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Adrenaline is a funny thing.
It pumps through her veins on and off for hours on end, keeping her on edge, keeping her alive and awake, heart beating out of her chest. It enables her to stay up on her feet, when gentle hands unshackle her; it makes sure she can run up to the roof and beat the crap out of the man who stole everything from her.
Just enough of it lingers afterwards, for her to find her way downstairs. To hug Morgan. Hug Spence. Tell Matt her thanks.
When it finally dissipates and crashes, it takes JJ down with it.
Her knees buckle, and for a second she thinks this is it. She can already feel the phantom bruises pressing into her skin from where it will meet the pavement, a renewed ache settling into her bones.
Strong arms wrap around her waist milliseconds before it can come to fruition.
“You’re okay,” Emily says, her voice barely louder than a whisper as she lowers JJ further to the ground with care. She’s on her knees now, front pressed to JJ’s back, the only thing still keeping her upright. “You’re okay, JJ.”
There’s a flurry of activity as paramedics swarm around the two of them, but JJ pays them little attention. All she can feel is Emily’s body against hers. Strong. Steady. Familiar in a way that would have JJ crying if she could still remember how to.
She’s not sure she remembers much of anything, at the moment.
Hotch is here now, too. Morgan, Spence, Rossi and Blake stand a little further back, watching with furrowed brows as the paramedics assess JJ’s vitals and wounds. A question is posed. And another. JJ stares blankly. Unseeing.
A pause. Then, unfamiliar hands reach for the hem of her soaked, dirty blouse and JJ’s entire body stiffens, limbs cooperating clumsily to pull closer to her in a tangled mess.
“JJ.” Her name, infused with alarm this time.
Soft hands close around hers, and distant pain registers until she realises she’s digging her broken nails into her own arms.
It takes another second to hear and feel the stream of broken, desperate mumbled no, no, no tumbling past her own lips.
“Jayje.”
The body behind her shifts, and JJ shifts with it. It hurts. Everything hurts, but JJ can’t find the wherewithal to protest the movement.
Then Emily’s face is in front of hers.
JJ gasps for air, finally allowing it to filter into her aching lungs. Emily. Warm brown eyes. Emily. Away in London. No. Here. In the US. After Paris and Afghanistan and blackbird. Emily. Emily Emily Emily Emily Emily. “I knew—” It hurts to breathe, it hurts to talk, it hurts, but— “I knew they’d call you.”
The words echo like déjà vu. A conversation she’s had before. Emily’s face is serious, but soft. It’s always soft, for JJ. “They did,” she affirms.
“You came.”
“I did.”
The paramedics are talking again, but they’re addressing Emily this time. JJ watches the crease between her brows deepen until she turns her attention back to JJ.
“We need to get you to a hospital,” Emily tells her. Her eyes flicker across JJ’s features, and with a visible, self-calming breath, the crease smooths. “You’re hurt, but you’ll be okay.”
Inexplicable panic zings up JJ’s spine at the thought of leaving this place. No, of leaving Emily. She can’t go without her. Not again. Not when she’s just got her back. Not when Emily was called and she came.
“Don’t go,” JJ says, over and over until the sounds mash together in an unintelligible mess, but Emily understands.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Emily assures with more conviction than a person should be able to have. “We’re going to give you some meds, okay? It’ll help you feel better.”
JJ wants to say no. She remembers Askari and needles and blank spots in her memory. She knows she needs to feel everything that is happening, needs to know that it’s real, but—More than anything, she trusts Emily’s judgement over her own, unreliable mind.
“Okay.”
Emily’s fingers trace along JJ’s arm, gently unfurling it from its tense position. JJ keeps her gaze trained on Emily. She barely even notices the pinch at the crook of her arm, though the artificial calm that follows through her veins is an odd sensation in the wake of the worst day of her life.
It doesn’t put her to sleep. She isn’t… unconscious. And yet, she isn’t entirely there, when her surroundings change. As her body is unfurled and strapped to a stretcher, brought into the ambulance, and they move.
As promised, Emily sticks by her side the entire time. A dependable constant. JJ’s safety, past the artificial calm.
The ambulance ceiling makes place for fluorescent light. A series of medical professionals talk over her. At her, though she barely has the capacity to keep her eyes open, let alone absorb their words. Their assessment is clinical and efficient, but JJ isn’t sure whether to appreciate or despise it. In the end, the sensations all blur together. Past and present.
