all you had to do was stay
“Fuck!” JJ woke with a startled gasp, bringing her hand up to the back of her head and feeling the warmth of her own blood. She knew not to go in unprepared; the last thing she could actually recall was Emily shouting over the phone telling her to wait for backup, adding on her signature: “JJ, I swear to God”, which JJ was admittedly now missing more than she thought she ever would.
A chair, a broken light bulb swinging from a surprisingly low ceiling, no windows; she took in her surroundings. While trying to stand, she realised her worst fear was now a reality, she’s stuck. Not stuck, per-say, held hostage would be a better way to phrase it, and the only woman in the world who could calm her down was nowhere to be seen. Her hands weren’t tied, yet her feet had been attached to a chain, which was connected to the chair, which she soon discovered to be bolted to the floor. Distantly, she could hear the feral sounds of dogs, yet they were far away enough that she felt somewhat safe.
It was a normal case, at first. They were tracking down an unsub who was taking women hostage by the week, and killing them within 72 hours, JJ was tasked to go undercover at a local bar (under the surveillance of Hotch and Spencer situated at safe distances) once they believed to be getting close. It seemed as if it was going nowhere, disappointingly, as JJ noticed the suspect leaving the bar without anyone else and so, because what else would you do when tracking down a serial killer I guess, JJ took it upon herself to follow him, with Emily frantically borderline screaming at her over the phone to wait for backup once she had reached a remote location with the man just ahead of her.
“Em, I’ll be fine I promise, I’ve been in worse situations!” She countered, from the brief safety of her car. “He’s going in.”
“In where? JJ, in where?” Emily was breathless, anyone would think she had been running.
“I don’t know- it’s a barn, shocking I know, can Garcia trace my location?”
“Hold on- No JJ she can’t I swear to god stay out of there, he’s got some technology block on the area- fuck JJ you shouldn’t be able to call me.” Her voice broke slightly at the end, although she would never admit it to anyone.
“I’m going in. Just- I’ll be safe, okay?”
“JJ, I swear to God-“ With that, the connection broke.
Emily kept speaking into the phone, kept calling back, kept begging Garcia to pull out every resource she had and find JJ. Nothing was working.
“Emily I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do- I’ve put a trap and trace on her phone but he will have to get rid of his cell blocker for me to actually be able to use it- from what I know, it’s an extremely remote location. When did she leave the bar?” Penelope paced around the office, twirling at a fuzzy pen and trying to not think the worst.
“I’m not sure- only around an hour ago? No- yes it was an hour ago. 6:34.” She glanced at the clock, it was half seven.
“Okay, and she definitely called you as soon as she reached the location? She didn’t sit and wait for a while?”
“No she told me she’d just got there, he was getting out of a car and going into the barn, I told her.. God Penelope! I told her to wait! Why didn’t she wait!” Emily couldn’t breathe. Over the past few weeks, following JJ’s divorce with Will, she had fully accepted her feelings for the blonde woman, she just couldn’t work up the courage to actually do anything about it. Now maybe she never will get the chance. It took them 48 hours to find any leads.
“Peter Kay!” Penelope practically yelled.
“What?” Emily choked out, too exhausted for the sudden loud noise, she hadn’t slept for the past two days. She couldn’t.
“Peter Kay- That’s- he’s our unsub.”
“What? You’re sure?” Spencer ran to get Hotch and the rest of the team, none of them had slept and were slumped around the desks at the drawing board.
“Positive! I’ve been running facial recognition software since he left the bar a couple days ago- freak looked right into the CCTV- but I couldn’t get a name because he was like, nowhere, not on any databases or school records nothing, so I went deep- like really deep Hotch I don’t think I should say how deep right now.”
“I’ll pretend you didn’t imply a crime- go on?” Hotch eyed her, too relieved to care about the legalities of this.
“Anyway, after hours, and I mean hours of digging and contacting some really strange people- I mean I didn’t know how many horrible people were actually out there? I know we see it everyday but-“
“Penelope.” Morgan chimed in.
“Yes. Sorry. Long story short, he’s really weird. Used several aliases across Europe in drug dealing and other minor crimes before escalating to making murder films- like real murders- in South America, before moving his business here. His late mother- who, get this, was murdered by her kidnapper in 2004 after being held for three days- owned a barn in a remote area just three hours from here, it’s been abandoned since but I would bet good money that that’s now our unsub’s killing ground.” Emily choked a sob at this, thinking of JJ alone and cold in a desolate area for the past two days. His killing ground.
“Sorry, Em.”
“No it’s fine, amazing work Garcia.” She rushed to gear up, not even waiting for Hatch’s orders, with the rest of the team following behind her and Spencer shooting a knowing glance in her direction.
In the car, Spencer took it upon himself to drive Emily, deciding she was not emotionally stable enough to get herself to the location safely.
“She’ll be okay, Emily, he always holds them for three days. It’s been two.” Spencer reassured her, while also calming his own nerves. He’s always kind of known how she felt about JJ, but he wouldn’t dare to bring it up, as Emily denied everything even slightly insinuating her seeing JJ as more than a friend, going to great lengths to avoid the conversation.
“I know, but come on, how many times have we seen unsubs kill their hostages early because they realised we were getting close?” Spencer said nothing to this, and pressed down on the acceleration a little harder.
JJ leaned her head against the chair, after dragging herself across the floor, she hadn’t realised how weak she was at this point. How long had she been there? She felt heavy, she could see blood everywhere but could not tell if it was hers or the other girls’. She didn’t want to know.
“Move.” Peter barged in, as he had been doing at this time for the past couple days.
She dragged herself away from the chair, wincing as the bruises on her side suddenly became prominent.
“FBI agent, huh? Think I wouldn’t find out, doesn’t take long for a fucking FBI agent to show up missing on the national news. Jesus. Do you realise what shit I’m in now?”
JJ knew what this meant. He had to get rid of her. She stayed silent, too exhausted to speak. Through the corner of her eyes, she saw the glinting of a stained knife.
“Didn’t even…” She started, weakly.
“What?” He kicked her, slashing the knife against her calf lightly, just enough to trigger a reaction but not enough to do any real damage. “Didn’t what?”
“Didn’t… clean the murder weapon.” She gestured to the bloodied knife, marked with the lives of countless innocent women. She figured messing with him was her best bet at survival, or at least gaining more time for Emily to find her. Emily. She relaxed a little at the thought.
“Fuck’s that got to do with anything?”
“Nothing.” It was true. “Just an… an observation.” She drew in a sharp breath, as he slashed against her chest, again not deep enough to kill her, but she could feel his frustration building. After a final direct stab to her chest, a pain she could never have begun to imagine, she was so dazed she thought Emily was there, throwing Peter to the ground.
“Em?” She barely managed, losing consciousness as she saw Morgan arresting Peter Kay, and feeling the familiar warmth of Emily’s hand against her cheek.
“Oh, JJ, I’m here. Someone get the medics in here! Stay with me JJ! Stay with me!” She shouted through tears, watching as JJ fluttered her eyes open, allowing a loose smile to form on her face.
“Thank..you.”
“Don’t speak JJ, don’t speak. Just stay awake for god’s sake.” Emily bent her head down, reluctantly moving to the side as paramedics took over, loading her into an ambulance.