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it was a typical night for emily prentiss, one that involved a lot of tossing and turning and very little actual sleep. every time the agent got comfortable and closed her eyes, she found her mind wandering into places she’d rather it not. she let out a frustrated groan, turned onto her back and stared at her ceiling as she worked through her thoughts.
it had been almost a year since jennifer jareau and william lamontagne jr. started dating. seeing them and their exchanges of affection on the occasional team outing drove emily crazy inside, as if something was grabbing and twisting her stomach violently. despite the pain, the agent wanted to be happy for her friend. she really did. she just couldn’t get past this feeling of jealousy. ever since she started at the BAU, she saw jj as a beaming ray of sunshine. with her bright blonde hair and mesmerizing blue eyes, she stood out in their stressful and somber work environment. she was always a source of comfort for emily after particularly hard cases with her warm smile and big heart. emily wanted more than anything to be the person jj came home to at the end of a long day, the one to call jj her’s, not will. she felt selfish in feeling this way, but going home to her empty, lonely apartment every day had made her long for something more, and that was jennifer jareau.
she would never admit it, but a lot of the things she saw did indeed get to her. there were nights where she would wake up in a panic after images from the day prior made their way into her dreams, just to look around to see that there was nothing there but her room and the cold, empty other half of her bed. she couldn’t stand not having someone beside her to comfort her in these moments. it destroyed her that the one person she wanted at her side was unavailable. for as far as she knew, jennifer was not into women. it was the unfortunate reality she dealt with, knowing that the vast majority of women she liked would not feel the same. but it was different with jj.
but what emily really couldn’t push past was jj’s sudden attitude shifts. some days she would be her normal self, but others she would be extra irritable or withdrawn. it was on these days that she would be more short with morgan when he made his jokes, be unusually annoyed with reid’s random rambles about statistics, or would look extra tired, among many other things. sure, everybody had their off days, but emily’s protective nature told her otherwise. it was somewhat common knowledge that jj and will were having some ups and downs in their relationship, but emily was the only one who knew the true nature of it. jj and emily were especially close, seeing as they were the only two women on the team other than garcia, and jj would often confide in emily specifically due to the technical analyst’s inability to keep a secret.
after what felt like hours of pondering, emily did eventually manage to drift off into sleep. but after what felt like mere minutes, she was awakened by the dreaded ringing of her bedside alarm clock, which she shut off with an angry hit from her hand.
the brunette huffed and got up from her bed, looking out her window to see the sunrise. she yawned and quickly got ready for another day at work.
as soon as emily entered the office and greeted the team and jj, she could tell that something had once again happened with her and will. the team had a murder case that day, so they had left in a hurry not long after arriving at work. because of this, emily didn’t have a chance to really check in on her friend. throughout the day, jj wasn’t that willing to talk to anyone, not even on the jet. and while at the scene, there were moments where she could be seen stepping away for a moment to wipe a tear or try to regulate herself before returning back like nothing happened. this broke emily’s heart, and as much as she wanted to pull her aside and talk to her, she knew that it wasn’t the appropriate time to do so and that it’d be best to give her friend her full attention once the case was resolved. luckily for the team, the case wasn’t too far away and had been solved pretty quickly, meaning that the team didn’t have to stay overnight and could head home the same day.
they arrived back at quantico around 1 am. it took about an hour or so for the team to trickle out of the building as they each finished up reports or paperwork or whatever it was they needed to do. jj was the second to last one to pack up her stuff and leave. she went down the elevator and made her way through the lobby, and eventually outside. but instead of heading to her car, she just stood in the faint light of the concrete building and stared at her phone, reading and rereading will’s latest text:
i’m sorry about the other day. can we figure this out?
she sighed. this is how it always was. her eyes began to tear up.
after seeing jj leave, emily headed down as well. she walked outside to see her friend standing there. she thought it sounded like she was crying, but she wasn’t sure.
“jen?” she said, to no response. the blonde was completely engrossed in the text message as she tried to figure out what to say.
“jj.” emily said after walking up to her and placing a gentle hand on the back of her shoulder. this startled jj, who reacted by jumping a bit and turning around to see that it was her friend.
“oh, hey em!” she said with a forced smile. she wiped her eyes, and put her phone away in a frenzied motion, as if she was trying to hide that she was upset. “sorry,” she said with a dry chuckle. “you sneaked up on me. what’s up?”
