When Jane woke, it was to the sound of cooking.
At first she thought it was another dream, and she almost reached for her notebook … but it wasn't familiar. Not even in that distant, echo of a way.
She opened her eyes.
She was in Rossi's too-nice, too-big house – his too-big, too-nice living room. She'd refused any of his guest bedrooms, and had just curled up on one of his squashy couches to sleep, the night before.
Someone had removed her boots. And her jacket.
She lay there for a moment longer, twisting her torso to look at the ceiling, studying the distinct lack of water stains. As she became more aware, more sounds filtered in from Rossi's kitchen.
"- Spence is going to be out in a couple days," JJ was telling … someone. "Hotch is gonna need another week or two. And Jane …"
"Janey-dear broke out of the hospital a couple nights ago and is now sleeping on my couch," Rossi replied, tone sardonic. "That ship has sailed."
The sound of cooking continued. Plates clinked, food sizled.
She gauged the light – late morning or midday, she'd bet. Brunch, then.
"I'm just glad that after … well, after everything, that Strauss gave us some time off," JJ sighed. "I know that we were supposed to have some anyway – I even told Will, he was so excited – but …"
"But two of our own are in the hospital and the last is pretending to be asleep on my couch."
Jane sat up suddenly, glaring over the back of her temporary cot.
"Pretending nothing, Davey-dear," Jane threw back at him. "The fuck you cooking?"
"Brunch for the mere mortals," He replied, his back to her at the stove – JJ left staring wide-eyed at her. "Spaghett for the grumpy avatar of Hygeia."
"Good," She grumbled, spotting her boots and jacket at the end of the couch. "I hate brunch."
Then she paused, fingers stilling at her laces.
"Wait – did you just call me an avatar of the goddess of cleanliness?"
Jane visited Reid with a pile of books from the multi-volumed Tax Fraud: A History to placate her fellow doctor. Spinner was unimpressed, but she could see his fingers twitching to open them anyway.
"What?" She finally asked after checking him over, fed up with getting the silent treatment. "I'm sorry for crashing in your apartment, okay?"
"You think that's what this is about?" He snapped, disbelieving. "Wow, no. Jane, I wouldn't have cared if you trashed the place."
"Then what?" She threw her hands in the air. "What did I do?"
"You went missing," He growled, showing real anger and – and fear. "Jane, when we didn't know where you and Hotch were … when we found Hotch dying and you were nowhere to be found – "
Her stomach sank. She swallowed roughly, clearing her throat through the rush of unfamiliar emotions, "I must've scared you."
She cleared her throat again.
"Okay, so what do I do?" She asked, pulling herself together - pushing the unwelcome emotions back. "What do I do to make it up to you? I'll do it."
A flash of mischief flit through the genius's eyes, and Jane realized she'd been played. Played with genuine emotion, yes, but still played like a fool.
"Morgan set you up to this?" She guessed, wincing at Spinner's blinding smile of a reply. "See if I do anything for you now."
"Too late, you're a woman of your word," Spinner grinned. "I want to know the story."
She blinked at him, thinking back on what he could've possibly meant - she came up empty.
"What story?"
"The story behind why you call me 'Spinner'," He replied, leaning forward on his hospital bed. "You never told me why."
Well, it wasn't as bad as it could've been. She thought he was going to demand less time off despite his damn leg – which wasn't going to happen, woman of her word or not.
"Do you remember – " She settled in the hospital chair more comfortably, thinking back. " – when we first met?"
"Yeah," Reid snorted, scrubbing a hand across the back of his neck. "It was my first day as a BAU Agent, I was so nervous."
"You were, gosh – " Jane smirked " – You were maybe thirty pounds lighter, and dressed like a college professor. It was before Penny and Jayje intervened on fashion's behalf."
"I wasn't that bad," He protested halfheartedly. (They both knew he was.)
"Anyway, the first time you met me I was having a very bad week," She continued the story, scoffing. "And I wasn't really having the whole 'we're bringing in a trouble magnet for you to take care of, don't let him die' thing that Jay had going on. So I planned to avoid you until I couldn't any longer."
"I forgot how distant you were back then," Spinner nodded, a frown tugging briefly at his lips. "You barely talked."
"You talked enough for both of us," She snorted, dismissing his melancholy. "That's why I call you 'Spinner'?"
"Wh- because I talk a lot?" Reid asked, disgruntled. "That's it?"
