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Emily looks so small.
There is something about the hospital bed, the pillows arranged around her bruised body, that makes it seem like it swallows her whole. The light blue patterned gown nearly blends in with the paleness of her skin.
If it weren’t for the steady rise and fall of her chest, the breathing tube pushing air into Emily’s lungs, JJ wouldn’t be able to tell there was much life left in her, at all.
The nurse that led her inside, guiding her through the back corridors of the hospital, slips out of the room, closing the door softly behind her. JJ swallows heavily, hand clenching around the strap of her purse. Like the past three days, it takes her a full minute to push her legs to move her closer to the hospital bed.
“Hi, Em,” she greets softly, dropping her purse next to the chair at Emily’s bedside.
A lump appears in her throat as she leans over and presses a soft kiss to Emily’s forehead. Her lipstick leaves behind a faint imprint that she swipes away with her thumb. The beeping of the heart monitor and the steady hiss of the ventilator are a familiar backdrop to her one-sided conversations with Emily by now.
JJ cradles Emily’s face, pushing aside a strand of hair that has escaped the French braids she had helped the nurses to put in yesterday, to keep it from matting. “You look good today.”
The cut on Emily’s cheek is healing nicely. JJ might be imagining it, but it feels like Emily’s skin is regaining a bit more of its colour. It’s nowhere near the warmth that tints Emily’s cheeks when she’s full of laughter and life, but it’s inching further away from the inviting arms of death that had nearly pulled Emily away from them forever.
JJ pulls back and spends a while rearranging the soft, dark blue blanket she’d taken from her own go-bag and swapped out with the scratchy hospital blanket on her second visit. For safety and security’s sake, JJ is not supposed to go near Emily’s apartment or her belongings, but the impersonality of the hospital room had tugged at her heart. She hopes that this small touch of her own brings Emily a bit of comfort, away from everything she knows.
JJ’s hands linger on the soft fabric when she’s sure all of Emily’s body is sufficiently covered, keeping her warm. When she does tear herself from Emily’s side, it’s to push the curtains open further. Bleak sunlight filters inside, hitting Emily’s face. JJ blinks, adjusting to the change in lighting, before floating back to the chair at Emily’s side. She pulls it closer and sits down, reaching out and covering Emily’s hand with her own, running her thumb against the back of her hand. Emily’s nailbeds are slowly healing from the anxious nail-biting habit that had no doubt intensified in the months leading up to her confrontation with Doyle.
Not for the first time, JJ wonders if things would be different, had she not been forced to transfer to the State Department. Had she not been separated from the team, from Emily, for increasing stretches of time, would she have noticed the change in Emily’s behaviour on time?
Would she have called Emily out on it?
Would they still be where they are right now?
JJ’s throat is thick as she shifts, making herself as comfortable as possible in the hard-backed chair. She knows there’s no use in contemplating the what-ifs, but that doesn’t stop her brain from churning over the endless possibilities and alternate universes that a singular different decision could have launched them into instead.
Had JJ not been so consumed by the clusterfuck of a mission she had been dumped into, could all of this have been prevented?
…
JJ has become a master at ignoring the buzzing of her phone.
Switching it to do not disturb is not an option. Though Hotch has assured her that Doyle has taken the bait – he believes the charade of Emily’s funeral – and has disappeared underground like they predicted, JJ still constantly expects a call from Hotch warning her that Ian Doyle has found out that Emily is alive and he’s on his way to finish what he started.
It is for that reason JJ also doesn’t even go to sleep, let alone leave her hotel room, without her firearm at her side.
Hotch isn’t the one who calls, though.
It’s Penelope, clinging desperately onto every sliver of contact with JJ now that she’s no longer in range of Penelope’s all-seeing eyes. The guilt JJ feels at not picking up those calls is immense. But no matter her excellent acting (lying) skills, JJ can’t talk to a Penelope who is bound to bring up happy memories of Emily in an attempt to deal with her grief, whilst JJ is sitting at Emily’s bedside. So, JJ lets those calls go to voicemail until she’s back at her hotel and she can console Penelope whilst staring straight ahead at a blank wall, nausea and guilt swirl around in her stomach.
