Inquire Cat

The wording did not sound like a request. They guided her towards the break room: their preferred neutral territory, with glass walls and plausible deniability. As she walks along, Samantha clocks exits, reflections, and the way Emily positions herself subtly between her and the door. Tara closed the glass door behind them, as if it were a silent conclusion. She did not sit, but circled Sam slowly, the way she usually paces around a crime scene. Emily leaned back against the table, arms crossed, eyes flicking from Samantha’s boots to the ink disappearing under her sleeves.

“So … Samantha Vargfrid,” Tara said, as Emily stood near the door, casual in the way that meant controlled.

“Yes?” Samantha asked, looking slightly confused. Her mind was trying to puzzle out what Emily and Tara really wanted from this casual, welcoming moment.

“Relax. This isn’t disciplinary.” Tara said, locking her eyes with Samantha’s.

Sam arched a brow and grinned. “That’s never a comforting sentence.”

“Garcia tried to build you a digital shrine … she couldn’t even find the foundation.” Emily smiled faintly, leaning more heavily on the table.

“I value privacy.”

“No, you value containment.” Tara stepped closer to Samantha so she could smell her perfume. “Six-foot-five and combat-ready stance. You scan exits even when you’re holding coffee. You don’t enter rooms … you clear them.”

“You called me in here to critique my posture?” Sam’s jaw tightened, and the air in the room dropped a few degrees.

Emily finally moved. It was a slow, deliberate movement, almost robotic. “We called you in because JJ walked into work this morning looking … complicated.”

“I don’t see how that’s …”

“She didn’t tell us. She didn’t have to.” Tara spoke with the precision of a surgeon.

Sam’s pulse spiked as she forced her shoulders down.

“It’s about what comes after last night.” Emily leaned back against the table, mirroring Sam now. This is a challenge, and I will gladly accept it, Sam’s inner voice whispered.

“JJ doesn’t do casual. Not anymore.”

“If last night …” Tara tried to say something, but Sam cut her short.

“Anymore?” Sam frowned.

Tara exchanged a look with Emily. “She’s divorced.”

The word hit harder than Sam expected. She swallowed, but her mouth went dry.

“She … she didn’t say –”

“She has a seven-year-old son.” Emily dropped the sentence, and everything stopped. Sound was dampened, and Sam’s vision tunneled. Sam’s breath caught sharply, involuntarily.

“A – sorry, she has a what?”

“Henry.”  Emily watched her carefully, now assessing the damage she had provoked seconds ago.

Sam took a step back before she realized she was moving. “I didn’t know.” Her breathing sped up too fast, too shallow. She tried to slow it, but failed miserably.

Tara softened but did not retreat. “We know.”

Sam’s hands curled at her sides, fingers trembling.

“JJ’s life is already split between danger and responsibility. She doesn’t need someone with sealed records and ghosts that won’t stay buried.” Emily said, shifting her weight and resuming a neutral position, crossing her arms.

Sam grabbed the edge of the table, knuckles whitening as her breath came in ragged bursts now. “You don’t get to speculate about my file.”

“We’re not speculating.” Tara gestured to Sam’s tattoos. “Those aren’t aesthetic choices. Those are memorials.”

Images slammed in: screams, restraints, blood, her girlfriend’s voice breaking. Sam’s chest seized. She bent forward, attempting to fight the spiral.

“Stop.” Samantha almost yelled at them.

Emily stepped in immediately with a firm tone. “Look at me.”

Sam forced her eyes up, her breath shuddering.

“Whatever happened to you doesn’t make you dangerous … secrecy does.”

Sam shook her head once, trying to make her panic attack go away. “I don’t talk about classified operations.”

“Then don’t bring the fallout into JJ’s life.”

Sam’s voice cracked before she could stop it. “I would never hurt her.”

The rawness in it stunned the room. Tara exhaled slowly. Emily straightened.

“You don’t owe us your past, but you owe JJ honesty now, not later.”

Sam nodded, once. “I hear you.”

Tara and Emily left the room smiling triumphantly and exchanging looks. Sam watched them leave, heart pounding, legs locked, panic buzzing just under her skin. She muttered to herself: “Cold shower my ass.”

Sam stayed in the break room long after Emily and Tara left, staring at the same invisible point on the wall as if she did not move; nothing else could either. Her hands were still shaking. She had almost gotten it under control when her chest tightened again too fast, too sharply, and suddenly she was back there.

Not the room.

Not Quantico.

Concrete floor.

Screaming.

The smell of iron and burning plastic.

Her breath hitched violently.

“No …” She slid down into the chair hard, elbows on knees, hands gripping her head, trying to keep the memories from spilling out through her skull. Air would not cooperate. Too much … not enough.

“Get it together,” she muttered. “Get it to-”

A hesitant shadow fell across the doorway. Reid was standing in the doorway. Swiftly, he assessed the problem and came up with a solution.

“Hey.” His voice was almost like a whisper.

Sam startled, jerking upright too fast. The room swam. “I’m fine.”

Reid winced slightly. “Statistically speaking, when people say that in that tone, they’re usually not.”

She let out a broken huff that might have been a laugh if she were not on the verge of sobbing.

“You always lead with statistics?”

“Only when I don’t know what else to do. This is one of those times.”

He did not come closer, did not want to crowd her. Reid leaned against the doorframe as if he was giving her an exit she did not have to take. Sam dragged a hand down her face.

“You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“I wasn’t supposed to overhear Garcia crying over a documentary about octopuses either. Life’s full of surprises.”

That actually got a breath out of her. Shaky, but real. Her hands were still trembling, but she hid it, lacing her fingers together.

Reid noticed anyway. “Panic attacks feel a lot like dying … you’re not, but your brain doesn’t know that.”

“I watched people die.” Sam swallowed hard.

Reid did not flinch.

“Slowly. I couldn’t stop it … and then everyone kept telling me I was ‘strong’ for surviving.”

Her voice cracked completely this time. “I didn’t survive. I just stayed.”

“I know that feeling.” Reid’s eyes softened in a way that was not pity; it was recognition.

Sam looked up, startled. “You?”

“Different circumstances. Same aftermath.”

He hesitated and then added, “People assume intelligence or size or competence means you process trauma faster.” Reid shook his head, “It actually just means you’re better at hiding it.”

That hit dead center. Sam’s br eath stuttered again, but this time she did not fight it. “They died because of me.”

Reid shook his head immediately.  “No. They died because someone chose to hurt them. You’re not responsible for other people’s cruelty.”

Tears finally spilled - silent, heavy, and unstoppable. Sam scrubbed at her face, frustrated. “I hunted them down,” she whispered, “I didn’t stop until there was no one left.”

Reid did not judge. Did not recoil.

“Did it help?”

She shook her head, a tiny motion. “It just made the nights quieter.”

Reid nodded, like that made perfect sense. “Revenge doesn’t heal trauma. It just gives it something to do.”

That broke her. Sam bent forward, hands covering her face as a sob tore out of her chest, raw and uncontained. Reid moved slowly to sit in the chair across from her. Not touching, just present. After a moment, he dared to speak.

