"I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear."

Oprah Winfrey


JJ went with the first idea that came to her mind. "I need to use the bathroom." She stated plainly, shaking her leg anxiously as if she really did have to go to the bathroom. She stared at her own reflection, praying that there was someone on the other side of the glass, listening to her, considering her statement.

She heard the door open to her right and when she looked up, it was Emily who entered. There was a hard look on her friend's face, almost a glare. That was what warned JJ that she was getting close to crossing the line with her friends, crossing the line that once you cross…you can't cross back.

Emily didn't sit down, she stood across from JJ. "Let's go." She said, "But we're going quick and don't try to pull anything. There's officers everywhere and I'm going to wait with you so it's really not possible for you to try to escape or something…"

Ironic.

JJ stood up and held out her wrists so that Emily would unlock them. "Why would I try to escape when I came all the way back here to confess?" She asked, "If I was concerned with escaping, I wouldn't have come."

"I don't know." Emily answered, "I don't know you anymore…so who knows what you're going to do?" She looked down at the handcuffs that JJ was holding out to her, "Not until we get to the bathroom."

JJ lowered her wrists and shrugged, walking out of the room first with Emily following her. They walked down the hall, past a group of officers who glared at her with piercing eyes before they entered the women's bathroom. When they were both inside, JJ held up her wrists. "Emily…" she started, her voice changing to the compassionate tone that she was known for.

Her friend looked up as she was undoing the handcuffs, the change in tone must have caught her attention.

"I need your help." JJ was on the verge of tears. She wasn't sure what to do so she decided to just go with her instinct. "I can't tell you why, or what's going on, but I need to get out of here now."

Emily tilted her head, "But you came here to confess so why would you leave now?" She asked, mocking what JJ had said just minutes earlier in the interrogation room.

She shook her head and now that her handcuffs were off, she grabbed Emily's wrists gently. "Emily, please just listen to me. This is not about murder or about me escaping to get out of jail, this is life or death, okay? I need you to help me. I know…I know that you think I did this-"

"I don't think you did this." Emily interrupted, "I never thought you did this."

JJ smiled a little bit at her friend's loyalty, "Then help me. If you really believe that I'm innocent then help me, Emily. I need to get out of here."

The look on Emily's face was one of confliction. She didn't know whether to help her friend who could be guilty of three counts of murder or to follow the law and maybe lose a friend who turned out to be innocent. She pulled her wrists out of JJ's grasp and walked to the mirror, looking at herself.

JJ followed her, standing at the other sink, waiting for her descision.

"JJ…you know that I can't let you go." Emily shook her head, meeting JJ's eyes. "That would be going against everything that I've learned in my life. I have to be loyal to the people who were loyal to me."

"I am loyal to you."

Emily shook her head, "JJ you just confessed to three counts of murder. That doesn't exactly label you as trustworthy."

And that was when JJ got desperate. She spiraled. The moment that Emily finished her sentence, JJ swung, her fist collided hard with Emily's face, knocking her against the marble sink counter.

Emily gasped in pain, her blood splattering onto the white counter. She recovered quickly though, countering JJ's punch with her own swinging low and hitting JJ right in the ribs. The blonde was knocked backwards a few steps, but did not lose her balance. She charged hard towards Emily, knocking her against one of the cement walls. And then she tried to punch her again, but Emily moved her head just in time.

JJ's hand collided with the solid wall and she heard the cracking noise seconds before she felt it. She had just broken her hand, if not her entire wrist. As she cursed and clutched it, Emily struck, punching her hard on the cheek. This time the blonde was knocked to the ground, but when she hit the tile, the tears came. She cried harder than Emily had ever heard her cry with her blonde hair cascaded in front of her face.

Emily pulled out her handcuffs, walked over and started to handcuff her wrists back together when JJ reeled backwards and knocked her head into Emily's. The brunette was stunned and didn't have time to react before JJ hit her again in the head. This final blow knocked Emily out cold. That was exactly was JJ needed.

