Commencement

Chapter 6

The cold and damp penetrated through their attempt at huddling together, and they had to give up on even the pretense of sleeping.

"We're going to need a plan tomorrow, aren't we?" JJ tried to keep her teeth from chattering. "Any ideas?"

"Well, for starters, I'm going to need to test my leg. I'm pretty sure it's not broken, but I haven't tried to bear weight on it yet."

The available light had waned with the movement of the moon across its arc in the sky. They could barely see a few feet beyond where they were sitting, but that didn't stop JJ from trying to visually search the area.

"I think there's something over there," indicating the direction with a movement of her head. "It looks close to the right length. If we need to, we can use it as a crutch for you."

He wasn't so sure it would help. "I don't know that I would be able to climb the rubble anyway. Maybe, when it's light, you should…."

JJ's hand on his chest stopped him.

"I told you, I'm not leaving you behind. I can push the debris out of your way, if I have to."

"JJ…."

He'd been about to tell her his estimation of its weight, and the unlikelihood of her success, but he stopped himself. If she wanted to believe she could do it, he would let her, even if just for the night.

"What?"

"Huh? Oh, never mind. I mean…" Changing the subject, to another that was equally disturbing, but necessary to discuss. "I've been thinking about the explosion. About the person who set it."

"Linda's accomplice?"

"Yes. Or, maybe, Linda herself."

JJ didn't follow. "How could it have been Linda? We'd just left her."

"This is a business. There are probably security cameras. For all we know, she could have been watching us, and detonated it remotely."

"But why was the door open then, or….oh. You think she left it open because she knew we would feel like we needed to check it out."

Her voice reflected her hesitancy. She sensed there was a flaw in her theory, but was having trouble sussing it out. Reid tried to help.

"Maybe so. Or maybe she was targeting someone else, and we just walked into it."

"Someone else?"

"I still think she may have an accomplice. Maybe she was trying to get rid of him."

JJ gave an alternative explanation.

"Or maybe he was trying to get rid of her, and we walked in on him setting up the explosion. That would explain the open door, too."

"But not the absence of another car in the lot."

She deflated. "Oh. Right." Thinking a few moments more. "Maybe he knew there were cameras. Maybe he knew a way into the building where he wouldn't be seen, but he knew the cameras would pick up on a car in the lot."

Reid spent a few moments considering the various scenarios, and their implications.

"We really can't narrow this down without more information. But we need to consider what any of it might mean for us."

JJ followed his train of thought.

"You mean, whether they might come back to make sure they'd accomplished what they set out to do."

Reid nodded. "Whether they were targeting each other, or targeting us, I think we can safely assume that the remote location and the fact that it's a weekend aren't a coincidence. They wanted to give themselves the option of finishing things off, if the explosion didn't work."

He felt JJ tense.

"Do you think they're out there now?"

"I don't know. But I think we would have heard them, if they'd been moving in the rubble. I was able to hear you."

"Do you think they would be able to hear us talking?" Her voice reflexively dropping to a whisper.

"I doubt they'd be able to get close enough without us hearing them. But I guess we can keep it down, just in case."

"At least we have our weapons," assuring herself as much as she was Reid.

He wasn't sure his injured leg would give him the stability to shoot, but he went along with her.

"And we have the ability to profile. If they're out there, we'll need to outthink them." Whispering, just as she was.

That wasn't so reassuring to JJ, who tapped her head as she spoke. "I don't think I'm quite on my game. Are you?"

"You mean the concussion? I'm not one hundred percent, but…"

She gave him a wry smile. "But when you start at 187, losing a few isn't as big a deal. Was that what you were going to say?"

"Not quite that way. But…well, yes." JJ's head rose and fell as her companion heaved a huge sigh of memory. Reid's mind had been drawn back to his early days with the BAU once again, as it had so often in recent weeks.

"Did you know that I avoided telling people, when I first started?"

"Spence, you still avoid it."

He squeezed his acknowledgement. "That's because it's usually not the point. But, back then, even when it was….I was just so used to being ostracized for my intelligence that I had trouble acknowledging it out loud. I remember a couple of times when Hotch had to push me."

JJ looked amused. "Are you saying that Hotch wanted to show off your brain? What, were you like his secret weapon?"

"Ha. No, I think he more wanted me to get past it. I guess sometimes it was obvious, and someone would ask, and I would falter, and Hotch…"

"Hotch just wanted to move on. I can see that. He was always pretty driven."

Reid lapsed into memory for a moment. "He was."

JJ tilted her head up. "You miss him." A statement, rather than a question.

He looked down at her. "I do. Don't you?"

