#finale re-write

A/N: If they wanted to do a Reid/JJ storyline and drop a bombshell this is how I would have done it. The Jeid in this fic is 100% Platonic 

That’s what Friends are For

Season 14 Finale and Final 10 as written by #lilaswordsandthings for all my lovely fellow CM Fans.  @illegalcerebral @dontshootmespence @stunudo @reid-effect

Chapter 1: Bombshell

 When Reid stepped off the elevator and entered the BAU through the glass doors, he never expected how much his life would change that day. He did, however, notice that JJ seemed to be eyeing him with a strange look on her face. She smiled at him, but there were tears in her eyes and her hands shook as she poured her coffee. Had something happened?  Reid immediately went over to talk to her.

 “Morning Spence.” She said when she saw him.

 “JJ, is everything alright?” He asked.

 Is everything alright? JJ didn’t know how to answer that. There was a lot of good and a lot of bad in the bombshell that had just been dropped on them, on him. So no, everything was not alright, but it wasn’t all bad either. She knew he’d asked because of the look that must have been on her face when he’d walked in. He had no idea. He was worried about her, which, at that moment, was just bizarre.

“I’m fine Spence.” She assured him.

 “JJ, something is obviously going on, what is it?”

“It’s complicated, we can talk about it later. Emily was looking for you, she’s in her office.” She replied.

 “O-K…” He said, still analyzing her facial expressions as he headed up the stairs to Emily’s office.

 When he got there, Emily was sitting at her desk. She appeared to be reading a case file, perhaps their next, but he could tell that she wasn’t focused on the file’s contents. She was only reading it to make it look like she wasn’t just sitting there waiting for him. At this point, between her and JJ, he had a sinking feeling that his life was about to be turned upside down again. This feeling only worsened when he realized they weren’t alone. There was another woman, one he didn’t remember ever seeing before. She was sitting on the small loveseat in Emily’s office, which had been relocated from its usual place across from her desk to backed up against the window, directly across from where Reid was standing. The woman wore a red sweater, a long floral skirt, and a long necklace made up of large red and pink beads, she had short, pixie-cut brown hair. Something about this woman told Reid she was here in some kind of official capacity and that had him unnerved, so he kept his focus on Emily.

 “JJ said you wanted to see me?” He asked.

 “Spencer, good morning, go ahead and have a seat.” She said as she stood up and closed the door.

 He obeyed. Despite himself, he looked from Emily to their guest and back with nervous curiosity.  

 “What’s going on Emily?” He asked.

 “We need to talk.” She replied. “Spencer, this is Carolyn Frankfort, she’s with social services in Las Vegas Nevada. She came here to talk specifically to you. Did you ever know a woman named Rebecca Thompson?” Emily asked.

 “Yeah, she’s a couple of years younger than me. She grew up living in an apartment above her family’s restaurant. We grew up together, outside of you guys she’s one of the best friends I’ve ever had.” He explained.

 “When was the last time you spoke with her?” Ms. Frankfort asked, speaking up for the first time.

 “Last week, last Sunday at ten-thirty PM to be exact. I haven’t seen her in a little over three years, not since I went down to Las Vegas to get the rest of my mom’s things. Why? What happened? Why is social services involved in this?”

 “There really is no good way to say this. She died, a week ago.” She began, pausing to give him a moment to process this.

 Reid was aghast. How could one of his oldest and most treasured friends suddenly be gone? He had to know everything. “Go on…” he said, nodding as if to reassure her that whatever came next, he could take it.

 She was discovered on the steps of All Saints Orthodox Church just after midnight a week ago today. The priest there was leaving when he discovered a newborn wrapped in a blanket and left on the floor of the narthex. He picked up the child and opened the door to see if the mother might still be in the area. That’s when he saw a woman in her mid-thirties with black hair laying on the steps leading up to the building. He set the child down on a chair and tried to resuscitate her but, it was already too late. He called the police, who called us and that’s when I became the little girl’s case manager. As I’m sure you’re aware when the in-state search fails to identify a suitable guardian a child would normally be put into the foster system. However, it appears Miss Thompson took great pains to ensure that didn’t happen in this instance.

