself.

He can fool the world, he can even fool himself, but he can't fool me. He can't go on pretending that he is fine and unaffected and okay and all's gonna be all right.

Time heals wounds, but it also kills. You don't walk every path alone. I cannot lose him. I cannot let him go.

So I grit my teeth and vow to save him instead.