JJ POV
We continued investigating, but of course we came up empty. Matter of fact, Hotch and I were in his office looking through some of Doyle's old contacts to see if we could find anyone who might have helped him leave the country when Strauss came in and plopped a pile of files on Hotch's desk.
"What are these?" He asked.
"New cases," she answered simply.
"What?" I asked, "we're not done with this one yet!"
"There are other cases, ones with evidence and bodies," she explained, not leaving room for argument. "We're also holding interviews for Agent Prentiss' replacement."
"Replacement?" I repeated in disbelief. "We haven't even found her yet."
"The bureau sees this as an opurtunity to make some much needed changes to the BAU. We have many people waiting to get in, and this gives them a chance to prove themselves."
"All due respect, ma'am, but this is not a training exercise. We need an experianced profiler and agent," Hotch finally said.
"What about me?" I asked.
"You're not a profiler," Strauss said.
"My position as media liaison required a lot more profiling than you think. I know protocol. I know this team, and I know what they need. I also know that bringing in an outsider at a time like this would be a mistake," I said.
"You have other duties at the state department," she countered.
"I'm not needed there; I'm needed here," I gritted through my teeth, trying to keep calm.
She stared at me for a moment. "Fine, but I'm mot making any promises. I still have to talk to the director about this," she said, "but I still want you to start on a new case."
She looked pointedly at both of us before walking out.
"Welcome back," Hotch said with a small smile, but it quickly faded away. "Do you wanna tell them, or should I?"
"Uh...I think I should, but it wouldn't hurt to have you there," I answered.
"Of course," he said as we got up to make our way to the bullpen.
Everyone was already huddled around Reid's desk.
"What's going on?" Asked Penelope.
"Yeah, what did Strauss want?" Reid added.
"She was, um, looking for someone to replace Emily on the team, and it looks like I'm back," I explained.
At that, Morgan huffed angrily before stomping away. And I knew why. It wasn't that he wasn't happy that I was back; it was that replacing Emily made it real. Made it so that we had to move on.
Then, I felt like my stomach was doing flip-flops and my mouth filled with spit. I quickly grabbed the trash can next to Reid's desk. I'm not sure who decided on calling it morning sickness, but they're wrong. It definitely isn't a problem in just the morning. When I stood up, they were all staring at me, besides Hotch, who had disappeared.
"I-I'm pregnant," I finally admitted when the silence got too awkward.
"JJ!" Garcia said, smiling, it was the first real smile I'd had seen at the BAU since well... "How long have you known?"
"I found out right before..." my voice trailed off. "I didn't wanna distract us. We needed to focus on Doyle and-"
"We have a case," Hotch said as he stepped into sight.
I said there would be lots of JJ and I mean JJ was pregnant and I couldn't just ignore that...So does this like even out with Emily being gone? Because JJ's baby is alive so that's good and then Emily being with Doyle is bad (demanding on how you look at it)
