Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is owned by CBS. I own nothing but my imagination.
New Year's With a Friend-Chapter 10
~Once again, thanks for all of the reviews!
~I promise I haven't forgotten about Happily Ever After! RL has been REALLY busy and chaotic lately, but I hope (HOPE!) to post an update either tomorrow or Monday.
~TGI Spring Break!
Breakfast the next morning was a quiet affair and everyone was absorbed in their own thoughts. As he ate, Dave wondered how he'd managed to fuck everything up as royally as he had and how he would go about fixing it. As he took a sip of his coffee, he glanced around the table; there was a definite chill coming from the women in the room and if looks could kill, the ones he was getting from both JJ and Sarah would have sent him to his grave. Mike and Steve were still acting normally towards him, but he didn't think they knew what had gone on between him and their sister, or maybe they did and, as guys, they cut him a little more slack for his asshat ways.
JJ's parents both looked at him not with anger in their eyes, per se, but instead with a look of both annoyance and…hope? He didn't know what to make of their expressions, but he saw that they didn't spend much time focused on him; instead they were warily watching their second oldest son, who had a devilish gleam in his eye. As Dave noticed this, Steven opened his mouth to speak.
"So what do you women have planned for us for dinner tonight?" He asked, looking at JJ. "It's the last night of the year, so I'm hoping it's a good one."
JJ, who was already in a foul mood because of her idiot co-worker, felt a flash of anger. She bent down and looked under the table, murmuring "Hmmmmm," softly.
"What are you looking for, Jenny?" Steve asked.
JJ straightened up, "It's funny, I don't see a cast on your leg, so why do you assume that you won't be helping prepare tonight's meal?" Her voice became louder with each word and everyone at the table could both see and hear her anger.
"Pfft," Steve said, waving away her statement with his hand, "That's not my job here, Jenny," he said condescendingly. "You, mom and Sarah always cook the meals; it's women's work."
Somewhere, deep inside of her, a tiny part of her brain realized her brother was joking, but that part couldn't stop the rising fury or her next actions. Jumping to her feet, she picked up her cereal bowl, which was still half full of milk and cheerios, reached across the table and dumped the contents into her brother's lap. "Asshole!" She hissed as she ran out of the room.
"Jennifer Lynn!" Her mother yelled, although she wasn't too shocked by her daughter's actions; it seemed like every time the family was together, Steve somehow managed to push his sister's buttons.
"Ha! Pay up!" Steve ordered, turning towards his older brother. Mike sighed, opened his wallet, pulled out a fifty dollar bill and handed it to his brother.
"It shouldn't count," Mike grumbled as he put his wallet away, "It was like shooting fish in a barrel."
"God, for two smart guys, you both are idiots!" Sarah exclaimed as Steve started mopping up his pants with the rag his mother had passed to him. "You were purposely trying to piss off the one person in this family who carries a gun. Real smart! You're lucky Jenny just dumped a bowl of cereal on your lap instead of shooting you there."
"Wait, you wanted to provoke JJ?" Dave said, trying to make sense of the conversation.
Steve nodded his head, "Jenny usually has at least one meltdown like that at a family get together, but she hasn't had one all year, so Mike bet me fifty bucks that our little sis would make it until the New Year without losing her cool. Guess I showed him!" He crowed.
"You two are morons," JJ's dad said as he stood up. As much as he had tried to protect his eldest daughter from the antics of her two immature older brothers over the years, they always managed to push her buttons at least once on a trip home. He shook his head as he carried his dishes over to the counter and set them in the sink. Turning around, he faced the table again. "Take a walk with me, Dave?" He said conversationally, but Dave's years of profiling told him that the man wanted to do more than walk with him.
"Sure, Tom," Dave agreed as he brought his own dishes to the sink. He set them down and then followed Tom out of the room, down the hallway and into a small home office. Both men entered the room, and Tom shut the door behind them. Hearing the door click into place, a small part of Dave wondered if he would make it out of the room alive; surely Barb had told him what he'd said to his daughter. He sat down in one of the chairs across from the large oak desk as Tom walked around and sat on the other side of it. Then the man just stared at Dave thoughtfully for a moment before he confirmed his fear.
"My wife told me about the words you exchanged with my daughter earlier," he said, staring at the profiler. "You know for a writer, you didn't choose your words very well, did you?"
"Tom, I'm sorry, I never meant to imply-" Tom Jareau cut Dave's apology off with a wave of his hand.
"I don't care about your apologies; you said what you did and it's out there; you can't take it back. For the record, I'm not offended by your offer of money; men do strange things when they're in love and from what I've seen, you're smitten with my Jenny."
Dave sat back in his seat and internally debated about what to say to JJ's dad. Should he deny his love of JJ or should he be up front about it? Deciding to lay all of his cards on the table, Dave nodded, "You're right, I am head over heels in love with her, although I think I ruined any chance I had with her with my asinine words yesterday."
"I'm not so sure about that," Tom told him. "My Jenny can be a spitfire, and Lord knows she can react impulsively when pushed too far, but what she also has is an amazing capacity for forgiveness, especially towards those she loves and you, Dave, are included in that group."
