❝All suffering originates from craving, from attachment, from desire.❞

EDGAR ALLAN POE

✩

2.2 : redskins tickets

IT'S GIRLS' NIGHT (PLUS WILL) AT JJ'S, THE FIRST OF WHAT FIN HOPES WILL BE MANY, AND THERE'S A LOT OF WINE AND LAUGHING AND COOING OVER BABY HENRY. Fin can't remember the last time she felt this comfortable in a group of women (plus Will).

Over dinner, Penelope talks about her boyfriend, a fellow FBI tech analyst by the name of Kevin, who, incredibly, Fin has never met, even though he's helped them on cases and such. Emily claims she's in her "single era" and that the only man she wants is a cat. JJ and Will are so hopelessly in love that Fin can't help but smile at them.

After dinner, Penelope leaves early, saying she promised Kevin she'd watch Doctor Who with him afterward, and Emily's yawning after her third glass of wine, so she leaves just before nine.

"Please let me help you do the dishes," Fin says for the third time, and Will shakes his head, grinning.

"Not a chance. JJ's been going stir-crazy sitting here alone for the past couple weeks. She misses the hell out of y'all. So go in there."

"Fine." Fin rolls her eyes, but she's smiling.

JJ looks up when she walks in and smiles. "Hey. Will wouldn't let you help with the dishes, huh?"

"Nope." Fin plops down beside her on the couch. "You might've just found yourself the last true Southern gentleman alive, Jaj."

"Maybe." JJ grins, stroking Henry's hair absentmindedly. His eyelids flutter, but he doesn't stir. "What about you? Any special guys in your life?"

Fin laughs. "Yeah, no. I don't have time for guys." Liar.

JJ raises her eyebrows skeptically. "Then what's going on between you and Reid?"

"Nothing."

"A little bird told me you were making out in the hallway in Atlanta."

"What?" Fin's jaw drops. "We weren't making out!"

"Sure." JJ's mouth twitches in amusement.

"Seriously! We weren't."

"Mmhmm."

"I mean, we almost did, but–"

"Ah-ha." JJ's eyes are glittering slyly; Fin doesn't know if she should be scared or not. "Emily owes me twenty bucks."

"For what?!"

"I bet her when you first started that you and Reid would be into each other," JJ explains far too nonchalantly.

"So you've all been profiling our relationship?"

"I mean, yes?" JJ winces. "It sounds really bad when you say it like that. But you have feelings for him."

"This stays between us?"

"I won't tell a soul," JJ promises solemnly.

Fin sighs and rests her head on the back of the sofa. "Yeah, I like him." It stirs her abdomen to say the words out loud, and not because she had two helpings of lasagna.

"And he likes you." JJ's using her "well, obviously" tone, which kind of annoys Fin.

"He really doesn't, Jaj."

"Not to be that person, but I've known him a lot longer than you have," JJ says, and without even asking, she lifts Henry from her lap and sets him in Fin's arms. Fin was definitely about to ask to hold her godson, but she's honestly not surprised. JJ's a mom now, which means she's psychic. "And the way he looks at you... I mean, he doesn't look at any of us like that."

Fin runs her fingers through Henry's downy hair and says nothing. She never figured herself as the perfect maternal type, but here, holding the sweetest baby alive, it stirs something inside her.

After a moment, JJ takes a slow sip of wine and says, "Did you know that Reid and I went on a date once?"

"You what?" Fin has a very hard time picturing Spencer and JJ together, and an even harder time picturing Spencer getting up the courage to ask JJ out.

"Yeah." JJ laughs softly, clearly remembering the time. "He apparently had a crush on me about three years ago, and Gideon–you never met him, he left the BAU long before you started–he knew about this, and so he gave Reid tickets to a Redskins game and suggested he invite me."

"And–and Spencer asked you?" Fin can't believe she's never heard this story before.

"He did, and I completely misread the situation. I figured that it would be a great bonding opportunity for all the youngest team members, so I–"

"Please tell me you didn't invite Penelope."

JJ grimaces wordlessly, and Fin sighs. "Jaj, you're kidding."

"Not kidding," JJ says, brushing a strand of gorgeous blonde hair out of her eyes. "I never thought of him as anything more than a friend, and I ruined our date without knowing. Obviously, later, we talked about it, and he's forgiven me, and there's nothing between us anymore, but... Trust me, I know how it looks when he likes a girl. And he likes you."

"So? We can't do anything about it! You know the rules: no office relat–"

"Screw the rules. Seriously." JJ rolls her eyes. "You know about Kevin and Garcia, and Hotch isn't bothered about them!"

"Yeah, but they don't go out into the field on the same team," Fin counters, her index finger now completely trapped in Henry's tiny fist–but she's not mad. "They aren't ever in life-or-death situations together."

"How long have you liked Reid for?" JJ asks slyly.

Fin can't even remember. She wonders if this has been going on for longer than she realizes. "A while."

"And has it clouded your judgment yet? Have any of us died or been mortally wounded because you have feelings for him?"

"No," Fin admits.

"Fin, I promise, if I think you and Reid dating is a bad idea, I'll tell you." JJ rests a hand on Fin's unoccupied arm, smiling warmly. "But right now, I think you should go for it."

"What should she go for?" Will pokes his head in the doorway, drying his hands on a dish towel.

"I think she should ask Reid out," JJ answers, smiling at her boyfriend.

Before Fin can protest at this blatant breaking of her promise, Will grins. "I think it's about damn time. You two've been practically makin' out with your eyes since New York, from what I've heard."

"Hey! How does he know that?"

JJ mimes zipping her lips, fighting a smile, and Fin just sighs. "Damn it, JJ." But she's suddenly strangely gleeful. What if she does ask Spencer out?

"It's only–" Will checks his watch– "nine-thirty, so what do you ladies say to a game of cards?"

Fin and JJ agree, and both instantly lose it when Will pulls out a deck of Uno cards–but there's a twist: there are a whole new set of rules that mean lots of laughter, another glass of wine for JJ, and Fin ending up with at least forty cards in her hands at the end of the game.

Fin says goodbye at almost eleven and flips on the radio for her drive home, and predictably, the first song that comes on is "No One" by Alicia Keys. And for the first time in a while, Fin's really into a sappy love song. Hmm...

But the universe is out to ruin her life, so the euphoria wears off almost immediately when she pulls up to her apartment complex. Because there's another bouquet of orange carnations.

And this time, there's a note.

Fin's veins turn to ice.

With trembling fingers, Fin unlocks her apartment door, grabs the jar of flowers, and slams the door behind her, making a mental note to buy at least two more locks. She dumps the flowers into the sink and rips open the envelope, pulling out a single notecard with typed words. Just a few sentences, no signature.

Are you celebrating this week?

It's Oliver's birthday.

He'd be twenty-seven.

Fin rushes into her bathroom, tears the note up into twelve tiny pieces, and flushes it down the toilet. She watches the paper shreds disappear, takes a long, deep breath, and then empties her stomach into the toilet bowl.

~

yikes.