cowboy like me
About four hours into the night, Emily woke to the haunting sound of JJ screaming; she grabbed her gun and ran to her.
“JJ? Oh, sweetheart.” She didn’t even process the use of ‘sweetheart’, and knelt to JJ’s side, putting her gun in a drawer out of sight.
JJ was sat in the corner of her room, the lamp on next to her and her knees to her chest; her entire body was shaking, and her cheeks were traced with tears.
“I’m sorry, Emily, you should go back to sleep I’m fine, really, I’m sorry for waking you.” Her voice wobbled with every word, and she put her head into her heads and began unconsciously pulling at her hair.
Emily took her hands into her own, sitting beside her after turning on the main bedroom light.
“I’m not going anywhere, jayje, I’m right here, okay? You’re okay.” She held her hands and searched her eyes for the woman she’d grown to love. God, what happened in there, JJ? She found herself thinking, not willingly to ask her directly just yet, instead opting to stroke her hair gently, and repeating phrases of reassurance to the woman.
“Why don’t we go downstairs and get some coffee and talk? Neither of us are going to sleep tonight anyway.” Emily suggested quietly.
“Okay.” JJ allowed herself to be supported to her feet by her friend, noting how she didn’t once let go of her hand, and moved slowly as to not startle her.
“I never got the chance to reply to you, in the hospital.” JJ mentioned, once they were settled on the couch each with a steaming cup of black coffee in their hands.
“Hm?” Emily placed one hand on the blonde’s leg, a silent urge for her to continue.
“You asked why I thanked you.”
“Oh yeah, you didn’t need to thank me for anything.” JJ allowed herself to laugh at this. “What?” Emily smiled, grateful to hear her laugh again.
“I do, need to thank you I mean. You’ve been so patient with me, since the divorce, and I mean, you did save my life, Em, I’m going to thank you for that.” She laughed again, but Emily stayed silent. “What’s wrong?”
Emily put her mug down, and began picking at her fingernails, ignoring the worried glance from JJ.
“What were you thinking?”
“What?”
“God, JJ, I told you to wait for backup, why didn’t you?” Emily’s tone was growing frustrated, her eyes brimming with faint tears.
“I had to follow him-“
“No, no you didn’t, you knew the location at that point, you followed him there, you could’ve come back! Or gone somewhere where Garcia could trace your location, and waited for the backup that was fucking ready to come to you! But you just went in! I had no idea where you were, do you understand how terrifying it was, when the call ended?” JJ said nothing to this, becoming angry on her own part.
“You can’t… you think I wasn’t scared? I was terrified, Emily! But I was worried- I thought maybe he’d kill himself, if he saw fucking SWAT or something! I was the best chance we had at bringing him in alive.” Emily knew JJ was right, they had all profiled the unsub as suicidal, and that made tracking him down a huge risk.
“Would it have mattered? What if you died, Jennifer!” The use of her first name stung at JJ’s heart. “Do you have such little value for your life? And don’t- I get it, okay? I’ve been- look, I get it, wanting to die. But that doesn’t mean you should run to a serial killer! If you died..” Emily’s voice cut her off in a sob, giving in as the tears ran down her face, ignoring as JJ looked at her with such hurt and confusion.
“Emily.”
“Not now. Forget I said anything.”
“You wanted to die?” JJ sounded weak, her brain ached, or her head, she remembered Spencer telling her your brain can’t actually feel pain. Shaking herself out of her thoughts, she fell silent, waiting for a response. “God, Emily, say something!” Emily just stood still, only just realising she had jumped from the couch in the franticness of the situation.
“When I was 15.” She paused, JJ kept looking at her, waiting for her to continue. Emily sat down and wiped the tears off of her face. “We moved around a lot when I was a kid, because of my mom’s postings.” She swallowed a cry. “It was hard to get accepted, and when you’re 15, that’s all you want. You’ll do almost anything.”
“You got pregnant.” JJ took in what Emily was telling her.
“Yeah. I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t tell my mom.” Emily laughed at her own words, shaking her head as she remembered what happened. “My friend, Mathew, suggested I talk with our priest.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that if I had an abortion, I wasn’t welcome in his congregation.”
“So what did you do?”
Emily didn’t reply to this, and lowered her head into her hands, a shaky breath escaped her lips.
“You tried to..”
“Yeah.” They both fell silent. JJ held her hand, and moved her other hand to brush Emily’s cheek, locking her eyes with her own.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to..”
“No, Emily, I’m sorry. What I did was reckless, it was stupid and I wasn’t thinking properly. I put my life at risk because I didn’t want to risk you coming after him instead. You have people, Spencer is basically like your little brother, if anything happened to you..”
“Listen to me, jayje, you have people too. You have this whole team, we all care about you, so much. You have me, my God JJ I don’t know what I would’ve done if you died.” They let each other’s words linger between them. In this moment, JJ realised just how much she loved Emily. She took in all of her features; the gentle curve of her nose, her bangs resting effortlessly on her perfectly formed eyebrows, which were creased slightly from the intensity of their conversation. She noticed that Emily still smelt of strawberries, like she had done in the car the previous night. She could even see the slight colour changes in her eyes, how the dark brown became more subtle towards the edges, or the way her eyes reflected so much emotion in a certain lighting. She laughed a little, realising how insane all of this was, as she tried to figure out in her head if there was a possibility that Emily could feel the same way about her. Emily noticed this laugh, and her delicate lips curved into a smile, her eyebrows twitching slightly, but enough for JJ to notice.
“What’s going on up there?” Emily tapped playfully at the side of JJ’s head.
“Nothing. Just thinking.” She leaned into the touch, throwing a smile at Emily lovingly.
“Well, whatever it is, I hope you know you can always speak to me, alright? About anything.”
“I know, so can you.” JJ reciprocated. “Hey, Em? You don’t feel like that anymore, do you?” It took a while for Emily to understand what she meant, but upon realising, she felt part of her break a little inside, at the uncertainty and grief in JJ’s tone.
“Oh, no, I’m okay now, JJ. You don’t need to worry about me, I promise.” This didn’t seem to reassure JJ as much as she had hoped it would. “Okay, how about this, I check in with you every morning, just a little text, and you do the same, alright?” That seemed to do it, and JJ nodded hesitantly, allowing herself to smile again.
Soon after this, much to Emily’s surprise, given the coffee they had previously drunk, JJ fell asleep, her head resting on Emily’s shoulder, and her knees curled into her chest. At this, Emily panicked a little, and was relieved to feel her phone in her pocket. Opening her camera, she snuck a photo of the situation, careful to wipe away any stray mascara under her own eyes beforehand, and sent it to the only person who could help her right now: Spencer Reid.