A.N. Post-ep 12X22, 'Red Light'. This one will be in multiple parts, from different points of view.

Identity

Chapter One-JJ

It had been instinctive, asking for Emily to take the call off speaker. Defensive. An act of protection.

Not like you needed it, JJ thought to herself as she looked at the figure of her best friend, stretched out on the long bench of the jet. Not like you needed me at all. You had this all along.

She knew he would argue that point, because he already had. She'd made the same observation after they'd boarded the jet. It had been such a strange time-out-of-time, they'd both been a little giddy, floating in the first moments of freedom from the seemingly insurmountable tensions of the past few months. Reid had been exonerated, the deprivation of prison was behind him, and Diana was alive, and safe. Whatever else remained….his status with the FBI, Diana's illness…. paled in comparison to what had already been defeated.

It would have felt like a moment of exhilaration, and celebration, if what had come before hadn't cost him so much.

JJ had undergone a moment of epiphany a few hours ago, seeing Reid collapsed in misery in the hallway. She'd come to realize the true price exacted by his time in prison. It hadn't been the constant state of terror and the fear of the unknown. It hadn't been the humiliation and the isolation from all he held dear. It hadn't even been the reality of the assaults he'd suffered, nor the death of his friend. It had been his own death. The death of the person of Spencer Reid, and the rise of the 'someone else' inhabiting his skin.

She'd been taken aback by it, to see it in his posture….for his posture had been all he'd shown her, then. He'd refused to give her his eyes. He'd told her earlier, on the plane, that he felt changed, that he was no longer who he once had been. She hadn't quite understood that, though she'd told him she did. But it had frightened her, the thought of losing him, even while his blood still pulsed through his body. They'd been too close, and a change in his identity would inevitably lead to a change in hers, because she defined herself, in part, by her relationship with him.

"I'm scared that this is who I am now," he'd said.

She'd just witnessed him exploding at Cat, seemingly prepared to choke the woman, if JJ hadn't pulled him away. She'd thought he was talking about that, until he'd brought it back to prison.

"Jennifer, you don't know…."

Jennifer. He'd called her that the first time she'd met him, in his too-formal way. And only rarely, since. One time stood out in both of their memories, and it came back to her now.

Is he angry with me? Have I overstepped, telling him I understand?

And then she realized. He wasn't angry. He was frightened. She'd seen him at his worst, just before, in the interrogation room. He was afraid she might reject this new 'him', and he was already putting distance between them as a means of self-protection. So she made sure to close the distance swiftly and surely, by placing herself with him.

The team had learned about the poisoning of the other inmates, and they'd surmised that he'd been behind it. They'd also surmised that he wouldn't or couldn't admit it. But they also, all of his old friends, knew it was less from fear of what they would think, than it was because he couldn't forgive himself for it. JJ made the leap with him. He'd knowingly hurt others, and he'd just barely avoided killing Cat. She'd been frightened in that moment. But she was more frightened now, to see him owning these two acts as though they were inscribed into his newly defective DNA.

"You only did what you had to do to survive. Anyone would have done the same."

"You wouldn't have."

"Yes, Spence, I would have. To save my life, or the life of someone I love….yes, I would have. It doesn't make you a psychopath. It doesn't make you like them. You know who thinks that? She does!"

Two words, and they'd known, immediately. That was what Cat wanted him to admit. That he was not her better. It was true he'd bested her at her own game the last time they'd met. But to best her in this game, he would have to admit that, at his core, he was no better than she was. That his soul was as blackened and deformed as hers.

Reid's synapses had fired at very near their usual lightning speed, as he'd considered his options. JJ was right, what he had done hadn't made him a psychopath. He hadn't enjoyed it. But Cat didn't know that. Whoever had served as her mole in Milburn had only been able to tell her what he'd done. But the mole would have had no way to know what had gone on inside Reid's head. He couldn't know that Reid had taken no pleasure in it Unless…

Unless the guard who had taken his journal from him had somehow gotten the information to Cat. Reid tried to consider the permutations of that possibility, but his weary brain wasn't quite up to it, and there was no time to lose. There was nothing to be done about it, he would have to take the chance.

Had they not been in the situation they were in, JJ would have smiled, to see the familiar look of intellectual triumph in her best friend's eyes, as he instantaneously put together a plan to foil his nemesis, and set off to implement it. Just moments after mourning the loss of his identity, he'd seemed to have reclaimed it. She wasn't fool enough to think his internal crisis had been permanently resolved, but she was determined not to feed it. She hadn't been about to have the others hear him cast aspersions upon himself, even if he truly believed them. So she'd told them that he would be playing along with Cat, that they might hear him admit to certain things, or say things that sounded crazy, to which they should pay no mind.

But I will. Because I know you too well, Spence. There's always a kernel of truth there. If it will help me help you, I'm going to find it.