"Well…don't tell Emily, but …yes. I miss him terribly. Not that I don't think she's terrific. But Hotch…I mean, I think I might miss him just for him, you know? But I also miss what he brought to the team."

Reid latched on to her middle sentence. "You and he were pretty close, weren't you?"

He felt her shrug against him.

"You know, I don't know how to answer that. I mean, we had a very supportive work relationship. He pushed me in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. It was only because of him that I had my first personal taste of profiling, when he asked me to start screening cases for the team. And I don't know that I would have seriously considered it at all, if not for a conversation we had on the plane, after one of our cases."

"What did he say?"

"He wondered if I wanted to become a profiler, because he thought I'd done some good work on the case. And I told him that I was very content being a liaison."

"Hmm. I guess he was pretty good at pushing both of us, without us realizing we were being pushed."

JJ pondered that for a moment. "I'm just thinking about all the people we've had lead us over the years. They all did it in such different ways."

"Present company included."

She gave a silent guffaw. "For two whole cases, and under duress, at that. No, believe me, leading the BAU has never been on my bucket list."

"You have one?"

"Don't you?"

"I don't know, I guess I've never thought there was much point. They're not really logical, when you think about it. You can't take the experiences with you, and if you die before having them, it's not like you're going to miss them."

JJ chewed on that for a few minutes. "You're right, I guess, at least as far as things like sky diving or seeing the Grand Canyon go. But what if what's on your bucket list are things like falling in love, or having a family? You can't take them with you, but they're pretty much how you sum up your life."

"Fair enough. Maybe they're not so much bucket list items as aspirations. Hopes for how you get to spend your time from birth to death."

"So, what are your aspirations?"

Not that she hadn't deduced them over the course of thousands of conversations, but there had never been an exchange so specific. Nor so precious, by virtue of the circumstance they were in, and the time they would have left together, should they make it through this ordeal.

When he didn't respond right away, she offered a possibility.

"You want children someday, don't you?"

His sigh was constricted by the weight of her leaning against him.

"For the briefest of time, I thought that I would have them. But then…"

"Spence, I told you, you still can. You will."

He smiled. "I know you want it for me. And don't think I haven't been aware of how lucky I am that you've shared yours with me. But I've had to accept that it may not be something that will happen for me."

"It could, if you were open to it." JJ shifted, to get a better look at him. "Spence, I know how much pain you were in after you lost Maeve. I saw it. And I know it took you a long time to get past it." When she saw him start to shake his head, she corrected herself. "No, I know. You never really get past it. You don't want to, because it feels like a betrayal. I felt that way even with Roz. But you…I guess you incorporate it, you make it part of the person you bring to the next relationship. But it doesn't mean you can't have a next relationship."

"I know. And maybe it will happen. But I'm not going to make it my life's aspiration, since we're talking about them. Because, if it doesn't happen for me, I still have to have a way that I live my life, a way to make it meaningful."

"For what it's worth, your life has been pretty meaningful to me."

He smiled at that. "Thanks. And, ditto."

JJ leaned into him. "I can't believe we're never going to do this again. Well, not this, specifically. But, you know, that we won't be working together, and seeing each other every day. Talking like this That I won't come in to work in the morning, and find a mug of coffee on my desk, and get to tell you all about the boys, and listen to you expound on…..whatever."

He chuckled. "I thought you hated my 'rambles', as you call them."

"That was before I knew I wouldn't hear them again. And, for the record, I've never hated them. Some of them just seemed a bit….long."

"If you'd ever asked Morgan, they also seemed …I believe the term was 'whacked out'."

"Oh, talk about missing someone! If you'd asked me, when I first joined the BAU, whether I would ever be close to SSA Derek Morgan, I'd have said, 'No way!'. But he kind of wormed his way into my heart."

"Tell me about it." Reid reminisced for a moment. "He was the closest thing I'll ever have to a brother. Still is, really. And I never would have thought it."

"Yeah, turns out the big tough guy is a teddy bear at heart."

Reid nodded. "That's a pretty sizeable heart. He ….." Stopped by the emotion that had unexpectedly risen within. JJ felt it as much as she heard it.

"You okay?"

After a few additional seconds spent recovering himself, Reid responded to her.

"Fine. It's just… I was remembering. I think that, as much as Hotch and Gideon mentored me, it was Morgan who made me into an agent. He didn't have to, it wasn't his job. But he was patient with me…well, sort of….and he showed me by example."

JJ knew what he meant. "He's the one who took it upon himself to teach me hand-to-hand. I think it was originally because he didn't think I was ready for the field, mind you. But then he kind of embraced it. He embraced me, too, and taught me the ropes."

