Archive of Our Own ^beta

“One daughter who never saw seventeen…and the other,” she trailed off.

“The other what, mom?” JJ asked, hating how her voice wavered, god, she learned how to control that particular reaction back at the academy, she used that skill daily for more than fourteen years. Yet, alone with the woman who birthed her only to desert her when she needed motherly love the most, JJ felt drained, raw, vulnerable. Weak. “The other what?”

East Allegheny wasn’t as aggressively catholic as most small towns could be, yet every single person she knew attended one of the two churches every single Sunday and talked about whether this or that would get them into hell one day while being completely hypocritical.

JJ was twelve when her mother started dragging her – physically if necessary – to mass along with most of her peers. It had been a year after Ros, after her dad left, after her mother, whom she may as well call Ms. Jareau since they barely know each other, was human again. Their house was usually quiet nowadays, had been for a while, if JJ had to pinpoint the day her mother closed her mouth and didn’t open it again for anything other than some demands or warnings, she would put it on the day her dad left to be with a woman he apparently had been seeing since a week after the funeral – sometimes she envied his cruelty. 

JJ didn’t mind the silence too much, she had been learning how to embrace it, it certainly beat that time right after everything happened when her mother and father would yell at each other for hours and then at her. For staying, for being the last person her sister ever talked to, for spending ten minutes frozen staring at the sight of her favorite person in the whole world motionless, bloody, lifeless; maybe if she had screamed earlier, maybe if someone else had opened the door to that godforsaken bathroom, maybe if she had gotten help Ros would have had a chance. But she didn’t, and JJ was alive.

Sometimes she wished a gunned killer had broken into their home and murdered both of them just so she wouldn’t have to go through this, sometimes she really hated her sister for doing it when she knew she would have to leave JJ. Right after, the only thing she felt was guilt. JJ didn’t remember much of the funeral, her state was near catatonic, but she could basically retell a conversation she had with one of the church widows word by word.

“You see, Jenny,” she started, grabbing her attention by holding her hands tightly. She always hated that nickname, Ros called her JJ. “The worst part about losing someone isn’t the funeral or the day after…is that the world keeps spinning and people move on. Soon enough you’ll be in the playground with your friends, your mom will take you shopping and your dad will help with homework,” she paused and JJ wondered if this whole speech was supposed to be comforting at all. “You’ll go to school and forget, and you’ll wait for her to come back home but she won’t…she never will. Put that in your head, so you won’t hurt too much.”

Then she left and JJ sat there, looking at one of the flower arrangements. Daisies. Roslyn has despised them since her eighth grade boyfriend cheated on her with a girl in her class and gave her a bouquet. She liked lilies. There wasn’t a single one in their living room.

The thing was though, the lady was so utterly wrong. JJ waited, she sat back and tried to be as good as possible so things would go back to normal, so they would move on. She waited for the day her mother would talk to her like she was a child again, JJ wondered if she even remembered she had another daughter most days. She waited for her father to care about how she was doing with school, he used to, then he didn't. Not since then.

She lost most of her friends too, she hadn't had many, JJ was a shy kid at heart. But after everything they all just…stopped, it was as if Ros had passed onto her a disease that could infect them if they stood too close, if they talked a little too much. She didn't get it and for that, she also hated Roslyn.

The world stopped spinning. For her at least, things kept happening and she kept her good grades. She slipped up once, with math because it was harder for her than any other subject. Her dad yelled at her, it was the last time he did so, she wondered if he left because she was sort of bad at it, when she asked her mother all she got was a hollow look. Empty. She didn't recognize who JJ was then, not really anyway.

Her twelfth birthday passed by. No one did anything, one of her aunts and three of her cousins sent their greetings, they were the only ones who did. JJ joined the middle school soccer team that same week, she felt closer to Roslyn like that, they used to play every Thursday as they walked past a field after school, it felt good to do something like that again. She decided to never quit, to be really good at it. One of her teachers talked about scholarships – that was the first time she had an actual plan of what to do in her life. Leave the hell out of East Allegheny, go as far as possible, show her mother she was still a person, she was there.

And maybe because of all that, her mother decided to wake her up early and take her to church. It was funny, she hadn’t spent one-on-one time with her mother since Roslyn’s passing – suicide, because her older sister didn’t die, she didn’t pass in an accident, it wasn’t an incident and it wasn't a murder. She killed herself. JJ hated how aggressive it was when Ros was always so gentle with her – there were only two people in that house, because Sandy Jareau was a lot of things, a creature of habit was one of them, and yet they barely saw each other.

Her mom went back to work two weeks after the funeral, JJ supposed it was enough of a distraction, like studying was for her. They used to sit together for breakfast, after her dad left, they traded passing glances when her mom headed out and she finished eating a yogurt, not a word was said, there wasn't a reason to. At night some of the women from the neighborhood would leave food for dinner on their doorstep, JJ hadn't seen her mother cooking since Ros.

At church the priest talked, JJ knew her mother wasn't paying any attention at all, she hadn't been either. They weren't devout Christians, not for the first twelve years of JJ's life anyway, so she didn't understand why they were there. But the priest read something about God never giving someone a cross heavier than they could carry, she had to bite her tongue not to yell about what bullshit that was. She was barely, barely, scraping by.

JJ started to cook then, because her mother wouldn't, and the nice neighborhood women stopped leaving food. It felt like an ultimatum, like they were telling them to move on, that grief had taken them too long already. And so, the first week she ate the leftovers, the second the rest of the fruit in the fridge and at the end of that month, she slept with her stomach empty. It hurt and it made her feel weak, she had to wait until lunch to eat the disgusting cafeteria food and that led her to start watching some cooking shows and trying to replicate it.

Sandy started to buy groceries every Friday before she came back from work, all JJ had to do was tape a list to the fridge, they didn't talk, they didn't talk at all. Once JJ got good enough in the kitchen, after two or so weeks, she started leaving dinner for her mother in the microwave. In the morning, she was always proud to see the plate empty. She learned how to wash and iron their clothes, and how to properly clean up things at the house. 

Once she got her period, she called 911, because she had skipped that lesson in her classes and her sister died because she bled out most of her blood in their bathtub. She wondered if her mother would've cared, she didn't think so. JJ often fantasized about earning her love back so she could ask her normal things like why she was bleeding and achy all over and her head hurt, but for now, she relied on a really nice emergency line operator.

When she was all settled and added pads to the list, JJ lied down and thought about someone actually bleeding out and unable to get help because she hogged the line asking stupid questions.

Sitting on the most uncomfortable bench she ever had the displeasure to sit on, she wondered if God was really that cruel. If he really thought that a twelve year old child had to start to raise herself because her dad left and her mom wasn't really there anymore. Did she really have to do it all by herself just because she could theoretically carry it? That seemed too harsh for a being that everyone claimed was good and generous. It didn't seem fair. Her classmates' biggest problems were how to ask their parents for a newly released pair of sneakers. It wasn't fair.

Later on, in her adult life, JJ would probably pinpoint that day as the first time she felt that boiling hot feeling burning her veins, it made her want to get up and throw things, maybe tear the image of Jesus Christ being crucified off the walls. She nearly stood, but her mother quickly gripped her arm and she stayed put from pure shock, it was the first time they touched in almost a year.

Her mother gave her a pointed look, good girls don’t throw tamturns, and so she gritted her teeth and smiled at her, all strained and fake but her mother nodded and let go of her arm as if she was burned by her skin. JJ wondered if she was really that bad.

Afterwards, they prayed and JJ asked why, why her, why her sister, why her family. He never answered. JJ asked her mother if she could run before coming home, she just nodded, once again not a word was spoken – it just pissed her off more, but running helped, she got back so tired that nothing mattered anymore.

That was also the day JJ gave up, she decided to stick to what she could see, to what she could feel. Her textbooks, the soccer field, having to take care of things at home. Quietly though, her mother liked it best when neither of them spoke, JJ thought it was because the noise would remind her that the family was incomplete, she usually thought the lack of it was far more obvious but she didn’t dwell on it. It was alright, she got used to it, to the silence.

Christmas came, JJ used to love it. It was the one time of the year when her dad would take them to church; last she heard he was attending the other one with his pregnant girlfriend. Ros would help her make popcorn garlands and they would decorate the entire house together before Thanksgiving, they always liked Christmas better. That year, though, was the first one without her, without anyone. 

