Commencement

Chapter 4

He ran through what he did know first.

We saved the last victim, Linda, so we know we have our unsub. He even semi-confessed when Luke tripped him up on that other victim. Linda practically begged JJ to stay with her until her husband got home, so we sent the others back to the precinct ahead of us. Then she remembered those files she hadn't been able to bring to the business, and we offered to drop them off for her. But then the door was open, and we went inside… Wait…was there another car? I don't remember seeing another car..

He was still pondering when he heard JJ heading back toward him. She'd used the same rigging she had the last time, hanging the trash pail around her neck so her hands would be free to work through the debris.

"Success!" she called.

He activated the flashlight app one more time so she could see her way to him and get situated. Then he retrieved the lone Styrofoam cup and urged her to drink.

"You've gotten a workout today. You need to hydrate."

"I filled up while I was at the fountain. It's your turn now." She reached out and turned the phone in his hand so she could see the screen. "Still no service. We'd better preserve the battery, don't you think?"

He agreed and, after they'd both situated themselves against a fairly solid wall of debris, he turned off the phone. The little bit of sky they could see was rapidly losing light now.

JJ hugged her knees. "I suppose there's no chance we'll have a full moon, right?"

"Actually, I think it's just past. So we might get a little light. But at least our eyes will accommodate. Plus, we need to try to get some sleep. If there's still no sign of life out there tomorrow, I think we're going to have to try to get out of here on our own."

She heaved huge sigh. "I don't know, Spence. I've been farther than you have. It's pretty filled in. And I'm afraid of making it unstable by pulling on the wrong thing."

"You're sitting next to someone with a PhD in engineering. I should be able to figure it out."

"Okay, so we won't accidentally kill ourselves. And I'm game if you are. I just don't have a lot of hope."

He hesitated, but finally decided that she had to know.

"Remember what we were talking about before? About whether this was a set up?"

She half-turned toward him. "You think it was?"

"I can't be sure, of course. But I think it was definitely not an accident. Whether it was aimed at two FBI agents, or maybe they thought it would be Linda delivering the files….."

"Or insurance fraud, and it was just our bad luck to be here."

"Ha. The odds of that would be even worse than twenty trillion to one."

"Not with our luck."

In the gathering dark, he felt her shiver, and he slipped his jacket off again.

"Here, put this on."

"Then you'll be cold. Neither of us has any body fat."

"All right, we'll share." He held it up like a blanket as she scooted closer to him, and then he laid it over both of them. "Better?"

"Much. Thanks."

"Do you remember if there was another car in the lot? My memory is a little fuzzy."

Which confirmed for JJ that he must have been concussed.

"How's your head now? Do you have a headache? Blurry vision?"

"My head is okay. I just don't remember about the parking lot."

"I do. I remember thinking that it was strange that the door was open, with no vehicles in sight, because this place is pretty remote to have come here on foot."

"So whoever set this up had already left."

"Or had a partner who dropped him off."

That powered the light bulb inside Reid's head.

"A partner! Of course, how stupid can I be?!"

JJ looked over at him. "If you're stupid, I'm in real trouble. What are you thinking?"

"It's just like that case! Gideon saw it, but she had me completely fooled until he showed me the signs. It was a partnership, a couple…..but the woman was the dominant."

The reference sounded vaguely familiar to JJ, but Reid had to recount more of the case to jog her memory.

"That's right, now I remember. So….what, you think Linda is behind this?"

"It makes sense, doesn't it? She was the only victim who survived, and they'd been escalating for a while. We didn't make enough of the fields of work the other victims were in because the first one was in a service job. But remember what she'd done just a few weeks before she was killed?"

"Jury duty. I know, because I had Pen go over all of the cases on the docket for the times she might have been in the courthouse. But nothing panned out."

"That's because we were focused on the felons. We should have been looking at the attorneys. Remember when Linda told us she'd worked as a legal secretary before she took the job with Progressive?"

JJ followed his line of reasoning. "She's been with Progressive for a year. But the first victim was killed a little over two years ago. You think Linda was there, in the courthouse? That she picked out the victims?"

"Probably. And then, think about it….each victim was just a little more successful, a little more powerful, than the last. It's possible she thinks killing someone in law enforcement, especially in an elite unit of the FBI, is the next logical step."

In the darkness, he couldn't see the widening of JJ's eyes, but he didn't have to. He could feel her tense next to him.

"You think she wants to kill me?"

"Think about it. She made a huge thing about having you stay with her. She had no idea I would decide to stay with you."

"But…. but….how could she have set this up? If this was a demolition, it would have taken a lot of time, wouldn't it?"

"Maybe it wasn't originally set up for us. Maybe she was planning on getting rid of someone at Progressive, someone further up the line from her. But we interfered with that plan when we caught the unsub….who is actually her partner."

"So she decided to take advantage of the opportunity and kill two FBI agents instead. But….the door was open. That's what lured us into the building. We had just left her. She couldn't have gotten here before us. Does that mean she has another partner?"

