One shot. Post-ep 13X01, 'Wheels Up'.

Absolution

JJ said goodbye to Will at the curb. He would go back to his shift, and she and the team would stop by the Walker residence before leaving the reception to go back to the BAU.

Turning away from the cemetery drive, she saw a tall, solitary figure still standing at Stephen Walker's graveside. Memories flooded her mind, images of that same solitary figure at the funerals of Haley Hotchner and Jason Gideon...and Emily Prentiss. Although he hadn't attended her funeral, JJ knew he'd mourned Maeve Donovan alone, too. JJ spent a moment in indecision before waving the others on. She had something she needed to say to Spence, and she sensed that it needed to be said now.

Except that I don't know if it's for him, or for me.

His hypervigilance hadn't quite waned in the few days since his release from the siege state of prison, and he heard her soft footsteps moving across the grass behind him. He felt her come up next to him, and anticipated her hand on his back, or his arm, or his shoulder. So he was surprised when she kept a small distance between them. Still, he broke the silence.

"I barely even knew him."

JJ stared at the still unburied coffin.

"He was a good man. You could tell he was diligent, but his manner was always kind of laid-back. And his voice was so calming..." Drifting back, briefly, into memory. "He asked me about our friendship, did you know that? He could see that I was hurting, and he talked to me about it. It helped, a little."

Already Reid liked Stephen Walker even more than he had.

"He wrote me a letter. Remember, when Garcia made you all write one? We'd spent maybe a total of an hour of our lives together, but he wrote me a letter. And he mentioned you. He said you were holding strong, and that he thought I would want to know that."

She looked up at him with a sad, teary smile.

"Then I'm a better actress than I thought." When he returned the smile, she turned to face him full on. "There's something I need to say to you."

She sounded so earnest, and yet so hesitant.

"What is it?"

She looked briefly away, and then forced herself to look into his eyes.

"I'm sorry."

The words took him by surprise. He had no context in which to place them.

"Sorry? What for? JJ, what happened?"

As soon as she'd spoken, she'd realized it would confuse him. Even though it seemed so at times, he really did not live inside her head. So she took a deep breath, and tried to explain, but she'd not yet come to emotional equilibrium, and everything came out jumbled.

"I asked Will to ask me to leave the team."

"You…..what?"

"When he came to the hospital the other day, the first thing I did was ask him if he wanted to call it. You know, I told you. We have a deal. If either one of us feels like it's gotten too dangerous, or we're too scared, or we think it will hurt our family, we can call it. And whoever has been in danger will quit, and get a normal job. You know, like work in a bank, or an office, or something."

Neither said it, but they both remembered the cases they'd worked at banks, and offices, and everywhere else.

"And you asked him to 'call it'?"

Already trying to picture himself on a team that didn't include his best friend, even as he was still struggling to picture himself working on a BAU team at all.

"It was practically the first thing I said to him. I didn't ask him to do it, technically. But I asked him if he wanted to. Multiple times."

Reid posed his question and then held his breath, awaiting the answer.

"What did you decide?"

She gave a derisive snort. "That neither one of us is made for a normal job."

He breathed again. "So, you're staying?"

Wondering why she'd needed to tell him about this, if she had decided to remain.

"I guess. So, you're probably wondering why I brought it up, right?"

He might not reside in her head, but, sometimes, she resided in his.

"Well…"

"It's because Stephen died. Stephen died. He was sitting in the seat I should have been, and all I've got is a bump on the head, but Stephen died."

He misread her. "JJ, you're not thinking it should have been you, are you? Because…"

"No. No….I mean, yes, maybe. But I know it's pointless to think about those things. My head knows it, anyway. But….he died, doing the same job I do, in a place that I could very well have been. And it shook me, to lose someone….someone with friends and family that I know….when all he was doing was his job. And I realized that now I understand. I mean, I sort of did, before, and I know I've already apologized. But, this time….it's real. And I feel it. And I get it, finally."

Now, he knew what she was talking about.

"We don't need to go back there, JJ. We.."

