Will

"I wanna talk to Mommy," Henry shouted, kicking me angrily.

Damned.

"Did you just kick me?" I asked, my tone suddenly harsh.

He hesitated for a moment and went completely silent.

"I'm sorry," he whispers before dropping his head.

"Look, I tried calling her but she's not picking up," I say.

Henry looks at me with wide, unblinking eyes. I haven't told him how JJ left. I didn't know how.

"She's gonna come back real soon okay? You're already 6 and you can go to bed yourself. Think of how proud Mommy will be when she finds out!" I lie.

He gives me a wide grin and bounces up to bed.

I tuck him in and kiss him goodnight before I come back down to the kitchen.

I drink. More than I should.

Then I pass out on the kitchen counter.

And that happens every night for a month.

One night, Henry's demands for JJ became too loud. The beer tasted all too familiar. The missed calls suddenly cut deeper than they did before.

I haven't seen her or talked to her for one whole month. And I'm running out of things to numb the pain. My body was getting immune to the alcohol. Long rides in the car around town could not longer clear my mind.

It was 3am in the morning and Henry was crying from a bad dream. He dreamt that JJ got into an accident and got hurt real bad. I was sleep deprived. I was half drunk. I was angry and irrational.

So I lifted Henry into the car and drove to Reid's house.

I knew they had flown back since the news reported that their team solved the case. Reid was awake at 3.45 in the morning as usual and Henry lit up at the sight of him.

After he got Henry to sleep, I asked if he could babysit Henry for the day.

"Will, I don't think you should-"

"Reid, you don't understand. Just tell me where she's staying now."

"Will, I really don't-"

"Damned it Reid, I need to beg her to come back. Please, just give me her address."

He sighed and scribbled down her address for me. It was an apartment a few blocks away from the BAU headquarters. I thanked him and left.

Standing outside her apartment, I didn't know what to say. All the anger that built up in me; all the shouting I wanted to do just fizzled away. I just wanted to see her again, to see how she's doing.

To see if she was as messed up as me.

I was afraid. I really was. It was 4.30 in the morning and I was sobering up. I was losing courage. She was probably fast asleep now.

But I pounded my fist against the door.

Once, twice, continuously.

And suddenly the door yanked open and I caught myself before I fell in. A man was standing in front of me in his underpants, half-asleep and cursing me loudly. Who the hell was this guy?

All that anger just flowed back. The hurt and the pain that I thought I had pushed down just flowed back up.

One whole month of keeping my feelings bottled up led to this.

I wasn't proud of what I did next, but it had to be done.

I raised my fist and punched him.

He let out a loud howl and collapsed to the ground, holding his nose. Blood was streaming steadily out of his nostrils. My knuckles were already starting to turn blue-black.

And that moment when he was lying on the ground and I was standing up I learnt one of the most important lessons of my life. Causing pain to someone else doesn't make your own pain go away.

JJ stumbled out of the room, wrapped messily in a towel and I just knew they did it. Otherwise, she would be wearing clothes.

"Oh my god Will!" she shouted, crawling to the ground and checking on the man.

"Jake, I think your nose is broken. We need to get you down to the hospital."

And through this whole thing, I stood at the door, not even in her apartment, without a word.

She dressed and pushed past me without a word, helping that jerk down to her car. My hand was starting to swell up real bad and the physical pain was starting to hit me. I was tired and broken.

So I sat against her door and slept.