the sky was already starting to pinken with early spring light by the time jj pulled out of the daycare parking lot. aria’s sippy cup sat on the passenger seat, her bag of now crushed crackers and a tiny backpack stuffed with finger-painted paper sticking out just behind it. aria was babbling softly in the backseat, mostly to her stuffed bunny, kicking her feet against the bottom of the car seat as she sang a song only she knew the words to. you are my sunshine – or, “‘ou my chunchine” in aria terms.
jj smiled to herself as she hit the next red light. aria softly asked for her juice, and jj reached for the sippy cup, twisted in her seat, and offered it back.
“here, bug. apple juice,” she said gently.
aria took it with both hands, then grinned around the spout. “appuuhhhle!” she repeated with glee, her soft dimples denting in a bit. jj turned forward again—just in time for her phone to ring. it came through the car speakers, name flashing across the screen.
LUKE ALVEZ
she pressed the answer button on the steering wheel.
“hey,” she said, pressing the gas pedal down and resuming their regular route home.
“jj,” luke’s voice came through, tight, clipped, too serious for five o’clock.
“you can talk,” she said, glancing back at aria in the mirror. so content, her soft eyes just taking in the world around her. “i'm just headed home.”
there was a pause. long enough to make her stomach twist.
“are you… alone?”
jj’s eyes narrowed at the road. sometimes he would ask this if there was a major case with gorey detail and descriptions that little ears didn’t need to hear. but she hadn’t gotten an email about anything new, and the tone luke had – was anything but normal.
“just me and aria,” she said.
another beat of silence.
“can you take me off speaker?”
jj felt the tension sink down her spine like a weight. she reached for the phone, pulled it off the dock, and pressed it to her ear.
“okay,” she said quietly. “go ahead.”
behind her, aria softly hummed to herself, voice full of innocence. “‘ou my chunchinee…my on’y chunchine..”
luke exhaled. even though he was off the car speaker, he could still hear aria’s innocence in the background. somehow, that made this phone call sting more.
“bau gate isn’t what we thought.”
jj’s heart skipped. she had known about bau gate, years back. it was never truly a ‘threat’. just a bunch of bullshit theorists and discussion boards. sometimes case files that went array or bad press.
“what do you mean?”
“it’s not just leaked case files or footage,” he said, voice low and steady. “it’s you. jj—your face is all over it. there are videos. deepfakes. dozens. someone made them look… like you. ”
jj’s fingers curled tighter around the steering wheel, her knuckles already whitening around the black leather.
“what kind of videos?” she asked, even though part of her already knew. she had heard about deepfakes. she had seen a national case breakout over these types of things, political warfare for public figures.
“pornographic,” luke said quietly, as if he didn’t even want to hear it. “and convincing. too convincing, jennifer im sorry. i couldn’t just keep it from you.”
jj blinked hard, the road suddenly going watery in her vision. she swallowed, jaw tightening.
“jesus,” she whispered.
aria let out a soft whimper, her hands clutched around a sippy cup that had defied the ‘no spill laws’. her white shirt, stained with juice across it. no longer pure, but stained with something not supposed to be there. “mommy..” she mumbled, her brows furrowing. “i spill..”
jj forced her voice to stay even.
“it’s okay, baby,” she said softly, the words automatic, even though every part of her felt like it was breaking all at once. “we’ll clean it up when we get home.”
then, to luke, barely above a breath. she didn’t want to even ask, but it was also clawing it’s way out of her. “how bad is it?”
“bad,” he said. “emily’s already seen them. she didn’t want me to tell you at first. she’s trying to get them scrubbed, but once they’re out there…”
jj closed her eyes for a second too long for someone driving in the car, with their daughter in the back at that, then snapped them open again. emily kept this from her. somehow, she could barely even focus on that part of this equation.
“who did this?”
“voit. and if not him, someone who wanted to hit you. hard. they didn’t just go after you as an agent, jayje. they went after you as a woman. as a mother. they knew this would affect you in more ways than it would us. your face was all over the television while you were media liaison – it gave them access. years of it.”
aria made a soft sound behind her, starting to fuss just a bit.
“mommy…” she whined, the beginnings of a cry in her voice.
jj gritted her teeth, attempting to keep every single emotion buried in her because she couldn’t crack open like every instinct was telling her to. not here. not now.
