I didn't fall of the face of the Earth... I had a white knuckle grip on the edge for a while... but I didn't fall off... darn real life... and needing a break to avoid getting burnt out... but here we are...

I sadly still don't own Criminal Minds. I know it's sad. Take a deep breath. Somehow, we'll get through this together.

Happy reading and enjoy :D

Spence moaned as he lifted his head to look at the clock. Thankfully it was still the middle of the night. He lowered his head back down, snuggling more deeply against the naked expanse of JJ's back. He kissed his way across her shoulder before nuzzling his face into her neck as his head settled on the pillow.

"Mmm what time's it?" JJ mumbled, half asleep.

"Shh, it's the middle of the night still. Go back to sleep. We don't have to be up for hours yet." Spence murmured softly.

"Hmm good. Too comfy and warm to get up." JJ replied softly as she turned in Spence's arms and snuggled into his chest, her arm wrapping around his ribs as she kissed the center of his chest.

Spence rolled to his back, bringing JJ with him to rest in the crook of his shoulder as he leaned down and kissed the top of her head and ran his hand up and down her back. "Me too, JJ, me too. I love you."

"Mmm love you too baby." JJ replied softly in her half asleep voice as her legs tangled with Spence's to get comfortable. Then they drifted back to sleep snuggled up in each other's arms.

"Okay we have a green dress and green shoes for Chloe's Tinkerbelle costume." JJ said as she looked down at her list, "and you already have the fairy wings that Aunt Penelope got you so I think you are all set sweetie." JJ said as she looked down at Chloe in the shopping cart she was pushing. "How about you little man? What do you want to be?" JJ asked as she turned to look at Henry where he sat in the shopping cart Spence was pushing.

Henry shrugged. "I no know."

"Do you want to be Nemo or maybe Squirt?" Spence asked as they stopped in front of some animal costumes.

Henry scrunched his face up as he turned to look at the costumes Daddy was looking at that came in a variety of sizes. Some of the costumes were very small. "No," Henry shook his head, "Dey baby cosumes. I not a baby."

JJ sighed a little sadly under her breath at just how quickly her babies were growing up. It was hard to believe in the next several weeks Henry would be turning three and Chloe would be turning four. "Okay little man, what do you want to be then?" she asked, pausing to glance at Josh who was sound asleep against her chest in the baby carrier.

Henry's little blonde head turned from side to side as he scanned the shelves on both sides of the aisle. Then he gasped when he saw the best big boy costume. "I be dat." He said pointing to a spot on the shelf.

"Are you sure?" JJ asked as she moved to look at what he was pointing at.

Henry nodded eagerly. "Uh huh."

"Good choice buddy." Spence said holding up his hand as Henry slapped it for a high five.

JJ smiled as she sorted through the costumes on the rack to find the right size for Henry and turned to glance at Spence. "You know this gives me a great idea for our costumes and for Josh's." She said winking at Spence at the thought of him in tights… tight tights.

"Hey pretty boy, I stopped and got coffee this morning. Here you go man." Morgan said as he walked into the bullpen and sat a cup of Starbucks coffee on Reid's desk before taking a seat at his own desk with his own coffee, watching and waiting for Reid to take a sip of the coffee that Morgan had 'enhanced'.

"Thanks man." Reid replied, not looking away from the case file that he was currently engrossed in.

"You're welcome." Morgan replied with a large smirk on his face as he turned towards his own towering stack of files as Emily and JJ walked back into the bullpen from the break room.

"Morgan, you went to Starbucks and didn't bring us back anything?" Emily asked glumly as she glanced down at the doctored dark wicked brew in her coffee cup and then to the tall crisp white cup of real coffee sitting on Morgan's desk. "So not fair." she grumbled and then sat down at her desk.

JJ patted Emily on the shoulder, sitting on the edge of Emily's desk as Spence spoke.

"Hey Elle," Reid said as he looked up from his file and over the divider between his cubicle and Elle's, "can you take a look at this and let me know what you think?" he asked as he held a file over the divider.

"Sure Reid… what am I looking for?" Elle asked.