"Were you hoping for some dramatic backstory?" She shrugged. "Spinner, you have a way with words … you can take a moment, a topic, and just – spin."
She saw he still wasn't getting it.
"You …" She tugged at her ear. "You're a storyteller, Reid. A magician, a profiler. You take what you know – which isn't some small sum – and you use it. And you spin situations to your advantage, people to your side. And sometimes, yeah, you spin yourself off topic, and have to pull yourself back – but it's all to your gain. You're a spinner, and the fact that it's alphabetically similar to 'Spencer' is really just coincidence."
Spencer – Spinner – just blinked at her in shock for a moment, face surprised.
Probably because the last time she talked that much … she didn't even know. And certainly not about 'feelings'.
Gah. She needed a shower.
"Now," Spinner blinked himself out of his stupor, finding his voice with a grin. "You're off the hook."
"Good," She exhaled, falling back into herself. "I hate talking."
Hotch was asleep when she got there.
She stared at him, tried to find the courage to do …
She didn't even know.
She checked his chart. Made some notes. Gathered her things.
She left him her mp3, set right on his bedside table.
She didn't know what else to do.
When she left the hospital, she was just about to –
She didn't even know.
She just started walking, continuing down the street through the dropping temperatures. She passed libraries and restaurants, stores and –
Oh. That was something.
"Hey, Baby Girl," Morgan finally gave up, calling. "I hate to ask you to do this -"
"Oh, that's a way to start a sentence, Chocolate Thunder," She replied over the line, and he put it on speaker phone for Rossi and Emily. "What can I do? If it has anything to do with -"
"You're on speaker," Emily swiftly nips that in the bud. "Hey, Garcia."
"Oh. Hi." Garcia lost her steam. "Emily. Hello."
"Sorry, Baby Girl," Morgan grimaced. "Wasn't thinking."
"Now there's a first," She regained her footing. "What's going on?"
"We can't find Jane, again," Rossi growled, ignoring Garcia's 'oh, hi Sir'. "She texted Morgan saying she was okay, and going out to clear her head, but she hasn't responded to any calls or texts since."
"Okay, I'm at my home computer," Garcia nodded, her sound shifting as she went to speaker. "But this is going to be less fast – and less legal – if we do it this the safe way."
"That's fine, Baby Girl," Morgan sighed again, irritated that it came to this. "We just need to find her. Cover your tracks and we'll be fine."
"Ohhhh-kay," Garcia said after a minute. "Janey's at – oh."
"What is it?" Emily asked, exchanging glances. "Garcia, what is it?"
"Sorry, I just had to double check," She came back. "Jane's at the corner of – well, she's right where a very high end club is at. The Final Whisper."
Rossi closed his eyes, head tilted back as if in prayer. Fed up, in a word or two.
"It is never simple with her, is it?" Emily asked rhetorically, just as done. "Okay, looks like Morgan and I are going after our little Hippocratic Hypocrite."
She was drunk.
She was very very drunk.
Finally.
Lu was next to her, writhing with the music – her hands and her drink in the air. Connie was all over her, one hand up the back of Lu's shirt and the other clasped around Jane's neck, foreheads together as they bounced to the beat of the DJ's mix.
Everything was melting away. After days and days and days -
Finally, with a shot or five of courage, she was okay.
Then someone grabbed her from behind.
She immediately whipped around, lashing out at the hand on her shoulder – nails coming down in a slash. She caught only a hint of fabric before clawing down someone's arm –
LeFay's arm.
"Th' fuck're yu doin'ere?" She slurred at him, holding out a hand before Lu went all 'Mama-Cop-Bear' on him. "You're sp'sed to be - be somewh're, n't 'ere."
"You're drunk," Morgan spoke slowly, as if she was too drunk to hear or something. "You're coming home with me and Emily."
Oh, Emily was there. That was nice.
"Jane's not going anywhere with you," Lu cut in, taller and bigger than her – and therefore a lot more sober. "Back off."
Emily pulled her creds – right in the middle of the dance floor! – and nodded for LeFay to do the same. "We're her friends, and we just want her safe," Emily tried to placate.
Lu pulled the creds from LeFay's fingers, and Jane realized just how uninterested she was in with whatever they were saying when she saw how pretty Prentiss looked.
"Emily!" She cried, throwing her arms around the taller woman's neck. "O'm'gsh, we should dance. An' drink!"
Emily just smiled, pulling Jane's arms off her neck and down to wrap around her waist.
