Shock And Awe

My Monster

A/N: Please note that other triggering content (self-harm and suicide will be discussed) throughout the story. Please be forewarned and take precautions if these are troubling for you.

A/N: The first several chapters are to provide you all with the backstory for these lovely ladies. Since the story begins midway through season 7, I want to make sure that I give you as much information as possible about what has happened in the five years they have known each other as possible, so that when the story kicks into high-gear and previous interactions or situations are mentioned, including the introduction of new characters and storylines that were not part of the original show, upcoming chapters will be make more sense.

I hope you enjoy the story...and please review...Now on with the show!!!

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"The blade sings to me. Faintly, so soft against my ears, its voice calms my worries and tells me that one touch will take it all away. It tells me that I just need to slide a long horizontal cut, and make a clean slice. It tells me the words that I have been begging to hear: this will make it ok." ~ Amanda Steele

"Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." ~ Stephen King
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Chapter 11

I chance a quick glance over to JJ and realize that she is lost in thought. Good. Maybe she's forgotten about what happened a little while ago. Hopefully she's moved on and is worrying about something else other than me now. Maybe she's just thinking about Henry and making plans for when he gets home. I wonder why he's staying at her parent's place instead of with Will? I know she said he's out of town for a few days, but still. Why didn't Will just take Henry with him? I wonder where he had to go that he couldn't take Henry? Guess that's not really my concern though.

I hear the pilot come over the intercom to say that we will be landing shortly. It's enough to shake JJ from her thoughts. Damn it. I quickly look back out the window again. Hopefully she won't notice that I had been staring at her for a few minutes. That's the last thing I need; for her to start thinking about me again and my damn "lake injury". God. I just hope she believed me. I really don't want to have to deal with having to explain that whole situation to someone. I have a hard enough time trying to figure it all out myself. How can you begin to explain something like that to someone else when you can't really wrap your mind around it yourself?

Still, I start to wonder about it all. I try to remember back to when and why it all started again. When I started at the BAU, I hadn't self-harmed in years, and honestly, I hadn't thought about for quite some time. But something happened once I started working there. I'm not sure if it was the stress from all of the emotions I was trying to keep contained, seeing all of the criminals and what they did to their victims, or something else.

I just knew I needed to prove to everyone that I belonged there. I had to prove that I could be professional and strong. I wasn't there because of my mother or some other political reason, but because I was qualified. In fact, I was over-qualified, given my Interpol and CIA background, but they weren't aware of that then. I needed to show everyone, myself included, that the BAU was where I meant to be.

Plus, I didn't want to go back to the CIA. I knew I couldn't handle another undercover assignment; especially not with how everything ended with Ian. That left me with a lifetime of secrets to try and hide. I already had more than a lifetime stashed away in my hidden compartments before that assignment; that just added more secrets and lies for me to try and figure out a way to "contain". Plus, I had other important reasons that I needed to remain in DC. Reasons that I couldn't let anyone else know about.