AUTHOR'S NOTE: I went back and looked at chapter 1 and one of the things that I had intended in regards to Barrett seemed unclear there so I rewrote a few lines there to make what happened between he and JJ a little more...up in the air. Nothing all that violent per se, but I certainly want to make it clear that Barrett was a guy who JJ didn't have too many good feelings for. Shouldn't dramatically alter the path of the rest of the story.

Anyway, as always, thank you so much for the feedback. Enjoy the read.

His name was James. Sweet, beautiful and sleek, he purred like a kitten when she touched him. Sometimes, if she ran her finger down him in just the right way, the tip of her nail lightly scratching him just so, well sometimes he'd whistle in appreciation.

Right now, however, James was having a very bad day. One of those kick the wall, punch the sofa, bite something until it bleeds kind of days.

And from where Penelope Garcia stood, it wasn't looking like it was going to get any better for her precious James.

He was perched precariously between pictures of her loves ones. A photo of her with her brothers. Another of her and JJ hugging tightly. One of her team, all of them looking a bit tipsy. And finally one of her with Derek. The last two had been snapped at JJ's annual Christmas party.

The one where JJ had gotten Reid to box-step.

God if that didn't seem like months ago.

She shook those thoughts off. James. Focus on Sweet James.

"Shh, my sweet," Garcia said as she approached James, her hands out to touch him, to comfort and calm him.

To her side, her desktop, the machine she liked to call many different names depending on how good and generous it was to her on any given day, was running detailed background searches on all of the victims of the new case the BAU team had been assigned to.

That, however, was of little concern to her at the moment.

James. Sweet James. He was all that mattered.

"Please," she begged him. "Please stop."

But he keep screeching out obscenities and making noises that well, well he shouldn't be making. Noises that frankly terrified her.

"No, no," she pleaded. "Don't do that, baby. I love you. I need you." She clasped her hands together, wringing them in desperation.

But James wasn't listening, wasn't hearing her. He just keep screaming, kept throwing the mother of all temper tantrums.

"Hey, Garcia! Are you alright in here? Hotch and I heard the sounds and-" From where he was standing in the doorway, Spencer Reid trailed off, his eyes taking in the scene in front of him. The just…bizarreness of it. Garcia looked over at him, a few unshed tears in her eyes. "Garcia?"

"He…he…"

The words wouldn't come.

Reid entered the room and approached her. "Garcia?" he asked again, his brow furrowed like he couldn't understand what the problem was.

"He…he…"

And James growled again, this time louder and more painfully, like nails on a chalkboard. Reid winced and Garcia felt a wave of guilt wash over her. The way he'd moved, well people didn't do that when they heard sounds like that. They covered their ears, but they didn't almost collapse. Their faces didn't grow white like that.

Still, Reid was here right now. For right now okay. Sure his eyes looked a little funny and his attention span seemed a little well, short, but he was a strange guy, so both of those things could be normal. Maybe.

But James. Sweet, sweet stalwart James. Right now he was the important one. He was the one who was dying. Painfully. Horribly…

James screeched again and then quite suddenly, went terribly quiet.

For a long moment there wasn't a sound in the room. And then Garcia let out a single strangled sob of grief and agony.

"Garcia?" Reid asked once more, no longer cringing, now just looking confused. "Was that thing making that noise…"

"Not a thing," she squeaked, hands fanning the air in front of her, like she was having trouble breathing.

"Was that your… laptop?" he continued, blinking several times. Try as he might, he just couldn't wrap his mind around was happening. And in the back of Garcia's mind, the part that wasn't hysterical, she thought that that was a bit odd, too.

"Yes," she choked out. "My James." She pointed to a placard on the wall, just above James's docking station. It, of course, read: SWEET JAMES. Reid read it, his eyes skittering very quickly away from the pictures and only settling on the placard for about half a second.

But then, for a guy who could read 20,000 words a minute, that was more enough time to have read the placard. And memorized it for life.

Reid couldn't help, but smile. "I'm sorry," he offered up. It sounded more like a question than a statement because he wasn't really sure if one was supposed to be sorry about a laptop keeling over.

She sniffled. "I know you are." She continued to stare at her baby, thinking about all they'd been through together. Thinking about that how horrible Fisher King had hijacked him, thinking about how in the aftermath of that, she and Sweet James had had a very intense conversation about using proper protection while trolling the net.

