A/N: I am really sorry for leaving this story unfinished for so long. I really didn't mean to; when I wrote chapter 3 I thought this one was going to be right behind it, but I guess it wasn't :( Thanks for your patience, if you've come back to read the end!

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They both found themselves staring up at the source of the detonation—not the fall of Pompeii after all, but Jason Gideon, framed in the doorway, looking completely astonished at the sight in front of him. Whatever he'd been expecting, this wasn't it, and J.J. couldn't blame him.

"Sorry to interrupt," he muttered. "I just... we got a case, and since they couldn't reach either of you, they ran screaming to me." J.J. grinned; she'd forgotten to lock the door, but Hotch had sneakily forwarded his phone. He'd hit her with both barrels of the fussing routine today, and it was a nice feeling. Gideon, catching her amused glance, burst out with: "My God, J.J., have you seen your face?"

Hotch snorted. "Nice, Jason. And we wonder why you're single..."

J.J. managed to hold in her giggles—mostly—and answer the question. "Not lately. Why, is there something wrong with it?" she queried innocently.

"Actually, J.J., my second suggestion was going to be that you make the nearest sink your next stop," Hotch admitted, smiling at her feigned ignorance. "Here endeth the sermon."

"You're going to need some cover," Gideon inserted wryly. "I'll go with you." He turned back and looked J.J. hard in the eye, watching Hotch help her up off the floor. "And to answer your question: as a matter of fact, there's something right with your face."

"The mystery lives on," J.J. whispered in an aside to Hotch once she'd found her voice again. This kind of thing was what made Gideon so confounding. He would seem to ignore a person for weeks at a time, and then without any warning at all he'd toss out a comment like that one, something that would abruptly zap his victim into the realization that he'd been watching all along. And no one enjoyed being sucker-punched, not even with such a compliment.

Hotch inclined his head in mock defeat. "She's all yours, Jason. For the next ten minutes, anyway. Then I want you in the conference room, and don't let her follow you in. And J.J. – take as long as you need, ok?" J.J. smiled slightly. Although she heard pealing out like a symphony of carillons the directive to get her head screwed on straight before she showed her face again, it was really just a gentle nudge toward the edge of the nest; he was really asking.

"Ok," she agreed softly. Then, even more quietly: "Thanks, Hotch." His hand slid from her elbow, and he nodded briefly, smiling in a way she couldn't remember ever seeing him do before—letting it fill his eyes, unimpeded. It very nearly brought her tears storming back (she couldn't wait to stop feeling so defenseless)—it was the first time she'd ever seen him look so carelessly sincere. Her attention automatically glided away to the picture frame across the room, glowing there in the brilliance of the morning. This smile belonged in that photograph. "Do me a favor?" He nodded warily, and she shivered. Normally she wouldn't dare, but today... "Call your wife."

For a few seconds, impassivity arrested his features once again, and J.J. was left reeling. She couldn't even begin to wrap her mind around all there was to lose. For all of them. But the tension rushed out of her as part of that smile came back, and then he nodded and wished her luck, and Gideon was ferrying her to the ladies' room. She smirked as he walked unconcernedly in with her, and as she washed away the tears and mascara she saw him watching her in the mirror.

"You ok?" he asked finally.

It was like being speared with a cattle-prod. God knows how many volts just blazing through her, and he was still standing there, watching her. "I'll be alright," she managed. She thought of Hotch, flashed back to him sitting cross-legged on the floor of his office, the picture of Haley and Jack, the smile he'd given her as if she'd just done him the biggest favor of his life, and not the other way around. "I hope we all will be," she whispered.

Gideon walked up behind her and laid his hands on her shoulders. "Oh, I think we're on the right track. We'll both keep an eye on him, and he'll turn out fine." She smiled at the ease with which he said 'we.' "But I was asking you." He hesitated and actually seemed nervous. This day just kept slipping farther and farther into unreality. He awkwardly patted her shoulders. "I just wanted to make sure... The BAU kind of has two section chiefs, you know."

She leaned into his grasp, just feeling everything he wasn't saying. "We're in the women's bathroom," she suddenly blurted out.

He smirked. "Well, if they start sending search parties after me, they'll never think to look in here."

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She was alone again, back in her office, packing the spare clothes she kept there for the "on-call" times when the team was in the field and needed her on the ball. She had decided to sneak out during the briefing; after this kind of a morning, she just couldn't face all the sympathy. She'd call them each individually from her parents' house. The only one who would pitch a fit would be Garcia, but she'd understand. She'd see them when she got home.

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4 days later

J.J. heaved a sigh as she sank down into her desk chair. The office was empty. She wondered why. They all knew there was always work to do, if one were fit to do it. Which she was, now, thanks to her team and the time they'd given her. Her dad and her aunt would manage without her, and the hole her mother's death had left behind was smooth enough at the edges to live with.

Maybe they'd caught another case. But wouldn't they have called her? Even if she couldn't join them, they knew she'd want to be kept in the loop. Didn't they? Did they remember she was coming back today? She hadn't slapped post-its on their foreheads, after all, just a casual comment last night on the phone to Garcia. But things like that usually stuck, too.

There weren't any files on her desk with new cases to go over. That was strange. In fact, her office was a little too clean. Not a single surface had dust on it. She smiled. That would have been Reid's idea. The only thing that helped his mind work better than coffee did was an organized and carefully tended workspace.

