AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry this took so long, been trying to balance this with a professional project. The pro one takes a lot more focus(and a lot more editing). Anyway, here it is. We're still a bit slow and still setting the stage and I hope I'm not going too slow for y'all and losing you because I promise, it's gonna speed up very soon. This story isn't about the mystery of who killed JJ's parents, it's about what happens to her and within her and around her when she is finally faced with the opportunity to confront and deal with the monster who irrevocably alters her life's due course.

As is par for the course of this ep, I am using some creative license to deal with facts not in evidence- such as when certain members of the team joined the group. Certain things said by characters lead me to believe that our core group - Gideon, Hotch, Morgan, Reid and JJ have all been together for around three years with Reid and JJ as the newest members. Maybe this is true, maybe this isn't, but for this story- just go with it. If it alters on-air, I'll deal in an eventual re-edit.

As always, I thank you for any and all feedback.

FEBRUARY, 2004.

She was shaking. She could feel it.

The Academy seemed like forever ago, a memory of something simple and easy.

At least comparatively speaking anyway.

She approached the desk in the lobby slowly, hearing the sound of her heels clicking on the marble floor beneath her. The slightly plump lady at the desk was in her early fifties, a cheerful woman who'd been doing this job all her life.

"Uh, hi," Jennifer Jareau said thickly, realizing that her mouth had suddenly gone very dry.

David had told her to expect that. He'd said that the first day would be harder, even harder than the first day at the FBI Academy. He'd told her that her first instinct would be to turn and run, to believe that she was in the wrong place.

He'd told her to steady her feet, keep them still. He'd told her that he knew she could do it.

He'd told her that he knew she'd do great.

"Hi," the woman, who JJ would come to know as Angela Bierko said, smiling broadly, her eyes twinkling. Idly JJ wondered if Angela couldn't see right through her, didn't know just on sight that she was new meat.

A raw kid who would probably wash out within two weeks.

"I…I'm looking…I mean I need…I'm here to speak to SSA Aaron Hotchner."

Angela nodded and flipped through a notebook on her desk. "Jennifer Jareau?"

"Yes," JJ said quickly, perhaps a bit too quickly. Her fingers bumbling just a bit, she pulled out her FBI badge, the newly issued one that said: SPECIAL AGENT on it.

Angela lifted an eyebrow. "Okay, this badge will get you through the doors into that office. When you leave today, please make sure you drop it off again. Eventually the boys down in security will finish getting you a set of your own."

JJ nodded, but said nothing, knowing instinctively that Angela wasn't done.

"Your office is on the first floor, off to the left of when you walk in. The previous agent who had the position you're taking moved out last week so the office is nice and empty now, but that won't last for long, honey."

Not liking the sound of that, JJ could manage little more than an uncomfortable smile. And not for the first time since being given her first straight out of the Academy assignment, she wondered if she wasn't in way over her head.

Already.

But this was apparently a posh position. One that everyone wanted. One that was impossible for anyone who wasn't a Supervisory Special Agent to get into.

But she wasn't going in as a profiler.

She was going in as their liaison.

Which FBI regs were lighter for. A just Special Agent could be a liaison.

The question then became, could someone who wasn't of the same experience and rank as the others, could someone who was essentially a fresh faced green rookie ever have a chance in hell of earning the respect of a group of grizzled lifers?

She'd spent a good amount of time thinking about that.

Too much time if she were to be honest with herself.

Still, colleagues at the Academy had told her that this was the kind of job that people killed for. It was a hell of a springboard, they'd said. Being in the BAU, well it got them noticed. It helped get them places.

Apparently the Director of the FBI's press agent had done a stint in the FBI. Way back in the day. Even worked alongside the rather infamous Oscar Baron.

An Academy legend if ever there was one.

"Ms. Jareau?" Angela said. JJ blinked and smiled awkwardly, realizing that she'd been caught dazing off. "Can I give you some advice?"

