#jalvez

There was an uneven number of men and women on that case. Reid had gone to visit his mom, which left Emily, Tara, JJ, Matt, Rossi, and Luke. No one thought twice about JJ and Luke sharing a room. She was married, and he was dating Penelope. Her best friend. Nothing would happen. Nothing could happen.

At least that’s what they all thought.

JJ was upset. She was claiming she didn’t feel appreciated by Will, that she loved him, but the spark was gone, and she had a wanting, a longing deep in her soul.

Luke offered her a shoulder to cry on. And that’s when things started to go downhill. He must have drank his whiskey a little too fast that night. Besides, he had always had a thing for blondes.

They didn’t mean to do it. It just… happened. 

When they woke up in the morning they weren’t in each other’s arms, there was nothing romantic like that. They didn’t even wake up in the same bed. They woke up naked on the floor because they hadn’t even cared enough about the deed to do it in a bed.

They knew it was wrong, but neither of them had the power in themselves to stop it. The damage had already been done, so they might as well milk it for all it was worth.

A sin was a sin. Luke knew that. Once or a million times didn’t matter, it had been done. Everything he had ever believed in and valued had been thrown out the window. And he let it. 

It wasn’t that Luke didn’t love Penelope. He did. It was just… ever since she had left the team, he had been longing for that kind of tension again for someone he saw and spoke to day in and day out. He was only a man, after all. 

And it wasn’t that JJ didn’t love Will. She did. But this was new and exciting and she had needed it.

The worst part was they didn’t even like each other. There were no feelings between them. It was simply sex. His lips fastened securely to her neck… hands running everywhere… they were just warm bodies to each other. They were just blowing off steam.

It didn’t last very long.

Luke came to visit Penelope when he got home after a case, and that was when he saw the bruise. 

“Luke, oh my god, are you okay? Did you get hurt? What—” she reached out to touch it and they froze at the same moment.

He didn’t freeze because he was scared. He froze because he knew he was caught. It was all about to be over.

“Luke.” Her voice came out so broken. “Luke is that a hickey?”

He looked away. 

“Luke did you… did you sleep with someone else?” She didn’t want to know. She had to. She desperately wanted to be wrong. She knew she wasn’t.

He didn’t bother lying. He regretted it, but he knew it was a choice he made again and again. He knew they couldn’t survive this. “I did.”

And that was when the scent hit her like a brick wall. She knew that scent. She’d helped the wearer pick it out. Her eyes welled with tears. “Did you sleep with JJ?”

“Yes.”

“Just like that? No remorse? Are you even sorry?” She was sobbing, doing all she could to stay standing.

“Of course, I’m sorry. Yes, I regret it. But I’m not going to lie to you about it. After what I did to you, you deserve the truth. But I can’t claim this was a mistake if I kept making the choice. I do love you, Penelope, but I know you will never forgive me for this, and I don’t expect you to. I know we’re done.”

“Do you? Do you love me? How can you stand there and tell me you love me when you’ve been sleeping with my married best friend? How could you do this to me? You were the one person I could see myself spending my life with and now— you know what? Just get out. Go home, go. I’ll put any of your things on the front porch tomorrow morning, you can pick them up when I’m not here just get out. I never want to see you again.”

He left without another word. 

The second he was gone she called JJ. “You slept with him?” Penelope screamed into the phone the second JJ answered.

“Pen…”

“No, don’t you dare. Don’t you dare call me that right now. I just. How long?”

“A month.” 

Penelope sobbed. “How could you do that to me? You know how much I love him. How much he meant to me. How could you do that to me? How could you do that to Will? How could you do that to your children?”

“I don’t have an excuse.”

“Good, because even if you did, I wouldn’t want to hear it. I don’t ever want to talk to you again.”

So Penelope and Luke broke up. JJ and Will got divorced, and Will got full custody of the boys. They didn’t want to spend time with the woman who tore apart their family anyway. Luke and JJ were immediately fired for inappropriate workplace conduct and never saw each other again. In fact, they never saw anyone from the team again, having been ostracized by their old friends the second the news got out. Penelope never trusted another person ever again.