They didn't visit their relatives or even get a tree, JJ missed hearing the carols her mom would always put on as soon as December started and the Christmas movies only made her cry. The 25th came and not a single light was on, JJ made breakfast and left a stack of pancakes on her mother's nightstand, she pretended she didn't know Sandy was crying, she pretended the tears in her own eyes weren't there at all. She sat on the porch, watching the snowfall and the younger kids playing; she learned how to make good hot chocolate by herself, trial and error.

The house was quiet.

JJ was drowning in it.

She went to church alone that day, they had a feast for the people, both from their town and two or three others nearby, who hadn't had money to eat well and JJ was hungry. Sandy didn't get up a lot that week, JJ used the last of their groceries to make sandwiches for lunch. She told the priest she wanted to volunteer, JJ heard about foster care and negligence and what would happen if parents were reported. JJ knew her mother didn't like her very much anymore, but she refused to go anywhere else, that would mean abandoning the last place she and Ros talked.

The priest let her do it in peace, she distributed blankets and toys to the kids. It felt good to be useful, to receive grateful smiles as she handed them things. It was nice, she wanted to do this for a long time, it helped her forget just for a little bit. When they served supper she ate well and maybe she tried to smuggle out a little bit of meat and some of the salad at least, when the priest caught her all he did was offer a plastic container and tell her food would go bad if she didn't store it properly.

He was a good man, maybe the only one she knew and for that, she was grateful. He told her to attend service that week, that it would be good for her family. JJ had to stop herself from frowning, she hadn't had a family in almost a year.

Roslyn's death anniversary passed by in silence. JJ was almost catatonic when she woke up, just like the funeral, neither she nor her mother left their rooms, she felt suffocated, it felt as if she left her bed that same sight from the year before would greet her. JJ could still smell the coppery blood on the tip of her nose. And she cried. In silence.

By thirteen, JJ had mastered the art of quick self care. She learned how to meal prep once a week and the quick way to unwrinkle clothes with the post shower fog, she knew the best way to make studying quick and effective. JJ had never kissed anyone, and kids at school started to talk to her again so she heard all about it, she didn't particularly care for it. Just the thought of kissing a teenage boy, with their sweaty hands and awkward lips, made her almost gag so she checked herself out of conversations when that happened.

She had started to make friends with the girls from her soccer team, it was nice, sometimes she forgot she didn't have to be quiet all the time. There was this girl, Charlotte – Charlie – and she turned out to be one of JJ's best friends, they talked every day, she never brought Ros up and JJ never invited her over but they were friends. JJ was never angry around her, she didn’t know why but Charlie was good at making her feel extremely calm. So they started doing everything together.

They had the same classes and practicing soccer was better with someone else. JJ felt like a person again even when her brain tried to tell her that being so close was a bad thing – she hadn't been close to anyone in a while, it felt too good to talk and be talked to for her to pretend she didn't want a best friend.

So when Charlie brought up the idea of having their first kiss together so boys wouldn't make fun of them for being bad at it, JJ couldn't find fault in her logic.

The girls' locker room and the boys' one were close, both of them heard how they talked about the girls they kissed and if it was bad or nice. The last time she was bad at something her dad left, JJ managed to convince Charlie to practice until they were really good.

The first time they kissed was incredibly awkward, they sat closely on Charlie's bedroom floor, closed lips and stiff postures but when they leaned away they were glad to be doing this together.

“Okay, we have to be better than this,” Charlie said, all determined and fierce. “Then we need to learn how to make out, everyone is saying Stephanie B. sucks ‘cause she uses too much tongue.”

None of them knew what too much tongue entailed but were sure that if they used too little people would also make fun of them.

JJ just nodded and kissed her again, it was nice, her lips were soft and for some reason, JJ felt warm all over, she could swear her skin was melting and her heart was going to burn. They spent hours on Charlie's floor doing just that, they practiced kissing until it was comfortable and then started making out until their lips were swollen and both of them were out of breath. JJ liked it and it was obvious Charlie did too so when her friend gave her a lame excuse about how they should keep practicing just to be sure, JJ nodded enthusiastically; that night she swore that if she lifted her arms she could reach the moon.

They spent the last three months of school like that. They went to soccer practice together, JJ left with Charlie to her house to avoid the quiet solitude of her own, they did homework and made out until it got too late. On weekends they usually went to the only diner in the town or took a stroll around a few secluded spots in the woods so they could make out a little more. Charlie knew a lot about the stars, when the sun would set and her parents were out of town – which was really often – she would lay a blanket on the grass and tell all sorts of stories about constellations and goddesses and lonely people. JJ felt immortal when she kissed her in between tales and told her how one day they would be up there and their brightness would be bigger than any other star.

They talked about boys and how stinky they were, Charlie had a vendetta against them apparently, she had told JJ she didn’t want to kiss any stupid boy when her lips were so much softer and she was really nice and once she said JJ’s perfume made her dizzy. It felt like ascending into heaven.

She liked Charlie, she was the first person she could say she did, but in the last month of summer vacation, her mother sent her on some sort of camping trip or something. When JJ tried to kiss her like they used to do all the time, Charlie recoiled like she was poisonous and told JJ that she shouldn’t do that because only disgusting sinful dykes liked kissing other girls. JJ blanched, she didn’t know what happened in that camp but Charlie never talked like that, she was gentle through and through, and she watched her friend throwing herself at the boys she showed so much disgust on.

JJ cried that night, she wondered what Ros would say, what her mother would, her actual mother and not this soulless shell of her that lived in their house now. In the end, she didn’t have anyone to answer her questions, JJ knew the people in her town weren’t very keen on the queers as her neighbor called them, but she didn’t know if there was anything that could give Charlie, now going by Lottie, that sort of personality switch like that.

She didn't even know if she was one herself or if she just liked kissing Charlie, and hanging out with her, holding her hand, sleeping by her side, wearing her jersey. Best friend stuff. 

So JJ went to the only place she could escape, the church. She still didn’t believe in God, not a lot, but it was a nice atmosphere and Priest John was nice enough to answer some of her questions without much of a preamble. Also, one of the boys there played the organ almost all the time, she liked it better than the silence.

She waited until he finished with a confession, a part of her tried to pray, the more rational one told her it would be useless. It didn’t work when she knelt beside her bed and begged to have her family back, it didn't work when she begged God to give her sister back and take her instead, and it didn’t help when she cried and shut her eyes tightly hoping a voice would hear her and give her some relief from everything she had to do – it wasn’t even much, she asked for one day off. One day. And yet…and yet.

He was kind when he sat by her side, they started with a Holy Mary. JJ didn’t see the point, but she did it anyway, the place had always given her what she needed when it came to material things like food, she wouldn’t disrespect it just because she felt like saving a minute of her time.

Then she asked, she didn’t tell the whole story, of course. JJ said that she was the team’s captain, true, and they were good friends, true, and that ever since she came back Lottie was a little weird, also true, and she didn’t know what happened but having a friend sort of ignoring the requests to hang out hurt a little, true even if it was an understatement.

Father John asked if she knew what happened, the whole thing, JJ said no. Half true. She said they hung out sometimes over the summer but that was just it. Lie. They really weren’t that close. Such a big lie it burned her tongue a little. He told her about homosexuality and how God disapproved of it, he talked about her parents hearing her talking to the walls about some girl – her, most likely. But he didn't have to know that. Then he told her about the camp, how it was supposed to straighten out the sinful kids, that if she saw something like that she should tell him and he would talk to their parents and send them there. 

JJ felt it in her stomach, that deep seated dread that was guilt. If she hadn't agreed to practice kissing Charlie wouldn't be in trouble, and if she hadn't called her to hang out so much Charlie wouldn't have talked to the walls about her. A part of JJ liked that Charlie liked her so much she just had to get it out of her system, but she couldn't stop thinking it was her fault. It was her fault. And her chest hurt so much, Charlie was a completely different person and it was her fault. She was sent to that camp because of her.

JJ swallowed and tried to not feel glad that Charlie's parents didn't know about her, some part of her wondered if she would say something now that she wasn't herself.

“Can I be honest, Father?”

“You should always be, Jennifer.”

“I don’t know if I like that very much,” she whispered, scared of someone else hearing it. What if they sent her to the camp too?

“You don’t have to like it, you just have to accept God’s law.”

