Chapter 2

JJ woke up again, it was still dark, JJ assumed she hadn't been out for very long. JJ reached up to her aching head and felt a dry blood trail climbing through her hair and all the way down her face. JJ squinted at the contact, still painful.

JJ looked down at her body again...naked, brutalized...disgusting. JJ looked to her right and saw what was left of her pants. The button was missing, the cloth shredded...just as JJ felt.

JJ crawled over to the remains of her clothes, struggling to hold in her sobs of anguish and pain.

Several minutes later, JJ had managed to put her pants back on, even though they resembled nothing of what they were last night. Oh, how her life had drastically changed over night. Her favorite pants were ruined, she would never wear them again; nor would she ever wear any clothes the same again. Her ripped shirt hung loosely over her shoulders, hardly covering any of her bruises or scratches. And she knew being upset about her ripped clothing was a distraction from whatever she feared happened that night.

JJ could see blood smears over the shirt, and that's when she remembered she had crashed the car...then somehow ended up in the alley.

The bloody exterior was quite deterring, JJ couldn't help but limp as she walked down the alley way, her hobble was slow-painful. Finally JJ reached the street way, it wasn't long until JJ recognized where she was at. She wasn't by her grocery store, or even where she wrecked her car...but she was only a block away from her house.

Looking at the sky, she could tell it was getting lighter. It was probably in the earlier hours of the morning; maybe four or five am.

JJ cursed under her breath as she remembered she was suppose to be in to work early.

"Hey, has JJ shown up yet?" Morgan asked.

"I haven't seen her yet this morning, she's probably just running a little late." Emily offered, shrugging her shoulders.

"Yeah maybe." Morgan replied.

"Did you call her?" Reid asked.

"Yeah, she didn't answer." Morgan paused. "Like it went straight to voice mail."

That caught everyone's attention.

"JJ doesn't turn off her phone." Reid mumbled under his breath.

"I'm just gonna swing by her place, make sure everything's alright." Morgan said easily. "Just to check."

As FBI agents they tended to see the worst in every situation, they had to constantly tell each other that what they saw at work wasn't the "regular". Morgan offering to go over to JJ's as a "precautionary" was just going to be him reminding himself, and everyone else, that there isn't all bad in this world. They all just seemed to worry a little bit too much.

Morgan jumped in his car. He let his thoughts carry him all the way to her place. As soon as he got there, he was out of the car and forced himself to walk to the door. I'm being paranoid. She is probably just running late. Don't smother her, she is fine. Morgan reasoned with himself. He reached the door and knocked loudly.

"Hey Jayje, it's me, Morgan." He said through the door.

No reply.

"JJ? Come on, answer the door." Morgan said, trying not to let fear take over. He stood quietly for a few seconds listening for any response.

Once again he didn't hear anything. Morgan stepped off the porch, looked around her neighborhood. It was a nice place, not too far from work, close to grocery stores, she never complained about it. But JJ didn't talk a lot about what was going on outside of work. JJ was a strong and private person.

Morgan walked back up to the porch and knocked again. After several minute without a response, Morgan couldn't help but decide to go inside. He needed to know if JJ was okay. The two had a special bond. She wasn't answering her phone, and if she wasn't home, he wasn't sure where she would be. Even if she had left for the weekend or gone to visit family, she would have told Hotch, or answered her phone.

Something was definitely weird.

"JJ, I'm comin in." He reached for the handle, to see if her door was unlocked. To his surprise, but delight, it was. He pushed through the door and walked inside, his hand lightly rubbing his weapon. He cleared the living room, then the kitchen, and finally made it back to JJ's room. No one, but it looked like she had been there recently because there were lights on. People don't just leave for long periods of time and leave the lights on.

Morgan started looking around the place, looking for notes, or anything that could point to where JJ might be. Morgan was breathing deeply, trying to convince himself that there wasn't any good reason to worry yet. She could have broken her phone and had a family emergency or something. But Morgan knew she didn't talk with her family that often...but her phone still could have broken and maybe she had a secret lover that she went to breakfast with this morning.

Morgan hated to admit it, but his heart kind of hurt at that thought.

Morgan started walking away from JJ's kitchen, he was just about to pull out his phone and call Garcia to see if he could get a trace on JJ's phone, when he heard the creek of the front door opening. Immediately Morgan whipped out his gun and waited for the intruder to come down the hallway to meet his metal weapon.

What arrived around the corner was the last thing Morgan was expecting. His gun dropped to his side, while his mouth fell open.

"JJ." Morgan whispered under his breath.

JJ made bitter eye contact while trying to hide the fear in her eyes. Her hand rushed to her chest, "my God, Derek? What are you doing here?"

Morgan couldn't answer as he tried to process her appearance. She was clearly beaten, blood splattered the majority of her clothes, and he could see trails on the visible parts of her body, as well as one prominent injury on the side of her head.

"What happened to you?" Morgan barely got the words to fall from his mouth.

JJ bit the inside of her lip, trying with every muscle in her body to stop the tears. Her fight was a well fought battle, but unfortunately lost as the tears started streaming down her bruised and cut cheeks uncontrollably.

"Derek, it was terrible." JJ whispered.

Morgan walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her trembling frame. She couldn't help but cringe at the contact, which only seemed to make things worse as her tears turned into full blown sobs.

For the next several minutes Morgan held JJ while she sobbed into his chest. Morgan's heart was breaking, it physically hurt to see JJ in so much mental and physical torment. Her sobs pierced his ears, and he knew he would not soon forget the anguished cries.

"Jayje, we really need to get you to a hospital."

"I don't want anyone to see me." JJ replied through choked sobs.

"You look like you have some pretty serious injuries."

Morgan tried disassociating himself with the situation, he needed to support JJ through whatever had happened last night.

But it was hard. He wanted to ask all sorts of questions. He wanted to know all the answers, beat some ass if needed and be able to comfort JJ unconditionally. But he couldn't help but feel incredibly inadequate.

JJ refused to answer, all she wanted was to stop crying. Of course she wouldn't mind some strong pain killers, but she didn't want anyone to know what she had been through. She wasn't even sure what she had been through.

"Please, let me take you to get checked out." Morgan pleaded.

JJ thought for a moment before she finally replied.

"I'll go if you don't tell the team anything."

"Jayje, you know they gotta know what's going on."

JJ turned her head from Morgan.

Morgan sighed loudly.

"Fine. I won't tell them anything, but you have to tell me what happened."

At the hospital JJ was taken back almost instantaneously. Morgan could only imagine it was because of her appearance. He didn't even know how to explain it. She just looked...bad.

Morgan anxiously waited in the waiting room, but there was one thing he needed to do. Call the team and lie. Morgan pulled out his phone and dialed one Penelope Garcia's number. He was almost surprised with how quick she picked up.

"Are you okay? Where's JJ? Is she all right?"

"Shhh, baby girl, we're fine."

"So you're with JJ?"

"No, not exactly." Morgan replied, and he wasn't lying.

"Wait...so where is she?"

"Well, when I went to go check on her this morning, she didn't answer, her door was unlocked so I went inside. No one was home, but there was a message on her answering machine from her mom saying she needed JJ to come home to Pennsylvania."

"Why would she need to go back to Pennsylvania? And why wouldn't she have told us?"

"I think since the message was on JJ's answering machine she broke her phone again." Morgan was impressed with himself as he flawlessly delivered his lie.

"Oh."

"Don't worry baby girl, she'll be calling us all really soon. She's tough...she's okay. I'll talk to you later."

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