"How about we go get Penny?" Emily offered, smile wide. "And then we can get Jayje, too – and have a girls night."
Jane was just beginning to think that over when Lu and Connie came up.
"Jane, you gotta go home," Lu frowned at her, stern. "Girl, you shoulda told us you were running from a serial killer."
"Nah," She shook her head forcefully against Emily's side, swiping a hand across her face. "Y'wouldn't've let m'come out."
Connie smiled, ruffling Jane's pony tail and she and Lu melted into the crowd, leaving Jane with her family.
"You need to stop running off," Morgan articulated clearly, nodding to the exit as Emily - bracing Jane against her side with firm hands - followed him. "You're gonna get hurt."
"Didn't git hur yet," She muttered, glad she was still wrapped around Emily.
"Yet," Emily stressed, her fingers spasming against her shoulder. "Yet."
Rossi rushed to the door when his bell went off, and he forced himself to slow to a walk once he reached the foyer.
He opened the door to an odd sight.
Jane was propped up between Emily and Morgan, each of her arms wrapped as far as they would go around their waists. She smiled up sunnily at him, an expression he had never seen on her face, as her gaze wandered around to who-knows-where.
"Just how drunk is she?"
"Very," Emily smiled tightly, an arm around Jane's waist, fingers fisted in a silky maroon club top. "I will never allow her to live this down."
"I still can't believe she would do this – do this again," Morgan growled as Dave stepped aside for them to enter. "She said she wouldn't run off."
"Don't blame her completely," Rossi scolded gently, crouching to remove Jane's painful looking wedges. "Whatever happened before – whatever happened after she got out of Hotch's apartment – messed her up. And even though she can't remember it, she's still trying to deal with it."
"So you're saying that her rash decisions –" Emily extricated herself from Jane's grip "– is just her way of trying to deal with what happened?"
"Most likely."
"Damn," Morgan shook his head, scooping a giggling Jane up in a fireman's carry and dropping her without fanfare back onto Rossi's couch. "You –" He pointed a finger at her, trying for stern and falling short. " – need better coping mechanisms."
She just kept giggling.
"I just got notified," Jane ended her phone call, gathering her satchel and the meager pile of clothes she had – sorting out the ones she borrowed from JJ. "My apartment is open for me again."
"Hold up a moment," Rossi stopped her. "You're not going back there."
Jane stopped and stared at him. "Rossi, it's my apartment. I live there."
"But it's not safe," He insisted, pressing. "You shouldn't go back to somewhere that Foyet knows you've been – and the security there is a nightmare."
"So you mean to tell me that after Aaron gets released that he's not going to go -" She cut herself off, rocking back. "This isn't your idea."
"No, I don't want you going back to that health and safety nightmare either," Rossi corrected her. "But no, I wasn't the driving force."
"Aaron's being paranoid," Jane sighed, dropping her satchel. "How bad is it?"
"He's always checking up on you," Dave relented, dropping into an armchair. "He's worried, Jane. He saw you in Foyet's grasp, and then you were gone for hours. He was terrified for you."
"I just –" She cut herself off, trying to find the words. "I don't need anybody."
"You mean: you've never had anybody," The older man corrects gently. "You don't know how to deal with it, and that's okay. But it's not okay that you won't let us help you."
Jane relented.
"So where am I gonna go?" Jane asked dryly, kicking at the pile of clothes on the ground. "Because Dave, I am not staying with you till one of us kicks the bucket."
"Don't worry," He just smiled. "We'll figure something out."
"Morgan, what the hell are we doing here?" Jane cocked an eyebrow, gazing around one of his restored properties that he had dragged her to. It was an older craftsman, on the smaller side, and was perhaps a 20 mile drive from her old apartment - far enough away to be in one of the nicer neighborhoods. By a good margin.
Pretty, but she had no idea why she was here.
"Just come and see it," Morgan non-answered, nodding for her and Penny – who was attached to her arm like a limpet – to follow him in.
Spartanly decorated, reasonable floor plan. 2.5 baths and 3 bedrooms. Huge, but small. Tasteful.
Was Penny looking to buy or something?
She paused at the foyer, the 10-cent tour coming to a close. She tuned out Morgan's enthusiastic tale of his restoration of … something and stopped to look at the state of the art security system installed in the wall.
Realization hit.
"You want me to move in here."
Morgan went silent and Penny – who still hadn't detached herself from Jane's side – picked up the slack.
