Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is owned by CBS. I own nothing but my imagination.

This is the End, My Friend-Chapter 1

~I wrote this in response to the "JJ's Departure" challenge on the Chit Chat on the Author's Corner forum.

~I plan to dedicate a chapter to each team member's reaction to JJ's departure...they won't all be this long.

JJ

'I knew I should have stayed in bed this morning,' JJ thought as she stared at the crazed gunman. 'I had my hand on the phone to call in sick, but I just had to be a dedicated agent.' When she woke up this morning, JJ had seen the sun streaming though the blinds and had given serious consideration to calling in sick so she could spend the gorgeous day outside with her son Henry. It felt like it was rare where she could spend an entire day with the toddler, just doing fun things, and she wanted to take advantage of it. She had been in the middle of dialing Hotch's number when her conscience got the best of her and she had put the phone down and had gotten dressed for work. She knew that since Henry's father Will was out of the picture, she would need all of her sick days for when her son got sick.

Once she arrived at the BAU, her work day had started normally enough; she had gotten her morning coffee, greeted Hotch and Dave, who was in early for some reason, and then she had beelined it to her office so she could peruse the hundreds of files that were ever-present on her desk. She was surprised when Hotch knocked on her door an hour later with a case since most of the cases came through her and then she brought them to Hotch, not the other way around. Her surprise must have shown on her face because Hotch explained that a local DC detective, the same one who had worked the case when Garcia had been shot, had requested their help on a local pedophile case. It hadn't been an official request, more of a calling in of a favor. Since the detective had given the team a lot of leeway while they were trying to catch Penelope's shooter, Hotch had agreed to the favor with little hesitation.

There was an unsub going around to elementary schools in the DC area and they were luring kids into secluded parts of the schools so they could molest them. Since the unsub knew the layouts of the schools, the detectives and BAU team concluded that it had to be an employee. Between the various janitors, counselors, specialty teachers and substitute teachers, there was a long list of possible suspects and the detective needed their help in questioning them. The profilers were the perfect choice for the job because they could study the behavior of the suspect during the light questioning and they would be able to tell if the suspect was lying or holding anything back. If they were, then they would bring them in for further questioning and if they weren't, they could cross that person off of the list. Since she was technically not a profiler, the team had given JJ some of the suspects that were long-shots for being the unsub. It was one of those unsubs that was currently holding a gun on her and a room full of eight-year olds.

She had gone to Tubman Elementary School to question a substitute teacher who had been at all of the locations where the molestations had occurred. As a sub, it wasn't surprising that he had been at each of the schools, but he still needed to be questioned.

At first the interrogation had gone well; the kids had been in gym class, so they had the classroom to themselves and the guy had answered all of her questions without breaking a sweat, and JJ thought they would be able to cross him off of the suspect list. Then the kids returned from class and were chatting amongst themselves as JJ asked her last question, which wasn't an insightful one; she was just verifying his address so if they had any more questions for him, the team could contact him outside of the school building. Suddenly his expression changed from a friendly one to one of fury. He reached into his suit jacket, pulled out a gun and screamed, "You'll never take me alive!"

JJ, shocked at seeing the gun, pulled her own, but in the split second that took, the unsub, Craig Sweeney, grabbed a one of the second grade students and put his gun against her temple.

"Drop the gun, bitch!" He screamed at JJ.

JJ thought for only a second before she dropped the gun and kicked it to the door. Craig released the girl and shoved her towards the student's desks. She fell, hit her knee on the floor and began to cry, which set Craig off even more.

"Shut that little shit up!" He screamed. JJ slowly went to the girl and comforted her like she would have Henry. It only took a minute before the girl calmed down and joined her friends against the back wall, where most of the children had cowered. Miraculously, the kids were being fairly quiet; they were huddled in the back of the room and some were crying, but none of them were being loud about it. JJ went to where the kids were so she could check that they were all okay and they were, but most of them were frightened. JJ reassured them the best that she could and then walked back towards Craig.

