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Her wine glass is stupidly full. The crimson laid flat, completely untouched. Jennifer didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there, blankly staring into whatever allowed her to forget— but she didn’t intend to move anytime soon. A gentle mercy, the room waited with her.
Doyle was dead. Emily was back. Everything was coming to a close and the team—
The team hated her.
A breathy sigh escaped her, dragging her hand down her face as if trying to force the thought out of her head. At times like these, thinking never did anything of use; only dragging her into a spiral she didn’t have the strength to pull herself out of. Her face felt like sand, and the pulsing headache that had been throbbing for the last thirty minutes had finally decided to remind her of its presence.
Her finger drags around the rim just as memories dance around her mind. When Aaron had initially pulled her to the side, her stomach felt like it was going to fold in upon itself. Why her? Why couldn’t this be a one-man mission, why had she needed to take it on as well? Bitterly, she envied her boss for the grace he received afterward. Derek and— and Reid, how they were so much more comfortable talking to him than to her and—
Her teeth grit, and it almost aches enough to stop the tears from forming in her eyes. No one really understood what it was like, did they? It was so easy to be angry with her— maybe she’d be upset if she were in their position, too— but she wasn’t. She played the necessary evil, just as she was expected to. Because she could handle it, they said. Because she was capable. It didn’t matter what happened afterwards, because the job got done and the bad guy died, right?
Half of the glass is gone in one go, the now lukewarm delicacy tasting more like regret. The headache hasn’t died down in the slightest, seemingly intensifying with the passing minute. She didn’t feel like the ‘bad guy,’ was down yet— Jennifer Jareau was still alive and breathing, living (even if it never really felt like it anymore.)
As tears slowly fought their way down her face, she imagined theirs. Derek, full of shock— his trust shattered after she had fought so hard to earn it. Penelope, practically sobbing at the revelation. Emily being alive. Her lying. The intensity of it all. Reid, and the resentment in his features, so uncharacteristically vengeful in his own suffering.
“Couldn’t? Or wouldn’t.”
“What if I had started taking Dillaudid again, would you have let me?”
His words bit like a rabid dog, her words dying in her throat.
Part of her wanted to bite back— to show her teeth and let him know that she didn’t have to do this. She didn’t have to play the liar so he wouldn’t get shot. She didn’t have to burn the only bridges she trusted to walk to keep Doyle off his back— she didn’t have to suffer for him, for any of them.
And in that same breath, she shuts that side of her down. That fire that burns brighter with every dash of gasoline life throws as her— blown out. Because sure, she suffered, but they suffered more. She knew Emily was alive, she spoke to the woman almost daily. That set her apart from the rest of them, didn’t it? That stripped her of the right to mourn. The minute she nodded her head to keeping the Bureau’s secret, no matter how scared she was to do so, Jennifer Jareau became a monster.
Taking down the rest of the wine, a whisper in the back of her head reminded her that feeling never left. As the walls close in, she couldn’t help but find the comfort of familiarity in dehumanization.
She couldn’t be a person when Roslyn died, because she had to be a good daughter.
Couldn’t be a person during her time in Afghanistan, because she had to be a good soldier. Not that she was, judging from the fact the blood of innocent people stained her hands.
Couldn’t be a person when processing the horrors she’d seen, because she needed to be a good Liaison.
And couldn’t be a person when suffering through by far one of the worst weeks of her life, because she had to be a good Agent.
By now, her tears had long dried. Her mind, rough and unforgiving, had long declared her tantrum needed to stop. She didn’t get to sit here and cry. Not after what she did. She could sit here and lament all she wanted, but it didn’t change what she did; and it didn’t change the person she was. Warm enough to keep around, and cruel enough to make the Bureau proud.
What a mess. She needed to get it together.
Emily had been calling her for the past— hour? Has it already been an hour? It’s felt like minutes. She doesn’t answer. If she did, she wouldn’t be able to hold anything back. No one needed that right now. All her bridges are burnt, and she lit the match. The least she can do is deal with whatever this is on her own.
She let it ring— already feeling herself slip away again as her eyes returned to their prior place.
God, she was going to need another glass of wine.