January blurs into February, bringing Juliette new opportunities to progress past her idle lifestyle. After overcoming the embarrassment of the whole team knowing the repulsive details of her past, she carefully begins to form the relationships they've been trying at for almost a year.
She starts joining JJ and Morgan on runs through little-known trails in Quantico when Aaron's unavailable, making small talk like they haven't seen before. They learn of her contagious smiles when JJ brings up Henry, and do everything they can to keep each other laughing.
Juliette and Aaron spend most nights together, and although they prefer her larger townhouse, they end up spending most of their time in his apartment with Jack. Jack loves the attention, and Juliette relishes in every moment they spend watching movies or building legos.
Still without a Section Chief, Juliette helps Aaron with urgent paperwork at any chance she can get and forces him to bed after hours in his home office. She's hopeful this won't go on much longer, because he gets called in to an emergency meeting about the job at 5 in the morning.
Juliette drives Jack to school, waving off Aaron's guilt because she genuinely enjoys spending time with him. She drives straight to the office, arriving an hour earlier then the rest of the team in the hopes of saying a proper good morning to Aaron.
His door is shut when she enters the bullpen, but they briefly meet eyes through his window before she notices he's speaking with a man and sits at her desk without a word. She's barely working for twenty minutes before his door opens, and the men walk out and towards her desk.
She stands to meet them, as professional as ever when the man extends his hand. "This is Agent Mateo Cruz, he's our new Section Chief." Aaron introduces.
"Agent Leroux." She says, shaking his hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
"The pleasure is all mine." Cruz smiles. "Strauss spoke very highly of you, I'm grateful you've been able to help with the workload in her absence."
She blushes at the thought of Aaron bragging about how much of the paperwork she's done, nodding to him. "It's the least I could do. I look forward to working with you."
When he finally leaves the bullpen, Juliette leans up to Aaron with a ghost of a smile and a longer kiss for being at work. Relaxed from how great her morning has been, she doesn't get annoyed when Morgan complains how he had to run alone that morning or when Garcia comes to her for French help.
Her day would have been even better if she was able to go home, but Hotch calls them to the round table for a case early in the afternoon. "An hour ago, this man was found wandering the streets of Baltimore before he collapsed. He's unconscious and has ligature marks on his wrist, it's impossible to tell how long he's been missing." He starts.
"Are those puncture wounds in the corner of his eyes?" JJ asks.
"Yes, an an MRI confirmed that fibers in his brain had been severed."
"He had a lobotomy?"
"There's hemorrhaging and forge in object splinters embedded behind his right eye, likely for whatever tool the UnSub used." Spencer says, looking up from his file. "The entry points in his eyes are from an outpatient-style traditional lobotomy. Less mess than drilling holes like Dahmer."
"Dahmer's method killed. This didn't" Morgan concludes. "He wanted his victim to survive."
"Well, lobotomies are considered—" Spencer starts, but he's interrupted by Anderson entering the room.
"Excuse me, Agent Hotchner? Agent Cruz is here."
Hotch waves him in, gesturing to the agent. "Everyone, this is our new section chief Agent Mateo Cruz. These are agents Blake—"
Cruz cuts him off, listing of the names of the BAU members, stopping to smile at Juliette. Since she's already met him, she studies her teammates for any sign of discomfort, wary of the fact they don't take well to change.
While most of them seem alright with Cruz, JJ is abnormally stiff, looking in every direction but his. She's only intrigued for a moment, before Cruz begins to speak about the case. "I spoke to the Baltimore office, seems they're at a loss. I'd like to join you, it's not everyday cases are so close to home."
Hotch's mouth tightens ever so slightly, but he nods. "We leave in twenty minutes."
Juliette drives to Baltimore with Morgan and JJ after being assigned to the victim, sitting in the passenger seat with a file in her hands. "You ever heard of this Cruz guy?" Morgan asks once he's flipped through seemingly all of the radio stations.
"I've heard his name, I don't remember where." She shrugs, letting her curiosity get the best of her and peeking at JJ in the mirror. "JJ?"
"I know of him, but we've never crossed paths."
He seems content with this answer, moving back the radio and nodding along to the music.
Morgan immediately connects with the victim, leaving JJ and Juliette to profile from afar and keep the team updated. With ViCAP turning up nothing in this unusual MO, JJ has the idea to search wider and call Emily about Interpol incident, and they found exactly one in Berlin.
JJ leaves to tell Cruz, who had been working between the hospital waiting room and Baltimore field office. While she's gone, a doctor comes in to check on the victim's brain injury, but in the process discovers a microscopic lens had been implanted into his eye.
