Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

March 2006

Her memories have a champagne quality too them, effervescent, tiny bubbles floating to the top of her mind and popping before she’s fully realized them. There’s a sticky sweetness to it all, like her third drink of the night, pressed into her hand by a giggling Penelope. It isn’t that she was so drunk that she doesn’t remember, just drunk enough that she shed her inhibitions like she had her coat at the door. Now in the heavy haze of waking, the events of the previous evening seem to sparkle and pop behind her eyelids. 

JJ stretches her body, inventorying her fingers and toes, feeling her vertebrae crack back into place, stacking themselves neatly one over the next. She extends her reach and finds the spot on the bed next to her vacant, cold. The body that she’d fallen asleep next to long since gone. She expected as much, but still can’t help the pang of disappointment. 

She rolls to her side, facing the empty space beside her, trying to conjure up an image of the woman she’d gone to bed with. Instead she’s met with a neatly folded sheet of hotel stationary. Blinking her eyes in an attempt to be more alert, swallowing the thickness of her tongue, she pulls herself to sitting. She fingers the note gently, tracing the edges of it with her thumbs before carefully unfolding it. 

To my beautiful J, 

I thought to wake you before I left, but you look truly angelic when you sleep. I wanted to keep that image of your hair fanned like a halo on the white sheet, glowing in the early morning sun as my last of you. I paid for late checkout and a room service breakfast for when you wake as penance for leaving without a goodbye.   

Your stranger, 

M

For a moment she isn’t sure if she should crumple the note up, so plagued by disappointment at finding it in place of the beautiful and mysterious M she’s spent the evening with; or keep it as a treasure, tuck into the old wooden box in the top right hand drawer of dresser where she stores her most precious memories. She’ll hold it as souvenir of a night she doesn’t think she will soon forget. 

It’s been a long time for JJ since she’s been with anyone, and she isn’t sure there was ever a time she’s felt so connected with anyone else—never after such short a time anyways. She’d felt the pull instantly between her and the woman at the bar with her black hair curled loosely around her face, nearly blending into her tight black t-shirt. JJ hadn’t been planning on talking to anyone, let alone leaving to spend the night in that someone’s hotel room—she knows better. But Morgan and Penelope had insisted she put herself out there. 

“Come on lil’ mama,” Morgan said, forcing her to look up at him with an elbow to her ribs. “Just one number. Pick up one person. One measly phone number and I’ll drop it.”

JJ had rolled her eyes, straining her voice over the music and surrounding chatter. “Not happening. I’m not picking up a stranger.” 

Penelope had reached for her hand, holding it in between both of her own, her eyes already red rimmed and a bit glassy behind her jewelled glasses. “JJ my love, my dearest sugarplum…you need to live a little.”

“I’m very much alive, thank you very much,” she’d said, between sips of her drink, sucking the thin straw between her teeth. “Besides, isn’t that what we’re doing? I’m out, I’m here. We’re gonna to drink too much and dance and regret it tomorrow, right?”

“As your best friends,” Penelope still had a firm grip on her hand, swinging  it in the space between them. “We just want you to be happy…less—”

“—alone,” Morgan finished for her. 

It was a conversation that they’d had time and time again. That JJ needed to find someone, that she had too much love in her to spend the rest of her life single. It was time, they told her. Despite how often she tried to convince them that she was fine as she was. That her life was full enough and she didn’t have space for a relationship. That no one would want her anyways, not with her 30lbs of baggage, and twisted up history full of loss and heartache. Move on, they said. Be happy. Do something for yourself. Act your age for once.

“Despite what you might think, Derek,” she said, moving the straw out of the way and chugging the remainder of the sticky drink. “The only time I’m ever alone is the drive to work. I don’t need anyone else.” 

He put his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Okay mama, but what about sex? It’s been how long? You my friend need to get laid.” 

Before JJ had the chance to spit out her drink, Penelope had disentangled their hands, reaching across the table to smack Morgan across the chest. “Derek Percival Morgan!” 

Derek had rubbed his hand over his chest where Penelope’s chunky rings hit his breastbone on her backhand. “Babygirl, you know that’s not my middle name, and damn that hurt.”

“Good,” Penelope recentred the rings on her fingers. “It was supposed to hurt. Even you, my hunk of chocolate thunder, can’t just ask a girl about her sex life.” 

“Thank you,” JJ said. 

“No,” Penelope turned to her, working hard to focus a glare at her. “He’s not wrong. He just can’t say it. I can. You need to get some.”

The conversation had continued on that way for another round. The drinks bought by Derek, stronger and less sticky, warmed her, her cheeks pinking with each sip as it trailed fire down her throat. The thrum of the band, with too much bass and vocals that could only leave you wanting vibrated through her, and she couldn’t help but smile. She couldn’t even be bothered by her friends meddling in her love life. She felt happy, surrounded by noise and normalcy and friends who cared enough about her to want her to find someone, even if they were misguided.

It was why, after a few moments of sitting quietly watching Morgan and Penelope bickering over who she should pick up and how, she finally relented. 

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll get one number. One. But I’m not hooking up in a bathroom or going home with anyone. A phone number. One that I may or may not ever call.” 

Penelope’s eyes had lit up behind her glasses as she clapped her hands together and squealed, a high pitched sound that may have caused JJ to cover her ears if she weren’t already half deaf from the music. Derek smiled, a slow creep of his lips, eyes sparkling with mirth, like he knew all along she’d agree. 

“Alright mama,” he’d said. “Who you gonna pick?”

JJ had scanned the room, searching. What she’d been searching for she wasn’t quite sure. But then she saw her. A woman sitting alone at the far end of the bar, her eyes to the crowd, slowly sipping her drink through the red straw that was nearly the same shade as her cherry lipstick. The mysterious woman with wavy black hair and skin tight black t-shirt. JJ couldn’t see from where she was, but she was sure that her pants would be dark too. It added to the image of her; separated from the crowd, observing from the shadows, mysterious and intriguing. JJ could just make out her profile from where she sat in the corner booth with Penelope and Derek. There was something both sharp and soft about her features, a contrast that JJ couldn’t quite put her finger on but god she’d wanted to.

“Her,” she said, pointing the woman out to Derek. “I’ll go, I’ll flirt, and I’ll ask for her number… but if I strike out this conversation is still over.”

Morgan followed the point of her finger with his eyes and appraised her target, and JJ found herself swallowing a sudden lump in her throat. She feared for a moment that he’d tell her to be realistic, set her sights lower. She figured he’d assume she’d picked someone she knew would shoot her down immediately so she could pretend she tried and be done. She worried her lower lip, tucking it between her teeth, waiting for his answer, fearing he’d choose someone else for her. She had waited for him to find someone more obviously suited to her, someone less beautiful, less intriguing, someone who looked like they were actually there to find a date. 

He wouldn’t have been wrong, in thinking she picked the woman originally because she didn’t want to play his game. She didn’t want to ask someone for their number only to get it and never call. She wanted someone to turn her down so she could go back to her friends and say I told you so, have some drinks, dance a bit and then go home to her own bed. But the more she looked at the woman at the far end of the bar, the more she found herself drawn in, wanting to talk to her. Even if it was just to be rejected. 