 “You didn’t find anyone?” Emily asked, she’d been silent up to now but the horror of what she was hearing had made her speak up.

“No.” She answered

 Reid shook his head. “I’m not surprised. Becca’s only other family are her parents, and social services would never place a baby with them. Her mom is severely mentally ill, she’s volatile and abusive. When we were kids, Becca would quite often have cuts and bruises all over her. She tried to hide these with long clothes and dark makeup, but it didn’t always work. By the time she was ten, CPS started to take notice. She was almost removed from her parents’ custody three separate times, but each time her dad covered for his wife and talked their way out of it.”

 “He’s right, which is why even though she is their grandchild we can’t place her with them. Fortunately, Miss Thompson left us other instructions. There was a handwritten letter placed inside the blanket she was wrapped in. You can read the whole thing for yourself but essentially it states that she knew she was dying and rather than let her daughter be raised either by her parents or complete strangers, she’d like you to raise her. She told us who you are and where we could find you. Now, normally the odds would favor the grandparents in a case like this but, taking into account that they are, in our own estimation, unfit, and the mother’s wishes you do have a legitimate claim to custody of this little girl.”

For a moment, Reid just sat there, unable to find the right words to sum up what he was feeling, the thoughts racing through his mind.

 “Of course, there’s a lot to work out if you do decide to adopt her, and the final decision would be up to the courts but…I leave to return to Nevada in three hours. If you agree to take her, I’ll get things started and figure out exactly what the next step is as soon as I get there.”

 “I’m doing it.” He said, cutting her off mid-sentence.

 “Reid? You don’t have to decide right this second.” Emily reminded him.

 “I’m taking her Emily. I’ve already made up my mind. It’s what Becca wanted. I owe it to her to make sure her daughter is safe and her last wishes are honored. Which means it looks like I have to go back to Vegas.”

 Emily nodded. “Ok, I’ll get Garcia to get you on the next available flight.” She said.

 “I need to get going as well or I’ll miss my flight…”

 “I’ll walk you out as far as the elevator.” Emily replied, turning to Reid she said: “Wait here, I’ll be back.”

 He nodded as they left the room. Reid didn’t understand any of this. Becca had only been thirty-four years old. The last time he’d heard from her, she’d seemed fine. She’d never told him that there was anything wrong, or that she was pregnant. He didn’t know what to think. He needed answers, answers only a trip to Las Vegas would answer.

                                                           ***

 Ten minutes later, Emily walked into Garcia’s office.

 “Morning Garcia…”

 “Morning. Do we have a case? Or did you just come to say ‘hi’?”

 “Neither. Actually, I need something else, two tickets on the next available commercial flight from here to Las Vegas.”

 “You got it, you got it,” Garcia replied, pulling up the website for every major airline. “What’s this about?”

 “It’s a long story. Apparently, an old friend of Reid’s suddenly died roughly a week ago, he had no idea until this morning. It turns out that the last thing she did was abandon her newborn daughter in a church with a note pinned to her blanket asking Reid to raise her.”

 “OMG, Em… please tell me you’re kidding.” Garcia asked as she sat there multitasking.

 “I wish, and to make matters worse, the only reason the friend hasn’t been buried yet is that the ME hasn’t pinned down a cause of death.”

 “What about the baby?”

 “Reid’s determined to adopt her. That’s why he’s going to Vegas, to start that process.”

 “Is he ok?”

A/N: It looks like this fic is going to end up being longer than I initially thought, and that is ok with me. *If You Like This Fic, Please reblog it/comment. We Fanfic writers need to help each other out. I’m Tagging all the usual suspects 

@illegalcerebral @dontshootmespence @reid-effect @stunudo @ultrarebelheart   

Chapter 2: A Thousand Questions

 A new case came in a few hours after Reid and JJ left for the airport. As Matt, Tara, Alvez, and Rossi filed into the conference room they couldn’t help but notice that two of their teammates were conspicuously missing.