“For what it’s worth … the fact that you care this much means you didn’t lose the part of yourself that matters.”

Sam lifted her head, eyes red, exhausted. “What if I hurt her without meaning to?”

Reid hesitated for a split second, gathering his thoughts.

“Then you stop. You talk. You don’t disappear.” The change in his voice made him sound almost pleading. “People don’t need perfection; they need consistency.”

Sam nodded, wiping her face. “You’re weirdly good at this.”

Reid flushed. “I’ve had a lot of practice being the calm one in the room.”

She let out a tired laugh. “Thank you. For not asking for details.”

Reid stood, adjusting his sweater, smiling softly. “You’ll tell the parts you’re ready to tell, and until then … you’re not alone here.”

He paused at the door. “Also, Garcia already likes you.”

Sam shook her head, a faint smile finally settling in. “Good to know.”

As Reid left, Sam leaned back in the chair, exhausted but breathing more calmly. She stood there for a brief moment to recover. After all, she had to deliver a profile soon.  Sam pushed off the chair and started walking before her body could remember how close it had come to falling apart. The panic had drained out of her like a tide, leaving her hollow and oversensitive, every sound too sharp, every breath a conscious decision.

She kept her eyes forward, but her mind was not: JJ was going to be in that room, sitting across from her like nothing had happened, as if last night had not existed, as if this morning’s careful distance was normal. Sam did not know what she was more afraid of: JJ looking at her with nothing in her eyes, or looking at her and seeing the crack in her composure, the bruise of exhaustion under her control. She tightened her grip on the folder until the edges bit into her palm, anchoring herself to paper, ink, and facts because facts did not touch you back. By the time she reached the conference room door, her face was set, her voice rehearsed, her spine locked into the familiar shape of command. She could take a break after, if she needed one. Not before, not here! The panic might still be lurking in her bloodstream, but the Devil’s Ivory Deck did not care about her nerves, and neither could she. With one last breath, she turned toward the conference room.

When Samantha stepped into the conference room, the air felt already charged, as if everyone had been holding their breath for her arrival. Hotch stood at the head of the table with his hands braced on the back of a chair, posture rigid and unreadable. Rossi sat to his right, settled but watchful, the kind of stillness that came from a man who had seen too many patterns repeat. Emily was leaning back in her seat with her arms crossed, eyes fixed on Sam in a way that was not hostile so much as assessing, while Tara sat beside her with a legal pad open, pen poised, calm on the surface and razor sharp underneath.

Garcia’s face glowed on the screen at the far end, unusually quiet, her expression pulled tight with concern. Reid was already leaning forward, elbows near the table, attention fully locked in as he was ready to catch anything she dropped. JJ sat across from where Sam would stand, hands folded neatly, shoulders squared, her face composed in the way it always was when she was bracing for impact. Sam felt it like a pressure point in her chest: the silence, the expectation, the knowledge that every person in the room was waiting for her to tell them what was happening. She walked to the front anyway, set her binder down, and forced her fingers to stop shaking before she opened it.

Samantha stood at the front of the conference room with the remote in her hand, posture straight, and expression unreadable. She did not look like someone who had just been the target of Prentiss and Lewis’s playful, relentless roasting ten minutes ago.

The screen behind her lit up. A spread of cards, stark and ivory-toned, arranged in a perfect arc covered the first slide. Samantha’s eyes flicked briefly toward JJ before she spoke.

“They call themselves The Devil’s Ivory Deck.”

“A cult?” Prentiss asked, folding her arms.

“No,” Samantha said. “A consortium.”

“Meaning?” Tara prompted.

Rossi leaned back in his chair, the humor from earlier gone. “Meaning belief is optional.”

Samantha nodded once. “Power isn’t.” She stepped closer to the screen, voice steady, controlled to the point of austerity. “They’re structured like a court. Symbolic hierarchy. Everyone has a role, a function, and a card. Her finger hovered over the displayed twenty-one positions. Major Arcana. Each role is operational, not ceremonial. The symbolism is camouflage. This one doesn’t lead,” Samantha is pointing to The Emperor. “Leadership is visible. The Emperor is authority without exposure.” She clicked. “He controls compliance through policy, funding, and sanctions. If an agency resists, it gets erased.”

Prentiss’s brow furrowed. “Erased how?”

“Not violently,” Samantha replied. “Bureaucratically. He doesn’t get blood on his hands, simply signs paperwork. The Hierophant – as in ‘the keeper of doctrine’,” the agent went on. “He wrote their creed. Initiations. Oaths. Language designed to bind without incriminating.” Reid leaned forward slightly.

“Everything is metaphor,” Samantha spoke with a confidence that fulfilled the whole room. “Nothing is literal. That way, no one ever technically confesses.”

“A linguistic control mechanism.” Reid’s voice came out quiet.

Samantha did not look at him. “He speaks in riddles because riddles can’t testify.

“The High Priestess has no digital footprint. No financial records. No biometrics.” Garcia’s fingers tightened around her mug.

“She collects secrets before they become leverage. Blackmail archives. Predictive modeling. Human intuition refined into weaponry. She knows betrayals before they happen,” Samantha added. “People don’t defect.”

“They don’t defect?” Tara frowned.

Samantha’s eyes stayed on the screen. “They disappear first.”

“Justice … this one keeps them untouchable,” Samantha said. “Judges. Prosecutors. Lawmakers already compromised or groomed. Justice isn’t about right or wrong,” Samantha continued. “It’s about balance. If one of their own breaks the rules, Justice decides the punishment.”

Rossi exhaled slowly through his nose. His mouth tightened. “Internal affairs from hell.”

“The Chariot represents the operations strategist, perhaps a former military. Every move is planned, always six steps ahead. Logistics across borders. Safe houses. Routes. Timing.”

Reid nodded once. “No improvisation.”

“No,” Samantha agreed. “Execution. Precision bordering on obsession.” Her finger traced the card on the screen. “Human chess … and every piece knows it’s expendable. The Devil is the one who collects debt. Money. Favors. Secrets. People.”

Garcia made a small sound under her breath. “Oh, no.”

“He doesn’t threaten, he persuades. Psychological coercion is his specialty.”

“Or charm.” Prentiss’s gaze sharpened. “Everyone likes him.”

“Please tell me he’s less awful than the name.” Garcia hugged her mug closer.

“He’s worse,” Samantha made eye contact with Garcia and continued. “He’s the one people give their thanks to.”

A chill ran through the room.  JJ’s chest tightened because she understood exactly what Samantha meant.

“The World believed to be the ultimate authority,” Samantha pointed at the screen, voice quieter now. “Never seen. Never recorded.” She clicked, and the card filled the screen like a blank eye. “Messages arrive encrypted. Routed through promises and intermediaries. Some believe it’s a title passed down.”

Reid murmured, “Immortality through continuity.”

“The Fool is the youngest,” Samantha continued. “Eager and curious. Thinks they’re special.”

“And?” Prentiss asked, leaving the question like a cliffhanger.

“They don’t know the price until it’s too late.”

“The media manipulation is none other than The Magician. Languages. Narratives. Illusions.”

“The Magician shapes the story.” JJ heard herself speak, surprised by her own voice.