“Fine,” Morgan said, still appraising. “Good luck, Jay.”

So, with a final shot of something that tasted like gasoline and grenadine— for good luck— pressed to her lips by Penelope, JJ had pushed her way through the Friday night crowd to the other side of the bar. Trying as best she could to keep an eye on the woman in the shadows she weaved through warm bodies, dodging drinks and elbows as she went. With the taste of fire and sweet-tarts linger in the back of her throat, she tried to breath through her nose, feeling the suffocating heat and nearness of hundreds of other bodies around her.

As she approached she realized the woman was even more beautiful up close and she nearly lost her nerve. She watched the crowd with an interest that also somehow spoke of nonchalance, like she was looking for something—someone—but didn’t actually care if she found it. JJ’d been right too, her pants were black, along with her heeled boots. JJ squeezed her hands into fists, and then flexed her fingers trying to push the nervous energy out the tips of them. 

She wanted to turn around, run back to Morgan and Penelope and tell them she couldn’t do it. I don’t know how to flirt, she’d told them time and time again, I don’t even know how to tell when someone’s flirting with me. But to that Penelope had said, sweetie all you have to do is bat your big baby blues and you’re flirting. And there was an empty stool beside the woman, probably the only one in the place, so it felt a bit like kismet.

JJ found herself drawn in, being pulled toward her mystery woman, nerves be damned. She felt like she needed to talk to her, compelled by a potion of alcohol and sexual energy. She decided, since she was going to get shot down anyways, that she’d be honest. Straight up. See if the woman felt bad enough for her, that her friends were on her case, that she’d scribble down a number for pretence. 

JJ slid into the stool next to her, and despite the noise, despite seeming to be absorbed in watching the crowd, she seemed to sense JJ’s presence as soon as she got close. Before she could say anything, JJ was met with a disarming smile— bright and wide, encompassing her entire face. 

“Hi,” she’d said. 

JJ for a moment forget herself; she forgot that knowing how to speak, to be articulate and find the right words in stressful situations was literally her job. She blinked a few times, and must’ve looked a little like a deer caught in headlights, but the woman just kept smiling at her, letting out a little half laugh. 

“Sorry,” JJ finally managed, unsure what precisely she was apologizing for. “I was hoping I could ask you a favour?” 

“Yeah?” A single brow arched up in question, followed by a head tilt that indicated: go on. 

“I was hoping you could write a number down for me. Doesn’t need to be yours, it doesn’t need to be real… it could be your ex who you hate’s number—and I can get my friend to put it on every telemarketing list in the country,” JJ paused to take a breath, realizing she hadn’t and was on the verge of babbling. “My friends are insistent I leave here tonight with one number.”

When she was done, JJ finally looked up and was met with warm, dark eyes watching her. She felt very small, like a grain of sand in the ocean, floating in the vastness of that look—caught up in the current of it. The woman before her seemed to have trapped her where she stood and was trying learn her with a look. 

Finally, she said, “So, did you pick a woman to ask for a fake number as a safe choice? Solidarity, I mean?” 

JJ laughed and shook her head, “No, if I asked a guy my friends would know I wasn’t taking it seriously.”  

The look changed suddenly, from curious to what JJ could only describe as intrigued, interested. The woman tucked the straw from her drink neatly behind her teeth, pursing her cherry red lips around it and finishing her drink without ever taking her eyes off JJ. JJ hoped the lights were dim enough to hide the flush that was creeping up from her chest to the tips of her ears. The moment was almost hypnotic, the beat of the music a metronome, and the woman before her the voice telling her to do whatever it commands. 

“I’ll tell you what,” the woman had said, placing her empty glass on the bar top with a dull thunk. “Your friends aren’t going to believe you just walked up here and got my number. Let me at least buy you a drink first.”

JJ couldn’t resist, the woman was intoxicating, her voice poured over JJ like an easy-drinking bourbon. Warm and a little spicy, with a sweetness like butterscotch that sat at the back of her tongue. Something about it all reminded her of cracking the spine of an dusty leather bound book at the creaky-floored used bookstore next to her apartment. The warm scent of old paper, comforting and familiar. 

A smile settled over her as she sat more comfortably into the stool. “Okay. But just one.” 

“Anything you want,” the woman had said, like a promise. Then she’d casually placed a hand on JJ’s knee while leaning over the bar to get the bartenders attention.

Even in the haze of the morning after, shaking the cobwebs from her brain JJ can still hear the imprint of that voice, like a flower pressed into her soul, as she rereads the note. She can picture her mysterious M writing it in the early hours of the morning. It’s sappy and over the top and a little bit ridiculous, but it seems perfectly right. She imagines M sitting at the round table under the window, watching JJ sleep, a secret romanticism dripping out her fingers as she scribbled down the first things that came to mind. 

She could think it was staged, something written with the explicit purpose of getting to JJ. A play so to speak. But since she still doesn’t know M’s real name and she didn’t sign the note with a phone number, JJ believes she wrote what she felt. She has to believed M wanted to leave JJ at least with an impression of her she could hold onto, since she left nothing else. But something tells her that M would be embarrassed that JJ plans to keep it, hide it away in her treasure chest. She knows, with a near certainty that she doesn’t care to examine, that if JJ were to ever see her again and show her the note, that her face would scrunch up, nose wrinkling and she’d shake her head. 

Almost like a memory, faded with time but still sitting somewhere in her subconscious, she can hear her say, “I can’t believe I wrote that.”

That image makes it all the more endearing to JJ. Harder too though, because she wants more than a sappy note on hotel stationary and sparkly champagne memories of last night. But it’s what she has. That and this lingering feeling of familiarity, like M is someone she’s known for years, a memory buried in a past she can’t quite reach. She knows M felt it too.

“You seem familiar,” she had said, handing JJ a gin and tonic; nothing sweet, JJ had told her, I still have sugar stuck to my molars from whatever the last drink I had was. 

JJ didn’t want to tell her that she probably recognized her from TV. Didn’t want to tell her she had likely seen her face on TV as she gave a press conference. She’d had that happen before, the you look familiar, conversation. First always: are you an actress? No. A reporter? No. Explaining that she’s the liaison for a department of the FBI most people haven’t heard of is always too much. Always followed by too many questions that she doesn’t really want to answer. 

She was enjoying the low stakes conversation with its undercurrent of something that fizzed and sparkled and bubbled up inside her. She didn’t want to complicate it with her job, her history, her life. She was doing exactly what Penelope and Morgan had wanted her to do: relax, flirt a little, and get a number. 

JJ must have spent so long staring, trying to avoid bringing up her job, that the woman quickly added, “That wasn’t meant to be a line, by the way. I just feel like I’ve met you before.”  

And as JJ looked back at the woman sitting on the stool next to her, who had turned to face her full on, allowing herself to sit in a way that took up space and looked freeing, JJ felt that pull again, almost magnetic, and so very familiar.

