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“Roz,” she breathed out in Roslyn’s quiet bedroom. “I figured it out. I learned how to control my dreams.”
She’s furious that she spent so much effort on this game (at three in the morning, no less) and the best she can do is “BIRFDOY”, using the “B” from Emily’s “BALDERDASH” and “O” from her “AMORAL.” Even worse, Emily actually challenges the word. JJ throws her hands up in the air because it’s October 12th, and that’s the best she can do seeing as she always gets the worst Scrabble letters.
She’s trying to wish Emily a happy birthday and Emily is challenging her best attempt because of course she is. She knows that Emily is wearing that irresistible lopsided grin because she beat her twice. First, because she has been destroyed at Scrabble. Second, because Emily ruins her attempt to celebrate her birthday. JJ would like to put down “ASSHOLE” but she doesn’t have any letters for that either.
You have the letters for ‘Bi.’ Although, I’ll have to challenge you on that too. You know, it being an abbreviation and all is what Emily types over the chat. It takes everything in JJ’s power to suppress a laugh on the quiet BAU jet. She has been back for a couple of months now, but she doesn’t feel like she’s back. She lies when Will asks her why. She tells him it’s hard to explain. It’s not. Emily’s not there anymore and that’s it.
She can’t admit that because Will is the kind of man who makes pancakes Sunday mornings, and volunteers to take the neighbor kids with him and Henry to the aquarium on his days off. He buys flowers for no reason and mows their lawn without being asked. She can’t admit that Emily being on the run makes her feel untethered without it leading to a road she doesn’t want to drive down.
Instead, she plays online Scrabble with a linguist and beams when she loses every time.
“I’m mad at you,” she whispers in the BAU parking lot. They’re both leaning against her car, neither one in a rush to get home.
Emily only hums in reply.
“You refused to let me celebrate your 40th birthday.”
Emily laughs this time.
“It’s not funny, Em,” she rebukes in a tone that makes her sound like she’s serious, but her smile betrays any illusion of anger. “It’s a milestone birthday and you refused to let us celebrate it. You ruined my—”
“—Birfdoy surprise?” Emily asks with a smirk.
“Yes, that,” she says with the gentlest swat to the other woman’s hand, which is casually hanging beside her. She’s about to go into a lecture about how the next milestone “birfdoy” (Emily’s 45th), Emily likely won’t even be in the country. She’ll be in London. The reprimand gets stuck in her throat because Emily is leaving. JJ’s not sure why she never thought this was a possibility. It just always felt inevitable. They’d catch Doyle. Emily would come home. She would never leave. “You’re leaving,” is all she can get out.
Emily nods.
“You don’t have anything to say?”
“I’m waiting for you to tell me what to say,” Emily replies in a voice that’s devoid of emotion.
They’re still standing against the car, side by side, staring up at an ordinary moon in a nondescript night sky. She can’t see Emily’s expression or if there’s any emotion in her eyes.
“You have to tell me what to say, Jayje. That’s how this works.”
She moves her head up and down, agreeing with Emily’s assessment. Emily is always right about everything. It’d be annoying if she wasn’t, well, Emily. “You're only allowed to move to London if you come see me whenever I want,” JJ requests nervously.
Emily is laughing again. Once again, it’d be annoying if she were anyone else. But she’s not and JJ thinks she knows it.
“Don’t I always? I’ll always come back to you.”
They’re rushing, trying to make it to the last boat from the little island.
Emily saw it in the distance when they first arrived. She insisted they go check it out. JJ complied.
It’s strange because she can’t exactly feel the gold sand beneath her feet but she trips on it nonetheless.
Rather than helping her up, like a normal person, Emily falls into the sand next to her, letting the grains run through her fingers. “Well, I guess we’re missing the last boat out.”
“Emily!” she scolds, trying to pull Emily up by her wrists. Emily doesn’t budge. “Emily, Jesus Christ, we cannot stay at some unknown island overnight.”
“Why?”