Samantha turned toward her fully this time. “Yes. He can make a massacre look like an accident. A villain looks like a hero.” JJ held her gaze a beat too long. Then Samantha clicked again.

“The Empress is the ‘Mistress of wealth’. High society. Political donors. Elite hospitality and …”

“And favors?” Rossi’s brow rose dramatically.

“Everyone owes her,” Samantha replied. “Even The Devil.

“The Lovers are twins, according to the Interpol database.” The profiles came one after another, the complexity of their entanglement setting in the agents’ minds. “Negotiators. Alliance-builders as the Consortium designed them to be.”

“Perhaps a divided loyalty?” Tara frowned.

“No, not the case here. It’s about absolute loyalty to one another.” Emily said looking through the report from the Interpol.  

“Strength in the enforcer,” Samantha continued. “Discipline. Interrogation. The whole torture set. The Hermit is the archivist who handles cyber networks, security, and data redundancy.”

Garcia’s face tightened. “I don’t like elders.”

“No one does, especially if they reshape the history. The Wheel of Fortune controls finance domains. Markets, gambling empires. They handle the offshore accounts and have their hands on speculative economics.”

“House always wins,” Rossi muttered, sipping his coffee.

“The Hanged Man is their scapegoat,” another slide appeared, more information at Sam’s click. “Takes responsibility for failures. Publicly falls to protect the leadership.

“Death became the executioner, representing both destruction and renewal. Surgical precision and maximum accomplishment. Temperance stands for innovation tied to drugs, experimental tech, and chemical programs.”

Tara’s expression darkened. “Long-term damage.”

“The Tower is their assassin,” Samantha clicked again. “Think of them as a career destroyer, a market collapse, and a political ruin. The Star is their PR, or more like the public face,” she continued. “His philanthropist profile won him the public hearts, and his humanitarian work placed him at every single summit, party, gala, or powerful event.

“The Sun, when paired with The Star, forges optimism as a tool. Reframes vice as virtue. She makes everything seem fine while it burns.”

The room went as still as dust particles suspended in the ethers. It was a collective breathing pressed on hold. Even Garcia stopped fidgeting. JJ realized she had been staring at Samantha for several seconds. This time, Samantha noticed when their eyes locked. Just for a heartbeat, and the air felt charged with things unsaid, undone, unresolved.

Prentiss cleared her throat. “So,” she said, forcing air back into the room, “we’re looking at a twenty-one-person shadow court with global reach and a thing for tarot.”

“And at least half of them don’t ever get within arm’s length of a crime scene.” Rossi’s voice was low, as if he were wording his thoughts to himself.

“That’s the point,” Samantha replied.

“I can understand the tarot obsession and the power game, but why surface now?” Tara leaned forward.

Samantha did not answer immediately; instead, she clicked the remote again. The tarot spread vanished. A new slide appeared, but no blood, no body, just paperwork. Border entry logs between the US and Canada. Freight manifests. A scanned passport. A blurry camera still from a crossing. The shift was abrupt and deliberate.

“This is why,” Samantha pointed at the screen.

JJ’s eyes narrowed. “That’s a CBP interface.”

“And RCMP,” Samantha replied. “Which is how I got pulled into it.”

The screen changed again. A clean photo this time: an evidence bag on a stainless steel table. Inside it, a single ivory card. The card was not paper or plastic. It was something dense and expensive, screaming power, authority, and old money … something meant to last.

“The Hanged Man,” Reid said, leaning forward. “That’s the same material as your deck images.”

Samantha nodded.

“Where was it found?” Prentiss’s voice gave a cold, unreadable tone.

“At the Peace Bridge,” Samantha answered. “Buffalo to Fort Erie.”

“That’s not a crime scene.” Rossi’s brow furrowed.

“No,” Samantha agreed. “That’s the point.” She clicked again. A photo of a shipping container. The doors cracked open. A flashlight beam cutting through the darkness. Then another gloved hand holding a second item from inside the container – a manila envelope sealed with wax. Ivory wax, to be exact, stamped with a simple symbol – an inverted crown.

Garcia’s voice went thin. “Okay, that’s … extremely villain coded.”

“It was inside a container that cleared customs twice, once in Canada. Once back into the US.”

“How?” Tara frowned.

“It didn’t trigger any flags,” she said. “No dogs, scans, holds for secondary inspection.”

JJ felt her stomach drop because that was not luck; that was permission. Reid’s voice went quiet. “The Emperor.” Samantha did not confirm it.

Prentiss asked, “What was in the envelope?”

Samantha hesitated for the first time. Not long, just enough for JJ to notice.

“A name,” Samantha said. “A U.S. citizen.”

“Target?”

“A correction,” Samantha replied.

JJ’s chest tightened at the word. This meant a list of variables that excluded revenge, anger, or any trace of emotion. Just a system adjusting itself. Samantha clicked again.

The final slide came up: a surveillance still from a Canadian service station near the border. A man stepping out of a car. He is mid-thirties with an average build. Face turned slightly toward the camera, just enough to be recognized.

JJ leaned forward, “That’s –”

“David Kline,” Samantha said. “CBP liaison. Posted to Buffalo.”

“He’s federal.” Prentiss’s eyes sharpened.

“And he vanished six hours after that container cleared,” Samantha continued. “Phone went dead. Bank accounts untouched. Apartment empty.”

Tara’s expression hardened as she looked at the team. “So the Deck moved someone across an international border, bypassed every safeguard, and handed you a tarot card like a receipt.”

Samantha’s gaze stayed on the screen. “They didn’t hand it to me like 5 years ago,” she said, looking at Prentiss now, “they left it where I couldn’t ignore it.”

Silence settled once again. Everyone was looking at Samantha, who looked like she had just stared her worst nightmare in the eyes, and those eyes stared back at her. Hotch looked at all of them.

“Wheels up in thirty,” he said. “We’re not chasing a ritual. We’re chasing infrastructure, and if they want to be myth,” Hotch added, voice calm as stone, “we make them human.”

JJ waited until the conference room was empty.

The BAU scattered the way they always did after a debrief – efficient, purposeful, already compartmentalizing what they had just learned. JJ stayed seated a second longer than necessary, hands braced on the table, breathing through the pressure building behind her eyes.

When she finally stood, Samantha was still there. She loomed near the screen: six-foot-five of muscle and restraint, shoulders broad beneath her shirt, forearms inked with colorful tattoos that disappeared under rolled sleeves. Old scars crossed her hands and knuckles, pale against her tattooed skin. Her glasses sat low on her nose as she scrolled through her phone, jaw tight as if she was holding herself together by force alone.

JJ swallowed.

“Samantha,” she almost whispered.

The name caught Sam’s attention and surprised her with how intimate the tone was. Too late to take back because Samantha looked up. Those sharp green eyes softened for half a second before the walls came back up.

“Yeah?”

“Can we –?” JJ jerked her head toward the hall.

Samantha nodded immediately and followed, ducking slightly as they stepped into the narrower corridor. The conference room door closed behind them, sealing off the bullpen noise until everything felt too quiet, too exposed.

