The early morning sun just started to rise over the grounds of Horizon as the BAU team finished loading the things into the two packs they were taking on their hike.

"Ok. Are you all set? Got the maps and compasses?" Peter asked JJ as he handed her one of the heavy packs.

"Yep, check and check, I think we're all good." JJ turned and smiled at the team that stood behind her, it was the first somewhat normal smile JJ had given in the last 4 days.

Morgan, Emily, Hotch and Rossi were in full hiking gear. Reid had on the hiking boots but still wore his normal cloths and Garcia…Well she had started the morning by wearing the full 'get up'. The hiking boots, khaki trousers and hoodie but complained that it wasn't fare JJ and Emily could look sexy in their hiking cloths, but she looked like 'a cross between Eeyore on a wet day and Gumbo The Clown '. Then she almost slapped Morgan when he said that he thought she looked stunning, but was stopped by Rossi, much to Emily and JJ's disappointment. So, by the time she got outside she was wearing hiking boots, dark blue jeans at JJ suggestion and a brightly coloured flowery top which Garcia happily agreed on.

"Got the keys?" Peter asked with a raised eyebrow. JJ rolled her eyes and pulled the keys out of her pocket and dangled them in front of his face "ok just checking." He gave her a wink.

"What are the keys for baby girl?" Morgan pulled the other heavy back onto his back.

"You'll see." JJ grinned at Peter.

"Here Shel." Sophie handed JJ a radio with a spare extra battery.

"Oh Thankyou, I'll keep it on me just in case something happens. We're not going too far, so we shouldn't hopefully need it."

"well better to be safe than sorry." Peter smiled…his heart warmed when he saw JJ smile back at him. She still looked exhausted and her eyes were sunken still but he knew the BAU team weren't going to let anything happen to her.

"We had better get started; I want to be at the top before lunch. Then we should still have time to do the other thing on the way back down." JJ pulled Peter and Sophie into a hug and took a deep breath feeling their heat flow threw her body "I forgot how warm you two were." She whispered so only they could hear.

Both the older adults lent in and kissed JJ on the forehead.

"We'll see you tonight and I'll keep the radio on me all day in case you need me us." Peter and Sophie waved them off as they walked into the woods.

They had been walking and laughing for about an hour when something struck Garcia.

"Cupcake where in this beautiful place are we going?"

"I was wondering how long it would take you to ask and frankly for a bunch of profilers, I'm ashamed." JJ rolled her eyes and laughed.

"OI!" Emily gave JJ a nudge.

"Were going to Hangers Peak."

"That sounds….High." Garcia turned a little green at the sound of something so high.

"It's not that high. I had to propel down the face of it in my second year." Reid and Garcia just looked at her like she had slapped them in the face and Emily, Hotch, Rossi and Morgan gave her a proud smile. She took a quick look at the map in Emily's hands "If we keep going the way we are, we should be there in a few hours."

"Ok." Garcia gulped down the sick feeling pointed in front of her "This way my crime fighting super heroes." She was doing this to make JJ smile and no silly rock called 'hangers peak' was going to step in her way!

They walked for another hour Emily and Morgan at the front of the group arguing over the map, Rossi, Garcia and Reid in the middle with Reid spewing facts about mushrooms you'd find in the wild and lastly Hotch and JJ were bringing up the rear. Hotch noticed JJ was fidgeting with the heavy pack she had strapped to her back and a few beads of sweat roll down her temple. Hotch kicked himself, this woman had gotten very little sleep and eaten almost nothing over the last few days and now he was letting her carry a massive pack with emergency and medical equipment in it.

"Here let me take that for you." He said to JJ quietly, so the other didn't hear, which they didn't and the rest of the group kept walking up ahead. He put his hand out to receive the bag from the tired blonde.

"No, I'm ok, I've got it." She said with a strained smile. In all honesty JJ was really struggling with the pack. On any normal occasion it would've been hard but with how exhausted she was it felt like she was carrying a wall, but she refused because she didn't want them to think she was weak and couldn't do it.