"If it's what I think, you'll know it when you see it. I just want a second pair of eyes to check it for me." Reid replied, standing up and taking the last sip of from his coffee mug as he stretched his legs after sitting and focusing on the file he'd been working on since they got here this morning.

"Hey, how do you rate that Morgan brought you coffee but not the rest of us?" JJ asked as she looked at the Starbucks sitting on Reid's desk.

Spence shrugged as he picked up the Starbucks cup from his desk and lifted it to his lips taking a large sip. His eyes went wide as he swallowed and he began to cough and sputter.

Morgan giggled and snickered as he watched the effects of the habanero pepper surprise he'd put in Reid's coffee.

"Spence, baby, are you okay?" JJ asked, standing up and stepping across the aisle to pat and rub his back, thinking that he'd swallowed wrong or that some of the coffee had gone down his windpipe.

Spence sat the coffee back on his desk as turned to look at Morgan. "What did you do to the coffee?" he managed to get out as a barely audible whisper as his throat burned and his eyes watered.

"That's for me to know kid and you to try to figure out." Morgan laughed.

"Spence, what's wrong with the coffee?" JJ asked as she picked up the cup and pulled off the lid sniffing to see if she could figure out what was wrong.

"It's hot. Not temperature hot, but on the Scoville Scale hot…wait… you used capsaicin didn't you?" Reid asked.

"I what now?" Morgan asked chuckling that even as tears were streaming down Reid's face and his nose was starting to run, that he was clearly still a genius with his big words.

"Peppers… hot peppers... that's what you put in here. What did this coffee ever do to you?" Reid rasped woefully as he took the coffee cup from JJ and then headed for the break room so he could drink a tall glass of milk and dump the ruined cup of coffee down the drain.

JJ glanced at Morgan shook her head and then turned and followed after Spence, wanting to make sure he was really okay.

Morgan chuckled and turned back to his stack of files wondering how many he could slip into Reid's stack while he was gone.

"Awfully proud of yourself aren't you?" Elle asked with a raised eyebrow as she turned to look at Morgan.

Emily turned to look at Morgan as well and crossed her arms. This was going to be good.

"Aw come on now, it was just an innocent little prank. Reid's going to fine. A little habanero pepper never killed anyone." Morgan said with a school boy grin on his face.

"Clearly you've forgotten how Reid feels about his coffee." Emily replied with a shake of her head.

"I…" Morgan paused in thought, realizing that he might have just upped the game in this prank war. "Do you think I went too far?" he asked looking back and forth between Emily and Elle.

"With this prank no, but…" Elle trailed off.

"Wait, what do you mean with this prank?" Morgan asked.

"Well," Elle said turning to look at Morgan. "I'm wondering if you're stopping to think about what you're doing."

"They're just some harmless pranks Elle." Morgan replied with a puzzled look on his face. "No harm, no foul."

Elle nodded. "And I'm sure you and Reid are both seeing it that way, but Morgan how many times has someone on this team been in the cross hairs of an unsub?"

"What does that have to do with our prank war?" Morgan asked.

Elle raised an eyebrow. "Oh, maybe the fact that you gave Reid's cell phone number out to the general public where anybody, and I mean anybody could get it all they'd have to do is a little research now and find the news clip where you gave out Reid's cell phone number. How many times while JJ was the media liaison did she ever give out her personal cell phone number?"

Morgan's eyes went wide. "Never… she never… it was always a local PD number or an 800 number… oh shit." Morgan said as he ran his hand over his head at the realization of the mistake he'd made. "I didn't even think about…"

Elle knew that Morgan hadn't thought about it or he wouldn't have done it. "Morgan, relax, I'm sure it will be okay. I don't think anybody else thought it was an issue either. Just make sure you're more careful with whatever else you have planned."

Morgan nodded, as he turned to look at his desk and pulled a file off the stack, suddenly not having the heart to add any files to Reid's stack at the moment.

"Spence, baby what are you doing to those potatoes with the drill?" JJ asked, stopping and watching in confusion as Spence stood at the kitchen counter drilling holes in potatoes with an electric drill.