JJ stopped walking. Samantha did too, towering in front of her without meaning to. She shifted back a step, instinctively giving JJ space. That alone almost broke her.

“You didn’t know,” JJ said, voice already unsteady. “About me. About the BAU.”

Samantha’s expression tightened. “No.”

“I know,” JJ rushed on. “I know you didn’t ... that’s not … this isn’t an accusation.”

Samantha pushed her glasses up with two fingers, a nervous habit JJ had not seen before. “I thought you were a journalist. Or a grad student. You talked like someone still trying to figure out where they fit.”

JJ let out a shaky breath that was almost a laugh. “Guess that part wasn’t a lie.”

Samantha’s gaze dropped briefly and then lifted again. “You were gone when I woke up.”

JJ’s chest constricted. “I panicked,” she admitted. “I didn’t want to wake you and say something wrong or nothing at all.”

“But you left the note,” Samantha said quietly.

JJ nodded, eyes burning now. “Because I needed you to know I didn’t disappear because it didn’t matter.”

Samantha’s jaw flexed. Her hands curled once at her sides and relaxed again.

“It mattered,” Samantha said. “More than it should’ve.”

JJ’s eyes filled despite her best efforts. She shook her head, blinking hard. “I don’t usually …” Her voice cracked. She stopped, swallowed, tried again. “I don’t let myself do things like that. Not anymore.”

Samantha stood still, trying not to crowd her. Just watched as she was afraid any sudden motion might shatter something fragile.

“I don’t either,” Samantha said. “That’s what scares me.”

JJ looked up at her then. Really looked.

“You’re not angry,” JJ said softly.

“No,” Samantha replied immediately. “I’m terrified.”

“Of what?”

Samantha hesitated. A long, visible struggle played out across her face: control versus honesty. “Because I didn’t know who you were,” she said, “and now I do. I can already feel myself caring.” JJ’s breath hitched.

“And that makes you dangerous,” JJ whispered.

“No,” Samantha said, voice rough. “It makes you vulnerable.”

The words settled heavy and awful between them.

JJ wiped at her cheek angrily when a tear escaped. “I can take care of myself.”

“I know,” Samantha said. “That’s not the point.”

JJ stepped closer before fear could stop her. “Then what is it?”

Samantha looked down at her, really down, and for the first time, the height difference felt intimate instead of imposing. A protective aura enveloped JJ.

“The point,” Samantha said quietly, “is that the people I’m chasing don’t leave loose ends and the moment someone matters to me, they become one.”

JJ’s heart ached as she reached out without thinking, fingers brushing the back of Samantha’s scarred hand. “You don’t get to decide this alone.”

Samantha inhaled sharply but instead of pulling away, she turned her hand, their fingers threading together with surprising gentleness for someone so strong.

JJ let out a shaky breath and leaned in just slightly, forehead nearly touching Samantha’s chest. For a moment, everything else disappeared. Samantha bent down instinctively. JJ tilted her face up. They were so close JJ could see the faint scratch on Samantha’s glasses, the tension in her jaw and the warmth in her eyes.

JJ inhaled and froze. There it was – clean, woodsy, something warm beneath it, not cologne exactly and not extremely strong. It hit her like muscle memory, sheets twisted around bare legs, tongue tracing her neck in the dark. She had buried her face against that scent twelve hours ago, fingers tangled in fabric and skin pretending for one reckless night that she did not carry the weight of the world. Her throat went dry and her mind went blank.

Samantha felt the shift immediately. Her hands stilled where they held JJ’s, thumb pressing unconsciously into the ridge of JJ’s knuckles as if she was bracing.

“JJ?” she murmured.

Gods. The way she said her name made JJ’s pulse stumble. This is a hallway in Quantico. You are at work. You are not twenty-two. JJ’s thoughts were trying to pull the composed SSA Jareau out of the dreaming world but Samantha smelled like last night.

“You’re wearing it,” JJ said quietly.

“Wearing what?”

“That perfume.” Her throat constricted. “You wore it last night.”

Understanding flickered across Sam’s face, followed immediately by something more vulnerable. Her shoulders lowered a fraction like armor loosening.

“I didn’t think you’d notice,” Sam admitted.

JJ let out a fragile, humorless breath. “I notice everything.”

That was the problem. She noticed the way Sam’s pulse jumped in her throat. The way she deliberately kept her feet angled outward instead of crowding her. The way her hands flexed once as she was holding herself back. JJ’s thoughts started racing: this is reckless. You do not get reckless. You build walls. You manage narratives. You survive.

However, the memory of last night slipped in anyway: Samantha’s hands were careful, almost reverent. The way she had checked in without making it clinical. The way JJ had felt seen instead of analyzed.

JJ’s fingers tightened. Samantha noticed. Of course she did. Profilers read tells for a living, but Samantha read her like something more fragile. Something worth handling gently.

Samantha’s control slipped then, just a crack. Her free hand lifted, slow enough to be easily stopped and hovered near JJ’s waist before settling there cautiously. Not in a claiming manner, more like a silent ask for permission. “You left before sunrise,” Sam said, voice steady but thinner now. “Was that about me? Or about this?” She gestured vaguely toward the building, the case, the weight of federal work.

JJ’s jaw tightened.

“It was about control,” she said honestly. “I don’t like waking up and not knowing what something means.”

“And now?”

JJ laughed under her breath, too sharply. “Now I know exactly what it means. That’s worse.”

Sam swallowed hard. “You regret it.”

“No!” JJ said fiercely. “Don’t do that.”

“Then what am I supposed to think?” Sam asked, uncertainty looming over her face.

JJ saw it and something in her broke open at the realization that this woman, this towering, scarred, dangerous woman was more afraid of hurting her than of anything else.

“You’re shaking,” JJ said softly.

“I am not.” Sam huffed a humorless breath.

JJ lifted their joined hands slightly as if she was presenting an exhibit to a prosecutor.

Indeed, they were shaking. Samantha glanced at her hands intertwined with JJ’s as if she was commanding her body to stop betraying her but with no success.

JJ stepped forward the last inch. Samantha bent automatically as gravity had shifted. Silence stretched between them. Heavy. Charged. JJ’s spiral deepened: This is how it starts. Distraction. Attachment. Vulnerability. She had built her life on being composed, the calm one and the communicator, the woman who could walk into chaos and keep her pulse steady. However, standing here with Sam’s scent wrapping around her like a memory, she felt untethered.

“What scares you?” Sam asked quietly.

JJ hesitated. Then, because something about Sam made dishonesty feel pointless, she answered.

“That I wanted last night to mean nothing,” JJ said. “And it didn’t. I don’t know how to file that away neatly.”

Sam exhaled, slow and shaky.

“I’m scared,” Sam admitted, “because I don’t do ‘halfway’ and I can already tell I wouldn’t with you.”

That confession cost her something. JJ could see it in the way Sam’s chin lifted instinctively afterward as if she was bracing for rejection.

JJ stepped even closer before she could think better of it.

“You don’t get to decide what I can handle,” JJ murmured.

Sam’s hand came up again, this time not hovering. It settled at JJ’s waist, tentative but intentional.

