Broken

Chapter 35

Emily looked up sharply at the sound of a knock on her door.

"Oh, hi! What's up? Do we have a case?"

Although any cases should have come through her first.

Reid chose a cryptic response.

"Maybe." Then, without understanding why, he decided to temper it. "Maybe two."

Am I afraid to anger her? Really? I mean, what more have I got to lose?

But the center of him knew. He still valued her friendship. He still harbored some resentment, despite his best efforts to prove it illogical. But he still valued her friendship. He valued her. It would have been painful enough to have been left to languish in Milburn by some unnamed FBI bureaucrat. But it had been excruciatingly painful to have been left there by his friend, even if his logical mind could agree that she'd had no practical choice to do otherwise.

For all the progress he'd made…..and he had made progress, cognitively at least….he didn't quite trust himself emotionally. So he'd chosen to dilute his discussion of his own case with that of another.

Emily was too good a profiler not to see the turmoil within her old friend, and she'd correctly surmised the reason for it. She'd been suffering some continued turmoil herself, about the same thing. Not quite sure she was ready for the conversation, she pushed ahead anyway. The ambassador's daughter knew when it was time to confront the inevitable.

"Two? Okay, tell me about them."

He started with the less challenging.

"You know that I've been working with the Innocence Project, right? Well, I think I might have found something." He explained what he'd been doing, profiling and reverse-profiling cases, looking for likely wrongful incarcerations. "At first it was a slow process. I couldn't really focus all that well. But I developed a rhythm….I think it actually helped me get back my profiling skills after my time…'away'." Pausing, struck just as much as Emily was by his use of the euphemism. "Anyway, I've been moving much more quickly, and I've probably reviewed hundreds of cases without finding a likely candidate. But this one….not only do I think he's innocent, I think it's got the characteristics of a serial."

Emily's raised brows reflected her interest, so he explained his reasoning, all of which seemed sound to the unit chief. Reid concluded with a request.

"And I'd like permission to have Garcia search for similars."

"Of course. In fact, I can convene the team…"

"No. Let me look into it a little more before we take up anyone else's time."

Not quite sure why he was being so possessive of the case, except that it connected back to the Project. And that, at least for the time being, was his, and his alone.

"All right, whatever you want. So… you said there were two cases? What's the other one?"

Reid took a breath. It was time, and he felt ready. As he spoke, he drilled her eyes with his.

"Mine. The way I was set up. The mole."

She couldn't look away, so powerful was his gaze.

"You still want to pursue the idea that we have a mole."

Reid shook his head. "No, not the idea. We do have a mole. I want to pursue him."

"Him. So you have an idea who our mole is?"

She might have been humoring him, but her phrasing kindled a bit of hope in Reid.

"Does that mean you believe me?"

Emily broke eye contact long enough to regroup.

"Spencer, I want to believe you. I want to believe there's some way to make sense of everything that happened. But I can tell you that the brass think they've already made sense of it. They're laying all of the blame at the feet of Cat Adams."

Reid flashed back on the one, brief meeting to which he'd been summoned.

"I don't think so."

"What?" Surprised to be challenged on this particular item.

"I think they knew they had a mole. That's why they let me go on not notifying the Bureau about my travel."

It had been his only real transgression, but it might have served as an adequate excuse, if they'd been inclined to get rid of him.

Emily Prentiss felt torn. If he was right, it would mean that she'd missed something else. But it would also mean that there was still something she could do to help him. It would mean that she could stop being helpless, and that he could stop feeling so.

"Tell me."

He did, everything, from the research into what information about him was available and where, and when, to his suspicion of the role of Peter Lewis, and his minion at the NSA.

"It makes sense, Emily."

She was still absorbing what he'd told her, and shaking her head.

"It doesn't make sense. Not sense. Nothing connected with Peter Lewis ever does. But I have to agree that it's possible. And where Scratch is involved, 'possible' is good enough." She looked up at him. "If you want to pursue this, I'll approve it. But we'll need to be subtle. Like, exceedingly subtle. If he's as good as he seems, he'll know we're investigating."