She thinks she might be crying.
Silent tears trail paths down her temples, pooling in her ears.
Emily pushes past the people crowding her and appears in view. Her hand never left JJ’s, but now she’s closer again, shushing her tenderly as the tears continue.
She never asks JJ to stop. Never offers assurance there’s no need to cry. She just… is.
JJ closes her eyes and tightens her grip on Emily’s hand.
Don’t leave. Don’t ever leave (me) again.
…
Will finds them in a private room.
The artificial calm is less heavy now. JJ can think through the lingering haziness, but the increased awareness brings a bone-deep exhaustion with it. She’s utterly depleted, and yet everything in her fights the notion of sleep.
Sleep means dreams and nightmares, and that threat holds her in a strange, paralyzing fear despite the medication flowing into her veins through the IV.
Will approaches her like one would a wounded animal.
Slow. Uncertain. His eyes flicker past her to Emily, and a quiet understanding passes between them in the blink of an eye. When his focus returns to JJ, he doesn’t ask what she went through. Doesn’t ask why she didn’t tell him. Doesn’t ask about Emily’s hand in hers.
He reaches out, but only cradles her jaw when she tilts her head in his direction in silent permission. Her eyes flutter shut briefly, breathing in his aftershave when he leans in and presses a careful kiss to her forehead.
She hates that she’s grateful for his consideration. Hates, that she doesn’t know it’ll be okay for him to be this close, until it is.
(Hate and love and complication war in her chest when her mind wanders to Emily’s touch, and she knows that was never something they thought to be worried about, because they knew, instinctively.)
Will settles in the empty chair on her other side. Caging her in between the two most important people in her life.
“You should sleep,” Emily breaks through the silence.
JJ shakes her head, once. It feels like an entire task in and off itself.
(Give in, her body begs, but her mind screams its refusal louder.)
“We could ask the doctors—” Will starts, but JJ cuts him off with a sharp intake of breath and a barely audible, “No.”
It takes a glimpse of a wavering, relieved smile from Emily to realise it’s the first time she has spoken since she was taken by the ambulance. JJ pours her little energy into squeezing Emily’s hand. Emily blinks, then slides her chair closer so she can wrap both her hands around JJ’s.
“I won’t let go,” she says quietly and painfully honest. Reading JJ like a book, as if she never left. Like there was never an ocean separating them; like their daily contact didn’t shift from shared commutes to words with friends.
Laying JJ bare for all to see without even trying.
She swallows heavily.
She does need sleep. Her body is begging for a break. Emily’s hands around hers is a grounding point of contact, but in the wake of illusion and delusion she aches for more.
“JJ?”
An opening. An opportunity, to explain that—
“I need to know you’re real.”
The whispered phrase settles in the quiet, sterile room.
“Do you want me to hold you?”
Emily’s clarification saves JJ from having to find the words herself, and it makes her want to cry. Still, her eyes flit to Will.
“You need to sleep,” Will says kindly.
His easy acceptance and approval provoke a guilt she is too exhausted to analyse. It’s not like she doesn’t take comfort from Will’s presence, but…
It’s Emily, who she dreamt of. Who she hallucinated. And it’s Emily who freed her from her bindings, in the end.
The phantom of metal chafing against her wrists is overlayed by that of nimble fingers, tracing across the angry red marks with care while the chains pooled at their feet.
Now, the mattress dips and arms wrap around her body. Emily’s head lays down next to JJ’s, and JJ breathes a sigh of relief, melting into the touch as if it’s possible to disappear into it through sheer force of will.
This attachment can’t be healthy, JJ distantly knows, and yet she can’t bring herself to care. She wants to crawl into Emily’s skin. Stitch herself to her side, so that when she has trouble discerning between reality and echoes of trauma, she can feel Emily’s warmth. Skin against skin.
As long as Emily is willing to give in to JJ’s selfish desires, JJ will cling to her presence, and she knows there is no limit to Emily’s patience.
She’ll do whatever helps JJ feel safe. Whatever helps her to get better.
And she will. Get better. But until then…
A soft hand links with hers, resting atop her stomach. JJ’s mind stills, for just a minute, and she can breathe a little easier.
…
Until she gets better, Emily is her lifeline.