“Tell me to stop,” Sam whispered.

Her brave façade was thinning now. JJ could feel it in the tremor she tried to hide in the way her thumb stroked once, almost unconsciously against JJ’s side. JJ did not say stop. Instead, she leaned in, meeting Sam’s lips halfway. The kiss was not explosive; it was devastating. Soft at first, as if they were both testing the limits. Sam hesitated a full heart-stopping second, giving JJ space to retreat. When she did not, something in Sam gave way. Her hand tightened at JJ’s waist. The other slid up, cradling the back of JJ’s neck with startling gentleness as if she was afraid JJ might vanish. JJ felt the shift. Sam stopped pretending to be fearless. The kiss deepened, not hungry but honest. Sam made a quiet sound against her mouth. An unpolished sound not controlled … real.

JJ’s fingers curled into the front of Sam’s shirt, grounding herself in solid warmth. The world narrowed to breath, scent and the steady thud of Sam’s heart under her palm. For a split second, JJ let herself imagine choosing this. Choosing someone who looked at her like she was not just capable but worth protecting. It terrified her and that terror made her kiss Sam harder. Sam responded instinctively, a soft exhale breaking from her chest as her guard fully dropped with no calculated restraint now … just feeling.

Footsteps. Fast. Neither of them heard it in time.

“JJ, I – oh!”

They broke apart as if they had been caught stealing classified files. Penelope Garcia stood ten feet away, tablet clutched to her chest, eyes wide behind her bright frames.

“Oh my glittering gods,” Garcia breathed.

JJ straightened immediately, composure snapping back into place with painful precision. “Garcia.”

Sam stepped back but not too far, subtle, protective positioning shifting without thought.

Garcia blinked rapidly. “Okay. So … I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that extremely cinematic moment in the hallway of the federal law enforcement building.”

“You needed something?” JJ’s face was warm, and she was trying not to giggle like a teenager.

“Yes!” Garcia squeaked, grateful for the pivot. She thrust the tablet forward. “I was running cross-border financials, and I found something that screams ‘Hello, I am suspicious!’ but it crosses into Canadian accounts, and I need tall, intimidating Mountie energy to help me access it legally.”

Sam cleared her throat, voice almost steady again. “You could’ve just said you needed jurisdictional clearance.”

Garcia tilted her head. “I prefer drama.”

JJ fought a smile.

Sam glanced down at her briefly, then back at Garcia. “Show me.” As they started walking, Garcia fell into step beside them, still visibly vibrating with curiosity.

JJ felt Sam’s fingers brush hers for half a second in an accidental manner but with deliberate intention. JJ’s spiral had not ended; it had just begun because now Garcia knows, the team would know very soon, and worse, she might name the thing that blooms behind her ribs.

Behind them, Reid’s footsteps skidded to a halt.

“JJ, I –” He stopped short and blinked fast, trying to process. “Oh.”

Garcia turned to him slowly. “You saw nothing.”

“I didn’t say I saw anything.”

“You thought something.”

Reid’s ears went nuclear pink as his eyes flicked to Sam’s hand, still hovering a fraction too close to JJ’s. “Statistically speaking –”

“Reid,” JJ cut in, voice sharp enough to slice titanium. However, inside, everything was fracturing.

Oh God. Not here. Not now. Pull it together, Jareau. You are SSA Jennifer Jareau. You have a son who has a hockey game this weekend and thinks his mom walks on water. You do not melt down in a hallway because a six-foot-five Canadian you didn’t even know the name of twelve hours ago just kissed you like the world was ending. Henry likes hockey. Focus on Henry. Focus on the case. Be the mom. Be the profiler. Be anything but the woman who woke up in a hotel room with RCMP tattoos under her fingertips.

Sam cleared her throat and took one measured step back. Her voice stayed glacier calm.

“You could have emailed them for the clearance. Our guys are open to collaboration.”

Garcia’s gasp was theatrical enough to win an Oscar. “And miss this cinematic masterpiece? Absolutely not, Lieutenant Tall-Blonde-and-Sealed. Now spill: how sealed are we talking? Because I just ran your name through three different federal databases and got back an error message that literally said ‘mind your business, mortal, or the moose will get you.’ I felt personally attacked. I felt betrayed by the entire Commonwealth.”

She’s relentless. If she keeps pushing, she’ll hit the redacted files from 2017, and then we’re all in therapy. Stay calm. Give her nothing.

Sam’s mouth twitched with the tiniest betrayal. “There is just paperwork.”

“Just paperwork?! Lieutenant Vargfrid, I have seen your service record – or rather, the glowing void where your service record should be – and I am ninety-eight percent sure you once made a terrorist apologize to a hockey puck. So when I ask how sealed your records are, I expect poetry … drama, at least a tragic backstory with a moody soundtrack.”

Sam kept walking, long legs eating distance, voice even.

“It’s sealed, Agent Garcia.”

Garcia clutched her arm as if they were lifelong sorority sisters. “Pretty please with biometric encryption, rainbow glitter sprinkles and a side of poutine on top? I’ll even throw in a custom ringtone that plays the RCMP anthem every time you get a text!”

“No.”

Garcia clutched her chest as if she had been shot. “You are enjoying this. I can see it in your evil, perfectly calm Canadian eyes. You’re six-foot-five of quiet chaos and you’re enjoying torturing poor, innocent, glitter-loving me.”

A little. Okay, more than a little. She’s like a golden retriever with a PhD in hacking and zero concept of personal space. It’s … not terrible.

Sam allowed herself one small exhale through her nose. “A little.”

Up ahead, JJ and Reid walked in perfect step, but JJ’s mind was still a Category 5 hurricane wearing a perfectly pressed pantsuit.

Stop looking back. Stop. You are SSA Jareau. Henry has hockey practice Saturday morning, and he’s been begging you to come watch. You cannot be thinking about the way Sam’s hand felt on your hip or how she tasted like ginger beer mixed with bad decisions and how neither of you even knew the other’s last name until this morning. You have to brief Hotch. You have to be sharp. You have to be the one who keeps it together for everyone, especially for the little boy who thinks his mom is a superhero and not … this.

Reid leaned in, voice soft. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she answered on autopilot.

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

JJ’s jaw tightened so hard she felt it in her temples.

He knows. Of course, he knows. He probably calculated the exact angle and duration of that kiss. I cannot do this right now. I cannot be just JJ right now. I have to be the profiler and the media liaison. The one who lies to cameras and keeps her shit together.

“Reid,” she said, warning in every syllable.

He hesitated, then tried again, gentler. “Statistically speaking, people don’t usually stand that close in hallways unless there’s …”

“Reid.”

“Right. Not profiling.” He paused, then added even quieter, “You keep turning around.”

“I’m aware.”

“You usually don’t.”

JJ’s stomach flipped. Because I don’t usually wake up tangled with a Mountie who’s now walking ten feet behind me like she didn’t just rewrite every rule I had about one-night stands.

“I know,” she whispered.

Reid glanced back at Sam again. “… and she’s intimidatingly tall.”

JJ almost laughed, the sound caught somewhere between hysteria and affection. “Yes, Reid. She is.”