Reid thought back to the case Gideon had so insightfully solved. There had been a third person involved with the two, but he'd become a victim himself. Maybe the man they had in custody was playing that role. He shared his thoughts with JJ.

"Or maybe the third partner thinks he's in on an insurance scam. Whatever the reason, there's obviously a third person."

"And we have no way to tell the team. Great."

Reid laid his head back. "What a way to go out."

"You're not kidding. Who ever thought our last night in the BAU we'd be sitting in a pile of rubble waiting to be rescued?"

"Not me. Although there is one thing about it that I definitely knew."

She was intrigued. "What?"

"That we'd be together."

He felt the affection as she rested her head upon his shoulder. "Always." She laid a hand on his arm, drawing them closer, and he covered her hand with his.

"I guess it's appropriate that Gideon helped us figure this out."

"You. He helped you figure it out. He was always teaching you, quizzing you. I remember that."

"He taught me so much that I could never have learned from a book. He taught me by example."

"He taught all of us. I think those little quizzes he used to give you were responsible for Hotch eventually being able to trust me with selecting cases. I listened to every word both of you said."

Reid sighed. "I never really thought about the BAU coming to an end. But, if I had, I'd have pictured Gideon and Rossi both being there to usher it out, just like they ushered it in."

JJ squeezed his arm. "It's his legacy. The work will still be done, even if the entire FBI is being reorganized. At least Gideon and Rossi conceived of it, and proved its value."

Reid nodded. "He did. Nothing can take that away from him."

JJ lifted her head to look at him. "You still miss him, don't you?"

His face bore that pensive look that had become so familiar to her over the years.

"I'm not sure how to answer that. I mean, I hadn't seen him for years before he was killed. But I guess I always thought that I might, you know? That maybe, some day, the time would be right for him to come back, or for me to reach out. Not that I had any idea where to reach out to. The only thing I knew was the cabin, and he was never there when I went."

That caught her off guard. "You went to the cabin looking for him? When?"

"I went a couple of times. The first time…..the first time after I found his letter, anyway….. it was right after Henry was born. Right after you'd asked me to be his godfather."

She put her head back on his shoulder. "You related to it?" She felt him nod.

"It was also right after I'd seen my father for the first time in seventeen years. Inside I was a mess of conflicting emotions. I was angry with my father for having never reached out to me all those years, and he was only a few miles away from my mother. Then I was angry with myself for having misjudged him over what he'd done to protect my mother, and angrier still for having fallen right back into the role of the hurt little boy with him."

She tightened her grasp on his arm, and squeezed herself against him in sympathy.

"I'm so sorry, Spence. You didn't deserve it as a child, and you didn't deserve it as an adult, either. I wish I could have been with you that day. But I was unavoidably busy."

He chuckled. "Thank God. When you placed my little man in my arms for the first time….I didn't know how, and I had no idea what kind of a relationship we would grow….but I definitely felt like my life was changing."

Feeling her shiver once again, he lifted his arm and put it around her, pulling her closer, and resettling the jacket around them.

"Better?"

"Much." Pausing. "I hope Henry has done as much for you as you have for him."

"He's done far more. He's given me unconditional love. I mean, just think about those words. He loves me, whether or not I deserve it. I'd heard the term before, of course, but never really known what it felt like. And then, this little, squirmy, loud, happy, blonde baby gave it to me."

Smiling, as he remembered the youngest version of his older godson. JJ smiled, too.

"I know what you mean. There were so many days when I would come home feeling absolutely exhausted, and miserable, and I'd walk in, and there he'd be, arms up and reaching for me, this big grin on his face."

"You know, I love Michael just as much. But, with Henry….it was all new. Henry was kind of my teacher. He still is, in many ways."

"I'll deny having said it until the day I die, but I know what you mean. I love both of my boys to death, but there's something about a firstborn. Partly, I feel like I should always apologize to him, because I didn't know what I was doing. And partly, I feel like he and I have been on this great adventure together, and now we've invited his baby brother along."

She felt, more than heard, her companion heave a sigh, and knew instinctively what had caused it.

"You'll have your own one day, Spence. I just know it. And you'll be an amazing dad. I can just picture you teaching a little boy or girl about ... well, about pretty much everything in creation, and them being so eager to learn it all."

It was a point of familiar pain for him, and JJ knew it. Tapping her hand against his chest, over his heart, she added, "This thing is too big to be wasted. I know you have all this love in you, and I know you'll get to share it."

Reid caught her hand in action, and covered it with his palm. "I already have."

Caught off guard, she briefly thought he meant he'd been hiding something, or someone, from her. But then she realized what he meant. All the things that he meant.

"You're talking about the boys."

"And you. Emily. The whole team, really."

"And Maeve. Right?" Knowing he'd meant something more specific than 'everyone'.

Reid bit at his lower lip. "Yes."

