AJ x
The early morning sun shone over the grounds of Horizon as the BAU team finished loading the things into the two packs they were taking.
"Ok. Are you all set? Got the maps and compasses?" Peter asked JJ as he handed her one of the packs.
"Yep, check, I think were all good." JJ smiled at the team stood behind her. Morgan, Emily, Hotch and Rossi were in the full hiking gear. Reid had on the hiking boots but still wore his normal cloths and Garcia…Well she did start the morning by wearing the full 'get up' but complained that it wasn't fare that 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.
"Got the keys?" Peter asked with a raised eye brow. JJ rolled her eyes and pulled the keys out of her pocket and dangled them in front of his face "ok just checking."
"What are the keys for baby girl?" Morgan pulled the other bag onto his back.
"You'll see." JJ grinned at Peter.
"Here Shel." Sophie handed JJ a radio.
"Oh Thankyou, I'll keep it on me. Were not going too far, so we shouldn't need it."
"But better to be safe than sorry." Peter smiled…his heart warmed when he saw JJ smile. 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 incase you need me." 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." a worried look crossed Garcia's face.
"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 pointed in front of her "This way my crime fighting super heroes."
They walked for another hour when Hotch noticed JJ was fidgeting with the pack she had strapped to her back.
"Here let me take that for you." He stopped her and put his hand out to receive the bag.
"No, I'm ok, I've got it." She said with a smile.
"JJ, your exhausted enough as it is and this is only making it worse. Give me the pack to carry." He gave her his boss man glare.
"Ok" JJ smiled at him as she removed the bag and handed it to him "Thankyou."
"Anytime." Hotch swung the bag on. The past few days had been hell on JJ's 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.
"So c'mon JJ spill. What are we doing on the way down?" Emily nudged JJ 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.
" contacting Shelby. Come in Shelby." JJ let out a sigh as she heard Scotts voice. She stopped, pulled up the radio 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.
"Nothings 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 were 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 Scott had radioed in. It was now un-comfortable and it was frustrating JJ.
They had come across a set of fallen trees when JJ stopped.
"Ok! Sit!" She pointed to the trees.
"Are you ok JJ?" Hotch asked with a wrinkled forehead.
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 realize 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 realized that none of them were going to ask anything she explained why she wanted to do this now "there are questions you want to ask so 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. 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.
"Are you sure you want to do this JJ?" Spencer asked, he still wasn't sure.
"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 "When you blew up at Scott in the dining hall 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 answer that.
"Scott and I were in a relationship at the time…"
"I thought that kind of this was band round here." Hotch stated.
"It was and so where a lot of things I did here." Hotch raised an eye brow, he never knew she had suck 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 note book with some…lets just say questions and one childhood thing sent from home. Mum sent a pair of my ballet shoes." JJ shook her head to clear the memory and get back to Spencer's question "Anyway, before we left, I and Scott had a fight about…" She looked at each member of the team before looking at the ground "what I did on the streets and a few hours into the solo he came and found me. He wanted to talk, but we ended up fighting again and he asked me how many. He wanted to know how many tricks I 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 and 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 that night."
"We weren't going to ask Jayje." Emily rested her hand on JJ's knee; she smiled up at the brunette.
"He…He…He asked you how many. I'll kill him" Morgan spat.
"Derek its ok. 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 clamed down a little.
"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, Scratches all over and a lot of bruising that's all." Hotch nodded in understanding.
"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 "ok…erm…I broke most of the rules going. 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 it didn't.
"How did you manage to get the cigarettes?" Reid asked.
"Erm…" The colour drained from JJ's face and a flash of panic filled her eyes but it quickly vanished "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 guys in exchange for them. It was the only way I knew how to get the things I needed, and to me then it was just sex, because of everything I had been threw it never meant anything to me…" She started panicking and babbling.
"Hey, JJ its ok." Emily hugged the blonde "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; it was like they were reading each others minds. They could see that the questions were taking its toll on JJ and there wasn't any important questions left to ask.
"I think were good JJ." Hotch stood up and walked over to JJ and pulled her from the log.
"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 amazing. 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 stunning." 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. There was know one round to take a picture of the group.
"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 one move. Ready." She hit the button and ran to get in the picture "say cheese!"
"CHEESE!" 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 good 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.
A/N sorry i dont know what is wrong with the A/N on the last chapter. anyway the next chapter is much more lighter than any other chapter. i think it's the lightst of them all. anyway please let m know what you think. i am struggling to finsh the last chapter.
AJ x