“i was going to ask you the same thing...” emily responded. her tone was one of concern. she didn’t like seeing jj faking being happy like that and had been worrying about her the whole day. “you’ve been acting off all day... is something going on?”
jj looked at her with eyes that were beginning to water again. “it’s nothing emily.”
emily wouldn’t take that for an answer. “i don’t want to push, but is this about will? i’m just… worried about you.”
the blonde looked at the ground. “yeah we.. had another fight.” she said as she wiped a tear from her face. “he got mad about our conflicting work schedules and it just blew up from there with him saying i don’t accommodate him as much as i should... just a lot of yelling and slamming doors.”
before emily could even respond, jj showed her his text message and explained that he was apologizing now, dismissing the situation.
she quickly pulled her car keys out of her bag. part of her wanted to stay there with emily, but the other part of her didn’t want to burden her with her relationship problems. not to mention she was scared of will’s reaction if she got home too late. she just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible before she had to elaborate any further.
“i’ve got to get home em. you should go too. it was a long day.“ she said to her friend with a small smile before starting to walk away to her car. “i appreciate your concern though.”
“jayje...” emily called out. all she wanted to do in this moment was scoop jj up and take her away from all of this. but right now, she was left standing there, watching her friend walk away and disappear into the darkness of the parking lot.
the whole situation filled emily with so much anger. she was angry that will would treat such a kind person like that, angry that jj’s big heart told her to keep going back to him. it destroyed her to see her friend keep going back to the root of so much pain. she could tell that she had become more closed off because of what he was saying. and honestly, emily viewed will as something evil, something so despicable that it would take the ray of light that was jj and make her feel so small.
it had become evident over time that jj and will’s issues weren’t just typical relationship drama. they were something more sinister, something emily considered abusive. jj would describe times where will would invalidate her feelings towards the difficult things she saw through her job, telling her she was “maybe too sensitive for this line of work.” jj was sensitive, yes, but hearing these kinds of things from someone she was supposed to lean on had made her insecure. she had started to hide her true thoughts or opinions on things, as a lot of the things she vented about would just be followed up with a snarky remark from will about how he didn’t deal with that as a police officer, and that he saw way worse things than she did. he would make her feel like she was almost less of a law enforcement worker for feeling certain ways. but the issues spanned farther than that. he would often get angry with her for choosing to go out with emily and garcia on one of her few days off, making her feel bad for “not spending enough time with him”. and when they did spend time together, he would make comments about what she wore or how she acted. the only thing she hadn’t told emily was the homophobic and hateful things he would say casually. when they would see a gay couple out on the street or on TV he would roll his eyes and complain about it being “perverted” or “not the way god intended”
jj once stood up to him and told him to stop with all of it, but he shot her down, saying that it was his opinion and if she couldn’t respect it then there was something wrong with her. it was this way with a lot of things, and it hit her pretty hard. she had been questioning her sexuality since college, and liked the idea of pursuing women. but her own insecurity matched with will’s treatment sent her into a spiral of internalized homophobia where she would try her best to shut down any feelings she had towards other women. lately, that had been with emily. to other agents, their source of comfort was coming home to their loved ones at the end of the day. but for jj, it was the other way around. her source of comfort was coming to work every day to see the team, but specifically the dark haired agent who made her feel loved and happy inside. part of her wanted to break up with will so she could be with emily, but she felt like a bad person for doing so. she was the kind of person who saw the good in everyone, and with will that meant the tiniest bit of good inside of him was inflated into something it wasn’t. she wanted to believe he was a good guy who just needed someone to show him that he was capable of being better. that’s probably why she was letting his treatment continue for so long.
what would usually happen between them is that things would blow up in some sort of argument, they wouldn’t speak for a few days, and then will would come back with what emily viewed as a half assed apology, and then they would make up and continue as normal. after some close observation, emily had seen that this cycle had become more frequent over the past few months.
it was an uneventful night when things seemed to have finally reached their breaking point. it was around midnight, and she had been sitting on her couch enjoying a book and a glass of wine when she heard a knock at her apartment door.
she placed the book and her glass down before getting up to go to the door. she wasn’t used to visitors, especially at this hour.
upon opening it, she was taken aback to see jj standing there, clutching her purse and a cardigan. she immediately blushed and felt her heart skip a beat. jj looked absolutely stunning. the other agent was wearing a sparkly black slip dress that fit her form elegantly in addition to ornate silver earrings that glinted in the light in a way that matched her baby blue eyes. her beautiful blonde hair was neatly flat ironed and she had a full face of makeup on (which she didn’t need by the way) with her dark mascara looking slightly smudged like she’d been crying.
emily couldn’t understand what she was doing at her door like this and was momentarily speechless by the situation, having been sent into a small lesbian panic by her crush. but thankfully, jj was the one who spoke first.