Swallowing the lump that had formed in her throat JJ took a sip of her drink and nodded. “I feel it to,” she decided on honesty. “But I can’t place where.” 

She knew it was probably no more than feeling anyways, one those moments of deja vu you can never place. Maybe it was just the solidarity of recognizing a kindred spirit so to speak. The woman in front of her was older than her by at least a half a decade if not more, and JJ had only been living in DC a few years. New York for college before that, and high school in Pennsylvania before that. She didn’t get out much, aside from work, and definitely not in the circles she thought that this beautiful, sophisticated looking woman would frequent. There was little chance that they’d actually met somewhere. But it was fun to pretend, to think that maybe they’d met someplace else, in some other time they’d crossed paths but hadn’t been quite ready to meet, and now were coming back together in the strangest way. 

JJ’s phone starts to ring and she shakes the memories of last night out of her head, bursting them like bubbles and centring herself back in reality. She puts the note back on the pillow where she found it and gropes the side table for her BlackBerry. 

“Jareau,” she says, fumbling to get the phone next to her ear. 

“Your alive!” Penelope’s voice rings out through the speaker, high and loud. “I’ve sent you like a billion texts!” 

“I just got up,” JJ moves the phone from her ear, looking at the barrage of messages from Penelope and Morgan, but fortunately none from Hotch. 

“Oh,” Penelope lowers her voice, the half whisper like a kid with a secret. “Are you still with… you know… her.” 

JJ snorts. “No. She left me with a note and prepaid room service, though.” 

“Room service?” 

JJ hums, “Yeah, I haven’t ordered it yet though.”

“Where are you? I’m getting in Esther right now and coming to get you.”

“Uh,” JJ hesitates for a moment, trying to remember exactly where they went. How far had they walked from the bar when they’d left hand in hand, giggling like school girls? She’d been so delirious with the feeling of M’s hands on her, lips pressed below her ear, whispers of god, you’re so beautiful that trickled through her hair and sent shivers all the way through her. She hadn’t paid any attention to where they went or how long they’d walked.

The only space in her memory of last night is for M. The way she laughed, deep and a little rough. The way the street lights caught the glint in her eye when she looked at JJ. The way she made JJ feel like she was burning so hot and so bright that she was bound to explode into stardust. 

It was very stupid and extremely naive of her. A mistake she normally never would have made. But something about M had entranced her, allowed her to let loose and leave her common sense, her training at the door of the bar, firmly closing it behind her. 

It had been reckless, and so fucking stupid. But she’s alive, she still has all her fingers and toes. Other than wearing nothing but her bra—which was crooked—and feeling a little sore in places that hadn’t been touched in a long while, she’s no worse off than yesterday.  

She rolls over again, picking up the note and opening it, finding the printed lions head and crown in the top centre,  bold print below it. 

“Shit,” she says, vaguely remembering now how her eyes had widened when they entered the lobby. You’re staying here? she’d asked, dumbstruck. “The Ritz-Carlton. By the IMF.”

“I’ll be there in half an hour and you’re going to tell me everything.”

Everything. JJ flops back on the bed, tossing her phone somewhere on the comforter. 

Everything. 

It feels like so much and also hardly anything at all happened between last night and right now. Lifetimes and seconds all at once. It hurts, a dull throb under her breast bone, to think that something that felt so momentous—revelatory— to her will never amount to more than one anonymous night. 

How can she explain to Penelope that she let this woman who she’d spent one night with, who’s name she doesn’t even know take up residence in her soul. She wonders briefly if M feels it too, like JJ now lives in her chest, nestled snuggly in place between her heart and ribs. 

It sounds absurd. She’s never been a romantic. Maybe her friends had been right all along, she needs to put herself out there. She needs to move on and allow herself the space to be who she truly is, to be free. It’s why she allowed things to progress as they had last night, like a game of make believe. She felt a sense of freedom she’d never felt before. 

She for a time got to shed the expectations of being Jennifer Jareau and just exist, follow her heart, her instinct and mostly her desire.  

“I was going to ask what I should call you,” the woman had said, taking a sip of her drink. “Because I can’t just call you beautiful all night, but I realized even in my head that makes me kind of sound like those frat boys over there,” she nodded towards the dart boards and pool table. 

JJ laughed. It was a genuine, surprised thing that had burst out of her in a giddy rush. 

“You can call me J—” before she managed to get the second J out the man who had been standing behind her had stepped backwards without looking, knocking into her. Her stool threatened to upend itself and her drink sloshed all over her hand, dripping down her arm. 

“Shit,” her companion quickly gathered a handful of cocktail napkins, helping JJ clean herself up. 

JJ put her glass down on the bar and shook the gin from the tips of her fingers before taking some of the offered napkins. While she tried to sop up as much of the mess as she could, her new friend leaned over the bar to order her another drink, the man who spilt the first having moved away from them without so much as an apologetic glance. 

“Thank you,” JJ said when a new drink appeared in front of her. 

“You’re welcome, Jay.” 

“Oh,” JJ smiled, taking the drink. “It’s actually—”

“—Don’t,” the woman cut her off. “I like Jay, it suits you. I’ll make it even, how about you call me M.” 

“Em like Emma?” JJ asked. “Or just the letter?” 

M met her with a wide smile, “How about the letter.”

Chapter Text

March 2006

One drink had quickly turned into two, JJ had barely noticed that her glass had become little more than melting ice. It had been so easy to talk to M, to unravel bits of herself and put them on display all the while not actually sharing much at all. Somewhere after the decision not to use their names, to have these single lettered aliases, they came to a quiet understanding that they wouldn’t share themselves either. Not the information that could give their identities away. It was like the secret spy game she used to convince her older sister to play with her when she was a kid. 

There was something exciting about it. About getting to just be J. She could be herself without needing to conform to the expectations of her life. For a short time she didn’t need to be something for someone. Briefly she’d felt a pang of guilt for hiding the biggest part of her life, but she pushed that down with a swallow of her drink. She wasn’t planning on dating this woman, so who she was when she left the bar didn’t matter between them. 

Besides, for the last nearly five years of her life—her entire early twenties when she should have been doing this— every decision she’d made had been for someone else. Penelope and Derek were right, the night should be for herself. They could be strangers with some kind of connection and nothing more. 

Even without details, without knowing each others present JJ had been sure she saw all the important bits, the personality peaking through. She offered the same in return. 

“No,” JJ said in response to a quip M made about the boys across the room from them, a small laugh puffing out of her with a breath. “You see with those frat boy types you can’t just challenge them, you’ve got to be subtle. Say something about having played with your brother or your dad, but maybe you’re no good anymore and get them to invite you to play. They’ll say something about how they can remind you. Then you kick their asses and act surprised about it.”

“And do you?” M asked. “Kick their asses?” 

“Always,” she smiled, watching the question appear in M’s eyes, in the arch of her brow, answering without the words ever needing to be asked. “I grew up in a small town. Too small for even a bowling alley, so we played darts. I don’t lose.” 

