"When someone is crying, of course, the noble thing to do is to comfort them. But if someone is trying to hide their tears, it may also be noble to pretend you do not notice them." -Lemony Snicket
JJ woke with a start at the familiar knock on the door. There was a pattern to it, a rhythm. She only knew one person who knocked on her door with a rhythm.
Grabbing her robe, she walked to the front door as fast as she could. She had grown accustom to the knocking, waking up every time she heard it. Because she had to. Because he deserved it.
But she didn't want Will or Henry to be awoken by the incessant knocking, so she nearly ran to the front door. Opening it up, a gust of wind let itself inside her house. She shivered, wrapped her robe tight against her small frame.
Looming in the doorway was his familiar tall, skinny figure. He was slouched over—something she was sorry to say she had gotten used to. After all, this was the tenth time he had been here; this was the tenth time she was forced to face her buried feelings of guilt, of sorrow.
"Spence," she muttered, holding her arms out. The silhouette stepped into her house and into her arms, morphing into a figure with more than just an outline. Now, she could see his face. She could see the way his tears permanently stained his face; she could see the way his eyes squinted as he tried to scrutinize her expression; she could see the way his mouth curled downwards as it opened and let out a wail. "Shh," she whispered, leading him inside, "shh."
Somewhere deep down, she knew that she had no right comforting him. Somewhere deep down, she knew that this was all going to end badly. But ten weeks of thinking it through told her that he needed a friend, he needed someone to comfort him. He needed her.
"You're going to be okay, Spence," she whispered to his ear. His body shook with silent sobs against her own shivering body—due to the cold or the knowledge of what she was doing, she didn't know. "You're going to be okay."
Pulling away from her, he looked her in the eyes. "How can you say that?" He spat, his voice as accusatory as...well, as it should be. "How can you tell me that when Emily—when she—"
Falling back into her arms, he let out another string of sobs and cries. Terrified of waking up her family, she rubbed circles on his back and continued to hush him.
Eventually, his sobs subsided. JJ sat him down at her table and—well aware that he did not need any coffee at the moment—began making a pot of tea.
"It always helps calm me down," she explained softly, after setting the water up to boil and taking a seat beside him.
Sniffing, he squinted as he looked her in the eyes again. "Helps?"
Feeling an uncomfortable burning sensation, she immediately looked down. "What do you mean?"
"You said helps," he explained, his voice still shaking, "not helped. And you're not looking me in the eye. Why do you need to be calmed down? Is everything okay?"
JJ opened and closed her mouth, a fish on dry land. No! She desperately wanted to scream. No, everything is not okay! You think Emily is dead, even though I know she is alive—but she may as well be dead, because I don't know what or where or who she is!
"Everything's fine" came out instead. Coughing uncomfortably, she sat in silence until the whistling of the teapot reminded her of its presence.
Startled by the noise, JJ leaped out of her seat and hurried to the stove. Fumbling, hands shaking, hot water spilled on her hand. Hissing in pain, JJ nearly dropped the cup but managed to catch it in time. Setting it down on the counter in front of her, she cradled her hand to her chest and squeezed her eyes shut.
She didn't hear him get out of his seat, and she didn't hear him approach from behind her, so she gasped and jumped when his hands wrapped around her arms.
"Shh, you're going to be okay," he muttered as he led her to the sink, using her own words against her. A cry of pain escaped her lips as the burn on her hand made contact with the contrastingly cold water. "Shh. You're going to be okay."
And that's when she realized—she was not going to be okay. He was just saying that, but she would probably have a scar on her hand. Permanent damage, forever a reminder of the horrible thing she had done.
And he was not going to be okay. He had lost a friend to Death, the most horrific monster in the world. The only villain they were unable to stop. She could not keep telling him he would be okay, because it was a lie. And even if he did find out she hadn't died—what then? Then his best friend had lied to him, and had done everything she could to keep the lie as real as it possibly could be. Either way, he had lost a friend.
Either way, she had too.
So the tears rolled themselves down her cheeks and Reid pulled her hand out of the sink. He pulled her into a tight hug. Her sobs came out harder, the tears more persistent, because she knew that she in no way deserved his affection. So he held her tighter, completely oblivious to the cause of her pain.
And it was backwards. For ten weeks, he had shown up in need of comfort. But here he was, holding her as she cried. It was backwards. It wasn't right.
"I know," he responded, confusing what she said with what she meant. "Nobody deserves to die. Especially her, especially the way she did. But we're going to be okay. We're going to get through this. Together."
"Together," JJ muttered, the irony of the word dripping like acid in her mouth.
"Together," he whispered in her ear, and he began crying as well. And they stayed like that for what seemed like eternity, crying together, yet separately. Mourning over different losses. But both of them wishing things could return to the way they were before.
"When truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie." ―Yevgeny Yevtushenko