“i’ll call you back,” she said to luke.
“i’m sorry, jj.”
she hung up before he could say anything else. for a moment, she didn’t speak. just drove. aria’s whimpering built behind her, and jj pulled into the driveway as fast as she safely could, throwing the car in park.
she reached back with one hand, wiping at the spilled juice, before rubbing her daughter’s knee gently.
“it’s okay, baby,” she whispered, her voice trembling now as if she was trying to protect her from something entirely different from a bit of spilled apple juice on her shirt. “you’re okay. mommy’s got you.”
but as she climbed out of the car and unbuckled her daughter with shaking hands, jj realized the truth she couldn’t outrun: someone had taken her face. her body. her identity. her youth. and now it was out there—polluted, twisted, for the world to see. but aria didn’t know any of that. she curled into jj’s chest, warm and unknowing. jj held her tighter than she needed to, like the toddler in her arms was the only thing keeping her on the earth in this quiet moment before she made her way into her home.
the front door clicked shut behind them, and jj locked it with one hand while shifting aria higher on her hip with the other. the house smelled like lavender and dryer sheets—safe, familiar—but jj didn’t feel either of those things. not anymore. aria tucked her head under jj’s chin, thumb in her mouth, sticky bunny hanging from her fingers. she was quiet for a moment, content just to be held. jj climbed the stairs slowly, knees heavy, like the weight of what she knew now was dragging at her joints. aria hummed something against her collarbone—just a soft, sleepy tune she’d made up, probably from daycare.
it should’ve made jj smile.
but all she could think about was the videos. her face, plastered on another body. the way strangers were watching something she never did—something she never consented to—and believing it. when they reached the nursery, jj pushed open the door and stepped inside, letting the warmth and quiet of the room settle around them. it smelled like baby powder and the faintest trace of this mornings lotion. she set aria down gently on the changing table and peeled the juice stained shirt off her small frame, the toddler squirming from the cold air hitting her belly.
“mommy, cooold,” she said softly.
jj didn’t answer. she just reached for the snaps on her pants, tugged them off next. the juice-soaked leggings came away damp and sticky. she dropped them in the hamper without thinking.
aria kicked again, then giggled a bit in that soft toddler joy that just seemed to bubble up sometimes. jj didn’t laugh.
she laid a hand on aria’s tummy to keep her still, reached for the wipes and a fresh diaper. aria kept babbling, barely pausing to breathe—just little strings of words and half-sentences the way toddlers do.
“juice spill on me. i draw a sun ‘day, mommy. i yike pink. mommy?”
her voice was sweet, soft, rising and falling like a lullaby. but to jj, it all sounded like it was coming from underwater. distant. muffled. like her brain couldn’t quite catch up to the room she was standing in. she wiped aria clean, lifted her legs, and fastened the fresh diaper with practiced ease, all muscle memory. aria babbled on, none the wiser.
“mommy no talk?” she asked suddenly, brow furrowed. aria was used to jj being fully invested in every soft word that came from her lips, like each baby ted talk she gave was better than the one before. jj blinked. forced herself to look at aria, finally.
“i’m just thinking, baby,” she said quietly, voice low and raw as she leaned down for a moment, brushing a few strands of arias hair from her face. aria stared at her for a second, then reached up and pressed a chubby palm to her cheek. jj closed her eyes. just for a second. just to breathe. her daughter’s hand was warm. real. and hers. not something the internet could steal. not something twisted and falsified. not something deepfaked or dragged into a storm of violation and shame. jj opened her eyes again and kissed the center of aria’s palm.
“let’s get your jammies on, mama will be home soon,” she said softly.
she would do all of it—pajamas and stories and lullabies and cuddles—because tonight, aria still needed her. even if jj didn’t know how to hold the weight of what had been done to her. even if her own skin didn’t feel like hers right now. she could still be a mother. because that's exactly what she was.
she was a mother first.
jj soon lifted up, and began to pull the soft cotton pajama top over aria’s head, guiding her arms gently through the sleeves. the little girl didn’t complain. she never really did. aria wasn’t the loud type—not the kind to fight through a change. she was still, quiet in a way that always reminded jj of the hours just before dawn.
