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“Do you really have to leave in the morning?”
Emily’s voice was quiet in the darkness, echoing around the sparsely furnished motel room. JJ could barely see her wrapped up in a sheet like she was, standing in front of the window and looking out. She was framed by the moonlight; it made JJ’s breath catch in her throat.
It would be the last time she’d see this familiar sight.
“You know I do,” JJ said, a little raspy at first. The words hurt – everything hurt. Nothing would ever take this pain away. No amount of time, not thousands of miles of ocean.
She could hear Emily sigh all the way across the room, and JJ frowned. This was supposed to be a good night – their last night together before Emily was Arizona Trattoria, an insurance agent from Maryland in Paris on holiday. Named for the place they had had their first kiss, and the Italian restaurant where they had gone for dinner every night they got home from a tough case.
JJ had picked the names herself, thinking the little personal touches would make Emily happy. The constant reminder of what they had had – of what they could maybe have again, someday.
Instead, JJ was reasonably sure she had watched the last of the hopeful light in Emily’s eyes fizzle out to nothing when she opened the manila folder. Her brown eyes scanned quickly over the pages, but JJ could tell she was barely absorbing the information. The name was upsetting her.
And there was no way JJ could go back and change her identity now.
As always with Emily, she had managed to fuck it all up. It had taken all of her will not to reach across the little wrought iron table and snatch the folder back out of Emily’s hands.
JJ rolled over in the bed until she was on her side, clad in nothing but an old tank top of Emily’s and a pair of panties. They had spent the past few hours in that bed, making the most of their time together, and JJ didn’t know about her lover but she was absolutely exhausted.
Not that she wanted to sleep; she didn’t want to take her eyes off of Emily for one moment. The shine of her black hair, the curve of her spine, the way her toes curled into the thick carpeting while she shuffled across it. There was nothing about Emily that she didn’t love – that she hadn’t studied.
She could still never get anything right, though. Their relationship had felt like a constant stream of falling short.
“Can’t you stay with me?”
Emily’s voice jerked JJ roughly from her thoughts, and she flicked her eyes back over to the other woman who had turned to face her while she had been distracted. Emily was clutching the sheet close to her chest, wrapping it around herself almost protectively. Almost like she didn’t want JJ to look at her, to see her exposed.
It was JJ’s turn to sigh.
“And what, get a new identity? Leave the BAU, go into hiding with you?” A pause. “Leave Will? Leave Henry?”
Emily’s mouth immediately tightened at the corners, her eyes hardening, and JJ knew that if she didn’t act soon she would lose her completely. Will and Henry were a sore spot – they always had been.
Tilting her head to the side, JJ let her eyes soften as she reached out a hand towards Emily, fingers grasping at thin air. “Come back to bed,” she whispered.
Emily shook her head, biting her lip, but moved forward all the same. It was always like this – they were drawn together, to the detriment of themselves and everyone around them.
Taking JJ’s hand, Emily let the other woman pull her into warm arms, kneeling on the edge of the bed so that the white sheet pooled around her bare feet.
“I don’t know why I keep letting you hurt me,” Emily said, hair falling down around her face as she gazed at JJ. “I just love you so much, Jayj.”
“Oh, Em,” JJ said, eyes tracking over her lover’s body before focusing back up on her face. “I love you too, you know that. I’m so sorry I can’t be more for you.”
Emily smiled – a sad, wry sort of smile – and settled onto the bed next to JJ, nestled into her arms. She could feel JJ’s hands wandering, skimming over her hips and thighs, her stomach and breasts, finishing with gentle fingertips pressed across her collarbone. It made her shiver.
“It doesn’t matter now anyway,” Emily said, letting her eyes flutter closed as JJ’s lips brushed over her throat. “I’m dead, and you’re not.”
JJ pulled away, brows knitting together. They were lying side by side on the bed, curled close into one another. It was comfortable; their own cocoon of warmth. “You’re not dead, Emily.”
“I am on paper.”
“Paper means nothing. You, here, in my arms? That means something.”
“Jennifer, me in your arms has never seemed to mean much of anything.”
JJ blinked. That hurt. A lot. But she deserved it – she knew she did. She deserved any and all vitriol Emily wanted to throw her way tonight. Years of suppressed frustrations, now that they were truly over.
Truly over. It made JJ’s mouth go dry.
“I know you don’t believe me, but you mean everything to me,” JJ said.
“Mm,” Emily hummed noncommittally, already sounding like she wanted to move on from the subject. That was what Emily did – she brought up these heavy feelings, and then she cut the strings and watched them float away like a bunch of balloons at a birthday party.
Deciding to give her lover what she wanted by changing the subject, JJ let her fingers trail down Emily’s chest and stomach and slide between her thighs, gentle and questioning.
“Is this okay?” She asked, already a little breathless.
“Yeah,” Emily said, turning her head and bumping her nose softly against JJ’s. She sounded out of breath herself. “Please. I—I just want you right now.”
JJ smiled; she could understand that. All she ever wanted was Emily, any way that she could get her. But especially like this.
Without saying another word, JJ shifted so that she was straddling Emily, thighs bracketing her hips. Bracing her forearms on the bed on either side of the other woman’s head, JJ leaned in until she could press a kiss to Emily’s lips. They were warm and dry – a little chapped. They were perfect.
“I can’t imagine not having this,” Emily breathed against JJ’s lips.
“Shh,” JJ said. “Don’t think about that now. Just let me make you feel good, Em.”
The only response JJ received was a soft moan; it was the best sort of response.
Morning came too soon. Morning always came too soon for JJ when the night had involved Emily. It had been like that for years – stealing moments, nights but almost never days. Loving each other between midnight and five.
It was five in the morning now, and JJ knew that she wasn’t going to have the guts to say goodbye to Emily. Not after last night. There was no way she could even stand to have a simple send-off from the motel room, let alone a big to-do at the airport. She would dissolve; disintegrate into little pieces, and there would be no one left to put her back together.
Emily always put her back together.
So when the dawn light started to filter in through the same curtains Emily had peered out of only hours before, JJ slipped out of the bed as quiet as she could and back into her jeans and sweater.
She knew it was wrong; it was going to hurt Emily. But it wouldn’t break her – if Emily could have been broken, JJ would have managed to do it already.
No, Emily could handle it. JJ was the one that couldn’t.
The room was still semi-dark when JJ bundled up her things and headed towards the door, trying not to cast too many backwards glances at her sleeping lover. Emily was curled on her stomach on the bed, clutching tight to a pillow and looking absolutely gorgeous. It was beyond tempting to slip right back out of her clothes and climb back into bed, give up everything, try to make it work.
But she had a husband, and a son, and people that depended on her. And Emily was strong; unlike them, Emily didn’t need her.
That was part of the reason JJ loved her so much.
The click of the motel room door seemed loud in the morning air, and JJ held her breath for a few moments after it shut, afraid that she had awoken Emily. But her lover didn’t come to the door; if Emily had woken up, she was letting JJ leave peacefully.
She always let JJ leave quietly, even when they both knew that it was wrong.
JJ had screwed up again – she knew full well that she did. But why break the pattern now, at the bitter end?