The bird's opening - Criminal Minds - JJ

Integrity

Virginia, 2014

They all knew they should probably not be working that case. Not only were they personally attached to someone involved, in this case, there was information from the State that they probably - well, most likely - would never be allowed to see. But that be damned. Someone from their family was in danger and there was no way they would step back now.

So, with that mindset, Rossi and Blake rushed straight to JJ's old office as soon as Hotch sent them off to try and find anything that could help them figure out anything about JJ's disappearance.

"This has to be JJ's foxhole." Rossi announced, pulling open the door and flicking on the lights as he let Blake step inside with him. "It was her office when she was liaison. Hotch handles most of the paperwork now, but before JJ was a profiler, she reviewed cases in here."

Blake nodded then, her eyes running around the room as she took everything in. There were piles and piles of casefiles laying around, one on top of the other. Blake thought they could spend hours in that office to try and find anything regarding JJ's time in the state, but, if the team was right and she had decided to keep whatever information she still had on her State days, it wouldn't be shoved anywhere in that mess. JJ was organized, she wouldn't risk losing anything - especially not something as important as this.

"Well, she wouldn't hide anything too far out of reach." Blake said, as she moved toward JJ's old desk and started pulling open drawers.

The first one had nothing but old pens and pencils and clips - nothing too out of ordinary for an office desk. The second one was empty. JJ probably stocked sweets or hygiene products there that she now stored on her desk at the bullpen. When Blake pulled open the third drawer, however, she knew she had hit something.

"All right, 4 digits." Blake announced, after taking a good look at the safe she found at the very back of the drawer. "Any ideas?"

Rossi stopped for a moment, putting down the few files he had in his hands he turned around to look at Blake, who was already looking at him. Rossi wasn't the closest to JJ, he knew, but he knew her for a long time now - almost six years now - and Blake only knew her for a little over a year, so it was fair that she expected Rossi to give her something. And Rossi tried, thinking back to who JJ was and who he knew her to be. A liaison before, a profiler now. She was an FBI agent, but, more than that, she was a barve, kind woman. She was lots of things, Rossi knew, but he also knew that, before all of that - before anything, really -, JJ was a mother.

"Henry's birthday is November 12th." He said, as Blake nodded, trying the combination on the safe.

"1112." She mumbled, pressing the buttons and shaking her head when it beeped, but didn't unlock. "That's too easy."

"Try 2008." Rossi said. "The year she became a mom."

Blake did, pressing the buttons on the safe and smiling a little when it beeped again, but unlocked. She pulled open the safe's door, reaching inside as she pulled out a file from inside and flipping it open, as she took a look over it, with Rossi approaching her to take a look as well.

"What's Integrity?" Blake frowned a little when she noticed the word, marked on the papers.

"I don't know." Rossi admitted, pulling his cell phone from his pocket as he shot the rest of the team a text with what him and Blake had just uncovered. "But someone does."

***

Hotch didn't like being there. He had been a lawyer before the BAU, he knew how the politics worked - especially when the State was involved - so he hated the fact that he was having to even step foot in the place, but he needed to talk to try. If the State was the only place that he could get the information he needed from, then so be it. And he knew there was only one person who could give him what he wanted and that was Secretary Jackson.