Chapter Text
Y/N furiously clicked her mouse in response to her computer screen lagging. She released an exasperated sigh and placed her head into her hands. She could practically feel the bags under her eyes increase in size and depth as she tried to regain control of her breathing. Raising two children and being the BAU’s liaison was proving to be extremely difficult, she couldn’t go out into the field or travel with the team as much. After what happened with Cat Adams, she had a hard time leaving Emelia and Adaline. Emily only requested her help as a liaison in the field when she absolutely needed it, anything else could be taken care of from Quantico. Her head pounded against her palms and her only reprieve from her incessant headache was closing her eyes. She must have dozed off in her office because the next thing she knew, she was waking up to a warm hand squeezing her shoulder.
She shot up in her seat, heart beating at an alarming rate until she was met with her husband’s eyes. Her shoulders instantly relaxed, “You’re back.” She said with relief, standing to wrap him in a tight hug.
“Are you okay?” Spencer asked into her shoulder, squeezing her tighter than usual.
She fought back a yawn and nodded, “Yeah, I’m just exhausted.” She pulled back and rested her hands on his face to inspect for injuries and found none on his face. A bandaged hand wrapped around one of her wrists and she gasped, “What happened?”
“It doesn’t matter, it’s not that deep, just a little gash.” Spencer said dismissively, his thumb rubbing against her wrist. “Let’s go home.” She nodded and quickly packed her things, eager to see her two baby girls.
On her way out, she noticed JJ and Rossi speaking in hushed tones. She managed to wave at them as she and Spencer made their way to the elevator. Rossi waved back, JJ looked away. Y/N had thought nothing of it, perhaps this had been a hard case on her. At least they had Rossi’s wedding tomorrow to look forward to and unwind a little. The girls would be with a babysitter and Y/N was looking forward to dressing up and hopefully getting a little (a lot) wine drunk.
Spencer was silent the entire way home, which wasn’t uncommon, so again, Y/N had thought nothing of it. As soon as they made it through the door, Emelia and Adaline came running up to the door, squealing with glee. Each parent scooped up a baby girl and showered them with kisses until they switched.
Here, with a beautiful healthy daughter in his arms, he could forget about all the confusion of JJ’s confession. Spencer usually dealt with these difficult things on his own and in his head. He hadn’t had time to process it fully to bring it to his wife. He would deal with it later, right now, all he wanted was to spend time with his three favorite girls. Y/N hadn’t noticed anything different in the way Spencer was acting around the girls, but each hug he gave her felt a little tighter. She appreciated it and was definitely not about to complain about receiving tighter hugs from her husband.
The suspicions began the next day at Rossi’s wedding. With the girls not serving as a distraction, Y/N began to see the signs of Spencer retreating into himself. She hadn’t heard all the details of the last case yet, but Emily will soon let her know.
Emily was in the middle of giving a speech when Y/N snuck a look at Spencer beside her. He was politely listening, but everything about his eyes let her know that he was elsewhere. She caught JJ’s eye across the room, it seems as though JJ was staring at her husband as well. Before Y/N could ask with her eyes, JJ had looked away once more, the aversion of her gaze hinting at shame. A sinking feeling resided in her chest.
She leaned towards him, linking their arms together, her heart strings intertwining with his in some metaphysical sense. Her sudden affection made him turn to her and send her a small smile. He quieted down the question in her eyes with a tender kiss to her cheek, knowing for a fact that the woman across the room watched what happened, a silent declaration of what he chose, what he will always choose.
Before they knew it, the music began blaring with Luke, Matt, and Penelope stealing the show with their dance moves. Y/N couldn’t contain her laughter as she watched them all prance around. In true Garcia fashion, she approached her and pulled her up to begin dancing. Y/N looked back towards Spencer for help but he just laughed and encouraged her to dance. All too soon, the music morphed into a slow paced rhythm. Turning around to ask Spencer to dance, she found the seat to be empty. Eyes flitting to the bar, she found Spencer and JJ in the middle of a conversation.
“Hey, you can dance with me!” Tara said, whisking Y/N away from the scene. Y/N sent her a small grateful smile, but her curiosity was heavy.
