The Clone

Chapter 7

When they returned to the BAU, Hotch called them to his office again. Reid responded to the question he looked at them.

"We're both still with the team. I don't think there will be any more trouble."

Hotch noticed JJ's lack of eye contact with either of them. There was clearly more to the story, but he knew he wouldn't be hearing it from his two youngest profilers. He sent them back to work with, "All right. We delayed our team meeting until your return. We'll gather everyone and get started in ten minutes."

They knew he wouldn't have delayed the meeting for them unless he either had confidence they'd both be returning…..or he was prepared to use the team meeting to strategize about saving one or both of them.

On the way to the bullpen, JJ stopped Reid. "Spence, we need to talk."

"There's nothing more to talk about, JJ." He was looking away from her.

"Yes, there is." Now she was firm. "Strauss threatened you in a way that I didn't even know she could. I can't pretend I didn't hear it, Spence. We need to talk."

He deflated with a sigh, dropping his head as he spoke. "JJ, I never wanted you involved in this part. I thought I could appeal to her better nature. Obviously I was wrong. I'm sorry you had to be there."

They both knew that she couldn't reasonably deny knowledge of his substance abuse after the session in Strauss' office. The best they could do was not to discuss it openly with the rest of the team.

"And so, we need to talk. Will you come over tonight? You can join us for dinner. Or you can come after, if that would be better."

He gave in. "Okay. Can we play it by ear as to when? I don't think Henry should be around me the way I feel now, I don't want to upset him."

JJ rubbed his arm. "Sometimes he can be just what I need to cheer me up. Maybe he can do that for you, too. So, if you want to come for dinner, do."

He gave her a small smile. "Thanks, JJ….for everything. It's good to know I've got someone who cares." He was remembering those many months when he didn't think she cared at all, or that they would ever be close again.

"Don't you ever forget that I do! I never stopped, Spence."

The rest of the team had picked up on the comings and goings of JJ and Reid, so were aware that something was afoot. When it wasn't the first item on Hotch's agenda for the meeting, they understood that it was not open for general discussion. That didn't keep them from grilling their teammates afterwards.

"Hey, Pretty Boy. You okay?" Morgan was resting himself on the corner of Reid's desk.

"Fine." When Morgan didn't move on, Reid added, "I've got a lot to do, Morgan. I think my pile of files grew a little overnight." He looked at his friend meaningfully.

Morgan looked only slightly guilty. "It's just that I noticed we postponed our meeting to wait for you and JJ to get back…..from where?"

Reid was looking at a file but raised his eyes to Morgan. "We had an appointment. Thanks for waiting for us."

With that, Morgan realized he wouldn't be getting anything except dismissed. He stared at Reid as he walked away saying, "No problem, Kid. You're welcome."

At the same time, Emily was prying at JJ in the coffee bay, both handling it a little more openly than the men. "JJ, is everything all right with you and Reid? Is there any trouble?"

JJ met Emily's eyes. "I can't talk about it Emily. I'm hoping there won't be trouble, but there may. Only time will tell. I'm sorry that I can't say more than that, but please don't ask me again."

Emily gave JJ a wary nod as they headed back to their desks. If anyone on the team was aware of the need to keep secrets, it was Emily.

At the end of the day, JJ was busy in the kitchen when she heard the bell. Henry beat her to the door.

"Uncle Spence!"

"Hi Buddy" He picked Henry up for a hug and a tickle. "Hey, little man, you should probably let your mom answer the door. You never know who might be there."

"Thank you, Uncle Spence." JJ gave a meaningful look at her son. "I've been trying to teach Henry about that."

Henry didn't see what they were so worried about. Why worry about what could happen, when it didn't happen? The mantra of all four year olds. "But it was Uncle Spence, Mommy!"

JJ gave up the existential argument with her son and greeted Reid with a smile. He thought she looked considerably calmer than she had all day.

"I'm glad you decided to come for dinner."

"You were right. I realized I needed cheering up from my favorite godson. My only godson", he corrected.

"Well, go and play with him then. I'm just finishing up here. Dinner will be ready in a few."

Henry was busy building a fort from the sofa cushions and Reid found himself engaging his engineering skills in making it the best fort a boy and his godfather could enjoy. They were both busy hiding inside it when JJ called them to dinner.

"Mommy, I showed Uncle Spence how to make a fort! He said he needed one today, but he didn't know how to make it. So I showed him. He said it was great!"

JJ smiled at them both and then broke into laughter. She shared the image that had come into her head….Reid pulling apart Strauss' sofa cushions to defend himself. "Can you imagine?"

"If she pulls anything else, I just may do that. At least it would scare her to have a lunatic in her office."

After dinner, Henry wheedled Reid into performing a few card tricks for him, then insisted they both read him a story. Reid found himself anticipating Henry's bedtime prayer for him, hoping the prayers of little ones were truly answered.