“Because—” she cuts off her own argument to look, really look, at the woman in front of her. It has been so long since she has seen her. She’s wearing a pink long-sleeved shirt to explore the island, a stark contrast from JJ’s white short-sleeved souvenir t-shirt over a two-piece. Her hair is long and wavy. Her eyebrows are a little thinner than usual. She'll never say so. They belong to Emily and are perfect by default. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell anyone you were coming out here with me. They all think you’re back in London,” she laughs, reaching out, intending to curl a strand of dark hair around her finger. She’s interrupted by the ship captain’s voice in the distance telling them they’re on the clock.
Their moment is broken and she's furious. Still, how furious can she be? Emily is right here and she can see her face and she’s laughing. Nothing else in the world can be wrong.
She’s cold, tired, bruised, humiliated, and has been fussed over by EMTs and the team ever since being escorted off that roof. Everyone’s voices are calm and soothing. Their touches tentative and gentle. They act as if she’s so close to breaking, but she’s not. She thinks she’s keeping it together pretty well. She doesn’t tell anyone else about her brief hallucination of Emily. And Emily showed up, so there. No reason to bring it up.
They’d all only worry more. Make her have more tests and scans at the hospital. Truthfully, she thinks she’s mostly fine. All she wants is to collapse next to Emily and catch her breath. Then, head to a bar and talk about anything and everything other than her kidnapping. Yet, no one asks her what she wants because she’s being directed towards an ambulance. She’s walking with a limp (she’s not sure if it’s caused by exhaustion or an injury) and blood is soaking through a piece of gauze someone taped on her (hence, the ambulance).
She takes a look up at the sky. They’re far away from the center of the city and she can make out the stars in the night. They’re bright and shining on either side of a full moon. Unlike the night skies closer to D.C., this sky is miles of dark navy blue with glimmering lights. She wants to point it out to Emily. Morgan gets into the ambulance with her instead.
Morgan obsessively watches her from a spot near the ambulance doors, careful to step out of the way when an EMT tries to squeeze by to grab a bigger piece of gauze. It’s only after she's sufficiently patched up that she sees him reappear. He’s wearing a soft expression with a worried smile. She smiles warmly to try to comfort him and it works because he lets out a chuckle. It’s nervous but she’ll take it.
“You scared us out there, blondie.”
She lets out a single laugh and winces in pain. “Yeah,” she agrees following a sharp intake of air. “I knew you were coming. I never doubted you’d all come.”
Morgan bites his bottom lip and nods. She can tell he’s trying to hold his emotions at bay. He scratches at his jaw and shakes his head slowly, “If we had lost you too—”
“You didn’t,” she reminds him, taking his hand into hers. “I never expected you to have such soft hands,” she teases, earning herself a booming laugh from the man.
“I have two sisters. I know a thing or two about moisturizing,” he tells her with a grin.
Their quiet laughter settles down, and the only sounds that can be heard from the ambulance are steady beeps, the occasional car horn, and the hum of the engine. She likes Morgan. Hell, after Emily left, she’s tried modeling herself after him. That being said, she finds it odd that he’s on the ride over with her instead of Emily.
She’s sure the rest of her team are trying to monopolize Emily’s time but still. She assumes Emily would have wanted to come with her. She doesn’t want to bring it up bluntly and make Morgan feel unwanted. She beats around the bush. “Hey, did the EMTs check on Em?”
Morgan’s face falls at the question. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “It did get pretty chaotic on the roof.”
“Yeah,” Morgan nods slowly. He opens his mouth and briefly closes it. He has that look on his face that he gets when he’s actively trying to solve something, and it sends waves of anxiety through her body.
She's barely able to get the question out, “She didn’t get hurt up there, did she?”
“No,” Morgan answers firmly, gripping her hand tightly. “No, she didn’t get hurt up there.”
JJ sighs in relief and they don’t talk the rest of the ride to the hospital.
