Warning for some JJ/Hotch sexytimes, language, and character death.
unlove's the heavenless hell and homeless home. . . lovers alone wear sunlight.
e. e. cummings
It is raining when she dies.
He knows this because he can feel the wetness on his face and soaking through his shirt and crawling up from the asphalt to his shoelaces.
Maybe it is poetic that it is raining when she dies.
He thinks it's just sad, though. He thinks the world is just sad because she's dead.
"Sir? We need to bring you to a hospital now, sir, do you understand?"
No. He can't go now. It's raining and her blood is being washed away down the storm drain and he can't leave.
"Can you tell me your name, sir? Can you hear me?"
Her hair looks so lovely. It always does. Did he tell her that today? That her hair looks lovely? It does. It's so soft and shiny and smells like mangos. He likes mangos.
"Mr. Hotchner? Can you hear me, Aaron?"
But her hair is lying out around her head on the dirty street and the street smells like death and screams and pebbles, not mangos.
"Sir we're going to bring you to the hospital now, okay? Don't worry, everything's going to be fine."
No. It isn't. The rain is washing away the smell of her hair, he just knows it. She'll smell like nothing. He doesn't want her to smell like nothing. He wants her to smell like mangos and make him pancakes on Sundays and kiss him on his jaw and smile that breath-taking smile she saves for days with Jack and Henry like she should.
It is night and even through the heavy sheets of rain that thunder down, the blue and red lights of emergency vehicles still flicker brightly on the pool of dark blood surrounding her body. She's splayed out on the ground with her arms above her and her face to the side like some wicked photo shoot. Her eyes are half closed and are starting to turn that disturbing, milky blue color that marks a corpse. Her lips are parted like she's stuck in a perpetual whisper.
The blood on his hands, once a dark, rich wine hue, is fading to a pinker, more watery shade as the rain comes down and strips it from his skin. It all feels very, very wrong.
It is raining and she is dead and he does not think anything will ever be right again.
It is just about fall time, the seasons rotating out gradually, when he meets her. Leaves are becoming brittle and changing colors like an octopus in hiding and the air is cooling in his lungs and turning the sky a sharper blue.
He is still relatively new as the Unit Chief; at least it feels that way to him. He sips from the travel mug Haley pushed into his hands earlier that morning and tilts the corners of his lips upwards. He thinks of Haley's laugh and the way her grin consumes her face and he has to take another sip of coffee to hide his full-blown smile. He loves his wife.
It is then, at the birthing of a new fall as he still, even with all the cases and all the time that has passed, is adjusting to his promotion, that he meets her for the first time.
He is exiting the elevator and she is leaving another across from his, balancing a stack of files in her arms. His vision is slightly skewed by the coffee mug and hers by the papers and in a moment, everything changes. She is very nearly about to crash right into a man with a very expensive suit and a very surly expression, and before he knows what he's doing, he's grabbing her by the elbow, and pulling her away. Suddenly there are sheets floating down like snowflakes and the coffee is soiling his tie and the carpet.
She gasps, and starts to rake in the littered manila folders.
"Oh my gosh, thank you." She says, offering her hand. "That was the assistant director!" They pull each other up right, and she reaches down to collect the bundle of papers she'd scraped together.
"Yes. I do not think he would have been nearly as forgiving if he stained his tie." He grins enough to pop a dimple, and she zones in on his neckwear.
"I am so sorry."
"No, no, it was my fault." He puts on his most pleasant business face. "Aaron Hotchner." She tucks the folders under one arm, and shakes his hand with the other. It is smooth and gentle but with a steely lock that lets him know that she is definitely in law enforcement.
She laughs, and it is tinkling and soft like sprinkles. Sweet. "Jennifer Jareau—I'm sorry we had to introduce ourselves like this. Although I do appreciate your knight in shining armor moment."
"Ah, yes, of course. The new media liaison. It's nice to finally meet you."
"And you, sir," she says, smiling a sunny smile. He likes her. Because that smile is not the usual bureaucratic smile that everyone must know, that smile is infused with real warmth. Real, measured warmth and he knows that right at this moment, she is playing him. She's young and probably not too experienced, but she certainly knows what she's doing. And he already knows she'll be great at her job through that smile; he likes her.
Her hair is short and manicured, blonde waves falling pin straight to her shoulders. It bounces a little as she walks through the BAU doors and he shows her to her desk that she will soon trade in for an office. He welcomes her to the team, and she smiles again. This one is not quite as controlled, more genuine in the way she cocks her head to the side and her nose wrinkles. He thinks it looks nice on her.
It is the first time he saves her and, little known to him, it is most certainly not the last.
The team is standing under an awning to hide from the rain.
He cannot seem to move his feet as he watches the drops wash away all that she once was.
Garcia hiccups loudly, and then more softly, her sobs muffled by Morgan's protective hold. Rossi is decisively positioned a good five feet away from everyone, brows drawn together, mouth pursed, eyes severe and lashes damp. Prentiss is squeezing Reid's hand with hers, her dark eyes sparkling with tiny diamonds and her other hand positioned over her mouth. Reid's fingers look purple, though it may just be a trick of the shadows, and ready to pop off his hand at any moment. Reid's face is blank, eyes impossibly large, lips set in a thin line. There are tears streaming unabashedly down his boyish face, and Hotch thinks he sees Reid squeeze Prentiss' hand back.