JJ nodded, she couldn't say anything else, he couldn't know. They prayed once more, JJ asked, for the first time in more than a year for Charlie to go back to normal. She knew it wouldn't happen, but she had to. It was her fault.

Every time JJ saw newly developed Lottie doing something weird she felt her chest hurting. When she quit soccer because it wasn't ladylike, or when she started to date a guy that she had spent a good chunk of their time together telling JJ that he was the worst. 

At the end of the year, JJ promised herself to never do that with someone else ever again. She would never be the reason another girl had to go to the camp, she would never make anyone suffer again. 

JJ didn't mind boys very much. She didn't like them a lot, not like she liked Charlie, but they would have to do. She kissed a boy for the first time a month after that, he was in her class and asked for it nicely, she didn't mind. It didn't make her see fireworks like kissing Charlie did, but she had to forget all about that. No one would ever go to camp again because of her.

So JJ focused on something else, she tried her best to be someone other than the girl with the dead sister, she smiled more, even if it was extremely strained, she stayed out longer, even if she was alone. It wasn't fun and she didn't like it very much, but her mom started praying to Saint Jude – very late at night, JJ could hear her voice in the dead silence that stifled their house. Sandy begged for Him to help her daughter, it was then that JJ knew that she knew.

She wondered why her mother didn't send her to camp too, she probably didn't want people talking. JJ figured that maybe praying every single night was better than spending money sending her away, she wondered if that meant that her mom wanted her close.

Even if she thought so, the more rational part of her knew that it probably wasn't that, her mom loved her because she was her child. But Sandy would never like JJ, because she had survived and that was sacrilege enough.

Her high school life was less than exciting. She got to be captain of the varsity soccer team for the whole four years and even if she had some friends she made a point of being detached from them enough to not only prevent terrible situations from happening again but also for when she left she wouldn’t feel so sad. Every day the possibility of a scholarship grew more and more real and she knew that all she had to do was keep on top of her class.

She stopped going to church, her mother stopped trying to drag her once she entered sophomore year, the only thing she told her when JJ broke the sacred silence of their cold house to ask about it was, you’re beyond salvation. And JJ thought she was right, because she caught herself thinking a little too much about Chelsea’s legs that seemed to go on for miles and Susan’s stomach that was a little more toned than hers and Esther’s lips, always coated with a deep red that would look so good staining her neck. So logically, she got a boyfriend when she was sixteen.

James was a nice guy, he didn't pressure her and he liked sports as much as she did. He gave her a proper introduction to football, being their high school team's wide receiver and all, but he liked the Denver Nuggets and she turned out to be more of a Redskins fan and it was fine. It was enough. He was enough.

They dated for a total of six months and JJ gave him her virginity. It hurt but it was nice enough, better than some of the horror stories she overheard from her classmates, and at the very least had the decency not to gloat about it at school. JJ went to church that day. If Father John was disappointed he hadn’t been seeing her for anything other than Christmas he didn’t say a word, but she told him what happened and that she felt nothing afterwards. She kicked James out as soon as it was over and she knew her mother was about to come back from work, then she laid on her bed and hoped to feel satisfaction or warmth or literally anything. She felt nothing and it wasn’t right.

Father John talked about sin and about consequences, he told her that nothingness was there to make her feel guilty enough, that she would only feel whole with God or if she was doing it to have a family with a man she loved. He told her about the flower, that if a lot of people touched and smashed it, it would turn ugly and no one would want it anymore. He said that was why she should've been attending Sunday school.

JJ didn’t think that was right, not at all, but she just went there to vent and she found that repenting was easy enough, she wasn't a slut and she wasn't a dyke, and apparently those two were the labels she had to avoid the most. She just had to pray as many times as he told her to, she didn’t mind it, it gave her something else to think about at least.

She kept having sex with James, once a week to satisfy him and it seemed to be working as she predicted. He liked her just fine and she pretended she wasn't more focused on studying to get the hell out of that town. They had date nights every Friday, it wasn't so bad, she schooled him on darts and he was nice enough to laugh it off.

They broke up when he felt like he was never her first option, he wasn't, but JJ felt guilty for not giving her boyfriend enough attention and just accepted it. By the end of the week there were rumors running around about him having sex with the entire god awful cheerleading team, unsurprising since he had that whole football player thing working for him, she wondered if that had been going on for a while already. She hoped not, there were rumors about a few of them not liking to use condoms, the last thing she needed was an STI.

Her mother once prayed in a loud enough voice to shatter the silence.

“Please, Lord, make it stop. Make her stop.”

JJ decided not to think too much about what she was talking about. She had a championship game in two days, the pressure to be the best as captain was killing her, she had to excel in it. 

She dated another boy at the start of her senior year. He was quiet. Silent. And it reminded her too much of home, it was stifling and sometimes anxiety inducing, but when they kissed he never made much of an effort. When they hugged his hands never strayed from the middle of her back, she wondered if he liked her at all.

On their second month together she saw him checking some of the football team's boys out, JJ tried to pretend she didn't but her breath hitched without her consent and his eyes widened in a panic she felt so familiar with. She knew he was doing the same thing she was, you don't have to like it, he was just doing a worse job than her. 

“I’m still your girlfriend. Don't worry about it,” was all she could whisper to him in their bustling cafeteria table, half of the soccer and the cheer team sat near them. She promised herself no one would have to go because of her, she would keep it – keep his secret and hope he didn't ask much about hers.

But once they were alone in her room he did. He did and she couldn't hide her reaction. She didn't even have a chance, he was a classmate she barely remembered during middle school and JJ could pinpoint when he remembered who used to be her best friend, his eyes softened in something that screamed pity, worse than she had seen during or after Ros's funeral.

“They saw me kissing a boy…” he whispered, the words getting stuck in his throat before being spat out.

“Is he…”

He just shook his head, tears free falling from his cheeks and staining her comforter. She hoped this boy was alright.

“Mom said she wouldn't tell, but I had to fix myself or she'd do it for me…and you seemed nice so I asked you out,” he shrugged, a little sheepish but still incredibly heartbroken.

“Does he know?”

“About you and me? Yeah. About what happened? Not everything, I just said I had to lay low for a while.”

JJ bit her lip and tried to put herself in his shoes, she was an empathetic person, she understood why he did what he did. If she had to be honest the prospect of not being loved or desired by her boyfriend didn't even hurt all that much. What made her uncomfortably hot with her boiling rage was that he had to do it in the first place, she didn't understand why, there was nothing to fix and nothing to straighten out. Honestly, the town was quite okay with the so called queers a few years before, and if it weren't for that fucking camp they would still be. 

They weren't broken. Just dangerous to the one they loved.

They didn't do anything wrong until someone pointed a finger at them and told everyone that it could be cured. It couldn't. JJ caught Charlie staring at Charity's boobs just last week, even if she had to run to the bathroom to throw up afterwards.

“Hey, do you,” he started and then trailed off before finding his words again and speaking in the softest tone she ever heard. “Do you even like boys?”

JJ paused, she tried to reassess her own feelings. Like was a strong word but she knew she didn't dislike them either, she only kissed boys now and it didn't make her extremely miserable. It just wasn't like kissing girls and it got dull after a while.

So she shrugged. “I don't mind them, the kissing can be nice and the sex is okay.”

“You won’t tell?”

“Keep mine and I keep yours,” she shrugged.

They dated for a few months, but he couldn’t do it. Not when the love of his life looked so heartbroken when they walked together in the hallways, it was fine, they staged a big fight before one of JJ’s soccer games and both of them could pretend the breakup hurt enough to not want to date anybody else until college.

JJ turned eighteen before graduation and it was the first time in six years her mother bothered to remember her birthday. All she had done was give her this look, all heartbreak and emptiness and JJ knew, she knew because she felt it too. 

It was ridiculous that she got to be of age and her sister didn’t, she was older now, she lived longer than Roslyn, it wasn’t fair. Her mother looked at her like she hadn’t wanted her to make it. like she would've preferred if JJ killed herself too, They had that in common at the very least.

She got the opportunity to leave for Georgetown on a full ride scholarship for soccer, JJ accepted without even talking to her mother about it. She applied for a job as a barista in a cafe near the school and had an interview set up during her first week there.

She left with a simple goodbye and a look so empty it stripped her of feeling as well. JJ didn't look back once.