Behind them, Garcia was not done, not even close.

“Okay, but we’re circling back to the tattoos,” she stage-whispered, voice dripping with delight. “I saw at least two under your sleeve, one disappearing under your collar like it’s trying to escape federal jurisdiction and I respect artistic mystery, Lieutenant, but I require context. Is one of them related to your sealed records? Be honest. I can take it. I’ve seen things. I once watched a man propose with a USB drive.”

Sam’s control slipped just a fraction. A single heartbeat where her stride faltered.

“There is not,” Sam said, voice still steady.

Garcia sucked in a breath as if she had just cracked the Zodiac. “Oh my god, there is. That was not a denial with conviction. I felt it in my soul.”

“It was the only answer you’re getting.”

Garcia sighed the sigh of the dramatically wounded. “Fine, but just so we’re crystal clear, Lieutenant: if you break her heart, I will weaponize glitter in ways that violate several international treaties, the Geneva Conventions and possibly the laws of physics. I will make your entire existence sparkle until you beg for mercy and file an official complaint in triplicate.”

Sam’s voice stayed calm, almost gentle. “I would never.”

Garcia paused. The theatrics dropped for half a second. She really looked at Sam – all six-foot-five of quiet storm and nodded once, whispering, “I know.”

The wind hit them the second they stepped onto the tarmac. JJ’s hair whipped loose around her shoulders. She turned one last time before the jet stairs. Sam was already looking. Neither smiled. Neither moved. Nevertheless, the space between them felt charged enough to reroute aircraft.

One more second. Just let me be JJ for one more second before I have to be SSA Jareau again. One more second. Just one more second to feel it – the pull, the want, the danger before I lock it away. SSA Jareau steps on the plane. JJ stays behind. That’s how it has to be.

Reid adjusted his bag. “I’m going to pretend I’m not observing this.”

“Smart,” Garcia called.

JJ climbed the first step.

Sam watched her as if she were something luminous and dangerous and entirely beyond her clearance level.

“You are in catastrophic, federal-level trouble, you beautiful disaster.” Garcia leaned into Sam’s shoulder, voice soft for once.

Sam did not look away from JJ’s retreat.

“I know.”

The jet leveled out at cruising altitude, engines settling into a low, constant growl that vibrated through the bones like a second heartbeat no one could escape. Seatbelts unclicked in uneven rhythm with sharp metallic snaps that made Garcia’s shoulders twitch. Files slapped open. Pens clicked once, twice, and then hovered.

JJ had been on enough flights like this to know the rhythm: turbulence, briefing, coffee, work. However, something about the air tonight felt wrong. The space felt too tight, the air felt the same.  Almost like the moment before a confession no one was ready to hear.

Sam sat beside Prentiss, posture immaculate, shoulders squared as if she were at a briefing instead of strapped into a pressurized interrogation chamber. They’re not asking because they care, the thought sliced through her, cold and familiar. They’re asking because they smell blood in the water, and they’re scared I’ll bleed on them when it matters. Emily had seen that posture before in the military, intelligence and people trained to survive questioning. People who understood that stillness was armor, armor meant there was something underneath worth protecting. Across from her, Tara folded her hands loosely in her lap but her left thumb traced slow circles against her own knuckle – her tell when she was forcing calm she did not feel. Sam is controlling every muscle group. No nervous ticks. No deflection humor. No irritation. That kind of composure never came from nothing. It came from practice.

Garcia glanced between them with the anticipatory tension of someone watching a fuse burn. Her bright lipstick smile was frozen at half-power. Her fingers twisted the cord of her headphones until the plastic creaked. Please don’t let this turn into another family fracture. I can’t watch another one of us shatter in real time. Not again. She was praying to whoever wanted to listen right now.

Prentiss did not ease into it this time. There was no softening. She leaned forward a fraction, one eyebrow lifting the tiniest bit, the same micro tic she got when she was about to open an old wound on purpose.

“Five years ago,” she said plainly, “you disappeared from the operational record for eight months.”

Reid’s brain was already cataloguing possibilities. Five years, eight months leave, classified redaction. Operational compromise. Witness protection crossover. Internal investigation. However, Sam’s pulse had not accelerated yet. Which meant she already knew where this conversation was going.

Sam did not look up from the case file in her lap.

Of course, this is how it happens. Not in a report. Not behind a sealed door. On a jet at thirty thousand feet with seven profilers watching the way you breathe. Don’t react. Don’t remember. Just read the line. Underline it. Pretend the words still matter.

“I took leave.”

Tara’s voice was mild. “Mandatory leave doesn’t usually come with federal redaction.”

Sam underlined a sentence that did not need underlining. Sam’s pen paused mid-stroke. Her nostrils flared for half a second, in rage or panic, impossible to tell.

Garcia attempted brightness, voice pitched up too high. “Maybe Canada just believes in mystery?” The laugh cracked and died; Garcia’s eyes darted to Hotch like a kid begging an adult to stop the fight.

No one took the bait.

Prentiss leaned back, studying Sam openly now, her own jaw tightening so hard a small muscle feathered under her ear. “You were on Joint Task Force rotation. Cross-border trafficking corridor. Three agencies were involved.”

Sam’s pen paused again. Longer this time. Her free hand curled into a loose fist on her thigh, knuckles paling then relaxing as if she had caught herself.

“You were second-in-command,” Tara added quietly, precisely. Her eyes narrowed a fraction, clinical hunger she couldn’t quite hide.

“Yes.”

“…and then something happened,” Prentiss continued, voice dropping, “because commendations stop. Reports go sealed. Psychological evaluation noted but not archived.”

Sam’s jaw flexed once, visible but involuntary. A single harsh swallow. They’ve already pulled strings. Of course they have. They’re going to make me relive it in front of the only people I almost trust.

“It was resolved internally.”

“That’s not how trauma works,” Tara replied.

Across the aisle, JJ stilled completely. Her fingers froze around her file; the paper crinkled. I know that look. I’ve worn that look. The night I told Henry his mom was “on a trip.” The night I buried Emily in my head. Her breathing shallowed until her chest barely moved.

Reid noticed – his head tilted a millimeter, eyes flicking between JJ and Sam as he was reading two open books at once. Pupil dilation. Micro-tremor in the left hand. She’s flashing back to her own lies. In addition, Sam’s heart rate is already climbing. His own throat worked. I hate that I can see the math of her breaking before she does.

Rossi did too. Kid’s carrying something heavier than the rest of us know how to lift. And they’re poking it with sticks. His old-man regret stirred, the kind that came with too many ex-wives and too many graves. We’ve all got bodies in our closets. Doesn’t mean we should parade them.

Sam’s fingers tightened around the pen until the plastic creaked audibly.

Prentiss’s tone sharpened just a fraction, but her eyes softened with something dangerously close to empathy. “Did you compromise an operation?”

“No.”

“Lose an asset?”

“No.” Another twitch, smaller.

Tara leaned forward, not aggressive but clinical. Her lips pressed into a thin line for half a second before she spoke. “You’re not defensive. You’re controlled. That tells me it wasn’t a mistake.”