"Sure," JJ replied, wondering if the advice was to turn around, walk out of the building and request a different position.

One without the pressure of everybody watching.

"Your appointment to this department wasn't a mistake, Ms. Jareau. You were carefully selected from a very large pool of candidates. That means that Agent Hotchner has every confidence that you can do it. When you walk through the doors to meet him, your face should show that same confidence."

"Thank you," JJ said, rather wishing that she could fall into the floor. She could feel the heat on her cheeks, knew that she had to look rather like a red-faced fool.

"Not a prob-" Angela stopped abruptly, her eyes catching on someone walking by. "Good news, one of your new co-workers just got in." Then, frowning just a bit, she finished with, "Late, I might add. Dr. Reid!"

JJ turned to watch a young man who couldn't have been a day over twenty. His brown hair was mussed up, a long lock of it falling over the left lens of his horn-rimmed glasses. He was holding an oversized cup of coffee in his hand.

"Hi, Angela," he smiled as he crossed over to the desk. His eyes flickered up towards JJ and he placed his hand over his mouth, as if to clear a cough in his throat.

"Doctor Spencer Reid, this is Special Agent Jennifer Jareau."

"The rookie," Reid squeaked suddenly, waving his hand at her, as if to say hello. Quite involuntarily, JJ laughed.

And for a moment, they just stood there like that, both looking at each other. Until Angela, with amusement in her voice said, "Dr. Reid, why don't you take Agent Jareau in to meet with Agent Hotchner. I'm sure she'd like to get settled in."

"Oh! Right. Of course."

Again, quite involuntarily, JJ found herself smiling at him. There was just something infectious about this kid. Something innocent.

Something that made her feel like maybe she was in the right place after all.

"Right this way," he then said, indicating towards glass doors.

The first time she walked through the glass doors that led into the bullpen of the BAU, she felt her stomach seize violently and she wondered if she'd have enough time to make it to the bathroom before she lost the small amount of cereal that she'd been able to ingest less than an hour earlier.

"Hey, Reid," a voice called out, taking her attention off the churning in her belly. She looked up to see an incredibly handsome black men wearing cargo pants and an olive green shirt. He was leaning against his desk, a mug of coffee cupped casually in his massive hands. "Who you got with you?"

Reid turned slightly towards JJ, his voice low. "Derek Morgan. " Then, as they approached Morgan, "Special Agent Jennifer Jareau."

"Ah, the rookie," Morgan said.

"Okay, that's the second time that's been said," JJ informed them. "I should be worried, right?"

Reid coughed, but said nothing.

"Nah, we're harmless," Morgan assured her with an easy smile. One that could charm a snake out of its basket. "A pleasure," he then said as he extended his hand and it occurred to JJ, as she took it, that Reid hadn't offered his palm. She filed that way for later.

It probably meant nothing.

But it was weird.

"Uh, for me, too," JJ nodded. She'd read up on the Unit she was becoming part of. She knew everything about them that the FBI officially knew.

Hotchner the former DA. Gideon the brilliant but erratic SSA who in the eyes of most had all of the skills to be a unit chief but none of the calm. Morgan, the agent who'd risen quickly through the ranks, receiving commendation after commendation, often for endangering himself to help someone else. Megan Daly, the senior profiler who was six months from retirement and Reid, the twenty year old genius that no one could quite figure out.

The genius that every department in the FBI had tried to claim for their own.

They were her team now.

If she could manage to stop her stomach from churning.

If she could keep her feet from turning and running.

"Agent Jareau?"

She turned and looked up towards the second floor. A tall in a perfect suit was standing there. His look was hard and serious. Too serious.

"Agent Hotchner," she swallowed. "Sorry, I'm late."

He glanced down at his watch and she thought she saw the tip of his lip curve into just the slightest of smiles as he replied, "You're not. Yet. Come on."