Spence turned off the drill and turned to look at JJ over his shoulder. "I'm going to make Morgan's truck whistle."

"You're going to make his truck whistle?" JJ asked in confusion as she looked from Spence to the potatoes with holes in them to try and figure out how they played into the next prank.

"Yep," Spence said as he turned and leaned against the counter. He pulled a whistle out of his pocket and fitted it into the hole on one end of the potato. Then he pressed his lips to the other end of the potato and blew. "The potato goes in the tail pipe of his truck and then the exhaust blows through the potato and out the whistle. It should take him a while to figure out why his truck is whistling."

"Will he figure it out before his exhaust pipe turns that into a baked potato?" JJ asked, chuckling as she nodded at the potato in Spence's hand.

Spence grinned into his coffee cup as he listened to Morgan talking to Anderson and some of the other guys in the office about his whistling truck.

"Did you check the belts?" one of the agents huddled around Morgan's desk asked.

Morgan shook his head. "Yeah, the belts are fine. There in good shape and have the proper tension."

"Does it happen when you're slowing down? Maybe it's the squealers on your brakes?" Anderson said.

"I just had new brakes put on a few months ago." Morgan replied.

"Is it constant? Does it only happen when your truck is moving? Maybe you have a leaf stuck in a vent or your air filter?" Another one of the agents suggested.

"I checked those too." Morgan said with a shake of his head.

Spence snickered into his coffee cup, enjoying that he'd stumped Morgan since putting the whistling potato in the tail pipe of Morgan's truck last night, and then quickly schooled his expression as he looked back at the file so as not to give himself away.

"Sounds like your water pump might be out?" yet another agent suggested.

"What if it's something simple like a bad seal on your windshield?" Anderson asked.

Morgan shook his head. "I'm going to go for a drive over lunch and see if I can figure out what it is. I didn't have time last night or this morning. I'll keep all that stuff in mind while I listen for the noise again." He said as the group dispersed and headed back to their desks.

Reid grinned as he watched Morgan storm across the bullpen juggling a potato between his hands.

"Reid, you want to explain to me why there was a potato in the tail pipe of my truck?" Morgan asked as he came to a stop next to Reid and sat the potato down on his desk.

Reid smirked and grabbed the couple of sour cream packets he'd brought back from the commissary next to the potato sitting on his desk. "I'm sorry did you want some sour cream to go with your baked potato?"

Morgan stared down at the potato and sour cream for a moment before he swiped them both into the garbage can.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk" Reid shook his head while clicking his tongue, "Shame on you for not eating your lunch Morgan. Potatoes are high in Vitamin C, potassium, and have protein." He said a wide grin growing on his face.

Morgan glowered at his teammate and then turned on his heels and headed for the doors of the bullpen.

"Okay genius," Elle said turning back in her chair to look at Reid as Morgan walked out the double glass doors, "what's with the baked potato?"

"Well you see," Reid paused as leaned down and pulled the potato out of the garbage can. He held the potato up so that they could see the whistle sticking out of one end and then began explaining how he'd turned the exhaust pipe on Morgan's truck into an industrial sized whistle.

Hotch chuckled as he stood listening to Reid tell the girls about how he'd made Morgan's truck whistle. He shook his head as he turned to look at Rossi who was not laughing, but rather staring off into space. He wasn't sure was going on with his longtime friend and mentor, but he'd been off for the last few days. However, he knew better than to try to push Dave into talking about it. He'd talk about it when he was ready.

"I sooo don't miss that face." JJ said as she sat on the edge of Elle's desk watching Penelope telling Hotch about a case as she handed him a file. "No matter how many cases we solve, there's always more." She said as she turned away from the window of Hotch's office to look at Elle and Emily, who was standing behind Elle and next to JJ.

Elle nodded in agreement as the three of them sat watching Hotch's office, contemplating how bad this case would be. "You know, knowing what you did, why didn't you accept Hotch's offer to become a profiler back when he first offered?" Elle asked, turning to look at JJ.