“hey em..”
emily quickly snapped out of it. “hey jayje.. what are you doing here? i- i mean not that i don’t want you here...”
she wished she could just stop talking. her face was bright red and she was jumbling over her words.
“you just look like you have somewhere else to be.”
“yeah.. about that.“ jj replied.
before she could continue anymore, emily invited her friend inside. she felt bad just making her stand there.
she accepted, and upon entering, felt an immense feeling of safety. emily offered her something to drink, which she politely declined. before long, they both settled comfortably on the couch.
“so what happened?” emily asked.
“well… it was date night for will and i. we were at some bar in town. it was going great and all until he stepped away to use the bathroom. i thought nothing of it, as he had been drinking a lot.” she explained before continuing.
“anyways, he was taking a while so i got up to go look for him, and that’s when i caught him flirting and getting touchy with some other woman. i tried to stop the conversation as casually as possible and make it clear that he had a girlfriend, but he just blew up on me yelling and saying i’m dramatic. it got pretty ugly, and he left.”
emily’s jaw was on the floor.
“he was my ride there, so my first thought was to just walk here since you were the closest.”
“so you’re telling me he did something wrong, got mad at you for calling him out, and then left you in town with no way of getting home?” she was furious.
she shrugged. “i guess. but it’s fine, really. it was loud and crowded in there. i probably just misread the situation anyway.” she explained while rubbing her finger over her wrist, which had the beginnings of a bruise on it from being grabbed.
emily couldn’t believe that her friend was downplaying it like this and that she thought it was her fault. “are you kidding me? jennifer honey, you had every right to question him.” she countered. “and what’s that?” she asked, pointing to her wrist.
“oh.. it’s um.. well he just kind of got a little too worked up and grabbed me as i confronted him. it’s nothing.” she replied awkwardly
emily’s heart sank into her stomach at what this implied. “has he been putting his hands on you this entire fucking time?” she questioned angrily. she was ready to murder this man.
“i mean, every now and then. but really, it’s fine. it’s not like he beats me, he just gets a little angry sometimes. you know? “
her blood was boiling. “no, i don’t know jennifer. i don’t know or understand how someone can treat you like this. all this man has done to you has hurt you and made you feel small.” tears were pooling in her eyes.
“yeah but, i think i can sort him out. he has a lot going on with his job and all, you know?” it was evident in jj’s voice that as much as she wanted to, she didn’t 100% believe what she was saying.
“jennifer. i don’t know how else to say this. this is abuse. you can’t keep making excuses for him. it’s gone on long enough.”
jj huffed and looked down at her phone. “i’m just going to get an uber back to our apartment. i’ll talk to him tomorrow. avoiding him will make it worse”
“no. it’s useless, please don’t.” she said, placing a gentle hand on hers and slowly moving it and the phone down. “he’s only going to keep acting this way. he hasn’t stopped even after all the times he’s apologized. he’s hurt you so many times”
jj knew deep down that emily was right, but had a hard time accepting it. she had spent so much time caught up with will and his manipulation that it was second nature got her to try and clean up the mess.
“i know you are scared to let go, trust me, i know. i know that you think you can change him.” she said this firmly, not because she was mad at jj, but because she was mad at the situation in general. “you have a heart of gold. but that won’t be enough to fix him. someone like that can’t be bargained with. he’s proved it again and again, love. he’s just going to keep hurting you.”
as she began to accept the reality of the situation, jj began to cry.
emily responded by scooting over on the couch and pulling her into a tight, warm hug. jj sunk into her and sobbed into her shoulder for a while .
“shhhh.. i know, i know..” emily muttered, rubbing her back as she tried to comfort her. after a moment, jj pulled away and wiped her eyes.
“i really didn’t mean to dump this all on you-“
emily cut her off. “do not apologize i really care about you, and seeing you struggle with this has been heartbreaking. you deserve so much better. you deserve to be treated with kindness and gentleness. i want you to know that.”
“it’s just.. you’ve always been the one to look out for me. and after all of this, i think you may be right. it just hurts to hear the truth, and to be honest, i’m scared to admit the truth to myself.”
“it's okay to be scared.” emily said, grabbing her hand.
jj gave her a smile.
“i’m going to help you figure this out. but for now, we can find you a hotel or you can stay here if you really want. you are not going back to that apartment with him. you hear me?”
she nodded
“can i stay with you? if it’s not too much to ask that is..” she muttered. being around emily gave her such a feeling of safety and security that she lacked anywhere else. she wanted her to be the one to help her through this.
emily smiled. “of course love.”
jj smiled back. “what would i do without you.”