“Never?” 

She shook her head and offered a M a wink. “I have really good aim.” 

That shocked a laugh out of M. A full guffaw that had her head thrown back, exposing her throat to JJ. JJ felt suddenly hot then, her cheeks flushed pink as her eyes traveled down the length of exposed skin and thought about kissing her way up the long expanse of skin, under M’s jaw, up to her lips. 

JJ had never felt like that before, not that intensely. She’d wanted before sure, she’d been attracted to other women plenty of times but never before had she felt so compelled to act on it. Never before had the feelings overwhelmed her so quickly, as if she’d been caught in a sudden summer rainstorm without warning. 

When M looked back at her something had settled between them, like a blanket enveloping just the two of them, leaving out the rest of the bar. JJ could tell that M felt it too, whatever this magnetic pull between them was. 

But there was a question in M’s eyes as she looked JJ over, the appraising gaze stopping on JJ’s blushing cheeks as she pushed a strand of JJ’s chin length hair behind her ear. The looked had changed as she took more of JJ in, roving her eyes from JJ’s face down her body. There was a hunger there, a need, a desperation to be closer that JJ too had been feeling more and more of as the seconds wore on. But there was something else that flicked there. It was a kind of unease, or a question hanging off the tip of her tongue. 

M had stared for a few moments longer, her fingers still lingering on JJ’s hair, the heat of them so close to her cheek, the almost touch making it hard for JJ to breathe, before finally saying something.

“J,” M had said, hesitating for a moment. “You aren’t friends with those guys right? They aren’t your classmates at school or anything?” 

There was a joking lilt to her question, a forced playfulness in how it curled up at the end, but there was also a desperate earnestness to it too. It was as if M had felt it too, that something between them, and it only now just occurred to her that the night might go further than a drink and a fake number. The innocent flirting had taken a turn to more, and she needed to know she was dealing with someone old enough to handle that. 

Understanding the intent of the question deepened the shade of red of JJ’s cheeks. She was aware she looked young. It’s your cheeks, Penelope told her once, pinching each one. 

At work she has always tried to dress older—needed to. She wears her pencil skirts and blouses, or slacks—as her mother would’ve called them—with blazers, or dresses she buys from stores where the only other customers are middle-aged women and the clerks ask her if she’s looking for something for her mother. She does her makeup in ways to make herself look both natural but also slightly less fresh faced. 

But last night at the bar sitting next to M —so close their bare arms were touching—JJ was dressed as herself. She had been wearing her favourite low rise jeans, snug in all the right places, flaring out over her heeled boots, her red t-shirt barely reaching the top of them. She knew when she lifted her arms it exposed the expanse of her abdomen, all the way to the small scar where her rebellious belly button ring used to sit before she had to take it out a few years ago. With only mascara and lip gloss and her short hair tucked behind her ears, she could have passed easily for a college student. She actually had, not all that long ago, dressing the part to toy with an unsub. 

She knew M was older from the way she carried herself. She had an air of maturity about her, something that spoke to experience. There was something authoritative, confident, about how she held herself. But JJ also saw a certain vulnerability below it all, little holes in her false confidence that let her know M was also still finding herself too. JJ guessed she was somewhere in her thirties, but couldn’t place exactly where. She could say she was anywhere between twenty-nine and forty and the answer wouldn’t surprise JJ.

Suddenly, realizing there were already more than a handful of years between them, JJ knew her answer mattered. Even under the pretence of false names, of knowing this wasn’t meant to be more than tonight, JJ didn’t want to stop talking to M. Talking to her, being next to her felt addictive, she never wanted this contact to end. She didn’t want to be perceived as too young for this, whatever this was or could become. 

JJ shook her head and tried to make her chuckle sound relaxed, like she was flattered at being thought of as a college kid.

“Nah,” she said, “I graduated a while ago.” Smirking she continued, changing the pitch of her voice, hoping the tone capture something playful. “I’ve got myself a big girl job, full time and everything. I pay my own rent every month, have a—” JJ cut herself off, realizing that she was toeing too close to real. She swallowed hard hoping M missed it, or wouldn’t question her on what else she had.

M smiled and put a hand on her arm. “Okay, sorry… I just had to be sure—”

“It’s okay, I get it. I’ve been told I have a baby face. But I’m very much old enough to work over sixty hours a week and not sleep nearly enough, and have virtually no social life,” she shrugged. 

“All very grown up things,” M winked, then tilting her head towards JJ’s glass that was mostly just ice she asked, “Do you want another drink?”

“Yeah,” JJ said, “You know what? I really do.”

She had wanted nothing more than to linger there with M, who was watching her with an intensity so hot she might have melted under it. She’d take however many drinks M offered just to keep talking to her, even if she already felt a little giddy, lips tingling from the drinks she’d already had. 

Slumping her head back against the headrest in the passenger seat of Esther JJ swears she can still feel the tingle of last nights drinks on her lips, the buzz of energy lingering in her from M. However, the pleasant fuzziness of her memories gives way to dizziness as the sun hits the windshield when they turn a corner, reminding her why she doesn’t ever drink like she had last night. 

JJ grabs a pair of bejewelled sunglasses from the glovebox, knowing without having to ask that they would be there. She wants to explain the feelings she had last night to Penelope. She wants to explain how it all felt so unreal, like she was floating in some sort of dream, yet at the same time was the most real thing she’d ever experienced. But no words are forthcoming, none that won’t sound ridiculous, none that she feels would aptly explain why she acted so unlike herself. So she’s quiet, squinting at the sun, even through the borrowed sunglasses.

“So, how was it?” Penelope asks, unable to stand even a moment more not knowing. 

“The drink? It was alright, I don’t really remember it specifically.”

“Jennifer,” Penelope says her voice serious, turning away from the road for a moment to glare at her. “Not the drink. The sex. How was the sex?” 

JJ can feel the flush rise to her cheeks. Warmth flooding her. “Pen!”

“I said everything,” she turns back to the road with a shit eating grin. “I just picked you up at the frickin’ Ritz, so you’re gonna spill it all.”

“I’m not giving you details,” JJ sinks further into her seat, trying to melt into the leather. “Besides I need to call Hotch…shit it’s already after eleven.”

JJ feels the bubbling rise of panic in her chest, hot and uncomfortable as the time of day, as what she did, how reckless she’d been hits her all at once. 

Last night and this morning she’d allowed herself to be J, but she’s not that person. She’s JJ. She’s Jennifer Jareau and this version of her has responsibilities that she can’t ignore and the fact that she’d tried to hits her full force in the chest. She’d pretended that the real JJ, that her responsibilities, that the most important thing in her life, didn’t exist, for what? Good sex and a note left on the pillow. 

It felt like more than that at the time, but it wasn’t. 

“Baby, already done. I called him this morning and everything’s good. You’re off duty for a few more hours. Now dish.”