It is one month after Haley dies that Hotch smells her for the first time.
He is at Haley's grave, staring at the granite, smelling the earth he's sitting on. The soil beneath him is wet from rain and smells both clean and old. It's a bright blue day with soft clouds drifting over the sun.
He can feel Foyet's blood on his hands and he tears a piece of grass apart with his fingers.
"Hey." He could already hear her footsteps squishing on the ground and so he does not flinch at her presence. Interesting, though, as he detects surprise in her voice.
JJ walks past him, and settles a bouquet of white daises against Haley's headstone. Hotch feels like an idiot for not realizing sooner that of course JJ has the right to come and visit the grave.
"Thanks," he whispers hoarsely, and the face that his knuckles are pounding in cracks under his force and the blood spurts back onto his cheek.
She drops to a crouch and then leans back on her butt, sitting next to him on the dewy grass. "Yeah." She wipes her hands on his jeans, and Hotch holds his knees a little tighter. She is quiet for a while before she asks, "How're doing?"
He inhales, and watches the way the name of his dead ex-wife wobbles in his sight. "Fine."
JJ snorts. "I don't believe you."
He thinks about getting angry, but he's too tired to. So he just sits.
"How's Jack?" This question carries a different sort of kindness that JJ reserves for children.
Hotch sighs. "As well as you'd except, I suppose."
JJ nods absently and looks over the graves and to the horizon, her eyes distant and searching. "So how are you, really?"
He weighs his words for a few beats. "Getting by."
JJ nods again, and usually Hotch dislikes people assuming they understand his own special hell but JJ's eyes, so very blue and alive, hold shadows that make him think maybe they understand better than anyone. He hopes he is wrong. "That's good."
The silence is not uncomfortable but heavy. Still, he has the strangest urge to fill it. So he says, "You're a great agent."
If she's thrown off by his words, she doesn't show it. "Am I?"
"Yes," he nods to himself, his words gaining momentum, "you are. Everyone on the team. I'm not sure if I've told you all this before, but I honestly can't think of working with any other group of people. You're an extraordinary agent, JJ."
"Thank you, sir."
"We're a great team together. And I know that if I work at the FBI, I would like to work with all of you, foremost."
"Yes, sir, I feel the same way." She sounds sincere, but the name of his dead ex-wife is too distracting to check.
"And I don't want any one of you to carry blame for what happened. It's not your fault."
"It's not yours either."
He nods again, slower this time. "Yes, of course not."
Her lips purse, eyes narrowing. "The first time I was involved with a hostage situation in the field was the Murdock case, do you remember? Chase Murdock was killing successful women in Houston—slitting their throats in their homes. There were five victims when we caught the case. You brought me with you to interview the husband of the first victim again." She swallows, inhales deeply, and continues, "You caught him in a lie, and Murdock held a knife to my throat for thirty minutes. We were without backup and I was completely and utterly terrified, but do you know what?
"I trusted you. I trusted Aaron Hotchner to save my life, and you did, and I know you would do it again because you don't give up, Hotch. You don't give up. You do everything you can. You always do.
"I know what it's like to think that you could have changed something that you really couldn't have. I know that it is suffocating and difficult, but mostly I know that it is so much worse when you think you're alone. So, if I may, I'd just like to say that you are not alone. Sir." Her voice wavers only once as she speaks.
He blinks. It's harder than it should be.
They sit at the grave for a while longer. It might have been hours, but it was probably only minutes; Hotch doesn't think it truly matters.
He stands up and takes JJ's hand, soft and warm and strong like usual, pulling her upright. He looks down at her and deliberates a goodbye when suddenly she is straining upwards on her toes, wrapping her thin arms around his neck, pushing her body against his—soft, warm, strong.
He leans into her touch, and automatically brings his hands to her back—the ones soaked in blood and death and screams—holding her to him. His face buries in her neck, and her pink mouth is moist and breathy against his ear.
"You're not alone, Hotch. We're all here for you, you know that. I'm here for you, okay?" He does not say anything, but he hugs her a little closer and knows that she understands his silence.
Her long blonde hair is thick and silky soft on his cheek. He breathes deeply. He's never been this close to her before, to smell her. JJ always has a soft-spoken perfume that clings to her skin and smells like warm brown sugar and vanilla, but her hair is an entirely different story. The scent invades his senses, tropical and refreshing, and reminds him of beaches and happy days and little umbrellas in fluorescently colored drinks.
Mango, he recognizes. Very mango.
He likes it, he decides, cataloguing that little bit of information away in his brain for later use.
She pulls away, squeezing his forearm, and squinting up at him, a small smile gracing her features. "I'll see you later, Hotch. Take care of yourself."
And then she is gone, and he is still trying to hang onto the smell of mangos as the wet earth and the blood and the dead bodies rotting beneath his feet come back.
He does not save her that day (he, apparently, did that many years ago), but she very much saves him.
Suddenly he can't take his own weight anymore. His knees buckle and he manages to sit on the curb instead of falling over completely.
