The photograph showed June with Senior. They were happy together. Cozy. He was even holding her close as they walked together on a beach. What did this mean?

Will was yet absorbed in his old memories, but it dawned on him all at once that Emily had been quiet for more than a few moments. This was quite concerning.

"Are you okay?" Will crossed the attic room and sat with his friend. "You've gone radio-silent."

Emily looked at him. "You were born in February of '77, right?"

"Mhm. I just celebrated my birthday on the sixth."

"And your mother was gone by the time you were two?" she went on.

"That's as I can figure." Will shrugged.

Emily murmured, "That photo of June was from the August of '76…"

Will's trepidation mounted. "What?"

"I found another link to June. And a picture."

"You did? I want to see."

She handed Will the book and the picture. He read what was written and examined the picture. His face took on an unreadable expression. It was as if he had retreated inside himself.

"Oh, my God…" Will finally said.

"What's your first thought?" Emily asked him.

"I don't know what to believe, and I'm really trying to talk myself out of the possibility of June being my mother... but I'm starting to feel freaked out. They were very cozy." Will pointed to the handwritten capital W in the line under the passage. "Being named after my father was a burden. Everyone expected me to live up to the bar he'd set."

"And I'm guessing that you didn't like being in his shadow."

"Gold star for Emily. I can't tell you how much I wished for a sibling back them, especially a sister. An addition in that house would have taken the pressure off me." Will felt a wave of sadness as she thought about what could have been. "Henry's name came about for him because it has a deep meaning, but we also wanted to break the cycle and to be his own person."

"Which he most certainly is." Emily's eyes flickered back to where Will was pointing. "Is there anything else on the page that's of significance to you?"

"I don't know if my my mother called my father Will or Bill, but when I knew him, everyone called him Senior. We lived in a parish where everybody knew everybody." Will went on. "Everyone called me Junior by the time I moved up here to be JJ and Henry. Even tourists I was introduced to. I think it was a culture thing in effect."

Emily saw the dots being connected. "Which means that this copy of For Whom The Bell Tolls did belong to your father because he was close enough to June that she actually called him by his actual first initial. And an act like that is a sign of intimacy between two people."

"They're also holding each other in that picture. Do you see why I'm freaking out?"

"Yes, I do. This also means that June was absolutely in your life at some point in the early years." Emily pointed to the boxes of old picture albums. "Have you looked through those yet?"

Will shook his head. "No, but I haven't looked at them in forever. That's actually kind of an understatement. I'm going to look through them with JJ tonight."

"Okay." Emily said in a solid tone. "I think that this is a good place to press pause for now. At least until JJ comes back."

Will echoed her as they began to put the rest of the books back. "Okay."

And Emily left Will to his own devices while she went in search of Henry. They could play chess... and she could ask him how school was going. It had been awhile since they'd had that kind of chat.

By the time JJ returned home from The Pink Angel, she felt like a totally different person. Happy. Relieved. Unburdened.

"Well," Emily chirped when JJ joined her at the chess table in the living room. "You seem to be doing a lot better."

"I am. Fitzhugh really is a great listener." JJ said. "It felt good to talk to him."

"That's great. I'm happy for you."

JJ heard Emily's words, but paused. Voicing her next train of thought would still put her and the rest of the conversation in a certain frame of mind. It was her hope that Emily didn't recoil.

Unsurprisingly, Emily was quick to pick up on her mood. "I take it that you and Fitzhugh talked about things?"

"Mhm. And I refrained from specifically naming June, bit I did tell Fitzhugh something else."

Emily leaned a little closer. "And what was it?"

"It was about the fact that we've embarked upon a certain road, and that I think a storm is coming."

"Those are heavy words to speak to an author of any sort. My father can also be a romantic. What did Fitzhugh say in return?"

Without missing a beat, JJ said, "Fitzhugh promised the West Priors house as a safe haven. He even vouched that he and your mother are both very good at keeping secrets. What?"

Emily couldn't hold back her own secret anymore. "When Will and I were looking at books in the attic, I actually found something about June."

"And…?" JJ pressed, on tenterhooks.

"I don't want to say." Emily shook her head. "Not without Will."

JJ sighed. She knew from experience that Emily was too stubborn when passionate about something. Pushing her now wouldn't pan out.

Instead, she began rearranging the pieces on the chess board in front of them.

"What happened here?" JJ reset the time-keeping clock on the windowsill beside them. "Henry and I are the only ones here who regularly play chess. Then again... Will plays backgammon. Against himself. I've never been able to figure that out..."

Emily snickered. "Well, Henry and I just played chess and talked. It had been awhile since I spent some one-on-one time with him."

JJ smiled. "That's really sweet."

"Yes," Emily said soberly. "But what wasn't was that Henry cleaned my clock very fast."

"Spence has been educating both of my sons in the major fundamentals of chess for their entire lives to date." JJ said coolly.

A small voice cut through the air suddenly. "Chess!"

Michael had wandered into the room. When he saw the full chess board, he ran over at once.

Emily was amused. "You like this game?"

"Yes." Michael said seriously as he climbed onto her lap. "Very a lot."

He surveyed the fully-set board. After a moment of careful thinking, he moved a particular piece and tapped a button on the chess clock to mark his move. Then he fixed his mother with an expectant look.

"Well, okay." JJ moved her own piece and catalogued her own move. "Let's do a round."

Michael nodded. "Yes, please."

Emily watched them play.

But she also found herself making a mental note to ask Virginia if Zion knew about the game of chess. Maybe she would bring her chess set over next tome.

And JJ? She just wanted to see what had been found.

Finally, the house was quiet again.

