Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds or any of the character mentioned below.

Author's Note: This is the first fanfiction I've written in a very long time, so I may be a bit rusty. I'm hoping to make this a series of Reid/JJ vignettes, inspired by mabelreid's Quantico Vignettes, if I have the follow-through to continue with it. For now, please enjoy this short story that's nothing like what I pictured my first Criminal Minds fanfiction to be.

RAIN

By: Hopeful Writer

It was raining and it was cold, but Reid had been standing outside for twenty-five minutes and thirteen seconds, and he didn't even notice it anymore. He stared at the number on the door until it blurred and danced in front of his eyes, the bold 371 forming shapes and patterns that only his mind could have come up with. The red brick was dull and hazy as his eyes focused past it, as if trying to see through the walls inside.

A thud and a shattering glass brought him back, and his blinked his eyes to make the world click back into place. There was yelling coming from inside the house, but he couldn't make out of the words, only the angry tones. The voice was deep and accented. Not hers.

Reid shifted slightly on the balls of his feet, his first movement in sixteen minutes and twenty-three seconds, though he couldn't decide if he was moving toward the door or away from it. It didn't matter seven seconds later, when the door swung wide open and Reid came face-to-face with his bad decision.

"You!" Will thundered, shoving the screen door open and giving Reid's shoulders a hard smack that had him stumbling back onto the sidewalk. "You have some nerve, showing up here."

Reid remained silent, knowing that he deserved all this and more. He looked up at the door as Will pushed him again, and JJ's face appeared behind the screen. "Will-" she tried, but he was having none of that.

"You think you can show up at my home when this whole time you've been fucking around with her behind my back?" he demanded, and Reid flinched at the expletive. "I trusted you when you said there was nothing going on. I let you into my house and into our lives. I let her make you my son's godfather, for God's sake."

Reid still didn't speak, despite the fact that Will continued to jab at his shoulders to punctuate his sentences. Six... seven... eight times, and still Reid kept his mouth shut. There was nothing he could say to make this better.

"Will, it's not his fault," JJ argued.

Will turned on her. "What, did you force him to sleep with you? Did you tie him to the bed and make him fuck you?"

"Of course not-"

"Then he's just as much at fault as you are!"

He turned back, probably to continue his attack on Reid, but the anger seemed to drain from his body until he just looked weary. He really was a pathetic sight, his face red and his hair matted to his forehead from the downpour. He regarded Reid apprehensively. "Why'd you do it, man?" he asked mournfully. "What have I ever done to you?"

Reid regarded the question for a moment, then finally answered, his voice breaking, "I love her."

"She was mine."

Reid nodded. "I know."

"You're a bastard."

"I know that too."

Will turned back to the screen door. "I'll come back for my stuff later. I just... I just can't be here anymore." He forced JJ to meet his eyes for a second before she looked away. "Tell Henry... tell Henry whatever you want."

Neither Reid nor JJ moved as Will unlocked his car, got in, started the engine and drove off, his headlights burning a path down the street.

Finally, finally, Reid turned back to look at JJ. "I'm sorry," he whispered, and he worried she wouldn't be able to hear him over the rain.

She looked tired and defeated and her mascara was streaked down her cheeks from crying and she was the most beautiful thing Reid had ever seen and he felt like an ass. "You're soaked," she told him, and for the first time he felt the rain. "Come inside."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" he asked, just like the first time they'd done this.

"What damage could it do?" she offered reasonably, and he nodded and followed her into the house.