“Is JJ okay? Did something happen?” Y/N asked Tara as they slow danced together. Tara was visibly taken aback by the question, she thought Spencer would have told Y/N about what had happened by now, but she decided that it was not her story to tell.
“Yeah, JJ’s totally fine.” Tara said dismissively and began steering Y/N away from that conversation. They soon broke apart to gather around the cake. Y/N was only half paying attention until she saw JJ take her place next to Will and was alerted of Spencer’s presence as he placed his hands on her hips from behind. She leaned into his warmth and let it go for the final time that night, she would ask about it when they were alone. But by the time the night ended, JJ was not on Y/N’s list of important things to remember. She was a little bit past tipsy and Spencer practically had to drag her out to their car.
The weekend went by smoothly, Spencer had his head buried in mountains of papers from his students even though Y/N told him that he could read them online and save so much paper. The weekend had come and gone and they were back in the office in the blink of an eye. The awkwardness between the two lifelong friends resumed. JJ was arguably the closest person to Spencer on the team (besides Y/N of course), so she found it more than weird that the two were actively avoiding each other.
Lunch time came around and Y/N had had enough of it, she snuck into Penelope’s office.
“Hey, sunshine!” Penelope greeted, taking a hefty bite out of her donut.
“Hey.” Y/N said, leaning against the desk adjacent to Penelope’s, stirring her coffee.
“What’s going on?” Penelope stared at her knowingly. Y/N immediately put the coffee down and stared at Penelope.
“Did something happen between JJ and Spence on the last case?” Y/N asked directly, deciding that beating around the bush would help no one.
Y/N didn’t miss the slight widening of Penelope’s eyes, “Wh-what? Why would you ask that?”
“They’ve been acting really awkward around each other and JJ’s been avoiding me like the plague.” Y/N huffed.
Penelope panicked, stuttering out, “I uh, I really think you should talk to Spencer.”
“No one’s telling me anything! Not you, not Tara! Should I be worried?” She asked, exasperated.
“Honestly? No, I don’t think so. Spencer loves you.” Penelope said surely.
Spencer loves you.
What does that even mean?
Y/N turned on her heel, leaving her coffee and marched all the way to Spencer’s desk. The carpet drowned out the clickity clack of her heels. Spencer raised his head from his files to smile at her.
“My office, now.” Y/N said simply, her tone neither angry nor cool, his smile retreating as he followed her like a puppy. Matt and Luke shared a knowing look between them and pretended to focus on their work so as to not get caught in the line of fire.
She closed the door and the blinds, crossing her arms and turning to see him taking a seat, “Care to explain why Garica just felt the need to assure me that my husband loves me? Or to explain why you and JJ have been acting so weird and having secret conversations? Or maybe why she’s been acting like I don’t exist for the past 3 and a half days?”
For a moment, Spencer looked like a child who had been caught stealing cookies out of the cookie jar, then his face returned to an unnerving mask of calm. This mask made her panic even more.
“Does this have anything to do with the hostage situation you two were in?” Y/N asked, she had just gone over the report that morning, but it had little to no details.
Spencer took a deep breath and rested both hands on his thighs, in any other circumstance, Y/N might have been tempted to sit across his lap and kiss him until they were both red in the face. But not right now, right now she needed answers.
“Yes, well--okay, yes. Something did happen. I promise I was going to tell you, but it never seemed like the right time to bring it up, I didn’t want to bring it up at home around the girls, and I didn’t want to bring it up here either.” Spencer said, leaning back to rest against the chair.
“What happened?” Y/N took a seat across from him, no longer feeling the need to attack, but rather to understand.
“JJ and I were being held hostage. The unsub, Casey, was about to shoot JJ and me. He told her to reveal something that she’d never say aloud and she…” Spencer swallowed, trailing off. Y/N leaned forward, already expecting where this was going.
“She told me that she’s always loved me and that she was just too scared to say it before.” He spoke softly, meeting her eyes.
Y/N blinked slowly, “Bullshit.”
Spencer furrowed his eyebrows at her.
“Are you sure she wasn’t just saying that in front of the unsub to get him to back down? Are you sure it was real?” Y/N said, standing up from her seat. She paced around her room, trying to piece together any evidence from the past few years that could back up that claim.
