Essential listening: Nothing, by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians

0o0

Aaron was filling in the report recommending aid for Mrs Parker when Jordan Todd came in.

"My report," she said, passing him a file.

"Thank you," he said, and she turned to go. Emily had been right, he decided. "Jordan – Prentiss said you were excellent in the field. Astute, responsive – you thought well on your feet."

Jordan beamed. "She's being generous – I really enjoyed working with her," she said, genuinely pleased.

"You also posited early on that Vanessa Holden might know the unsub," he added.

"Well, he didn't fit the profile of a sexual sadist," she said.

"And you were right." Aaron gave her a brief, rare smile. "Clearly our unsub was more complicated than the profile. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that – uh – you have the green light again."

Todd smiled again, looking a good deal more relaxed.

"And I trust your judgement."

"Thank you," she said, and left the room looking like she was walking on air.

Aaron watched her go, thoughtfully.

0o0

Finishing the last line of an email, Grace shut down her computer and stretched. It had been a long day, flying back from Atlanta, picking up the pieces Robert Parker had left behind. She had stayed with his ailing, traumatised mother all night at the hospital, until social services had sent someone to speak with her, to break the awful news of her son's arrest and the evidence against him in a safe environment.

She hadn't slept in the jet, either. It was almost as though she was too tired to sleep. All she wanted to do now was get home, run a bath and open a bottle of wine.

Giving Prentiss and Morgan a wave as they departed (probably to a bar, to dissect Emily's adventures with Viper), she started shutting down her computer. There were still reports to review, but they could be done at home.

"Hey, how're you feeling?" said Reid.

Given that they were two of the last people in the bullpen, it took her a moment to realise he wasn't talking to her. He was lounging in his chair, facing away from his computer, grinning. His phone was pressed against his ear.

"Well, I'm glad your stay at hospital wasn't – uh – too miserable, then."

He laughed and she nodded to herself.

Austin.

"Oh, right. Hey – back to bar tending."

Grace grimaced unwillingly, and tipped four or five files into her bag, wanting to get out of the office, now, as fast as she could. She didn't want to hear this.

Movement caught her eye and she looked up to find a Fed Ex guy delivering something to Reid, who looked surprised.

"Huh, well that's – uh – that's very exciting news," he said, smiling, signing for the package with the phone wedged between his head and his shoulder. "What's, um, what is the new job path? Magic? Really?" He paused, and then looked down at the package in his hands. "Uh, no…"

He opened it, clearly at Austin's request, and Grace gave up, stuffing her coat into her bag, but she couldn't get away before Reid got to the contents of the envelope.

"What is this?" he asked, amused.

He pulled out a card and flipped it over; Grace caught a good look at it as she hurried past. There was a bright red lipstick kiss on the back. Refusing to look back, and feeling oddly nauseous, she strode towards the lifts, the sound of Reid's laughter following her out of the bullpen.

"Uh, yeah, it is – it is my card."

She glared at her reflection in the mirrored part of the lift, forcing what was clearly jealousy to the very back of her mind.

That part of her life that might have led to her and Reid being together was over now. It just wasn't meant to be.

It's done.

0o0

Grace had been trying to read all day, but concentration was eluding her. She'd given up after the fifth read through of the paragraph she was on without taking anything in, and had thrown herself into cleaning instead. This had turned into a proper spring clean (though it was getting towards autumn), which had allowed her mind to be blissfully quiet for a few hours, and now the house was sparkling.

It had been a long time since she'd felt so unequivocally jealous, or so helplessly unable to settle.

And why shouldn't he see someone else? she thought, savagely, as she turned her attention to the last two boxes she'd had shipped from England and had never got around to unpacking. They contained mostly magical tomes she'd had no need of and oddments from hers and her father's houses, which had been too painful to look at, at the time. It's not like we're seeing one another – or ever will be.

Still, she couldn't shake the feeling, until she found an old recipe book of her mother's tucked away in one of her dad's old trinket boxes, and was so blindsided by its presence that she nearly forgot all about that business card and the deep, red lipstick kiss on the back of it.

She was still tenderly caressing the faded, slightly anarchic handwriting, when someone knocked on the door. Waking, as if from a dream, she trotted over, without any thought of who it might be, or why she might not want to see them, and opened it to discover JJ on her doorstep, looking a little anxious.

