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It wasn't a collision. It wasn't dirty or messy, an accident, happy or other wise. It was a slip, a pull, a piece of string being yanked until they fell into bed together just over year after Will died.
They keep it a secret. Of course they did, for Michael and Henry's sakes especially, but JJ can't help but feel guilty as she rolled through an orgasm at Spencer's doing.
It's a simple night, a regular one now, and she's curled up into his arms and suddenly feels as if she is doing something wrong. She's not, she knows Will isn't watching down from a Heaven she's not even sure exists judging her for falling to the one man who got her as well as Will had.
Still, it pulls at her, tugs at her spine like a twinge, and she breathes out heavily.
"Do you believe in soulmates?"
It's out before she can stop it, Spencer's arms tightening around her and she wonders what he's thinking. A lot, knowing him, which she did; like she always had but she suddenly needs to know the answer to the question.
Because she didn't know herself, and Spencer sighs into her hair. "Statistically, the idea of a soulmate is -" he stops himself, because he's no longer that Know It All Genius of the BAU, and JJ thinks back on how far they've come in two decades, how much they've grown together. "No. I don't."
It doesn't surprise her, but it surprises her when she finds her brain clicking into gear and agreeing with him. One love, across a life, seems wasteful - she had lost her heart when she'd lost Will, there's no doubt of that, but it would be against her own ideas of what love is to close herself forever due to being widowed.
It would leave her at ends, and she's always found herself at a loss when it comes to Spencer anyway. How they'd always found each other, how they'd always been joined together like by the so called string of fate, and she sighs again.
"Should we be doing this?" A silence falls over them, not heavy but not without weight. JJ knows when Spencer is thinking things out, balancing the odds; she lets the silence hang until it becomes comfortable.
"I think I've always left that up to you, to be honest." He shifts slightly, and JJ adjusts back into him. "I didn't wait for you, any more than you did for me. But maybe, under it all, we did in our own way."
JJ laughs a little "That really didn't answer my question, but I think I get what you're saying." A beat. "Maybe."
"I just mean that..." Spencer pauses, his hair tickling her face. "Things always happen the way they happen. We know this from our work, that people are unpredictable beasts. And no one expected what happened to you, or me, or to anyone on our team."
"It's been a long two decades," she agrees, and he nods.
"All I'm saying is that we all deserve peace. And I think you especially do."
"You don't?" She leans up and looks at him, right in the eye. He smiles briefly, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his features, before he kisses her.
"I deserve this. At what ever time it came to me, I deserve this."
She's surprised at his candour, at how open he is. The Spencer she'd met so long ago, when they were so young wouldn't have been this honest, so to the core - but she appreciates it. She embraces it, silently, against the night, and decides that whatever they were doing was right in that moment - and that's all that counts.
"I've always loved you," she whispers, and he kisses her as a response. A call to action, and she pulls him down to her.
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