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It had been six days since JJ and her sons had moved into Emily’s apartment, and she couldn’t have been happier. When the pipe broke down at her new house, she had to admit she hadn’t handled it very well. On the outside, she had behaved like always. She’d rapidly found a solution, and she tried to radiate confidence so as not to worry her kids. But on the inside, she took this as a sign. It was the universe telling her she couldn’t do this without Will, and that her kids were doomed. Luckily, this train of thought had become less frequent as they grew accustomed to life in a motel, and it completely disappeared when Emily invited her and her family to stay with her.
Now, life was good. JJ felt a tad guilty using that descriptor, but it was the only word that seemed to fit. Emily had been the absolute best, which wasn’t a surprise; the kids loved her, also not a surprise, and JJ was happy to come home to all her favourite people in the world.
“Hey, are you ready to go?” JJ said as she leaned on Emily’s office doorframe.
“So ready,” Emily said as she stuffed a pile of probably quite important papers under her desk drawer. “Today’s case was...”
“I know. Tough. It reminded me of one of the old ones, you know?”
“Exactly.” Emily gestured. “Like, I needed to bounce ideas off of Hotch or Gideon, but when I looked, they weren’t there anymore.”
JJ clicked her tongue. “Yeah, those were the good days.”
“But we solved it, it’s done, and now we get to go home and stare at a wall for two hours.”
JJ chuckled. She had lost count of how many times a tough case had left her exactly like that. This time was different, though. This time, she had Emily.
“Well, I was thinking about ordering some takeout. Maybe Chinese? The kids aren’t home, so you can eat all the dumplings you want.”
JJ hadn’t realised she had called Emily’s apartment ‘home’, but when she did, it had already slipped out. Thankfully, Emily didn’t seem to notice and just agreed to her plan, but on the ride to the apartment, JJ was definitely thinking about it.
After eating dinner, they drop comfortably onto the couch. JJ was exhausted, she could tell Emily was too, but neither of them seemed to want to go to bed.
“This is going to sound bad, but I’m really happy,” JJ said after sipping from her glass of wine.
“How is that bad?”
“'Cause I’m a widow.” JJ chuckled. “And widows can’t be happy.”
Emily chuckled, too. “You don’t believe that.”
She was right. Of course JJ didn’t believe it, but she sure felt guilty either way.
“I think Henry and Michael are too,” JJ said.
“It doesn’t surprise me. No one likes living in motels.”
“I guess not.” JJ positioned herself to face Emily. “I know I’ve said it before, but I wanna thank you—”
“JJ, please.”
“I know, I know you told me to stop thanking you, but please let me just say it.”
Emily gestured to go ahead.
“Okay, so thank you for coming to our rescue. You seriously have helped us more than you can imagine, and I’m very grateful to have you in my life.”
“Oh, JJ,” Emily looked at her with a soft expression. “Of course. I’m here for whatever you need. You and your kids. You know that.”
JJ smiled. She knew most people who said these kinds of things weren’t being entirely truthful cause she knew from experience what the real thing looked like. Emily was her real thing. The living proof that ‘anything you need’ was real and could range from letting her crash at her apartment for a few days to dropping everything to fly across the globe just because she was in danger. And now, getting to share a roof together after all this time seemed like the sweetest gift the universe could’ve rewarded her with.
“I just wish I had known how—”
JJ cut herself off mid-sentence since finishing it would mean something she wasn’t ready for. So instead, she chose to enjoy the rest of the night with Emily rather than to focus on the bitter aftertaste of knowing this living arrangement was temporary. Better taste what you could’ve had than never tasting it at all, or she hoped.