Once Henry was settled, the adults retired to the living room. JJ set the fire going and brought in a bottle of wine. "I've needed this all day." She poured for both of them and started sipping her glass. They were facing each other on the sofa, which had been reassembled once the fort was broken down.

Reid got right to it. "JJ, I'm sorry you had to go through that today. She put you in a terrible position. And she wouldn't have been able to do that if it weren't for me."

JJ put her glass down. "Spence, can we talk about it? All of it? I feel like there was a lot I didn't know about."

"Like?"

"Like that you clued her in that you'd had a problem with addiction. Why, Spence? What did you hope to gain?"

He understood why she was questioning his decision. The team had never openly addressed his addiction. They knew it could place his career with the FBI in jeopardy. All of them, and especially their unit chief, had to be able to honestly say they had no knowledge of him having a problem. It was the only way to keep him safe, and to protect their own positions as well. If it became known that they had hidden knowledge of a fellow agent using drugs illegally, they could have lost their own careers. Strauss had strongly suspected the truth, but was unable to get any of the team to acknowledge it. Of the many things Reid had come to regret about that time, the fact that his actions had put the whole team in such a quandary was paramount.

He put his glass down as well. "We knew she was struggling with alcohol, that it was the reason she'd taken leave. When she came back, I was hoping she was working her way through the steps. That maybe the alcohol had been the cause of a lot of her past behaviors. Working through the steps would mean acknowledging being wrong, and making amends. I thought, if I could relate to her on that level, I could get her to see that what she's been doing all along has been part of the addiction process. That she needs to let it go. I thought the token might trigger that." He shook his head in disgust. "Guess I was wrong."

"Maybe part of it was the alcohol….and part is just Strauss being Strauss. And now she has proof that you had an addiction. Spence, this could be really bad, couldn't it?"

"JJ, are you sure you want to talk about this? I mean, if we do, we can't undo it. Before today, you'd have been able to deny knowing anything. You couldn't be charged with 'aiding and abetting'…..or whatever they call it when you don't report a breach in professional behavior. I never thought about Strauss forcing you to hear it. Guess that's another thing I was wrong about. I'm sorry."

JJ looked at him steadily. "You know I'd never do anything to hurt you, right? Whatever we talk about, the information stays right here, between us." She waved her hand between them. "No matter what."

He realized she was telling him she would put herself and her career on the line for him, as he had just done for her. The look in his eyes told her how much that touched him.

"I trust you implicitly, JJ."

She held his eyes for a moment, smiled slightly. She knew trust didn't come easily to him….he'd been hurt by it too many times before. "Good." She became very serious. "Spence, now that we can talk about it, will you tell me about the dilaudid? I'm not trying to pry. I want to understand what happened to you."

He stared into the fire for a while. "JJ, I never in my life thought I could be one of "those people". That I'd wake up feeling like I couldn't face the day without a fix. Or that I'd need one again every time I was stressed. But it happened."

He turned to face her. "You know Henkel gave me the drugs…..it was the Tobias personality. He was trying to help me deal with the pain. When it was in me, the pain….and the fear….and everything, just went away."

She cringed thinking of him in that horrible situation. And despite his assurances that it had been his own fault they'd separated, she'd never entirely forgiven herself for leaving him alone.

He was continuing. "Did you know I took the vials from his pocket before I left his body?" He looked like he was still appalled at his actions. "I don't know what I was thinking."

"Spence, you were drugged, in pain, dehydrated, starving, scared…..and you'd just been digging your own grave. You weren't thinking anything. You were surviving on instinct." Her voice had been breaking through the whole exchange, just remembering.

He rubbed her shoulder. "When I tried to go back to work, I couldn't concentrate. I was having flashbacks all the time, but especially when we were at a crime scene. Even looking at pictures or talking about the victims was hard. I just kept flashing back to the time with Henkel. When I thought I was about to die. And I wanted the dilaudid to help me forget."

JJ's hand had gone to her mouth, trying to keep herself from crying.

"JJ, what? What's wrong?"

"Do you remember talking with Morgan on the plane, after we'd been to New York? When those young girls were being killed?"

His mouth fell open. He remembered it well. But how did JJ know?

"I was reading on the other side of your seat, just behind you. Spence, I heard your whole conversation. You said you understood what the victims had gone through, what they had thought and felt 'just before'." With that, her sob escaped the hand over her mouth. "I had to run to the bathroom so you wouldn't see me crying. Spence, I'm so sorry that happened to you. I don't know how you've done this job since then. I don't think I would have had the strength."

Reid was reassuring. "It was a long time ago, JJ. Distance definitely helps. It numbs the pain and gives perspective. You probably heard Morgan tell me to use it to be better at my job. I couldn't do it then, but I can now."

JJ sipped her wine in silence for a while, watching the fire. Then, "Spence, how did you stop?"

He took a deep breath, remembering the process. "With great difficulty."