"No, please let me say this. I wasn't fair to you. Back then, I intellectualized it. I knew what I knew, and I was sure….or I hoped, anyway….that, one day, you would know it, too, and then it would be all right. I didn't feel her loss in my heart the way you did, because I knew she wasn't dead. But you didn't. And now I know how it feels. It's unfathomable. It's….permanent. I can't even imagine what it was like when it was someone you were as close with as Emily. I'm so sorry, Spence. I know I apologized a long time ago, but I did it because I didn't want to lose you. I held you…hold you…too deeply in my heart, and I couldn't let go. But I didn't understand. Not really. Not until now. I know how shallow that makes me sound. All I can say is that I'm sorry. I meant it before. But I….now I really understand what it was I was asking you to forgive."

Forcing herself to maintain eye contact, when she wanted so desperately to look away.

She'd brought them back to the most….maybe the only….painful episode in their relationship. It had threatened to break the most tender bond he'd ever created with another human being, and it had cost both of them many sleepless nights. That she'd brought it up now, when they were both so emotionally raw, told him how deeply disturbed she was by what had happened, in both the recent and more distant past.

He took his time responding. He, too, had been shaken by Stephen Walker's death, despite their short acquaintance. And he'd been viscerally shaken at the thought of losing Emily….again. The emotion of that distant time melded with that of the present, and he almost had to walk away from JJ, afraid that he might react in a way that they would both regret.

But they'd saved Emily, this time. He'd held her in his arms, felt the weight of her, felt her life's blood still pulsing within her. He'd supported her, stilled her trembling. In some ways, it had been therapeutic for both of them. Now it was JJ who needed therapy.

Reacting to her words, his body had already turned partially away from her when his heart caught up with it. Last to get on board was his brain, and it told him to turn around again.

Don't go back there, even if she has. Neither of you can change what happened. You worked long and hard to get back what you lost. Don't you remember lecturing yourself on the importance of forgiveness? Don't you remember how you got there?

It was true. He'd found a way to forgive, because he'd found a way to love the real person, and not the ideal. She was beautiful, inside and out, but not without flaws. Not without her own history of hurt, not undamaged. Not without scars. Here she was, baring those scars to him, an act of atonement.

Without speaking, Reid reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket, and pulled out a piece of paper. He unfolded it and handed it to her.

"I found that on my desk this evening."

Her smile was tentative.

"I put it there, that day. I thought, 'When he comes home, it will remind him of the good things.'"

Though it had brought both of them to tears when she'd shown it to him at the prison.

"It did. It does." He took it back from her. It was, after all, a treasure to be held on to. "Do you remember this day? The one Henry drew?"

She nodded. "Who knew what was coming, then? We were all so happy that day."

He remembered it the same way. "We were. I remember how blue the sky was, and how fresh the air smelled."

"And how we had the whole place almost to ourselves, and we couldn't believe that no one else would be at the park on such a glorious day."

He made sure he had her eyes. "I wouldn't have spent that day with anyone but you, and Henry, and Michael." He held the picture up again. "Henry transformed this piece of paper. He turned it into hope. I held on to the memory of this like I held on to nothing else while I was in prison. Just like you told me to."

She was grateful to hear that she might have helped him in any small way, because she'd felt so helpless about the big ones.

"I was afraid of losing you. It was a way to hold on."

Something they were both, just barely, accomplishing.

"JJ….. I'm sorry that you're going through what you are about Stephen. I mean that. I don't care whether you really understood it before or not. It's taken me a long time to get there, and a lot of sleepless nights with my favorite philosophers and theologians. But I've learned that forgiveness has to come from the heart of the forgiver, no matter what else happens. I haven't gotten all the way there yet, with some people, like my dad. But once I realized how much of a hole I'd have in my heart without you, forgiving was easy. You don't need to apologize again."

She thought about that for a moment. "Yes, I do, if only so I'll know I have. But, thanks."

The cemetery grounds crew was approaching the area, their signal to leave. But not before they reached out to one another, and embraced. This time, without the pent up turmoil of prison surrounding them, they relaxed into one another. This was warm, and familiar, and comfortable, a long, silent moment of repose. It was a moment that separated all that had come before it, from all that would come after. Not a return to normalcy, but a movement into an unknown future, imbued with the knowledge that they had survived the past.

Then, he took her by the hand, and led her back to the car.

"Spence….in all your reading….did you ever learn anything about how to forgive yourself?"

Having come to realize whose absolution she really sought.

He hesitated for a step or two, before responding.

"Working on it."