 “Ok, now that everybody’s here, let’s get started,” Emily said.

 “Wait a minute, we’re not all here.” Tara pointed out.

 “Yeah, she’s right.” Matt agreed. “Where are Reid and JJ?”

 “They won’t be joining us. Reid was just notified of the death of an old friend, also the fact that this friend gave birth shortly before her death. It’s a long story and I promise I’ll explain everything to you guys later but right now, we need to get started.”

 “First the fiasco a few years ago, then he was abducted and almost sacrificed by a cult, now this…” Tata said.

 “Yeah… that’s why I sent JJ with him. I didn’t think it was a good idea for him to go alone. That’s said, it’s important that the rest of us hold down the fort while they’re gone, so let’s get started.”

 Sensing that was her cue, Garcia grabbed the remote, stood, and began the briefing.

 “Alright my pretties, this time you’re jetting to Beatty Nevada. It’s a smaller city about two hours northwest of Las Vegas. In the last two weeks, three women, all with dark hair in their early twenties to mid-thirties, were found. They were all stripped naked, bound, strangled, severely beaten, and sexually assaulted. They were all dumped on side streets or in allies, basically lightly traveled public places. It’s still pretty early out there so the latest victim was only found a half hour ago.”

 “And as soon as they were sure she was connected to the others, they called us,” Emily added.

 “Right off the bat, it’s pretty obvious we’re looking for a male offender. Men get off on this kind of violence, women don’t.” Tara said.

 “He could’ve chopped them up and/or buried them, even just dumped them in more isolated areas. It wouldn’t be hard in a city surrounded by desert, but he chose not to. It’s important to him that they’re found quickly, and in as compromising a state as possible. He’s getting off, not just on the violence, but on humiliating these women” Rossi theorized.

 “And once and Unsub like this gets started, it only gets worse. Wheels up in twenty.”

                                                         ***

 Meanwhile, JJ and Reid were in the air, flying to Las Vegas. Reid was sitting by the window, JJ was in the seat to his right. She watched as he stared hopelessly out the window. JJ could only imagine what must be running through his mind.

 “Spence, it’s gonna be ok.” She said.

 “How JJ? How, when we don’t even know how Becca died?” He asked.

 JJ couldn’t think of what to say, so she just looked at him, trying to appear reassuring. Finally, she asked: “How close were the two of you?”

 “We were best friends, she was pretty much the best friend I ever had outside of our team. What I don’t understand is why she never told me she was in trouble you know? The social worker said that based on the letter, Becca knew she was dying, but I talked to her the night before. She seemed fine. She didn’t mention anything about being in trouble, or that she’d just had a baby. I had no idea she was even pregnant. Now all of a sudden, when it’s already too late to help her, she asks me to raise her daughter? None of this makes sense.”

 “Well, I don’t know her, but I do know you. The fact that she chose you to adopt her baby, Spence, mothers, especially mothers of newborns, she’s trusting you with the one thing, the one person she loved more than life itself. She asked you to do this for her, for a reason. So I have to believe that whatever was going on, there’s a reason she didn’t want you to know but it wasn’t that she didn’t trust you.”

 “I just… I need to know what happened, and I need to make sure that nothing happens to Becca’s daughter.” He replied

 Just like that, his mind drifted back to the last time he’d seen her.

 3 years earlier

 When Spencer walked into the dimly lit dining room of Thompson’s Restaurant Grill, it looked empty at first. The sign on the door had said open but there didn’t seem to be anyone there.

 “Hello? Becca?” He called out.

