Chapter Twenty: One Way or Another

"Grief is the price we pay for love." -Queen Elizabeth II

Two days later, Will and JJ walked through the front door of their home, each carrying one of the boys' car seats.

"You sure you got that okay?" Will asked, eyeing JJ carrying Henry.

"Don't worry, I won't drop him," JJ quipped.

"Alright," Will said hesitantly.

So what if he was worried about his son and girlfriend? That was his job.

Once they'd gotten the boys settled upstairs, JJ flopped backward onto their bed.

"Is it bad that I'm already exhausted?" she asked.

Will laid down beside her, laughing.

"Well, just think about it, we only have to do this for 18 more years," he replied.

JJ smacked Will playfully on the arm.

"You're not helping,".

Will leaned forward, pressing his lips against JJ's. When after a minute or so, they came up for air, Will gently brushed a piece of JJ's hair aside.

"I love you," he told her.

"I love you, too," she replied as she put her head on his shoulder, his bicep resting under her head.

"Any chance you wanna marry me now?" Will joked.

"Maybe later," JJ replied, giving him another kiss.

JJ, who'd originally only wanted to take eight weeks of maternity leave, was now regretting that choice. The first couple of weeks with their boys had flown by, and they were now two months old, meaning JJ was set to return to work.

"Maybe I should just quit," she joked as she ate her breakfast.

"C'mon you've been dying to go back to work," Will reminded her.

Will was taking a full six months off of work, which had been part of their deal when JJ discovered she was pregnant. She hadn't wanted to take a lot of time off work, and she didn't want their kids with a nanny 24/7, so Will offered to stay home full-time for the first few months. Now, JJ couldn't tell if she felt bad for him or was jealous.

Tate came down the stairs, her school bag slung over her shoulder.

"Morning," she said, grabbing a piece of bacon from JJ's plate.

"Tate, don't you think I should stay for a few more weeks?" JJ asked her, hoping the girl would take her side.

"No, cause by tomorrow you'll be blaming us for letting you stay home," the girl quipped.

"She has a point," Will said.

"But-" JJ began.

"We'll be fine, alright. What's the worst that could happen?" Will interrupted her.

"I could think of a lot of things," Tate offered.

"Yeah, yeah, just eat your breakfast, huh?" Will told the girl.

She smirked, but sat down and dug into her breakfast.

"By the way," JJ said, looking at Tate. "What do you wanna do for your birthday?".

It was the last week of May, and Tate's birthday was the sixth of June, meaning JJ and Will needed to find something to get the girl.

Tate shrugged her shoulders slightly.

"I don't really care," she said finally.

"What do you mean?" Will asked, slightly confused.

"Guess I'm just not one for birthdays".

JJ was about to question that when a knock at the door saved Tate from the interrogation she knew was coming.

"That must be Ellie, I gotta go," she told them, grabbing her bag as she hopped off the stool.

"Have a good day, kiddo," Will said.

Tate quickly said goodbye to the boys, who were resting in a bassinet by the counter, before rushing out the door to meet Ellie.

"What kid doesn't like birthdays?" JJ asked Will.

"I dunno, but would you look at that? It's time for you to head to the office".

JJ sighed and climbed down off the kitchen stool. Will wrapped his arms around her and gave her a hug, before pressing a kiss to her forehead.

"We'll be fine, alright? You got nothing to worry about," he assured her.

And JJ knew, deep down, that they would be, but leaving them like this made her feel like an awful mother. What would she do when the twins were older and wondered why their mom was never around?

She picked Henry up and cuddled him for a moment, before switching to Kit.

"You're gonna be late," Will said gently.

"I know," she said, breathing in Kit's baby smell one more time.

She put him down in the bassinet next to his brother and fixed his little cap that had slid down towards his eyes.

"Bye, boys. Mommy loves you," she whispered quietly.

The next few days were a struggle at work. The case was strange, the killer was embalming his victims, and all JJ kept thinking about was Kit and Henry. However, when they got back to the BAU, there was a surprise waiting for her.

Will was standing in the center of the office, talking to Garcia, with a stroller by his side.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, kissing him before bending down to pick up Henry.

"Well, the boys missed their mama, so I thought we'd stop by for a quick visit," Will explained.

Emily had come over and grabbed Kit out of the stroller, and she and Emily were now cooing over him.

"We're always happy to have a visit from our godsons, isn't that right, Hotch?" Emily asked Hotch, who was standing in the doorway, watching his team with a smile on his face.

"Of course," he said, "but if you'll excuse me, I have some work to do in my office".