JJ glanced about the bullpen, taking note that all of the people not on their team were busy and not paying attention and then shrugged. "I guess I was too concerned about not changing things too much. What if I had accepted and then been assigned to a different team? What if I had accepted and not been in the right place at the right time to change something?"

Elle nodded in agreement, completely understanding and appreciative since JJ and Reid had been able to change her fate for the better.

"Insert Dr. Reid's explanation of 'The Butterfly Effect' and causality here." Emily said, pointing at Reid with her thumb as she continued to watch PG and Aaron through the window of his office.

At no response from Reid, all three women turned to look at him.

"Reid?" Emily said curiously as they watched him staring contemplatively across the room.

"Something you'd care to share with the rest of the class?" Elle asked from where she sat.

JJ whistled to get her husband's attention; "Speeeeeencer," She called dragging his name out in a soft sing song voice.

Reid held up his finger as he continued to look straight ahead. "There's something wrong." He said softly, his gaze never wavering.

"Why do you say that?" JJ asked as she spun around on Elle's desk to see what Spence was looking at to find that it was Dave Rossi reading the newspaper.

"He's been reading the same page for sixteen minutes and twenty four seconds." Reid said as he stood up from his chair and sat on the edge of his desk.

"Maybe it's a really good article." Emily said as she turned around and moved so Elle would be able to see as well.

"It's never taken him longer than eleven minutes seventeen seconds to turn a page." Reid replied.

"You time how long it takes…" Emily said trailing off as JJ turned to look at her as if to say, 'this is my husband we're talking about. Of course he times how long it takes all of us to read a page.' Emily swallowed her shock. "What's your theory?"

"I'm extrapolating probabilities as we speak." Reid said as he stood up from the edge of the desk, watching his watch as he walked across the bullpen toward where Rossi sat.

The girls decided this could be entertaining and followed after Reid. At the same time that Reid, Elle, Emily, and JJ were crossing the bullpen, Morgan entered through the double glass doors.

"Oh, hey Rossi, do you think you could help me with a consult for Wildwood PD?" Morgan asked after shifting his path to where Rossi sat in the bullpen from where he'd been heading for Rossi's office.

"Oh sure," Rossi answered in a subdued tone as he sat his newspaper of to the side.

"Now that I noticed." JJ said, her hands tucked into her pockets, as the team except for Hotch and Penelope huddled around where Rossi sat in the bullpen.

"Somethin' goin' on?" Morgan asked as he studied Rossi's facial expression.

"How did it go the other night?" Emily asked curious as to how dinner could have gone with his first ex-wife and current wife.

"What happened the other night?" Morgan asked curious what Emily knew that he didn't.

"Are you okay?" Reid asked.

Rossi looked around at the majority of the team, feeling like a deer in the headlights. "And why wouldn't I be?" he asked managing to muster a slight bit of bravado into his response.

JJ glanced over her shoulder at Emily and then at Elle who stood next to her. "You seem distracted."

"I'm considering a purch… ase." Rossi said, trailing off as he looked down at the newspaper to find that it showed and ad for Second Life Thrift Store.

Elle quirked an eyebrow. From her spot next to JJ, she could clearly see the newspaper. "Mm hm, because I can totally see you spending a lot of your shopping time at the Second Life Thrift Store."

Morgan nodded. "Come on man, what's really goin' on?" he asked.

Rossi sighed and then stood up from his chair. "Look, Tim and I had a late night with Ringo and not enough coffee. I mean the Beatles are legends, but don't think that with me on drums and Tim on guitar that we didn't wipe the floor with them in Rockband. Please don't say anything to Erin. She'd kill me if she knew how late I let Tim stay up on a school night."

"Alright, what do you think?" JJ asked as she attempted to use her still relatively new profiler skills to figure out if Rossi was lying or telling the truth.

"He could be telling the truth…" Emily said, trailing off as she tipped her head.

"But he could be lying." Elle added as she too studied him, attempting to discern the answer.

"I can't tell." Reid added as he studied Rossi's expression and mannerisms.

"And you never will," Rossi replied pointing his finger at Reid, glad that his many years as a profiler had helped him cover, if only just barely, what was really going on from the team.