 Suddenly, Becca popped out from beneath the bar. She was wearing a red tank top with a black, sleeveless leather vest over it. Her black hair was cut at shoulder-length and heavily layered, and her blue eyes were framed by thick black eyeliner. She had a glass in one hand, and a dishtowel in the other.

 “Well, if it isn’t one of my favorite people.” She said with a smile. She walked out from behind the bar and wrapped him in a tight embrace. “Where have you been? It’s been forever! We miss you around here…” she told him as she squeezed before letting him go.

 “Becca, I’m pretty sure you’re the only one who still lives here who actually misses me.” He replied.

 “Dude, if I’m your only friend, that’s just sad. I don’t say that to insult you, I mean if that’s true, then that just proves what I’ve thought for years, that ninety-five percent of the human race sucks.”

 He chuckled. “You might be right about Las Vegas, but fortunately you’re far from my only friend.”

 “Good. I was about to ask you whose butts I need to kick.” She said as she set the glass down on the counter with a thud. “So what brings you back to town anyway? Your mom?”

 “Yeah, actually I’m in the process of moving her to a different facility. I came down to get the rest of her stuff. I thought I’d come say ‘hi’, before I left town.”

 “Well, I’m glad you did, want something to eat?”

 “Sure.”

 “Let me guess, the usual?”

 “How’d you know that?”

 “Spencer, I’ve known you since I was four. You’ve ordered the exact same meal every single time you’ve come in here for the last twenty years. You, my friend, are a creature of habit if there ever was one. The only variation is whether you want a soda or something with alcohol.”

 “How about water?” He asked.

 “Really? Are you changing things around just to disprove my theory?”

 “…Maybe…”

 She smiled. “Alright, coming right up, do want an orange slice?”

 “Isn’t it usually lemon?”

 “Not here. My house, my rules, and the first rule is…” she paused for dramatic effect, “weirdness is a good thing.”

 He smiled.“Alright then. Yes, put an orange in it.”

 “Way ahead of you.” She replied, filling a tall glass with ice water and getting an orange out of the cooler to her left. Before slicing it she turned to the kitchen door behind her, opened it a crack, and yelled into the kitchen. “Hey Pop, I need a turkey club with fries, extra sauce no cheese.” Then she finished what she was doing and handed Spencer his water.

 “So, how’s everything going?” He asked.

 “Great, I’m teaching graphic design as an adjunct professor at Alta. I only still moonlight here to help Pop out, since Mama can’t.”

 “That’s great!” he exclaimed. “I know you loved it when you were a student there.”

 “I did indeed.” She said. “Don’t think I don’t know the real reason you’re asking Spencer. It’s better now that I have my own place. I’m only here about twenty hours a week, almost all of which is spent down here and not up in our old apartment so, I hardly ever see her these days.”

 “You just told me that things are great, but you just said that like it’s a bad thing.” He pointed out.

 She sighed. “I guess, if I’m honest with myself, I kinda feel guilty about how much happier I am not being here as much.”

                                                    Present Day

 “Spence? You ok?” JJ asked, drawing him back to the present.

 “Y-heah, I’m fine. W-why do you ask?”

 “You’ve been staring into space for the last half hour like you were somewhere else. What were you thinking about?”

 “The last time I saw her. It was when I was moving my mom from Bennington to Houston. I went to look for her at her family’s restaurant. Even after she graduated from college, she still worked there part time helping her dad out. She was there, we talked, I had dinner. She seemed fine, happier than I’d ever seen her. Actually, it was like the life she wanted was finally coming together. Now I’m just wondering what changed.” He said, glancing over to meet JJ’s eye.

 She knew that look. Help me understand.

 “What do you mean?” She asked.

 “I mean, she’s fine, her career’s finally headed where she’s always wanted it to go, she’s cut almost all ties with her abusive mother and then…this… Even with the letter, social services wouldn’t have even notified me about the baby if they knew who the father was, so she either didn’t know herself, or doesn’t want him in daughter’s her life for some reason. I’m guessing it’s the latter. Becca was… a little rough around the edges but sleeping with and getting pregnant by someone she didn’t know just doesn’t fit. Then she gives birth, immediately abandons her child, and dies suddenly of no apparent cause on the steps of a church? None of it makes any sense to me.”