His hands, gripping the edge of the sidewalk, are scraped with gravel and wet with rain. The pellets of water hit him like miniature missiles, and he can feel each droplet soaking into his clothes, gliding over his skin, and catching on his lips.
The rain tastes clean and lovely like springtime. People snap pictures of her face and a black body bag rolls toward her spot on the asphalt.
He looks up at the sky, and sees an ever-expanding blackness.
It is four months after her breakup with Will when he serenades her.
It was a long time coming, everyone knew. Will withdrew more when JJ got her old job back and JJ withdrew in return and it was a vicious cycle until they were more of roommates than a couple. The fire burnt itself out, and the only reason neither one of them could bring themselves to stamp out the remaining embers was because of Henry. But, eventually, even that wasn't enough. Their breakup was amicable, at least, and neither of them have been petty about anything. Strangely enough, they're almost closer as friends now than they were in the last months of their relationship.
"Staying late?" Hotch asks, leaning against the doorway of JJ's office.
She blows a few runaway strands of hair from her face, and looks up. Smiling, she says, "Hey. I thought everyone left." Her grin tapers away and she glances around at the stacks of papers on her desk. "Will's got Henry for a few days and this paperwork isn't going to do itself… unfortunately." She adds the last word under her breath, scribbling something down. Her head snaps back up and she pins Hotch with a curious look. "Anyway, sorry, did you need something?"
"No, no, I just finished my own stack. Do you need a hand?"
Sinking her teeth into her bottom lip, she shakes her head. "No, thanks. You've got Jack to go home to."
Hotch crosses the threshold and wanders in front of her desk. "Not tonight. He's at a sleepover. I'm all yours."
JJ scans over the papers and the internal struggle plays across her face. "I couldn't ask you to…"
"You didn't," Hotch slides into a chair, and picks up a pen, "I offered."
Nose crinkling at the edges and head tilted, she grins. "Thank you." They work in silence for a while, him shuffling through pages, attempting to organize them as she flips through them, scrawling on a few and placing others in specific piles. Slowly, the mountains of paper dwindle to slightly less scary hills.
Hotch pauses and draws his brows together. He squints his eyes at JJ, "Is that… Louis Armstrong?" And it is, he's sure. Floating from somewhere behind JJ, quite tones he didn't notice at first.
The pen in her hand drops to the table, she spins around in her chair and fiddles with something. "Oh, sorry. Usually I put it on when I'm working late and nobody else is around. I can just turn it o—"
"No, it's fine. I didn't realize you were a fan."
She laughs a little and wheels back in front of her desk, pushing hair behind her ears. "I suppose I am. My dad always loved him and would sing his songs around the house all day." She pauses to smirk, her eyes dancing, and he doesn't know why he hasn't noticed before, but her eyes really are quite extraordinary. "My father is quite possibly the most tone deaf person on the planet. He's butchered 'Hello Dolly' more times than I can count." The smile turns a little sad at the corners, her gaze growing distant and clouded.
Hotch wants to change this so he says, "It can't be that bad. You should hear me try to carry a tune."
"I'm sure you have a lovely voice." There is laughter dancing in her eyes, and honestly, how has he missed their brilliance before?
A chuckle crawls up his throat. "Would you like to test that theory?"
"Yes, serenade me, please."
This laugh is genuine, echoing from his gut to the walls of her office. He rests his face in a grin, dimples and all, and JJ wonders when his face got so handsome.
"So what about you, hmm? I know you love The Beatles, but you can't just be a one band kind of guy." She brushes the pen away and folds her arms over the paper work. They start to talk music, likes, dislikes, his disdain for all things country, and her rebuttal that country has good lyrics and the guitar is always appreciated. He scoffs, but they bond over their mutual loathing for "Bohemian Rhapsody", because it is a ridiculous song, end of discussion.
The heel of her hand cradles her jaw, her fingers tap-dancing over her cheekbone. There is ink on her pinkie and it smudges over the skin of her chin. She bats her big blue eyes while he makes a passionate argument on the best dance song of the eighties.
"… questionable lyrics, sure, but 'Centerfold' obviously had the superior rhythm and I—" He stops suddenly, refocusing his gaze to those lovely eyes of hers. "I'm rambling aren't I?"
"A little," JJ admits, lips pulled into a grin.
He looks over her again, and his chest grows tight. He stills his hands and steels his nerves. "Well, would you care to continue this over some food? I know a great diner that serves really cheap coffee and I don't know about you but I haven't eaten since this morning."
Her stomach flutters, which is ridiculous, because this is her boss, and she is not some teenage girl with a crush. "You sure do know how to woo a gal."
Hotch's face is colored just a shade short of cheeky. Goddamn cheeky. This is the man that makes serial killers quiver in fear with a single glare. "You can take the boy from the south," he drawls, and JJ giggles. She giggles. She doesn't giggle. And she especially doesn't giggle around her boss. Her boss who is cheeky.
"The paperwork…"
"Can wait till tomorrow. Don't worry, I won't tell your boss." She smiles and he smiles and the entire situation is utterly odd and somehow completely right.