Sam’s gaze flicked up. A dark one, steady. However, her pupils blew wide for one betraying heartbeat. Stop looking at me as if I’m one of your case files. As if you already know I’m the villain in my own story.

Tara did not look away. There it is. No guilt spike. No justification reflex. Not someone who failed. Someone who decided. Moreover, decisions were always worse.

“It was a choice,” Tara said quietly.

The engine hum felt louder. Sam set her pen down carefully. JJ felt the shift immediately.

The room tilted the same way it did during interrogations when the right question slid under the suspect’s skin. Sam did not flinch, but the silence around her tightened.

“It is not relevant to this case.”

Prentiss did not blink. Her fingers drummed once against her thigh, nervous energy she couldn’t kill. It’s relevant to whether you’ll hesitate when one of us is bleeding out on the ground. “It’s relevant to how you operate under pressure.”

“And how do I operate?” Sam asked, voice even as polished steel. Nevertheless, her right hand had started trembling just at the fingertips.

Prentiss held her gaze. “Like someone who’s already paid for something.”

That landed with a lot of weight. Across the aisle, JJ’s shoulders tensed so hard the muscle in her neck corded visibly. She’s right. God, she’s right, and if they keep pushing, she’s going to snap the same way I almost did in Afghanistan. A bead of sweat traced down her spine. Rossi’s eyes narrowed slightly, lips thinning. Enough. They’re turning her into an unsub right in front of us.

Tara’s voice lowered. “Did someone get hurt because you followed protocol?”

Silence. Sam picked her pen back up. Her knuckles whitened around the grip of that pen.

“No.”

“Because you didn’t?”

The question was quiet. Surgical.

Garcia whispered, “Okay, maybe we don’t –” she was looking more desperate towards Hotch, internally screaming at him to stop this nonsense.

Prentiss continued. “We’ve all buried things we thought we could carry alone. It doesn’t make you stronger.”

Sam’s breathing stayed perfectly controlled, too perfect. However, her eyes had gone distant, glassy for half a second before she blinked it away. JJ recognized every micro sign instantly: the locked spine, the way her gaze unfocused, the tiny tremor in her lower lip she killed before it could form. She’s not here. She’s back there. Five years ago. Bleeding again.

Tara pressed gently but unyieldingly.

“Was it a partner?”

Sam did not answer.

“Did you disobey a direct order?”

Nothing. Her left eyelid fluttered once.

“Did someone die because you hesitated?”

Sam's internal thoughts were wrestling. Don’t hear that. Don’t hear the radio. Don’t hear the order again. Stand down. Stand down. Stand –

Her grip tightened on the pen. The pen snapped. The crack was a small plastic splitting under torque but it ricocheted like a gunshot. Black ink smeared across Sam’s fingers and the heel of her hand. Her face stayed blank but her nostrils flared wide and her chest hitched once, sharp and involuntary.

Garcia flinched so hard her knee banged the tray table. That wasn’t anger. That was containment. The kind where something enormous was trying to get out and the only thing stopping it was sheer willpower. OH god no no no … please not another one of us breaking

Reid went silent mid-sentence, mouth still open, eyes wide. Heart rate 148. Fight response fully locked. She’s one question away from either confessing or shutting down forever.

The entire cabin shifted. Air grew heavier, colder.

Sam looked down at her hand as if mildly inconvenienced. Not shaking. Not breaking. Just … very, very still. A single drop of ink rolled toward her wrist like blood. It’s just ink. It’s not blood. Not this time. Don’t let them see it’s the same color.

“I would appreciate,” she said evenly, voice low and terrifyingly calm, “if you stopped speculating.”

Her voice was not loud. It was worse: cold, final, edged with something that made Prentiss’ stomach drop. She exhaled slowly through her nose, jaw clenching once. “Then give us something real.”

Sam lifted her gaze. For a split second, something hot flashed there - not fear, not shame. Pure, buried anger. Her lips parted as if she was about to speak, then sealed again so tightly the skin went white. “I followed my chain of command,” she said. “Exactly.”

The words had edges sharp enough to cut. The way her gaze went distant but sharp. JJ had seen soldiers do that. And victims. The look of someone who had stepped sideways in time. Not remembering. Reliving. Ah. There it is. Rossi had heard that sentence before from agents standing in Internal Affairs offices and from soldiers testifying at tribunals. People didn’t say it like that unless the order itself was the wound.

“And?” Tara’s eyes sharpened, one eyebrow twitching upward.

“And nothing.”

“That’s not the end of that sentence.”

“It is for you.”

The temperature in the cabin dropped.

“Enough.” Hotch’s voice cut through space and time. It was not loud. It did not need to be. Prentiss leaned back first. Tara followed a beat later. Garcia exhaled as if she had been holding her breath for minutes. Hotch’s gaze settled on Sam. Measured. Assessing. Not invasive. His face was stone but the muscle at the corner of his eye twitched - the only sign of the storm underneath. They’ve crossed the line. She’s not a profile. They’ve pushed too far. Not because the question was wrong. However, because Sam wasn’t resisting. She was enduring, and endurance meant the damage had already been done. “You are here as a liaison,” he said. “Not a subject.”

Sam met his eyes. Her shoulders dropped half an inch, a tiny surrender. “Understood.”

Rossi leaned forward slightly, voice quieter but firm, old warm protectiveness bleeding through. His fingers flexed once on the armrest. We don’t break our own. Not on my watch. Not while I still have breath. “We don’t eat our own.”

The words hung there for a moment. Then he glanced at the broken pen on the tray table. The ink was still staining Sam’s fingers. His eyes lifted back to her face. There was no accusation in them. Only recognition. Rossi tilted his head just slightly.

“You followed orders,” he said quietly. Not a question. Sam’s jaw tightened. Rossi watched that tiny reaction, the flicker of muscle, the controlled inhale. He had seen it before. Too many times. “So the real question,” he added calmly, “is whether the order was wrong.”

The cabin went still. Tara’s eyes flicked toward him. Prentiss straightened slightly.

JJ felt the weight of the statement immediately. Because Rossi had not asked what happened. He had asked who carried the blame. Rossi was not interrogating anymore. He was protecting her from the question. In addition, that meant he already knew the kind of answer they were not ready to hear. Sam did not answer but for the first time since the conversation started, she looked directly at him. Rossi gave the smallest nod. Not agreement. Not absolution. Just acknowledgement. Sometimes the job puts you in a position where every outcome is bad and someone still has to choose.

Tara inclined her head, lips pressing together in a quiet apology. “We were evaluating.”

“And you overreached,” Hotch replied, no heat just steel. His gaze flicked to Prentiss in a warning.

Prentiss did not argue. She looked away first, exhaling through her teeth, shoulders sagging with sudden exhaustion.

JJ slowly sat back down but her eyes never left Sam. She’s folding it inward again. Anger turned to containment, turned to isolation. I’ve done that. It never ends well. And I can’t watch her do it alone.

