Fourth in the Grief series, JJ's perspective, and set in September, when she's back on the team, but Emily is still MIA. I figured a lot of people are addressing the guilt, so I wanted to write her thoughts from a different angle. Though, I'll admit I didn't have much of a clear idea what I wanted to do with this, I kind of just started typing. So let me know what you think.

The third story in this series is also up today, it's on Reid, titled, 'A Simple Thing'.

Dinner was on the stove, Henry was playing in his room, Will was still at work, and JJ was collecting a stack of photos from the printer. Last weekend they'd taken Henry to a petting zoo, and Will had snapped dozens of photos. Her favorite was a close-up with her little boy's beautiful face, his chubby toddler fingers out-stretched just barely brushing a little pig's snout. His blue eyes were lit up, and his face so concentrated.

He was growing up to be so much like Will, even so much like her. She worried sometimes that her baby would decide to follow them and become a cop. Federal, state or local didn't matter; they were all dangerous. Even more so, she didn't want Henry to know the world she and Will knew, she didn't want him to have that burden.

She and Hotch had talked of this more than once. He had the same fears for Jack, more so because the little boy idolized Hotch so much. Will worried about it, but he'd become a detective just like his father, and so the thought bothered him less. He also wanted to have another baby. He said he wanted a little girl as beautiful as her mama.

Will LaMontagne had been a sweet-talker when she met him, and he was still a sweet-talker. But, JJ wasn't sure what she wanted.

Sometimes she felt like she didn't see Henry near enough, and BAU or DOJ, that didn't really change much. She was hoping it would. Really, if she was going to be forcibly ripped away from her surrogate family, she should get something out of the deal. Granted there was less traveling all over the country, but the hours were still immeasurably long, and Henry was often in bed by the time she made it in the door.

JJ pulled a photo album off the shelf and flipped through it to the back where she'd carefully tucked the new photos in. She'd chosen eight of the zillion Will had taken, one had all three of them smiling at the camera. The album was already close to being filled, and Henry wasn't even three yet. He was only a couple months away though.

She flipped through the pages back to his second birthday, which had used up six pages in the book. It was her parents, the team, and some of Will's friends and their families.

Her team was really the only aunts and uncles Henry had. Will was an only child and her sister had died years ago. She sometimes wondered what Heather would have thought of Henry, if she'd have lavished as much attention on him as Garcia and Emily did.

Well, just Penelope now.

Her stomach tightened at the thought of her friend, and she found herself fixed on a photo of the former-profiler holding her son. Henry was standing on her lap, one hand grabbing the front of Emily's shirt, the other outstretched toward Reid as he did some magic trick. Henry looked mesmerized as Emily held an arm around him to keep him steady. She was laughing.

And, there was another sister gone. Not permanently maybe, but gone just the same.

Lying to the team had made her stomach feel like it was devouring itself, and she had been almost glad she wasn't part of them anymore. She didn't have to walk into the bullpen everyday and keep lying to their faces. Like Hotch.

But then, Hotch got to go home with the team. He didn't hang around to deal with the top-secret bullshit that was so common in her DOJ job. He didn't walk into the hospital room for a patient that didn't exist and see her looking deathly pale, and sprouting wires. She'd still been unconscious, lying prone and weak, and unaware that people were making funeral arrangements already.

Heather had been resuscitated at the hospital, but she'd been brain dead. She'd been lying prone and weak, and unaware that their aunt was making funeral arrangements while their mother on tranquilizers and JJ was alone in the room, holding her hand and trying not to cry.

She hadn't even put in the effort with Emily, just sat there and let silent tears run down her cheeks. She was alive, but god, what a fucking mess.

Heather had swallowed pills from their medicine cabinet and then used a steak knife from their kitchen to cut her wrists. JJ still didn't really understand why her sister had taken her own life.

Emily had willingly walked into a trap set by a sociopath who intended to torture and kill her. JJ understood all too well why her friend, her surrogate sister, had walked out on them all and off to her own death.

Hotch had explained it all when he'd called for help, and that was the one part of the story that didn't shock her. His sentences had been short and succinct. We need your help and your contacts. Prentiss used to be CIA, she was a NOC. A former target came after her, he fell in love with her cover, and he wants revenge. She's gone to find him so he wouldn't come after any of us. She may already be dead.

Her mouth had open and closed a few times like a guppy before she'd actually managed to speak. What do you need?

She didn't ask why Emily never told them. Or how long Hotch knew she was CIA. She didn't ask what her friend had done while undercover to make this guy fall in love with her. She didn't even ask why Emily wouldn't ask for help. None of it mattered.