Now she was watching him look at the fire. "I met up with an old friend when we were in New Orleans. He saw right away that I was in trouble. I think I was at that crisis point they talk about….hitting bottom. But, thank God, I was still having times when I was sober enough to realize it."

He turned to look directly at her. "JJ, I wasn't raised to believe in God, never had anything to do with organized religion. But when my heart stopped, when I was with Henkel, something happened that challenged me to believe. So, when we were in New Orleans, for probably the first time in my life, I prayed. I prayed to get my life back, to lose the craving for escape, to have the strength to do what I needed to do."

JJ saw how earnest he was in telling her this. "And when we got back, I threw out the rest of the drugs. Hotch gave me a week of leave, and I stopped. I had to keep praying, every day….even every hour….for the strength, but I did it."

"You did it without anyone's help?" Because they didn't discuss it aloud, each of Reid's team members had always assumed another had been there with him.

"I couldn't involve anyone else, JJ. You know that."

Over the years, JJ had grown to greatly admire and respect Reid, both for what he could do and for who he was. But never more so than at this moment. Then she remembered something he'd said to Strauss and was stricken with guilt.

"Spence, you told Strauss you'd started craving again. Was it because of what I did…..about Emily….or when I was reporting to Strauss?" Praying that the answer would be no.

"It was a long time before that, JJ. I hadn't even been sober for a year back then. I'd tried, and failed, to keep someone from killing a kid….an unsub…..right in front of me. I couldn't get it out of my head…..or my dreams. I was wanting to escape, and of course thought of dilaudid."

JJ watched him with sympathetic eyes. Reid, for all of his analytical nature, was also one of the most emotional members of the team. His tendency to live in the gray area, to identify with both the good and the bad, to care about an unsub as well as a victim, was both a strength and liability for him. It was probably what made him think he could still try to appeal to the good inside Erin Strauss.

"At least that time I was coming to the decision from a position of sobriety….so I made a better choice, and went to a meeting. The first of many."

JJ wasn't ready to give up her own guilt. "And with Emily? And all this year?"

His gaze was honest. "I continued with meetings. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted. But I know what to do about it now. I'm not going back to it, JJ. Not ever."

She clasped his hand and held it tightly. "I'm sorry. And, thank God."

After a while, she asked, "So, what do we do now?"

He'd been thinking of little else all day. "I don't think there's anything more we can do. She's let you off the hook from spying on the team. That was the main thing we needed to accomplish." After a pause, "I'm still thinking that means she's recognizing what she's done wrong and trying, in her own twisted way, to make amends. It might be a really good sign."

JJ was less forgiving. "Or it might mean her congressmen friends have abandoned her for a better source of votes in the next election. I'm still worried, Spence. She's holding both Doyle and the addiction issues over your head. Why?"

"I think she's still afraid, JJ. She knows we're aware of her drinking, and wants us to keep it quiet. And she's so used to scheming and convoluted plans that she thinks she has to threaten us instead of just appealing to us. I thought showing her the token, showing her that I understood, might change that."

"Always appealing to someone's better nature, whether an unsub or Erin Strauss. That's my Spence." In spite of her mood, she smiled as she ruffled his hair.

He was blushing. "There's good and bad in all of us, JJ. It just takes the right person to bring the best out." He shot her a sideways look. "Which you've always done for me."

That brought a real smile, and then a sigh. "Oh, I've missed this for all these months. I'm so mad at Strauss for keeping us apart, Spence. And at myself for letting her. Never again, I promise."

"I'll hold you to it." He started to get up. "I think I better get going. It's been an incredibly long day….must have been a week long, at least."

As she followed him to the door, JJ had another concerning thought. "Spence, what if she relapses? I mean, isn't that a common thing? What if she starts letting the alcohol make her decisions again? What happens to you?"

He turned to her. "JJ, the very first steps in the program tell us that we do not hold the power. Neither of us can control her or what she does. We can only be who we are, doing what we do, to the best of our ability. I don't know what the future holds, but I can't worry about what I can't control. I don't want you worrying either."

She didn't look like someone about to stop worrying, so he pushed her. He caught her by the shoulders to show he was serious. "Promise me?"

She reached her arms around him and hugged him.

"I promise. But I also want you to remember, whatever happens, we're handling it together. You're not alone in this or anything else. Ever. We mean too much to each other, Spence."

This was the JJ he knew. This was the relationship he'd treasured, the one he'd missed so much. The one that always made him feel full, and yet wanting more. The sweetness of the desire, the promise of the future.

As Reid was turning to leave, JJ got a mischievous look on her face. "Oh, Spence, I almost forgot. Last night? Before you left?"

He was puzzled when she continued with, "Did you think I was asleep?"

But he understood perfectly well when she punctuated her conversation by leaning up and giving him a kiss on the cheek. "Tag, you're it."

FINIS

A.N. The Clone is continued in Consequences.