One week later, Jessica was growing fed up. She cornered Spencer in the kitchen as he was making coffee. "Are you breaking up with Maeve?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Well, she wants to talk, but you're avoiding her!" Jessica complained. "And Valentine's Day is in two days, so now would probably be a good time to either break up or make up!"

Spencer finally turned to face Jessica properly. "She failed to warn me of a potential threat, and as a result, you ended up in the proverbial line of fire. I'm not sure that's something I can forgive."

Jessica raised an eyebrow. "I was already in the proverbial line of fire. And Maeve came to you as soon as she had any reason to believe I might be in danger. In case you've forgotten, unsub psychology is your specialty, not hers."

Spencer sighed. "I know that, but she still knew something was going on, and she didn't tell me."

"I once landed myself in the hospital with pneumonia, and my reasons were about as stupid as hers. I learned my lesson and I haven't done it since. I think Maeve has learned her lesson too; doesn't she deserve a second chance?"

Spencer had no immediate response to that, and he took a sip of coffee while he collected his thoughts. "You're probably right," he signed at last. "But it takes more than logic to rebuild trust."

Jessica gave him a flat look. "Yes, I know that. Do you want me to do another drug check?"

Spencer grimaced. "Point taken."

"She's never going to earn back your trust if you don't give her the chance," Jessica continued. "Besides, that woman wanted to ruin Maeve's life. If you let this end the relationship, then the dead stalker wins."

"All right, I'll talk to Maeve," Spencer agreed. He pulled out his phone…right as it rang. "Yeah, Garcia?" He frowned at Garcia's response. "All right, I'll be in as soon as possible." He hung up and sighed. "We've got a case. I guess Maeve will have to wait."

"Solve it quickly," Jessica replied.

On Tuesday evening, Maeve worked a little later than usual. Jessica had gotten a ride home with Eve, and Maeve was trying really hard not to think about the fact that it was Valentine's Day. But eventually, her grumbling stomach forced her to emerge from her lab.

To Maeve's surprise, Spencer was waiting in her office. "Hello."

"Hello," Maeve said in surprise. "Are we talking now?"

Spencer briefly shut his eyes and took a deep breath. "Look, I'm not happy about how things happened. If things are going to work between us, then I need to know that you'll tell me about any potential threat to your safety, no matter how small. Nothing is too minor for my attention."

Maeve swallowed. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. But if things are going to work between us, then I need a boyfriend, not a bodyguard. I promise I'll tell you about any future stalkers, but I'm a grown woman who can look after myself. My safety is not your responsibility."

"All right," Spencer conceded. "I don't necessarily need to know if you find some improperly stored chemicals in your lab. But if there's any sort of criminal activity, or anything that could potentially affect Jessica, then I need to know. Can we agree on that?"

Maeve nodded. "That sounds reasonable."

"Good." Spencer smiled. "I'm glad you said that, because otherwise, I wouldn't have had any use for this." He pulled a bouquet of roses out of nowhere. "Happy Valentine's Day."

Maeve laughed and took the flowers. "Thank you. Happy Valentine's Day."

"Have you got any plans for dinner?"

"Probably a bit late to make any reservations, but I'm game for any place that has a table for us," Maeve replied.

"All right, let's go find one." Spencer offered his arm, and he and Maeve left together.

"Guess what," Jeffrey texted.

"You're coming to Mendel next fall?" Jessica guessed.

"…damn, I wasn't expecting you to ACTUALLY guess it."

"Wait, seriously?"

"Yeah, I applied early to my top five choices. I got in to both Mendel and American University. Figured I might as well go to the one where I'll already know at least one person."

Jessica grinned. "That's awesome! I could introduce you to my friends some time, and then you'll know more people here!"

"That'd be cool. What about that researcher that we helped your cousin meet?"

"Yeah, I could introduce you to her too. You probably wouldn't see as much of her, though, since she's not really a teacher."

"As someone who witnessed the start of their relationship, I can't help being curious about how things are working out for them," Jeffrey insisted.

"Well, they had a bit of a blip after that whole stalker incident I told you about, but I think they're good now."

"And just think, they might never have met if my dad didn't get called into work that day."