JJ stands with exaggerated slowness to stretch out her muscles. "Good, cause he can be kind of a hard ass."
His protesting "hey!" is muffled by his laugh as he follows her out of the office. They board the elevator and chat amiably, their bodies shifting closer and closer to one another in the box until Hotch can feel the warmth of her body radiating onto him.
He can't help it, interrupting her to say, "You, uh, you have ink on you chin." And he definitely tells her to be helpful, not because he finds it hopelessly cute.
"Oh." Her fingers fly to her jaw and scrub at the skin.
He laughs lightly, shaking his head. "No, um, there."
A vague finger point and JJ huffs. "Are you trying to be funny? Because it's not working."
He bites his tongue to keep from smirking. "No, here." JJ continues to speak, but he can't make out what she's saying just as he can't make out what it is he's doing. His hand comes up to her face, cupping it gently, his thumb tracing circles on the corner of her chin. Her words fade and her brilliant eyes meet his and neither of them can breathe.
The silence is oppressive and JJ's body pulses with heat at his contact. She smells sweet like vanilla and her coral lips are plump and so close that he wonders if she tastes like vanilla as well.
He drops his arm to his side and faces the opening elevator door.
"Got it," he says, stepping quickly from the stifling elevator. They go to the diner and pretend that it is because they are hungry.
It is strange to know a person for so many years, to know who they are, at their core, and feel as though they are meeting this friend for the very first time. The food comes and goes but they stay in the slightly sticky, navy blue booths. JJ leaning forward on the table and Hotch doing the same. They discuss everything from Jack and Henry to the newest advances in handwriting analysis to whether or not they've ever been skinny-dipping. JJ has to slap her hands over her mouth to muffle the surprised laughter at his answer. He blushes, and it's kind-of-maybe-sorta adorable.
It is one in the morning when they each silently acknowledge that this after work dinner between friends has turned into something much, much more.
Edie, the waitress with doughy hips and a kind face, shakes her blonde curls and gins as she picks up their bill, watching the couple exit the diner.
"I can't believe that it's one in the morning. And I'm not even drunk. And I have to go into work tomorrow." JJ bemoans, fiddling with her car keys and taking deliberately slow steps.
Hotch knows they will have to confront the fact they've been toeing the line of professionalism all night, but he's hoping to put it off for just a while longer. "Come in late," he suggests casually.
Her eyebrows shoot up, her gaze raking up and down his body. "Late? Hotch, you are the most punctual person on the planet. What is this? Have you been body snatched? Am I speaking to Hotch's evil twin who rips tags off mattresses and takes more than one peppermint at a front desk? Who, dare I say, arrives late for things? Are you going to start singing as well?"
He places a hand over his heart and sweeps his other arm out dramatically. "Oh when you smilin'. Wheeeeen you smilin'. The whole world smiles with you, baby-ba-ba. Yes, when you laughin'. Ba-ba-bo-do, when you laughin'. Yes, the sunnn, comes shinin' throughhh."
She's clutching her ribs, shaking with laughter as he absolutely murders the song. Somehow, even though he was so obviously not lying about being tone deaf, it sounds beautiful to her ears. His voice is awful, dear God is it terrible, but he's grinning anyway and he's killing this wonderful song for her. He's singing to her. And that, she thinks, is pretty beautiful.
"Well," she coughs for breath as his tune trails away, "now I know that I've officially entered The Twilight Zone. My boss just… serenaded me. In some roundabout attempt to get me to come in late to work."
Amusement curves his lips up, and they both drag their feet on the sidewalk. "Tomorrow's Friday. It's some school holiday too, so, sure, why not? I mean, not terribly late. I just don't want my favorite agent to be found napping in the conference room."
He expects her to argue that they've all worked exhausting cases on far less sleep, but instead she smirks, and says, "Favorite agent, huh?" Her tone is teasing, a light jab at him, but as they both seem to instinctively stop, nearing so very close to their cars, he sees a mix of genuine fear and hope in her eyes. (Oh, God, her eyes.)
Neither of them seem to be breathing. JJ's keys jingle as her hand goes limp, hooked on her index finger. They are so very close and Hotch looks down into her eyes, darkened by the poor lighting of the parking lot and slightly bleary from sleep deprivation, her skin a faded orange hue from the shower of streetlights. "Yes," he answers, but he doesn't think they're talking about the same thing anymore. This close to her he can spot the makeup on her skin, flaking after a long day like the spidery cracks in bread when you pull it apart. Her breath carries the faint scent of strong coffee and greasy fries. He thinks that it is a bad idea to find her so attractive in this moment.
She takes a step toward him, only silence existing between them now, and her body is so warm and her pupils dilating as she—
She missteps onto the edge of the sidewalk and slips. Her limbs flail and a small yelp escapes her as she tumbles to the asphalt and, on pure instinct, Hotch reaches out for her. They fall to the ground in a empty parking space, Hotch managing to take the brunt of the collapse, landing on his back with JJ safely cushioned by his body.
Vibrations from her chuckle crawl along his skin. He laughs as well as they pull each other from the ground and each other.
"I'm sorry, Hotch!" She says, wiping some gravel from his neatly pressed jacket.