“hold still, sweetheart,” jj murmured as if every word that left her body didn’t burn right now.
aria laid on the changing table, still wiggling just a bit - her expression soft and calm, thumb back in her mouth. her eyes followed jj’s every movement, calm but curious. jj reached for the pajama bottoms and started sliding them up aria’s legs. her hands moved without needing to think. but her mind—her mind was miles away.
she thought of the videos. of how convincing they were apparently. how someone had stitched her face onto something obscene. how her own body had become a weapon against her. the one thing she should have control of. jj swallowed hard. aria’s soft, rhythmic sucking on her thumb filled the silence, grounding and unbearable at once.
what kind of world was this?
aria. her daughter. her quiet little girl with slow blinks and whispered questions and chubby fingers always reaching for comfort. jj looked down at her, this small, soft human she loved more than breath, and her stomach turned.
what if someone did that to her. someone looked at her face and decided to steal it. to twist it into something entirely different from the most pure, precious thing that it was.
what would stop them from doing it to aria one day? what would stop them from looking at her—a woman, a child, a girl—and deciding she was something to be taken next? she felt like she was fucking drowning.
jj blinked hard, breathing through the ache in her throat as she pulled the pants up and fastened the little drawstring. she lifted aria gently, cradling her against her shoulder, and pressed her nose to the side of her head.
aria’s thumb slipped from her mouth as she leaned in, cheek against jj’s collarbone.
“’s cold,” she whispered.
jj tightened her arms around her.
“i know,” she murmured, voice thick. jj knew aria was talking about temperature, and not the way the world felt to jj right now — but it was hard to decipher the two. “i’ll warm you up, lets head downstairs and snuggle some.”
jj began to walk down the stairs slowly, her arms wrapped around aria in a way that was too tight to be casual, too tender to be anything other than desperate. aria was awake, quiet in that soft way she always was, her head resting on jj’s shoulder, eyes blinking slow as the world passed quietly by around her – her eyes taking in all the photographs framed through the stairwell. emily and jj’s wedding. their honeymoon. aria’s newborn photos, her first beach vacation. their first christmas as a family.
jj’s mind, on the other hand, was screaming. every breath she took was filled with static. she moved on instinct instead of purpose—aria’s small hand clutching at her collar like a tether. her cheek was warm against jj’s skin, grounding. too grounding.
jj didn’t feel safe in her own body.
she could still hear luke’s voice echoing in her head:
“it’s deepfakes, jj. of you. a lot of them. pornographic. they’re everywhere.”
and then, after a long pause that hadn’t given her nearly enough time to brace for it:
“emily knows.”
jj had gone somehow colder the second he said it. cold and hollow.
“she’s known. she was trying to handle it quietly. she didn’t want you to find out.”
maybe jj understood. maybe deep down, in that small corner of herself that still felt connected to the woman she loved, she got it. emily would’ve done anything to shield her. to hold back the wave. but she hadn’t held it back, emily could not have held back a tsunami, and now jj was drowning.
the front door opened just as she reached the last step, and jj stilled as emily stepped in.
aria stirred slightly at the sound, lifting her head and softly mumbling out the sweetest, ‘mama’.
emily smiled a bit at the noise, her bag was slung over her shoulder, but she froze the second she saw them – her smile immediately disappearing. her eyes went straight to jj’s face, and everything in her shifted. jj stood silently, the weight of her daughter in her arms the only thing keeping her upright.
emily’s voice came gently.
“hey..what’s wrong, honey..?”
jj didn’t say anything for a long moment. she just looked at her—eyes red, not from crying exactly, but from the kind of pressure that comes before the breakdown. the kind of grief that hadn’t found a shape yet. emily’s hand curled slightly around the strap of her bag. her gut told her this was something she had tried to avoid before the situation was even identified.
“jj…”
jj swallowed hard.
“luke called.”
and just like that, emily stopped breathing. jj rocked aria slightly on her hip, both to comfort her and to keep herself moving, just enough to not collapse.
“he told me,” she said, her voice almost flat. “all of it. what’s on the site. what they did. what they made. and—” she blinked, hard, “that you already knew.”
aria blinked up at her, then at emily, her quiet gaze moving between them like she could feel the edges of something fraying. emily stepped forward slowly, setting her bag down on the bench by the door.
“i just..,” she said. “i just—I didn’t want you to see it. i didn’t want this for you.”