She offered Reid and Morgan a smile and then made her way up the stairs, her heels once again clicking rhythmically. When she reached the top, Hotch was standing there waiting. He immediately extended a hand.

"You can call me Hotch," he told her.

She took his hand and for a moment, almost replied with her nickname, but then she stopped. This was a job. These weren't her friends. This was professional.

"Thank you for this, sir," JJ told him.

He smiled, again slightly, this one more controlled. "Why don't we talk in my office?"

She nodded, biting down on the youthful urge to run. Wondering when someone was going to say, "Uh oh, you're in trouble."

Once inside the office, she settled into the chair opposite his desk and glanced around. She took in the pictures of his wife, a pretty woman. No photos of kids or animals. But that he was married was a good thing.

One of her teachers back at the Academy had indicated that their line of work tended to be hell on a marriage.

But then, she reminded herself, she hadn't joined the FBI for the paycheck and stability. She'd joined it for her own reasons.

"You're probably wondering why I brought you in without even interviewing you first," Hotch started, meeting her eyes,

"I had wondered," she admitted. "I mean, you guys are profilers, I figured you'd want to meet me to…well…"

"Know you?"

She shrugged, looked a bit sheepish.

Profiling is harder than that. If we could just look at someone and know who they were, then our job would be easy. But people are all different and some are very good at hiding just how evil they are. I like to think that I'm better than most at being able to read men, but still…"

"So, why did you then?"

"Because you were the top of your class."

He could tell that she wasn't quite understanding. Time to try something new then.

Time to do what Morgan liked to do, use breadcrumbs to lead someone down the path.

"Why did you put in for the open position in the BAU?" he asked her, reaching into his desk and pulling out three folders.

"Honestly?

He nodded.

"Because everyone was. Because they said that the BAU was where you wanted to be if you wanted to make a difference."

"And you want to make a difference?"

"Don't we all. Isn't that why we all joined the FBI?"

He chuckled, just a bit. "We all have our reasons. Yours, I'm a little foggy on."

"Sir?" she asked, starting to feel very uncomfortable. She wondered if she'd done something wrong, wondered if she'd been sent for some kind of interrogation.

"Before the Academy, you were an average student at Pittsburgh U, would you agree?"

She nodded slowly. "I had a 3.0, but no, studies weren't exactly a major focus for me."

"They didn't really need to be. You were a hell of an athlete." He reached down and opened a file. In it were several clippings from the school's paper. A few of them showed her in full color, either blocking a shot or taking one. "You set school records for saves, were honored several times."

"Sir, with all due respect, I know all this."

"My point, Agent Jareau, is that you were an athlete, not an – and I mean no offense by saying this - academic. And you majored in Television Journalism. So tell me, how does that then become a burning desire to not only enter the FBI, but to be the best of it."

"You said it yourself," JJ replied, meeting her eyes, her blues flashing stubbornly. "I'm an athlete. I try to be the best at whatever I do."

"Okay, I can buy that. To a degree. But…I think there's more." He opened up a different folder and pulled out a print-out of a newspaper article. The headline on it read: COUPLE MURDERED IN THEIR OWN HOME.

And underneath the headline were two pictures. One of a pretty blonde woman. One of a man with brown hair. Matthew and Kate Jareau.

Involuntarily, JJ flinched.

"This is why you joined," he said. It was a statement of fact.

"I joined to stop…" but then she couldn't get the words out. A few seconds passed before she continued, "If you didn't think I could do this…"

"On the contrary, Agent Jareau, I'm quite confident that you can do this job. But in order for you to, you need to be honest with yourself. We all have our reasons for being here. Some of them, you'll never know. Some of us, we don't have a paper trail like you do. But we all have our reasons. And if we let those reasons define us then we become a slave to them."

"I don't understand."

"I think you do."

She met his eyes again and he knew he was getting through. So softly:

"You joined the FBI so that you could one day have the chance to find the man who murdered your parents. Well that day may come, but it's not today. Today we go out and hunt someone else's nightmare. You can't personalize it or the job will destroy you within weeks. You have to find a way to separate yourself from it. Do you think you can handle that?"