"Really?" Dave asked, almost holding his breath.
Tom nodded, "Really. You may be a fancy profiler who holds numerous degrees regarding the study of people and their behaviors, but I know my daughter and I can see that my little girl loves you."
"How do you feel about that, sir?" Dave asked, wondering if Tom had dragged him in here to warn him away from JJ. If that was the case, the man had better have a loaded shotgun behind his desk because a chest full of buckshot would be the only thing that would keep him from pursuing the blonde beauty.
Tom shrugged, "I'm fine with it, Dave. You may be older than my Jenbug, but that don't make much difference to me; what does matter is that you'll treat her well and, yesterday notwithstanding, I know you're old school and you know how to treat a woman right, unlike some of the men she's been with."
Hearing the anger in last part of his statement, Dave decided to push his luck a little. "Tom, what happened between JJ and Will?"
Tom looked surprised, "She never told you?" Dave shook his head and Tom thought for a moment. "No, I don't suppose she would have."
"All I know is that Will left her and Henry suddenly, and honestly, she hasn't been quite the same since. The spark in Jen's eyes dulled after that and I want to be the one to bring it back to life."
JJ's dad chewed that over in his mind for a minute and then nodded, "Okay, I'll tell you, but God help both of us if she ever learns that I told you about this."
"Your secret is safe with me," Dave assured the older man.
Tom sighed, "He hurt her, Dave, he hurt her badly."
Dave's blood pressure shot up and he momentarily saw red. "Did he physically harm her?" He asked tightly. "Did that southern jackass dare hurt one hair on her head? Because if he did, he's dead; I'll have him floating down the Mississippi in no time flat!"
Tome smiled ruefully, "Hell no, he didn't hit her; if he had, I would've killed the son of a bitch myself. No, Will was gay."
"What?" Dave practically whispered as he sat back down in the chair.
Tom nodded, "Apparently his parents were devout Christians and Will knew they would never accept a gay son in their lives, so he dated women on and off during his adult life."
"Why did he glom onto JJ? If it was a ruse, why not date her, introduce her to his folks and then break up with her?" Dave wondered aloud.
"Will's father died right before he and Jenny got together and his mother was devastated. Now, being a proper mama's boy from the south, Will was willing to do anything to make his mama happy, so when he met Jenny, he knew he needed to take the ruse further to make his mother happy," Tom said. "To give the dipshit credit, I don't think he planned on knocking my daughter up, but when it happened, the man was happier than a clam because it not only showed he was straight, it made his mother immensely happy. The way Jenny tells it, from the moment she told him she was pregnant, he was constantly asking her to marry him. Thank God she never gave in," Tom said with a shudder.
"So what happened? Why did he leave her?" Dave asked, still mentally planning the Cajun's demise.
"His mother died suddenly and it was as if Will was free to live the kind of life he wanted. Three days after his mother's funeral, he told Jenny that he had never loved her, that their life together was a sham and that he was moving back to New Orleans to be with his secret lover."
"Jesus," Dave breathed.
"Then he told her that not only didn't he love her, he didn't want to be a part of their son's life either and then he threw a signed waiver of paternity at her. While she was reeling from that, the bastard cleaned out their joint checking account and the savings account they had started for Henry's college fund and took all of it with him to New Orleans," Tom told him. "She hasn't heard from him or seen him since and that's how she wants it. She didn't go after him for the money he took or for child support because she just wants him to stay the hell out of her life and she doesn't want Henry to have an unloving father in his life."
"Good God," Dave said, as close to speechless as he had ever been.
"So you see Dave, my daughter has had her share of heartbreak when it comes to men."
"I had no idea," Dave said. "Believe me, if I had, Will would be dead right now. Hell, I can't promise that he won't meet with an accident in the near future!"
Tom smiled, "I knew you were like me, Dave. You and I, we're a different breed of men; we take care of our women and protect them, even when they don't want us to."
"You're damn right we do," Dave said firmly. "I swear to you, Tom, I had no idea that it was that bad between her and LaMontagne. One thing your daughter is very good at is keeping secrets."
"Lord how I know that!"
"And I promise that if your daughter gives me another chance, I will never just up and leave her or treat her badly. I cherish the very ground JJ walks on and I will do anything to make her and Henry permanent fixtures in my life," Dave told him. "Any ideas on how I can do that?"
Tom thought for a minute; normally he wouldn't help any of Jenny's beaus, primarily because the thought of his little girl being intimate with someone made him want to lock her in the basement to keep her safe, but he liked Dave and he knew the profiler would treat her well.
"She's always valued directness," Tom said. "That and complete honesty. Don't try and bullshit my daughter Dave, she'll smell it from a mile away."
Dave thought for a moment and then nodded and rose from his chair. "Thanks Tom, you have no idea how much this has helped."
"I hope it goes without saying that if you do hurt my daughter or break her heart, I will come to DC, hunt you down and kill you." JJ's dad warned.
"I would kill myself before I hurt her," Dave said softlyand then left the room. He wanted to fix things with JJ before the New Year, so he only had a few hours to convince her to talk to him.