"I will be. I've been working mostly with paper, so he'd have to have eyes in the bullpen to know."

It struck both of them at the same time, and they said it in stereo.

"He might!"

Reid was the first to regroup.

"I'll have Garcia do an electronic sweep."

Emily was right behind him.

"Good, but that won't be enough. NSA has plenty of stealth equipment. We'll need visual as well. We should have Luke do it."

Reid reacted, not quite ready to bring anyone but JJ and Garcia into it.

"I can do it."

Emily read between the lines.

"We're going to need to work as a team on this." Seeing his continued hesitation, she added, "Please. It's time. It's past time."

He would never know if he'd responded to their history, or to the logic of it. It did, after all, make sense that someone other than himself explore the BAU for espionage devices, and Luke had used them in his fugitive task force work. So, for whichever reason, Spencer Reid agreed to let the rest of his team into 'his' case.

"All right. But we'll need to brief them outside the BAU."

Reid smiled as he came back down the stairs and caught JJ doing her best to look like she'd been immersed in a file, and not watching Emily's office door for fireworks.

"It's all right. She's on board."

JJ's brows went up. "She is? That's great!"

"Uh-huh. But we shouldn't discuss it here."

"We shouldn't?" Remembering that they already had.

"No, not until we've swept it both visually and electronically."

Purposely angling his face down as he spoke.

"But…"

"I know. It's too late now. We'll just need to be more careful going forward."

Regretting that it was just possible that he'd already inadvertently tipped his NSA nemesis that he was on to him.

JJ nodded her understanding.

"Okay. So…."

"So, let's go for a walk."

There were two fitness loops on the grounds, one serving as the track for the gym, and the other running a more interesting path through some of the wooded acreage. They chose the latter.

"Emily thinks we should have the whole team involved."

"Are you okay with that?" Knowing all the reasons he might not be, but hoping that he was.

Reid nodded. "I realize that I can't stay on the team if I can't fully integrate with it. So I have to get past how I feel, and move forward. I can't hold on to the distrust."

When they'd gone several steps without JJ responding, Reid realized how it might have sounded to her.

"Present company excepted, of course."

She smiled.

"Present company is always on your side, Spence."

He grinned, and squeezed her shoulder.

"I know. So, Emily's going to get Rossi to invite the team to his place for cocktails, and we'll brief everyone then. I'll have Garcia do a detailed electronic sweep, but Emily thinks we need a visual one as well, and she's probably right. She suggested Luke for that, but it doesn't mean we can't all be alert to it. And then we'll need a plan to either draw him out, or trace everything back to him."

"How would you prove it was him? I mean, you can trace the information, and the path it took, but how will you place the specific person at the end of that path?"

He nodded, having already considered it. "That's why I think we'll have to draw him out. But we need more information first."

"Pen will give it her best shot, you know that."

"I do. I need to get her working on another case, too." He told her about the possible serial he'd come across in his work with IP.

"Wow! So working with Clare may help you save an innocent man and get a predator put away. I'm impressed!"

The mention of Clare made him realize they'd never talked about the meeting of the two. Curiosity overwhelmed hesitancy, and he asked her.

"Did you enjoy brunch?" Did you like Clare?

"It was fun. I think you might have a rival for her affection, though."

"Huh?"

"All Henry could talk about at dinner that night was 'Clare said this' and 'Clare liked that'. Then, when I said something about her being your girlfriend, he got this look on his face, like he hadn't realized. It was pretty comical."

Reid didn't quite know what to make of that, reacting both to JJ identifying Clare as his girlfriend, and Henry trying to horn in on him.

But at least he liked her. Reid had become very familiar with the ability of a child to see into one's soul.

"Well, Clare was pretty fond of him, too."

"Did she meet your mom?"

"She did. It went surprisingly well."

JJ rubbed his shoulder. "So it's all good, right?"