Thinking about how Hotch had finally permitted her to bring Sweet James back to work after she had shown him all the different security measures that had been installed and implemented. She'd joked that she'd just Trojanized him and Hotch, who wasn't half as humorless as everyone thought, had smirked and just walked away.

But now, now James was on his deathbed. Oh, it was almost too much to bare. Too much unfairness and injustice in the world.

"Should we…bury it?" Reid asked suddenly, not really knowing what the protocol for this situation would be.

Garcia smiled sadly over at him. He was a geek, yes, but he'd never been a computer type. In fact, if allowed, he'd have preferred to do everything by old fashioned pen and paper. The fact that the government apparently employed blind as a bat ninety year olds to vet the after action reports had forced him into having a laptop of his own. Which he used as infrequently as he could get away with.

"No," she finally said, shaking her head solemnly. "He's sick. Very sick, but not dead." And then she reached forward and stroked him gently. "Shh, baby, momma's here. Momma's gonna take good care of you. Just you wait and see. Momma will make you all better."

Reid cleared his throat. "Why don't I, uh…leave you alone with-"

"No! Don't leave."

Reid's eyebrow again went up. Garcia winced inwardly. That had been too much. Taking a breath, she toned it down. Calmed it down.

"Look, for now James needs his rest. He has intensive open heart surgery scheduled for later this afternoon. In the meanwhile, I could use a distraction so why don't you stay and talk to me, okay?"

"I should really get back to Hotch," came the hesitant reply. Reid took a step backwards, but didn't quite exit. Garcia knew as well as he did that Reid had no real desire to go back into the room with Hotch.

Who with every day, every moment, was getting closer to the truth. Closer to figuring out that something was very wrong with his youngest agent. Something so wrong in fact that Reid wasn't going to be able to get through it on his own. Hotch was figuring it out.

They all were.

"You can stay for a few minutes," Garcia replied as lightly as she could. She was intentionally trying to set him at ease, make him think she wasn't going to do what she had every intention of doing. Grilling him of course. "After all," she continued, with a slight, but dramatic pout. "I am an over-emotional mother, I shouldn't be left alone right now."

And again, obviously quite in spite of how he was feeling and what he suspected she was up to, Reid laughed. He crossed over to the swivel chair against the wall - the one that probably had an imprint of JJ's ass permanently stamped onto it for all the time she spent in here - and sat down. He moved towards Garcia, rolling the chair a bit.

"What did you want to talk about?" he asked quietly. There was an undercurrent of dread there, but even that seemed muted. Again, Garcia was hit the unsettling feeling that something was off about him.

She pretended to think for a moment and then finally said, "Been seeing anyone?" She knew it was a lame open but she also knew it would get a reaction from him and that was a start because lately, Reid had been falling further and further into himself.

Bottling things up like the damn Coca-Cola Company.

"No," he replied, eyebrow lifted. Not quite the reaction she'd been hoping for, more curiosity than anger. Still something. "Wouldn't you know if I was?"

"Well you and JJ-"

"Aren't a couple and have never been a couple," Reid interrupted a flash of something like anger in his tone. There was more though. Spencer Reid typically wasn't a man who spoke in absolutes. He stammered, he hedged; he left doors open for possibilities. And he was rarely straight to the point. That he'd been so cold, hard and direct, well it said something. She just wasn't quite sure what yet.

For a long moment, Garcia didn't have an answer for that. And then she said, very softly, "Reid, I wasn't-"

"You were," he nodded quickly, deliberately. "But we've never even-" he stopped, seemed thoughtful for a moment. And as he was, it occurred to Garcia that he was telling her more than he usually did. He was saying more, he was letting more in and out about his feelings for JJ.

And that was odd.

And yet somehow, it made sense.

She knew - just as everyone else did - that Reid and JJ seemed to be caught in the middle of a spell of friendship interruptus, but Reid's sudden flash of anger in regards to her seemed more than that, more than just two people who couldn't find a way to talk to each other about the mutual, but separate hell they'd been through.

"We've never even had a moment," Reid finally finished, practically spitting out each word. "She saves those for…" He stopped again, his eyes settling on the main computer in the room, the one which was showing a picture of the third victim. "Guys like Gibson Barrett."

