Work Text:
DC, 2011
She could smell the flowers before seeing them. Lilac Freesias. Doyle is back. It was fitting, really. Purple Freesia symbolizes the 7th anniversary of marriage. It has been 7 years since he was arrested. The thought made her nauseous.
She knew she had to move quickly. The faster she makes her move the sooner he would lack the reason to go after the team. The team. That's all she could think about. She has been lying to the team, her team, for years now. Though, if she was being honest with herself, at one point she just accepted her reality to be the one that was written for her. She liked it that way. She liked where she was. It was now more beneficial for her to keep the truth than for the team. She would gladly believe in the lies herself because thanks to them, she started forgetting about her past.
This, however, was a wakeup call.
There was a voice in her head saying “Surely, you didn't think you would ever be free?” It sounded a lot like Ian Doyle.
She knew him well enough to know he wouldn't make his move right away. Not tonight. He would taunt her for some time. She had one night to herself. One night before it all goes to shit.
Paris, five months later, present day
It wasn't until Jennifer came back to Quantico that she got to visit Emily again. The only other time she got to do so was right after Emily's funeral. After that day her world fell apart. Knowing it was all fake didn't make carrying Emily's casket any easier. Older woman's death affected Jennifer the most. Although no lives were actually lost, something died that day. It left a weight and a smell of something rotten in JJ.
Ever since Emily first walked through the door and sat next to her at the round table, all Jennifer really hoped for was for her to stay. She really appreciated another woman in the field with her, especially someone as skilled and capable as Emily proved herself to be. Day after day, case after case, they became closer. They could read each other's mind, and they mastered tending to the other's needs. Their relationship was anything other than strictly professional. It wasn't anything like Penelope and Morgan had going on. It was much deeper than that, much more real.
There was always a line for them. They weren't a couple but everyone, including themselves, treated them like so. If one was in danger, there wasn't a question of who would be the one to come to the rescue. During every night out, neither one made a move on the other, but neither ever dared make a move on someone else. They danced around it for years, both content with what they had, as long as they were next to each other. And yet, both wanted more, everything. The line was never crossed. It was stepped on, about a million times, each time the gravitational force of reality pulling them back.
Jennifer Jereau knocking on Emily's door of her secret apartment in Paris at 00:47 am, when she wasn't supposed to have contact with anyone, certainly could be counted as stepping on the line.
No words between the two were exchanged at first. Blonde didn't miss the PSM in her hand (JJ fought the urge to smile to herself remembering all the time she joked how good of a spy Emily would be the irony biting her in the ass).
Emily also didn't miss the way younger woman changed in only months they haven't seen each other. Jennifer had her guard up the entire time, her eyes holding something sinister behind them. Military outpost, she decided, best not talk about it yet.
As JJ looked around the apartment, her eyes locked in on all the wrong places. First, she saw a ready to go bag. The trash can was emptied, bed sheets changed and neatly placed on the bed, all windows were closed, and curtains pulled over them. Lastly, her eyes lingered on the whiteboard in the living room. She walked closer. She recognized right away the FBI evidence sorting principle. It was all Doyle. His whereabouts, his allies, his victims.
“We're you headed off somewhere just now?”
“No, of course not.”
“You're lying again. You know that I can tell, so, why bother?”
“JJ, please...”
“You have been investigating it. On your own. My God Emily! What were you thinking? What if he found you, caught you? You're supposed to be dead Emily! What part of that you don't understand?”
Jennifer was raising her voice enough to make her point, still quite enough to be considered a whisper. She was furious. If she hadn't come over when she did, would she ever see Emily alive again? Would her grief be real this time?
“JJ, calm down. No one saw me, I know what I'm doing. I finally have a solid lead. I must finish this once and for all.”
“Why? Why does it always have to be you? Why is it that every time there's space for sacrifices you volunteer? It's not noble any more then it is selfish.”
“I have already lost you once Em. Don't make me lose you forever.”
