Authors note: Thanks again to all who have reviewed, in spite of all the problems were having witht he site.

Karen Abbott stormed out of her office and into her bedroom. Her plans had to be accelerated. Someone was looking into her past. She just bet it was that bitch JJ, by way of Garcia. Damn it. She needed more time to get to Reid. She wanted to make JJ suffer, by watching him fall in love with her before she killed him. She would force JJ to watch her kill him, then she would kill Jennifer as well.

She wasn't a stupid woman. She knew how to cover her tracks. None of this, the house, the utilities or even her credentials with the FBI was real. All of it had been stolen to facilitate getting close to JJ. She had watched JJ for a long time before she'd made her move. She knew about her failed date with Spencer. She assumed that the two had been intimate, and that JJ would balk at a relationship with a geek like Spencer. In fact, it proved that you could take the girl out of high school, but not high school out of the girl.

Long before Karen had joined the BAU, she had realized that JJ's feelings for the young genius had grown into something more than friendship. Her old "friend" hadn't realized it, but Karen could see it. It was the main reason she had decided to torture JJ, instead of just getting close enough to kill her. Losing the man she loved to an old high school classmate, especially a nerd was the best revenge. When JJ could do nothing to stop her from killing him, she would die in despair.

Unfortunately, the best laid plans often get trampled on. She had carefully changed her appearance when she'd come to Quantico. She hadn't wanted JJ to recognize her, at least not yet, and she hadn't, but something had made her suspicious.

When she'd set up her false background, she'd inserted a virus in her files, one that would alert her to anyone messing with her data, or checking her out. She'd just received an alert and she was furious. This meant she would have to put her plan into action immediately.

She packed the items she needed into her hand bag, and changed, yet again, into a black sweatshirt, black jeans, and shoes. She was confident in her hold on Spencer, she would do what had to be done, both of them would be dead, and she would disappear into a new identity. At last… she would find peace with the past.

She would drive to Spencer's home, and if he asked her any questions, like how the hell did she have his address, she would claim she got it from Garcia. He wouldn't know any better because soon he would be bait in her trap for JJ. She decided that her upset could be used to her advantage. She would tell him that she'd had a bad dream, and he would sympathize with her.

It was a pleasant drive to his home, made lovely by the fun to come. In fact by the time she parked her car and got out into the cold October night, she was elated. With any luck, this would all be over that night, and she could get on with her life. She reached out and pushed the button for his doorbell.

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JJ entered her house, and leaned against the door after closing it behind her. She went into her bedroom, and was confronted by the sight of her queen sized canopy bed. She'd found it while out antiquing one day. It had cost her a lot of money, but it was carved mahogany and absolutely breathtaking after she'd stripped off the awful coat of white paint someone had given it. She had stained it to bring out its natural burgundy colors. After her night with Spencer, she'd thought about getting rid of it, but she found herself unable to part with it. She told herself that it was because she had spent so much time and money on it.

She walked over the hardwood floors, and the throw rugs scattered across it, to her closet. She stripped out of her work clothes, and into a sweat shirt and jeans. She'd made an awful fool of herself at the airstrip, and for now she wanted to forget about it. She picked up a book, and wandered into the kitchen for some hot chocolate. A good mystery would take her mind off of Spencer.

Her living room was all glass and steel, except for the couch which was dark blue leather. There was a matching love seat, and a glider rocker in one corner. She retreated to that to read, and found that she couldn't concentrate on the page in front of her.

She'd messed up so badly when it came to Spencer. She wondered if she would ever be able to make it up to him. He'd suffered so much at the hands of bullies in school. She didn't know a lot about his mother only that she was in an institution. When he'd brought her to Quantico for her safety only weeks ago, Jen had been intensely curious about her. She had seemed to be an intelligent woman, and her way of speaking reminded JJ strongly of Spencer. Even though she'd inadvertently caused the Fisher King to fixate on them, especially Spencer, JJ knew there wasn't intent to harm in her.

She remembered thinking that she was sorry and a little afraid for Spencer as well. His life had been tough enough without the looming threat of an inherited mental disorder. She realized for the first time, how awful it would be to know that at anytime your mind could turn traitor on you.

Maybe she could call him. He was angry at her, but she didn't care. She would apologize and grovel. She would do whatever it took to get him to forgive her. She had to do something, Karen had him mesmerized so that he couldn't see that the woman was up to something. She kept her fingers crossed that Garcia would find something fast. She had to have some ammunition to use against that woman. Spencer would never believe her if she went to him with her doubts. He would accuse her of jealousy again, and some small part of her wondered if she were indeed overreacting.

She tried once more to read her book, and after half an hour of staring at the same page she gave up. She picked up her phone to dial Spencer's number. The phone rang in her hand, and she smiled in relief at Garcia's name on the caller ID.

"Tell me you have good news, Penelope," she demanded, without preamble.

"What… no greeting… no hi girl, how's it going?"

"Garcia please," She was whining, she could hear it in her voice, but she couldn't help it.

"Ok sunshine, don't blow a gasket. First… don't shoot the messenger, but you ain't gonna like what I gotta tell ya girl."

JJ closed her eyes, and slid down the wall she'd been leaning against to the floor. I knew it!

"What is it Garcia; just tell me so I can help Spence."

Garcia went on to tell her all that she had learned, and by the time she finished, JJ was cold all over. She should have known this would all come back to haunt her one day. Why didn't Karen come after her instead of Spence?