She still feels guilty. It’s a rock in her gut. But she knows Penelope, and she knows that Hotch wouldn’t agree to something that he wasn’t happy to do, and everyone has been encouraging her to unwind. There’s no way Penelope is going to let her go without something, no matter how much it’s starting to gnaw at her that she tried, even for a short time, to forget her life. 

JJ groans, rubbing her face with her hands. “I need coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.”

“Jay-Jay,” Penelope says each letter like it’s it’s own word, stretching out her name. “Did you even go to sleep? Were you and Miss dark and sexy going at it all night?” 

“Jesus Christ Pen! No!” JJ puts her head against the window, closing her eyes, then sighs, biting her bottom lip to hold in a laugh. “Not all night anyways.” 

The squeal that Penelope lets loose has JJ drawing her hands up to cover her ears. 

“Jennifer Jareau!” 

She can feel her face flushing, her cheeks are hot. She hopes that her borrowed sunglasses are enough to cover the red she know is creeping across her skin. 

“Yes?” 

“It was hot wasn't it? Like so hot?” 

Finding herself unable to resist the pull of Penelope’s infectious excitement, feeling drawn in to the idea of the unreality of it all, of being J for just a little longer JJ smiles. She’s missed so much in the last five years, maybe a little gossip and girl talk just this once is okay. Maybe she can push aside the guilt of it for just a little longer. 

“I mean, you saw her right?” she says, lowering her sunglasses and raising her eyebrows. 

JJ tries to draw the memories of last night back up, painting a picture in her mind of M clear enough to give something to Penelope. Not even for the sake of her best friend’s curiosity, but for her own sake. Maybe sharing what happened, how it all felt out loud will make it seem more real. Maybe it will solidify the memories, engrave them into her brain like M’s touch still feels branded into her skin. 

Kissing M had felt like fire running through her veins. Like the heat of the last shot Penelope had given her as it trickled down her throat. It was wonderful and terrifying in its intensity. It had been an intensity JJ had never allowed herself to feel before, it was so consuming it probably would have terrified her had the edges of her mind not been blurred by the five—almost six— drinks she’d finished.  

It’d been so long since JJ had let herself have more than a drink or two—four years, six months and eleven days to be exact. The last time she’d been anywhere close to drunk had been in a different lifetime. A night out with good friends, a bad fake ID, and worse decisions. It had been right before everything in her life got flipped on its head. The last time she’d gotten drunk like that had changed the entire trajectory of her life, creating the JJ she is today.  

And maybe this time had felt a bit like that too. As if she were on a precipice about to jump, flipping her entire life on its head all over again.

Kissing M felt like spiralling. It felt like the axis of her life was shifting but in a good way. She just wanted to keep kissing her, in the bar, on the street, pressed against the brick wall in the alley. She hadn’t cared anymore by that point, it just felt so right. She would have let M do anything she wanted right there at the bar if it hadn’t been for a low whistle somewhere to her left, drawing her back to the world around them. It was a much needed reminder of the warm press of bodies around them, of the bartender waiting to see if they needed more drinks, of to the fact that her friends were probably watching her from their table. 

She’d sworn she’d heard Derek in her head saying, “Way to go, mama.” 

And Penelope’s delighted squeal.

She probably had. JJ knew they’d be watching her, not only to make sure she followed through on getting a number but also that she was safe. She’d always hated being treated like she couldn’t take care of herself, that she needed protection, but over the past year and a half her team had taken her in in a way that felt almost familial. She reasoned it was like having siblings looking out for her. They knew how capable she was, knew just enough about her past to know she was strong, and never treated her delicately, but also wouldn’t tolerate anyone hurting her. 

And she had to admit that it felt nice, allowed her to relax a bit in M’s presence, to go along with this game of strangers, knowing that she had her friends watching out for her. One of whom was six feet and carried a gun, the other who could ruin someone’s credit score as easily as she could bat her eyes and flirt. 

It must have been knowing that she was safe, that Penelope and Derek had her back, that allowed her to be completely relaxed in the moment. She had been entirely absorbed in M as she stirred the ice around in her drink with her straw. 

“So, Columbia?” M had asked in the lead up to that first kiss, raising her eyebrows, eyes widening. “That’s impressive.” 

JJ shrugged, she hadn’t meant to bring up where she’d gone to college, it wasn’t a big deal. But she’d said something off handed about when she’d lived in New York. It wasn’t that she wasn’t proud of where she went to school, or that she didn’t find herself wanting to tell M everything, to spill her life into her lap, but it came too close to things that hurt too much. Things that would push M away, have her running to the hills away from JJ and her damage, her baggage.

“It’s not a big deal,” JJ said, an attempt to steer the conversation away. 

“Oh come on,” M smiled at her. “It’s a great school, you’re lucky to have gone.” 

“I am,” JJ found herself saying. “The soccer coach had invited me to tour the school my last year of high school. Columbia doesn’t do athletic scholarships but I had the grades to get in and,” she paused for a second swallowing her embarrassment, “I qualified for a need based scholarship. I didn’t want to take it, I felt like there were others more deserving but my other option was a full ride soccer scholarship to UPenn. That was just too close to home. I needed a change.” 

“A town too small for a bowling alley to New York City is definitely a change…so an athlete and a brain?” M had teased. 

“I guess,” JJ had shrugged, feeling more exposed than she had wanted to. Her time in New York had been special and wonderful in its own ways, but had also included the scariest, most devastating time in her life. “How about you, you seem like an Ivy League kind of girl yourself,” she’d said, trying to divert away from her own past.” 

“Caught me,” M had laughed, putting her hands up in a mock surrender. “I went to Georgetown for my undergraduate but was a Yale girl for my Master’s. That feels like a million years ago though.” 

“I’m sure it was only half a million,” JJ countered with a wink, reaching out to brush her fingers along the back of M’s hand where it rested on the bar.

That had garnered a laugh from M. It was a genuine one that lit up her whole face in the most wonderful way. Even in just a short time JJ could tell that M was serious so often, that she carried a heaviness around with her, but when she was happy it was infectious. JJ delighted in it. JJ felt proud that she had made it happen, that she could bring this woman to life in this way. 

“You’re something else, you know that J?” M had asked, turning her hand over to capture JJ’s in a loose hold, all while looking at JJ like she truly was something special, as if she were someone to be desired, someone worth the undivided attention of this gorgeous woman. 

Again, JJ had felt herself blushing under M’s attention. Her cheeks felt hot from more than the alcohol and she had to look away for a moment to try to compose herself. 

“You really are beautiful when you blush,” M had said, bringing JJ’s gaze back to her. 

That only caused JJ’s cheeks to turn a deeper shade of red as she shook her head, “I had hoped it was dark enough you wouldn’t notice.” 

“Of course I noticed,” M had said, her voice low and a little rough, “I think I’ve noticed everything about you. I can’t seem to keep my eyes off of you.” 

At that JJ huffed out a little laugh, part disbelieving part self deprecating. M’s words had done nothing to help her flushed face, it felt like too much. Like she couldn’t quite believe what she was being told. M seemed to notice at the same time, and shook her head.

“Sorry,” M said. “That was too much. I meant what I said…it’s just been a while since I’ve done this.”