"I never really liked this suit, anyway." He ribs, smoothing down a piece of erratic blonde hair, which is soft and lovely just as she is. He feels silly for doing so, like they're monkeys picking bugs off one another, but she doesn't seem to mind.
She beams, her smile like a blind man seeing the sun for the first time. He never, ever wants to look away. "I swear I'm not a clumsy person. The only time I seem to trip is around you." They laugh for a moment, and then he remembers that if she had not fallen, he is ninety-four percent sure they were about to kiss.
She seems to recall the moment as well, her face sobering as she works her lower lip with her teeth for a few seconds.
And then, because she's always been the braver of the two of them, she asks him, "Would you… Would you like to go out sometime?"
And because her smile and her eyes and her hair and dammit, just her is so amazing, it's all he can do to grin like a fool, nod dumbly, and say, "Yes. I'd like that very much. I mean, especially since I serenaded you. I don't do that for just anyone, you know."
"I should hope not."
She smiles again and he smiles wider and for the longest time they just stand there, in a dirty, empty parking lot at two in morning, smiling like a couple of idiots. Eventually they regain control of their mouths and make plans for tomorrow night, barring any cases that may come in.
He thinks he should be running from this. That he will screw it up, like he does everything good in his life. That there are regulations against this. That their job will kill their relationship before there is one. That she is too young for him. That he has too much baggage. That she deserves someone so much better than him.
Perhaps he's right, too, but as he drives home he allows himself to be selfish, and not care even a little as to why they shouldn't. As he thinks of her smile, he knows they've already lost so much time. He won't let his insecurities force them to lose anymore.
He saves her that night and if he thinks about it, he thinks maybe he might have loved her for the first time that night as well.
The loud people are all over him when he drops to the sidewalk. He doesn't like them—they keep obscuring his view of her.
She is just flashes of blonde and red, and people push his shoulders and hold his hands and poke his stomach. They are pain and they are stealing her from his sight, so he fights them away.
Black spots dance in front of his eyes. Or maybe they're just raindrops. He can't be sure. His hands start to shake and the cold of the rain seeps into his skin, curling up in his bones. It takes residence in him without permission and if he could just see her again he's sure his body would regain heat (her words like liquid light, her laugh like sunshine, her blood so warm). He twists away from the hands and the voices.
He wishes he could see her, but then when he does, he wishes he didn't.
It is eight months into their relationship when she very nearly gives him a coronary.
He yanks open the curtain with such force the rod holding it trembles and the nurse trailing behind him is half afraid it will snap. She balls her small hands and puffs her chest, refusing to be put off by the admittedly very frightening man.
"Sir, I told you tha—" Nurse Willard's words die away as she watches the man—or agent, as he kept throwing that in her face when trying to find where some Jennifer woman was—practically dissolves into a different person. His harsh face relaxes, and he's not all unpleasant to look at when he doesn't look as though he could set a building on fire with a single glare. He reaches out timidly to the blonde woman sitting on the bed, and cups her face with his hand, ever so gently caressing her cheek with his thumb. The woman brings her hand to his, expressive blue eyes searching his dark orbs. He looks almost like he may cry.
Nurse Willard clears her throat, feeling uncomfortable to be witnessing such an intimate moment. "Right. Well, agent, the doctor should be back soon with the release papers. I trust you'll not barrage any other nurses in my absence." Neither of them seem to register her words, so she just sighs, pulls the curtain back, and leaves the two in peace.
Hotch rests his forehead against JJ's, and breathes deeply. The pain in his chest lessens, a large, complicated knot coming undone inside of him.
"You shouldn't terrorize poor nurses, dear." JJ scolds softly, bringing her other hand to his face, holding his skull, her thumb rubbing the spot over his ear soothingly. He is quiet for what seems like hours.
"I thought I lost you."
"But you didn't." She assures quickly.
"But I could have," he whispers onto her lips.
"Yeah, but you didn't. I'm right here."
He makes a frustrated, slightly strangled noise in the back of his throat. "But I could have. Don't you get that?" Pulling his head away from hers, he studies her face.
"Aaron, calm down. I'm fine. It was a barely graze. I'm being discharged as soon as the doctor gets back. Nothing happened." She smiles softly and his eyes are especially dark in the sharp lighting of the hospital.
Hotch drops his hands and takes a step back. "Nothing happened? You were shot!"
"Grazed!" She counters, spine straightening, eyes flashing. "My arm was barely grazed! Malinki was about to shoot anyway, but you took him out first. You saved my life, why are you freaking out?"
His features border on disgust. "What is wrong with you? You were shot and you're acting like everything's fine!"
"Everything is fine."
"No. It's not. You could have died, JJ. You could be dead right now."
"And so could you! So could Morgan or Rossi or Pen! Everyday we take a risk by walking outside of the house. But guess what? That's life. It effing sucks and sometimes people die. But I didn't. So get over this conniption fit of yours, all right?" She huffs, pulling on the hem of her shirt to flatten out some wrinkles. It's then that she notices the tears.