As he walked by Kit and Emily, he stopped and gently rested his hand on the boy's head, before continuing into the office.

"That's about as affectionate as Hotch will ever get," Morgan joked.

After they left the office, Will and JJ went over to the high school to see Tate's soccer game. The girl had made it onto the varsity team, despite only being a freshman, and had been enjoying playing once again. Tate was a striker, the same position JJ had played when she was in high school, and JJ was secretly glad about it, although she would have been fine with her playing any position.

The game was against the school's biggest rival, so most of the students were at the game. As Tate scored a goal, Will heard a distinct whistling noise coming from a section of kids on the other side of the field, and spotted Carter Fuller with a group of his friends.

He scoffed, and JJ followed his line of sight to see what he was looking at.

"Oh, calm down," she said, hitting him on the shoulder.

"I just don't think she should be hanging out with that boy," he told JJ.

"She finally has a group of friends she actually likes, and you're upset about that?" JJ asked.

"I like Ellie and Lucy just fine, it's those boys that I think are bad news".

"Will, they're perfectly nice kids," JJ argued.

And she meant what she said, Carter was a good kid. He was responsible, always did well in school, didn't seem to be smoking or doing drugs or something, and he was always polite. Carter always referred to JJ as "Agent Jareau" or "ma'am", names that were a million times better than "Mrs. LaMontagne", which one of Tate's teachers had called her.

"She's 13 years old, she doesn't need to be hanging with boys," Will claimed.

"Almost 14, and they're just friends," JJ reminded him.

Will huffed but went back to watching the game.

"Did you talk to her about her birthday?" JJ asked, watching the girl run up the field.

"She says she doesn't wanna do anything," Will informed her.

"Did she say why?".

"Nope, just kept changing the subject every time I brought it up".

JJ sighed, but she knew Will had tried. If Tate didn't want to talk about something, then there was no talking about it, it was that simple. If you tried again, she'd just talk circles around the subject.

Two days before Tate's birthday, JJ woke up to a call from Hotch. Surprise, surprise, they had a case.

While Will made breakfast, JJ quickly got ready and grabbed her go-bag. As she came out of her bedroom, she noticed Tate still hadn't made her way downstairs. The girl was usually up and ready for school on time without any prompting, so it was unusual behavior for her.

"Tate?" JJ asked, knocking on the girl's door.

"I'll be down in a minute," Tate called through the door.

JJ went back downstairs, sitting down at the counter so she could quickly eat breakfast.

Tate joined Will and JJ a few minutes later, but simply picked at her breakfast, not really eating anything.

"Everything alright, chérie?" Will asked.

"Yeah, I'm just not hungry, I guess," Tate said quietly.

JJ leaned forward to feel the girl's forehead, but it didn't seem hot.

"You aren't warm, do you feel sick?" JJ asked.

Tate was shaking her head when JJ heard a knock on the front door.

"I gotta go, that's Ellie and Carter," Tate said.

Will glanced over at JJ, equally concerned about Tate. She wasn't usually this quiet, and she always ate breakfast. Besides that, something just seemed off about her.
JJ shrugged her shoulders, not sure what to do.

"I better get to the office," JJ said, heading toward the door with Tate.

Will went outside to see them off and saw Noah, Ellie, Tate, and Carter about to continue their walk to school. Ben and Lucy usually got dropped off, but the others walked together every morning.

Knowing Ellie and Tate would walk ahead of the boys, Will grabbed Carter's arm, hoping Tate wouldn't notice his absence for a few minutes.

"Do me a favor, Carter?" he asked the boy.

"Sure, Detective," the boy said, eager to help.

JJ was right, Will realized. Carter was a pretty good kid, and it was hard not to like him.

"Keep an eye on Tate today, okay?" Will said, keeping his voice low so Tate wouldn't hear.

Carter looked over at Tate, slightly confused, but nodded anyway.

"Alright, I will," he promised Will, before jogging off to catch up with the others.

JJ was sitting on the plane, quietly doing a crossword, since the team had already gone over the case. They were set to arrive in Texas in an hour, and she was taking advantage of the downtime.

Her phone rang, and she quickly answered it, hoping she didn't wake up certain members of the team that were napping.

"Agent Jareau," she said into the phone.

"Agent Jareau, this is Jack Fitzpatrick," she heard a man's voice saying.

"Oh, yes, Detective, thank you so much for getting back to me".

"I managed to get it released from evidence, so if you could just give me an address I can mail it down to you," the man told her.