"Why don't you let the kids go, Craig?" She suggested. "We can work this out like adults; no sense in taking a bunch of kids hostage"

"Why don't you shut the fuck up, bitch?" He said, re-cocking his gun and pointing it at her head. Knowing that the man needed time to cool off, JJ joined the children at the back of the room and comforted them. She also checked her cell phone to see if the last call she had placed had connected. With a sigh of relief she saw that that it had, but she was dismayed to see that the phone was now disconnected. While she had been at the back of the room with the kids, JJ had dialed Hotch's cell phone number and then put the connected phone in her pocket. She prayed that he had heard what was going on around her.

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At a nearby school, Hotch felt his cell phone ring and recognized JJ's ringtone. Knowing the media liaison wouldn't call him unless it was important, Hotch excused himself to answer it.

"JJ, I'm a little busy right-" He stopped talking when he heard her voice.

"Why don't you let the kids go, Craig?" He heard her say. "We can work this out like adults; no sense in taking a bunch of kids hostage." Hotch immediately knew that Craig Sweeney was their unsub, and he quietly praised JJ's action of keeping an open line to him. His blood chilled when he heard a gun cock and Sweeney say, "Why don't you shut the fuck up, bitch?" He closed his eyes and waited to hear a gunshot, but it never came. After thirty seconds, he disconnected the call. He hated to do it, but he needed to coordinate with the local LEO's and his team since he knew there was a hostage situation going down at Tubman Elementary School.

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Ten minutes later, JJ heard the unmistakable sound of sirens approaching the school. She sent a silent thank you to the fates above…Hotch must have gotten her phone call. She listened as what sounded like many cars and trucks pulled up in front of the school and she knew that Hotch must have called in the cavalry.

Outside of the school, Hotch was joined by Dave and Reid. Emily and Derek were at schools that were far out in the city, so they would be joining them as soon as they could. Hotch hoped that by the time his remaining profilers arrived, the situation would be over.

"What the fuck happened, Hotch?" Dave asked. "This guy was clean as a whistle, no priors, no warning flags, nothing! Hell, he doesn't even have a parking ticket on his record!"

"I know that Dave, that's why I sent JJ to question him; I thought he would be one of the safer ones!"

"What's the plan?"

"The plan? The guy is holding a room full of eight year olds plus a federal agent hostage. The plan is to take any shot we can get at him. I'll also try to talk him out of the room, but I gotta tell you, with a guy that unstable, my guess is that we'll have to take him out with the snipers," Hotch said, trying to push his feelings of guilt out of the way so he could get his job done.

Reid, who was standing near Hotch, started to get a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach; his scientific brain didn't believe in ESP or hunches, but there was something telling him that this was going to end badly.

Back in the classroom, Craig also heard the sirens and approached JJ at the back of the room. "What the fuck did you do?" He screamed.

"I didn't do anything Craig," she said calmly. "One of the other teachers must have heard the commotion in the room and called the police. Why don't you just give yourself up? There's no need to keep threatening the children, and if you don't come out soon, they will shoot you."

He grinned in a way that made JJ's blood run even colder, then he reached into another jacket pocket and pulled out a grenade. "If they take me down, we all go down!" He said, pulling the pin. The only thing keeping the grenade from exploding was the pressure of his index finger on the trigger.

JJ thought back to her academy training on bombs and weaponry. She knew that a hand grenade produced an explosion, but not a large one. It was the shrapnel it was loaded with that killed most of the people when it went off. She knew the situation was going from bad to worse and she considered calling Hotch again to let him know about the new development, but before she could, she heard a window shatter and she saw a bullet hole appear in the front of Craig Sweeney's forehead. He looked stunned for a minute and then he fell to the ground, the grenade rolling out of his hand and towards JJ and the children.

JJ thought for a split second; she knew she didn't have time to throw or kick the grenade out of the way, so she quickly made a decision. Screaming "Get back!" to the children, JJ threw herself on the live grenade. Again, from her training at the academy, she knew that her body would take most of the shrapnel and the children would be safe.

In the two seconds between when she threw herself on the bomb and when it went off, JJ thought about her son. She remembered his soft smile, the way he looked when he was covered in spaghetti, the way his eyes lit up when he pet the puppy across the street for the first time and the way she had felt when he heard him say 'mama' for the first time. She silently apologized to him for all of the things she would miss in his life. She heard an explosion, and then Jennifer Jareau knew no more.