In a whisper, because she didn't trust herself to speak loudly, the tears were too close to the surface, she said, "Thank you Penny, I don't know how you found all of this so quickly, but thank you."

"Sunshine... you okay... you sound terrible."

(Of course I do, the worst mistake I ever made has come back to haunt me, and Spence is smack in the middle of all of it.)

What she said out loud was, "I'm fine, I'll handle it myself."

"I don't think that's a good idea, you need to call the boss man."

"I'm not going after her, she's for later, right now I'm going to Spencer, he has to know who she really is he has to be careful."

"But -" She was talking to a dial tone. After a long internal debate, she punched the speed dial for Derek; he'd know how to handle this.

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The door slammed behind Spencer when he entered his house. He couldn't believe that he'd let her get to him that way. It was just what she wanted, he was sure. He felt a deep burning shame, how he could have considered for one minute, striking JJ. After what had happened to Karen, the desire to hit JJ left him feeling sick. He ran to the bathroom, and dry heaved, there was nothing in his stomach to lose as he hadn't eaten in nearly 24 hours.

He went to the sink, and splashed cold water on his face. He looked up into mirror, and cringed at the sight of the dark circles under his eyes. He stood looking at his reflection for a long time, oblivious to the water that dripped down over his cheeks to his chin, and down to stain his sweater. He pulled open a cabinet, and grabbed a hand towel to dry off his face.

Damn it, he needed to get control of himself and quickly. He went into his bedroom and changed out of his work clothes and into a pair of sweat pants. He climbed into bed knowing that it was too early to sleep, it was barely 6 pm. He lay on his back, and began to think about that day last year. He'd woken up with a killer hangover, and he'd been alone in her bed. He'd read the note she'd left him, not believing what he was reading. He couldn't believe she was gone. In fact, he'd sat there, the sheets pooled around his waist waiting for her to come back. Two hours passed and he realized she was staying away on purpose. So he dressed, and slunk away to his own home, feeling like a teenager caught playing with himself by his mother.

He remembered the horrible humiliation like it was yesterday. She treated him as less than nothing. The only thing she hadn't done was leave money on the dresser for him like he was a common prostitute. Maybe she should have, then he wouldn't have felt so cheap and used. That was exactly what she'd done, she'd used him to scratch a drunken itch, and somewhere in his own drunken haze, he'd believed that she cared for him.

In the end, she'd been just like all the other pretty girls he knew. His first time had been with a freshman in college. He'd already graduated and was working on his first doctorate. He'd been working as a teacher's aide for some extra bucks, and one of the pretty girls had promised to sleep with him if he changed a grade for her. It was the first, and only really dishonest thing he'd every done. He blamed it on the fact that he was only sixteen, and teenage guys do stupid things.

She had humiliated him too, kicking him out of her dorm room as soon as it was over. She'd never spoken to him again and she made sure all her friends knew how lousy he was in bed. From that moment until he'd slept with JJ, he'd never dated; he didn't want to get hurt by another pretty girl.

Then Karen had entered his life. He'd been swept away by her beauty, and the fragile vulnerability that seemed to surround her. She seemed to be interested in him as well, and that by itself made him a little suspicious of her motives. He wanted time to think about how he was feeling. He was a profiler, and he knew that accepting someone at face value could be dangerous. One could put on a benign face, and still be malevolent in nature.

He'd kept all of his insecurities tucked tightly away in front of the team, because he didn't want to admit to himself, or to them that he had his own doubts about Karen Abbott. At first he'd been bewildered by most of the team's lack of trust in her, then he began to think that maybe there was a reason. Their job was to analyze people, and it occurred to him as he lay in bed thinking, that they saw something he didn't.

He'd heard people say that love is blind, well he supposed that was true. He'd been blind to JJ for months, and now he knew that she had some kind of interest in him. Damn it! He had to be certain. He closed his eyes, and began to run his memory over that last day and a half. The strange thing about eidetic memory was that it wasn't perfect when it came to conversations, or facial expressions. In that way he was like anyone else, he had to fight to remember what his conscious mind may have seen.

What about Kylie Webster, Karen hadn't reacted to her body with disgust, or distress as did most new profilers. He remembered the first murdered victim he'd seen on the job. He'd vomited in the bushes next to the driveway where they found the body. He'd been able to get clear of the crime scene before losing everything in his stomach. He clearly remembered the pity he'd felt for the woman, and what she'd suffered.

He hadn't seen any of that in Karen's face. He wondered if the others had noticed, probably not as Detective Lange had been causing trouble at the crime scene. Was that enough to doubt her though, there were people in the FBI that were very good at clinical detachment, maybe she was too.

Then he sat up abruptly. That was it, the look in Karen's eyes when they'd been at the crime scene with Kylie. He'd been too angry with Detective Lange at the time to realize that she recognized him. He thought it was strange that she'd been so casual about the man's insults; he assumed she hadn't wanted to make a scene. But that wasn't it, she knew him, which meant she might not be as innocent in the shooting as everyone thought.

Damn it, how could he have been so stupid? Was he so needy and insecure, that he no longer recognized a predator? Well… he might as well hang up his badge right now. He threw off the blankets, and got out of bed. He picked up his cell phone as he walked out to the living room. He needed to have Garcia check up on Karen. He noticed that his hands were trembling; and as his finger hovered above the speed dial, the doorbell rang.