"That sounds like a dare," she said with a small smile.

He laughed and this time it was real and full. "I suppose it is."

"I never turn down a dare."

"Good to know. We meet in the conference room just down the hall every morning at nine-thirty. That gives you about ten minutes to get up to speed with the current case we're working on."

"Okay," she said, standing up. Then, "Sir, about this…"

"Everything we just talked about stays between you and I," Hotch promised. "Only my superiors know the details. And I assure you, it will stay that way unless you decide otherwise."

"Thank you," she sighed with relief as she moved towards the door.

"And Agent Jareau?" she turned back. "I chose you without interviewing you because I knew if I had interviewed you, you would have come prepared. And something tells me that you're very good at stonewalling when you want to."

"So my aunt likes to say," she replied. After a beat, she added, softly, hesitantly, "And sir, it's JJ. I…I've always gone by JJ."

"JJ it is," he nodded. "Welcome to the BAU, JJ."

JULY, 2007.

The BAU team had a rule. Coffee before work. It was a very simple matter of greasing the wheels. Lack of caffeine for this group of profilers was a lot like trying to cut meat with a dull knife.

Pretty damned useless.

Thankfully, the men and women who worked the precinct in San Diego were every bit as much of caffeine fanatics.

And they had a kitchen to die for.

So once everyone was carrying a full cup, Baron had announced with grand style that the meeting could finally commence.

Which had brought them all to the outside of the conference room on the second floor of the precinct. Once a chilly interrogation room, a window had been put in to bring in light and air and not it was a drafty interview room.

Still terribly uncomfortable just not quite as foreboding as before.

That said, Jennifer Jareau thought to herself, this place was practically a beach resort compared to some of the precincts she'd been forced to spend time in.

"Hey, you okay?" Hotch asked, reaching out and touching her shoulder lightly. He held her back, waiting for the others to enter the room ahead of them. Reid glanced over his shoulder at them and Hotch could have sworn that he saw JJ nod at him. As if to say, "it's okay."

And then Reid turned and walked with Morgan into the room. JJ watched and then turned back towards Hotch. "I'm fine," she assured him.

"This case…"

"It's familiar," JJ agreed. "I've noticed. But Hotch, we've worked on…we've seen this before, whole families being murdered."

"True, but you must have noticed the patterns."

"I was five, David was seven," JJ sighed. "Yes. But really, I'm fine."

"I know you are," Hotch nodded. "And if you're not…"

"I will be," she assured him, unwilling to even offer up the chance of showing weakness. Hotch almost smiled. After three years, her stubborn streak was just as strong as ever. Just as unrelenting. "These cases may be similar, but they're not the same. Remember, I'm alive. So's David. Don't worry, I can separate."

"Okay." He didn't sound convinced but was willing to let it go for now. He'd made an effort a long time ago to not look for problems.

With her when it came to families being murdered. With Morgan when it came child rapists. With Reid when it came to any kind of drug abuse.

He had always told them to separate.

Sometime he found that hard to do himself.

Hard, but not impossible.

JJ nodded and started towards the room.

"Don't imagine if I asked you about what's going on with you and Reid that you'd actually tell me, hm?" he tried, voice light.

"There's nothing going on with Dr. Reid and I," she replied effortlessly, eyes twinkling. "But we are keeping the others waiting."

Shaking his head, he opened the door and watched her walk through it. As he followed, he couldn't quite shake the feeling that no matter what JJ had said to the opposite, this case was all too familiar.

It took only five minutes in room with Oscar Baron for the others to realize what Jason Gideon had known since the first day he'd met his eccentric mentor.

Baron was excitable, enigmatic and quite prone to fits of yelling.

And no one in the room could take their eyes off of him.

Especially Reid, whose look could best be described as puppy love.