"Hey," she said, her mind instantly going back to the conversation she'd had with Will before the team had set off for Atlanta.

"Hey, uh – you got a minute?"

"Come in. No tiny tap dancer today?" she asked, ushering her friend into her unnaturally clean kitchen.

"No – I'm giving Will a little daddy and baby time," she said, with a slightly pained smile that Grace did not miss.

The corner of her mouth twitched upwards. "The separation anxiety is killing you, isn't it?" she guessed, and JJ grinned.

"Uh, totally! I feel like I'm losing my mind!"

"I'm told it wears off," Grace remarked, and they both laughed.

If there was something not entirely genuine about their laughter, neither commented. Instead, acting on slightly desperate instinct, Grace headed for the kettle.

"Tea? Coffee? I have decaf…"

"Ooh, peppermint tea would be amazing," said JJ, with feeling. "I can't wait to have coffee again."

"Is Henry keeping you up all night?"

"Uh, yeah," JJ snorted. "And just when I think he's gotten into a pattern, it changes, and we're back to square one. I fell asleep standing up yesterday."

Grace winced on her friend's behalf. "How's Will coping?"

"He's amazing! I'm kind of jealous of how easily he seems to go from asleep to awake and back again" JJ admitted. She recounted their first outing as a family while Grace fetched the tea.

She felt oddly calm today, though she was aware the anecdote ought to make her feel wretched. The same old pang was there, but it was duller now, more manageable.

Perhaps I'm just numb, she thought.

JJ took a sip and smiled. "You know, I used to hate peppermint tea," she said. "But with the nausea, and not being allowed caffeine…"

"There are much worse things to drink," Grace agreed. She, too, had stumbled upon it when she had been pregnant, and she almost said it aloud. Almost.

JJ, with the innate sense of the unspoken that the disparate members of the BAU had, bit her lip. Grace met her eyes and gave her a wan smile. Obviously, they were going to have that talk today, but not yet. It didn't seem like her friend wanted to bring it up, either, because she nodded to the recipe book instead, still lying open on the table.

"Planning on some baking?" she asked, with a slightly over-bright smile. "I know if you take it to work you'll have devoted friends for life."

Grace laughed. "No – well, maybe. I had a bit of a spring clean. Wrong time of the year, I know." She explained how she had found it, in a plain wooden box that had always rested on the shelf beside her father's desk.

"He must have kept it for years, and I never knew…" Smiling slightly, she traced the familiar lines of her mother's words.

"When did she die?" JJ asked, gently.

"When I was six. Sometimes I can't even remember her face, you know? Or her voice… I haven't seen her handwriting in years." She looked up at her friend and couldn't help but smile. "I'm glad I did. It's like she knew I needed her."

She realised JJ was studying her face a little more closely and chuckled. "I'm being silly, of course. Some things are simple coincidence – but it's nice to acknowledge the stories we tell ourselves, at times."

She watched JJ play with the rim of her teacup for a moment.

"Grace, uh…"

Here it comes, she thought.

"Will told you," she guessed.

"Yes," JJ replied, sadly. "But I kinda already knew."

Grace nodded. She'd had her suspicions – but who wanted to broach that subject?

"You know we're here for you?" JJ asked, looking for a moment, the very mirror of her earnest partner.

She met her friend's eyes, which JJ took as the painful agreement that it was.

"What happened?"

Grace sighed. "It was in the line of duty," she said, though it seemed to her the words belonged to someone else. "I shouldn't have been there. I was on maternity leave, when –" She stopped. Thought better of finishing that particular sentence, and changed gear. "It was an assault. A really bad assault. I was unconscious for a fortnight, and when I woke up –" She gestured helplessly with her hand. "He was gone."

"Oh Grace, I am so sorry."

She gave a little shake of her head. "It's okay. It's – it's not something I've ever been able to talk about, really." She blinked, but the rush of tears she had been expecting did not come. "Well, there it is."

"I can't imagine how hard it must be," JJ reflected, softly. "And the cases we do with young kids…"

Grace nodded, still a little surprised that despite the ache that never truly left her at her son's absence, she was kind of okay. "Some days are harder than others," she admitted.