She laughed when she looked over at Emily, who was clearly annoyed. They were at the hottest new lounge in Nolita. Emily had successfully hid her birthday for years. Garcia and Reid had spilled the beans the very day that JJ had officially returned from maternity leave. JJ never forgot.
October 12, 2009: It was Emily’s last birthday in her 30s. JJ felt it was a big deal that deserved a day-and-a-half off work. Of course, the entire team wanted to come. Hotch only got approvals for two members of the team. Emily tried to give away her day off to Morgan or Garcia. It didn’t work.
They started Emily's birthday festivities at the club. Emily complained that it made her feel old. JJ didn’t want to admit it, but it made her feel old too. They meandered through the city that never slept until they made it to a small Japanese fusion bar. It was clean and quiet with mood lighting. Half of Emily’s face was bathed in cool, purple lighting.
“Why don’t you like your birthday?” JJ finally asked.
Emily sighed at the question and stared into her gin and tonic, looking for an answer. “I don’t know.”
“Yeah, you do,” she laughed. She knew Emily for years. She wasn’t buying that. “You tell me and I’ll tell you.”
“You don’t hate your birthday.”
She shrugged, “I’ll tell you something else.” She liked that she didn’t have to yell to get Emily’s attention in that place. It was really just the two of them in there, with one bartender.
“I never had anyone to celebrate it with,” she admitted with a shake of her head. She lifted the glass to her lips and spoke from behind it, hidden. “Sometimes I think…”
“…You might bring it up and still not have anyone to celebrate it with,” she finished when Emily didn't.
Emily gave her a look of something that could only be described as pride. “Maybe you’re the profiler here, not me.”
It was chilly in early October in New York City, and she wasn't sure if it was the alcohol or Emily warming her up. Either way, she felt warm and safe. She always felt that way with Emily.
Emily vigorously rubbed her hands up and down her upper arms. It was clearly a futile attempt to warm herself up. She mumbled something about regretting wearing her Bureau-purchased "Viper dress" before she made eye contract with JJ again. “What do you want to tell me?”
“It has to be personal?”
Emily took a moment to consider the question. She settled on, “Only if you want.”
It made her want. “After we lost my sister,” her eyes drifted from Emily’s to the table, “I would have these strange dreams.”
Emily leaned forward on the table and spoke softly, “Of her?”
“Mostly,” she answered. “It started with her. It’s hard to describe them to anyone else,” she admitted and checked to see if Emily was still listening. Of course, she was. “They would always start when I thought I was awake writing these scenes—a script of me and Roz doing things together. Simple things like going to the mall or seeing a movie. But I’d actually be asleep and would live them out. I would wake up and think they were real, even if all the details were fuzzy. I would know I was with Roz. At the same time, her face would be blank or exactly from a specific memory.”
Emily didn’t say anything at first. She only gave JJ a warm but sad smile. “Have you ever talked to anyone about them?”
“As in normal people? Or a therapist?"
Emily popped a piece of edamame into her mouth and replied, "Either."
JJ simply answered, "Only you." She tried to temper the smile that spread across her face, "I'm surprised you believe in therapy."
"I've always been a huge proponent of therapy," Emily said with a smirk, "for other people."
Emily was always so disarming it drove her crazy. “It’s just a dream.”
“You say potato. I say sleep paralysis,” Emily teased. She reached her hand over the table and took JJ’s. “On a serious note, do they help you?”
JJ's eyes drifted shut at the feeling of Emily’s soft, warm hand covering her own. The timing was never right for them. She didn’t trust Emily enough before Will. By the time she started harboring a crush, she was already involved with him. It was simpler. Sure, he was a man, but it was more than that. He wasn’t on her team. She didn’t have to worry about filing paperwork with H.R., or Hotch watching them on cases, or Garcia and Morgan incessantly trying to dig up information.
When she started to wonder if there was ever not going to be something there, it was too late. Emily already knew about her budding relationship with Will—Emily always knew everything—and encouraged it. Worried she’d be rejected by her friend and coworker, she doubled-down with Will. When she became pregnant with Henry, there was a line in the sand neither would ever cross. Their touches would always remain innocent and brief. There was no longer a possibility of something more in them. “I never want them to go away,” she both answered Emily’s question and didn't.