"Let's get started." Hotch said from the mezzanine as Penelope followed behind him on their way to the round table room.

"Kay, this is Ridge Canyon Lake in California's Angeles National Forest," Penelope said, pulling the case up on the screen as the team filed into the round table room, "which is a popular destination for water sport enthusiasts. Unfortunately, some campers have discovered someone has chosen murder as their sport of choice."

"Anything?" JJ asked as she looked up from hanging up the phone to where Rossi was walking into the office after interviewing Phinny Scirvin, the older brother of Nick Scirvin, that morning's victim.

"Unsub blends in with a younger crowd. I'd say we're looking at mid-twenties to early thirties." He said as he sat down on the edge of the desk JJ was sitting at. "You?"

"Well he's methodical. Social too. He's been able to isolate all of his victims. The mother of Jake Shepherd, our first victim, said there were several members of the church at the lake that day," JJ said as she stood up from behind the desk and led Rossi over to the case board where Elle stood looking at everything in thought, "but Jake was the only one with brown hair who matched the age preference of the unsub."

"Nick's brother Phinny's a brunette and he's a lot like these guys. Why not go after him?" Rossi asked as he looked from JJ to Elle.

"I don't know." JJ said as she nodded at the case board that now held the details of four victims. "He chose Nick Scirvin for a reason. We need to figure out why."

Elle tipped her head, looking over all the victims and shook her head. "It doesn't make sense. Emily was right on the plane. Nick's build and features are completely different from the previous three victims. So what changed? The victims can't represent someone… if they did he wouldn't have chosen Nick."

"Okay," Rossi nodded, "let's go with that thought, if the victims don't represent someone how is picking them?"

Elle's eyes flitted over the evidence board. "You said Nick's brother Phinny looked a lot like these guys, right?"

"Yeah, a lot like them actually." Rossi said as he turned to look at the pictures of the first three victims.

"But Phinny and the other guys were out on the water when Nick was attacked…" Elle said as she tipped her head in thought.

"What are you thinking Elle?" JJ asked.

"I think it's about opportunity. The who doesn't matter. It's the only thing that makes sense."

"Well then we better hope we can figure out the why in a hurry." Rossi replied.

"Looks like we're definitely looking at a sadist." Morgan said as he turned away from the evidence board. "He has to resuscitate his victims until he can't bring them back again." He said, taking a sip of his tea as he finished speaking.

"So why the change from choking to multiple drowning?" JJ asked as she looked around at the group.

"With the damage to Jake's throat, the unsub wasn't able to successfully resuscitate him." Reid explained.

"He's evolving and learning from each kill." Elle said as she looked at the evidence board. "The resuscitation must be what's important to him. He made a mistake with Jake. He choked him to death. The damage to Jake's throat prevented him from being able to revive Jake… so he started blitz attacking. He needs them alive so he can drown them and bring them back."

"Resuscitating them makes him feel more powerful." Hotch said as he looked down at the file in his hands.

"Which means he has no power in his everyday life." Rossi added from where he sat.

"What's interesting with the change in victimology is that Nick Scirvin was the smallest, but he had the most defensive wounds on his body." Emily pointed out as she walked over to the evidence board.

"He fought back the most." Hotch replied as he looked up from the case file.

"What if the unsub was injured in one of the attacks. He's targeting easier prey to complete his end game." Rossi theorized. Then his cell phone began ringing in his pocket. "Excuse me." He said after pulling the phone out of his pocket and seeing who it was that was calling.

Rossi sat in the dark office with the blinds closed and the door shut as he stared at his phone, when there was a knock on the door.

Emily opened the door and opened her mouth as if to ask Rossi a question, but then paused as she took in his demeanor. "I take it that wasn't Ringo inviting you and Tim to another party on the phone yesterday." She said as she closed the door behind her.

Rossi sat his phone on the desk and then clasped his hands as he took a deep breath. "It was Carolyn. She has ALS."