Then, suddenly, eyes wide with shock at his decidedly un-Reid like anger and behavior, Garcia got what was going on. And it made her sick.

JJ was falling apart because of the stress, guilt and strain she'd been under since Georgia. What had happened to Barrett had just been too much and now, the cracks were forming in her, each one deeper and longer than the one before it.

It wouldn't take much more pressure to make her fall apart completely.

Everyone could see. Everyone.

Including Reid.

But most importantly, including Hotch and Gideon. Who had already been close to figuring things out. So close. Closer now.

Because in order to help JJ out, in order to save their so obviously troubled friend who was now becoming increasingly incapable of keeping everything pulled together, everyone was going to have to take a step backwards so that they could see the big picture.

A picture which was coming more and more into alarming focus with each passing second.

A grim picture which included Reid.

Which meant that JJ's problems had turned the spotlight on Reid. And that, and probably not Georgia, was why he was angry at and with her.

Because it was a simple line that connected the two youngest agents. One that showed the trauma of what they'd been through and how both were dealing with it in a way that was more self-destructive than helpful.

And damned if the seven members of the BAU didn't like their secrets, but even secrets couldn't last forever.

Not in a family.

And above all else, this was a family.

"Okay," Garcia finally soothed. "Let's try this again. When's the last time you and JJ talked? And I don't mean as in sharing case info."

Reid shrugged. "Yesterday." The coldness was still there. Garcia tried to think back to when she'd seen him right after the case briefing earlier that same day. He'd been walking out by himself, just seconds after JJ had exited with Morgan and Prentiss. He'd mumbled something to Hotch about needing to use the bathroom.

She remembered that JJ had still been in the hallway. Just standing there. Taking a second by herself while Prentiss had been waiting for her, about ten feet away. The two older agents had been trying to pretend to talk to each other, but they'd absolutely been watching JJ.

And by the way JJ had been staring at the floor, she'd known it.

When JJ had finally looked up, Garcia could recall seeing a smile pass between JJ and Reid, who at that point had been just inches apart. It hadn't been as friendly or cheery as usual, but still one that had seemed to say – at least from Reid's POV, "It's okay. You're okay. We're okay."

So what the hell had happened since then to make him so much more pissed off at her? What could she possibly have done to him while she was out of the office?

Idly, because her mind was never one to outright reject the goofy, she wondered if Reid had zipped himself up into his pants during his trip to the bathroom and that was why he was in such a cranky mood.

No, her mind shook it off. Unless JJ was the one pulling the zipper – an amusing, but unlikely thought – Reid still wouldn't have reason to be pissed at her. Truly a mystery then. Penelope Garcia loved mysteries.

Usually.

This one was a bit too personal to love.

This one was a bit too important to fuck up.

"What'd you talk about?" Garcia prompted.

Reid bristled a bit. "Not that it's any of your business…" Immediately Garcia was reminded of how JJ had spoken to her back at Hankel's place. When she'd demanded to see the video of Tobias murdering the family that Reid had chosen. So cold and disconnected. So obviously terrified beyond words. Reid sounded like that now. "But, she borrowed a dollar from me so that she could buy herself a soda," he finished off.

"JJ bought a soda?" Garcia blinked, knowing that she was again losing focus, but momentarily allowing her curiosity to get the best of her. JJ was a beer, wine, coffee, water and ice tea with too much lemon in it kind of girl. On occasion lemonade, but rarely if ever soda.

"I think it was a diet one," he replied, glancing down at his nails. Almost absently, he flicked his middle finger against his thumb.

"I didn't think she ever drank soda. Any kind of soda."

And again Reid shrugged because right now he was still too angry at her to really concentrate on the red flag that had just been thrown up over the field of play. "Maybe she felt like doing something different." And then, lower – much lower- "We're all entitled to that every now and again."

"Right," Garcia murmured. She hadn't missed the red flag, but she wasn't quite sure what to make of it so she pushed on. "So, that was it? Just, 'can I borrow a dollar'?"

He nodded.

"Reid," she said, moving close to him, not missing how one of his feet, which had previously been wound around the base of the chair, dropped to the ground and flattened out, as if to give himself a strong push backwards if it became necessary to get away quickly. "Don't you get it? You've both changed. And not for the better."