JJ had chosen to work with the FBI after a seminar and with nothing more than her communications degree, a psychology minor and sheer will to do right by people who suffered so much. Most of her classmates were journalists but she saw the job description for a communication liaison and it sounded perfect.

She learned how to use her neverending anger then. It was as silent as it had been in her entire teenage years, it showed with firm phone calls to police departments and commanding tones with unwilling captains, with hours upon hours of paperwork and meetings with the board, with seemingly apathetic case presenting after she spent hours on Hotch's office defending why she needed them on a specific case.

JJ was always subtly angry but this time she was a little appreciated for it.

It wasn’t until then that JJ remembered what a family looked like. She was twenty three and fresh out of college when she first met them, the position had just opened up and Hotch was the one to train her, she could see it in their eyes, the doubt that she would be good enough, strong enough to handle the pressure and the horror. But it was alright, ever since the realization that she had lived longer without Roslyn than with her, she hadn’t felt anything. The overwhelming mountain of manila folders and the victims that often enough looked like her were nothing at all.

The BAU, she found, was a boys club and the only way to make it was being useful enough that they couldn’t possibly replace her. It was the first thing Penelope had taught her, it didn’t even take a full workday for her to realize that the team would be nothing without the tech genius. 

For a little over a year it had been only her and Garcia as the only women regularly around, the boys had grown to be sort of brotherly figures to her and JJ for the first time since her childhood had felt a sense of belonging.

Then Elle showed up.

JJ's world ended before her eyes the minute their hands touched.

They weren't close, not that much anyway, Elle was on the field and JJ tried to avoid it as much as she could, it made it easy for her to dissuade the idea she got from that small contact alone. It was good even.

That was until, for some reason, Elle decided to stay in the office a couple of days before their vacation. JJ was almost sure she was the last one there as usual when she was ambushed in the elevator.

The offer to drink and just get away for a while was tempting and there was something about those brown eyes and her softer voice that just made it hard to say no to her. It shouldn't have been a surprise where they ended up that night – tangled in the sheets of her bed.

That was the first time JJ allowed herself to do something with the attraction she felt towards women since she was thirteen. And Elle was so kind and gentle that when JJ came with a sob, all she did was kiss her tears away and hold her a bit tighter.

When JJ ate her out until the wee hours of the morning, she felt like God. She finally understood why people loved sex so much, why some people were legit obsessed with it. Her taste and those little strangled sounds she let out were the only things JJ cared about at that moment, she felt weightless.

JJ remembered praying gratefully that night, it was something she seldom did, but she and Elle had potential, she knew as much. Knew from the way those eyes danced upon her face as she enjoyed the feeling of being held, that they could've been something great. 

She remembered Father John's words about how feeling nothing after intimacy was one of the consequences of sin and wondered how could anyone consider what they did sinful when she felt so amazing that her entire body hummed. Begged for more. She felt like an alcoholic, her hands shaking with the sole thought of touching honeyed skin again, her tongue numb craving Elle's taste.

JJ didn't know why she waited so long to do this, why she didn't act on her attraction the same day they met. She knew how Elle looked at her, knew how good she herself looked to others and that it could've been just that – Spencer did always talk about how the blonde and blue eyes combo could disarm people.

But not even three days later Elle got shot and she was never the same after that. JJ wondered if they were being punished for their sin, she wondered if her old priest was right after all. She didn't believe in God, not really, but there was something out there that surely didn't want her to commit such acts. JJ couldn't help but listen to the warning, she brought misery upon every girl she kissed, she mustn't be so selfish to put them at risk for her own pleasure. 

She obeyed.

Never again.

The first time JJ believed in the divine was when Emily Prentiss showed up in a musty bathroom, her wide brown eyes dripping with trust and the light in the hallway giving her a halo. As the angry and bloody dog muzzles disappeared, Emily remained, real, grounding, the only thing tethering her to reality. She asked JJ to go outside with her and for a second there, she believed in guardian angels and saviors and goddesses. For the first time since she was eleven, JJ could breathe.

She didn't know how, but Emily looked at her like she knew what JJ was made of. Her brown eyes were so deep and so haunted and she, too, knew immediately that Emily wasn't exactly who she tried to present as. They only stared at each other for a little over a second and yet…and yet. 

The next day, when they were on their way back from talking to Tobias Hankle's narcotics anonymous advisor, Emily leaned in to rest her head on the steering wheel and breathed out with the softest voice she ever heard, I'm so glad you're here. 

You don't have to like it.

JJ's heart sped up, it hurt where it pounded on her ribcage. Charlie. Elle. Emily stole a glance at her, the smallest upwards tug on her lips. She was the only person that said that, the only one that felt that. Glad. JJ knew most of the team would rather have the situation reversed, Reid would undoubtedly be more useful than she was, JJ knew and she thought so too. She wasn't a profiler, technically she wasn't even supposed to be on the field. 

When they came back home that moment was imprinted on JJ's brain, on her soul. Every time Emily talked, with her usual demanding tone, she remembered how Emily talked to her, how heartfelt the words were, how they passed through her ear canal and set warmth into her entire body, her bloodstream consisted of Emily, her lungs and her heart called for those five words that breathed oxygen into her again.

It was panic inducing. More than anything it made her feel thirteen again, sitting on the church's hard bench with Father John calmly describing to her how much of a sin homosexuality was. No, she couldn't do that to Emily, who was one of the sweetest people she ever met.

It was why, a week and a half later, she accepted one of the many offers lead detectives usually made to her and went on a date with Will Lamontange. She wasn't that much into him, but he wasn't exactly that bad and she had a good time when he wasn't being that shameless in his flirtations. She didn't mind him, he was attractive enough, he excited her enough but he didn't sweep into her brain and wrote his name in her bones.

He was just enough.

You don't have to like it.

That night, when he thrust into her and grunted in her ear about how good she felt all she could think about was Emily, Emily, Emily. When his hands ran against her body like he wanted to possess her, own her, she thought of Emily. He was enough to make her cum, but she just knew that with Emily it would be so much better.

That last thought was what made her accept his offer of actually dating him. He would still be in New Orleans and she would be in DC, she would only have to see him during the weekends when she didn't have to work and she always made a point of getting to Quantico before Hotch and leaving after him so work would always be there. She knew that dating wasn't supposed to feel like that, like it was just enough, like it was a chore. But it would have to do, at least she would have to stay with him enough to forget Emily.

Lot's wife turned into a salt sculpture because she looked back. She knew everyone she loved would be burned, everything she ever knew would be destroyed, all she had was her family and they didn't even have a concrete plan but to flee due to God's orders. She looked back, she was human. And she paid the price. Because she disobeyed God's laws. You don't have to like it.

JJ wouldn’t turn into a salt statute. She wouldn’t look back. She wouldn’t look at Emily, not anymore.

She couldn’t.

She couldn't not.

She tried, she really did. JJ went out with him at least twice a month, she answered all his calls and tried her best to not leave his texts on read, she laughed at the things he sent her and engaged in phone sex whenever he felt like it. She liked him, she did, she could swear she did. But he wasn't…he wasn't Emily.

He helped her forget sometimes but whether she liked it or not, she always went back. Always, always towards Emily. There was nothing she could do, her world started in that office, in that bathroom, in that barn.

Every time she came back from seeing him her apartment was silent, and she felt like she was drowning again. It didn't make sense. And Emily was there.

It was why a year later she broke up with Will, he wasn't enough anymore. Nothing was. Not since she told Emily she could see her with kids and it became a staple in the forefront of her mind, she slept with his arms around her body and dreamed of forming a family with another woman. She couldn't do it anymore.

At the end of day, lying to him, being selfish, stringing him along was probably worse than doing whatever she was doing with her best friend. She didn't have to like being with him, but he deserved better, it was the most selfless thing she ever did.

Her pregnancy was probably a punishment for that. She never truly wanted kids, there was a nagging voice in her head telling her that she wouldn't be better than her own mother and a louder one saying that her kid would have their days counted. JJ prayed for the first time in a long time and begged God to not give her a girl, not one with her eyes and her blonde hair.

When JJ opened the hospital envelope everything fell silent. The ghost of Emily's presence made the room feel even more lonely, the positive glaring at her made her sick, it wasn't fair. Not at all.

She would keep it, that was the very first decision she made. What was done was done, she would just do her best and preferably without Will.