He shrugged. "Is it? I still haven't heard what my best friend thought."

JJ was silent for a few more steps.

"Spence, you can't base a relationship on whether or not your friends like the person."

Can you?

"Does that mean you didn't like her?"

Feeling both a little irritated and concerned. He really didn't trust himself emotionally yet, and needed his best friend to be his emotional sounding board. Or so he thought.

"No, of course not! She's lovely, Spence. Really, she is. I'm just … I guess I'm just protective where you're concerned, and I want someone really special. I'm fussy."

"You didn't like her."

JJ took him by the arm and turned him, halting their progress.

"I'm not saying that. In fact, I did like her, very much. We had a chance to talk a little when you were on the phone with Mountain Laurel, and she made it clear to me how much she cares about you."

"She did?"

"Yes."

Not telling him the rest, about how the two women had bonded over their concern for him, especially in light of his PTSD. JJ wasn't sure Reid would be happy to think of them coming together over his vulnerability, and their determination to protect him.

She also wasn't prepared to tell him about the soul-searching that meeting Clare had precipitated, but not so much for his sake as for hers. JJ had been taken aback when she found herself ruminating on Clare…and mostly on her best friend…in the middle of the night.

He's always been there, always. He's been my constant. I know Will is, too. But Spence was there even before Will, and he's been there through everything, and in our business, that really means 'everything'. And he's still here.

For the duration of his time in prison, she'd been in existential pain, with him, for him and without him. She'd agonized over what he'd been going through, and then agonized again at having to experience that worry without her best friend there to support her.

The idea that there might be someone else who would supplant her place in his life had thrown her off balance, even though she'd known, on some level, that this time would come. In truth, she'd prayed for it to come, prayed for him to have someone to come home to each night, and a family to look forward to. But, now that the time might be near, she found herself to be apprehensive. At first, she'd tried to dismiss it as worry that Clare might not be right for him, might hurt him one day, might become a source of sorrow, as had Maeve. Then she'd thought it was because it might not be the right time for him, so soon after his ordeal.

And then, she'd been struck with the truth.

It's me. I'm not ready.

She hadn't been totally honest with him this morning, when she'd blamed her mood on single-parenting in Will's absence. It had been equally as much caused by the brutally honest conversation she'd had with herself the night before.

You know he loves you. You know he's enamored of you, and you just soak it up and let him be that way. And some part of you realizes that he's morphed from 'the little brother you never had' into someone you find attractive. Someone you're flattered to have attracted to you. Someone you're maybe just a little bit in love with.

They'd never discussed it, but she was sure he was equally aware. Years ago, when they'd gone on their first and only date, there had been nothing between them but a shared newness to the BAU, uncertainty born of inexperience. But in the years since, affection had formed, and deepened, and grown into a true, rooted love, grounded in admiration, and respect, and, on occasion, longing. But, awareness aside, JJ knew that neither of them would ever dream of acting on it. It wasn't who they were. It wasn't who they wanted to be.

Still, it's always been there, and I can feel it. I'm going to have to let go. And I miss him already, even as he's walking beside me!

Which he was doing, while also now staring at her because she'd been quiet for so long.

"You okay?"

JJ flashed him a look, wondering if there was a deeper meaning to the question. But all she could see in his eyes was concern.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just…..things are changing, I can feel it."

"What's the saying? 'No man steps in the same river twice.' Things have to change, don't they?"

"I guess." She tried to shake the mood away, literally. "Never mind me. You asked about Clare. She's great. And if she makes you happy, she's stupendous."

He grinned. "It's not like we're in a real relationship yet. That takes time, especially for me. But I'm glad that you like her. I like her, too."

JJ looked at him, to see if he was kidding, but he wasn't.

I should have known better. You're Spence. You're willing to take your time with Clare, aren't you? You're willing to 'like' her, and not about to rush into loving her. And here, I've just leapt right past you and into the rest of your life.

All she could do was to laugh at herself. For the moment, it felt good.