JJ provided him with their address, before thanking him once again and hanging up the phone.

"Who was that?" Spencer asked, and JJ noticed Hotch and Emily listening as well.

"Jack Fitzpatrick," JJ informed him.

"The detective from the Jacobs case?" Hotch asked.

Most of the team always referred to Theo's murder as the Jacobs case, it helped them from getting too upset over it, and it was more professional.

"Yeah, I was just seeing if I could get something released from evidence for Tate".

"Her birthday's coming up, right?" Emily asked.

"Yeah, it's on Friday".

"D-Day," Spencer said, butting in.

"Huh?" JJ asked, confused.

"June 6th, it'll be 64 years since D-Day," Spence explained.

"Oh, well, anyway, it doesn't really matter. Tate apparently isn't a fan of birthdays," JJ told the group.

"What kid doesn't like birthdays?" Derek spoke up from the back of the plane.

"That's what I said," JJ replied. "She's been acting weird recently. Quiet,".

"Perhaps it's a grief reaction, anniversaries can often be triggers," Spencer rambled.

"Anniversary of what?" JJ asked as she went back to her crossword, expecting Spencer to keep talking about random statistics.

"New Orleans Police Department. An automobile accident resulted in two deaths, Thomas and Lauren Jacobs. The car lost control and went off the bridge, killing the couple instantly. June 1st, 2001," Spencer recited from the police report he'd read back in December.

JJ froze for a minute, before looking up at him.

"Oh god, we're horrible," JJ said.

They'd forgotten. Will and JJ had been so focused on everything else, that they'd somehow forgotten the date Tate had become an orphan. No wonder she'd been so quiet, she was grieving, and this was the first time she'd have to spend the anniversary without her brother.

"It's not your fault, how could you have known?" Emily reminded her.

"Reid remembered just fine," JJ said

"Most people don't have an eidetic memory," Morgan pointed out, glancing over at Reid who seemed apologetic that he'd made JJ upset.

"I have to call Will," JJ excused herself, moving toward the back of the plane to have some privacy.

"Hey, cher," Will answered the phone.

"Thomas and Lauren died seven years ago today," JJ told him, not bothering with pleasantries.

Will paused for a moment and didn't say anything, but JJ knew he was still on the line.

"Shit, how could I forget?" Will asked as he ran a hand through his hair.

No wonder Tate didn't want to celebrate her birthday, it'd probably been tainted for years with the memory of her parents' accident.

"Look, I gotta go, but I'll try and be back by Friday, okay?" JJ said.

After a quick exchange of "I love you", JJ hung up the phone

Will decided to pick Tate up from school that afternoon but left the truck at home since it was so nice outside. He called the babysitter over to watch the twins so that it could just be the two of them, and walked over to the high school.

He waited under a tree by the front of the school and watched as kids poured out of the front entrance. Carter, who was without the rest of the group, made his way over to Will.

"Hey, Detective," he greeted Will.

"Carter," Will said, nodding to the boy. "Everything alright".

Carter glanced around to make sure Tate wasn't near, before continuing.

"She's been pretty quiet, kinda out of it, but that's about it".

"Yeah, don't worry about it anymore, alright? JJ and I got it figured out," Will assured him.

Carter looked slightly relieved at that, and when he spotted Tate coming down the front steps, he headed off towards the soccer fields.

"Hey, kiddo," Will said as Tate noticed him and walked to meet him.

"What are you doing here? I have practice," she asked, confused.

"Just thought maybe we could go get ice cream or something. Have a chat," Will said to her as they made their way down the street.

"Lemme guess, Spencer reminded you?".

"Yeah, he did. Sorry we forgot, kiddo," Will replied.

"It's okay, it is what it is," she said quietly.

"It's not okay, not if it's upsetting you. Your feelings matter," he reminded her.

That had been yet another concern of his and JJ's. They'd noticed it often, Tate invalidating her own feelings. It just wasn't healthy for a kid.

Tate didn't say anything in response, but soon they had ice cream in their hands. Coffee oreo for Tate, and chocolate for Will. She fiddled with her necklace, pulling the coin along the chain, a tell-tale sign she was nervous.

"You could've told us, you know," Will said.

"I just didn't wanna deal with it this year. I thought I could just ignore it but…".

"But you can't," Will finished for her.

"I don't even really remember them that much. Or at least, not clearly. Everything's blurred between what I actually remember and the stories Theo told me".
"You can miss something you don't remember. You can miss the idea of something".

Tate took a lick of her ice cream, thinking about that for a moment.