His first words after she told him were, so you'll quit your job, right? He didn't ask if she was okay, or if she would keep the embryo, or even how. She wondered if that was all he ever wanted from her, a pretty little housewife to have his children and do his domestic work for him.

JJ remembered how it was to grow up without a father, her work day started before anyone else's and it ended after everyone went home. Sometimes all she had time to do back at her apartment was change clothes. Her future kid deserved better, it was what had driven her to make possibly one of the worst decisions for herself – I won't…but I'll need you.

She didn't want to.

She didn't have to like it.

And at least he seemed eager to raise this kid with her.

Every single one of the five times he asked her to marry him and she said no, she ended up letting him fuck her just to make the guilt a little less intense. It wouldn't go away, not ever, but JJ was used to feeling it to some degree. Has felt it since she was eleven.

Just this time it was easier to make him forget about his request, she could actually make him feel better in just a few minutes and he wouldn't do it again for a few months. She pretended she didn't see the ring on their nightstand, or that his presence on her bed was a little bothersome.

JJ was good at that, pretending. Had been for a while.

The biggest part of her pregnancy actually passed with Emily by her side in trashy motels and shared average hotel rooms. Will took longer than she thought he would to move to DC and her perpetual roommate was always there when the morning sickness hit or her cravings got absurd. At one point, she would've named Emily as her son's godmother but once she realized that their routine made it look like she and her best friend were expecting parents, she changed her mind.

If JJ named Emily anything, gave her a set role in her kid's life, she wouldn't be able to fantasize the three of them were a happy family anymore. She couldn't pretend that they slept on the same bed, and it wasn't because Emily's presence calmed the baby or that it would be better for them to share just in case she needed anything, it was because they were in this together. Like they should've been.

JJ knew, Emily was pretending too.

She wasn't a profiler but she also wasn't stupid, JJ could almost taste the adoration in her eyes, so big and expressive, she knew it was always mirrored on her own if she ever allowed herself to linger too much. She knew of the little things Emily had always done for her that she never did for anyone else, she felt the hurt in her chest and the strain of her smile when Will revealed her pregnancy to the team. She knew and she felt it too.

And the worst part was, if it wasn't unsaid their relationship would never be what it was, Emily was just as scared of making things real as she herself was. A part of her wondered if Emily's hesitation came from the same place hers did, she hoped it didn't, even if hope had always been a fickle thing for someone like her.

They stayed in this dance for years, JJ knew that if it had to change she had to be the one to do it, Emily would never risk ruining them and JJ couldn't break Emily. Couldn't risk it. She knew that the moment she said something it would be over for them. 

Until Paris. 

Until JJ had to once again grieve the most important person in her life, only this time she couldn't even have camaraderie within the team or anyone else, with Ros she had at least Father John sometimes. They didn't know she was alive and she had to deal with it by herself, Hotch was as closed off as ever, the guilty glint in his eyes was too much even for her.

And even if he knew about Emily's status, he could never know why she came back so depressed, why she worked inhumane hours again in a way she hadn't since Henry was born, why the deep circles underneath her eyes were the only sign of her losing her mind. He couldn't know because Emily made her promise that she would forget about everything once she stepped on that plane again, because nothing could ever happen outside of the bubble they created for themselves.

The guilt was always lurking underneath the surface of her bloodstream, sometimes when Will kissed her she had to quite literally make herself bleed with her nails to avoid throwing up. He wasn't that bad, not really, he had always been just enough – he just wasn't Emily.

The weeks they spent in the countryside, in a cottage all by themselves were the best in her entire life. It was the closest JJ had ever felt to true contentment, there was only one bed and they kissed on that first day. They didn't say anything, not about their feelings nor about what they were even doing. If they did it would make it real, JJ just needed to avoid thinking about her assignments in Afghanistan and Emily was dead. 

Nothing could ever be real for them. And if it wasn't real it wasn't wrong.

They had sex on the second night, Emily had a night terror and in her own words, needed something to ground her so she settled for cuddling and leaving tiny kisses on JJ's neck. Part of her wondered if she just wanted what she wanted but needed a way to make it seem less serious, less sentimental.

But they spent their days like a retired married couple, lounging around, making out, fucking and pretending. JJ did think she could've gotten used to it, sometimes she dreamed of them just running away to another cottage, one the higher ups at the FBI wouldn't be able to find and they could just live. The Prentiss financial funds were still massive; they could never work on anything serious ever again, she knew she was pregnant and maybe they could raise this one together, they could live off their love and whatever they planted alone.

They had a routine and being domestic felt so good, being with Emily felt good. She knew this was what she was born to do, to live by this amazing woman's side and feel the wave of emotions she made JJ feel. They didn't say it, but that didn't mean they didn't know how right this felt.

It was in every touch, every moan, every kiss, every snore, every complaint about blanket hogging, every meal shared, every quiet moment. Because silence with Emily didn't feel suffocating.

For the first time since Elle, JJ didn't avoid such thoughts about another woman. She didn't because Emily was dead, the worst had already happened. What else could God take away from her.

The answer came in an explosion and a negative pregnancy test.

This was far from the first time JJ felt like the burden of the punishment was all hers to carry, Will didn't know, he couldn't. She wondered if this would be the last crack on the fragile crumbling wall of their marriage, and she couldn't let this happen, for Henry, she couldn't.

And really, this had been all her fault.

She had gotten involved with the mission. She got too close to Nadia. She failed her task. She knew too much. She fell in love with Emily. She defied God.

Logically, she had to endure it on her own. The less Will knew, the better.

Also logically, she had to tell Emily.

They supported each other via online Scrabble and one or two letters at most. Emily was dead and she was the only thing anchoring JJ to life.

Her boyfriend had complained more than once that she yelled for Emily in her nightmares, that she cried for her, begged for her. He once said that sometimes listening to it felt like listening to a desperate prayer for God, a needy profession of faith and devotion, he wondered why he wasn't ever enough to save her.

It was all JJ could remember when he was in the hospital and all she could see was that damn velvet box.

When Emily came back she was unstable, she was just as lost as she had been when first stepping on the unit, only less confident. It killed JJ inside, she had never told anyone but the decision to kill her had been hers, she told Hotch just because she had to. Emily didn't feel right in her own life, she knew it because the look she received when they walked to the bullpen together for the first time was the same one she got when Emily showed up at her house on the lucky day she was home to tell the story of Lauren Reynolds.

JJ saw her risking her life to save Will for what it was, Emily not wanting her to be alone after she left.

So she said yes to the question Will had been plaguing her with since her first pregnancy. 

She lived like it didn't hurt, like there wasn't an Emily-shaped hole inside her rib cage that threatened to consume her whole and make her bones cave in. Her wedding night was one of the worst days of her life, she looked at Emily while in Will's arms and her solemn eyes, so devoid of any hope, were enough to burn her entire being.

Emily needed an excuse to run, to flee, to try to get used to being herself again or becoming someone else entirely and JJ was giving it to her. Because the only thing that tethered this new Emily Prentiss to her Emily was the love she held for JJ and the love she felt in return.

She didn't say goodbye, she didn't say anything at all. They met as everyone else got too drunk to function and Emily was almost successful in sneaking out, but JJ knew her, she was the only one who ever did. Whoever will. They were one and the same.

They stood silently by each other's side, the atmosphere so heavy that it created its own gravitational pull and it made them stand closer, too close for two women who only ever called each other friends. 

JJ looked into the eyes that always threatened to suck her into Emily's body, she hoped they did this time, hoped to make her ribs her home, to lay upon her heart once more and let the strong and steady thrums lull her into the most restful sleep she ever had. Emily smiled at her, a perfect grimace with finality and grief for what could've been. JJ saw her walking down the aisle earlier, neither needed to say how they imagined that was the scene they wished it happened earlier.

The silence was close to eating both of them up, it dangled heavily between them and JJ couldn't stand it anymore.

“Don’t forget me,” she whispered, the same habit from her childhood resurfacing once more. Begging for love once more. Praying, pleading, like her mother used to do with her Saint Jude figure.

She was well and truly pathetic, had always been.

“I could never.”

It sounded like a vow.

She watched as Emily walked away, they wouldn't see each other so soon, they couldn't. 

Penelope had invited her to visit London the second time she went, JJ couldn't.