 “I asked Garcia to look into the last few years of your friend’s life so we can try to figure out what happened to her,” JJ told him. “We should have some answers by the time we land.”

 “Thanks for coming with me JJ.” He said.

 “Of course.”

 “Really…I… I don’t know how I’d get through this without you…”

 “I’m right here Spence. Whatever happens, I’m always on your side.”

 “You’re the best.” He replied, smiling for the first time since hearing the news.

 “So, you think she knew who the baby’s father is?” JJ asked.

  Tagging all the usual suspects (if you want to join that list just reply and tell me so) @illegalcerebral @dontshootmespence @stunudo@reid-effect  

Chapter 3: Becca’s Daughter

 A few hours later, when they finally landed in Las Vegas and got to their hotel, the first thing they did was call Garcia from Reid’s room.

 “Hey Pen, you’re on speaker. Did you find anything that might give us a clue about what happened to Rebecca Thompson?” JJ asked.

 “Unfortunately, my pretties, what I found leads us to few answers and more questions. First of all, she did, in fact, teach part-time at the same Fine Arts school she attended in the early 2000s, but here’s where things get weird. Eight months ago she moved to a different apartment, in a different building, in another part of the city. Her most recent address was much further away from both the university and her parents’ restaurant. Then all of a sudden about six months ago she left the university, stopped working at the restaurant, and started living off her savings. It looks like she basically became a hermit, but she did some paintings of hers from an online gallery she created but she put all of that money in a savings account that seems to have been set up for that express purpose. Once the payments were deposited she never touched them.”

 “Why would she move away and quit the job she loved?” Reid asked.

 “I have no idea, unfortunately after that six-month mark, she doesn’t exactly leave a much of a paper trail. She made regular cash withdrawals roughly once a week, all from different ATMs. Most of those were two-hundred and fifty dollars each time but there were a few that were closer to three or four hundred. If you ask me, she started using cash to intentionally hide her tracks.”

 “Well, we know she didn’t want anyone to know who the father of her child was, maybe she was afraid of him and went into hiding to protect herself just like…” JJ caught herself before she finished that sentence.

 “Ok, something tells me that JJ might be on the right track, so I’m gonna go ahead and see if Rebecca filed a restraining order against anyone in the past year,” Garcia asked.

 “Please do,” Reid asked.

 “Thanks, Penn.”

 “But of course, my loves,” Garcia replied before hanging up.

 JJ watched as Reid paced around the room. “Spence…we will find out what happened to her. We’ll go to social services first and see what you have to do to take custody of Rebecca’s daughter, then we’ll see if the ME has finished the autopsy yet and if not we can go talk to her co-workers at the university. I promise you, we’ll dig as much as we have to, as deep as you want to take this. It won’t bring her back but it’s better than not knowing.”

 “I know. JJ, I meant what I said on the plane. If you weren’t here I don’t know what I’d do right now. I’ve known Becca since we were little kids and even when I left Las Vegas we never lost contact, not even after all these years. I used to visit her every time I came home to see my mom. Becca was the type of person who always had a plan. Sometimes what she did only made sense to her but she never did anything randomly; it was like she had everything planned out and you were a step behind her trying to figure out what was going on in her head as you went along.”

 “Sounds like that could get pretty frustrating.”

 “It could be, but I learned a long time ago to just trust that she knew what she was doing. The difference here is this time she’s not around to fill me in, about her death, about the baby, about any of this.”

 “Well, then let’s start with the breadcrumbs she left behind. We won’t learn anything pacing around a hotel room will we?”

                                                     ***

At Social Services Ms. Frankfort was there waiting for them. As soon as she saw them arrive, she took Reid and JJ into her office. She sat down at her desk, Reid and JJ took their seats in the two chairs opposite her.