“too late.”
the words came out sharper than jj intended, and aria shifted slightly, her fingers fisting in jj’s shirt. jj kissed her head immediately, gently, reassuring her without speaking — emily’s jaw tensed, guilt creeping in.
“i was trying to protect you.”
jj’s eyes met hers, and something in them cracked—not with fury, but with something deeper. something emptier.
“you can’t protect me from this,” she whispered. “it already happened.”
emily’s shoulders dropped, her eyes flicking down to aria and then back up. jj’s voice softened, but only slightly.
“you knew they took my face and turned it into—into that, and you didn’t tell me. you just… tried to fix it first. like you could clean it up before i saw the damage.”
emily stepped forward, quieter now, her voice barely above a breath.
“i didn’t want you to feel what i felt when i saw it.”
jj’s hands curled a little tighter around aria.
“em,” she said, “i don’t feel anything.”
emily’s expression twisted.
“you can be angry with me, i shouldn’t have—”
“i’m not,” jj said, shaking her head. “i can’t even get there. i’m not mad at you. i just—” her voice faltered. “i feel like every part of me got ripped away without permission, and somehow it’s new. like after everything we’ve seen, everything we’ve survived, this still found a way to hit me in a place i didn’t know was vulnerable.”
she looked down at aria then, at her quiet face and her little sleepy eyes and the small fingers now rubbing at her bunny’s worn-out ear.
“and she has no idea,” jj whispered. “she’s in my arms and she has no idea that people out there are watching a version of her mother that isn’t even real.”
emily stepped close—close enough to touch, but didn’t reach out. jj looked up again. her eyes were glassy. she didn’t blink.
“don’t do that again,” she said. “don’t keep something like that from me. no matter how much it hurts. i don’t want to be protected from truth. i want to be trusted to stand in it with you.”
emily nodded slowly, the words sinking deep.
“okay,” she whispered. “i hear you.”
they stood there like that, neither moving, aria blinking up from between them like she could feel the air shift.
jj kissed her daughter’s temple again and whispered something soft against her hair before she looked back at emily, and emily knew. knew just how bad this had already affected her wife. how badly she wanted to stop it from touching her. how she had to accept that she couldn’t shield her from everything, especially this. part of her knew that from the beginning, though.
later that night, the house had finally settled into its softest state: lights dimmed low, dishwasher humming faintly in the background, the scent of lavender lotion still lingering in the air from aria’s bath. jj sat on the living room floor, her back resting against the couch cushions, legs folded in front of her with a throw blanket tucked over them.
aria was in her lap, completely unaware of the weight settling over her mother like dust that wouldn’t shake off. she laid on her back across jj’s thighs, her little moon-covered pajamas slightly rumpled, one foot sticking out from beneath the blanket. her head rested against jj’s stomach like it had been made to fit there, thumb in her mouth, bunny cradled under one arm. with her free hand, she slowly flipped the soft pages of a crinkly cloth book, not really reading it of course, just exploring it, pressing the corners, tracing the shapes with her tiny index finger. blues clues was playing low in the background. she wasn’t watching it, not really. the colors flickered on the screen, but her eyes were half-lidded, heavy with comfort and routine. jj ran her fingers slowly through aria’s soft hair, smoothing it over and over again like she was trying to memorize the texture, the warmth.
but her mind wasn’t here. not really. it was still caught—looping—on the images she couldn’t unsee. she had snuck away right after dinner and pulled up the site in the home office her and emily shared, and promptly vomited everything inside of her for what felt like hours.
jj knew how fast things moved in digital spaces, how quickly something false could take root and feel real. but this? this was something else. this wasn’t a mistake. it wasn’t a rumor. it was intentional. deliberate. designed. dozens of deepfakes.
her face, digitally stitched onto someone else’s body—convincing, lifelike, violated. videos of her doing things she had never done, never would do. degrading things.
she could barely breathe when luke told her. she still felt like she was floating above her own body, watching herself go through the motions. dressing aria. serving dinner. folding a tiny pair of socks. like nothing had changed.
but something had. something enormous.
she hadn’t said much since emily came home. her wife had watched her, careful, quiet, knowing. she always did. dinner had come and gone—jj hadn’t tasted it. she’d sat at the table, fork in hand, watching aria mash carrots into her tray and talk softly to her bunny like none of it had touched her. because it hadn’t. not yet. aria was still blissfully untouched.
and now, emily appeared again from the kitchen. she had changed into a soft black hoodie, her feet bare, the lines of the day slowly fading from her face. she held two glasses—wine—and knelt beside jj before offering one to her. jj reached out slowly, took the glass with fingers that trembled.