Emily's jaw dropped in shock. Of all the things she'd expected to hear Rossi tell her about having his ex-wife over for dinner with his current wife; that had not been one of them. She let out the breath she was holding. "Rossi, um," she said struggling to find the words as she made her way over to the nearest chair, "what do you need?" she asked as she sat down.

"It's not what I need Emily. It's what she's asking me to do." He replied as he tapped his fingertips together.

Emily studied Rossi's face in confusion.

Rossi sat up, leaning his elbows on the desk. "The disease is acting quickly. Carolyn is already suffering and she doesn't want to go out that way. She wants to die on her own terms." He explained.

Emily nodded in understanding and sympathy.

Rossi swallowed. "And when this case is over, and we get back," he paused, "she asked if I would help her do it."

Emily drew in a shocked breath at what Carolyn was requesting of Rossi. She licked her lips, trying to find words. "What are you gonna do?"

Rossi gave a solemn half shrug. "I don't have a choice." He responded in a quiet voice.

Emily nodded wishing that this case were over so that she, Aaron, and Rossi could share a bottle of Scotch. It seemed like Rossi needed his friends. She suddenly found herself very glad that Rossi had married Erin Strauss. She personally didn't like Erin and probably never would given their history; but she could also see that the old battle axe was good for Rossi, cared for him… loved and supported him even. And that was something that she did like. No one should have to go through something like this alone without support.

"What if there's a religious or spiritual motivation to why the unsub is doing this?" Morgan asked after Reid telling them the unsub had cancer of the blood and was dying and their conversation about how Jake Shepherd was with his congregation at the lake for a baptism and how water burials could be seen as a baptism.

Hotch pulled his phone out of his pocket and set it on the table in between JJ and Reid after hitting the speed dial for Penelope and the speakerphone.

"Speak and be heard." Penelope said in her normal cheerful chipper voice.

"Penelope, I need you to pull a list of patients in the area with any form of blood cancer." Hotch said.

"I will make HIPPA my bitch sir." She said as her fingers started typing.

"I also need information on Jake Shepherd. Religious ties, spiritual background, anything." Hotch continued.

"Ah well that information will make for a fast search. Give me a mo." She said as she multi-tasked, her fingers tapping across the keys as she started multiple searches running. "Spiritual… something heaven sent other than my angelic self… Bam. Whoa!"

JJ turned to look at the phone at Penelope's exclamation, knowing that whatever Penelope had found would definitely shed light on the case.

"Jake Shepherd joined the church after a near death experience changed his life." Penelope explained as she read the newspaper article from her screen.

"What happened to him?" Hotch asked.

"He was in an ATV accident. He coded for four minutes. He was life lighted to LA where they managed to revive him. But clinically he did die."

"Death and resuscitation. That sounds a little too similar to our unsub's MO to be a coincidence." JJ said.

"Alright, Penelope, dig deeper." Hotch said, "Jake Shepherd's death wasn't random."

"It is on like Obi Wan. Garcia out." Penelope replied as she hung up.

"So a terminally ill unsub targets a man who came back from the dead and then starts killing repeatedly." Morgan said laying out what they now knew. "I mean am I crazy or is this about a guy trying to come to terms with his own death?"

"Yeah, but finding out you're going to die isn't enough to make someone a psychopath." Hotch said as he turned around from looking at the evidence board.

"But it does explain why he stopped strangling his victims. Just like Elle thought… he stopped strangling because it wasn't working…How do you find out about death?" Reid asked.

"You ask someone who died." JJ replied as the pieces of the case suddenly fell into place.

"If this unsub is so obsessed with death then Jake Shepherd was the perfect person to talk to. He'd been there and back again." Hotch said as he stood with his arms crossed while the team discussed what they knew so far.

"Come on guys," Morgan said, "gentle lights, shadowy figures. Those are the lights in the emergency room and the doctors hovering over the patients and we all know that. No one ever actually sees the 'after life'" Morgan argued as he made quotes marks in the air with his fingers at after life as the team looked on, all with varying expressions of agreement or disagreement on their faces.

"I did." Reid said from where he stood leaning against a pillar, drawing the attention of the entire team. "Before Tobias Hankel resuscitated me, I had that exact experience and I wasn't in an emergency room, I was in a shed."

