Second chances
This story is a part continuation of Drowning in you, and takes place part way through after Emily leaves JJ's office. It would make a lot more sense to read that one first! In my mind JJ never gave Will her business card so (however cute he may be) Henry does not exist.
Tried to make this less angsty….and failed.
I don't own criminal minds, but if they want to give me a job I'm all ears, even if AJ Cook just needs somebody to make her tea.
Sitting in your car you can't even comprehend how to start a vehicle, let alone drive yourself all the way home without being the cause of a road traffic accident. Opting not to be the sole source of a major collision you choose instead to sit and resolve the thoughts that are leaving you unable to think of anything but her. Just one look at her, a glance in to those eyes that now hold all the answers you've spent months longing for. Months in between that state of broken and whole, months spent wrapped up in the woman that you just put yourself out for. You know that as soon as she looked in to you, because she's never just looked at you, that she could clearly read the feelings you've spent so long running from. You know that if you were to map out your mind that every feeling and every thought that's passed through you these past few months all lead back to her. Everything leads back to her. As you sit struggling to re call a time when she wasn't on your mind, the panic you've so far staved off hits you full force.
You gave her a promise in that look, a promise that she belonged by your side, and though you have no doubt that that's exactly where you want her, you don't know how to keep her there. Could you ever be good enough for Jennifer jareau? She needed you, and she'd never been afraid of showing you just how much she needed you, craved you, wanted you. She never once shied away from the fact that you were her everything. While you've been sat on the side lines talking yourself out of any situation that could potentially lead to her being yours, she'd been making you hers. You blink away the tears forming behind your eyes, you know they'd never fall, but then again you know that if anyone could get that reaction from you then it would always be her. You realise you're running again, already focusing on ways to let her down gently and spare her the hurt you're undoubtedly going to cause her.
You resent your cowardice. Just twenty short minutes ago you were erasing that pain from her eyes, you were taking the lead, showing her that you could be everything she needed you to be, and now, sat alone in the car you still haven't started, you know your next actions will put it right back there. You'd pushed and she'd broken right alongside you, and now you'd begun to pick up the pieces you were already planning on ways to destroy her again. You loathe the destructive streak that has haunted you throughout all these years, you are ready to sabotage the greatest thing in your life, and you realise that's all you've been doing all along. She deserved better but she didn't want better, she'd given you the hope that you could finally step up, be everything she needed, because you were already everything she wanted.
you quickly start the engine because worse than sitting there impairing your relationship before it's even begun is bumping in to JJ leaving work and having to face what just transpired within the four walls of her office. In the safety of those walls you were everything, out here within the recess of your mind, away from her where you can think clearly, you were only something. When had she become less than the entirety she was just moments ago? Simple; she hadn't, you had. You wander how long she's going to put up with this act, these walls that she was always on the edge of; for as soon as she managed to break through you erected another one, each layer more unbreakable than the last. JJ was working twice as hard to get half as far. Yet she never faltered. You realise that she's going to give you the strength to break through your own walls, brick by brick, and she's going to be there to help clean up the mess it creates. And you know that at the end of it all she'll ask nothing of you, because she'll really have you, all of you.
The drives homes a blur, you try not to think anymore of failing JJ, but proving her right. She'd bet everything she had on you turning your life around, and this is the one and only time you wouldn't mind hearing that clichéd saying of I told you so. You look forwards to a place where you can both look back and laugh on these past few months and hear those very words come tumbling from her lips, teasing you before taking your lips between hers. Snapping yourself out of your daze you smile, realising that looking forward means looking to a future, your future, together. No matter how far down the road you look she's right there beside you, and you know it's not the future that's your problem anymore, it's the past; and once you've struggled to put together your present that's all going to be forgotten. For any part of your life that didn't involve JJ has no place in your memories, your mind and certainly not your heart. No, she owned that, and while you weren't ready to admit it to her just yet, she had for quite a while.