Jessica frowned. "I'd say thank goodness for parents getting called in to work, but it's generally not a good thing when either of our parents gets called in…"

"That depends on your perspective. It was a pretty good thing for me and my dad when your cousin got called in for us," Jeffrey pointed out.

"Okay, fair enough," Jessica conceded. "I'm sure the people of San Bernardino are very happy to have him right now."

"That's the spirit," Jeffrey agreed. "And the patients at Virginia Medical Center are very happy that my dad works there."

"Exactly. To life-saving parents!" Jessica responded.

"To life-saving parents."

After conferring with her other friends, Jessica arranged for Jeffrey, Mateo and Eve to join her for a mini-golf outing on the first weekend in March. As a result, she had to decline a panicked last-minute request from JJ for an evening of babysitting. She was vaguely aware that Spencer had volunteered in her stead, but she didn't give the matter much thought until she got home—and Spencer did not.

"Hey, did JJ tell you how late she was staying out?" Jessica texted.

"Emily said 'a couple of hours'," Spencer replied. "It's been four."

"Should we call in the cavalry?" Jessica asked worriedly.

"JJ's been answering her phone," Spencer quickly clarified. "But every time, she just says they'll be out 'a little longer' and avoids giving a definite answer. And honestly, she sounds drunk."

"…okay. Where's Will, anyway?"

"Night shift."

"So you're stuck until JJ comes home?"

"Yes. Any chance you'd be willing to come help?" Spencer begged.

"Shouldn't Henry be in bed by now?" Jessica pointed out. "Just nap on the couch or something until JJ gets home. I don't want to head over there and find out JJ's beaten me there anyway."

"Henry tried to refuse to go to bed until JJ got home," Spencer argued. A minute later, he sent a reluctant second text. "But yes, he fell asleep around ten."

"You'll be fine," Jessica promised. "Good night."

"Good night."

Spencer ended up coming home in the morning for a quick shower and change of clothes before he and Jessica both went to the FBI triathlon to cheer for Hotch. JJ, Garcia and Emily were all visibly hungover, and Spencer took great pleasure standing right next to them and cheering as loudly as possible.

"Why are you yelling?" JJ grumbled, pointedly not out loud.

"Be like Jessica," Emily suggested, also exclusively in ASL. "She's being silent."

Garcia turned to Morgan. "Sugar, you're in the FBI, can't you make everyone cheer silently like Jessica?"

Seeing all this, Jessica decided that she was being much too accommodating. She smirked at the three women…then opened her mouth and tried to cheer as loudly as possible.

Judging by the reaction of the surrounding crowd, she had not quite achieved the intended effect. Morgan shifted his grip on Jack, then realized he couldn't safely sign at the moment. "Okay, as someone who is not currently hungover…don't do that. Please."

"I, for one, would like to keep my hearing for a little while longer," Gideon agreed.

"We're here to cheer for Hotch, not to film a horror movie," Rossi added.

"Although if you ever get cornered by an unsub, you should absolutely do that again," Spencer countered.

Jessica frowned. "I thought that was what my pepper spray was for."

Spencer shrugged. "Use that too."

"And for the love of god, don't ever scream bloody murder unless there's an unsub," Emily added, glaring at Jessica.

"Don't spend all night drinking, then," Jessica retorted.

Jack more or less ignored this conversation, since he couldn't understand it. "Do you see him, Uncle Dave?"

"I think I do, kiddo," Rossi replied. "Right there! There he is!"

Jack and the BAU men burst into loud cheers again, much to the BAU women's chagrin.

A few weeks later, Jessica learned a rather shocking bit of news. She stopped by the grocery store, then headed up to Garcia's apartment and knocked on the door. There was no response. Jessica knocked again. Still nothing.

Jessica sighed and took out her phone. "I'm not going away until you at least answer the door."

Less than a minute later, Garcia finally cracked open the door, mascara visibly running down her face. "I'm really not in a sociable mood."

"Are you in a baking mood?" Jessica suggested. She held up the grocery bag.

"…maybe," Garcia conceded. She opened the door enough to let Jessica in. "But I don't want to talk about Kevin."

"Who's that?" Jessica asked innocently. "Obviously not someone who will be eating our cookies."

Garcia stared at her. "You're seriously not going to lecture me about what a great guy Kevin is?"