"JJ, your exhausted enough as it is, and this is only making it worse. You're struggling and that's ok, we want you to enjoy this day out. Please give me the pack to carry." He gave her his boss man glare.

"Ok" JJ gave Hotch a small side smile, removed the bag and handed it to him "Thankyou."

"Anytime." Hotch swung the bag on and grunted slightly 'bloody hell' he mumbled under his breath making JJ chuckle. The past few days had been hell on JJ and her emotions. He came close to believing that had lost her at one point, but he swore to himself that he wasn't going to let that happen.

"You guys ok back there?!" Morgan called; the others had stopped 50 yards ahead when they realised, they were two members down.

"Yeah, had to re-tie my laces" Hotch gave JJ a wink.

Hotch and JJ caught up with the group and they all continued to walk on together.

"So c'mon JJ spill. What are we doing on the way down?" Emily nudged JJ who was now walking at the front of the group.

"I'm not telling you, you're all just going to have to wait and see." She smirked at the woman walking next to her. Emily was about to say something when sound came over the radio attached to JJ's hip.

"Horizon to Shelby. Come in Shelby." JJ let out a sigh as she heard Scott's voice. She stopped, pulled up the radio that she had attached to her hip and turned to the group who had stopped with her.

"This is J…" She paused she hated using her birth name "This is Shelby. What's wrong Scott? Over." JJ released the button.

"Nothing's wrong. I just wanted to make sure you're all ok. It's been a while since you've been hiking Shel. Over" The radio crackled.

"Were fine Scott. We do work for the FBI after all, it's not like we're un-fit. Over." You could hear the sarcasm pour from JJ's words.

"Right….yeah sorry. I'll let you get back to it then. Have fun. I'll see you when you get back. Over" JJ didn't respond. She put the radio back on her hip and kept walking as the others followed.

They walked in silence now; it wasn't a comfortable silence like it had been before. It was now un-comfortable, and it was frustrating JJ.

After another 15 minutes she'd had enough. They had come across a set of fallen trees when JJ stopped.

"Ok! Everyone sit!" She pointed to the trees.

"Are you ok JJ?" Hotch asked with a wrinkled forehead concerned something was wrong. When she didn't reply he took off the pack.

JJ stayed standing while the others sat on the logs and looked at her.

"I know there are questions you want to ask me. So go ahead, ask…" She sighed but what she didn't realise was that although the team did have some questions, they had made a mutual agreement to not talk to her about her childhood, teenage years or the past few days while they were on their little outing.

"Guys…" When she realised that none of them were going to ask anything she explained why she wanted to do this now "I know there are questions you want to ask and don't say there aren't. I want to get this out the way with now because we go home in a few days and when I set foot back in Quantico, I just want to forget this whole nightmare ever happened." Hotch took a deep breath to say something but JJ stopped him "Hotch, I know I can't keep running from this, I made that mistake and it killed my baby sister." JJ's eyes filled with tears "I just want to go home and get my old life back."

"Jayje…." Morgan started cautiously but JJ interrupted.

"Ok I know it can't and won't completely back to the way it used to be. I get that I do. I'll have the nightmares and flashbacks again for a while. I expect records at work may need changing and I'll need to have conversations with people I won't want to have. But for the most part I just want to go back to work, back to saving peoples lives. Because it's always given me a purpose and right now, I need that more than anything else. So please, if you have any questions ask them now or don't ask them at all" you could see on their faces with the exception of Hotch and Rossi that they were all debating it.

Hotch and Rossi knew that things wouldn't be the same. The two men will need to have some serious conversations with and without the blonde when they got home. One of which was a serious one about going to see a psychologist and/or trauma specialist, but for now they could let her have it her way.

"Are you sure you want to do this JJ?" Spencer asked, he still wasn't sure not wanting to upset his friend.

"I'm sure Spence." She gave him a small smile.