JJ nodded too, looking down for a moment. "If you ever need to talk," she began, and Grace chuckled.

"You and Will are perfect for one another, by the way," she remarked, and JJ laughed.

"I'll take it he made the same offer."

"Yeah. And both are very much appreciated, even if I don't know if I can ever take you up on it."

JJ gave her a painful smile before frowning again. "Did – did they catch the guy? Who…"

"Yes," said Grace, guessing the direction of her thoughts.

"Good. That's – uh – good."

There was a moment of pensive silence, but it wasn't nearly as strained as it could have been, considering.

"So, how's work?" JJ asked, breaking the spell.

Grace shrugged. "Same old, same old," she told her. "There was a proper creeper in Atlanta – and he wasn't even the unsub."

JJ laughed. "Yeah, Emily told me about Viper. Wish I could have seen the look on his face when you told him where to get off."

"You should have seen Morgan – I thought he was going to bludgeon him to death with his own hat!"

They spent a pleasant few minutes dissecting the inability of people like Viper to view others as human beings, before JJ asked how Todd was getting on.

Grace paused before answering, then grimaced, which made JJ laugh even harder. "That bad, huh?"

Grace opened her mouth to respond, closed it again, and then said, "She's a good agent. She just needs a little more time to get grounded."

"Is my office going to be in one piece when I get back?" JJ asked, mildly concerned.

"Hah – yes, I should think so. Don't worry, everyone else thinks she'd great – I just…" She pursed her lips, wondering how best to put it. "She reminds me of me, six years ago," she decided. "Committed, hard-working, over confident, very ambitious, a little reckless and a bit too apt to cut corners where she oughtn't."

It was her turn to laugh, on the look JJ sent her. "I won't speak further ill of her," she said, hurriedly. "Ask Hotch."

"I will," JJ agreed, and Grace smiled at the image of their boss being grilled unexpectedly over coffee somewhere.

"I just don't like her," Grace admitted. "And I feel kind of bad about it, because she's obviously a nice person, but…" She gave an eloquent shrug. "I'm trying not to make her feel awkward."

"Speaking of awkward," said JJ, and Grace saw her eyes narrow slightly.

Uh oh…

"You and Spence…"

Grace turned away, looking out over her back garden and the banks of vegetables he'd reluctantly helped her plant nearly ten months before.

"Are you guys okay?"

0o0

Another run finished! And what a run – interrupted by silly real life, panto (Oh no it wasn't! Oh yes it was!) and such.

I have to thank my awesome reviewers – you guys keep me going when I consider packing it all in! Enormous thanks to my fabulous regulars, Evanescencefan97, gossamermouse101, RedDragon395, Beckswim21, ahowell1993, tannerose5, LeopardFeather and, of course, MuggleCreator, who is in my corner on and off ffnet :) You don't know how much you guys do for my writing!

Also to Music4ever19, AyarosReadman, Giulia, goldeneyes123, , Ann, J. , Donny Donowitz and ChilliLemons, who have all contributed to the awesome of late!

An honourable mention needs to go to The Glitterati for stopping me going mad and helping patch up plot holes, and to Jess-ter and Bones for reading bits through and telling me if they sound okay – love you all!

And a big thank you to all the regulars who've put up with my having to have breaks this time. There's another one coming before the series kicks off again, but it's pretty unavoidable, since I'm about to get married and I need to focus on that instead for a couple of weeks ;) The mayhem properly begins this weekend, so it'll be a whole month of stuff to fit the writing around o.o

I should be back on Friday the 23rd of July, so if you want to make sure you catch my next fic, hit the 'follow author' button at the bottom of the page.

I've also got another fic restarting that week, if you're into Hogwarts related chaos, called The Coming Storm, and the next instalment of that is due for release on the 21st of July. Meanwhile, I'm working on getting two of my books and an anthology published, so it's all go on the writing front.

You can find my books, incidentally, over at the website with an address that has laurenknixon and a dot and a com :) I also have an author page on facebook if you fancy stopping by (the one with the mad purple-haired person on it) under the same name.

Until the next, dear friends!

Love and pickles,

Parlanchina xx