For similar reasons, JJ ignores the semi-steady stream of texts she receives from Derek and Spencer, until the notifications pile up along with the guilt, and she spends too long agonizing over her short, stilted replies. In a stark contrast to Penelope, neither of them mention Emily at all. Neither of them mention her, but when Derek texts her in the middle of the night, checking up on her, it’s not hard to imagine what kind of nightmares are keeping him awake.
Dave’s texts are much more sporadic, but not any less heart-wrenching. Usually a gentle hey kiddo, followed by a reminder that he is always available to be a listening ear, if she needs to talk to someone.
If it’s not the team blowing up her phone, it’s the higher-ups from the State Department. They want her back in Afghanistan, but JJ has steadfastly refused to get onto a plane.
You might lose your job, Strauss had reminded JJ, not unkindly, when JJ had gotten sick of the repeated ringing and picked up to explicitly state she wasn’t leaving. They won’t like it.
JJ has a certain amount of goodwill that she’s cashing in on right now, but she knows she won’t be able to sit by Emily’s side indefinitely. The team thinks she’s already back on the job, and eventually she knows that will have to become the truth, no matter the ongoings of her tumultuous double-life. She still has bills to pay, and her access within the State Department means she can ensure Emily’s safety on all fronts.
But when she wishes for Emily to wake up, it has nothing to do with her own narrow timeframe, and everything to do with needing Emily to open those warm brown eyes of hers and see her full of life.
JJ tightens her grip on Emily’s hand. Her own warmth has sept into Emily’s tepid skin.
I’m here, JJ wants to whisper. I’m here now. You can open your eyes and you won’t have to be so alone.
The doctor isn’t worried that Emily hasn’t woken up yet, even though she has been weaned off the sedation – which kept her in a medically-induced coma – for well over twenty-four hours now. Her body needs time to heal, and her mind is simply granting her that courtesy. JJ tries to let those words pierce through the worry in her brain, but it’s hard to do when the woman you love lies unmoving in a hospital bed for days on end.
JJ extracts her hand from Emily’s, leaning down to take a tube of lotion from her purse. She warms some in her palms before gently rubbing it into Emily’s dry hands. She takes her time, her motions unhurried, as she quietly narrates her movements.
“There,” she says, setting Emily’s other hand back down atop the blanket. “All set for now.”
During her first visit with Emily, after she had gotten over the sight of Emily unresponsive (unresponsive but alive) in the hospital bed, she’d asked the nurse whether Emily could hear her.
Some people can, the nurse had told her. Some people remember being talked to, some recall flashes or feelings, whilst others have no recollection of their time in a coma at all.
Though it feels weird talking to someone, rather than talking with them, JJ has taken to talking out loud at times. She doesn’t mention the team, or Emily’s self-appointed solo mission, instead recounting the latest updates of the trashy reality tv shows the two of them used to watch together in shared hotel rooms, or sharing her observations on the romantic tension between Emily’s main doctor and the head nurse. She still falls silent at times, but she likes to think Emily appreciates those shared silences just as much.
She hopes that Emily feels JJ’s presence.
The State Department can keep calling, but JJ won’t be leaving Emily’s side until she wakes up. Emily had gone from self-isolation to practically dying in Morgan’s arms, and JJ selfishly needs to be the first face Emily sees when she opens her eyes.
When JJ had agreed to Hotch’s plan, all she had latched onto was keeping Emily safe. It’s only now that she sits alone at Emily’s bedside, that JJ has come to the realisation that it means keeping the people who love her away, just as much as it means isolating Emily from everyone she loves. There was a reason Doyle had decided to threaten the team: they are Emily’s chosen family.
They are the people Emily trusts and falls back on. The people who stand ready to catch her, when she needs it.
When JJ had agreed to Hotch’s plan, she had effectively torn Emily away from all of that.