His dark eyelashes stick together and his eyes glint black with wetness. "You could have died." He says hoarsely as JJ rushes to take his hands in hers. "We were in the unsub's house. Morgan had your back, but…" There's a catch in his throat and he stares at something on the wall over her shoulder. "JJ I saw as the deteriorating psychopath I just put two bullets in shoot at you as he went down and then you fall to the ground, out of sight. I thought…" His words constrict, growing tighter and more painful.
JJ drops his hands and settles her palms over his cheekbones, carefully pulling him toward her. He relaxes against the crook of her neck, inhaling against her soft skin. "I'm sorry. I'm… I was insensitive. If it had been you, I would have…" She trails away as a new thought enters her mind. What would she have done if she'd only heard a gunshot and then seen Hotch fall to the floor? Ice seeps into her stomach and does cartwheels at the very thought. Her arms squeeze Hotch's body into a firmer hug and he skims his nose over her neck. This man, this unbreakable man, was brought to tears because he thought she was dead. This man, she thinks, loves her. Really, truly, loves her—perhaps more than she deserves. And she, just thinking about being in his situation felt nauseous. She, she knows with sudden clarity, loves him. Really, truly, loves him—maybe more than she should.
"No, it's me. I'm being ridiculous, I—"
She shushes him, saying, "You're not. You're not ridiculous, you're… I get it. I'm sorry, but… I am here, okay?" She presses her lips against his and threads her fingers in his short hair. "I'm right here. I'm fine. I'm with you."
He pushes a few buttery blonde strands of hair from her face. "Yeah?" He asks, sounding close to sheepish. She grins.
"Always." Their mouths meet again and Hotch pulls her body closer to his, minding her bandaged arm. Lips move softly, gently, like they are exchanging a secret. She tastes faintly of vanilla and blood from when she bit through the skin of her lip after being shot, and he of fresh salt and his regular spicy mix. Her hands cradle the back of his neck and he rests his palms to the thin fabric covering her lower back. The starchy sheets crumple in protest to his weight pushing against hers. The air is bitingly cold from the loudly whirring air conditioners and smells of antiseptic. They hold each other close, washing away each other's pain.
There are other things that he could say. They passed the "I love you" barrier only about a month ago but they still keep those three words to a minimum. Hotch thinks he could say it now, that really he should say it now. Maybe that she should say it now. But neither of them do, and this is okay for some reason. Hotch know that he loves her, and sometimes, like now, he's oh so sure that she loves him too.
And for now that is certainly enough.
The doctor barges in and soon JJ and Hotch are squabbling over whether or not she should be in a wheelchair. JJ argues that their well-kept relationship will be outed if the team sees him fussing over her. He says fine, and insists he isn't fussing.
"What, you want them to know?" She asks, rolling her eyes as she walks out of the hospital.
He shrugs. "They might as well. They'll have to know sometime. It's not like we can pretend not to be together for fifty years." She thinks about teasing him for the fifty year comment, but decides that optimism looks good on him, and laces their fingers together.
He saves her life that day and if she asked him to he'd do it again everyday for as long as he lived.
The strange, pink mist of her blood and rain swirl down the storm drain. He feels people lifting him up, and it is like he is floating. Floating on a big, puffy white cloud up in the sky that is blue and dry. And she is laughing. She is laughing on the cloud.
They are together, and she is laughing as they float. Her golden hair is the sun, her bright smile is the weather, and her voice is liquid light (he is drowning in it). Her air is his air and they live on this beautiful cloud so far up above the world that no one can touch them. They are tethered to each other and do not need a world to anchor them to reality.
Her laughter showers down over him like rain—
Only it is rain. And he is not floating. He is dreadfully stationary and it is dark and he is wet and people at poking and pushing him back down (when all he really wants to be is up). The lights are harsh and artificial, and he tries to look back to the dark.
It works.
Only, he doesn't so much as look into the dark, as the dark rushes over him.
He dreams of melodies sung from skies and mangos.
It is a Sunday a little over two years after their relationship began.
"Oh, when you smilin'." He sneaks his mouth closer to her ear. "When you smilin'—I say the whole world, oh, oh, the whoooole world, smiiiiiiles with yooooo—Omphf!"
She silences his serenade with an elbow to the gut, and he rolls away from her with a groan of pain. She grins into her pillow, biting the inside of her cheek to swallow her full on laugh.
"First, ow. Second, I try to wake you up with the sweet soul of my voice, and you respond with physical violence?" Hotch clucks his tongue. "Someone needs to manage their anger."
"I manage," she says, shifting her weight to look over at him. "I manage it by taking it out on you. It's perfectly therapeutic."
He chuckles loudly, and stretches out his limbs with tiny popping joints and sighs of pleasure. "Can you believe what we did last night?"
"Mmm. Barely."
"It was… animalistic. I can't remember anything so powerful."
"I know," JJ nods empathetically, "it was the best I've ever had."
Hotch twines their fingers together loosely. "Oh, easily the top ten for me."
A smirk tugs on her coral lips, and she glances at the alarm clock quickly. "Thirteen…"
"Uninterrupted…"
"Unadulterated…"
Hotch pulls her smaller frame against his, and presses his grin against her forehead. "Passionate…"
"Consecutive…"
"Blissful hours of…"
JJ lets out a contented moan. "Sleep."