"The Haven's daughter Kimberly, she was a soccer player. A forward. But she wanted to be a goalie."

"How do you know that?" Morgan challenged.

Baron held up the manifest, the one showing all the items that had been found in Kim Haven's the room the morning after the little five year old had been murdered. "The Crime Scene unit found goalkeeper's gloves in her sock drawer."

"Sock drawer?" Emily questioned. "That's kind of weird."

"Not really," JJ replied. "Her mother probably wasn't thrilled with the idea of having a ball kicked right at her daughter's face. Her father probably thought it was the coolest idea in the world to have her be the goalie. Dad gave her the gloves and she hid them."

"My mom always went through my sock drawer," Reid said. Behind him, Morgan couldn't stop himself from laughing. "I mean, " Reid continued. "I never would have hid anything there because she would have seen it when she did my laundry."

"My mom probably saw mine, too," JJ admitted. "But she never took them." And then without adding anything more, she lapsed back into silence, starring down at her fingernails.

Reid saw this and not for this first time, wondered about it.

She'd told them all that her parents were dead, but had always declined to speak further on it. Casually asking around had gotten neither he nor Morgan anywhere.

And neither was about to invade her privacy by digging any deeper.

No, hell would freeze before they'd do that to her if they could manage not to.

The team had had no choice but to look into Morgan's background to save him.

JJ had had no choice but to push her way into his problems to save him.

Those had been exceptions.

And no matter what we between them, he wouldn't step over that line unless he had to.

She meant too much to him.

Her trust. Their friendship.

"Okay," Gideon finally said, seizing the floor back. Baron threw him a look, which Gideon just waved off. "What commonalities draw all the victims together. Let's start with the parents."

"All of the mothers were housewives," Prentiss said.

"All blonde with blue eyes," Morgan nodded.

"Good, anything else? Height, weight?" Gideon pressed.

"No," Morgan shook his head. "But all of the women were petite. The tallest was just a notch over 5'4".

"Nothing in the files indicates whether the women shared any hobbies," Hotch murmured.

"Okay, let's move on to the husbands," Gideon instructed.

"Brown hair, brown eyes," Prentiss said.

"All of the men had different jobs though. One was a doctor, one a lawyer, one a mechanic and the other worked for the city," Morgan sighed.

"They all worked," Baron said. "That's the point. Not what they did, but that they were out of the house. All four fathers worked long days, leaving the stay at home mother to run the household and raise the children."

"The son," Gideon said, moving along.

"Hair and eye color doesn't seem to manage, only age. The boy is always seven," Reid noted, tapping his fingers against four smiling photos.

"The girl, however, is always blonde," JJ said suddenly. "Always five and always blonde and blue eyed, just like her mother."

And then, involuntarily, she shivered. Just a bit. Not so much that she couldn't hide it behind being physically cold, but enough that she knew that Hotch had seen it.

"Well, that helps," Hotch finally said. "It narrows down our focus. San Diego may be big, but that's terribly exact."

"Garcia's already working on-" Morgan started.

At that moment, the door to the room opened and a slim man in his thirties entered. "Hi, Detective Jesse Palmer. I'm the one in charge of this case." He offered his hand. JJ was the first to take it, first rising and striding towards him.

"Jennifer Jareau," she said, before introducing the other agents.

"Sorry to be so late," Palmer told them. "Traffic this time of morning can be a pain in the ass."

Gideon smiled. "No matter where you go, there you are."

"Buckaroo Banzai?" Morgan asked, eyebrow asked.

"A cult classic and arguably one of the greatest sci-fi films ever made," Reid informed the group. He was about to say more, but caught the look from Hotch. The amused one that begged him to stop while he was ahead.

And so he did, earning him a small smile from JJ.

A smile that Hotch didn't miss.

"My point," Gideon clarified, "Was that it's the same where we're from, Detective Palmer."