"We're all worried, sweetums," The Technical Analyst tries to soothe her. "When we saw what kind of security your apartment had … well, we didn't like it."
She glared at them.
"I can get you a reasonable price, one that won't make you feel like it's charity," Morgan stepped in, cutting to the core of the issue. "This security system is the best on the market, and Hotch is getting the same installed in his apartment. You'll be safe here – we won't have to worry, and nor will you."
Jane sighed, looking at the honest concern in her colleagues' eyes.
She knew she lived in a shithole. God, she paid so little it was no wonder. But after so long working just to pay off her debt to Them –
Well, maybe she forgot that she could spend some money, here and there. She'd certainly accumulated enough.
"Fine, but no one but Penny and Rin know the codes," She acquiesced finally, ignoring Garcia's immediate squeal. "And so help me LeFay, if you lose money cuz you're selling to a friend I will skin you."
Jane was packing her things into three cardboard boxes.
Just three. Her life was the contents of three little boxes.
It was more than she expected. Before, she always thought of her things as the contents of her satchel and the clothes in her rucksack, and even that felt forigen.
Guess she'd accumulated more, over the last six years.
She was just dropping the last of Garcia's overcolored gifts into the final box when she heard the knocking at the door.
"You should've asked who it was," Aaron's first words came when she opened the door, frowning. "I could've been anyone."
"Like Foyet?" Jane deadpans, leaving the door open for him to follow. "I'm donating the rest of the furniture later today, so enjoy the squeaky-couch while it lasts."
She heard him sit down heavily – heralded by the creak of old metal – and left him to catch his breath with a trace of dignity as she folded the flaps of the boxes, trying to shove them into the overlapping state that she never could get right on the first try.
By the time she's got them all shut – resolving to buy tape next time – he's pulled himself together.
"You stopped visiting," He speaks softly, and Jane closed her eyes, cursing silently.
Damnnit, Rossi.
"They wouldn't let me," She got out, voice strangled. "I wanted to -"
"But they wouldn't let you," He repeated hollowly. "I just … I wanted to know you were safe."
"You could've called me," She deadpanned, pulling a sharpie from her satchel. "I always answer when you call."
The only sound in the apartment was the squeak of marker on cardboard.
"I didn't want to worry you."
"Well, which is it, then?" She whipped around to face him, throwing the marker on the counter and crossing her arms. "Because honestly? You can't seem to make up your damn mind."
Goddamnnit he looked taken aback. The asshole.
"Look, you big baby," She strode forward to jab a finger in his chest. "You need to get over yourself."
He just blinked.
"This –" She waved her hand around her bare apartment " – is because of you. You said my apartment wasn't safe, you said that I needed a new place. You said 'jump' and I said 'okay, Rin, how high you want that?' and played along because this is what you needed. Not what I wanted."
"Foyet knows where you live –"
"Yeah, I know he does!" She exclaimed, crossing her arms again furiously. "And he's a computer genius. He's going to find me again, Aaron. He's probably got eyes on both of us 24/7 – but you are staying in your apartment. I'm not. And that was because I let you decide for me."
Hotch went silent and still.
"But the thing is," She took the harshness out of her voice. "Is that you seem to have forgotten that I deal with things best by ignoring them. I was just gonna live in the same apartment I got attacked in because I wasn't going to let it get me, just like you aren't letting Foyet get you. So the extra security measures? The sudden move? It's not making me 'not worry,' Aaron. It's making it so I can't forget about it. And that's as good as worrying, for me."
"I'm sorry," He massaged his temples, eyes clenched shut. "But –"
"But I need the security measures," She supplies for him, relaxing her stance. "And that's why I'm playing along. I know I need them, just as much as you do. But I'm sorry, Aaron, you can't try and keep me from worrying - it's just gonna backfire."
"I know," He sighed, his jaw flexing. "I know. And I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry," She mustered a smile for him. "Just – stop trying to keep things from me, okay?"
She reached out, the first time since he got hospitalized, and gripped his wrist in her hand. Counted his heartbeats.
And with a deep breath, he unclenched his free hand and rested two careful fingers on her wrist, right over her pulse point.
"He's not in yet."
Morgan paused in his path, backing up to Rossi's open door.
"What?"
"You've been walking past Hotch's office for an hour," Rossi twisted a pen between his fingers. "Jane's picking him up."
"Hotch told me she cleared him to drive," Morgan stepped into the office further.