"No," he replied, shaking his head. "I'm fine." Now, unlike how he'd been in the hallway, he was protecting only himself. Hanging JJ out to dry. Another red flag if ever there was one.

And suddenly, just like that, Penelope Garcia was just done with it. Done with feeling like she was just seconds from losing two of her very best friends. Two people that she knew the world will be less without. Two people that she knew that she would be less without.

"No, Reid, you're not. And neither is she. Both of you need help." It was simple. It was direct. And it took Reid aback.

"I…"

"Reid, you get lost?" Hotch asked, entering the room. He looked impatient, a bit irritated. Which likely meant that Gideon was.

Silently, Garcia cursed. Reid's look showed relief. He thought he'd barely escaped one. But an escape was an escape and he seemed almost giddy.

"Sorry, Hotch" Reid said, his voice absurdly cheerful. "I was just, uh, helping Garcia with…uh…" he stopped, as if trying to remember something. Then finished weakly with," Her laptop. It died."

Garcia didn't miss the fact that he was intentionally avoiding her eyes. Which, of course, made sense. Because now she had him over a proverbial barrel. Now she really knew that something was wrong with him.

His memory was such that he could recall every word he'd ever read. She'd seen him look up at the placard which read SWEET JAMES. That had been less than five minutes earlier. That he'd already forgotten it was a damning thing indeed.

A third and final red flag.

"Do you need him?" Hotch asked her, a bit of amusement in his tone. For half a second Garcia allowed herself to feel a flush of affection for Hotch. He always tried to understand her quirkiness, gave her free reign to express it and sometimes even encouraged and protected it.

"No," she said, meeting his eyes. Telling him a story. And while Hotch didn't quite get what she was saying, he nodded at her. Imperceptibly, but there nonetheless. A simple statement that told her that he'd be back later. Back to hear what she had to tell him.

Again, without looking at her, Reid turned and exited the room, Hotch following close behind. The moment they were gone, Garcia got up and shut the door. She took a breath and crossed back over to her computer, prepared to do something she'd always vowed she'd never do.

Prepared to cross line she'd always promised she never would.

But desperate times called for desperate measures. And three red flags was three too many.

Dropping down into the chair in front of her desktop, she cast a quick sideways at James and then returned her full attention back to her main computer- the one that she was fully aware could be hiding a Pandora's Box, one which she really didn't care to open.

One which she knew she had to.

The screen was still showing a picture of Gibson Barrett. His background was for the most part bland, with the exception of a restraining order that had been filed against him by one of his exes. She claimed that he'd been stalking her, calling her at all hours of the night.

According to his financial data, he and JJ had been living on the same street for little over four months. During that time, he'd been pretty much the perfect neighbor. Not even a call for disturbing the peace.

Still, there was something about the stalking that made the hair on the back of Garcia's neck stand up. Something that made her wonder if JJ wasn't hiding something, intentionally not volunteering information.

But for now, that would have to wait. Because the clues she needed to solve that puzzle weren't in the computer system, they were in JJ's head. And JJ was with Morgan and Prentiss.

Reid, however, part of his secret was in the system.

Locked away and filed under two words: patient confidentiality. Even Gideon and Hotch were in the dark about the details, details that Reid had asked not be disclosed.

He'd said he was okay, said he'd needed for his friends and co-workers not to know everything he'd been through. And Hotch and Gideon who had as many secrets as everyone else, had agreed to that.

But they shouldn't have.

Because in short, he, like JJ, was hiding something that mattered.

"Patient confidentiality," she muttered was an irritated growl.

To hell with that.

Reaching for her keyboard, she typed the words: SPENCER REID. A few moments passed as she considered whether or not she should actually hit the ENTER button.

Because once she did, she knew that there would be no going back.

Five seconds. Then ten. By the time the clock hit fifteen seconds, she realized that there was already no going back.

Her friends needed her.

They desperately needed help that they weren't going to ask for. Whether because of pride or fear, it just wasn't going to happen. Not on their own at least.

And so now, there was only this.

Invading their privacy. Crossing the line. Hurting them to save them.

She closed her eyes. Took a breath.

Her family needed her.

And so she hit ENTER.