 “This is my friend JJ.”

 “It’s nice to meet you,” JJ added.

 “Likewise.”

 “So what’s my next move?” Reid asked impatiently.

 “Ok, while I was waiting for you I did some research since the crossing of state lines means we have to account for the laws governing this process in two different states. Now, as I understand it, your ultimate goal is to formally adopt her, is that correct?” She asked.

 “Yes,” Reid answered. “As soon as possible, I don’t want her to be in foster care any longer than necessary.”

 “Well, in order to bring her home as quickly as possible, your best bet is to wait on formal adoption and instead focus on becoming her legal guardian right now. That’s a usually a quicker and less complicated process. Plus, it would give us a reason to transfer her case to CPS in DC, which would smooth the road to formal adoption quite a bit because the inter-state business and differing sets of laws would no longer be an issue.”

 “And how long does that usually take?” JJ asked.

 “Once the hearing actually takes place, not long at all, but there’s usually a two to three month waiting period between the initial filing of a petition for guardianship and that hearing taking place.”

 “Three months?” Reid asked.

 “However,” She continued, “there might be a way to expedite that.”

 “How?”

 “If it were an open and shut case, the judge might be persuaded to have the hearing sooner out of the best interests of the child. The letter than Miss Thompson left with her daughter goes a long way in that direction but it’s not the same thing as a legal document. The letter says that she was aware that she was dying. If she knew she didn’t have a lot of time left, she might have made those arrangements in a more binding form.”

 “You mean like a will?” Reid asked.

 “That’s exactly what I mean. If she had one and it says the same thing that letter does, then the hearing becomes all but a formality as long as you pass the background check, which considering the FBI has higher standards for that than we do, there shouldn’t be any doubt about that going smoothly. Once you become her guardian, at that point you would be allowed to bring her home.”

 “What’s her name?”

 “She doesn’t have one yet. For babies who are found under circumstances like these, we file what’s called a foundling certificate. It’s like a birth certificate except the baby isn’t given a name. Then we go back once a legal guardian is established and amend their certificate with whatever name their adoptive guardians give them. That might be something to start thinking about. In the meantime, would you like to meet her?”

 “C-can I?” He asked. “Is she here?”

 Ms. Frankfort nodded. “Excuse me, I’ll just be a moment.” She replied before leaving the room.

 Reid knew she couldn’t have been gone for long but to him, it felt like hours.

 “This is it, Spence, you ready?” JJ asked.

 He nodded.

 When Ms. Frankfort came back in, she was cradling an infant wrapped in a pink, black, and white plaid fleece blanket. “Here she is.” She said, bringing her over to Reid and placing her gently in his arms.

 He looked down at her and noticed that she already had a mop of thick, silky, black hair, then, after a few seconds, as though she was aware of his gaze, she opened her eyes and looked up at him. Her eyes were a bluish gray, more muted in color than her mother’s had been, but they were bright and alert. She smiled, and after freeing her arm, reached up. Reid met her halfway and gave her a finger to hand on to. “Hi, little one… my name’s Spencer, and I was friends with your mommy. You’re safe now, I’m gonna take good care of you.”

 “She’s a sweetheart,” Ms. Frankfort commented, “Since it was pretty obvious in her case who her guardian was going to be, I’ve been taking care of her, my own daughter was holding her just now. We estimate she’s about eight or nine days old, that blanket is the same one she was wrapped in when she was found. I tried to get her a new one, but she just cried non-stop.”

 “But wouldn’t she be too little to recognize that specific blanket?” JJ asked.

 “I don’t think it is the blanket itself, if this is the blanket Becca wrapped her in, then it might still have her scent on it as well as her own,” Reid explained. “That familiarity would make her feel secure.”

 When he looked back down at the little girl, she was fast asleep.

 “Awe” JJ exclaimed in a whisper.