Reason says Emily won’t be mad. That she had attempted to do a similar thing herself, in the name of keeping everyone safe. But this time, JJ and Hotch have ripped her autonomy from her, making this decision and banishing her to an indeterminate, unending period of loneliness. It worries JJ, because even though Emily is guarded, she thrives on deep, personal connections with the people she loves. Now she has been cut off from all of it, and she doesn’t even know it yet.
JJ wipes at her cheek, drying the lone tears that have escaped her eyes as she stares down at Emily’s peaceful face. Her hand clenches tightly around the bed’s railing.
Cut off from almost all of it. JJ will tread the edges of risking her livelihood and job to ensure Emily sees a familiar face when she wakes up.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” she whispers affectionately. “Don’t you think you’ve been dreaming for long enough?”
Wake up, Em.
…
Like clockwork, JJ blends into the background when Emily’s doctor comes by to check up on her. She averts her gaze when he inspects Emily’s surgery site and other healing injuries, wanting to give Emily that privacy even though she’s unconscious.
Once the doctor has gone through his routine, he relays the updates to JJ. Emily is healing like she should. It’s still looking like she’ll need to go through intense physical rehab and therapy once she wakes up, but she’ll make a full recovery, eventually.
JJ nods along, absorbing every detail and searing them into her brain. When the doctor asks if she has any questions for him today, JJ’s eyes flicker to Emily’s still form.
When will she wake up?
“Give it time,” the doctor tells her kindly. He pats her on the arm before leaving the room, and JJ migrates back to Emily’s side.
Time.
JJ alternates between wanting to tell Emily to take all the time she needs, to come back to her or desperately ask her haven’t you had enough time?
She stays silent.
…
The daylight shining in through the blinds grows dim as the sun lowers towards the horizon. When JJ sees only her own reflection when she looks at the window, she gets up to close the blinds and shut the curtains.
Another day has passed.
JJ closes her eyes briefly, cracking her neck and stretching her back, her joints and muscles stiff from the position she’s kept at Emily’s side. She breathes in deeply, allowing the air to fill her lungs, before sighing it out in a big gust. Back at Emily’s bed, JJ grasps Emily’s hand in her own and perches on the edge of the mattress. She ghosts her touch along Emily’s battered nailbeds.
Emily’s hand twitches.
JJ freezes, breath caught in her throat, staring down at their joined hands. She doesn’t dare to move. “Emily?”
Emily’s fingers twitch against JJ’s palm, the soft touch burning a path straight through JJ’s skin. JJ’s gaze shoots up to Emily’s face, which is unchanged in unconsciousness.
JJ lifts their joined hands to her lips and presses a kiss to Emily’s knuckles.
The heart monitor beeps fractionally quicker. If JJ hadn’t spent hours upon hours with that sound providing the background track to Emily’s aliveness, she would’ve never even noticed the change.
But she has and she does.
It’s almost sickening, the hope that rises from deep within the pit of her stomach up to her chest.
“I’m here,” JJ says, whispers with a hopeful lilt, her throat thick with unshed tears and unspoken emotion. “It’s JJ, Em.”
She bites her lip, teeth piercing the tender flesh. The metallic taste of blood floods her mouth, but her sole focus is the heart monitor. She counts the seconds that pass before Emily’s heart rate slows to its usual rhythm, the sound falling back in sync with the ventilator that breathes for Emily.
For a minute, JJ assumes that to mean Emily has been pulled back under fully.
Then her eyelids flutter.
JJ shoots up from her spot on the mattress, back on her feet near Emily’s head, never once letting go of her steady grip on Emily’s hand. “Em?”
Glassy brown eyes are revealed to the world.
They close immediately after in a wince, and JJ moves closer, hovering above Emily’s face and blocking out the ceiling light. She holds her breath.
Emily opens her eyes again and there’s life held within them. Confusion, fear, then recognition.
For the first time in months, JJ meets Emily’s gaze with her own.
JJ blinks away the tears that well up, squeezing Emily’s hand.
“Welcome back.”