Season five.

Blood for Tears

"Mommy?"

JJ rolled over and swaddled her head against her pillow, a low groan breathing across her lips.

She felt light jolts bouncing across the bed, coming closer. "Henry," she murmured. "Sweetie."

"Mommy?"

There was something in his voice. It warbled and wobbled, and she felt little hands grasp her cheeks, sift through her hair. She tried to open her eyes, but found she couldn't, like there was something binding them.

"Henry." She said, and rubbed at her face, trying to coax the sleep away from her eyes. As she rubbed at the sides of her face, she recognised her hands felt—odd. Not nonexistent, not quite, but almost as if three quarters of the nerve endings had been leached from them, leaving her with only the vague clouded sensation of flesh upon flesh.

"Mommy?"

Not of her own will, her eyes flashed open at his last call of her name. "Henry—" her breath stopped in her throat and her ribcage constricted her heart, crushing it into nothing but fragments.

Henry was staring at her with wide eyes, his mouth creased in terror as a gloved hand clutched his throat, arms encircling his slight frame. She flailed at the two of them, her hands reaching out for Henry, but the image of them simply floated further from grasp.

She scampered further up the bed, her chest trembling with large, harsh breaths, ignoring the curtain of hair sheathing her eyes.

"Mommy?"

Her eyes flicked upward at the small, fragile sound, to see that Henry had developed a gash across the left side of his face, his lips moving but producing no sound.

"Henry," she yelled, tears swelling beneath her eyelids but never falling. She tried to get a good look at the intruder, but all she could see was a shadowed face, and the echo of a smirk.

The two of them wafted closer. She reached out for Henry, but upon making contact his shoulder just dissipated into black mist, and disappeared as if being sucked up a vacuum.

She rolled over and gripped the handle of her dresser, pulling on it and grabbing for her gun.

"JJ." It was Will, in his warm, slow accent, talking to her.

"Henry," she murmured, still trying to reach her weapon. But her arm went dead, fingers twitching on the hilt. She let out a low growl and turned onto her back, staring back into the petrified eyes of her son.

"Jennifer." It was Will again, this time with a lower, more urgent whisper.

"Will," she said, the tears finally finding someway to fall. "Will, he has—"

Hands combing through her hair. Lips pressing against her forehead. "JJ. It's alright. Wake up. That's all you have to do."

"No—" she said, her voice crawling back inside her throat. She watched Henry whimper as the hands clutched him tighter, innocent eyes squeezing hard in fear. "Henry—"

"JJ," there were hands gripping her shoulders, holding her back, and she jerked against them.

"Henry!"

"Jennifer. Jennifer. Wake up."

"Henry."

There was a low rumble of laughter, and the slow smile of the unsub curled into something harder, more vicious. Henry suddenly started drifting away, out of the room, and she tried to go after them, but the hands holding her back wouldn't allow it.

"JJ. Jennifer. Wake up. You're asleep."

"JJ!"

"Mommy?"

With a scream that never crossed her lips, JJ startled upright in bed. Her body was quivering, and a sheen of sweat coated every limb.

There were hands holding her. Will was whispering to her, things she couldn't quite hear, but drew comfort from all the same. "JJ," he said as she trembled within his structure. "It's alright. You were dreaming. You were dreaming."

"Will," she murmured. "He had Henry."

"Henry's fine," he said, and his arms around her tightened. "Henry's fine."

"Mommy?"

She lifted her head away from the safety of Will's chest and turned to the small sound. It was Henry, standing in the doorway, light blonde hair strewn about from sleep, his little hands clutching his blanket. "Mommy?" he said again, plodding closer, toes wriggling against the carpet. "You have nigh-mah-as?"

She nodded, opening her arms to him. "Yes, sweetie. But it's alright. Mummy's alright." She said, and he climbed onto the bed, ducking into her hold and resting his small head against her collarbone.

He played with twirls of her hair. "You no have bad dweams. Me and daddy he-ah. You fine."

"Yes, honey," she said, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. "You and daddy are here to protect me. I'll be fine."