The sad part is, that I will probably end up loving you without you for much longer than I loved you when I knew you.- Ranata Suzuki
They all rush over to Reid's place where Julie was staying on days when she didn't have classes. Spencer had called the entire drive over, but the line never picked up.
"She's not answering." He said worriedly.
"Sweetheart, someone likely just called her and told her that her first love just died. She probably dropped the phone." Penelope said gently.
"Her mother… her mother probably told her."
-/-
Just as Penelope predicted when Spencer unlocks the front door it's silent a few seconds before hiccupping sobs fill the air. "Jules." Spencer calls out before rounding into the kitchen with Garcia and Morgan behind him.
He finds her sitting with her back resting on the fridge. The remnants of what looks to be a bowl of chocolate cupcake batter splatter the floor and lower cabinets.
"Jules, my girl." Her mother calls gently from the speakerphone.
Penelope kicks into action and for that Spencer is thankful. "Mrs. Taylor I'm Penelope Garcia we're going to get your girl off the floor and literally fly her to you."
"Are you sure? I can hear her crying..."
"Can't stop...feel panicky." Julie says pitifully as Spencer squats down next to her.
"Okay babe, just take a breath for me okay..." He kissed her forehead. "And Again."
She looks at him tears still brimming in her eyes. "What are you doing here? Did my mom call you? I told her not to bother you." She said confused.
"No, honey. We just got Matthew's case file."
"It's Matt. Only his grandmother calls him Matthew. Oh god, his grandmother... she has Alzheimer's has for a long time and the last trauma fractured even more of her memory retention and..."
"Julie!" her mom calls out panicked.
Even though the phone is two feet from her, it sounds like Julie is underwater. "I'm okay Mama. Spence is with me we'll fly home within the hour." She inhales, exhales, and wipes her eyes. She squares her shoulders. "Okay." She said as if she was making a deal with herself.
"I need to pack a bag and line up my replacement at the Y for the dance classes and the bake sale…" She turns around looking confused. "And I gotta clean up this mess."
"I got it," Spencer says.
She nods.
"And I'll call in your reinforcements and order some actually baked cupcakes," Garcia adds on.
"Thanks, Pen. The girl who does weekday classes is in my phone under Zara.
"Okay."
"Mama, I'll call you when we land." She hangs up and walks into the bathroom.
Spencer follows her with his gaze. "You think she'll be, okay?" He mutters.
"If anybody can help her get there? It's you, Pretty Boy." Morgan answers.
For a split-second, Spencer thinks of Maeve and his heart aches. At least now the pain can serve some purpose besides just being pain. If he can show Julie that the sea of grief, she is wading through isn't one she's in alone no matter how solitary she may feel, that's something at least.
-/-
The silence on the jet is deafening. Julie cannot take it anymore. "I know guys run the cases down beforehand on the plane, do it just keep the crime scene photos out of my eye line." She pops in her earbuds and cranks the volume on Black Coffee Morning by Bluebird. Before this very moment, she'd always loved flying. It made her feel small but not in a bad way. It was easier to marvel at gods wonders from a distance. Down on the ground, it was hard to find God or wonder when surrounded by everything humanity had screwed up royally. She hopes Matt's death does not take that feeling of hope from her.
A few more songs pass and then Spencer pulls out her earbuds.
"Hey Jules, we usually do the family and friends victimology interviews at the stations, but we thought doing yours like this would afford you more privacy, do you want to do it now?"
"Sure, we start with victim commonality, right? The most common thing between Brian and Matt were their fathers. Matt's was absent via being in the service, Henry didn't seem to care all that much that he put all the responsibility for Lorraine's care on his child. Smash's dad died when he was a kid. He wasn't absent by choice. Matt was raised by his grandparents. Smash was raised by his mother Corrinne. She works at the women's clinic on Ninth Street. They were both on my dad's state-winning team of 2006. That's kind of where commonalities end. Smash was cocky to the point of being annoying. I always thought he was compensating for something; I just never knew what. Matt is-was painfully shy. Like more than Spencer. We were together for most of high school and college and my dad could still make him stutter by looking at him a touch too intensely."
"I- " She paused in thought.
"What Jules?" Spencer replied.
"This doesn't make sense. The crimes cross racial lines, and socio-economic ones. Brian was making millions playing for the Cowboys. The only reason Corrinne stayed in Dillon is because wanted too. Matt taught high school art and cared for his mom and Grandma. Why those two?"
"Smart girl." Hotch muttered lowly.
She waves him off carelessly. "I listen when Spencer talks."
The sly way the simple statement makes Reid smile doesn't go unnoticed by the others, especially JJ.