“I need to do this. For Declan, for the team. I can't let my baggage hunt you all. This is my battle, Jennifer. Let it go, please...”
JJ was furious. How is this woman, who always knows just what to say to make everything right, capable of ruining JJ with just one sentence?
“I am not letting it go! I am not letting you go. Do you hear me?”
“Well maybe you should. There is no reason for you to stay.”
If it wasn't JJ, if it were anyone else, she might have sounded convincing. She might even believe what she was saying. Giving up on this, whatever it was, might have been easy, doable. But it wasn't anyone else. It was JJ. And this was awfully hard to do.
“If that is true, why can't you look me in the eyes? Why are you hiding from me Emily? The first time you walked away from me wasn't your choice, but this? This is. Please tell me you won't choose to walk away from us.”
“There is no us, Jennifer. There never was.”
“If there was never an us, why does it seem like you can't make it through the door?”
That was true. Emily has demonstratively made her way to the doorknob at least three times so far.
“Why are you doing this, Jennifer? Why are you making this harder?”
There was a pause. Something cold entered the room, something heavier than the crisp air of a spring night in Paris. It smelled familiar, it smelled like the line stepped on.
“Because I love you, Emily... But you already know that, you've known for a year now...”
DC, 2010
JJ swore she wasn't a lightweight. She just happened to be tired, and she didn't eat and a million other excuses as to why those three beers made the room spin so much. All she remembers clearly from that night is the way Emily looked so good in her black dress and how every person at the bar that night thought so too. She wasn't going to drink more than those three beers, but a fourth one found a way into her hand when the third woman that night approached Emily. She was told tomorrow morning that it was Emily who drove her back to her apartment, and she would never have thought of that night again if a month later a memory from that night didn't come to her, a conversation she had (mostly with herself). She told Emily how jealous she was, how the thought of other people even breathing the same air as Emily made her so mad and it shouldn't be allowed, and how she would forever envy strangers at the bar who would get to talk to Emily in all the ways she wished she could.
Paris, present day
“Are you kidding me? You're bringing this up right now? How am I supposed to believe it wasn't just a drunken mistake?”
“How are yo-...Because of everything we've been through together! Four years, I've been right here! Four years, just waiting for you to open your eyes and see that I'm right here! And I am more than a partner!”
She took a moment to collect herself. She could already feel the tears on her face, but she had to go through with this, or she might never get to again.
“Every morning, I bring you a cup of coffee just so I can see a smile on your face...Because I think you are the most remarkable, maddening, challenging, frustrating person I have ever met. And I love you Em, and if that means anything to you, if you care about me at all, just... Don't do this.”
“If I care about you?” Emily couldn't help but shake her head at that.
For the first time that night, she found the courage to look JJ in the eyes. In that moment she had decided to never take Jennifer Jereau for granted.
She was ready to admit to herself that she loved JJ more than she was afraid.
Her hand, free from the doorknob, found its way to Jennifer's cheek.
“I am sorry. I am so sorry Jennifer. I love you. I don't-”
She didn't even realize she was falling until her knees hit the floor. JJ seemed to notice as she matched her height the entire time. Emily started to sob. She was scared. Scared of her feelings. Scared of JJ and what she could do to her heart more than she feared Doyle.
“He might get away, and I wouldn't care. I almost died, and all I could think about was you. I just want you. I want you in my life, Jennifer.”
And she leaned in, slow and careful, like either of the two could break from the contact. She looked JJ in the eyes, looking for a sign, some sort of confirmation that it was okay to do this. There's no turning back after that, once they cross the line everything will be different. She needed to know that even after that, they would be alright.
JJ was still mad. Fuming at the other woman over her antics. But she also loved Emily. More than she feared the future. More than she was mad at her. And so, she leaned in, closing the unbearable distance between them, crossing the line for good.
At the end it wasn't as petrifying as they both thought it would be. The thought of not being in the other women's life seemed much worse.