***Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds (although it would be really cool if I did!)

JJ held her black stilettos in one hand as she turned the doorknob with the other. Padding into the house on bare feet, she inched the door closed and breathed a sigh of relief, which was replaced by alarm as a cough sounded behind her.

She turned to see Will lounging on the couch, a glass of bourbon on the table beside him. He was backlit by the blue screen of the television set, paused in the middle of an old Seinfeld rerun. He raised his eyebrows at her.

"Do you have any idea what time it is?"

JJ winced. "I'm sorry. It's just ... Emily told us all she was getting married. It turned into this huge celebration—"

"JJ," Will interrupted her, holding a hand out in front of his face as if he were stopping traffic. "It's three in the morning."

Her head hung low as she dropped her gaze. "I lost track of time. If I'd known you'd be waiting up ..."

Will stood from his position on the couch and approached her. His eyes were glazed and downcast. Clearly, she hadn't been the only one indulging in a little liquid medicine.

"I hadn't planned on it," he said, rubbing the back of his neck, "until I woke up at 2:00 a.m. to an empty half of the bed and started worrying something bad had happened to my wife."

JJ bit her lower lip. "I'm sorry. I would have called, but I didn't want to wake you and the boys."

Will nodded, his gaze drifting from her disheveled hair to her bare feet. "Tell me you didn't drive."

"I didn't," JJ assured him, and before she could stop herself, her inebriated brain blurted, "Spence took me home."

This elicited a strange laugh from Will which sounded more like a weird half-bark, half-choke hybrid. "Of course. Spence."

"Well, would you have rather I drove myself home?" she retorted, feeling a tad defensive. Something about that sixth glass of Pinot had brought out the she-wolf in her.

Will sighed, exasperated. "I would rather you not get drunk at a party at all."

"You're one to talk!" JJ said, flailing one arm to motion to the near-empty bottle of bourbon on the counter.

"Yeah, well I was drinking in the comfort of my own home. Which is where you should have been tonight, too!"

"Not this again," JJ groaned, running a hand through her hair. One shoe slipped from her grasp and landed on the floor beside her. "You knew when we first got together that my job wasn't going to make this easy. That I wouldn't always be able to come through on things. You said you understood how important it was to me."

Will gritted his teeth. "It's not the job making this difficult, JJ. It's you. I need to know that this family is more important to you than he is."

JJ's jaw quivered, her eyes rolling up into her head. How was she supposed to respond to a request like that?

"Spence is my best friend," she said slowly.

"Yeah, well some days I kinda wish I was, being your husband and all."

JJ's eyes welled with tears. She touched her palms together and placed them in front of her temple, summoning her inner yogi for strength. "What do you want from me, Will?"

Will just stared at her, his lips pursed. JJ wanted to reach out and touch him, to close the distance between them, but then another part of her wanted to just go to bed. She felt tired, tired down to her bones.

"I'd never ask you to choose between us and him," Will said at last, his voice lilting. "But sometimes I wonder what you'd say if I did."

Her breath left her in a whoosh of emotion. "Will—"

"I need a few days," he cut her off, turning his back on her. "I have some personal time to use up. Thought I might take the boys camping this weekend."

JJ nodded. "I can ask Emily if she can grant me some time off."

"No," Will shook his head, turning back around to face her. "I meant, just me and the boys."

The words stung her heart. JJ bit her tongue, concentrating on the pain in hopes that it would distract the tears trying to break through her eyelashes. "Oh. Okay."

"'Til then, I think I'll see if my buddy Jack has room on his couch." Will sniffed, clearing his throat.

"What?" JJ took a step toward him. "You don't have to do that."

"I think I do."

JJ bit down so hard, she accidentally drew blood. Her mouth filled with the raw taste of iron, and she pinched the bridge of her nose, her eyes closed. "Will, please."

"I can't do this anymore, JJ," was his response, and JJ's heart seized with terror. Was he ending their marriage? What about the kids? The house? She really wasn't in the right state of mind to be doing this right now. "I need some time to think things over."

With her world crashing down around her, JJ felt consumed by guilt. This was all her fault. She had let her feelings for Reid burrow in too deep. She had never meant for any of this to happen.

"Please," she sobbed, reaching for Will's arm, "let me fix this. I have to. For the boys, for us!"

"Just what a man loves to hear," Will snickered, wrapping her hand in his. "I don't want to be that couple that stays together out of obligation, JJ."

"But I love you!" she all but screamed at him, squeezing his hand as if she could siphon the love right into him.

Will put a finger to his lips. "Careful. You'll wake the boys."

JJ laid a quivering hand on her forehead. She felt dizzy and unfocused, like she was standing inside a snow globe that someone kept shaking. "Just promise me we'll try."

Will frowned, then tugged her hand to his mouth. He placed a butterfly kiss on her wrist. "Okay. We'll try."

JJ let out the biggest sigh of her life. But the relief washing through her was sucked right back out again when Will spoke next.

"But I'm still taking a few days. I need time to process some things. I'll be back in the morning to take the boys to school."

"No, wait," JJ said, grabbing him by the waist. "You shouldn't be the one to go. This is all my fault. Let me."

Will twisted up his nose, contemplating this. "Alright."

~

JJ sat in the backseat of a silver Toyota Camry, her eyes flickering open and closed. She couldn't believe she was here, a duffel bag full of clothes and toiletries beside her, her fate in the hands of a sketchy-looking Uber driver.

Times like these, her profiler brain switched on and mentally interrogated everything about the stranger. Half-empty water bottles lining the backseat. Rearview mirror bent at an angle that meant he was clearly using it to watch her, not the lack of cars behind them. He could be a rapist, or a serial killer.

Or, he could be just a normal Uber driver, forced to work well into the night in order to make ends meet.

Was this sleep-deprived man going to get them killed? What if he ran a red light and pissed off some drunk guy, who chased them down a one-way alley and slammed on the gas? These were the type of people who circulated the D.C. streets at 5:00 a.m. The Uber driver must know that. He had to be prepared for that sort of thing. He probably kept a gun in his glove compartment for exactly those kinds of situations.

Was he going to kill her?

JJ groaned, her head in her hands. Her skull was pounding, and she knew she should not be listening to the crazy tirade of inebriated thoughts swimming around and around inside her head. For a normal person, they were bad enough, but for an FBI agent? It was a whole new level of paranoia.

People in her line of work didn't trust easily. When your day job involves studying the minds of society's lowest life forms, things can get pretty dark. Which is why the team relied so heavily on each other. No one else understood the mental anguish involved in doing what they did. It bonded them. JJ hadn't been lying when she'd told that Unsub there were only four people she trusted in this world.

Will. Emily. Garcia. And Reid.

So when it came time to find a place to crash, JJ knew there was only one other place she could go.

As the Uber driver pulled up to the apartment building, JJ thanked him and shut the door. She would tip him generously, out of appreciation for not killing her. With her bag slung over her shoulder, she entered the building and climbed the stairs to the top floor.

It took several rounds of knocking before the door finally peeked open. JJ ran a finger under her eyelids, trying to wipe away any remnants of ruined mascara as the inhabitant of the apartment came into view.

"JJ?"

She breathed out. "Spence."

***Author Note: If you enjoy this fanfiction, please check out my self-published book series on Amazon (see link in my profile). For some Jeid videos I've created, check out my YouTube channel (also linked in my profile). Thanks so much for all the support!