"JJ, are you alright?"

That was from Derek when they were all gathered in the conference room a few minutes later.

Wishing that they could just be in the jet already so she could call her mom, JJ said a 'don't push me' tone, "I would rather not talk about it, Derek."

Heeding his friend's warning, Derek looked over at Penelope, standing at the head of the table and ready to begin the presentation.

"Okay, Baby Girl, what you got?"

"All of us are going down south, to The Heart of Dixie, a.k.a. Montgomery, Alabama because in the past three-and-a-half weeks, three men have kidnapped and then turned up dead in Montgomery County."

She pressed a button on the remote in her hand, and three pictures of different men appeared on the big display screen. All of them were alive and smiling in the pictures, which JJ was glad for because it was one less moment that she had to avert her eyes.

"From left to right, we have Arthur Bradshaw, Nathaniel Xavier, and Sergeant Tinsley Foxworth."

Of course, Rossi was the first one to say something about Tinsley's title. "Foxworth was a sergeant?"

"And JJ's cousin, too."

Penelope, Emily, and Hotch already knew by now who Tinsley had been to JJ, but Rossi, Derek, and Spencer all quickly offered the communications liaison their sympathy, sad for her. JJ thanked them, although Penelope redirected everyone's attention back to her by clearing her throat.

"Bradshaw, Xavier, and Tinsley were all in their mid to late thirties, and married with kids. There are no apparent connections at the moment, and also nothing out of the ordinary with how they lived."

Spencer spoke up, having hit a stumbling block in the folder of notes he was holding. "It says all three of them were strangled?"

"Uh-huh." Quickly warning JJ to look away, Penelope pressed another button, and all of the victims' pictures were replaced with pictures of them as they'd been discovered. "They were all strangled and left in public places."

Hotch looked over at Spencer. "What made you sound skeptical about the strangulation standpoint?"

Spencer looked back at him. "It's just that according to the reports here, all three of the victims were strangled, although it looks like with a different tool each time, and with a different amount of pressure and force; the unsub looks like he can't make up his mind, and while it's unusual for a strangler to deviate during escalation, this much deviation already is unsettling."

"Why's that?"

"Because it points to a disorganized and possibly chaotic mind, or… a partner. It's too early too early to tell which it is right now."

Across the table, Derek arched an eyebrow at his best friend. "Three is a pattern, but you can't get into the unsub's frame of mind yet?"

"No." Spencer said sheepishly.

"Excuse me."

That was all JJ could manage before getting up and taking the back steps to get out of the room, heading for the restroom as quickly as she could; hearing the details of how Tinsley had died proved to be too much, and, feeding off her anxiousness, the babies decided that that was a perfectly good time to make JJ nauseas and send her dashing for the lavatory as quickly as possible.

When JJ entered the restroom, she vomited into the first empty toilet she found.

Emily came to check on her, although she wasn't empty-handed.

"Okay, Jayje." the brunette said when her girlfriend was finally done and all of the sick had been flushed away. "I'm going to bring you over to the sink because I brought your toiletry kit from your go bag and set up your toothbrush and toothpaste; you're not seeing spots, or anything like that, are you?"

"No, thank goodness," JJ mumbled as Emily helped her navigate her way over to the aforementioned sink. "And thank you for coming to check on me."

"Always."


Once JJ was decent and had even washed her face, she was feeling better, so Emily caught her up on what she'd missed during the rest of the gathering. By the time they headed out to the jet hangar with all that they were bringing to Alabama, JJ was all the way up to speed.

"So Spencer is going to the morgue, and Rossi is going to talk to the families of Arthur Bradshaw and Nathaniel Xavier while Hotch goes to the station to establish contact with Captain Ryder before going to the latest crime scene, and Penelope is coming with us to work her magic on the computer system because it's not the best and the footage that was found of Tinsley's abduction is a bit degraded?"

"Gold star for JJ." Emily praised as they climbed the stairs to the let and boarded it.

"Hey," JJ said suddenly, furrowing her eyebrows as a thought occurred to her. "If those are everyone else's assignments, where does that leave you and me? Talking to my family?"

"And that's another gold star to you."

"It's not like the Foxworths are of the southern bigot variety, but this is not the way I envisioned you meeting my family."

"Of course not," Emily sympathized. "But here we are."

JJ just sighed and nodded before turning to Spencer, who was in the seat next to where they were standing, and asked him for help to put their go bags away in the overhead storage bin. He happily obliged his pregnant friends, and a few moments later, JJ and Emily were making their way over to their favorite seats near the galley and settling down in them.

"My mom is already in Alabama to begin with." JJ told Emily.

"Oh? For what?"

"A high school reunion, but it's in Butler County, two counties over from where we're headed. It's a good thing Archer is in Missouri, though."

"And why's that? Too many Foxworths and Jareaus in one room, otherwise?"

"That, and he'd get tunnel vision if he saw my cast; we've never been super close, but if he gets wind of me being in any kind of danger, he does whatever he can to rectify the problem for me."

"Is Archer strong?"

JJ nodded. "Extremely, and that being said, there's one person on this team who can take him on and win."

"Derek?"

"Derek."

"What about me?"

JJ and Emily looked up to that the man in question, as well as his fiancée had joined them and were claiming the empty chairs in their immediate area. Derek sat across from JJ, while Penelope sat up shop beside her, laying out a few anti-sickness treats on the little table before she took her yarn and knitting needles from her favorite tote bag and began working on the baby blanket she'd been making for awhile. They were still waiting on a few more people, so they had a few minutes to kill.

"I was just explaining to Emily that my big, musclebound older brother, Archer, is as protective of me as you are," JJ said to Derek. "And that you're the only guy on the team who could take him on in a fight and win."