JJ hadn't gotten a chance to speak to Emily at the hospital, she was called back to Washington before her friend regained consciousness. But, she had insisted on being the one to deliver the documents to her in Paris. CIA spooks were handling contact with Emily, while she and Hotch pretended to mourn her. But, JJ wanted to see her, to know that she was alright. Two unamused CIA operatives had given her a rundown on how to act during the exchange. Be subtle. Make it quick. No emotional displays.

That's what she had done. While she'd desperately wanted to jump up, hug Emily, ask if she was okay, how she was healing, JJ remained in the seat, handed over the envelope with a few words, and watched Emily walk off, not even bothering to look in which direction.

When she'd gotten back home, she'd hugged Henry so fiercely he'd objected, and then she'd cuddled with Will on the couch. Nothing had seemed to make sense, and yet, everything had suddenly clicked.

Years ago JJ had asked Emily why nothing seemed to get to her. Not as an attempt at judgment, but because she desperately wanted a smidge of whatever made that possible. Emily had lied then, maybe not an outright lie, but at least one of omission.

Then again, former spooks don't tend to admit that they're former spooks. And, if JJ knew Emily like she thought she did, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Though she'd always suspected there was a lot of events in Emily's past that she'd sooner forget, it had taken the Doyle mess for JJ to realize she really didn't know that much about her friend.

"JJ?" She looked up to see Will had gotten home, and he was looking at her with concern etched deeply into his face.

She felt a drop on her wrist and realized why. The communications liaison had drifted off into the past, and hadn't realized she'd begun to cry. Silent tears. And, in each of her hands she held a picture; in one was the photo of Emily and Henry, and in the other was a photo of two blonde girls, the older one with her arms wrapped around the younger one, both had big smiles and vivid blue eyes.

Will sat down beside her, and ran a finger over the edge of the photo of herself and Heather. "I wish I could have met her."

"Me too." She sniffled and quickly stowed the photos back. "I printed some of the photos from the petting zoo." She flipped the pages to see them.

"I don't think I've ever seen a kid smile so much." Will smiled at the photos of their son, but then he calmly flipped back to the photos from Henry's second birthday. "You've never really talked about it. Heather you'll talk about, and I get that, it's been twenty years, the pain isn't as fresh…But Emily, you never really talked about."

He too believed she was dead. That lie hurt at least as much as lying to the team.

"She's gone, there's not much else to say." JJ shut the photo album.

"Now I know that isn't true, the two of you and Penelope were practically sisters. There's a lot to say in loosing family, believe me, I have the experience to know that."

Of course he did, he already buried both his parents. She sighed, and leaned back into the arm he'd rested on the top of the couch. "After Heather killed herself, I couldn't believe I'd never seen it coming. She always seemed happy to me, beyond moody teenager stuff…she was my big sister, and I never knew anything was wrong." She inhaled and Will wrapped his arm tighter and laced their fingers together. "Emily…she knew for weeks Doyle was after her, she could have asked for help and we all would have given it. It didn't have to go the way it went, but she never…she never said anything was wrong. I had lunch with her and Garcia a week before and everything seemed fine. How did I miss it again?"

"You saw what they wanted you to see. Whatever Heather was feeling, whatever Emily was going through, they wanted to protect you from it."

"Well why?" JJ snapped. "Do I seem like some damn delicate flower? Why couldn't they tell me?"

"You were what, eleven, when Heather died?" He asked. She nodded. "You were a child, and her baby sister, of course she wanted to protect you. And Emily…well I don't suppose I know her well enough to comment, but I don't doubt that she had her reasons. The team was the only real family she had, right?"

She nodded again. She knew that, she knew why Emily kept everything to herself, she just had trouble accepting it.

Just like she had trouble accepting that she hadn't spoken to her in three months, that she had no idea where she was, or if she was alright. She couldn't even swear Emily was alive. What she did know what that she would be hunting Doyle, Clyde Easter had told her that much after considerable prodding.

She knew that Doyle might kill Emily before Emily managed to kill him. She knew that even if Doyle was killed, Emily might not come back. It would be her choice to be resurrected to just remain dead, and JJ knew the former would not be an easy choice. After living underground for months, maybe even years, coming back would be very difficult. She knew she might never see Emily again.

JJ pulled the photos from the album, and set them aside. She would make copies and put them in Henry's room, beside the photo of Will's parents. He spoke to their son about his parents all the time, it was time she did the same with his aunts.

As much or as little as JJ knew about the whole affair, there was one thing she couldn't deny.

Emily may not actually be dead, but it sure as hell felt that way.