“Same,” JJ had said, tucking her bottom lip in between her teeth. 

“Oh come on J,” M had reached out to again tuck the stubborn bit of JJ’s hair that kept falling in front of her face back behind her ear. “I don’t believe that you don’t get hit on and called beautiful everywhere you go.” 

“Only by frat boys and old men, never by women who are way out of my league.” 

It was M’s turn then for a self deprecating laugh. She had taken a deep breath then and looked at JJ. She really looked at her as if she were trying to read her with great care, like one would take with the fine and fragile pages of a rare old book. It sent a shiver up JJ’s spine, it had felt like M’s fingers were travelling the length of it, cataloguing each notch and groove. She suddenly felt very exposed. 

“Definitely not out of your league,” M had said after what was probably only a few seconds of crackling silence between them but had felt like eternities. “Not at all J. I know I don’t even know you real name—” M placed a finger over JJ’s lips before she could even try to tell her her name, “—and I don’t want to know. What I do know is the person standing in front of me is very real, and very amazing…and I want to kiss her.”

“Yeah?” was all JJ could manage. 

“Yeah,” M said. “So, can I kiss you J?”

“Yeah.”

And she had. M had leaned in, cupping JJ’s cheek in her hand and guiding her forward until their lips met, and JJ had been lost. She was dragged under a tidal wave. Consumed. 

M’s kiss lit a fire inside her and she lost herself. 

The kiss had been soft at first. It began as a gentle press of M’s lips against hers in invitation. But as JJ accepted the invitation, kissing her back, it had become something desperate, seeking. JJ had never in her life felt as if she needed something as much as she needed M in that moment. It was wonderful and terrifying. Even more so because she didn’t even know her. 

Then someone whistled and they broke apart and looking at each other under the dim bar lighting, the thrum of the music vibrating through their chest, they both knew. They had to leave. They needed to get out of there, to continue what they’d started. They both needed more, more connection, more contact. 

“Should we…” M started, more hesitant than a few moments before. 

“Yeah,” JJ nodded, still breathless. 

“What about your friends?”

What about her friends? In Esther, pulling up in front of their favourite diner with Penelope, JJ thinks about that. In the moment last night she hadn’t cared what Pen and Morgan thought, she just knew she had to be with M. However, now in the light of day she thinks it over and realizes that she didn’t and doesn’t know anything about M, other than how her lips felt against JJ’s skin, how her breast felt in her hands, how amazing her body felt on top of JJ’s. Her friends didn’t know her either and anything could have happened. They both know how cautious JJ normally is, how not herself leaving the bar with a stranger had been. 

“Why the hell did you guys let me leave with her?” JJ asks as Penelope turns the car off. 

“Oh sugarplum I thought it was good, like really good.”

“It was,” JJ says. But now I miss her, and I don’t even know who she is. It’s like yearning for a ghost. 

“Well then, what’s the issue?” 

“It was reckless! I can’t believe you and Derek let me do something so stupid,” she knows her voice is rising, loud and almost shrill. She isn’t actually mad, somewhere she knows that, but she feels both wonderful and empty and it’s confusing. 

“JJ,” Penelope says, completely brushing off JJ’s hysteria. “You looked happy, you looked alive. If we were worried I knew we could have tracked your phone and found you in minutes. But I wasn’t worried.”

“No?”

Penelope shook her head, “Not one bit. I could sense it, you know, the good vibes from her. You two just seemed to fit.”

JJ resists rolling her eyes at her friend, because she’d felt it too, how she and M had fit together in some inexplicable way. It feels validating that someone else had seen it, that it wasn’t all in JJ’s head, that her overwhelming want for M wasn’t just because it had been a long time since she’d been with someone. She wonders how they had looked together, to an outsider. Was the sexual tension that crackled between them like dry lightning. 

“Yeah, I guess we did fit…at least for the night.”

Penelope drums her fingers on Esther’s steering wheel, playing with the fuzzy pink cover. “It would only take me ten minutes in the hotel database to find her name for you,” she says. “All I need is the room number. You could see her again.”

“That’s not what she wants.”

Chapter Text

September 2006

“Come out with us tonight,” Penelope says, twirling in her chair to face JJ. “Please peaches, it’s been forever.”

JJ can see Garcia in her peripheral, tapping the end of her fuzzy pink pen against her chin. She doesn’t want to turn to look at her directly. She doesn’t want to see the pout or the pleading eyes that will meet her. Instead, she keeps her eyes trained on the screen, watching as the algorithm does its thing, flickering digital fireflies across the inky black screen. She’s not sure she even understands what she’s looking at or how the numbers scrolling past are finding the information they need, but she needs something to focus on. 

For the past two years Penelope has been her best friend, her life line, the sister she hadn’t known she desperately needed. But that means that she’s able to read JJ. She can always see when JJ is full of shit and knows how to get her way when she wants it. 

“I can’t, you know I can’t.” 

“You can’t or you won’t, baby?” 

Both, she wants to say. She has responsibilities and she can’t ignore them, not like she had with M. The guilt of pretending to be someone she wasn’t, of putting aside who she is and the life she’s built, the life she is responsible for still weighs on her, even nearly six months later. Something about M had allowed her to forget herself and she can’t do that again. She doesn’t want to. Besides the likelihood of running into her beautiful mystery woman after nearly half a year is slim to none and JJ finds herself uninterested in anyone else. 

“Tonight isn’t a good night, okay?” JJ says, eyes still staring at the multiple monitors in front of her, unfocused. 

“You’re still hung up on Miss Mysterious aren't you?” 

“No,” her answer’s flat. “That was months ago, I’m not hung up on anyone. It was just sex.” 

That’s a lie. It hadn’t been just sex. Not to JJ. Yes, it had been amazing, mind blowing, forget your own name sex, but to her it has also felt like more. It had been stupid and naive of her to think that just because she’d felt this soul deep connection that it would mean anything more than what it was. It was childish of her to think that the situation would have somehow changed just because they had been so good together, had fit. 

She’s more realistic than that. Always has been. She’s not a dreamer. She’s never had that luxury.

Stills she feels a bit like a child wishing for a fairytale ending. Like she’d been hoping that like the prince in Cinderella, M would just appear on bended knee in front of her holding out a glass slipper, asking if she’s the one. She imagined that M would confess that she couldn’t stop thinking about JJ either. It’s stupid really, this hope she’s held onto over a single night so many months ago. It had been no more than a drunken hook up. But she still felt the sting of disappointment that it hadn’t ended differently, that M hadn’t wanted to stay the next morning. That she hadn’t felt compelled enough to greet her in the daylight. 

Maybe she’d been drunker than she realized and it wasn’t as good as she thought?

Maybe she wasn’t good enough. 

No. That would be wrong too. There are some things that just can’t be faked. JJ can’t let herself believe that it hadn’t been as good for M as it had been for her.