Hotch lets his eyes close and focuses on the warmth of her body and the steady beat of her heart in the calm room. "Remind me to send Jessica a basket of muffins for taking the boys."
"Mmhmm," her hum of agreement sends a shockwave of vibrations tickling his collarbone. "And a new car. No, a yacht. An island. Hell, I'd send her our souls but I'm not sure you can priority mail those."
They lie in the bright, white light of a new day as it pools through their window and colors their sheets and skin. The sound of their even breaths filters through with an occasional car rumbling by or the odd bird chirping.
After a while, JJ lifts herself from Hotch's body. "Alright, come on, I'm hungry from sleeping so hard."
"Noooo," Hotch whines, flipping himself over on the mattress, "'m tired."
JJ laughs through her nose and swats his calf, climbing over his form and wiggling her toes on the carpet. "Says the man who just woke me up by singing. Armstrong, nonetheless."
"You were awake. I was just encouragement. But now I've realized the error of my ways. You're right. I'm wrong. Let's just stay in bed all day." The pillow muffles his voice, and JJ rolls her eyes.
"Fine. Be a party pooper. But I'm going to go make pancakes to celebrate our weekend of childlessness. Come and join me if you want some."
Even with his face smushed by the pillowcase, she can see his simper. "That's what you said last Saturday night."
"Shut up." She leans down and plants a lingering kiss to his lips, not caring about morning breath or the fact her hair looks like it was attacked by a weed whacker during the night.
"Make blueberry ones." He mumbles softly. She smiles, combs through her tangled mane in the bathroom before sweeping her blonde locks into a bun, and bounds to the kitchen, a literal spring in her step. Between Jack's sudden nightmares about zombies (Hotch is still making Morgan pay for letting Jack see that movie while on babysitting duty, even if Jack did sneak down in the middle of the night to watch it) and Henry (whose energy seems to have doubled recently, for no apparent reason) and their work a true night's rest feels like a fairy tale. After her sleep marathon, she feels refreshed and ready to tackle the world. Even if her lover is not.
He gets a solid half hour of floating between dreamland and consciousness, drifting in the warmth of their bed.
Then, he smells smoke, and stumbles over his feet racing down the hallway.
What he walks in on is nothing short of comical.
JJ is waving a kitchen towel at the smoke emitting from the stove, wafting the thick black clouds out of the window she cracked open. There is flour piled high on the counter, scattered across the floor, and even coating JJ's skin and hair. It's an absolute disaster, and Hotch barks a laugh, clutching his ribs, at the whole scene.
JJ glares. "Help me, or leave, jackass."
He grins broadly, his eyes tearing up from the smoke and mirth. He crosses the kitchen, and turns off the flame on the stove, picking up the large, square pan and placing it in the sink. He pulls the window open all the way to let the smoke dissipate, and plucks something very back and charred looking that was burnt to the stove.
"So," he exaggerates the 'o' and takes an experimental sniff of the ashy-once-food-product, "how're the pancakes coming?"
JJ throws the towel at him, and plants her hands on her hips. "Not funny, alright? The batter spilled all over the stove, and before I knew it everything was smoking, so I went to open the window, but because someone," she pins him with a harsh glower, "keeps forgetting to fix it—because it sticks and it's never opens, that's why, now shut up—I couldn't get it open all the way and ended up knocking over the flour. Stop laughing, or I swear to God I will toss you right out of that damn window."
Hotch strains his features, his cheeks puffing and his eyes growing wide. He bites down on his tongue. "I'm not… laughing."
She narrows her eyes into blue slits, and points a stern finger in his direction. "I'm warning you, Aaron."
"Hey," he protests half-heartedly, "I'm the one who saved you from the smoke. That gets me some points, right?"
She looks thoroughly unimpressed.
His gaze rakes over her body. She's wearing booty shorts and a too big t-shirt and her naked toes are squished in the flour sprinkled across the flour. Her front is covered in the white powder, and it's swiped across her cheekbones and dusted on top of her frazzled hair do, which is drooping to the side. Her face is pinched angrily, but to be honest she looks just about as threatening as a miffed chipmunk. He knows it's a dangerous mistake to think her adorable when she's very much lethal, but he really can't help it.
And it's then, as he struggles to retain his hold on his facial features, that a large glop of pancake batter that had escaped the open flames falls. It was clinging onto the edge of the counter, and there, in the tense silence, it slips to the ground with a splat.
The blueberries she'd incorporated into the batter burst like fireworks, painting the tile bright purple and tan.
And he tries, really he does, not to laugh. But a grin sneaks to his face for only a second, and the grin morphs into a badly concealed snort of amusement, and from there everything goes downhill.
He's clutching his stomach, knees bent, tears streaming from his face. He tries to shift his weight to steady his convulsing body, but his toes misstep into the puddle of batter, and he flops on his back.
JJ lets the laughter infect her as he blunders to the floor, and gulps the smoke tainted air quickly, giving her a hiccupping sort of cackle that makes Hotch guffaw all over again.
JJ drops to her knees, still vibrating with laughter, and crawls to Hotch. She lies her head against his heaving chest, and curls her body up next to his. He wraps his arm around her waist and hugs her close, their laughter slowly dissolving.