"She did," Rossi nodded. "Jane wanted to do it."
Morgan tried to keep his jaw from tensing at that, but he saw Rossi's eyes go straight to his chin. After his twitch, Dave clearly geared up into profiling mode. "What's going on?"
No use beating around the bush, apparently. Derek crossed to a chair, sitting down for the long talk that was inevitably going to happen.
"He's only had a month off, Rossi."
"Technically, 34 days," The older profiler tilted an eyebrow.
"And you think that's long enough?"
"You don't? Tell him."
Morgan snorted, holding up his hands in surrender.
"No, thanks, I like my job." He shook his head.
"You like him more," Rossi pointed out.
The office went silent.
"I think the number of days isn't what's really on your mind," Rossi told him, sharp as ever. "What's really going on?"
"It's -" Derek tried to find the right words. "Almost everything is expected. He's gone hypervigilant, he's pretending everything is normal – hell, the only reason I think he got past his evaluations is because we wrote those questions. But him and Jane …"
"You're worried about, what, a budding romance?" Dave joked.
"No, I'm worried about codependency – or just plain dependency," Morgan grit his jaw. "Jane visits all the time, and Hotch calls in to check on her four or five times a day. When he's not profiling Foyet, he's hovering around her."
"They went through a traumatic experience together," Rossi sat forward. "And even if Jane doesn't remember most of it, Hotch does. Haley and Jack are gone – he can't help them – but he does have Jane."
"And, what, we let this go on?" Morgan asked, really asked. "Because if one of them gets threatened in the field again – if Jane gets threatened – then how is he gonna react?"
Rossi didn't have an answer for him.
"Thanks," Reid smiled at Garcia, settling into one of her spare office chairs.
"Does it hurt?"
"It only really hurts when I think about it – which is pretty much all the time," He joked. "But Jane says that if I keep off of it, I'll be switching these bad boys – " He gestured to his crutches " – out for a cane in no time."
"How is she?" Garcia asked, batting his hands away from a box of very delicious looking cookies, passing him a sucker instead. "Like, really, how is she?"
"Confused," He found the right word after a moment, sticking the cherry candy into his mouth. "Hotch was there, getting stabbed, as she was drugged on the floor. She only has memories of her apartment being broken into, and he has three days worth of worry and overall trauma."
"So she doesn't get why he's so freaked out?" Garcia asked, shuffling her babules nervously. "So protective. I mean, he basically made her move."
Reid gives her a look, betraying how much he knew about her involvement with that whole thing. She primmly ignores it.
"No, she gets it," He shook his head, dismissing the thought. "But she doesn't get how it's manifesting."
"Manifesting ho-"
"Spence, there you are," JJ interrupted them. "Grab your go bag."
Aaron was just clipping his gun to his belt when he heard a knock.
Half an ear on the news from Louisville, he made his way to the door, checking the peephole before letting out a sigh of relief.
"Jane," He greeted his friend with a small smile she returned. "Hey."
"Hey yourself," She stepped in, scanning his place. "You ready to go?"
"I will be," He double checked his go bag. "You made it here alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," Her cheeks twitched into a smile. She held out her hand.
Something loosened in him, familiar habits.
He extended his wrist, and her fingers found his pulse point. And once she got settled … pushing the part of him that was embarrassed aside, he brought over his second hand to feel for her pulse as well, steadying himself against her increasingly-familiar beat.
He counted beats before she finished, but didn't have the experience to put them into context. It steadied him all the same.
She smiled at him, a little longer. He gathered his things. She crossed the room to punch in his code, glancing over her shoulder at him just before she hit 'enter.'
"Ready," He confirmed, shoulders back.
And they walked out the door.
Jane was crouched over the blood pool of the first victim, the stock boy, when she heard Hotch get agitated.
"And when were you gonna tell us this?" Hotch snaps at the pharmacist. "He's armed, he's delusional – who's his doctor?"
Jane stood up quickly, making her way around the bloodstains to where the Unit Chief was staring down a flustered and upset woman.
She tugged up her sleeve and slipped her wrist into Hotch's hand, his fingers curling around it in an automatic reflex. She saw him take a steadying breath.
"Great," He breathed in – cutting over the pharmacist – and then out again. "Great."
Then he released her wrist, pulling out his phone and walking away – Morgan following after, leaving her with the confused pharmacist to reassure.
"A minivan was stolen one block from here," Lieutenant Mitchell came up to them. "Call's never driven in his life – you think he's still not running from us?"