“thanks,” she said, her voice almost too quiet to hear.
emily didn’t answer right away. she just settled beside her on the floor, close but not crowding, her own wine in hand. her eyes drifted to aria, whose lashes were fluttering as she flipped another page of her book.
jj took a small sip. and then, without warning, her throat closed. the glass froze halfway to the table. her whole body went still, fingers tightening around the stem like it was the only thing anchoring her. emily noticed immediately.
“jayje,” she said gently, setting her own glass down. “hey.”
jj’s jaw clenched. she was staring straight ahead now—at the soft flicker of the TV, at the slow, rhythmic rise and fall of aria’s chest as she breathed. aria shifted slightly, her legs stretching out across jj’s lap, her bunny slipping from her hand. she didn’t seem to notice. jj blinked, and her eyes stung.
“they put my face on porn, emily,” she whispered, low enough that aria couldn’t make out what she didn’t want her to hear. “on things i didn’t do. i didn’t even—” she stopped, throat catching again. “i didn’t know what i was looking at. i read the description and my name was just there, like i belonged in it. like i was something someone could just take.”
aria blinked up at her, thumb still resting in her mouth, like she could hear her mother’s voice shift but didn’t understand why.
“and she was in the car,” jj continued, her voice tighter now, broken. “she was singing you are my sunshine while luke told me that people are watching me get… used. like i’m a thing.”
emily’s hand came to rest gently on her back. jj closed her eyes. a tear slid down her cheek, hot and slow.
“i know it’s my face now. but all i could think was what if it’s her someday?”
aria turned her head toward the TV again, quiet and completely content, unaware of the storm her mother was unraveling in.
“what if someone takes her picture? or her voice? or her face? what if i can’t stop it?” jj’s voice cracked fully now, her breath hitching as the tears came, silent and unstoppable. “i’ve seen what the world does to girls, em. to women. you have too. it doesn’t care how sweet they are. how soft. how small.”
emily reached over, took the wine glass gently from her hand, set it aside, and pulled jj into her arms. jj didn’t fight it. she just leaned in, her arms still wrapped protectively around aria, her head falling against emily’s shoulder.
“you don’t deserve this,” emily whispered. “none of it. and aria—she’s got two mothers who will protect her with everything we have.”
jj nodded, but she didn’t speak. aria stirred again, sighing softly, her fingers curling around the edge of jj’s shirt now. she was slipping into sleep, safe in the circle of her mother’s arms, her body warm against jj’s stomach.
jj leaned down and pressed her lips to the top of aria’s head and didn’t move. didn’t breathe. the scent of baby shampoo clung to her daughter’s hair—light and clean, almost sweet, like something good still lived here. like there was still a piece of the world untouched. her eyes burned. not just with the tears, but with the pressure, the kind that made it hard to blink. hard to think.
aria shifted slightly in her lap, one arm slipping limply to the side as she drifted further into sleep. jj didn’t move. her mouth stayed pressed to the soft, warm crown of her daughter’s head as her breath shuddered out of her. she slowly pulled away.
emily heard it immediately. it wasn’t just a sigh. it wasn’t just the end of crying. it was a specific breath—tight, clipped, barely there. a sound like a car trying to turn over in the cold.
and emily knew it.
jj had made that sound before.
in the field, when a victim reminded her too much of someone she couldn’t forget.
her sister, roslyn.
after reid’s overdose and kidnapping, and the dogs out at the farm
when they met for the first time after she told the entire team emily never made it off the table.
after she came back from being kidnapped and everything looked fine, but nothing was.
it was the breath before she broke.
jj’s eyes were wide now, locked on the middle distance. tears were caught on her lashes but didn’t fall. then, finally, she spoke. it came out like a whisper, like she wasn’t even sure she was saying it out loud.
“i’m freezing up,” she said. “i can’t—” her throat jumped, and she blinked rapidly, like she could somehow blink her way out of this spiral. “i can’t freeze up, emily.”
emily didn’t hesitate. she reached over and cupped jj’s cheek, gently turning her to face her.
