"I was hoping this was just going to be a two day job," JJ groaned as she flopped on to the fainted cover of the hotel bed. The team was back in Oklahoma. Enid this time- "The Wheat Capitol of the United States" Reid had excitedly informed them. This time the team was looking for a copycat killer of a recently executed serial killer. They hadn't made much headway on the case yet, returning to their motel rooms tired and frustrated.

Emily laughed at the other woman as she continued to floss her teeth, "I had a feeling."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," The brunette repeated as she lied back on her own bed, starring at the dusty overhead light. She stayed there for a few seconds before turning on her side to look at the other profiler, "If the local cops were smart they wouldn't be living in Ok-la-homa," she drawled out in a singsong voice as JJ starting laughing.

"You're horrible."

"What?"

JJ rolled her eyes at Emily's mock confusion, "Why wouldn't they be good cops just because they're here?"

"I'm just saying, maybe if they were better cops they could've gotten a promotion somewhere else."

"Snob."

Emily cackled at the charge, raising her arms in surrender, "I am not."

"Yeah, you are. Elizabeth Prentiss 2.0…"

Emily faked gasped in horror as she clutched her heart, "How dare you!"

"I only speak truth. Do I really need to record and replay back to you what you just said?" JJ questioned with a laugh.

"Sorry," Emily offered with a teasing glint in her eyes, "I forgot you were down country."

JJ picked up one of her pillows and threw it at the brunette's face, "I'm from Pennsylvania."

"Same thing."

"See," JJ began as she watched Emily get off the bed to dispose of her floss in the bathroom trashcan, "Snob." Emily came back and leaned against the light pine dresser sitting in the middle of the room, watching JJ retrieve the book she had set on the bedside table. "I honestly don't know how I put up with you," The blonde joked, prompting Emily to respond too fast, before she had a chance to question if she should say it.

"You love me." The words hung in the air, milliseconds felt like hours. Emily began to internally panic until she watched JJ lower the book, a devilish look in her eye.

"Yes and it's my greatest character flaw." Emily grinned widely at the joke before frowning when she remembered she really wasn't prepared to stay another day. "What's the matter?"

"I only left two days of food and water out for Sergio. I guess I could ask Garcia, but she has some board game tournament she's going to with some friends from a meeting."

"How come the only one of us who has friends outside of the BAU is Pen?"

"I don't know," Emily said as she bit her bottom lip in thought. "Maybe we're the weird ones?" Emily starts chewing on her thumbnail. "I need to ask a favor and it's weird."

"God, what now?" JJ giggled as she took out her phone to set their early morning alarm.

"Do you think- would it be possible- would it be weird if-"

"Oh for fucks sake, Em."

"Do you think Will could feed Sergio?"

JJ bit her lip contemplating the question. It was a weird request, even though it shouldn't have been.

Emily and JJ were friends.

JJ was dating Will.

Was Will friends with Emily?

Actually, thinking back, JJ thought that Will did consider Emily a friend. She remembered overhearing Will at a work function saying, 'I have a friend who went undercover and it fucked her up big time.' JJ remembered being upset at the time. She didn't say anything, but who was Will to tell Emily's story like that? He seemed so cavalier about it, too. At the time she thought Will had just said it to sound connected, but now she wondered if he really did consider Emily a friend. Friends feed friends' cats for them, right? There it was again, that question of where the line was. They had crossed over it so many times before JJ would get confused about what a normal friendship looked like, until putting it in terms of Garcia. Yes, Garcia would go over and feed Emily's cat. So it wasn't weird. It was the long, arduous method that JJ had been developing since that night when Rossi asked to see a tour of her backyard.

"I'll text him," JJ offers as she closes the clock app and opens up her messages. Will texts back a minute later. Sure, when?

There he was again, the good guy.

Right now? We forgot :/

Will do. Get it? :D

"He says he'll do it."

Emily sighs in relief. She's not only glad that Sergio is going to eat tonight, but that the situation didn't turn out to be nearly as awkward as she worried. "Tell him the key is above the doorframe and thank him for me."

"I will," JJ replied as she sent Will a final message, thanking him and telling him that he can call her later that night before he put Henry to bed.

Emily took it upon herself to lighten the mood, "I would ask Morgan if he wanted to go get some food if I wasn't so afraid of getting a parasite."

"Shut up," JJ laughs, and now she's down another pillow.

A few hours later, Will finds the key with ease and trudges into Emily's apartment. He checks his pockets for his phone, sighing when he realized he left it down in the car. He has no idea where the cat food was, but figures he can find it anyway. "I am a detective after all," He mutters to himself as he heads to the kitchen cabinets. Sure enough he finds the food under the sink and pours a medium-sized portion, enough for the night and a morning snack- in case he can't get over until mid-morning.

It's then when Will's life changes after a series of 'instead of's.'

Instead of just leaving as soon as soon as feeds Sergio, he decides to find the cat. Will concluded that poor cat had been alone for a while and might appreciate a pet or two. He had always been fond of cats, but JJ wasn't big on their family getting a cat or dog. She was right anyway- they had no time for one more living thing. "Sergio? Come out bud," He calls out as he leaves the kitchen.

Instead of being content with yelling his name for a minute or so, Will decides to kneel down and check under Emily's bed- still no Sergio. Unfortunately, his knees are a little sore from a childhood of playing sports and the D.C. humidity.

Instead of plopping down on the floor, he gets up and carefully sits on Emily's bed. He decides he'll straighten it out before he leaves if it looks at all bothered.

Instead of getting up as soon as his knees stop aching, he looks over to the bedside table that has a few real estate listings.

Instead of focusing on the listings, his eye is caught by a shiny object.

It's a single ruby stud earring set in yellow gold. He'd recognize it from anywhere. He was torn on that pair and a pair of sapphires. He has gone with the rubies, but regretted it a few weeks after giving them to JJ. The blue would've brought out her eyes more.

He had bought them for Henry's birthday- the only anniversary JJ wanted to celebrate.

"Fuck," he grumbled as he ran things through his head. It didn't make sense, but it also did. So many things were beginning to add up. He runs his hands through his short hair, pulling at the ends before he pockets the earring.

"They were always so close. They were just so close," he repeats over and over until suddenly getting off the bed and storming out of the apartment, slamming the door as hard as he could, as if it in some way would hurt Emily all the way over in Oklahoma. He wanted to call JJ, tell her to find someone else to feed Emily's damn cat. But he also didn't want to talk to her at all.

So instead of calling her he decides to stew alone, putting together the pieces of the puzzle of his four-year relationship with Jennifer Jareau.