Jessica shrugged. "Sure, he's a great guy. So are plenty of other guys I know. Doesn't mean I want to marry any of them, so why should I judge you for not wanting that either?"

Garcia finally broke into a watery smile. "You're right. Cookies are all we need to talk about right now."

Jessica smiled back at her. "So, chocolate chip or snickerdoodle?"

"Chocolate chip, all the way."

"Your wish is my command." Jessica took the bag into the kitchen and began unpacking the cookie ingredients.

Late one night, Garcia called the team in to deal with a traumatized boy who'd just been found in Arizona. Spencer groggily got up, got dressed, made coffee, and was prepared to leave a note for Jessica…then he noticed that her light was still on.

Spencer cautiously looked into Jessica's room, and saw that she was engrossed in her laptop. He tried to approach her to let her know that he had a case (and to ask if she really needed to be up so late)—but then he had to jump backwards, because Jessica suddenly lunged for her pepper spray and whirled around. Thankfully, she recognized Spencer before she could actually use it.

Jessica put the pepper spray back down, now both horrified and embarrassed. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Spencer replied. "I'd rather you pepper spray me than not defend yourself against a real intruder."

Jessica gave him a skeptical look.

"…but, obviously, I'm glad you didn't," Spencer continued. "I was just coming in to tell you we have an urgent case and we're leaving for Arizona."

Jessica nodded. "Okay, thanks."

Spencer gave her a curious look. "Any particular reason you're up so late?"

Jessica glanced back at her computer, surprised to notice the time. "I didn't realize it was this late. I have a paper due in the morning, and I just can't seem to get this one section right."

"Do you at least have a complete draft?" Spencer prompted.

"Yes."

"Then go to bed. Sleep deprivation is not going to help you concentrate."

"Right." Jessica yawned, saved the document and shut her computer. "Sorry again about the whole pepper spray thing."

"Sorry for startling you. Good night."

"Good luck with the missing kid."

"Actually, a kid was just found…but thanks." Spencer left Jessica's room and headed down to the garage, mentally berating himself for accidentally mirroring her long-ago abduction by Frank.

On the plane, Garcia informed the team that a new kid had gone missing. Reid found himself once again pondering Jessica's apparent precognitive abilities.

A week later, Spencer and Maeve managed to carve out time for a dinner date. Unfortunately, Spencer seemed distracted; he picked at his food and barely spoke. Maeve sighed and set down her fork. "All right, out with it. What happened in Oregon?"

"I'd really rather not talk about work right now, please," Spencer replied, still staring at his plate.

"Well, whatever happened, your mind is clearly there and not here, so I think you need to," Maeve insisted. "Maybe it'll help to get it off your chest."

Spencer sighed. "Fine. Our unsub was the son of a mentally ill woman. He came to share his mother's delusions, and those delusions drove him to kill. What's more, he had custody of his teenage sister—his disabled sister—and ended up trying to kill her right before we found him. Logically, I know that his actions don't say anything about me, but…the parallels are just too eerie for me to ignore."

"You're thirty years old," Maeve reminded him. "Odds are, if you were going to take after your mother, it would have happened by now."

"There are always outliers."

"All right, so say you do develop late onset schizophrenia. You've got a lot of people who love you who would keep an eye on you and stop you from hurting anyone."

Spencer looked up. "That…actually is a really good point. We've got Jessica so well trained in self defense that she nearly pepper sprayed me for startling her late at night."

"See? No matter what happens to you, she'll be fine."

Spencer exhaled. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I needed that, thank you."

"And odds are it won't matter anyway, so how about we enjoy this excellent food?" Maeve raised an eyebrow.

Spencer picked up his fork and knife again. "Did you know this place was opened in 1960 by a pair of brothers who wanted to honor the legacy of their recently deceased paternal grandfather?"

Maeve smiled. "There's the Spencer I know and love."

Jessica was aware that the team had gone to Chicago to look for Morgan's missing cousin, but she was too busy with schoolwork to do more than wish them luck. She had almost forgotten the case altogether when she received a text from Garcia. "They found her."

"She was really alive this whole time?" Jessica replied, surprised.

"Yeah, some asshole had basically enslaved her."

Jessica frowned in disgust. "And here I thought we stopped enslaving black people back in 1865."

