My first CM fic. Kind of exciting. ^^
Thanks to AColdAndBrokenHallelujah for beta'ing this.
This indeed is a safe refuge, it is the refuge supreme. It is the refuge whereby one is freed from all suffering. ~Buddha
It was amazing what a couple days in hell did to her appearance.
A bruise blossomed across her cheekbone, the skin discolored and swollen. She touched it gingerly, running gentle fingers along the blemish. She could still feel his blow that left her cringing against the wall, the punishment for a brazen remark.
She peeled off a bandage at her hairline to reveal a gash that, although looked gruesome and had bled profusely, wasn't that serious. It hadn't even required stitches, for which JJ was glad. Stitches would mean a trip to the hospital, something that she wanted to avoid.
Giving up on trying to lessen the marks of her imprisonment on her face, she moved onto her hair.
It was riddled with various leaves and twigs, as well as tangled. Dried blood darkened her hair next to the cut, the dark brown a contrast against her normally light blonde hair.
As she picked the pieces of bark and shreds of leaves from her hair she couldn't help but be drawn back into her memories. They were so precise, almost like Morgan was leading her through a cognitive interview. The small details stood out, making the memory unbearably real.
She could smell his breath on her face. It was surprisingly fresh and clean, overly so. His face was clean shaven, his blue eyes bright. If she wasn't in the situation she was in, she would have called him cute, handsome even.
However, in this context he was neither cute nor handsome. She recoiled into the corner at his touch, flattening her body against the wall. The cold metal shackle chafed against her ankle uncomfortably, restricting her movements. Not that I have anywhere to go.
"Don't be like that, sweetie," he murmured into her ear, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. His touch was so light, almost caring.
"I'm cold," she grumbled, ignoring his cajoling tone.
He enveloped her in his arms, pulling her closer and sneaking a sniff of her hair. When she flailed against him, he only chuckled. "You said that you were cold. Now I'm warming you up."
"I wanted a blanket, you son of a bitch."
"Oh, but a blanket couldn't do this, could it?" He pressed his lips against her cheek, and she punched him in reply. Because of her awkward positioning, she couldn't quite get the force she wanted behind it, but she's pretty sure it had hurt.
Her action earned her a slap across the cheek and a gun waved threatening at her head.
"Enough, bitch. You will sit still, and allow me to warm you."
Only the gun made her stop resisting. She sat rigidly in his lap, staring straight ahead at the wall.
"Good girl. Now, tell me a bit about yourself. What's your name?" When he received no reply, he jammed the gun to her head. "What is your name?" he demanded.
"Jennifer."
"Jennifer," he repeated. "A pretty name for a pretty lady, right?"
"I guess." Again the gun was shoved up against her head.
"Listen. You will talk with me, and be responsive or I will shoot the living hell out of you."
She forced a smile. "Yes, my name is pretty. A friend once told me that it meant 'white and pure'. You like that, wouldn't you? All the girls before me were beautiful, pure, and full of life." Her tone took on a dark air. "And you took all of that from them. What made you such an angry person? Beat as a child? Sexually abused? Maybe, maybe maybe," a bitter laugh, "somebody close to you killed themselves. I'm guessing she was blonde, wasn't she? Just like all of your victims. And she just left you. All alone to deal with your shitty life. And you hated not having her to control and dominate anymore. So you started kidnapping women, and using them to reassure yourself that you were still powerful. It gave you a feeling of authority, a feeling you lost after your girl died."
"Shut up!" he roared at her, pushing her off his lap, but jamming the gun against her head tighter.
"You're just mad because I'm right." No longer was her tone submissive. It was smug and filled with superiority, something she knew without a doubt the unsub couldn't stand. Provoking him, she knew, wasn't a good idea. He was already so unstable, but if she could throw him off his game enough maybe- just maybe- she could do something to save herself. "What would she think about what you are doing now? If I'm right, she would have been a good girl. Real special, to everyone she met. But she got tired of living in such a small town, and before you could do anything about it... bam. She was gone."
His face twisted with rage. "Stop. Stop talking about Meggie like that," he cried. He raised the gun above her head, his hand trembling, before swinging it back toward her. With a cry, she rolled away from him. The gun slammed into her hip, sending waves of pain through her. Fighting through the glaring ache concentrated on her left side, she scrambled backwards in time to avoid another blow.
How long before he decides to just shoot me? she thought desperately. Her back hit the wall, and she struggled to stand. Using the wall mostly for support, she faced him. He had advanced considerably in those seconds it took to stand, and he stood only a couple inches from her. The gun was jammed into her side and he stepped closer. His breath- still fresh and minty- washed over her face. "You're going to regret that, Jennifer." He pinned her to the wall with one arm, and one last time he raised the gun above her head. She thrashed, knowing that all it would take was one hard hit on the head to knock her out, and then who knows what would happen.