"Hey J," Penelope called from the laptop. "There's one other commonality, I just it's sensitive and don't want to step on any toes."
"Matt's dead. It can't get worse unless He's been sleeping with Tyra, and no one told me." She replied tiredly.
"Not Tyra, no but both victims were-"
"Killed after having had sex with a woman. Vaginal epithelial cells were found on both bodies. The amount was too small for DNA tracing." Spencer finished while looking down at the file.
"That leaves out disgruntled ex-players of her dad's team." Morgan said and Julie exhaled in relief.
"Unless the person is transgendered." Spencer put in.
"Baby, Dillon, Texas is one of the last places you would willingly live as a trans person trust me, it's only slightly less racist than it is homophobic. There is exactly one gay bar in a 100-mile radius of Dillon unless you go into Austin.
"Might Be more of a scorned lover." JJ said.
Julie snickered before she could stop herself. "What?" Spencer asked.
"I had this thought that if that's true someone needs to hide Tim Riggins. Ignore me I think I might be losing it." She laughed harder.
Penelope whistled lowly in appreciation from the laptop. "I see your point J, I mean he's no Derek, but as small towns go, he had to be like chum in the girly waters of high school hormones."
"Teen girls, grown women, and a set of twins if the legend is true." Julie said smiling for the first time all day and Spencer eyed her warily. "No worries sweetheart, I stayed far away. He would have triggered my Taylor "Fix em." Gene and my best friend has been in love with him since she was five."
"Were the victims seeing anyone that you knew of?" Rossi asked.
Julie's gaze darkened for a second. "According to our group text Smash was going to ask Waverly Grady to marry him and Matt had called me a few months ago to get me back. I told him I was seeing someone and was happy and I wasn't coming back to him. He accused me of sleeping with married people again and hung up on me. That's the last we spoke."
"Yikes," Prentiss replied.
"I think he was drunk, he's usually not like that it seemed a bit out of character for him now that I think about it. He's not a big drinker unless he's stressed so there might be something going on there?" Morgan jotted it down for the family interview. Julie nodded to Morgan. "Ask Landry Clarke about that too.
She leaned into Spencer resting her chin on his shoulder. "Anything else?"
He shook his head no. "If anything, else pops up for you let me know."
She puts her earbuds back in, rests her head on his shoulder, and tries to fall asleep.
JJ watches as Spencer holds Julie's hand and lets her sleep on his shoulder, he's completely comfortable and unbothered by being touched or the public display of said affection. She had noticed before now, but she wasn't sure how much it was real and how much of it was Spence masking and or mirroring normal behavior. It seems he really does love Julie. She pushes aside the jealousy she feels flaming. It shouldn't be there anyway.
-/-
They land at the Austin airport and take a connecting flight to a little airfield an hour outside of Dillon. They drive to Dillon to get their assignments and Julie gives the directions to each location with a sort of hollowness that lets her know an emotional burn out is bearing down on her fast.
-/-
When she sees her mother at the police station flanked by Sheriff Clarke and her dad, she crumbles like a house of cards annihilated by an angry child. She tries to hold it together for her absolutely bewildered looking baby sister. She fails miserably, instead collapsing into her mother's arms.
She can feel Spencer standing beside her his hand rubbing a tiny circle into the small of her back wordlessly, he has work to do but she knows he will remain beside her until her tears at least slow to weeping instead of these ugly sobs.
She can hear Lorraine asking "Is Matthew here? Where is Matthew? Why won't anyone tell me where he is?" the tears that had started to slow begin choking her again. Her Dad leans over and kisses the top of her head and then moves to distract Lorraine,
"Mrs. Saracen how 'bout we get some coffee?" She thanks God for small miracles and her Daddy as Grandma Saracen is distracted for the moment by her daddy's easy charm.
She doesn't know any of them will survive this for the next five minutes much less the rest of their lives, but her dad as always will lead the way for her. With her mother steadying her like pavement beneath her feet.
She fights back her tears mightily. "You should get to work." She kisses Spencer's cheek. "Have Morgan interview Grandma. She'll be put at ease by him."
"You sure you're, okay? I don't want to leave you." She has never loved Spencer more.
"I love you too. I'm okay. I'll go sit with Tyra and wait for you." She gives him a teary but hopefully bright smile."
-/=
She is sitting next to Tyra holding now cold coffee when Morgan walks by. "Hey Pretty Girl? We're gonna get them. I promise." He stated going into the interview room.
And she believes him, and she waits.
-/-/-
AN: You guys I can't believe I actually came back to this thing! If you enjoyed it please tell me so I can hopefully stay inspired and write more! Thanks so much for sticking with me and of course I own nothing.~MM