The blonde walked up to the mirror and quickly cleaned the blood off of her face and her hand which took everything in her not to cry as she washed it. Once she looked presentable, she reached into Emily's pocket and pulled out the key to the handcuffs, putting them in her pocket before carefully handcuffing her wrists back together which caused an excruciating amount of pain. And then, she also took the scarf from around Emily's neck and put it around her own. It would come in handy later.

And then she rushed out of the room to the group of officer that had been outside when they passed through the hall earlier. "Please help me. Emily, she slipped in the bathroom on some water and hit her head on the sink counter. She's…she's unconscious. I didn't know what to do, can you help?"

Most of the officers rushed into the bathroom, while one stayed with her. It was implicit rule that they had set in place: one person always stayed with the criminal. It seemed logical enough.

JJ pretended to be concerned for her friend, which she was, considering she wasn't sure how badly Emily might be hurt. The officer with her was staring at the door too, waiting. And so was JJ, but she was waiting for something else. The hallway was busy with witnesses and all she had to do was wait for it to be clear, even if it was for a few seconds. That would be enough time. But people just kept walking by casually, as if they had no rush. It made her antsy watching them stroll past the hall.

And then finally the flow of people stopped.

That was JJ's chance and she took it. Easily, JJ sprung up, elbowing the officer in the face and then knocking his head down with her handcuffs. She had caught him off-guard, ironically, because he was the one who had been given the specific job to make sure she didn't do exactly what she had just done. When he fell to the ground, she ran. At the end of the hallway was a door, leading to the outside. She ran out of the building and into the parking lot, where she turned back to the building and located the security cameras. Strategically, she positioned herself behind a car where she was sure the camera couldn't see her. Carefully, she painfully crawled, with her handcuffs still cuffed, to a large oak tree a few yards away. Behind it, out of view, she pulled the key out of her pocket and tediously undid her handcuffs.

When she finished with that, she pulled the scarf off of her neck and quickly made it into a make-shift sling which she put her wrist into. Now, she was sure that it was broken. Using her left hand, she sifted through her pockets assuming that Carson probably put something in there. She found a dollar in quarters and a white piece of paper with a phone number on it. She immediately knew what she had to do.

Find a payphone.

JJ glanced over her shoulder to make sure that the parking lot was still empty, which it was, and then she jogged forward making sure that she stayed out of view of the security cameras. She knew that they would be finding the officer soon or that Emily might have woken up, either way she was on the run.

A fugitive.

She emerged from the woods at a jog, but once she was out in the open again she reduced her pace to a calm walk down the sidewalk, which was hard. She was in a hurry, but if she ran down the sidewalk with a black eye and her arm in a sling, someone would become suspicious.

So she walked painfully slow.

A payphone came into sight out in front of a convenient store. She made her way towards it, but just as she was reaching the parking lot of the store she heard sirens coming from behind her. They would recognize her if she stood out on the sidewalk next to the road so she darted into the store, watching the road through the glass windows.

"Can I help you?" A raspy voice from behind her asked.

JJ didn't reply at first. Her hand shook as she clutched the handle of the door, watching as the police cars drove down the road, sirens blaring. And she thought she was in the clear…until one black SUV turned into the parking lot. She saw the FBI plates before they even turned. She glanced at the clerk behind the counter. It was a middle-aged man with black hair peppered with gray streaks. He grinned, showing off his rotten teeth. She inferred that he was a long time smoker.

"Oh no, I was just going to use the bathroom." JJ gave him a small smile before rushing down one of the tall isles towards the bathroom; her place of refuge. She entered through the door and waited on the other side without even bothering to lock it. With her ear pressed against the disgusting, probably germ covered door, she listened.

The ringing of a small bell alerted the clerk of his new customers entering the store. She imagined him smiling at them as he spoke, "What can I do for you two?"

JJ recognized Reid's warming tone, "Hello. We are agents from the FBI. Have you seen this woman?" Her heart dropped when she realized that they were showing the clerk a picture of her and as quietly as she possibly could, she slipped out of the bathroom and into one of the nearby isles. There she waited, crouched next to some candy bars and packets of gum.