And there were plants. She never kept any plants, or a pet, or anything that would suffer by her job's unpredictability. But now she had a ferny plant and a little flowery cactus on her windowsill. She suddenly remembered Emily's desk and a similar green invasion that had started about two weeks before.

And there were two framed pictures on the side-table that hadn't been there before, either. She picked up the left one; it was of the team, that night at the bar before Georgia. She remembered that. Haley had grabbed her camera out of her purse and gone nuts with it. J.J. wasn't a profiler, but she was used to the way they thought, and she felt their shared sadness at the revelation that Haley was never without her camera. J.J. had been angry at Hotch but hadn't been able to hold it for long. He had been very sweet to Haley that night, had held her hand, let her take as many pictures as she wanted to, even kissed her several times. J.J. knew, and knew Haley knew, how hard it was for Hotch to do something like that in front of all of them. Of course she was his wife. Of course they all knew that he loved her. But profilers didn't draw conclusions from knowing things. They started with the things they knew and used those things to help them understand the things they saw. And showing his affection for his wife in public was a rare concession for Hotch.

Gideon was missing from the picture because he hadn't been there that night. But that would have been too much to expect of him, and it didn't matter, because she had the memory of his solicitousness four days ago. The other picture was just of the 'kids.' She remembered how Morgan had simply looped one arm around her and the other around Emily, and Garcia and Reid had sat in front of them at the table making faces at the camera. The expression on Reid's was especially funny; he looked like a cross between a mad scientist and a reject from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

"Thought you might want to have those." J.J. jumped around, and the picture clattered across the desktop. "Or not," Hotch added teasingly.

"Jesus, Hotch, you scared the hell out of me." She was still trying to calm herself, and she leaned a little on her desk as she took slow, even breaths.

"I can see that." His amusement faded, and he took a step towards her. "How are you otherwise?"

She stood up straight and faced him, head on. "I'm back."

She felt her firm stare returned threefold. He was looking deep into her, as far as he could, and she had the sensation of his eyes burning holes all the way out the back of her head. "You sure?"

"Yeah." Her face screwed up in confusion. The greenery, the photographs, Reid's Mighty Maid impersonation... and now this. "But you don't seem to be."

"I was a little worried. We all were. I guess you can tell... we sort of redecorated while you were gone. Just trying to make you more comfortable."

"I amcomfortable... what would make you think I wasn't coming back?"

"It's not that," he protested. "We just thought you might, understandably, need a little bit more normalcy in your life right now. Some time at home, with your family."

J.J. grinned. "Here at the BAU we make our own kind of normal." For emphasis, she pointed at the photo in which Reid and Garcia were busy employing previously undiscovered facial muscles. Hotch took the joke, but he still looked rather unconvinced. "You think I need... what exactly? My dad to hang around me as if the rest of the world didn't exist and make me feel guilty for leaving him alone for a single second? My aunt to cook for me and call me Jennifer and fuss over me? I spent most of my time there either thinking about my mom or wishing I were back here at the BAU, with all of you. This"—she snatched up the photo of the team gathered together at the table, cozied around the camera, and thrust it at him—"this is what I missed."

Hotch nodded. "What about the cases?"

J.J. gave a little facial shrug. "It's what we do." She smiled self-deprecatingly. "Maybe if Elle had cried all over you, she'd still be here, too."

There it was, finally; the little doubting frown between his eyes eased itself away. "Elle blamed me. And maybe she was right to be angry. I should have taken better care of her."

J.J. was angry. "You tried to help her. She wouldn't listen. You tried to get all that... poison... out of her, and she just ignored everything, like it was her right to make you feel like you had to fix what was wrong with her life, with the whole world. Maybe you made a mistake, but she made a lot more. You know, when I found out how it happened, that she just went right in and started to fall asleep without noticing anything wrong, I was furious with her. She just always took so much for granted. I knew you never would have been that careless."

"Thank you, J.J. – that means a lot," he said softly. She wondered what he was thinking now, looking at her like that as she stood clutching the picture frame to her chest, cheeks burning. He gestured with his chin at the photo in her hands. "I have a new picture in my office, too," he murmured. J.J. looked up, almost disbelieving. "Maybe if Elle had 'cried all over me' I would have known how to help her, and she would have helped me."

J.J.'s eyes were stinging – damn him, what was he turning her into? "I think we might be headed for a repeat performance," she complained, sniffing hard and swiping at her face.

"I think I'll bring in backup this time," he said lightly, although he was clearly a little rattled at the suggestion of facing down another round of waterworks. She laughed, and he was off the hook.

"The others?"

"They're in the round-table room with enough coffee and doughnuts to keep Reid happy for about 15 minutes or so. We told him that they were for you, but, well, if you want any, we'd better get in there."

She finally managed to dry her face, ostensibly without losing any of her dignity or her mascara this time, and nodded happily. She set the picture frame down carefully on her desk, and then as she turned back to face Hotch, she couldn't help it; she walked up to him and hugged him, without any of the embarrassment she thought she'd feel if she ever crossed this kind of professional barrier with him. As he stepped back, keeping one hand on her back to lead her out the door and in the direction of the voices and laughter drifting out of the conference room, she couldn't believe she'd left for four whole days.