“you’re not,” she said softly. “you’re here.”
jj shook her head, barely moving. her voice was fraying at the edges now, pulled thin.
“she’s in my lap,” she whispered. “and i can’t even feel her. i know she’s warm, i know she’s safe, but i don’t feel it. i just feel like something cracked open in me and now i’m—i’m stuck.”
her breathing hitched again, eyes darting like she was trying to ground herself on something.
“i need to protect her, but how can i do that if i can’t even protect myself.” jj said. “i need to move. i need to fight. but i can’t even feel my legs right now, em.”
emily’s eyes softened. she leaned in, resting her forehead against jj’s, one hand cradling the back of her neck.
“breathe with me,” she whispered. “just breathe. you’re not alone. you’re here. you’re with me. you’re with our daughter. you’re safe.”
jj’s lips parted, and she tried—but her breath caught again, too shallow. too fast. emily didn’t push. she just kept her forehead pressed there, her hand on jj’s neck, steady and grounding. aria, oblivious, made a tiny sound in her sleep—a soft hum, like the sigh of a dream she hadn’t finished. jj’s gaze snapped to her daughter instantly, and her hand moved, instinctively brushing the hair back from aria’s forehead before scooping her up and resting her against her chest.
she was curled around aria, her hand stroking slow, absentminded circles against her back. aria was fast asleep now, breaths deep and steady, her head still resting against jj’s heartbeat like she hadn’t absorbed even a drop of the chaos swirling just inches above her. jj watched her for a long moment, tears drying on her cheeks, eyes rimmed pink, her whole body still trembling with the lingering edge of panic. emily hadn’t moved. she stayed close, forehead once pressed to jj’s now just inches away, her hand still resting lightly on jj’s knee.
jj turned to her. her voice was raw, barely a whisper.
“what if this doesn’t stop?”
emily didn’t blink.
“it will.”
jj shook her head, just slightly.
“em…”
“look at me.” emily’s voice was calm but fierce, her eyes locked on jj’s like she could tether her with sheer will alone. “we are going to figure this out. we are going to stop voit. all of it. the mind games, the fear, the deepfakes, this whole sick circus he’s started—we’re not letting him win.”
jj just looked at her. so tired. so deeply wounded.
“bau gate’s not just a leak,” she said. “it’s a weapon. and right now, it’s pointed straight at us. at me. at my family.for god sakes emily, at her if the chance is given.”
“he won’t be given that chance. we’re already taking it out of his hands,” emily said, voice sharper now, her spine straightening . “we track it, we trace it, we gut it at the root. i’ve already got garcia running full forensic sweeps. we’re going to get it pulled. every fake, every file, every trace. it’s not going to disappear overnight, but it will be scrubbed from every corner of the internet we can reach.”
jj blinked slowly, tears welling again—not out of only fear this time, but exhaustion too. and maybe, barely, the faintest flicker of hope. she had to hold onto something.
“it’s not just a case, emily,” she whispered. “this feels so fucking different, than anything.”
emily reached forward and cupped her cheek, thumb brushing just beneath jj’s eye.
“that’s because it is,” she said. “but that doesn’t make you alone in it.”
jj leaned into her touch, just slightly, closing her eyes.
“i feel like i’ve been flayed open.”
“i know.” emily’s voice cracked, just a little. “but i swear to you, jennifer—you’re not going through this without me.”
jj opened her eyes again, and emily moved her hand down, pressing it gently over jj’s where it rested protectively on aria’s back.
“you gave your whole life to protect people,” emily said, voice quiet but iron-strong. “you’re going to be protected too.”
jj’s lips trembled. her eyes stung all over again.
“you can’t promise—”
“i can,” emily interrupted. “and i am. i’m not just your wife, jayje. i’m your partner. your team. your goddamn shield. i swore to you, and i’ll continue to do so.”
she looked down at aria, her expression softening. “for her too,” she added.
jj let out a breath that shook her whole body. at last, she nodded. slow. deliberate. the smallest thread of trust beginning to stitch its way back into her chest. emily leaned forward, kissed the edge of jj’s forehead, then brushed her lips softly over the top of aria’s head.
jj looked down at her sleeping daughter again, that perfect, peaceful face. and this time, when the tears came—they were quieter. less like drowning. more like letting go.
they would heal, somehow.