"Never been to DC, but I don't doubt that," Palmer nodded before dropping himself down into the chair opposite Prentiss. Then, "I don't want to step on any toes here, but can I make a suggestion?"

"Detective, this is your case," Hotch told him. "We're the ones here to help. Any and all suggestions you make are appreciated."

Palmer visibly relaxed then, tension flowing away from him. "A press conference then. People are starting to notice. People are getting scared. We've been getting calls from moms wondering if its okay for them to take their kids out to the park."

"JJ?" Gideon asked, turning towards her.

"We could supply just the base information, right now just let the public know that the FBI is here," she suggested.

"Might cause him to de-evolve and hasten his timetable," Emily cautioned.

"I don't think so," Gideon shook his head.

Before Emily could ask "why not", Morgan answered for him, "This man's entire reason for killing is linked to his ritual. These people he murders, they have to be exact and that kind of precision, it takes time. He has to watch them, get to know them. Nothing we do short of stopping him will alter that."

"So the purpose of press conference would be to warn potential victims, not to put pressure on the Unsub," Emily stated.

"Right. JJ, can you make it happen?" Hotch asked.

She grinned. "What do you think?"

By the time the team arrived back at the hotel just before ten that night, they were all just about dragging. Heads held high, their drooping shoulders told the tale.

Exhaustion and frustration.

Mostly frustration.

JJ had done as asked, presenting a capable front for which the team to work behind. They had assured the viewing public that this son of a bitch who was committing the heinous crimes would be stopped. They had promised that the good guys were going to win this one.

By the end of the day, no one was near as confident of that.

After the press conference, everyone had split up into smaller teams. Hotch and Reid had gone to interview others members of one of the playgroups that Marilyn Dexter had been part of. Gideon and Baron had gone to speak with school officials and Morgan and Prentiss had been tasked with interviewing the kids coaches.

None of the interviews had provided anything helpful.

Loving parents, well behaved normal kids, God, how could this have happened?

It was the same from everyone.

JJ had stayed behind, talking to Garcia for almost three hours via phone as they went one by one through a very large stack of potential families.

Apparently in San Diego, a family of four with a young son and a young daughter wasn't as rare as one might thing.

Still, the ages and the hair color helped and by the end of the afternoon, the victim pool had been finally shopped down to just a notch below one hundred.

Still too damn big.

"Hey," Emily called out, as they walked towards their rooms. When JJ turned to face her, she continued. "You up for a drink?"

JJ thought about it for a second and then shrugged. "Yeah, actually that sounds nice."

"Okay. I'll call Morgan's room and ask him, have him ask Reid. Unless you'd like to ass Reid yourself."

JJ chuckled. "No, Morgan can do it."

"Hey," Prentiss said thoughtfully. "We should ask Hotch and Gideon if they want to join us as well."

JJ shook her head. "No need. Hotch doesn't drink after ten and didn't Gideon say he didn't want to be disturbed tonight unless it was an emergency."

Prentiss nodded." He did. Okay, ten minutes then?"

"Long enough to get out of these pantyhose," JJ replied.

"And once again I remember why I don't envy your job," Prentiss told her.

And once again, JJ laughed.

Using her keycard, she pushed the door to the room open and entered. Once it clicked shut behind her, she sighed.

Just a moment of quiet.

Just a moment of tranquility.

Finally, opening her eyes, she started into the room, kicking off her heels. She dropped down onto the bed and started to peel off the pantyhose.

And that was when she saw the envelope lying on her pillow.

Small and yellow, sealed only with the brass tabs. Her name was written in big block letters on the front, presumably with a black sharpie.

JENNIFER JAREAU.

Her.

Hands shaking, she controlled both her curiosity and her fear just long enough to peel off the rest of her pantyhose. She tossed them backwards onto the bed and then grabbed the envelope and ripped it open.

She emptied the envelope onto the bed.

Saw its contents.

A picture. Just a picture.

A picture that made her stomach seize violently.