It was good enough for Emily. Everything she did was always “good enough” for Emily.
Hotch nods at Morgan when he enters into JJ’s temporary exam room. She's not going to be admitted to the hospital. “Jennifer,” he begins before taking a seat on the stool positioned across from her exam bed, “What do you remember happening on the roof?”
“We’re debriefing now?” her laugh is tinged with annoyance and a shocked expression spreads across her features. “Hotch—”
“—We’re just talking.” He says it in a tone that's meant to relax her, but it's so unlike him it's disconcerting. “Do you remember when I got you down from your restraints?”
“No, you—” she furrows her brow. That didn’t happen. No, Hotch helped Matt and Emily helped her. Then, she ran after Hastings, and Emily ran after her. Hotch stayed behind with Cruz. “You got Matt down.”
Hotch nods again, “I did.”
“Okay, then,” she shrugs it off nonchalantly.
Hotch doesn’t shift his focus off her. “Who helped untie you and get you free so you could go after Hastings?”
“Emily,” she answers immediately. It’s the second time in less than an hour that a member of her team’s face has fallen, and it’s getting harder not to notice. “Hotch?”
“Jennifer...”
“Aaron?” she questions, getting visibly annoyed. “What's going on? Why are you doing this now? Why are you doing this at all?”
“You went through something traumatic,” he replies matter-of-factly. “When we are under intense pressure—the human mind—”
“—Stop,” she orders. She’s shaking with anger and something else. “Stop.”
Hotch tilts his head ever-so-slightly. After everything that's happened, it's the extent of the affection he's capable of showing at work. “Emily died in Bethesda four days after we told the team.”
“She didn’t!” she spits out.
His voice remains calm and even, “We had her moved for security reasons—”
“—Stop—”
“—She was never going to regain enough brain function—”
“—I said stop!”
“We had to call her mother as her power of—”
“—Hotch, I fucking mean it!” she sobs, rapidly shaking her head “no.” This wasn’t happening. There was Scrabble and the beach and the time they looked at the sky.
Jaw clenched, he tries to summarize the events after Boston the gentlest way he can, “Emily was never going to wake up. Her brain never recovered from the blood loss. You insisted on calling her mother yourself because she didn’t know the upcoming funeral was not…meant to be real. Her mother had to authorize the end of life measures. You told me we had to tell the team what we had done. And we did.”
It’s only then that she realizes what she does every morning after a night of semi-conscious dreams with Emily. The dates are wrong. There were no birthdays over Scrabble or late-night parking lot promises or moves to London or a miraculous island with golden sand in the middle of the ocean. Half her dreams didn’t have Emily’s face. The other half had perfectly conjured up images of Emily from old memories. They had stopped making new memories in March of 2011.
You have to tell me what to say, Jayje. That’s how this works.
She closes her eyes, aware that her boss is sitting two feet away from her, analyzing her. Her job requires the utmost “mental fitness” and she can’t lose it. She can’t lose the last part of Emily she has left. Still, she’s appealing to a supervisor who beat a man to death, so they’ve all given up on psychological reviews and mental health a long time ago. “I can still do my job,” she whispers. "You can't take this away from me, too."
He doesn't let on what he's going to do. “Do you—Are you going to see anyone about this?”
She bites her bottom lip and thinks back to the memory from New York. Or, at least, she thinks it’s a memory. Everything is blurred now from adrenaline, grief, residual fear of dying, and the fantasy of Emily Prentiss coming to save her. She thinks it’s real because it’s vivid and not entirely happy.
“They’re not a problem,” she tells him with finality. “And I don’t want to lose them.”
“You don’t want to lose her," he counters with a knowing look. "JJ, you already have. Reoccurring dreams don't last forever. Are you going to be okay when you can’t dream of her anymore?”
JJ gives him a broken smile. “She'll always come back to me.”