Their last case had involved a boy and a conversion camp, she was too lost in herself to be able to face the one person who would be able to understand why she was so skittish, so terrified and angry. Penelope didn't push, but Emily's knowing eyes would force her to talk about it.

She couldn't revisit that particular awful part of her past and it took her a few days to gather herself again. She wondered how many of those still existed, if there was still one by East Allegheny County, just a couple hundred miles away. JJ tried her best not to look at it, to avoid it, she had always been particularly good at that one thing – maybe it was a generic heritage from her mother, who knew.

She didn't last until the end of the week. 

The camp was still there. It had the same function and name, but new management.

Her stomach lurched when she saw the new camp director's name in big bold letters.

Charlotte Williams.

It was her fault.

She refused to answer Emily's weekly calls for months, even if her friend never gave up. The first time she did answer was on Christmas.

“Oh, you do remember how a phone works,” was what Emily said instead of hello.

“I do,” she breathed. “I’m sorry.”

“I know. ”

And JJ knew she did, she truly did. The call was silent after that, comfortably so, unlike their last quiet moment.

“So…Merry Christmas?” She asked and JJ couldn't help but laugh, she missed this.

They talked for hours, JJ only remembered she was supposed to be having something with Will when he showed up with his nose turned up. She mouthed her friend's name and saw the vein in his forehead pop, but he said nothing as he left. He couldn't, he had always known that if it was between him and Emily, JJ's choice wouldn't have been her own husband.

When JJ was captured, after the sixth or so hour of torture, she didn't even remember what her mission was all about anymore. Sure, she wasn't going to say anything, but her only thought was Emily. She was the only one who knew a little about what was going on, just as she was the only one who JJ thought about when the brass asked her for a distress signal.

She knew that if worse may be Emily would be her saving grace. As she was in Tobias Hankle's bathroom and barn, as she was in the Interpol jet when JJ didn't know what to do with her mission, as she was in the cottage, as she was in a train station. Emily had never once failed her, JJ knew she never would.

And maybe that was her putting too much pressure, too much faith in one person, a human being made of flesh and bones, she wasn't a god nor was she a guardian angel. But JJ knew this was different, Emily had always been her protector and she had been hers.

She knew, that no matter where she was, Emily would find her. Always her. For her only, Emily would go to the ends of the Earth, she would be Orpheus and she would turn back if she ever thought JJ wasn't following her, her concern had always outweighed her logic.

JJ knew what that meant, she had always known.

She knew when Emily showed up for her, on the wet, cold floor, she knew. Her voice was so soft, calling her name the same way she did in Paris, with as much reverence as JJ called her, as she thought of her. Because if Emily was to go through the underworld for her, JJ would walk through purgatory and hell just so she could sniff the heaven that was her arms.

It was why they always worked.

Emily touched her so gently, talked to her so lovingly, until she didn't and JJ knew it wasn't real. She would never even once ask her to give up, Emily's stubbornness wasn't confined only to herself. 

Yet, she had hope.

JJ wouldn't ever give up on Emily, if this was to be her last day, then she would die knowing that Emily would get there. She would be there because Hotch would for sure call her, everyone knew, if JJ needed Emily would come.

It never failed. It never would.

JJ prayed. It was the first time that year she did so, not to God, not really. But with Hastings' hands on her body her mind muttered Emily's name over and over again with Askari's knife aimed at her, already coated with her friend's blood, she called for the one person who would ever get her out of this hell.

And save her Emily did.

As she always would.

They didn't talk after JJ was checked out by the paramedics, they couldn't, as much as they would go to extremes with each other. Something about heightened emotional situations and long conversations didn't sit right with them, not after Paris.

“No more lies,” she said. And she wanted to mean it so bad, she could see it then, Emily's eyes had something in them that stung more than the electricity did a few short hours before.

She wondered if she had to get a divorce now. No more lies, yet she blatantly played a character in her own home just to be in love with her best friend behind closed doors. Sometimes, JJ wondered if she imagined everything, if it was wishful thinking, sometimes she wished it was. It would be easier then, to play it off as a normal friendship and her foolishly falling for someone who could never love her back. 

But she knew.

Emily would never be able to give her peace because she was just as much in love with her. Just as devoted, just as mad, completely insanely head over heels. And they knew, they would never be able to have the type of relationship they needed when they were both two sides of the same fucked up coin.

But, oh, how she wanted it.

The little glimpse of heaven she had in Paris had never left her mind no matter how much she tried to avoid it. 

So she stepped out, in dire need of fresh air and space. Although she knew it wouldn't take long for Emily to join her, they always had this need of being silently alone together, it was something she knew no one ever understood.

Maybe because no one would ever understand themselves like they did. JJ was the only person that could see Emily for who she was, as a whole. 

Both of them were big liars, actresses, pretenders, impostors. JJ knew Emily never felt adequate anywhere unless she was being someone a little different than herself, just as JJ was entirely too aware that Emily was the only one who ever saw through her grown up facade – she was the only one who ever witnessed just how not put together JJ could be.

And she was sure no one else would get it the way Emily did.

She heard the door opening from her spot leaning against the bar's wall and knew who it was by the sound of her breathing alone, her lips slightly curling against her will. It really wasn't fair for her body to act before she could even think.

“JJ,” she breathed out, sounding so relieved, so much like the vision she had when she was sure she was dying. Emily had always been able to say those two letters in a way that meant a whole sentence.

They didn't say anything else, once again, they didn't have to.

JJ was scared that if she opened her mouth she would end up saying something she didn't mean. Or worse, she would actually be truthful for once and it would be the end of them.

Emily looked at her just for a second, a split of time that felt eternal, and JJ knew, nothing would be said that night. 

They stood side by side for less than an hour, the muffled sounds of their drunk friends the only thing cutting through their sort of calculated quietness. Emily left her with a small smile, the look in her eyes told them everything they had to know.

Somehow, that hurt more than the still throbbing electrical burn on her side.

Ever since that night, something shifted for JJ. For starters, she put more of an effort with Will, she felt guilty enough just reminiscing about Paris whenever she had time to do so, now with the added weight of remembering a miscarriage he didn't know about and hallucinating Emily because she knew she was the only one that could ever reach her when her own husband would forever be left in the dark, she felt like their marriage was on the brink of exploding often enough.

She didn't have to like him, she didn't have to love him, all she had to do was avoid a divorce.

When her parents divorced, her father had decided to ignore her existence entirely, the burden was too heavy. Henry deserved better.

However, her decision to be entirely too faithful to her marriage faltered when from that night on JJ became a hoarder, an obsessed collector. She started cataloging her conversations with Emily, counting the times she made her laugh, saving the texts she used hearts like a teenager and savoring the way she said her name through the phone like it was the best thing she ever tasted.

It only got worse as time went on, like an addiction. When Emily came back to take Hotch's position, JJ went insane.

She started journaling, like some of the unsubs they caught. JJ wrote bulletin points whenever Emily fleetingly touched her, she dwelled into paragraphs when she blushed, she wrote about whenever their eyes met and she made her smile – she died a little more every day when Emily didn't.

It had gotten worse when she started dating Andrew Mendoza, JJ wondered if Emily had ever been this obsessed – this in love – instead of just writing about her actions, JJ started to judge how she acted when with her compared to her boyfriend. 

She knew Emily had always had a soft spot for her but it was just so blatantly obvious how she favored JJ in every possible scenario. Once, when JJ knew they would have a date night, she called Emily during one of Will's trips back to his hometown with the boys and pouted just enough to know that Emily would never deny her anything.

She knew they were set to meet at eight, so she called at seven thirty and Emily dropped everything to make her less lonely. Like JJ knew she would, of course, Emily favored her, no one loved anyone else as much as they did, no one would ever be patient enough to love someone from a distance like they were. No one was as good for Emily as she would be. They spent their night on her couch and she shamefully wrote about Emily's smell in accurate detail in her journal.

That was when JJ noticed that maybe that wasn’t healthy at all and she needed to get away as soon as possible. So logically, when Will told her she could have a great opportunity in New Orleans she accepted. 

She only told Emily because she had to know, contractually, but the look she got in return was almost enough to make her give up going entirely.

“Are you sure?” Emily asked, voice small even if she wanted to be demanding. Emily would never use their feelings to make her stay.

She nodded, she knew she wouldn’t be able to let the truth out like that.

