As always, vielen dank for the reviews - they do so make me smile. :)

Happy reading =)

"Where words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain,
For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain."
– William Shakespeare, Richard II

"Hey you," Will says as he collapses onto the couch next to me. "How was your morning at the office?"

I shrug and let out a sigh. "Long," I say honestly. "Lots of paperwork to get through."

"I can't say I'm totally upset with that – keeps you safe and sound, and gets you home in one piece for Henry," he drawls. "Even if you do have to travel now and then. But at least it's scheduled."

I sigh. "Not today, Will. Please," I say tiredly, not wanting to discuss my career again. "I don't want to fight."

I feel a twinge of guilt at not quite feeling at home in the job – he's right, it does get me home for Henry…most of the time. Still, it doesn't have the same feeling of accomplishment that working in the BAU had. In the BAU I felt like I was actually doing some good. Things weren't murky and grey there, they were black and white.

"I didn't mean anything by it, Jenn. Just happy to have you around more is all."

"I'm sorry," I say quickly while pinching the bridge of my nose. "It's just been a very long couple of months."

"I know," he says, pulling me close and pressing a kiss to my forehead. "Losing Emily was hard," he says sadly.

I swallow the lump in my throat. "Yeah," I say quietly. It's not technically a lie – I did lose her, in a manner of speaking.

"I know you miss her awfully. The little man misses her too. He was asking me yesterday if Auntie Emmy was going to come with us to the zoo. Apparently she promised 'fore everything happened that she was gonna take him."

I feel tears prick my eyes as the guilt begins to eat at me again. I don't know if I can keep this secret. It's driving me apart from my family and my friends, even if they don't know it. I shake my head lightly at my thoughts – Emily kept Doyle a secret from us to save our lives. If she can risk her life to save us, then I can put up with a little guilt and feeling uncomfortable. I owe her that much.

"Mommy sad?" Henry says as he toddles over and puts his hands on my knees.

"Yes baby, Mommy is sad," I say picking him up hugging him tightly to my chest.

"Why?"

"I'm missing your Aunt Emily," I explain.

"Where she go?"

"She had to go away for a while for work," I explain. Will shoots me a frustrated look. It's been another bone of contention between us. He wanted to try and explain the concept of her death to him, but I flat out refused, clinging to the fact that there was a possibility that she'd return one day and explaining that to Henry would be a hell of a lot more difficult.

"Okay," Henry says happily as he pulls away from me to go play with his toys again.

"Are we really going to let him keeping believing that she's off on vacation? How long are we going to let him stay in that fantasy world?" Will whispers, his tone plainly giving away how angry and frustrated he is.

"I'm not making his world crash down on him when he's this young. He won't understand, Will."

"You don't know that. He's a smart kid, he might get it."

"Will," I warn, my tone becoming irritated.

"We can't keep him in the dark forever. We'll have to tell him eventually."

"I know. I just…let's wait a bit. He's finally settling into his routine now," I say, hoping it will pacify him for now. But I was running out of excuses.

"Fine," he says with an exhale. "But we need to tell him sometime."

I nod my understanding of his words. "Thank you," I say, tilting my head and shooting him a small smile. "I guess I haven't really come to terms with it myself."

"It'll come with time. It's been years since my daddy died, but it still just seems so…" he trails off, a faraway look in his eyes.

"Wrong?" I offer softly. "Like your world doesn't feel right without them in it? Like you're living a lie?"

"Yeah," he nods. "Something like that."

I close my eyes and curl into him further, drawing comfort from his strong arms and familiar scent. I take a few deep breaths to calm my nerves and get a handle on my emotions.

"You want me to keep the little man busy for a few hours? Give you a little time and space?" Will says, pushing my chin up gently so our gazes meet.

I glance at my watch and note that it's late evening for Emily, and a small spark of hope forms. "If you don't mind, that would actually be great."

"Not at all. Take some time and unwind. I'll take care o' dinner tonight."

I nod and mumble a thanks before I head upstairs to our bedroom. I change out of my work outfit and into some comfortable jeans and an old t-shirt before grabbing my laptop and curling up on the bed. As it boots up, my thoughts turn to the secret I'm holding back from everyone, save Hotch and Emily. It kills me to have to keep the truth hidden from my best friends – my family – when it could ease their pain. I tell myself daily that it's for the best, that it's keeping her safe and alive. But I don't actually know that. I don't know if she's coping, or if everything has overwhelmed her. I don't know if she's experiencing any complications from the surgery, or if she's recovering nicely. I have no way of knowing those things, and the last time I saw her was in Paris, saying goodbye…an image that doesn't exactly conjure up reassurance of her well-being.

But I do have a way of knowing if she's alive. Provided she understands the directions I'd left her. While that envelope I'd handed her in Paris contained everything she'd need to stay alive and disappear completely, it also contained a website and the username cheetobreath. I'd logged on periodically over the last few weeks to check if my account had received any requests for a game, but so far there hadn't been any that were her, despite the fact that she's been in Paris for almost a month now. I'd gotten a few requests from random people, but the usernames didn't fit. I knew Emily would pick something that wouldn't give away her identity to others, but that would be significant and make it clear to me. I try not to get my hopes up each time, but inevitably I'd end up holding my breath while the page loaded.

I navigate to the page and type in my username and password and hit enter as I suck in a breath and close my eyes. I allow that small spark of hope to spread before I open my eyes, expecting to see no game requests. But when I open my eyes this time there is a request. I narrow my gaze and look at the username of the person who wants to play me. KilgoreTrout. I blink rapidly. Wasn't that a character in a book she read?