"I have." The clerk answered, his disgusting grin audible, "She came in here a few minutes ago, looked winded, scared. Her arm was in a sling and her eye looked like it was swollen. I asked if she needed help and she said she was going to use the bathroom. Why?"

"She's just escaped from the police station." Hotch's deep, angry voice replied. Two sets of quick footsteps traveled down the isle two down from hers, followed by another pair of more leisurely footsteps that she assumed belonged to the clerk.

"Open up, JJ." Hotch ordered as he knocked on the door. She wondered why he knocked until she realized that he probably thought she might actually be using the bathroom. "We know you're in there."

Silence.

JJ creeped down her isle slowly, traveling away from the bathroom and towards the front door. She was a few feet away from her freedom, but she knew that when she passed through the door, the bell was going to ring so if she went…she would have to sprint once she got out.

"Alright we're coming in." Hotch warned. And that was JJ's chance. As she heard them push the bathroom door open and enter into the small women's bathroom, she darted for the front door, pushing through it, ignoring the bell that had sounded and sprinting out of the convenient store.

She ran faster than she'd ever run before, probably because of the adrenaline. When she reached the edge of the convenient store, she turned the corner and ran down the side of the building before turning another corner and creeping along the back of the building where the dumpsters were. Distantly, as she had been turning that last corner, she heard the bell sound and the footsteps of her friends or now…her captors, approaching. Looking around, she got an idea.


Reid and Hotch ran down the side of the building, both with their guns drawn and both with their tempers flaring. This woman was starting to get to them. When they turned the next corner which lead to the backside of the building they found that it was empty. And considering that there was fence standing a few feet behind the dumpsters, Hotch and Reid both knew she couldn't have climbed it in time.

"I'll go check the other side." Reid ran across the back of the building and turned another corner only to find that side parking lot empty. He ran to the front of the building again, but JJ was nowhere to be found. He ran up to where the sidewalk was, looking up and down it to see if he could spot her running, but still found nothing. She had to be around this building somewhere.

He jogged back to the back of the building where Hotch was still looking around behind the dumpsters, looking around for any sign of JJ. "Where could she have gone?" He asked, looking at Reid for some kind of input.

The genius, for once, was stumped. "Maybe she went back into the store." He guessed, pointing to the back door and walking over to it, only to find it locked. "She could have locked it from the inside." He hypothesized.

Hotch decided that was a valid theory, "Let's go." He said and then both of the men started jogging to the front of the building again.

When she was sure they were both gone, JJ emerged from the trash in the dumpster and quickly and carefully, so as not to disturb her broken wrist, she climbed out of it and ran down the side of the building before Hotch and Reid could look out the back door. She sprinted to the next door building, a pizzeria, and ran behind it, and then ran to the building next door to the pizzeria, a cheap burger place, and ran behind that. She repeated that for a few buildings until she was sure that they weren't going to catch up soon.

JJ walked along the fence that ran behind all of the buildings (the one that Reid had previously seen) until she reached a trashy liquor store that luckily did not have the fence running behind it anymore so she walked into the woods behind the building where she finally found sanctuary.

They couldn't find her there, that would be the last place they looked, she was sure.

JJ walked that night until her feet ached and she couldn't walk anymore. Exhausted, guilty and oddly satisfied, she collapsed in a heap of leaves, in which she slept that night.

She had dreams of grandeur; bringing Carson to justice, freeing her brothers, being able to tell the truth to her team, and proving her father innocent as well. But ironically, this time instead of falling asleep and entering a nightmare, this one began when she woke up the next morning.

Riddled with the soreness of the day before and the memories of the events, JJ had a sinking feeling in her stomach that she was becoming the criminal that she had confessed to being. Stress plagued her as she started to get up. She considered a crucially important question: Where would she go from here? She ordered her top priorities:

5. Avoid using right wrist.

4. Avoid the police.

3. Find brothers and Carson.

2. Find a payphone.

1. Survive.

None of those helped her answer that question.


"There are many who don't wish to sleep for fear of nightmares. Sadly, there are many who don't wish to wake for the same fear."

Richelle E. Goodrich