Reid was lost to memory once again. "He taught me that it was okay to have flaws. Hotch and Gideon weren't comfortable with their flaws, so they never showed them…"

"Hotch? Really?" Remembering several times their former unit chief had been that open with her.

She felt Reid shrug. "I don't know, maybe it was me. Maybe I idolized them too much. I guess maybe Hotch did show me his vulnerability, the day Haley served him with the divorce papers. I mean, he wasn't himself after Foyet, either. But the only time he opened up to me was when he got those papers. He was…he was just sad, I guess."

JJ nodded. "I felt so bad for him about that. Of course, Rossi had replaced Gideon by then, and between the two of them, I couldn't help but wonder if being in the BAU was poisonous to the idea of marriage."

Reid had always wondered, but never asked, even though she was his best friend. Maybe because she was his best friend.

"Is that why you and Will put it off?"

Not realizing that the decision had been hers alone.

It was JJ's turn to ponder her words. "Hmm….maybe."

The brevity of her reply made him apologetic. "Sorry, I shouldn't have asked."

She sighed. "No, it's okay. I know it probably seemed strange, that we could have had a child together, and been living with each other for years, and still not been married."

He was quick to defend her to herself. "Not so strange at all. It happens all the time, doesn't it? There are a lot of couples who never marry at all."

She conceded his point, even while amused that he should be making it. Once upon a time, Spencer Reid had lived his life by the rules.

Now, not so much.

"I guess maybe it just seemed strange to me, because that kind of thing didn't happen in the town where I grew up. Or, more correctly, it did happen, but it was looked upon as all kinds of scandal."

"Really? Does that mean your mom was upset about it?"

"She kind of was, until she met Henry. Then she fell in love, and all was forgiven."

"So, she didn't pressure you to get married?"

Still protective of her, so many years after the fact. Despite their closeness, there remained limits to their sharing, and he'd never quite understood what had, and hadn't, caused her to make the decisions she'd made, nor what had caused them to change.

"Not after I first told her I was pregnant. She kind of asked, but the implication was there, that she thought we should be married first. But I just couldn't…"

Trailing off, lost in memory. Reid was torn about bringing her back. The conversation was serving as a welcome distraction from their predicament, even if he knew they were both on alert for any hint of threat.

And it's a way to pass the time until we have daylight again.

The thought threw him into his own tangential reverie about the passage of time, and the fact that each moment that brought them closer to daylight also brought them closer to the end of this beloved, familiar work relationship. Their friendship would continue, and they would still be in one another's lives. But it would all have to be scheduled, and arranged. The comfort of seeing his friends every day, and especially his best friend, the sense of belonging, of caring and being cared for, the warmth of knowing and being known….all of these things would be gone from his life.

"Hey…" He felt her jostling him as she spoke. "You okay?"

"Huh? Oh. Yeah, I'm fine."

Knowing his tendency to minimize, JJ sat up and studied him for a long moment, taking stock of his color, the pace of his respirations. Then she made a show of reaching for his wrist, prompting a reaction from Reid.

"What are you doing?"

"Taking your pulse, obviously."

"You can't see your watch."

"I can tell if it's fast or not. And it's not." Thank God. "But I also know you're not 'fine'. So tell me."

Sometimes he loved that she mothered him, and sometimes he hated it. This time, it was both.

"All right. I was thinking about how things are about to change. I mean, assuming this is behind us after tomorrow. I was just thinking about all of the things that won't happen anymore."

He was caught off guard when her eyes immediately filled.

"What's wrong?"

She looked annoyed with herself. "You just said it. So many things are coming to an end for us. I've been crying about it all week."

"You have?"

Knowing how much she valued being seen as tough, and composed. In fact, he was willing to bet that he was the only one with whom she'd so willingly dropped the façade, over their years together.

Although I doubt there was ever anything 'willing' about it. I'm just better at seeing through her.

Or maybe he was always just too worried about the emotional cost to both of them, should he allow her to push him away. Whatever the reason, she'd most regularly shown her vulnerabilities to him.

"Yes, me. I know, I'm supposed to be the practical one, but….God, Spence, the BAU has been my home for almost my whole adult life! The same for you. How do we let it go? How do we let each other go?"

He had no answer to that, save to open his arms and draw her into them. They held each other tightly, their minds each revisiting a thousand memories of nothing moments that had accumulated into treasure.

Reid whispered into her ear. "I don't have the words to tell you how much you mean to me. How much you've changed my life."

He heard her sniffle. "The same for me, Spence."

Reid pushed back just a little, still holding her. "I honestly don't think I would still be in the BAU, if not for you."

"Yes, you would. You…."

His look stopped her. "I don't think so. I came because of Gideon, and I found a professional home with the BAU. I found some wonderful, deep friendships, too. But the work was so hard, and the things that happened to…."