"Reid, you never told me that." Morgan said as he looked up at Reid in shock.

"I'm a man of science, but there are some things in this world that science can't explain." Reid said as he looked over to where JJ sat at the table, "In that moment, I was faced with one of those unexplainable things… I might not be able to explain it, but with everything else that we've seen… everything else that I know," he continued while maintaining eye contact with JJ, "I have to believe."

JJ swallowed, Spence had never told her about what happened when he died in the shed… but she couldn't help but wonder.

Morgan closed his eyes and looked down, thinking of everything that he'd seen in the last couple of years… and everything he knew about the few years before that. After everything that he'd been through in his life, he had a hard time believing… but Reid raised a valid point. "You're right Reid, I wasn't thinking about any of that… but you're right."

"What if this unsub has had a similar experience and this is his way of looking for answers?" Hotch asked.

"If that's the case, why kill Jake Shepherd? Why not just talk to him?" Rossi asked.

Everyone paused at Rossi's questions, looking at each other as they tried to figure out what their unsub's thought process was.

"I don't know," Morgan said shaking his head, "but resuscitation is hit or miss. He can't actually guarantee that he can bring anyone back, let alone remember what happened at the moment of their death."

"Reid what's the best way to make sure his victims had an experience?" Rossi asked.

"Keep them dead longer." Reid replied.

"Hey," JJ whispered softly as Spence settled into the seat next to her on the jet. She reached up, running her fingers through his still damp hair and leaned over to kiss him. After she pulled back, she shook out the blanket she'd grabbed and wrapped it around herself and Spence as she snuggled into his side.

Spence sighed contentedly as JJ snuggled into his side and tucked the blanket around them. He shifted in his seat getting comfortable as he rested his cheek on the top of JJ's head.

"Spence?" JJ murmured quietly.

"Yeah?" Spence whispered back.

"What you saw… when you were…" JJ stumbled over her words, wanting to know, but at the same time not wanting to talk about Spence being dead.

Spence lifted his head and then cupped JJ's cheek and jaw as he tipped her face to meet his gaze. "Is this about what I told the team?" he asked softly. Morgan had commented that he'd never told Morgan… but he'd also never told JJ about what he'd experienced in that shed in the time between gasping for breath and Tobias reviving him.

JJ bit her lower lip and nodded.

Spence stroked his thumb across his wife's cheek bone. "What is it?"

JJ cleared her throat. "Well… do you think… maybe… baby could it have been…" she cleared her throat again as her eyes teared up.

"Baby, it's okay. I'm here and I'm fine. Georgia was years ago." Spence whispered.

JJ nodded. "I was just wondering if you thought that maybe the figure you saw was Jason." She whispered so softly that he could barely hear her.

Spence swallowed and leaned down to rest his forehead against JJ's. "I don't know… I couldn't really make out who it was that I was seeing… but it having been Jason is a nice thought… and I'd like to think it was him." He murmured in reply. At the time Tobias had held him in the shed, JJ hadn't known who Jason was, other than her guardian angel… but the thought that their son had also been watching over him… it was a pleasant one.

Dave smiled a bittersweet smile at Erin as they sat together on the blanket in front of Carolyn and James' graves as he thought about his last conversation with Carolyn.

"Do you think he'll be there?" she asked, the drugs she'd taken already affecting her voice as she leaned against David's shoulder as he comforted her.

"I know he will." David replied in a somewhat shaky voice as he fought back his tears. He'd come to tell Carolyn that he couldn't help her, that life was worth fighting for, but knowing him as she did, she'd taken the overdose of medication before he arrived, knowing that he wouldn't be able to help her, but wanting him to be with her in her last moments.

"Are you alright David?" Erin asked softly as she squeezed his hand and rubbed his back, wanting to make sure he was okay, but not wanting to intrude on his thoughts of Carolyn and James.

Dave nodded as looked at James' grave, pulling himself from the thoughts of what might have been he turned to look at Erin. "I will be." He replied as he squeezed her hand.