“Really?” 

Emily didn’t ask in a malicious tone, she knew she wouldn’t make director after everything and JJ deserved to have the promotion they promised her, but both of them knew she was resentful.

“Don’t even,” JJ sighed. “I never said anything when you left.”

“I left for you. You were getting married and…leaving us… me behind,” her voice broke and JJ felt like this was their end, they finally crashed down.

“You asked me to!”

Emily scoffed. “Sure, as if you would’ve left him if I didn’t.”

JJ groaned, this was so frustrating. Of course, she would have left him, for Emily, she would do anything.

“How is that even a question?”

“C’mon JJ, I know you…you’d never leave your perfectly nice family just to start a relationship with…a woman.”

JJ’s body froze.

All these years she had been glossing over that, ever since her abduction Emily had been her main anchor, she had always been the one JJ ran to. Always. But those last six years had been awfully intense and JJ honestly had been so caught up in drowning herself, losing her mind, in Emily that she forgot the ramifications a relationship like theirs could cause if it were real.

Emily was not only a woman but her boss, her kids would hate her for divorcing their father to stay with not only her best friend but also someone they had known their whole lives. And God, her mother, what would she have said?

They had been trying to reconnect lately, to get to know each other, really. She was at her wedding but that was the first time they had seen each other since JJ left East Allegheny and if she had been honest, it only made her life worse. She had called her when Henry was born, all she got was the phone hanging up to her face, she barely had time to say anything. JJ even let her babysit whenever Sandy felt like driving up to DC but she and JJ barely spoke about anything other than her son, it felt like her childhood all over again.

Her silence had always been stifling, painful, heavy. Too loader for their own good, but Henry loved his grandmother and she would never deprive him of anything if she could help. Even if it hurt seeing how the same cold and unapproachable woman talked to him in a tone she hadn’t used since JJ was eleven.

She wanted to try, she really did. But Sandy liked to throw the fact that she left that shithole of a town behind and never came back in her face, at first it hurt but then it just pissed JJ off. A type of anger she thought had dulled over time. 

Still, the words rang through her head. You’re beyond salvation.

And maybe JJ still was.

She was forced back into the present by Emily scoffing once again.

“You can’t even think about it.”

“I...I just- I’m sorry,” she whispered.

There was no disappointment in Emily’s eyes. Just plain hurt and bitter acceptance, they would just have to deal with it. JJ wasn’t changing her mind, now that she remembered how the two women who had been involved with her ended up, she had to run. Deep down she knew Emily couldn’t do it either, but as long as she could blame everything on JJ she wouldn’t hate herself for whatever they became. JJ was glad to take the brunt of it, Emily should never feel the need to punish herself for this as JJ did.

JJ walked away slowly, taking in the view of Emily in her power suit and her opposing soft brown eyes. She had always loved how expressive and open they could be, how sometimes they dripped off pure adoration and it felt like sticky honey was all over her skin and some other times they had such a hungry depth JJ was sure she would be swallowed whole by the ever alive brown ocean.

Maybe that was what made her speak as she reached the door, looking back for the last time.

“Y’know, I never forgot Paris.”

She left without saying goodbye, this seemed to be their thing.

If JJ had to define her time in New Orleans with a single word it would be dreadful; she ignored Emily’s calls so she gave up after the third week, assuming JJ wanted space, of course, she congratulated Emily for her promotion but outside of that she had decided to give them time.

She only kept up with it for as long as she did because she signed a contract. This was the first time in fifteen years she would be working with absolutely no contact with Emily, her saving grace, and it proved to be harder than she ever thought it would be. She had agreed for a year to test the role of a unit chief, but the field office wasn’t the BAU and she couldn’t stand to be in that building. 

The last time she had been this distraught with her job Emily was there to hold her and make sense of the jumbled mess that was her thoughts, now all she had was Will and for the first time since they started dating he wasn’t enough. He wasn’t good enough for her, he wasn’t Emily. 

You don’t have to like it.

But maybe she did have to, maybe she had been losing her mind all this time because this wasn’t right.

Every day she went to work normal nine to five shifts and every single day she thought about quitting. Now, suddenly seeing cases with kids made it harder to focus than ever before, now seeing a brown eyed, brunette, intelligent woman getting killed made her want to throw up.

Not even Will, who had been so adamant about getting her out of DC could stand seeing her so devastated and so, he agreed to go back. To her home. To the BAU and most importantly, to Emily. JJ couldn’t do this without her, not anymore.

As the boys grew up sometimes they found themselves with an empty house and sometimes JJ would pull Will into afternoon sex just so she wouldn’t have to listen to the horrific sound of silence.

She was drowning again and she had to go back.

Emily was the only one who made the quiet bearable.

With her, it wasn’t reminiscent of bloodied bathtubs, doors slamming and judgmental gazes.

Silence with Emily reminded her of a blossoming garden, organic tea bags and Paris’ sunset.

JJ needed her like never before.

Her reinstatement wasn’t as peaceful as she’d like, Emily seemed to be not only incredibly busy but also way too busy for her. For the first time she wasn’t there, she wouldn’t drop everything for her, JJ might’ve just lost everything.

She watched as Emily not only closed herself but also avoided her at all costs. They used to have whole conversations with their eyes alone and yet, Emily refused to meet hers for a little over a second. Maybe this was her punishment for well and truly wrecking her marriage.

The talks of divorce happened every other week and JJ knew, they were on the road to the end. She just wanted to make sure Will wasn’t sick first, but as soon as he got the okay from the doctors it would be over. Even if she weren’t the one who called it quits first, it had been because of her. Always because of her.

“JJ…be honest, we can’t keep doing this.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re not happy. You’ve never been.”

“I…”

“Tell me the truth, chér. It’s her again isn’t it?”

“What?”

“Just…don’t you think that’s enough waiting? ”

She broke down after that.

How could she feel so light when she had made her husband spend their entire relationship feeling like he came in second to someone else, third if she counted the kids, how she actually never put him first. Not even once.

Emily had laid claim on her long before he was in the picture, her heart was stolen in that barn, in that musty bathroom, and all she had to give him all these years were the small bits and scrapes Emily left behind.

Oh yeah, JJ was cruel. Maybe that was her biggest sin.

That and maybe the way she couldn’t stop thinking about Emily and her gray hair.

When Will finally found a place to stay and made his move they looked for divorce attorneys and JJ felt her stomach lurching every single time they had a meeting. The process itself was easy enough because they wanted to do everything as quickly and painlessly as possible, neither wanting the boys to suffer through something drawn out and full of fights.

Their biggest issue was with guardianship but even that was solved quickly, they got the jet back so she didn't have to suffer through traveling by car and it took longer than the case itself, which meant she was home more often than she used to be a few weeks before, with both their new houses being not that far apart it was easy to just do fifty-fifty.

JJ had never felt as much relief as she did when she signed the papers and the only other presence in her own house were those of her sons, she felt free for the first time in a long while and her thoughts strayed to Emily.

If this was how being comfortable in her home felt like, she didn't know why in the world she tried so hard to be someone she was not. You don't have to like it. But no one could send her or Emily to a camp this time, they were free to do whatever they pleased, Will made sure to rectify that several times when they talked and she finally told him everything.

She did have to like being with someone.

If Emily still loved her, JJ could do it, she could just confess and see what happened from there or they could keep doing this dance and both of them could rot a little every day spent apart.

In the quietness of her room, she wondered if Emily had been so distant because of her position, of her confession before leaving, or if it was revenge for JJ ignoring her, or it was due to what JJ had found out about earlier that week. At first, she wanted to yell at Emily, but barely two hours of putting herself in her shoes made her understand why Emily kept it from her like that. JJ had always tried not to inflict pain upon her too.

She didn’t even have much of a chance to talk to Emily for the longest time, it took her not showing up for work and not answering her cell in the middle of an investigation for JJ’s opportunity to arise.

She just didn’t expect to have to deal with Emily high and accidentally getting intoxicated herself.

It wasn’t JJ’s first tryst with weed, she had been to her fair share of college parties, but she didn’t remember feeling this featherlight before. 

They had been silent for a while, JJ was just now coming out of her thoughts about her life and feelings when Emily started talking about quitting again, there was a hole in her chest at the mere idea of it and a sort of panic spreading through her that was felt in her bones.