JJ pounced in irritation when she was sure that she, Will, and Emily weren't going to be interrupted again. "You two have been squirrelly since I came home from lunch. Go on. Out with it."

Will opened. "Emily found something a June-related smoking gun in the attic. She was definitely in my life, cher. We also think that I must have known her at some point. There just hasn't been any proof."

"Until now." Emily pointed to the picture.

Any frustration JJ felt evaporated all at once because she became so taken with what was being said. "Pardon? What on earth did Emily find?"

She pressed the copy of For Whom The Bell Tolls and the photograph into JJ's hands. "I found these. The picture of Senior and June was in the book."

"I don't even know what to say about the picture, other than that I feel worried." JJ said before she examined the book. "This must have been Senior's favorite."

Emily laughed nervously. "And it's funny that you should say that. Look what's written in the front cover."

JJ's heart did a funny flip as she read the words. Why couldn't anything be quiet anymore? Her first thoughts past digesting the text was to comfort her husband.

"How are you?" she kissed Will. "Anything I can do?"

"Right now, 'freaked out' in the most accurate description of how I feel. I'm just more glad that I'm not alone." Will exhaled shakily. "Here's hoping that we can move to something concrete soon."

"I will take that optimism, even if it's just a sliver." JJ decided. "We'll talk to Penelope in the morning."

"Thank you. I'll take that, because we also did some startling math." Will tried not to blanch. "June was definitely associated with my father in the mid-seventies. Me? I was just around by default because I was a toddler. My mother was probably gone by the year after that picture was taken."

"I hate to say it, but if June isn't your mother, that picture at least shows that she and Senior were having an affair."

Will sighed. "It's looking that way, and it would certainly explain the quote June used about wishing for more time."

"Those words were like a devastating love letter good-bye." Emily said thoughtfully. "June really did care for him."

JJ continued on with her thoughts. "Just like he cared enough to keep a very nice photograph of her in a copy of Paradise Lost. I wonder..."

She found the book from where it had been set and carefully began turning pages for examination, since her father-in-law had been the type to make side notes in his novels.

Lo and behold—

I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night,

Taught by the heav'nly Muse to the venture down

The dark descent, and up to rescend…

"Are you kidding me?" JJ sputtered.

"What?" Emily and Will said together.

"Obviously, Senior cared very deeply for June, but he took her departure hard. I found another handwritten quote."

Will wanted to kick himself. "All the times I've looked through that book, anyway, and I never saw it."

"The words were on the back of the title page in pencil. Light pencil." JJ told him. "I just took time to separate the title page from the table of contents. Old books can have paper that sticks over time."

Doing her best not to grimace, Emily asked, "And what did Senior pen?"

JJ passed the book to her so she could see. Emily read the words and gave the item to Will, who also read the words. And then sighed. The next thing that he was going to say was yet another take on the situation.

"I always thought that my parents decided to split because of them broke the other person's heart. What if he broke my mother's heart, but June broke his?" Will proposed. "It sounds like he loved her even more in her absence. Almost desperately."

"I wonder why she had to go…" Emily mused.

JJ sounded like she was thinking aloud. "We still don't have a definitive answer about if there even was an affair."

Emily turned to Will as a thought popped into her head. "Have you any notes in Paradise Lost yet? You said you were going to look through it."

"All I saw was ramblings about creation and the Garden Of Eden. That's weird all by itself because my dad had never been to church in his life." Will was a little stumped. "Other than that, nothing."

"Alright. I was wondering if Penelope will be able to discern something out of the quote JJ found or our of the picture of Senior and June."

Will stopped to process this. "I bet she will... and that isn't a bad thought. Penelope would just want something to narrow down the parameters a little more."

"Yeah." Emily's shoulder's gave a sag of disappointment. "There isn't much to work with right now."

JJ also sounded a little dejected. "Spence would have seen the missing piece already..."

"That hasn't escaped me." Will gave JJ's hand a squeeze. "That hasn't escaped my thoughts. I want to see if Penelope can find anything first. We can reconvene after to talk about bringing the others in."

"I like the sound of that." Emily affirmed as JJ nodded in agreement. "And it's better than absolutely nothing."

"Definitely. So at least we have a start." said Will.

"And the BAU still has a little bit of 'bench time' left," JJ said thoughtfully. "Meaning that that allows more time to do some poking around."

Emily felt confident as she watched the LaMontagnes perk back up. "So at least there's also that. I guess all we can do now is to wait for whatever tomorrow brings."

JJ and Emily carpooled to work together as usual. It was their new normal.

But the ride was quiet today. They were both consumed by their own thoughts.

JJ was preparing to tell the rest of the team about the babies. She just had to get in the right headspace first. All Emily could think about was telling the rest of the team about what she had been through... and that Andrew had no doubt left for England. Her life was officially in a new chapter now.

The partners remained oblivious to the rest of the activity in the bullpen.

So what happened next was almost funny.

While not a morning person before her first cup of coffee, Penelope Grace Garcia was incredibly loyal and steadfast to a fault. Everybody knew this about her. So it was these qualities that led her to making a conscious effort to come into work early. It was all about digging into June McCann. She wasn't even that frustrated that they didn't have that much to go on.

What Penelope hadn't been expecting, just over an hour into the search, was a hit.

She left her office very quickly.

It was just her luck that she found who she was looking for, making their hot drinks in the kitchen area.

"Boss ladies!" she said in greeting.

Emily and JJ reacted to her sudden appearance by almost jumping out of their skins.

"Woah!" Emily said in surprise.

"Penelope!" bleated JJ as she only just managed to keep from spilling tea over the counter. "It isn't even ten yet!"

With a tremendous amount of effort, Penelope did not laugh at either of them. "I just got a hit on June!"