"Ok…" He looked at Hotch and when he didn't receive one of his death glares he went on. He took a deep breath "When you blew up at Scott in the cafeteria the other day, you said he asked you a question when you were at Horizon." She nodded.

JJ knew this question would be in there somewhere and mentally prepared herself for it.

"He asked you how many. How many what?"

JJ sat on the log next to Emily and thought for a second how she was going to word this specific question.

"Scott and I were in a relationship at the time…"

"I thought that kind of thing was band round here." Hotch stated.

"It was and so where a lot of things I did here." JJ emphasise on the word a lot. Hotch raised an eyebrow, he didn't know she had such a rebellious streak but then he didn't really know her at all "we were on our solos and erm…"

"What's a solo?" Garcia asked from next to Morgan.

"You spend 3 days out here on your own. You have the things in you pack, a map, a tent, a notebook with some…let's just say questions and one childhood thing sent from home. Mum sent a pair of my ballet shoes. I loved to dance" JJ shook her head to clear the memory and get back to Spencer's question.

"Anyway, before we left, Scott and I had a fight about…" She looked at each member of the team before looking at the ground ashamed "what I did on the streets. When he found out what I did he wasn't cross or angry he just seemed numb to it. And I guess as time went on, he got more disgusted by it and would avoid me. Anyway a few hours into the solo he came and found me, we weren't meant to have any communication with other students just counsellors if we need them. He wanted to talk, but we ended up fighting again, he was so cross and angry with me for what I was and I'd done. That's when he asked me how many. He wanted to know how many people I'd had sex with." She found the courage from somewhere to look up and saw Hotch and Rossi had their normal blank expressions, Morgan looked angry as did Emily, Garcia and Reid just looked shocked "And before you ask, I don't know. At the time all I was concentrating on was getting my next fix and getting to my bed alive because most nights I almost didn't."

"We weren't going to ask Jayje." Emily rested her hand on JJ's knee calming herself; JJ smiled up at the brunette.

"He…He…He asked you how many. I'll kill him" Morgan spat, clenching his fists.

"Derek its ok. Once I was found and we got back We sorted it out. I explained to him why I had to do what I did, and I think he understood because it was never a problem again." Morgan calmed down a little, still mad at the then boy for making his JJ have to explain herself like that.

"Once you were found? What happened?" Rossi caught on to JJ's little slip up.

"Oh nothing too exiting. A huge storm rolled in unexpectedly halfway through the solo's, we were told to head to a small cabin if there was an emergency and well my map and tent got destroyed in the storm and I got lost. I was eventually found so it was all ok."

"Peter said you were banged up when your dad brought you here. What happened?" Emily asked.

"Erm…a trick got a bit heavy handed. It wasn't the first time I'd gotten beaten up, but it was one of the worse" JJ sighed.

"What were your injuries?" Hotch inquired.

"I had a couple of fractured ribs, some scratches, a few infected cut and a lot of bruising that's all. With antibiotics and rest once I was here I was fine in a few weeks." Hotch nodded in understanding.

"What happened the night you called the police and got him arrested?" Spencer had another question for the blonde.

"Wa…." JJ took a deep breath "Walt was still really sick from the heart attack he had, and I'd been back home a few weeks. I was taking care of him one night and he called me kitten." JJ's eyes glassed over remembering that evening like it was just yesterday.

"Jess was watching us from the doorway and said, and I remember her words so clearly. She said 'I hate when he called me that' and I just knew. I knew he had done it too jess too. I went to confront her to get her to tell me it wasn't true because I didn't want to believe it but she screamed at me for leaving her and letting him hurt her like he hurt me." JJ wiped away the single tear that had fallen.

"I left Jess crying in her room. I went to the kitchen; I was so so angry. I was going to kill him. I took the kitchen knife out but I couldn't do it so I tried to kill myself instead, but I couldn't do that either. It was then I realised that there was no longer a reason for me too keep the secret so I phoned 911." Emily gave JJ's hand an encouraging squeeze.

