"He didn't want to leave." She said it quietly.
"What? So he had no choice in the matter?" JJ sarcastically spun around to face Elle.
"It's complicated okay? Not everything is black and white and this is very much gray."
Reid didn't hear the argument that followed he was lost in his own thoughts, far away from this angry room and back to where this had all began.
'I will be okay.' He repeated this to himself as Tobias tortured him for hours he thought of this and only one other thing. JJ. He had to be okay to get back to her and tell her that none of this was her fault.
As he drove faster and faster away from her house he repeated the same thoughts. The tears pouring down her face he saw in the blur of his own. Just once more and then no more for her he would find a way to stop even if that meant telling Hotch the next morning. That was what he would do, just walk into his office and tell him 'No. I am not okay. I am a drug addict and I am very much not okay.' Hotch could make this all go away
But tonight just this one last time he reached for his bag. The car careened off the road and hit the gravel shoulder. He lost control and heard the metallic crunch of the car hitting the tree.
His head hit the stirring wheel and he was in blackness.
Two days later he woke up in a hospital with no windows, a government facility he was told by the staff that also told him that officially he was dead. He looked at pictures of his burnt car and the body he was told would convince his team. He thought of her of what this would do to her.
He watched the news as his funeral was broadcast and wondered who Hotch had lied to, to get the news people to think he had died bravely while actively working a case. There's no coming back from this he thought. JJ didn't cry, he had watched her at the funeral, she didn't cry. Maybe this was for the best. Maybe he should just let her go.
The memories flooded into his mind. It was a couple of weeks later when he was sent to Vegas to help with an actual case. Elle met him on the runway after the plane landed and for an instant he wanted so badly to tell her of JJ. It was then that he realized that she was the agent who had requested his help, she was one of them and they already knew. They had told him all the horrible things that would be done to her to his JJ if she found out about him.
His head was starting to hurt from the yelling of everyone in the room.
"You know what JJ I really don't have the time for this right now." Elle stood and walked to the door. "Reid what do you want me to tell them?"
"Tell them I'll be right there." He looked down at the floor afraid of what the others would say to his leaving for the second time in as many months.
"What? You're leaving again." She was barely holding on at this point.
"I have to, JJ." He walked to her with everyone watching. "I love you so much it hurts. I wish I could hold you forever." He wrapped his arms around her. "But if I don't go back, they're gonna hurt you JJ."
"The fuck they are." Morgan had finally found something that deserved his anger.
"When did that…they happen?" Elle leaned toward Gideon as she whispered.
"Not completely sure." He replied.
"I …didn't know. He never…" She looked down at the floor. She knew that on occasion the agency had threatened to take away someone dear to help gain operatives but she thought that Reid had joined after hearing she needed his help.
"Reid I'm so sorry. Please know that I didn't know okay? We'll fix this, we'll find a way." Elle looked at them holding each other and longed to make this right.
"No, we won't. This is what it is. And right now it's goodbye." He held her close. "You are my reason for waking up each day. You JJ are the only reason I have and I can't…I can't let anything happen to you. Do you understand? Please forgive me, I have to go now." He pulled away.
"Reid, come back to me someday?" Hotch moved toward her, knowing what a broken heart felt like.
"I'll try." He walked out of the room and their lives.
AN- Again i'm sorry this is short but it kinda has to be... so I need your feedback. Where do you, the readers, think this story should go from here? I was thinking this may be the end? If you want more let me know. If you hate this let me know. If you don't review then that's the end. PLEASE R+R