She finally landed a blow to his shin. It wasn't much, but it threw him off balance and he stumbled away from her. Not wasting a second, she threw herself at the gun, fingers latching on to the only lifeline she had. They grappled over the gun for a few moments, until JJ kicked him again. She thanked her soccer coach for all those drills he ran the team through, before turning the gun on him.
"Stay there. I don't want to shoot you," she warned.
His eyes were rabid, darting. "Don't move...," JJ admonished right before he lunged for her. Two shots were fired.
He crumpled to the ground, dead.
Her hands were tremoring as she patted his pockets down. Finding nothing of use, she pushed the body as far away as she could, and then returned to her corner.
Her breath quickened, and she lowered herself to the ground. Nothing much had changed, after all. She was still shackled to the wall. She was still confined in this room. She didn't know where she was. She didn't know how to get out.
She fell into a fitful sleep to these thoughts, the gun still clutched in her hand.
She was awakened by footsteps on the stairs that led down to her dungeon. In a moment she was sitting up, the gun cocked and pointed at the bottom of the stairs. Her body was aching, and her cheek felt like it was rubbed raw from the concrete that she had slept on. Her voice trembled as she cried, "Who is that? Don't move. Don't move!"
"JJ? Is that you?" The gun fell from her hands and clattered against the ground when she heard his voice.
Reid came down the stairs, hesitantly, but when he saw the huddled mass that was JJ in the corner, he broke into a soft sprint across the room.
"I'm here. It's okay, you're safe," he murmured when she stumbled into his embrace.
"Spence. Thank god. It's you," she breathed into his chest. After a couple deep breaths, she pulled back. "The unsub is over there. He's dead." That was all she said about the matter, even as Reid made his way across to the body to confirm her statement. A nod of his head, and he returned to her.
She motioned to her chained ankle. "I'm not sure where the keys are. I went through his pockets, but there was nothing."
"No problem." Using a bobby pin he had plucked out of her hair moments ago, he fiddled with the lock. In a matter of seconds, the shackles fell free from her ankle. She rubbed her ankle to get the blood flowing again, and smiled weakly up at him.
"It shouldn't surprise me you know how to do that. You'll have to teach me."
"It's actually quite easy. This was a basic pin-and-tumbler lock. This particular type of lock has several metal cylinders that can rotate within their housing. When it's locked, pins hold the tumbler in place. The top pin of each pair-"
"Spence. You can explain this all to me after we get out of here," she told him gently.
"Yes. Okay. Can you walk?"
"Yea."
She stood up, still shaky on her feet. She pitched forward, but managed to catch herself before she fell. "I'm good, I'm good," she told her partner. Nevertheless, one awkward arm ended up around her waist to support her. They had nearly reached the summit of the stairs when Hotch jogged out of the surrounding woods. Prentiss and Morgan were right behind him, as well as a SWAT team.
The SWAT team funneled down the stairs, while the team grouped around JJ. Murmurs of 'thank God,' were breathed, when they confirmed her safety.
"JJ," Emily stated simply, wrapping her friend in a hug.
Morgan got her next, ruffling her hair. "Glad to have you back."
"I knew you guys would find me," she told Hotch as he embraced her.
After that, their group deteriorated. Morgan wandered off to let Garcia know that they had gotten JJ back safely, and Prentiss went down to check out the cellar that JJ had been locked in for nearly a week.
"There's an ambulance waiting for you," Hotch told her. She was back to leaning against Reid, taking quiet comfort in his easy embrace.
"I'm not going to the hospital. I'm fine. I just need to go home and sleep."
"We'll let the EMT decide that," Hotch told her, but JJ swore she saw him smile at her stubbornness.
Reid led her over to the ambulance, where he stayed with her as she was examined. Finally, it was decided that she could go back to her hotel room, as long as she got a check-up with the doctor when she got home to Virginia. The team would stay in Oregon for a couple more days to wrap up the case, and JJ would be going with them.
Hotch drove JJ and Reid to the hotel they had been staying at before her abduction. Reid had left her at her door with explicit instructions to come to him if she needed anything. She nodded and thanked him, for everything. Knowing that she would never be able to sleep because of the layer of grime that covered her body, she made a beeline for the bathroom.
She grimaced at the face in the mirror. With a sigh, she gave up picking the bark out of her hair as well, figuring that they would work their way out of her hair in the shower. The shower was scorching hot, the hot water relaxing her muscles and mind. As she watched the dirt and blood wash down the drain, she wished she could shed the memories as easily as the filth.
Reid dozed lightly on the couch, the television throwing its flickering light to illuminate his face. It was his first peaceful slumber in nearly a week- since JJ had been kidnapped. With the rescue of his friend, a huge burden had been lifted off of his shoulders. A soft knock on the door disrupted his light slumber. Hoping that the armrest hadn't left an imprint on his cheek, Reid made his way to the door.