She'd listened in, along with the others. He'd admitted what he'd done to the drug runners. He'd enjoyed it, he'd said. He'd described himself in terms that painted him as a psychopath. Watching Cat's face, JJ had been repulsed to see the woman excited….sexually excited…by what Reid was telling her. But as repulsive as it had been, it had also been effective. Cat had made one final effort to come out on top, by demanding that Lyndsey kill Diana as Reid listened in. But, by then the team had arrived and profiled Lyndsey on the spot, and convinced her not to cooperate. Diana had been saved. Reid had won. It should have felt triumphant.

#####

The images of that moment were once again replaced in JJ's mind by the real-time image of her best friend lying asleep, an all-too-brief respite from what had come before, and what was to come after. For she knew that, while he'd won the life of his mother, it was only for the moment, and only from the talons of Cat Adams and Lyndsey Vaughn. Diana's illness would claim her, but not until after it had claimed her memory, her motherhood, and his sonship. Reid had already been in a state of constant stress, even before his trip to Mexico. He would be returning to it now.

The only thing they knew for certain was that Diana was physically well, and that Reid would be united with her. What her ordeal had done to her would probably only become evident in the days and weeks to come. What Reid's ordeal had done to him, was already emerging.

JJ had seen the initial effects of it even as the events had unfolded. She'd seen more in his behavior on the jet, as they'd traveled to the prison holding Cat. And, because of what she'd already seen, she had protected him from showing it to the rest.

It's stupid, I know. We're a team of profilers. They'll see it in an instant. They probably even anticipate it. But it would hurt him, and he's already been hurt enough. Far more than enough.

So, despite the fact that she could have had the team listen in to the entirety of Reid's interaction with Cat, JJ hadn't suggested it. She also hadn't suggested that Garcia tap into the camera in the interrogation room, hadn't offered to keep them on speaker after the explosion they'd all heard over Lyndsey's phone. JJ had been afraid for Reid, not for what Cat Adams could do to him physically, but for what she could do to him emotionally. For what Reid might do to himself, emotionally. And she didn't think he would benefit from the rest knowing.

So she'd set herself up as the go-between, the in-room witness, the visible, present, support for her best friend. They'd both anticipated Cat demanding that she leave, and she had. But she'd continued to watch and listen from outside the room, still the lone witness. She alone had heard Cat tell Reid that she was pregnant, by him, via an act JJ still couldn't bring herself to think about. She alone had seen his reaction. She alone had seen him explode in anger at Cat, when the woman and her partner had feigned Diana's death at his inadvertent signal. She alone had seen him lay his hands on another person in uncontrolled rage. She alone had seen his horror at what he'd almost done.

She'd felt a need to protect him from himself, and from the scrutiny of the others. Feeling protective of her best friend was a familiar feeling. And yet, there had been something so unfamiliar about this time. He hadn't looked, nor acted, like someone in need of protection.

She'd seen him angry before. He'd even been angry with her. But she'd, literally, never seen him get physical about it. In some ways, it had frightened her just as much as it had him, because it signaled yet another way in which he had been changed. She had been relieved to see remorse follow quickly upon her pulling him away from Cat. And sickened to see that Cat looked as if she had enjoyed the experience.

As she'd told Stephen Walker, JJ had long seen the strength in her best friend. She'd long known the steel in his spine, his ability to stand up to ill will, or pain, or even just the vagaries of fate. Before tonight, she'd known it only as a character trait. But tonight, she'd seen its physical manifestation. Reid was strong. He could have hurt Cat, or even killed her. But his sense of integrity was stronger. She was sure he would have stopped himself, if she'd not been there to stop him.

Right? He would have, right?

The fact that her own brain had just posed that question to her brought her up short. Was it seeing something her heart couldn't admit? Was he changed that much?

No! He wouldn't be so troubled by it, if he was really that different at his core. He's still in there. He just can't quite find himself right now. And neither can I.

She was worried about him, and worried about what his present state might mean to his future with the BAU. The team was at a crossroads, of sorts. Nearly half its members were new to it, and to each other. Professionalism allowed them to work together productively, even as they were still forming impressions of one another. But the work was dangerous, and they needed to be able to fully trust one another in the field. That type of trust was built on a proven history of quick thinking, level-headedness, and focus.

The Reid that JJ knew possessed each of those traits. The one she'd seen trying to choke Cat Adams, the one who'd repeatedly told the woman he hated her, even as he had his hands wrapped around her neck, was not a man who would elicit the necessary trust from their new colleagues. They would see someone who was driven by emotion, and whose recklessness could cost a life, possibly their own. If Reid was going to be able to return to the team, he would have to find his equilibrium first. He would have to be able to demonstrate it. He couldn't explode, as he had with Cat. However long it took, however difficult it would be to accomplish, he would have to heal, first.