"Oh, it gets worse," Garcia continued. "Her captor was black too."

"What the actual fuck."

"I guess evil doesn't care about race," Garcia typed with a sigh. "Anyway, I'm gonna take a flight out to Chicago to support my chocolate knight. You wanna come?"

"What, right now?" Jessica responded, taken aback.

"Yes, right now."

"Can't, I have classes tomorrow. Tell Derek I'm happy for him, though."

"Okay, will do."

With the weather warming up again, Jessica and Gideon made plans to go birdwatching one Friday afternoon. The plan was for Gideon to pick Jessica up at Mendel after her last class of the day, but when he arrived, Jessica was nowhere to be seen. Gideon took out his phone to text her. "I'm here. Where are you?"

Moments later, Gideon heard a buzzing from a nearby bench. Looking over, he saw a bag that looked worryingly like Jessica's—complete with the distinctive blue jay pin he had given her for her birthday. A second bag sat next to it, but no sign of Jessica.

Gideon sent a second text, hoping he was overreacting. "Do you have your bag with you?"

More buzzing from the bag on the bench. Gideon was definitely worried now.

"Okay, think," Gideon muttered to himself. "It's been set down very neatly, which suggests she took it off voluntarily. The question is, would she voluntarily walk away and leave it out of her sight, especially with her phone inside?"

"Hey, are you Agent Gideon?" called a voice from above. Surprised, Gideon looked up and saw a young Hispanic man sitting in a nearby tree.

"Not an agent any more, but yes. You a friend of Jessica's?"

"Yeah, she's just up here. Hang on, I'll get her for you." The young man climbed up towards a second figure, sitting higher in the branches.

A minute later, Jessica scrambled down out of the tree. "Sorry about that," she signed sheepishly. "Mateo told me he'd never climbed a tree before, and I had to show him the joys of nature's jungle gyms."

"The trees where I grew up weren't really good for climbing," Mateo explained, following her out of the tree. "Pretty much all the tall ones were palm trees."

"Beautiful trees, but I can imagine they would be difficult to climb," Gideon agreed.

"And in case you're wondering, there's a bird's nest in this one," Jessica added. "Looked like robin eggs."

"No sign of any robins, though," Gideon noted. "Looks like you might have scared them away."

Jessica frowned. "Oops. I guess we'd better get going, then. See you later, Mateo."

"See you. And it was nice to meet you, Mr. Gideon." Mateo grabbed his bag and headed back toward the nearest building. Jessica grabbed her bag and followed Gideon to his car.

On the last weekend in April, the team got called out to Oklahoma. A few hours later, JJ texted Jessica. "Okay, I KNOW Spence is familiar with the concept of shaking hands, so do you have any idea why he just did an awkward wave at the local detective instead of shaking his hand?"

"Um…why are you asking me and not him?" Jessica responded, confused.

"Because I figure if you know, you can probably give me the condensed version."

"I see. Well, long statistical ramble short, shaking hands apparently exchanges more germs than kissing," Jessica explained.

JJ stared. "…wow. I would not have expected that."

"Me neither. Fortunately, he has assured me that he knows better than to kiss random people as a greeting…at least on this side of the Atlantic."

JJ snorted, amused. "Well that's a relief."

"Yeah, I figured I'd better make sure. And I also informed him there's this amazing invention called hand sanitizer. I guess he decided that's not good enough."

JJ sighed. "Well, at least now I have some idea how to smooth things over if the next detective doesn't take it as well as this one did. Thanks."

"No problem."

Jeffrey was very interested in Jessica's latest bit of news. "Wait, so the ENTIRE BAU is giving a talk at UDC?"

"Yes," Jessica confirmed. "Why, are you changing your first choice now?"

"Just for this week. That sounds really cool."

"I could talk to Spencer, see if there's any way for you to attend as a guest."

Jeffrey grimaced. "As much as I would love that, Dad would never let me get away with skipping class this late in the year."

"Hmm. Well, maybe Penelope could arrange to have the whole thing taped."

"OMG please ask."

Jessica laughed. "I will."

Luckily for Jeffrey, Garcia was able to spin a convincing argument that the upcoming talk would make a great training video for the FBI Academy. Garcia being who she was, it was child's play for her to make a copy and send it to Jeffrey.