From Bad to Worse, With Love
The alarm trilled insistently, dragging a reluctant Elle into the morning. There was no chance at the snooze button today either, as they were in San Francisco on a case. An unsub taking the hearts of his victims as trophies.
Happy fucking Valentine's Day.
Not, she mused whilst showering, that she had ever been particularly enamoured with the holiday. Through a series of unfortunate events, she'd never actually been with anyone in that second week of February, and Hallmark seemed to delight in thrusting her face in the fact. Sadistic sons of b-.
The phone rang, causing her to snapping out of her increasingly foulmouthed rant. Elle leapt out of the shower, slipping on the tiles as she ran for her cell. She landed on her wrist with a crack, and she screamed, more from the fright of falling than from the pain. Although that was starting to kick in nicely. Groaning, she began trying to sit up.
It was at this moment that half the team came barging through the door, having heard her cry. Excellent. Just what I needed, to flash my co workers. The bathroom handle began to turn, and Elle wedged her foot against it. This was not happening. Not if she had anything to say about it.
"Elle? Are you okay?" Morgan banged on the door. "Elle, answer me or we're coming in."
"Not if you want to live!" she bit back. The pain was increasing, and she hissed through gritted teeth. "Who's out there?"
"Me, Morgan, and Reid." Replied a muffled voice, which obviously belonged to JJ.
"Okay. Can you pass some clothes through the door? There's some on my bed." A few seconds later a bundle was thrown through the door, hitting her in the face.
"Nice shot, Reid."
"How did she know it was me?"
Struggling into the shorts one handed, before gingerly threading her rapidly swelling wrist through the shirt, Elle was regretting fighting Morgan for the room with the en suite more and more. She would definitely have taken sharing a bathroom with Reid over this. Even if he did have a tendency to steal her shampoo. Using her foot, she pushed open the door.
"I slipped."
"Are you okay?"
"Does this," she gestured to her marshmallow of a wrist, "look okay to you?!"
"Sorry…" Reid muttered, as he helped her up.
A grin spread over Morgan's face and Elle remembered just how short her pyjama shorts were. Damn it.
"Nice tat, Elle. Very… cute."
She pursed her lips. "I assure you, I'm crying with laughter on the inside Morgan. Now can someone please take me to the Emergency Room?"
Happy fucking Valentine's Day.
*
So here she sat in what might have been the world's most uncomfortable chair, in what may have been the most uncomfortable silence ever. It wasn't that she didn't like JJ; they just hadn't had a lot of time together. Or at least that's what she was telling herself. Really she just didn't know what to talk to her about. She couldn't wind her up the same as the guys; she might take offense or something. Work? No.
The baby sitting next to them was crying even louder than before. How was that possible?
Personal life? No, too… personal. She'd only been on the team a month. But God, she had to say something. Anything. The awkward silence was driving her to distraction, she couldn't take it anymore!
Brain addled by pain, and totally not thinking straight, Elle blurted out "I have a lion on my ass."
The baby chose that moment to stop crying, leading the whole waiting room to swivel round and stare at her. A moment of agony ridden silence followed, when the evil spawn that was sitting next to her threw up. All over her shoes, the little-
It was at this moment that the 'so handsome I fell out of ER' doctor walked in.
"Elle Greenaway?"
I really, really, really, hate Valentine's Day.
*
Elle cracked an eyelid, but it was still as dark as it had been with her eyes closed. As she shuffled upwards, a voice cut through the gloom.
"Aha, she lives!"
"JJ?"
The lamp flickered into life, and the media liaison nodded.
"What happened?"
"Um… You were pretty gone on the painkillers. You kept telling me all about how much you hated today, how nothing ever went right… and then the doctor came back and said it was a clean break."
"Well that's, uh, good. Right?"
"Yup… but you told him that you'd make it a dirty one if he'd stay with you longer." JJ tried to hide the smile playing on her lips.
"Ah. Shit."
"Then you kept trying to show him your lion on the way out."
"Oh God." Elle buried her face in the pillow. Could this day get any worse?
JJ moved over to sit on the end of the bed gingerly, as though she thought Elle might bite her head off at any second.
"Look, he understood. It was the medicine! You can't be all fierce and collected all the time, y'know? We don't mind if you aren't."
Elle said nothing. But she was listening. Maybe it was time to open up, just a little. Not much. But a little, to the nice blonde who'd been through ten tons of crazy because of her today.
"Do you want to know how I got my tattoo?"