Author's Note: Well, it appears that I caught most of you by surprise. Yay! Sorry for the delay in this chapter compared to the others. I went out of town and came home with a nasty cold. Special thanks to went, happysunshine01, Kimd33, Jjmyst, angry penguin, CeeCee333, MLN, jenny crum, mummacass, LinNicole, pandorabox82, Andi, Casie01, Lenika08, BAUMember, SuzySorrowLess, IniTiniNini, jaceyb1, Cannybairn, EllaM, red2013, browneyes99, Flames101, 1sunfun, Westie80, Serencie, and Lovejjnhotch (thank you for the high complete!) for the reviews. I am, once again, blown away by the responses to this story!

Warning, I'm going to be a bit liberal with JJ's employment in the BAU here, but since we don't know concretely when she joined, I hope you'll forgive me.

Chapter Four

Hotch staggered backwards as if he had been hit. "You? But... you... I... We... never..."

"We never had sex, no," JJ finished for him. "It doesn't change the fact that you are Jack's biological father and I am his biological mother."

"How?" he whispered. "I was there when she was pregnant. I was there when Jack was born."

JJ exchanged an apprehensive glance with Jessica. "You should probably sit down."

Hotch glared at her, deciding whether it was worth fighting her on. After she refused to back down, Hotch sat down on the chair. "How?"

"The important thing to remember, Aaron, is that Haley was desperate to have your baby," Jessica cautioned, sitting on the edge of the couch. "My mother drilled it into our heads from the time that we were small that we needed to be a good wife and part of being a good wife was giving your husband children."

"I knew your mother for over half my life, Jessica. I know how she was," Hotch sneered.

Jessica huffed. "You have no idea what she was really like behind closed doors. She had Haley completely convinced that she had to be the one to give you a baby, that if she couldn't do it than she wasn't worth anything as a wife, that you would start looking... elsewhere."

Rolling his eyes, Hotch countered, "She should have known me better than that."

"Yeah, but communication wasn't exactly either of your strong points."

"I still don't understand," Hotch continued, anger flashing dangerously in his eyes, "how JJ factors into all of this."

Jessica pursed her lips. "That's because I'm not explaining any of this very well." She smiled briefly when JJ reached out and squeezed her arm. "Haley told you that her fertility issues centered around her difficulty conceiving. That wasn't true. She conceived at least twice that we know of and miscarried both times."

Hotch's eyes widened. "Why didn't she tell me?"

"She... didn't want to disappoint you," Jessica replied with a shrug. It was clear that she didn't agree with Haley's decision. "The problem was with her eggs. They were... I don't know the technical term, but they were unusable. She could never be a biological mother."

"Why didn't she just tell me that?" he questioned again. His mind spun in several directions: fury, impatience, confusion, fear, and self-doubt. The last rattled around at the edges, trying to determine if there was a flaw in his own personality that caused Haley to hide this from him. Was he no better than his own father who was so monstrous that Hotch and his mother learned to keep all unpleasantness from him.

Jessica rubbed her forehead, pulling Hotch's attention back to her. "I don't know. Nothing I said to her seemed to get through to her. She was determined that she would have your baby, that you would never know that she couldn't have one of her own." Here, tears welled up in Jessica's eyes. "So, she came up with a plan to have a baby and not tell you that she wasn't the mother. It wasn't really hard with all the traveling that you do. She just had you sign whatever papers she needed you to sign. You never even looked at them."

Hotch blinked once, slowly. "Are you actually trying to put the blame for this on me?"

"No!" she answered, quickly. "I'm just trying to make you understand."

"How do you factor into this?" Hotch turned his blazing eyes to JJ, finding himself unable to deal with Jessica and her blind faith to Haley anymore.

Clasping her hands together so tightly that her knuckles turned white, JJ cleared her throat, skirting her own eyes away from Hotch's face. "I hadn't been working at the BAU for very long, a couple of months, maybe. I still wasn't going out on all of the cases with you guys." She closed her eyes to block the tears that she could feel coming. "I was working late one night while you guys were on a case, Colorado. I was getting ready to leave and I noticed that the light was on in your office. When I stepped inside to make sure everything was okay, I found Haley there." JJ glanced up at him, briefly, before looking away again. "She was on the floor sobbing."

Hotch massaged his temples. "How- how did she even get in there?"

"She-" JJ shot him a startled look at his absurd question, but it was clear by his tense posture that he was simply trying to piece together everything that was being told to him. "She had to pick up papers or something from your office and you had called ahead to let her in." She waited for him to nod before continuing. "I asked her what was wrong and the whole story came tumbling out. I, like Jessica, tried to convince her to talk to you, that you would understand and the two of you would work through this, but she adamant that she couldn't tell you."

"I still don't understand why she couldn't tell me," Hotch mumbled to himself.

JJ shook her head, slightly, unable to answer his question. "Then, she asked me; she asked me if I would consider donating my eggs to her. She thought we looked similar enough that no one would ever question who Jack's parents were. At first, I told her no. But she begged and begged and I, I finally told her that I would consider it. Hotch, I've never seen her so happy."

He gave off a brief, grim smile. "What made you change your mind?"

"You. You came back from the case and you were so tormented by the idea that you would never be a father and that it would tear you and Haley apart. It was the first time that you really... opened up to me about anything." JJ raised her hands so that they were in front of her mouth and looked directly at him. "So, I said yes. Two months later, I donated my eggs. Haley got pregnant on the first round with Jack and that was that."

"How... Why..." Hotch stood abruptly. He placed his hands defensively in front of him when Jessica and JJ both rose. "I've had enough. I will make other arrangements for Jack's care, for now. I need to leave."

"Hotch, wait," JJ pleaded, but he waved her off before storming out of Jessica's house. The tears that had been threatening to fall, cascaded down her cheeks.

Jessica rubbed JJ's arm. With more confidance than she felt, she told JJ, "It'll be okay. It's been a shock, but he'll come around."

"He has to. I can't lose my son again."