"We didn't even go to the funeral," she said quietly. "The social worker was too busy to take us".

"So that's why you don't wanna celebrate your birthday?" Will asked.

"It's not that I don't want to," Tate tried to explain. "I'm just never in the mood to have a birthday this time of year. And most of the time, people forget about it anyway".
Will didn't think Tate even realized how sad that statement was. To have half the birthdays in her life, forgotten and ignored, except by Theo, who probably couldn't even get her a gift.

"How about you have a few friends over, and you can just eat pizza and watch a movie, hm?" Will suggested.

"I guess that sounds fun," Tate replied, smiling a little.

"Good," Will said, wrapping an arm around her as they walked home.

Tate sat on her bed, talking to Grant on the phone. It was Friday night, and Noah, Ben, Carter, Ellie, and Lucy had all just left. They'd gotten pizza, had some cake and watched Ocean's Eleven, the only thing they could agree on. JJ had come home about halfway through the movie, after being on a case in Texas for the past few days.

Thinking about it, it'd probably been the best birthday Tate had ever had. She couldn't really remember a birthday she'd had before her parents died, and the ones in foster care had been virtually non-existent. Theo would give her a small present, a book or something, wish her a happy birthday, and that'd be that.

She knew Theo had tried his best, but it'd been lonely, and it was nice to have other people care about it for once. Ellie had gotten her a new soccer ball, Lucy had bought a pair of earrings, Noah and Ben had given her some comics, which she was sure they picked up at the last minute while shopping for themselves, and Carter had gotten her a bracelet.

Meanwhile, Reid had gotten her a new chess set, and Emily and Garcia had gifted her a new backpack. Beck and Amelia had sent her several books, and Will had gotten her a smaller size soccer goal for the backyard. Grant being Grant had sent her a small pocket knife, with instructions not to tell Will it came from him.

Tate laughed at Grant's present. Theo had always carried some sort of knife on him in case he needed one at work to cut the ropes on boats. However, he'd done it in foster care for protection and insisted it was the one thing you should always carry.

As Grant hung up the phone, JJ knocked on Tate's bedroom door.

"Can I come in?" she asked, sticking her head in.

Tate nodded, and JJ made her way over to sit down on the bed.

"So, did you have a good birthday?" JJ inquired.

"Yeah, I did, it was fun," Tate told her.

"That's good, you deserve a fun birthday".

JJ held out a small black box to Tate, and Tate reached out and took it. Tate flipped over the lid of the box, recognizing the object inside instantly.

It'd been her father's watch, then Theo's, but first it'd been her grandfather's. The man had gotten it during WWII when he'd been an RAF pilot. It was a Longines 6B/159 and had a light brown leather band with a silver face. For as long as she could remember, it'd been Theo's prized possession.

"How did you get this?" Tate asked quietly.

"I called in a favor with Detective Fitzpatrick, asked him to release it from evidence and send it down here," JJ explained.

JJ watched the girl hesitantly, hoping she'd made the right call by getting this. But when Tate suddenly flung herself into JJ's arms, she knew she'd made the right call.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"No problem, sweetie," she said to Tate, pressing a kiss into her hair. She realized that over the past few months since the twins arrived, she'd grown to love Tate like her own. Whenever someone asked her how many kids she had, she said three without even thinking about it.

"I thought they would've gotten rid of it," Tate said.

JJ shook her head.

"Most of the stuff from the lower floor of the house is in evidence, it's just hard to get it released. But I've always had this necklace from my sister, so I thought you might want something of Theo's," JJ explained.

JJ had first seen the watch while looking over crime scene photos when Rossi had commented on how it must be a family heirloom. Several months later, she still remembered it and had decided to see what Jack could do about getting it sent down.

"Yeah, I do. It was…it was really important to him," Tate told JJ.

"Yeah, I assumed it was special, it's a pretty old watch," JJ said.

An idea suddenly sprang into JJ's head as she watched Tate look over the watch.

"You could wear it, you know. The face might be a little big on your wrist, but if you tighten the strap it should fit fine".

Tate slipped the watch on, liking the idea. Now she'd always have a little piece of Theo with her. JJ was right, the face was a little bulky on her small wrist, but the strap fit fine.

"How's it look?" she asked JJ.

"Perfect," JJ said, noticing the time displayed on the watch.

"I'm beat, so I'm gonna head to bed. Go to sleep soon, alright honey?".

Tate nodded in response, and JJ closed the girl's bedroom door behind her on the way out.

"Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind." -Nathaniel Hawthorne