Sam wiped the ink from her fingers with the napkin Garcia silently handed her. Garcia passed the napkin across quietly. Her fingers lingered for half a second before letting go. She did not say anything. Did not crack a joke because the look in Sam’s eyes just then reminded her of something Garcia had seen before. Agents who came back from things they did not talk about. Agents who looked perfectly fine. Right up until the moment someone asked the wrong question. Garcia looked away first. Giving Sam the dignity of pretending none of them had seen the crack in the armor. Movements precise. Controlled. Too precise. Her hands trembled once, then stilled. JJ saw every detail: the way the rage folded in on itself instead of exploding outward. The way Sam would not meet her eyes now, not because she did not want to, but because if she did, something might crack wide open and never close again.

Reid leaned toward JJ quietly, voice barely a breath. “Her heart rate spiked to 148 during the snap. It’s coming down now. Slowly.” His own fingers drummed an anxious rhythm on his knee.

“I know,” JJ said softly. She’s still bleeding. Just not where we can see.

Across the aisle, Tara spoke again, not probing this time. Neutral. Almost kind. Her eyes were softer now; regret flickering in the tiny lines at their corners. “When you want to tell it,” she said, “tell it correctly.”

Sam did not respond, but she nodded once. Barely. The motion was so small it could have been a trick of the light. The jet hummed on. Ink stained her fingers like an accusation. The broken pen lay in two pieces on the foldout tray. JJ felt something settle heavily in her chest – not fear, not doubt … certainty. Whatever happened five years ago, Sam carried it like a verdict she had already served. Moreover, she would rather snap plastic in her own hand than let anyone see where it still bled.

The jet touched down harder than usual, or maybe it just felt that way. No one mentioned the broken pen. No one mentioned the silence that followed. Nevertheless, it rode with them down the stairs and across the tarmac like an unspoken passenger. SUVs waited in a neat row.

Hotch started issuing assignments automatically. “JJ, you’re with me. Prentiss, Lewis, Lieutenant —” Sam turned at the sound of her title, her shoulders squaring a fraction tighter, the faint creak of her leather jacket the only sound.

Rossi stood beside the open door of one of the black SUVs, sunglasses on, expression unreadable. “You’re with us.”

It was not a suggestion. Sam inclined her head once, sharp, military crisp and adjusted course without hesitation. Sliding into the front passenger seat beside him while Rossi took the wheel. In the back, Garcia claimed the spot directly behind Sam, with Reid settling in behind Rossi.

Garcia perked up immediately. “Oh, good, emotional supervision vehicle.”

Reid blinked. His fingers twitched once against his satchel strap before stilling. “That’s not an official designation.”

“It is in my heart.” Garcia slid into the backseat beside Reid. Rossi took the driver’s seat, and Sam sat next to him in a quietness that felt surreal.  Doors shut. The engine started. For a minute, no one spoke. Traffic hummed around them. Sam watched the city pass by through tinted glass. Contained again.

Rossi checked his mirrors and then said casually, “You handled yourself well on the jet.”

Sam did not look up. “I snapped a pen.”

“Plastic’s replaceable.”

Reid glanced at her. “You redirected a stress spike without escalation. That’s … statistically impressive.”

Garcia nodded emphatically. “Very dignified pen destruction.”

Sam huffed a breath despite herself. Almost a laugh quickly contained.

Rossi’s voice remained easy. “Emily and Tara push. It’s what they do.”

“They’re good at it,” Sam said evenly.

“Yes,” Rossi agreed. “They are.”

He did not press immediately. He let the silence breathe.

Reid shifted slightly. “Earlier this morning,” he said carefully, “when you had trouble regulating your breathing … that wasn’t the first time.” It was not a question. His head tilted just enough.

Sam’s jaw tightened. “No.”

Rossi nodded once, eyes still on the road. “Five years ago?”

Garcia shot him a look in the rearview mirror. “David.”

“I’m not interrogating,” Rossi replied calmly. “I’m contextualizing.” His free hand rested open on his thigh.

Sam stared straight ahead.

The anger from the jet had not cooled. It had compacted.

Dense.

Heavy.

“You don’t owe us that story,” Rossi continued. “But I’ve been doing this job longer than most of you have been alive.”

Garcia scoffed softly. “Rude but accurate.”

Rossi just smiled at her. “When files get sealed like that, it’s usually to protect someone. Not bury them.”

Sam’s throat got dry and she tried to swallow once.

Reid’s voice was softer. “Your physiological response on the jet wasn’t shame-driven.”

Sam blinked.

“It was anger-based,” Reid clarified. “You weren’t afraid of what they’d think. You were angry they were guessing wrong.”

That hit closer than the others had. Sam looked at him then.

Sam turned her head just enough to meet his eyes in the rearview. Reid did not flinch.

“You helped me breathe this morning,” she said quietly.

Reid nodded. “You did most of it yourself.” His thumbs circled once in his lap, then stopped. Garcia leaned forward slightly and reached over the seat, gently prying Sam’s ink-stained hand open where it rested on her thigh.

“You’re still clenching.”

Sam had not noticed. Her fingers eased open slowly under Garcia’s touch.

Rossi spoke again, not unkindly. “Did you follow orders and lose someone anyway?”

Silence filled the SUV. The city blurred by.

Sam finally answered, “Yes.”

Reid’s mouth softened at the corners.

Garcia squeezed Sam’s hand once, thumb brushing lightly over her knuckles before letting go and settling back.

Rossi’s jaw set. “Chain of command can be a cruel thing.”

“Yes,” Sam said, voice flat but steady. Her shoulders eased a fraction.

He nodded.

“That doesn’t make it your failure.”

Sam’s laugh was low and humorless. “With respect, sir, that’s not how accountability works.”

Rossi glanced at her briefly from the driver’s seat.

“No,” he said. “But it is how survival works.”

The words lingered.

Reid leaned back slightly. “You exhibit hyper-responsibility markers.”

Garcia frowned at him. “Baby genius, translate.”

“You assume disproportionate blame to maintain a sense of control,” Reid said gently. “If it’s your fault, then it was preventable. And if it was preventable, then it won’t happen again.”

Sam stared ahead again.

That one went straight through the armor.

Garcia’s voice softened completely now. “Oh.”

Rossi turned onto the highway ramp. “You don’t have to tell the others,” he said. “Not until you want to. But don’t let them reduce it to a guessing game.”

Sam swallowed.

“You shut it down,” she said.

“I did.”

“Why?”

Rossi’s answer came without hesitation. His grip on the wheel loosened.

“Because I’ve seen what it costs when good agents carry something alone too long.”

Reid nodded faintly. “It compounds.”

Garcia reached forward again, giving Sam’s shoulder a brief, gentle squeeze from the back seat. “And because we don’t eat our own.”

Sam leaned back into the seat.

The anger was still there. However, it was not boiling anymore. It had… somewhere to sit. Her next breath came deeper, quieter.

After a moment, Garcia tilted her head.

“So,” she said softly, “is at least one of your tattoos for them?”

Sam closed her eyes briefly. “Yes.”

Reid inhaled slowly.

Garcia’s hand lingered a second longer on Sam’s shoulder before withdrawing.

Rossi did not say anything. He did not need to.

The SUV rolled toward the crime scene and for the first time since the jet, Sam did not feel like she was bracing for impact. Her hand stayed open, relaxed on her thigh.