Hope for the Hopeless [Jemily]

Impulsive (Adj.)

long chapter! ~1700 words

May 24, 2007
— JJ's POV
Reid and I were sent out a while ago to interview a witness on our case. He made a 9-1-1 call to register a disturbance next door, and the information he probably had was vital to our team. This property was really giving me the creeps, though. Reid and I slowly trekked up an uneven path of dirt to a rusty old house that was neighboring a rusty old barn. I knocked on the door and a young man answered. I cleared my throat, "Hi, Mr. Hankle?"

"Um... Yeah?"

"Mr. Hankle, FBI. I'm Agent Jareau, this is Agent Reid."

"FBI?"

"Mhmm. May we come in?"

"Um... I'm sorry, I don't let anyone in the house."

Reid squeaked out, "Actually, I, uh, really have to, um... You know, go?"

I scrunched my brows, "You do?"

He nodded, "For 30 minutes."

"Why didn't you say something in the car?"

He ignored my question and asked the man, "Uh, do you mind?"

"I'm sorry. My father doesn't like it."

"Your father? You're, like, 30."

"At what age can one start disrespecting the wishes of their parents?"

My patience was running out so I just got to the point, "You witnessed something a few months ago that might be very helpful to us."

"I did?"

"You saw someone go over a wall into a yard, you called the police?"

"Me?"

"You didn't? Sorry, is there another Tobias Hankle here?"

"Just me and my father. Charles."

"There's a report on file that lists you as calling 9-1-1. You were walking a dog."

"No, that's wrong, I don't have a dog."

"Oh. All right. Well, sorry to bother you, sir."

Reid butted in, "Are you sure I can't just quickly use the-- Sorry. Have a good night."

I made a face at Reid, "That's weird. Why bother calling the police in the first place if later, you're just going to pretend you didn't?"

A light bulb went on in his brain, "To gauge the response time."

"What?"

"If you were going to kill somebody, but you wanted to call the police first, what would you need to know?"

"How long it takes them to get there..." Spencer darted away to the side of the house. I called him back, "Reid!"

He whisper-yelled to me, "JJ! Get back here!" I jogged over to him as he continued, "He's the unsub!" We saw Hankle run out his back door and into the barn, "He's in the barn, come on!.. He's in here."

"You sure?"

He cocked his gun, "You ever seen me pull this thing out when I wasn't? Call Hotch."

I sighed, "We're in the middle of nowhere, Reid. We have no cell service."

"Right. Of course we have no service."

"What do we do?"

"I don't know. He's definitely in here. You cover the front, I'm gonna go around back. Hotch knows we came here. He'll come looking for us. We'll just wait him out." Reid got up and started running around back.