Juliette immediately leaves to tell the others, rounding the corner to the waiting room to find Cruz and JJ standing remarkably close to each other, speaking in whispers. Albeit more confused and intrigued, she parades her boots against the hospital floor harder to alert them of her presence.
"The splinter on that MRI is an ocular nano-implant." She starts. "The doctor's checking x-rays now to see if he can take it out."
JJ and Cruz share a brief look. "Nano-tech? That could be dangerous for the victim." She says.
"You've seen this before?" Juliette asks.
"Something like that, it's used for foreign counter intelligence."
Juliette nods along until Cruz excuses himself back to the field office, then leads JJ back to the victim's room.
It's only minutes after this that Garcia discovers the camera's live-streaming on sites all over the internet, with no way to block the transmission. They soon discover the identity of the victim, but fall another step behind when a second livestream pops up with another victim being implanted.
They spend hours studying the live footage and canvasing miles of downtown Baltimore before the rest of the team finds the UnSub, JJ, Juliette, and Morgan watching from a tablet. Hotch successfully talks down the UnSub with a lie and rescues the woman, the trio exchanging cheers from a cramped hospital room.
Morgan stays with the man until the other victim arrives, leaving JJ and Juliette alone in the hospital waiting room. Juliette would like to think they've gotten close over the previous months, enough that she doesn't feel awkward asking, "How do you know Cruz?"
JJ freezes for a moment, but eventually says, "I've never met him before today."
"I figured out where I remembered his name, he worked for the State Department years ago. Griff told me a story about him one time." Juliette says, not looking up from her file. "I heard you worked for them just before I joined."
JJ doesn't say anything, so Juliette looks up to make eye contact, she voice becoming much softer. "I understand, just... let me know if you ever want to talk."
"Thank you." JJ smiles, glancing to where Morgan's walking up towards them.
Juliette drives back to Quantico with Hotch, Morgan, and Rossi, hand laced with Aaron's as he drives. "That video of you is going viral." Morgan grins, passing his phone to Rossi.
"Agent HOTchner is—" Rossi starts, but Juliette cuts him off.
"Dave, I swear to god..."
He stops reading aloud, but still laughs every few seconds at a new comment. After Aaron squeezes her hand in concern, she mutters, "I hate social media."
Aaron turns in early after they arrive back at Quantico, Juliette inviting him to her place when she learns Jack is at a sleepover. She's barely made it through the door before he's standing on her porch with a nice red wine, his blazer long gone and polo sleeves rolled up.
They're practically attached at the hip on her sofa, making small talk through the Beatles and lingering kisses. It doesn't take long for Juliette to deepen a kiss, her breath hitching when his hand encases her ribs to slowly pull her towards him.
Juliette traces her hands down his chest and torso, unsurprised when he buckles his hips at the touch. Soon it's her turn, a breath of air leaving her lungs when his grip moves to her thigh, yet she's relaxed enough to sink into him more.
He breaks their kiss to move down her jawline, Juliette delicately running her fingers through his hair until her nips at her ear, causing her eyes roll back into her head and pull his back with a tug at his locks.
Through breathless kisses and lovingly rough grips, she's able to whisper, "Bedroom?"
Aaron doesn't waste time pulling them up from her couch and guiding them to her bedroom, as neat and effortlessly decorated as the rest of her house. Swiftly stripping of any memories of work, he's suddenly more cautious in his movements, almost conscious of himself.
That's when Juliette realizes he is self conscious, avoiding eye contact with his own scars that shine a paler white on his torso. She's not new to them, she has her own along the side of her ribs from a bullet and another from an appendectomy, but she can only begin to understand how painfully exposed he feels.
Trailing her hands down his bare chest, not avoiding or purposefully touching them, she continues with normal confidence in the hopes of distracting him. It soon works, because with one more tug of his hair she's flipped over on her back and earns a moan of satisfaction.
Bliss is an understatement for the way Juliette feels, her mouth attached to his as he moves in ways she never knew existed.
When their bodies finally relax into one another, Juliette on Aaron's chest listening to the rhythm of his heartbeat, there's a feeling of security neither of them were sure they'd every feel again.
"Juliette?" Aaron says, aimlessly tracing circles down her spine. "I love you."
"I love you, Romeo." She says, the name more romantic than joking.
Falling asleep in the most perfect way passible, under his arms with her face press against in the crook of his neck, Juliette's not sure what she did to deserve it.
emily's notes;
just an fyi that i don't write
proper smut, i'm just not
comfortable putting work
of mine like that out there.
i'm not teasing or anything,
this is just as detailed as i'm
going to get in this book.
i hope you enjoyed this chapter <3