The thought of him having to endure more isolation, more separation from the work that gave his life meaning, from the daily back-and-forth with the friends who were his family, saddened JJ. The enormity of what Cat Adams had done to Reid, the scope of the havoc she'd wreaked on his life, the devastation of it, the pain of it, melded together into one overpowering swell of grief and anger, and JJ felt the crushing weight of it. He'd been taken from everything that was familiar to him, everything that was precious, and thrown into a lions' den. He'd been assaulted, both physically and emotionally, forced into compromising his soul to preserve his life, and left, isolated and afraid, and without hope. He'd been minutes away from dying, or so he'd thought, terrified at what might have been done to his mother, and agonized at his inability to help her. And then Cat had tried to make it even worse, by announcing that he'd also been sexually assaulted, heinously duped using the image his lost love, fathering a child with the one woman in the world whom he truly hated. Cat couldn't have known Reid's longing for a child. He'd only shared that with JJ. Yet, somehow, the woman had found that particular chink in his armor, and used it to pierce him in the heart.

It was her second night in a row without sleep, and JJ was exhausted, cold, sad, angry, grateful, worried, elated, frightened, uncertain. Exhaustion won the night, and she curled up across two of the seats, and closed her eyes. Anguish leaked through them, and dried upon her cheeks.

A change in air pressure awakened JJ, as the plane began its descent. A slight sensation of weight told her she'd been covered by a blanket, even before she opened her eyes to find Reid in the seat across from her, staring through the window.

"Hi."

He turned his gaze to her. "Hi."

Seeing the pensiveness in his features, she gave him an encouraging smile. There was so much to be pensive about, so much to unravel, so much to knit back together again. But they would be landing soon. Best not to look too far ahead just now. Best to look only as far as the BAU, and his reunion with his mother. With that in mind, JJ rose, and went into the lavatory, emerging with a glass of water and a hairbrush.

He eyed her implements of torture and groaned. "JJ…."

"Uh-uh. We're about to see your mother. You don't want to scare her, do you?"

"She's already seen me, remember? Besides, I think I might have to just shave it all off and start again…."

"Spencer Reid, come over here and sit in front of me." JJ patted the bench. Her heart filled with this taste of normalcy between them.

Reid knew when he was being mothered. Sometimes it bothered him. And sometimes it felt like a warm summer breeze. Tonight, the latter. He obediently repositioned himself next to her, giving her the back of his head.

"Don't do it too hard."

"All right, Henry."

"Henry's hair is straight. Mine is…."

"Yours is about to be brushed. Hold still."

So he did, and she carefully disentangled it from end to scalp, and then she dampened the brush and ran it all the way through, over and over, until she'd tamed it as much as it would be tamed. Peering over the top of his head, she was pleased to see his eyes closed, and his face relaxed. So she kept at it until the pilot advised them to position themselves for landing.

The trip in from the airport took place largely in silence. JJ couldn't know Reid's thoughts, but she could see that he needed to be with them. She could only surmise that he was trying to prepare himself for what he might encounter when the elevator doors opened at the BAU. They'd been told that Diana was physically unharmed, but it was only the two of them who were likely to be able to read anything about her emotional and mental states. And, really, it was only Reid who would know for certain the effects of what Cat had done to the woman who'd given him life.

They waited for the elevator in silence as well, JJ reaching over to rub gentle encouragement into his back. His hand caught hers, and squeezed it in thanks. As they rode up, approaching the sixth floor, she looked over and smiled at him. His lips remained set, but his eyes smiled back at her.

They'd done this ride a thousand times together. Ten thousand. It felt achingly familiar, and yet not. JJ could only wonder, as she looked at her best friend, if it was because he was achingly familiar, and yet not.

She watched him close his eyes in preparation, steeling himself for whatever state he would find Diana to be in. And then the doors opened, and Diana was there, standing in the midst of their friends. She hesitated a moment, as though uncertain. Then Emily said something to her, and she came forward, and stared into the eyes of her only child. If she hadn't recognized his face, she recognized his love. And she put her arms around him, and he around her, and they were a family again.

JJ knew that bond. She knew what it was like for a mother to love a son, and to be loved in return. She was familiar with the uniqueness of the relationship with each of her own sons, the knowing, the mutual nurturing and nourishing. The preciousness of it. The resilience of it. For, although the bond might be tested from time to time, although there might be periods of separation or even alienation, there was always a gravitation back to one another. That was the nature of true human relationship.

As she watched through moistened eyes, a thought struck JJ. She'd been worried about the effects of his ordeal on Reid. Still was, in fact, and would be, for some time to come.

But our relationship is still there. We're still friends. No matter what he's been through, no matter what he has to do to get back….no matter if he even wants to come back…..she didn't take that from us. She couldn't. And she had no idea.

She knew what Reid would tell her. That Cat had never known the love of a parent. That she'd never really experienced loss, because she'd never had anything to lose. That she was someone to be pitied, rather than someone to be hated. Even if he'd told her he hated her, in a moment of anguish.

JJ wasn't so sure she could ever forgive Cat Adams, even if Reid somehow managed to. She wasn't sure she could ever pity her. But, unlike Cat, she could walk away.

And bring her best friend with her.