Derek loved JJ like a sister and would do anything for her, or even fight anyone for her, but the thought of taking on her brother in a fight at all made him shudder.

Penelope chuckled at her lover's expense and asked JJ, "Is there any chance of seeing Archer, or is he back in Drexel with Cho and Kaida?"

"He's in Drexel."

Penelope pretended to pout. "Darn. I've never met anyone with a name like Archer before."

"This from the chick whose parents were honest-to-goodness hippies and whose brothers have hippy names?"

That question threw Emily for a loop and she looked at Penelope with great interest. "You're not an only child?"

"If you can believe it, I'm at the bottom of the heap: I was my parents' 'we seriously thought we were done' baby because all four of my brothers were in college or high school when I was born."

"What are their names?"

"Django, Scout, Chase, and Rainer."

"Wow." Emily said in fascination. "How did you get your name?"

"Something like my parents lost a bet with Rainer, and he got to decide what I was called because apparently, he wanted his baby sister to have a 'normal' name."

"What is it?"

"Penelope Sara Joy, and before my mom got remarried when I was eight, my last name was Clarkson. My brothers all still use that surname."

"So your birth name is Penelope Sara Joy Clarkson. That's actually cute." Emily smiled. "What were your parents' names?"

"I'm not even kidding, but my dad's name was Justice, and my mom's name was Honor."

"Justice and Honor? Those are the best hippy names ever." JJ laughed. "And you've got step-siblings that were all born in Mexico, right?"

Penelope nodded. "Four sisters and a brother."

"Quick, tell us their names!" JJ urged. "Before the jet takes off and our ears begin popping!"

"My stepbrother's name is Juan Carlos, after my stepdad, and my stepsisters are called Aracely, Rosario, Maribel, and Estefani. She lives with JC and his family in New York, and she's twenty-five now."

Emily let out a long, single-noted whistle. "Including you, that's ten! Have you all ever been under the same roof together?"

"Many times, for different holidays. It's always worth it."

Emily wanted to ask about what holidays were like with Penelope's family, but she couldn't because everyone was in the jet now, and the jet was taxiing down the the runway for takeoff.

It wasn't until they were forty-five minutes into their six-and-a-half hour flight that JJ remembered the text from her mother and called her back. Sandy didn't answer, so JJ left a message for her, although when she hung up, she saw that Penelope, Derek, Hotch, and Rossi were looking at her in surprise. Emily was looking, too, although she was quite amused.

"What?" JJ asked.

"You just left a message to your mother in French." Emily said gleefully.

"I did?"

Penelope contributed an answer as she grew amused. "You sure did, Tinker Bell! You speak French?"

"And Russian." JJ admitted. "Fluently."

"Wow." marveled Rossi. "How did you come to learn those languages? They're complex, especially Russian."

"My dad. His parents were French and Russian; they passed the languages down to him and my mom learned them when they began seriously dating. That's what my mom told me."

Hotch raised his eyebrows. "Haley and I have been fluent in French since high school—in fact, we still speak it—and Jack is currently stumbling through it; did your parents teach you?"

"Uh-huh, and they taught my bother and sister, too. My mom and I have been speaking French and Russian even more with each other since my dad died; it's kind of a way to keep his memory alive."

"And you used French without realizing it because its one of your first languages." mused Spencer. "We know that you've got family down south—"

"Now there's an understatement." Emily smirked.

"You watch yourself," JJ warned her playfully. "Lest I tell them your actual name, or your first language!"

Emily gasped, affronted. "You wouldn't dare!"

"Just like I wouldn't dare tell the family your confirmation name?"

"Why, I—"

"Or about your childhood hobby in Saudi Arabia?"

Emily was even more affronted. "You know about that? How much did my parents tell you?"

Extremely pleased with herself because their friends were watching them, hanging on to every word, JJ said smoothly, "Enough to give me eons of blackmail material."

Emily fell silent immediately.

"Are you done?" JJ asked.

"Uh-huh." she responded before helping herself to some of the saltine crackers on the table. "Totally done."

JJ turned back to Spencer, who was watching yet from across the aisle. "My mom is from Alabama, but her parents are from Texas and Mississippi. I grew up in Pennsylvania."

"Did you grow up speaking in a southern twang?"

"One hundred percent. I didn't lose it until I went to college and spent two semesters in California."

"Anything else we should know about you? Did you do sports?"

"I was a cheerleader from ages four to fourteen."

Even Emily hadn't known that, and she paused in her saltine cracker binging while Penelope dropped her knitting needles as she gaped at JJ while Hotch, Derek, Rossi, and Spencer all sated at her in great surprise.

"What?" JJ questioned. "Is it really so hard to believe that I was a cheerleader?"

"Yes!" they all said in unison.

JJ leaned back in her seat and groaned. "This is going to be a long flight."


When the team finally arrived in Montgomery, they split up to do their assignments, and after checking in at the hotel to claim their suites, JJ and Emily began the drive out to the Foxworth family property. JJ would have driven, but couldn't because of her arm, so she gave Emily directions until they were in the driveway of their destination.

"Oh, my God." Emily said as they exited the car and began walking up the front steps. "This is a—"

"Mansion, yep."

It was true: JJ's grandparents lived in a grand old mansion that housed all sorts of wonderful things, and all of the locals knew it as Foxworth Hall.

"I spent every summer of my life here, all the way up until I left for college."

Emily was dying to know more, but by this time, they were at the front door and JJ was ringing the doorbell, so she refrained.

Because the Foxworths could afford it, they had quite a staff that worked for them at all times, including a number of maids.

JJ had fully been expecting one of them to answer the door, but that didn't happen because her heart jumped in surprise when she recognized who was on the other side.

"Mom?"