"Which way?" Rossi asked instead of answering.
"Eastbound. I got roadblocks set up everywhere." Mitchell frown deepened. "He's not getting out of this county."
"You're wasting your time," Hotch declared, standing stock still as they walked away.
"He's outnumbered," Mitchell spread his hands, fed up. "You think he's gonna just disappear?"
"I think he took the boy for a reason," Hotch pressed.
"I don't care why he took him," Mitchell came back at him.
"You should," Hotch stepped up to meet him. "Call's memory is no longer suppressed, he's reinventing his past." Jane's face flashed in his mind's eye. "He's reinventing his past, and unless we understand how – we're not gonna find either of them."
"Well, I'm not gonna just sit around and speculate."
"Then don't."
Rossi backed him up, even though Hotch could see he didn't agree. Mitchell walked away.
"There's a kid missing," Emily lowered her voice, approaching him.
"They don't need the extra manpower," Hotch defended himself, scanning the crowd for Jane – she was next to Morgan, and her gun was on her belt.
"Since when?"
"If we'd studied Foyet's initial crimes, we would have known that a survivor didn't make sense," Hotch insisted.
"What does he have to do with this?" Emily asked, voice practiced and patient.
"All we had to do was stop and look at Foyet's history, and we didn't," He lamented. "And we lost two couples and a bus full of people. And I'm not making that mistake again."
He walked back toward their SUVs, but not before he checked that Jane was still with Morgan, still safe.
"You ran into that building."
Hotch tensed, then relaxed as Jane stepped into his office. His fingers itched to feel her pulse, to have proof that she was fine, but he held back.
(Oh, so that's how Jane always felt.)
"I saved that kid."
"Yeah, and put yourself at risk," Jane shook her head, hands flexing against her biceps. "You – we – need to stop this."
"Stop what?" He dared to ask, not able to look at her.
"You're picking up my mannerisms," Jane states bluntly, fingers digging into her arms. "You're checking pulses, being hypervigilant with location and health, reckless with yourself, overly cautious with others, distrustful and dismissive of all not within your inner circle – and it's all centered around me."
"Jane -"
"So we're going to have to stop," She cuts him off, forcing the both of them into eye contact. "Because Morgan being a little distrustful is the least of our worries. Because my coping mechanisms are unhealthy and the only reason they've never gotten in the way of my work is because I developed them with my work. You have had no such luxury, and it's screwing us over."
Hotch knew she was right.
"So, what?" He asked, dread twisting his stomach. "I stop taking your pulse, you stop letting me?"
"So, I stop coming around for dinner," She stated shakily, before firming up. "Morgan's concerned about codependency, I don't have to be a profiler to know that. Hotch, we're inseparable, and at some point that is going to affect both of our judgements."
"So we distance ourselves," He concludes hollowly. "I develop healthier habits, and you stop letting me depend on you."
"Yeah," She replied, just as hollowly. "Yeah."
She left his office.
The sound of the door shutting behind her echoed like a cannon shot.
"He's going to end up like me."
Rossi paused as he exited his office, turning to see Jane sat beside his doorway – sitting in the dark hallway and twisting a bright pink bowler hat between her fingers.
"You say that as if it's a bad thing," He goes with, forcing his protesting knees to lower himself next to her.
"It is if you really know what I'm like, what I'm really like," Jane counters dryly, eyes locked on the fluorescent felt. "I scare myself sometimes. When I realize just how much I'm like the people you chase."
"We chase," He corrects. "And I scare myself sometimes, too."
They sit in silence. The janitor passes by to empty the bullpen's trash bins.
"I think you did the right thing," Rossi finally says. "You don't think so, but Hotch knows it's right, too. You can't afford to hurt the team, or each other."
"I know it was right," Jane thumps her head back against the wall. "But why does it still feel wrong?"
"Because you love him," Rossi states bluntly, quirking a smile at the face she pulled. "Platonically or not, you love him. And it's hard to let go of the people you love."
"If you tell me to 'let him go' if I love him," Jane warns, a note of warning creeping into her voice. "Then maybe I should give you a reason to use a couple weeks worth of those sick days you've accumulated."
"No need to get aggressive," He defended lightly, pushing himself off the floor. "But Jane."
He waited until she reluctantly made eye-contact with him.
"It's going to be okay."
"I know," Jane sighed heavily, scrubbing a hand across his face. "I know."