I shake my head at my enthusiasm. I shouldn't get ahead of myself. I open up another tab in the browser and type the name into a search engine. The results confirm what I'd thought. It's a character from Kurt Vonnegut's books. Vonnegut. One of Em's favourite authors.

I accept the request and wait as the game loads. I can't help my nervous energy and find myself wringing my hands in anticipation. The board loads up and my tiles appear the bottom of the screen. I eye the chatroom box on the side of the page, but I know that's too risky, even if we have been careful. My eyes are drawn to my tiles as I try and form words from the letters.

All of a sudden I see the word I'm going to play. I click the tiles and watch as they line up on the screen.

Miss

I can only hope she'll read into my play's meaning. My mind reminds me that trying to put and find meaning into the words we're playing is dangerous. There will no doubt come a point where I'll have to play a word I can't attach any meaning to. I examine the chatroom box again and see that it's fairly basic. I begin to wonder if there's a way to communicate with her through it without compromising her identity.

My attention is drawn back to the game when I hear a notification, informing me she's played a word. Apparently she's online. Right now. Emily is sitting down somewhere, probably a café or something similar, and playing Scrabble with me. Despite the distance I feel a somewhat odd sense of connection. It's almost as though she isn't so far away and completely removed from her life. For just that fraction of a second, I forget that everything with Doyle happened and imagine that she's just over at her place logging onto her computer to play. For just that fraction of a second, I believe that I could pick up the phone and call her to go and grab coffee. My eyes flit across the screen, reading the word she'd played.

Yes

I gasp and close my eyes as emotion overwhelms me. First and foremost, I'm happy to have confirmation that she's alive and safe. Just to know she's on the other side of the game at the same time, no doubt thinking about what she had to leave behind here, while filling me with guilt, is also comforting. But then of course I'm also ecstatic that we've got some way to communicate, even if it is painfully difficult. It's entirely possible that I'm reading into this far too much, and "yes" was the only play she could make, but I can't help it. I see her agreeing with my sentiment. She misses us, and knows we miss her.

I scan my letters and select a few to make a play, which thankfully play into our "conversation".

Okay

I pause for the smallest of moments and then click on the chatroom and type a single character "?" before hitting enter. It's highly unlikely people would make that connection between the word played and the keystroke. In fact, it probably would be construed as someone checking if the other player wanted to chat. Hopefully she understands it's a question I'm asking with my play.

It's another few minutes before she plays a word.

Some

I frown as I try to work out the meaning behind that one. Likely she means she's somewhat okay, or maybe some days she is. Still, it's comforting that she's playing with me and I know that she isn't in Doyle's clutches. Or maybe it's the only play she could make.

I scan the tiles at the bottom of my screen and give a half chuckle at my luck.

Hope

I want, no, I need her to cling to something, because when we catch Doyle I want to be able to bring back Emily. Not a shell of the woman she used to be, or a distant version of the woman we'd grown to love. I needed Emily back.

Several moments pass before her move appears on the screen. I convince myself the delay is only to work out what word to play, and not because of something else, like overwhelming pain, or Doyle bursting through the door.

Other

Does she mean she's not holding onto hope? That she's in fact experiencing other emotions? That's possible, I reason. I click the tiles when I realize that she's probably waiting for my response, and counting my lucky stars these letters had been randomly selected for me. I suppose that might have something to do with the type of game Emily had chosen. "Free play" allowed for forever replenishing tiles, and the "beginner" level chosen allowed for the assigned tiles to be a little less random and little more word-friendly.

Return

I'm trying to say that we're waiting for her return, and that we haven't forgotten her. That we're trying our hardest to make her return happen. That we're hunting Doyle to avenge what he did. I briefly wonder how hard it would be for Garcia to hack into the system and rig my tiles to make communicating easier. I dismiss the thought immediately, because Garcia would ask questions that I couldn't give any answers to. And I don't trust anyone else to do it.

Her response comes quickly this time, and I'm shocked again by our luck with the tiles we'd gotten.

Unclear

My heart clenches. The reality had set in for her. She'd accepted that she might be in hiding for a long time. But that was a reality I was unwilling to just blindly accept. It wasn't in my nature to give up so easily, and with Morgan relentlessly searching for Doyle, I was certain that he'd be brought to justice and she could come home. I just hope that it won't be too late. I play the word that will hopefully drive that point home to her.

Love

I feel tears forming in my eyes and I suppress the urge to laugh. Here I am, playing online scrabble with a person who I can only assume and hope is Emily, and reading into every word played. On the whole, it's a ridiculous turn of events. And yet, despite how ridiculous it is, I still can't help but feel the tiniest sense of hope blooming.

I hear a notification and look at the screen to see the word she'd played.

Team

I close my eyes and hold back the tears once more. There's a soft chime and I see a message displayed on the screen. "KilgoreTrout has logged off." I exhale and throw my head back against my pillow, closing my eyes tightly. The ramifications of this "chat" sink in. She's okay. Doyle hasn't gotten to her. She hasn't succumbed to the lingering effects of her injuries. And now I have a means of knowing she's still alive, at least, as long as Emily wants to keep me in the loop. I take comfort in our now ongoing game of Scrabble, because as long as she's playing words, I know she's okay. As long as she's playing, I know she hasn't given up.

So, any thoughts? Intriguing concept? Tugged at the heart-strings a little? Thought it was too far-fetched? Happy to finally have another JJ conversation? Let me know - feedback is oh-so-wonderful.

Once the idea for this one popped into my head, I just couldn't let it go until I wrote it out. And then I had to tweak it slightly after 200 aired, but then I wasn't sure if everyone who reads this has seen it yet...so I tweaked it very sneaky like to make it fit, but also not give anything away. Obviously creative licence has been taken with the workings of online scrabble. ;)

'Til next time, friends.