The walls were closing in and not only because of the unexplainable high THC in those cheese puffs of all things, but just thinking about going through New Orleans all over again made her want to rip the hair off her head.

Whatever they were talking about was too hazy for JJ to focus on completely, all she needed to do was avoid Emily from sending life altering emails. She could barely feel her mouth opening and the words tumbling out, her head was a mess and she felt like she herself was worse, a stream of Emily, Emily, Emily her only form of coherent thought.

“It's not about...It's not about protecting us. It's...It's about being honest with us, with me,” she didn’t think she was talking about the job right then and there, but it was hard to tell with the way the colors were bouncing around.

“I am. Honestly...I want to quit.”

And the world came crashing down.

Somehow they were at the kitchen counter and the only thing she could think about was how to make Emily stay, it would make no sense to go on without her and even if she tried, JJ didn’t think it would be easy to follow her outside of the country – she would, if needed to, she wouldn’t think twice. But her boys needed both her parents and so she desperately needed to change Emily’s mind.

She knew she was babbling about something or other, this was why JJ hated being high after she turned 22, it always made her a bit too stupid.

“We are stronger than anyone... anyone gives us credit for,” she started gathering her thoughts again and thankfully this was going where she wanted it to.

“Well, not for long. It's just a matter of time before they fire me,” hearing Emily so defeated made her want to throw something and if she had enough control over her limbs she would.

“Then let them fire you,” she snapped, this was just all wrong. “Because we don't quit. We don't,” the second she said it both of them knew it wasn’t about the BAU anymore. “I didn't...I didn't quit on you in Paris,” she saw how brown eyes soften immediately, they would always have their two weeks spent together there, she knew Emily found comfort in it as much as she did.

“Don't...Th-That's not fair.”

JJ smiled minutely at her, she wasn’t being fair, not at all. All she needed was for Emily to give up her inane idea of giving up on her, on them and running away again. She was still dazed, eating chips with chopsticks like a crazy person, and the only clear thought she could process was how much she couldn’t lose the entire reason why she could go on doing what she did.

“You didn't quit on me after my miscarriage.”

“Oh, god dammit,” Emily sighed and JJ could see the fight leaving her slowly, those brown eyes focused solely on her, she knew it wouldn’t take a lot more, but even if it did, JJ would do it.

“You know what? This... This job takes a lot. But you know what it gives? It gives me…” and then she looked at Emily and the clarity that was missing at the beginning of the conversation returned to her with a full fledged force, there was really one reason why she was able to give as much as the job required, to take whatever was thrown on her. The time she lost with her kids, the bullets and the tortures, the trauma and night terrors, the paranoia and the dread that seemed to be integrated into her bones when she first stepped into the unit – it was all worth it as long as she was beside Emily.

It had always been her after all. It took a second of hesitation, to know that things would never be the same, and yet. And yet, it came out with the softest but firmest tone she could muster. Almost in a sob, her eyes so wet she had to blink away her tears. “You.” 

Emily looked at her like she wanted her to say it, like she was falling in love all over again and all JJ could do was hold her gaze. This was as much as she would confess for now, the ball was on Emily’s court now and she would wait twenty more years if that was what she needed to gather enough courage.

But nothing was said and JJ decided to give her an out. “And you know what? After all of this, if you still want to go, you know, I'll support you,” a breath. “I will,” it sounded too much like I do. “Always.”

Emily opened her mouth to say something when her phone rang and she mouthed Rossi’s name like that would make JJ any more eager to move, she wanted to go back to work, wanted to drag Emily with her but not like this, not with so much left unsaid. It would be one step forward and two back. 

“Not gonna pick up?”

Emily bit her bottom lip and let the call go unanswered before writing up a text.

“We’re far too high to work,” she sighed, looking at JJ like she was expecting something. 

They sat there silent for a while, the heaviness of JJ’s admission setting on their shoulders and making it hard to stand, to breathe, to do anything other than stare at each other as if their lives depended on it. 

Emily sighed again, all desolated and broken and JJ felt her eyes watering all over again. 

“You can’t do this to me,” she whispered in a choked sob. “JJ…”

“Do what?” 

“This,” she snapped, her soft demeanor more hurt than angry. Seemingly in the middle of trying to stop a breakdown. “You can’t say these things and mean them, we're not in Paris, JJ.”

“Why not, Emily? Do you not want me? Is that it?” She was openly crying now, her cheeks wet in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time, the first time she felt this rejected was when Emily pushed her to date Will. 

“Do I not want you?!” Emily’s voice raised to something that could be considered almost a yell. “JJ? Are you insane? I’ve wanted you the second I stepped at the BAU! I’ve been waiting for you all these years!” She started pacing and JJ froze with shock, she knew Emily loved her but to hear her say it so openly, so insanely frustrated and pissed off both turned her on and made her chest hurt. “I fell in love with you almost seventeen years ago, just to watch you moving on with a guy!”

Then Emily herself froze, like she finally realized what she was ranting about and who she was saying it to, and JJ saw red.

“Do you think you were the only one hurting?” JJ chuckled wetly, her tears freefalling and Emily’s eyes wide, like a deer caught in headlights. “Every day I spent with him, I wished it was you and every night I dreamed of you, I got so guilty that I could barely look at him,” her voice cracked at the end, how had she put up with such awful feelings entangled with the love she felt for Emily she didn’t know. 

“I…”

“No, Emily,” she sobbed. “You don’t know what went through. You don’t know how much I’ve always loved you and I couldn’t even say anything…Emily, you’re my everything, I’m nothing without you and you tell me that I can’t say it because this isn’t Paris? You think I don’t know that?”

Emily was left in stunned silence for a while, the suffocating type, and JJ was quiet watching her, this would make or break them. Unless, she could blame it on the weed, which she didn’t think she could, this was all said with too much awareness.

Emily walked closer, seemingly in a trance until she was so close JJ could faintly taste her breath, God it had been so long since she last touched those lips, JJ could feel herself losing the admittedly weak grip she had on her self control.

“What are you saying?” Emily whispered, scared that if she spoke any louder their bubble would burst and JJ would run for the hills, for her perfectly fine family and husband. If this moment was all she had, she wasn’t going to ruin it.

“I’m saying I fell in love with you a long time ago and I’m tired of doing nothing about it,” she whispered back, leaning in to brush Emily’s lips with hers.

“JJ…” she sighed, JJ felt it through her lips all across her spine. Emily’s eyes looked conflicted and when she tried to take a step back JJ’s hands were automatically on her waist pulling her close, her own hands went to her friend’s chest to push her away but not doing it just yet. Both of them took deep breaths, JJ’s lips parted as she caught a faint whiff of Emily’s expensive Italian cologne. “You’re married,” she murmured but at the same time leaned down a little so she could rest her forehead on JJ’s.

“I’m not,” JJ whined as their lips were still apart. “Signed the papers. I’ll explain later,” she breathed out.

Emily nodded, they would indeed talk about the whole thing but now her body burned to feel JJ. It had been more than ten years since their kiss, since their goodbye at the Eiffel Tower. 

Emily nuzzled her nose on hers and JJ couldn’t take it anymore, she grabbed the woman’s cheeks and pulled her down until their lips touched hurriedly. One of Emily’s hands fisted her shirt where it stood above her breasts while the other pulled her in by her belt buckle, JJ felt an electrical current through her whole body and her entire self being reinvented right then and there.

She forgot how it felt like to kiss someone she wanted to consume so wholly. This time, without the guise of Emily’s death and pretend feelings, when Emily’s tongue touched hers her knees buckled like she wanted to kneel down and worship her for everything she was. She understood then, why people built churches and statues and murals, she wanted to write Emily’s name in stone, to eternalize her because just breathing her in and pulling her closer would never be enough.

With Emily, she felt like she could explode, like nothing else mattered and she just had to lie down and try to rip herself apart so Emily could just be inside her forever. Instead, she sucked her bottom lip and leaned away to breathe, opening her eyes to see so much love and reverence from the brown she couldn’t help losing herself in, Emily’s hands started drawing circled on her back and she pulled JJ in for a hug, blonde haired head nestling comfortably on the crook of her neck.

JJ tried to memorize the feeling of their bodies so entangled, the weight of Emily’s head on her shoulder, how she tightened her hold and JJ could feel everywhere. She was home.

Yeah, she definitely did have to like it.