His eyebrows quirked upwards in surprise when the peephole revealed JJ standing outside the door, dressed in her pajamas. Nevertheless, he opened the door quickly. "JJ," he greeted her, "uh, what are you doing here?"
He was relieved to see that she looked better than she had when they had last parted. The dirt had been washed from her face and hair, and a new strip of gauze bandaged her cut. With the absence of the dirt, however, he could see exactly how bad the bruising on her face was. It was worst on her cheekbone, but it stretched up to her eye and down to her jaw. It was a sickly mottled purple color ranging to almost black.
"You told me to come to you if I needed anything. So here I am," the liaison replied, gesturing to herself.
"Of course. Come in. What did you need?" Reid guided her into his room, noticing that she was favoring her left leg. Her short boxer shorts revealed another train of bruises down her leg.
JJ blushed, suddenly embarrassed. "I, uh, I couldn't sleep, so I was wondering if I could sleep with you. Not with you, just like on your couch or something," she rambled with a stuttering to rival his own.
"Yea. Sure, sure. You can have my bed," she opened her mouth to protest, but he interrupted her, "I sleep better on the couch, anyway."
"Thank you so much, Spence. You have no clue how much this means to me," she told him. "I-I just couldn't get to sleep alone. I kept seeing his face, next to mine. And-and he would wrap his arms around me and tell me it would be all right," her voice was trembling, but she continued on, "and he would kiss my cheek. And I can't stop thinking about his lips on my cheek..." she trailed off, looking up at Reid, tears starting to fill her eyes. He could see her trying to fight the emotions and keep the tears from spilling, but it was a losing battle.
The young genius shyly wrapped her in his own arms. He wasn't one for physical contact, but if there was time for a comforting hug, it was now. He patted her back awkwardly, and stroked her hair. "It's okay, JJ. He's dead. He can't touch you."
This, instead of making her relax, made her shake harder. "I killed him," she admitted in between sniffles. "I wrestled the gun from him. I told him to stay, but he didn't. So I shot him."
"I know, I know," he told her, "Nobody blames you. You did what you had to do."
"No. No, no, no. It's not alright. I should have been able to stop him. You, and Hotch, you do it all the time. You keep them from killing their victims, and get them to surrender. But I couldn't."
"JJ. You were chained to a wall. There was nothing you could have done that didn't endanger your life. You did what you had to do," he said firmly.
This seemed to register with her. She took a couple deep breaths, and wiped the tears from her eyes. "Sorry about that," she apologized, a sheepish smile on her face.
"It's perfectly normal for someone who had just undergone a traumatic experience to feel overwhelmed and blame themselves-at least partially- for what's happened," he reassured her, "You should probably get some rest. That will give your brain time to cope with what has happened, as well as give you a bit of emotional stability." He led her to the bedroom, showing her where the bathroom was on the way. "And I'll be out on the couch if you need anything."
"Wait. Don't go. Stay here, just until I fall asleep, please." With pleading eyes she patted the bed next to her.
Reid wasn't sure if that was a good idea or not, but considering the circumstances, he figured it couldn't hurt getting her to sleep. He sat on the very edge of the bed, and watched JJ snuggle into her pillow. "No, not all the way over there," she protested, grabbing his hand and pulling him closer. She moved closer still, so much that she was practically in his lap.
"Don't leave, Spence. Please don't," she mumbled on the edge of sleep.
"I won't, JJ. I'm right here."
She smiled sleepily in the direction of his voice.
His original plan was to untangle himself when she fell asleep, and then rejoin his couch to continue sleeping. But he decided that he couldn't leave her so soon after she fell asleep- she could wake up and panic when he wasn't there. So he settled into the bed next to her, figuring that he would make sure that JJ was fully asleep before he left.
When he woke up, however, it became apparent that things hadn't worked out like he thought.
Instead of stretched on the too-short couch of his hotel room, he was sprawled across the queen sized bed with a small blonde woman twined around him, her chin resting in the dip of his collar bone.
Outside, a storm raged. He could hear the angry rain pound against the window and the wind tear apart the trees, a change from the dull patter of rain that had lulled him to sleep.
Lightening tore a hole in the sky, illuminating the room for a brief second. Reid could see JJ, blonde hair splayed across the pillow.
He couldn't help but notice their intimate position, the soft, gentle curves of her body, or the absolute peaceful aurora despite the storm raging outside.
Thunder rumbled outside the window, and JJ shifted closer and lets out a content sigh that flared against his neck. The light from the lightning was gone by then. He could still feel her, though.
JJ is safe. She's in his arms. She's sleeping deeply for the first time in who knows how long. She's soft, and warm, and alive.
With JJ safely in his arms, he can sleep soundly as well.