JJ had been the one to push Y/N and Spencer together. JJ couldn’t have had all these feelings for Spencer. What about Will? Henry? Michael? They were her and Spencer’s Godchildren for crying out loud. Y/N’s brain was going a hundred miles a minute. Spencer watched her pace around the small office.
“I, I don’t know. It seemed real.” Spencer wished what he had to say would calm his wife, but he really didn’t know at this point.
“Do you…” she swallowed, the question heavy on her tongue, “do you feel the same?” The tears were ready, resting at her waterline, waiting for the call. Her insecurities were ready to take over.
“No!” Spencer objected, standing from his seat. Normally, his defensive reply would have made her suspicious, but the look of utter shock and hurt on his face quelled any doubt that arose.
“No, I don’t. I love you. I have always loved you. God, you know this, I’ve loved you even when you weren’t mine to love. I’ve loved you since I was just a baby faced profiler and you were just a receptionist. I will never stop loving you and the girls, Y/N.” He said definitively, walking towards his wife and grabbing her clammy hands in his. He pressed a gentle kiss to each of her hands, staring into her teary eyes.
The cavern in her chest began to patch itself up as he looked at her that way. She had no choice but to believe him.
“Okay, I believe you.” She smiled, a tear escaping. He reached up to tenderly swipe it away. With a simple tilt of his chin, he captured her lips in an intense, passionate kiss and like all of their kisses, he took her breath away. But something about the desperation in this kiss made it hard for her lungs to perceive air. He had a point to prove.
A few moments of silence passed between them and Y/N took a deep breath, “I should talk to JJ.”
Spencer hadn’t pulled away yet, “It’s your choice, my love.” He placed a soft kiss to the center of her forehead and stepped back to catch her eye, “Are we okay?”
Y/N couldn’t help but smile at him, “Yes, we’re okay. Can you ask JJ to come in after you leave?”
With a nod and another kiss, he left the office to go summon JJ. Y/N took her seat at her desk and folded her hands in anticipation, the undeniable and unrelenting feelings of anger and jealousy coursing right underneath her skin.
A gentle knock sounded throughout the small office and Y/N invited her to take a seat before her.
“Listen, Y/N, if this is about what I said back--” JJ began, but Y/N wasn’t interested in any of the formalities.
“Did you mean it?” Y/N asked, making direct eye contact. JJ was taken aback at the similarities between Y/N’s question and Spencer’s. They had both asked in the same way. She wasn’t ready back then. But she is now.
“Yes..” JJ whispered, averting her gaze once more. The gaze of the wife of the man she thought she loved was too heavy to face straight on.
“Yes, what? Do you love my husband?” Y/N spoke with an unrecognizable sharp edge to her voice.
“Yes, I love him. I’ve always known it. Things just got too messy too quickly. I have Will and the boys and I would never ever give them up. Spence-- Spencer has you and the girls and I could never dream of taking him away from you.” JJ spoke clearly, her eyes reddening and glistening with unshed tears.
“You are the perfect wife, I watched him fall in love with you. You’re also the best mother to his children, it’s hard not to be jealous of you.” JJ continued. The sinking feeling returned to her chest.
“You have nothing to be jealous of, I’m just doing my best. You’re one of the greatest mothers I have ever known. I need you to tell me that this is where it ends, JJ. I cannot afford the stress.” Y/N replied.
“This is where it ends, I promise. It’s over. He has you and Emelia and Adaline and I have Will, Henry, and Michael. If we were ever meant to be, then it would have happened. He deserves you, after everything he’s been through. He deserves you.” She said tearfully, wiping away stray tears.
Y/N stood from her seat and walked around her desk to embrace her in a tight hug. JJ cried into her shoulder, “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, Y/N. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“I know. It’s okay, we’re okay.” Y/N rubbed her shoulder, pulling away.
“Are things going to be awkward now?” JJ chuckled, blowing her nose.
“Only if you keep avoiding me.” Y/N joked back, JJ promised she wouldn’t and excused herself to get back to work.
Y/N followed her out and stopped at her door. Leaning against her door frame, she caught her husband’s eye across the bullpen and sent him a smile and a nod.
It’ll be alright.
They’ll be alright.