"They arrived but Jess wouldn't admit it and because of my history they wouldn't believe myself alone, so the officers wanted to take us both away. That was when our mother admitted that she knew what he was doing to us, and they arrested him."

Garcia could see the heavy look hovering over JJ, so she wanted to ask a lighter question. Well, she thought it would be anyway.

"You said you broke a lot of rules when you were here?" you could see a glint in Garcia's eye as her mind churned. JJ nodded "So my girl was a rebel…What kinds of things did you get up to. We want details!" Garcia beamed.

"Pen you definitely don't want details." Garcia looked at JJ slightly confused and so did Reid. Garcia didn't realise that it was such a loaded question "ok…erm…I broke most of the rules going to be fair. I smoked, snuck out after lights out, swore, got into fights sometimes, I searched the woods for magic mushrooms the list goes on." JJ gave them a smile thinking they were going to stop there but Reid asked the second question she didn't really want to answer.

"How did you manage to get the cigarettes? Everyone is searched when they arrive. I read it in the welcome pack."

"Erm…" The colour drained from JJ's face and a flash of panic filled her eyes, but she quickly covered it "What you have to understand is back then I was a complete mess. I had no respect for myself at all…"

"What did you do Jayje?" Emily put a reassuring hand on JJ's leg.

"I…" she took a deep breath "I had sex with the delivery drivers in exchange for cigarettes and other things. It was the only way Shelby knew how to get the things she needed and wanted, and to Shelby it was just sex, because of everything she had been through it never meant anything…" She started panicking and babbling. Hotch, Rossi and Emily noticed the change in the way JJ spoke. She had gone to referring to herself as me and I to Shelby and she. They knew it was getting too much for JJ

"Hey, JJ its ok." Emily hugged the blonde tight, calming her down "We understand why you did it, why you did everything; you don't have to explain yourself to us, ok?" JJ nodded.

The team looked at JJ and then each other; like they were reading each other's minds. Now they could see that the questions were taking its toll on JJ and there weren't any important questions left to ask.

"I think we're good JJ." Hotch stood up and walked over to JJ and pulled her from the log by her hands.

"Good." A relieved smile crossed her face.

"Let's get to the top of this thing." Morgan walked over to JJ and put his are round her shoulder.

They all walked together. There was no more uncomfortable silence; there was no silence at all. The peacefulness of the woods was filled with the chatter and laughter of the BAU as they continued up Hangers Peak

45 minutes later

"WOW!" was all that came from the stunned BAU members as they looked at the view from the top of Hangers Peak. It wasn't the tallest mountain to climb but the view was still stunning. You could see the school and all the buildings in the distance. The lake was reflecting the trees surrounding it and the sky was bright blue.

"I forgot how amazing this place looked." JJ smiled.

"This is amaze balls gumdrop." Garcia pulled out her camera and took a picture of the landscape "Ok, now I want a group one."

"How are you going to do that baby girl?" Morgan chuckled and raised an eyebrow. There was no one round to take a picture of the group for her.

"Oh…erm…" Garcia looked round "AHH…my chocolate god, ye of little faith." She walked over to a rock and put the camera down "Like that. Now everyone get in place." They all scattered round a little till they could all fit in the picture "Perfect. Ok know no one move. Ready." She hit the button and ran to get in the picture "say cheese!"

"CHEESE!" Everyone smiled and the camera flashed.

Garcia ran over to it and looked at the picture "It's perfect!"

The others went over to take a look and it really was a fantastic picture. It had them all smiling with the view in the background. It was one that was going on her wall when she got home.

"Great! Can we eat now, I'm starving!" Emily picked up the bag with the food in.

"You're always starving!" Morgan chuckled "OUCH!" he then rubbed the spot on his leg when Emily kicked him.

They all sat down on top of Hangers Peak and ate their lunch all silently dreading the day to come.