Once Pen had ordered them both “The biggest mug of coffee you have—actually just leave the pot on the table,” memories of the night before had come flooding back to her. They hit her like tidal waves. The intensity of the whole evening had been so strong that she knew the memories would linger for a long time. As soon as they resurfaced and she faced what happened sober she couldn’t forget. 

Even now, five months later, she could still feel the ghost of M’s body pressing her against the hotel room door as she’d kissed her, hard. One of JJ’s legs wrapped around M’s thigh, pulling her closer. Needing as much contact as possible her entire body felt alive with a crackling, electric energy just waiting to spark.  

JJ had never felt like that before. Like she wanted to be consumed by M. She was a fire and JJ wanted to burn inside her. 

She’d blamed the intensity, the desperate feeling of need, to her lack of experience. Well it wasn’t necessarily being completely inexperienced, but before M she had never really felt like she needed sex. There’d been a boyfriend in high school that had been incredibly underwhelming, a few drunken hookups with girls on her soccer team in university—which were good, but at a point when she was still struggling with fully accepting her sexuality—and then there had been the one night five years ago that had changed the entire course of her life. That night had solidified in her that yes she was gay but had also set her on a path she’d never imaged. After that she’d had other more important things to worry about. 

Then almost six months ago it had happened again, a single night changed everything. One night had her feeling things she didn’t think she could. It terrifies her.

M had her against the hotel room door before it had even latched, clearly just as desperate as JJ felt. Her lips brushed along JJ’s jaw, down her neck, pressing against her pulse point, hard enough that JJ knew that she could feel the racing of her pulse through her lips. The weight of her upper body against JJ, pressing her back into the hard wood tethered JJ to the moment, reminded her that this was real. 

JJ had found her leg rising to wrap around M’s upper thighs, pulling her closer, opening her up to feel the roll of M’s hips against her pelvis. Without her realizing how it had happened her hand was tangled in M’s hair at the nape of her neck and she was tugging M back up to meet her own seeking lips. 

It was messy. The kiss had been sloppy, but full of fire, passionate— the kind of fierce possession that JJ thought only existed in fiction. It didn’t feel real, yet it felt like one of the most authentic things she’d ever experienced in her life. It was like a switch had been flipped saying “this is what it was meant to feel like all along”. 

She moaned into M’s mouth when she pressed into her, the pressure against JJ’s centre too much but not enough. The thick seam of her jeans rubbing against her just enough to drive her crazy but offering no real relief. 

M’s hands were at her waist. Long fingers, chilled from being outside, cool against JJ’s over heated skin—bare between the top of her low-rise jeans and her t-shirt. 

“God,” M had said, more a breath than a word, pulling away from the kiss. “You’re so beautiful. You’re fucking perfect.” 

JJ had wanted to protest, to say there was nothing perfect about her. She has stretch marks across her breasts, her hips; the only thing she’s been able to commit to is her work; she’s terrified of letting anyone really know her; she hasn’t spoken to her parents in five years; she’s scared of bath tubs. But before she could say any of that M’s lips were back on her neck and a lone finger was tracing lightly along JJ’s hip bone, dipping just under the fabric of her jeans, and words suddenly didn’t exist. 

“These jeans have been driving me crazy all night,” M had said, her hand reaching the button, toying with it but not undoing it. 

“Then take them off,” JJ had managed, a command more than a request, bolder and needier than she had previously thought she could be. 

She had forgotten herself. There was only her and this woman who had her body pinned to the door as she released the button of JJ’s jeans. Nothing else, no one else existed. All she needed was for this woman to touch her and to touch her in return. 

JJ’s hands couldn’t be stilled as they moved down M’s body, cataloguing the notches of her spine through her shirt until she reached the bottom, her fingers bunching in the soft black material and she tugged it free from M’s pants. As JJ moved her hands under M’s shirt, feeling the softness of her skin over the firmness of her abs, M’s hand slipped between JJ’s jeans and her underwear. A questing finger rubbing over the thin lace of her underwear right were she needed to be touched caused JJ to gasp. 

Suddenly JJ had flattened her hands against M’s stomach, pushing her back. There was a moment of confusion and regret that she read in M’s face, concerned that she’d gone further than JJ was okay with. But JJ had shaken her head, stepping forward as she pushed M back, keeping their bodies as close as she could so there’d be no mistaking her intent. 

“As hot as I think the idea of being fucked against a door is…” she hesitated, her voice dropping as she processed her own words after she spoke them. “It’s been a while for me, and I want to do this in a bed.”

“Yes,” was all M had managed before JJ kissed her again, walking them towards the bed. 

JJ remembers at one point, once they’d reached the bed and JJ was straddling M’s lap—both their shirts shed somewhere along the way—M was looking at her with a wide eyed wonder. 

She’d said, “Are you real? Is this real?”

M had spoken in a way that JJ knew hadn’t meant to be voiced out loud, that M hadn’t realized she was speaking her thoughts into the space between them. There had been such a softness to the words, an awe that juxtaposed the heat, the raw desire to possess that had sparked between them as soon as they’d entered the room. The way she’d said it was why JJ knew that M had felt the same, that it had been more to her too. 

“I’m very real,” JJ had whispered into M’s mouth, echoing her wonder. “This is real.”

Even though she’d said it, now JJ wasn’t entirely sure she believed it. If she hadn’t been left with the note—that she’d tucked away safely at home in her old wooden jewelry box, the one that used to be her sister’s—she wouldn’t believe it happened either. That, the hotel room, and the hickeys on her neck and chest that had lingered for days after were the only tangible proof she’d had that it had been real.

JJ sighs. She’s never been good with vulnerability. Not her own at least. 

She’s always had a knack for reading others and being able to understand how they’re feeling and giving them what they need, but she doesn’t ever allow anyone to see her like that. It scares her sometimes, what she thinks her friends might find. 

But Penelope is her best friend, one of the very few people in the world who know her history—know her as well as she will let them— and love and support her anyways. 

“Okay,” she says, turning to Garcia, feeling the flush rise to her cheeks already. “I might be a little hung up.” 

“I knew it!” Penelope is nearly giddy in her excitement, clapping her hands together and nearly springing from her chair. “I knew that one day some beautiful woman would sweep in and manage to break past your defences.” 

“It doesn’t matter though, I’m never going to see her again so I have to get over it.” 

“Maybe not…my offer to look her up still stands. Give me a half hour and I can find her name and phone number.” 

“Absolutely not. If she wanted to know me she could have left her number. She was probably just here on business and needed to let off some steam. I’m just a girl she hooked up with, nothing more. I’m not stalking her months after the fact.” 

It’s Penelope’s turn to sigh. She huffs out a resigned breath. “Okay, no stalking. But come out with us then. Maybe it’ll help?” 

Maybe you’ll meet someone else, is what she doesn’t say. 

But the truth is, despite knowing she has no chance with M— doesn’t even know her real name— she doesn’t want to meet anyone else. Not right now. Not for so many reasons. The first of which being that until she has some more time for the memories to fade, for her to forget how intense things were between her and her mystery women, for her to forget their immediate connection, no one else will compare and she knows it will leave her feeling empty. The second, deeper reason is that she’s barely holding herself together. Even after five years this month always hurts the most and the idea of moving on feels like climbing Everest. The idea of finding someone else—someone who she probably wouldn’t even have feelings for— feels wrong, it feels something like cheating. She won’t do it.