JJ flipped her hand to entwine her fingers with his. "I wish I could have met her." Then, remembering the circumstance, where he'd barely met her, she apologized. "I'm sorry. I just meant…. She must have been a pretty amazing woman to have won the heart of my best friend."

He squeezed the hand holding his. "No need to be sorry, I know it was unconventional. But, yes, she was pretty amazing. At least, I thought so."

"Then she was. And she was brilliant, and insightful, and I know that, because she made you happy."

He smiled. "That describes you, too."

"Ha! I wish. Seriously, Spence, I know you loved her, and it seemed like she loved you as well. She'd want you to have love in your life. I hope you won't let losing her keep you from looking for it."

He deflected. "Well, you found it. And I'm glad about that. Even though I was pretty stoked about that football game."

She giggled, remembering their one and only 'date'. "You were? I thought you were terrified."

"I was." Laughing along with her.

"Well, for the record, I did have a good time."

"You did? You looked so relieved when I took you home."

"Only because I'd been worried all day that you would pass out." She chuckled to herself again. "To be honest? I'm glad we didn't try it again. I think it might have gotten in the way of our friendship, which is way too precious to me."

"Being honest? Me, too. I had too peculiar a childhood to have found a best friend. But I found one in you."

She squeezed against him. "Not that I haven't tried to take a step back, now and then."

"What does that mean?"

"I mean, to take an objective look at you. You're not the same boy who followed Jason Gideon into the BAU, just like I'm not the same girl. You're a handsome, highly intelligent man. So, I've wondered, from time to time, if I weren't already taken, would I…."

"Whoa. Really?"

"Really. Don't misunderstand me, I love Will, and we have a great life together. I'm not saying anything about that. It's just that I wonder, sometimes, how it is that someone hasn't allowed you to sweep her off her feet."

"Well, maybe because it's kind of hard to get a date when you're hanging around in morgues and police stations."

She laughed. "Should I remind you that I met Will on a case?"

"Touche." He paused, reminiscing. "You know what I remember? I remember Elle asking me if I'd ever asked anyone out on a date. This was right before I'd asked you, so I told her 'no'. "That's why you can't get a date," she said."

JJ chuckled again, glad for the distraction in what promised to be a long night.

"Well, granted, I've not been on a date since before I met Will, but I'm pretty sure that's still true."

"Turns out that it is."

Sensing something, JJ pushed off, to look at him.

"Have you been dating? Spill, BFF."

He smiled affectionately at her. "Don't get excited. Yes, I have dated, but no, I've not been 'dating'. I've just been out a handful of times, but not with anyone I'm ready to bring home to my BFF."

JJ settled back down, as Reid did his best to tuck his jacket around them once again.

"Elle. Wow, I haven't thought of her in a long time. Do you keep in touch?"

"I tried to, when she first left. But then she moved, and moved again, and I lost track of her."

"You could have asked Garcia to find her. I'm sure she wouldn't have had any trouble."

"I know. But it didn't seem right. As much as I didn't like it, it seemed like she didn't want us, or maybe just me, to contact her, and I thought I should respect that."

"I get that, I guess. Respecting her choice, I mean. I just don't think I would ever not want to keep up with any of you guys."

"I actually did hear from her, a couple of years ago. At least, I'm pretty sure I did. It was after Gideon died. I got a sympathy card, and it said, "I know what he meant to you." That was it. And I'm pretty sure it was Elle, trying to disguise herself by using her non-dominant hand."

"Wow. So she kept up on what was happening with the team." JJ was silent for a moment, thinking back. "It's funny, we were never close. I mean, not at all like I was with Emily, and I was still the liaison then. I wondered if it was something about me, at first, something I'd said or done. But I came to think that it was just the situation."

He looked down past his chin to her. "Meaning?"

"Meaning that she was the first female profiler under Gideon, which was quite a feat. And, even though I was there before her, and technically shared the same rank, I wasn't on the front lines. I think she felt like she had to keep a separation between us, to make a point, if only to herself."

He thought about it. "That's pretty insightful, and you're right, it probably contributed. But I also wonder if she wasn't more sensitive than she wanted any of us to realize. She was the newest member of the team, at that time, even newer than me. And you and Garcia were already pretty close friends. Maybe she just felt like an outsider."

All too familiar with the feeling to discount it.

"Oh, geez, I hope not. Now I feel like a mean girl."

He squeezed her shoulder. "You're not a mean girl. It was just the circumstance."

"I guess. I mean, I think one of the reasons Pen and I hit it off was that we were usually the two left behind. It wasn't until Hotch took the unit chief position that I was invited into the field. And, even then, I was always the one coordinating from wherever we set up."

"Don't knock that. It's probably how you and I got to be so close. Remember, I wasn't exactly 'field material' when I first started."

"Well, for whatever reason, I'm glad we had that time together. I learned a ton, and I came away from it with the best friend I've ever had."