Pulling in to your apartment complex you note that the thirty minutes it usually takes you from leaving the office to arriving at your door has today taken a good hour and a half. Distracted is becoming an understatement. Throwing your go bag down you head straight to the fridge, for as good as all this thinking is, a good full glass of wine will always be that one step better. Stepping in to the shower you feel the hot water wash away your day, wash away the fears of today, leaving a refreshed clear headed Emily Prentiss, not yet ready to face the world but no longer hiding in the shadows of the dark, no longer hiding from anything. You know this optimistic mood will have run its course by the time you awaken to tomorrow, and while you aren't ready to hear the hope in her voice, you can't let today pass without reaching out to her in some way. Sure you just reached out with sex, but she deserves more, she is more than a fumble in her office. Picking up your phone you know you only need something simple, something a friend, hell a colleague would say. She needs to know that you can comfortably be that before you cross that line, because even though you may have crossed that line many times before, this time you're crossing it with a purpose, a destination. You're going somewhere, together. And there's that word again. The eight letters that are threatening to make or break you; quite literally when it comes you and JJ. Confidence fading, you reach for a top up before typing.
Hey, did you get home okay? Em. Good, simple and friendly yet letting her know you're thinking about her. If only you could tell her she's all you think about. That's she's all you ever want to think about. Panic starting to set in you take a deep breath; one step at a time Prentiss, one step at a time. You realise you've never just enquired about how her journey home was, not even after she'd been round fucking you until the early hours, hell you've never even enquired as to how her day was. How much did you really know about Jennifer jareau outside of the office and your bedroom?
You know how work is, always one more file to look through; could be a long night. JJ. She's still at work? In her office? You briefly wonder if she's still in there thinking about what transpired between you. Do you consume her thoughts as much as she consumes yours? You think back to images of her spread naked across her desk and fight the urge to get straight back in your car and head back to her. But you know that right now, she needs a friend, and you're determined to be whatever she needs you to be.
Staring at those four walls won't do you any good. Why don't you bring your files here? Em. And there it is, the first time you've ever reached out and willingly invited her over, not that you ever turned her away all those times she turned up at your door with a look in her eyes you could never place, was it lust or was it love? A hunger for satisfaction or a hunger for something else entirely? You know now, but even then you wouldn't have dreamt of rejecting her. Before you can even break out in a panic about what this means and where it might lead she's already replied.
I don't want to impose on your down time em, I don't know how great a company I'd be. JJ. She isn't making this easy on you, is she testing you to see how far you're willing to reach for her? You decide to play her at her own game and prove the worry in the back of your mind wrong; that worry that would push her away when all you want right now is to pull her close.
Nonsense, pack up, I'll put an order in for take away and we can sort through those files together. Em. Not only have you invited her over, you've now invited her over for food; that's a step above files. The last thing you want is for her to think you've only invited her over for sex, although you can't remember ever having eaten with her here either; your mother would be delighted with your apparent lack of hospitality skills.
If you're sure? JJ. Even after all this time she's still giving you an out, she's still putting you before herself. This ends tonight; she needs to know that nothing, nothing, is more important in this world than she is.
Positive. Drive safe, em. Placing your phone down it hits you; you've invited JJ over, for dinner. Is this a dinner between friends, co-workers or lovers? Is she ready to trust you to really mean something to her? Did you reveal enough of yourself to her in that office? Does she know what it took for you to go in there and finally pick her up, to hold her; heal her, does she know that in seeing through your pain to her own that you were letting her in, really letting her in? How much does JJ really see?
Twenty minutes have already passed with all of your questions, just when you think you've found your answers more and more appear before you. When the confusion ends will all of this one day make sense? Or will you lose your mind struggling to piece together the impossible puzzle that your life has become? You know that as long as you have JJ, you couldn't give a damn if you were able minded or not. In ten minutes the object of all your thoughts will be standing at the other side of your door, not only asking to be let in to your home; she's spent many of her nights here, but asking for a place in your life. She's going to put everything she has into that knock, and it's going to take all that you have to answer it. For the first time in months you're both taking the same steps, hell for the first time you're on the same page. That hotel room is a distance memory, logged but not forgotten, because anything that involves JJ will never be erased from your mind, and no matter how wrong you've acted towards her in the months since it's still where this is all began, for you know that if she hadn't of come to you that night, you'd still be lost in the darkness and you'd be nothing. Tonight you're going to show Jennifer jareau that no matter how long it takes for you to get there, you're going to get there together; wherever it is you're going.