She has too much at stake. 

“Pen,” she says after a long pause, biting at her lip to try to hold herself together, to keep her emotions tucked neatly inside where they belong, “I love you, and I know you’re trying to help. But I can’t. Not right now. Not tonight…it’s to close to the anniversary…to you know and I…” she’s babbling, but she can’t help it. “It’s too much. I think that tonight is a cuddle on the couch and watch Finding Nemo for the tenth time kind of night. I’m sorry.” 

But before she even finishes her words Garcia is shaking her head in understanding. “No, I’m sorry…I wasn’t even thinking about that, about what day it is. It’s okay.” 

It feels like there’s more to say, but neither can quite find the words to say it. However, before the room falls into awkward silence there is a knock at the door and it creeks open.

Anderson is standing there in the small space he’s made between the door and the frame, like he’s afraid to open it fully, like he may face hurling objects if he steps all the way inside. He looks a bit like a gopher checking to see if the way is clear before ducking back into his tunnel. 

“Uh, Agent Jareau,” he starts, the edge of nerves he holds when addressing her always a bit of a surprise, considering he’s older than her, holds more seniority than she does. “Agent Hotchner is looking for you.” 

“Thanks,” she says, offering him the most genuine smile she can muster, still feeling a little shaken by her openness with Garcia moments before. “I’ll be right there.” 

“Uh,” he hesitates again. “Agent Morgan also said to tell um, his Baby Girl…that she, uh, needs to find him right away.” 

With that Anderson disappeared, ducking back out of the door and closing it with barely a click. 

“I’ll go see what Chocolate Thunder wants,” Penelope says, offering JJ a gentle smile, a hand on her shoulder. “Take a minute before you find Hotch.” 

JJ shakes her head. “Garcia, I’m fine.” 

“I know,” she shrugs, giving JJ’s shoulder a gentle squeeze before turning towards the door. “Take a minute anyway.” 

She doesn’t want to take a minute, JJ wants to be able to move, to find her boss and do her job. But she can’t bring herself to do it. There’s a weight on her chest, a pit in her stomach. She knows the feeling has been lingering for days and she’s been managing to push it down, but she let Garcia in and now it’s bobbed back up to the surface and she can’t let anyone else see her like this. They’re profilers. They’ll know.

So, she takes her minute. 

Once the door has clicked shut behind Penelope, JJ closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. And despite her best efforts to not go back there, once her eyelids flutter shut she sees M. And she’s mad at herself that she can’t drop it. 

With everything else going on, with the anniversary coming up her mind has seemed to cling to this one night of freedom like a buoy in turbulent waters. She’d been drowning herself— for years—without realizing it and then she’d allowed herself one night to be her, to live for no one but herself. 

M represents that freedom, M represents everything that JJ never allowed herself to have. That must be why she can’t let go. That has to be the reason that months later she’s still hung up on M, on the image of her, the feel of her surrounding JJ. 

Because she’s been drowning, and it’s the time of year that darkness always descends on her. M represents the freedom she hadn’t allowed herself before. M is light in the dark. A buoy in the ocean. 

She remembers feeling like she was flying, there had been a lightness woven into the heady passion she shared with M. She shouldn’t have let herself getting pulled so deeply inside the feeling, but she hadn’t been able to stop it once it started. 

M had had her on her back, one leg hiked up near M’s shoulder, opening her up to M’s probing fingers. As M pushed inside her, JJ threw her head back into the pillow. Just that first intimate touch had felt so intense. With the weight of M’s body above her and the pressure of her fingers inside her, the feelings that had been building inside her since she first laid eyes on M in the bar began uncoiling. 

JJ had always had a hard time letting go, even by herself. She worked with profilers so she knew enough about the human psyche to know it was because she held onto everything so tightly, never let go. She hid all the hard things, packed them neatly away below her breastbone, so they were pressing down on her heart, always. Pen and Derek weren’t wrong when they said she was wound up tight, she was always pulled taught like a bowstring.

But that was the only she could do her job. She needed to hold all the bad in so that she could be there for the victims who needed someone to say it would be okay, so that she could tolerate the hyper masculine cops without exploding. So she couldn’t let go. 

But when M curled her fingers up, and rolled her hips against JJ’s thigh, her own thigh added more pressure to her hand, JJ could feel everything inside her start to loosen. M’s breath was hot against her neck as she kissed the space below JJ’s ear and with that she hadn’t been able to fully hold back. Even though she tried, even though she wanted to keep everything tightly bundled, everything she’d been holding in began to release with a whimper. 

And it had been like M could tell, like she knew that JJ was so close to finally unravelling, and just needed a nudge. 

“Don’t hold back on me J,” she’d said, quiet but rough right into JJ’s ear, before her teeth captured JJ’s earlobe and tugged. 

It had worked, JJ moaned, loud, unrestrained. 

“That’s it,” M had said, lifting herself up just enough to look into JJ’s eyes, and JJ could see the self satisfied smirk there. 

It almost made her laugh, and she wanted to wipe the look off M’s face but she was distracted by M’s slow, deliberate movement. So instead her hands went from fisting uselessly in the sheets to M’s ass. She bent her knee and pulled M tighter against her, eliciting a responding moan. 

They’d moved together until JJ felt like she was soaring. It had only taken minutes and everything JJ held onto for years was floating away, the only things that existed were pleasure and the woman making her feel it. 

It was that release, that freedom from everything she carried with her. That’s why JJ can’t let go. 

But she needs to. She desperately needs to forget. 

Even if M had been someone…even if she knew her…if she’d left JJ with her name, her number it wouldn’t have been able to go anywhere. JJ can’t have something light, she can’t afford casual, but she can’t allow anyone in either. Being close to someone, relationships they hurt, loving someone hurts. 

Which she realizes as she pulls herself up out of her chair is a perfect place to stop thinking. She doesn’t love someone she doesn’t even know, she’s been letting her thoughts spiral. 

Shaking her head and taking one more centring breath JJ puts her hand on the door handle and stuffs everything she feels back where it belongs. She flips the switch that puts back to being liaison JJ and prepares to face Hotch. With her mask fully back in place she walks down the hall towards the bullpen. 

It isn’t until she’s on the catwalk that she hears Derek and Penelope. 

“That’s her isn’t it?” she hears Derek say, his voice not as hushed as she knows he thinks he’s being.

It’s then that she looks up from the floor in front of her. 

She freezes. 

Because it is her. JJ’s her. 

M is here in the BAU, M is standing next to Hotch in the middle of the bullpen. Her hair is loosely curled around her face, just like it had been when they met. But she looks different though under the bright lights. She seems softer, younger, wearing a neat blazer and a button up, an office box held in her arms, looking around both eager and nervous. 

She looks up and meets JJ’s eyes and everything stops.