His words sent both of them into the past, conjuring images of some of the most painful times in their lives. For each of them, those images ended with the memory of the other, there to comfort and console at the close of the ordeal.

"….I don't think I could have gotten through them without being able to trust that you would be there, on the other side. You've always seen better in me than I've seen in myself."

She smiled through tears. "I can say the same." Looking away, as a thought struck her, and then turning her gaze back to him. The thought wasn't a new one. But the idea of sharing it with him was. She'd always been too shy about it before, and it had always seemed too awkward. But now…

If not now, when? So she told him.

"Sometimes I think that I try to live up to your idea of who I am. Which is a good thing, I guess. I mean, it's made me try to be worthy of the pedestal."

"I don't…." So quick to deny, so practiced in it. He'd accused himself of the same, many times. And he'd always lost the argument. "All right, so maybe I have always put you on a pedestal. But that's just because you were the first beautiful girl I'd ever met who was genuinely kind, and caring. I wasn't used to that. And, as far as I'm concerned, you've more than earned your pedestal."

She chuckled. "I think we both know that I've fallen off it more than a few times. But, really, Spence, I can't think of anyone whose opinion of me matters more. You can't possibly know how much it means to me."

"I don't… I don't even know what to say to that."

They'd long ago become open with their affection for one another, but they'd never had this level of conversation about it. He'd known he had a place in her heart. To be confirmed in her esteem was new to him, and he savored it.

"You don't have to say anything. It's just a fact. I'm Spencer Reid's biggest fan."

He still didn't know how to respond, so he deflected.

"Maybe your concussion was worse than we thought."

"Ha. Seriously, Spence. Maybe we wouldn't have been talking about any of this if things weren't changing, or if we weren't stuck in a bombed out building. But I'm glad we are, because you should know what an amazing person you are."

He shifted position, still uncomfortable with the flattery, even as he understood she didn't mean it as such. Coming from the person who knew him best, it fell upon him like a warm blanket. He pulled the blanket closer, and then realized it was her in his arms.

"Sorry." Relaxing his grasp.

But, in the cold night air, his embrace had actually warmed her, and she snuggled back into it. Reid let go long enough to rearrange his jacket over them, and then they both sat in silence for a while, until JJ's whisper broke into it.

"Have you ever thought about what might have happened if we hadn't been quite so young when we went to that football game?"

Only about a thousand times.

Aloud, he responded, "I'm sure I would have blown it some other way."

"How do you know that? What if we'd gone on a date, and had a great time, and ….."

"And, one of us would have had to leave the BAU. We couldn't have been in a relationship and gone into the field together."

"I know. Still ….. sometimes I think about it."

Her words made him wonder about something he'd occasionally pondered in the past, for different reasons.

"JJ….are you happy?"

She didn't have to ask what he meant by that. But she hesitated nonetheless. The answer was complicated.

"I am. At least, I think I am. My life isn't perfect, but no one's ever is, right? Things change. Relationships change. They evolve. My life has evolved, that's all."

He stared down at her. "I just want you to be happy. I know it's an illusion, but …well, I want it for you."

She raised a hand to stroke his cheek. "I know you do. It's one of the many reasons I love you."

He smiled at her. "But that hasn't stopped you from wondering."

She shook her head, prompting his response.

"Well, since we're being honest… I guess I've wondered, too."

They held each other's gaze for a long moment, until JJ's hand moved from his cheek to his neck, and pulled it towards her. They hesitated for what seemed an eternity, weighing responsibility against desire. In the end, they both recognized it as curiosity more than anything else. A curiosity that became insatiable, in the moment.

Reid lowered his lips to hers, and the two came together, just barely, a mere whisper of a kiss. They pulled back, and smiled, and nearly laughed at the preposterousness of it. But, having tasted, their lips wanted more, and they came back together, much more insistently this time, much more deeply.

For Reid, it was one of the most precious moments of his life, holding in his arms the person he'd so long held in his heart, tasting her, recognizing the sweetness he'd somehow always known he would find there.

JJ hadn't exactly fantasized about it, but she'd long wondered what it would be like. If he'd feel as strong as he'd seemed to have become. If there would be a residual sweetness there. If his beard would bristle against her cheek. If he would take the lead, or leave it to her.

She didn't have to wonder about any of those things any longer. JJ gave herself over to the moment, even as she recognized that was all it would, or could, ever be.

All too soon, they released, looking at one another in embarrassed surprise. It was Reid who found his tongue first.

"Well, I was right."

Her brows went up. "About what?"

"About what it would be like."

"What does that mean?"

"It means," he said, "that I'm a genius."