They stare at the white ceiling, where soft tendrils of gray smoke can only just be made out in the beams of sunlight that filter through the open window. An occasional sniffle or giggle is sounded until they're able to smile without exploding into laughter once more.
"What is it about us ending up on the floor together?" She asks as their breathing steadies.
"Well…" His tone is so obviously innuendo laced, that she pulls a Hotch #2 glare on him, the I'm-about-to-cause-you-serious-bodily-harm, and he quiets immediately. His smirk, however, stays in place.
"We should clean the kitchen," says JJ through a grin, nestled comfortable against Hotch's body and the tickle of the cool tile.
"Yeah. Have fun with that." JJ pokes his stomach. "Oof. Erm, of course I mean we'll have fun with that."
"That's better."
"I love you. Even though you almost burned down the house."
"I love you too. Even though you clearly don't have any sense of self preservation." She wriggles in his hold and leans up to kiss his neck. And then his jaw. And then his mouth.
"This, I would say, is why we end up on the floor so often." She swats his chest in disapproval, and then kisses him again.
Two hours of satiating an entirely different kind of hunger pass until they are even close to cleaning the kitchen.
He saves her from herself that morning and is content in the knowledge she'd do the same.
When he wakes up again he is alone. He thinks maybe he always will be.
After an especially harrowing case and two straight days of paperwork, Garcia decides the team needs to spend Saturday night together. She doesn't say why, but she doesn't need too. The fact that everyone agreed to her proposition so quickly speaks volumes.
She suggests a movie and dinner. It's some star-studded rom-com that they can all suffer through, since it's in walking distance from the best Vietnamese restaurant in the city, an intimate place with comfortable chairs, great food, and just the atmosphere they all need to unwind in.
"That was terrible," Reid says through a mouthful of gummy bears.
Garcia waves him off, her bracelets jingling through the air. "Oh, shush. It was sweet."
"No," he shakes his head, "there were numerous plot holes, the acting was sub-par, and the dialogue was highly unrealistic. It was a terrible movie." His jaw works overtime to ground the viscous candy.
Smiling, she swats his chest with the back of her hand. "Well, at least the actors were hot."
"Amen." Prentiss chimes, twirling a Red Vine in her fingers, before ripping off a chunk with her teeth.
JJ grins, "I second that." But she's looking up at Hotch, whose arm is curled around her shoulder, when she says it.
Prentiss sighs heavily. "Stop rubbing your relationship in my single face, Jaje. Not fair." JJ's face is one of pure innocence and her friend rolls her eyes, shaking a few raven curls into her face.
"What, am I not enough man candy for you, baby girl?" Morgan's eyes go round, his face wounded.
"Mmm," Garcia leans into his form and taps his chin with her neon green nail, "you know you're the only for me."
Rossi makes a small noise of disgust in his throat, and Prentiss laughs openly. Reid tries to get the orange head of a gummy bear out of his two front teeth. They're walking down the street, towards the restaurant, night air nipping sharply at their skin. Lightening strikes in the distance, but no one seems to notice.
Looking down at his watch, Hotch addresses the group. "It's not quite eight yet, so we have a few minutes to kill whi—"
"Oh! Shoes!" Garcia exclaims before he has a chance to finish, and scurries to the display window of a boutique, very nearly pressing her face to the glass. Prentiss hurries behind her, and makes a sound suspiciously close to a squeal.
"Look at those boots. I would kill for boots like those."
"I'm a mom. We're not allowed to wear boots like those." JJ's eyes go a little wistful as she hangs back with Hotch.
"Ah, clearance, sister! Come on!" They're almost through the door when Morgan clears his throat.
"Oh, no. No, no, no. Nuh uh. Not happening. I am not about to be roped into shoe shopping with you two."
Prentiss cocks a brow. "Wow. Never took you for such a chicken, Morgan."
"I am not a chicken."
"Then come in with us."
"Nope."
"Pussy," Garcia says, sticking her tongue out at him.
It takes some more goading and teasing before it's decided that JJ and Hotch will head over to the restaurant to check on their reservation while the rest of them browse in the shop. Hotch sternly limits everyone to browsing not buying, as they don't want to get caught up and miss their spot at the restaurant. Prentiss and Garcia nod yes, but their gaze was locked on a pair of sleek white pumps, and he thinks maybe he saw a bit of drool forming at their mouths.
"Your friends are a little crazy," he tells JJ as they pad down the sidewalk. Her figure is squished to his and it feels nice.
"They're your subordinates. You hired them."
"Are you implying something about my mental stability?"
She smiles sweetly, leaning up to press a kiss to his lips. "Never, dear."
He laughs a little and leads them across the street to the restaurant. "You're doing that thing where you call me 'dear' when you think I'm being absurd."
"Am I, dear? Hadn't noticed." He looks down at her, soft freckles tossed over her nose that are barely visible, but he likes knowing they're there. His dimples are fully out of hiding, a retort on his tongue, when it happens.
There is a muffled shout from the alley up ahead of them. They release each other, instinct kicking in, and race to the dark mouth. A man shoots out and more broken sobs can be heard, echoing dully on the metal dumpster.
In a split second, everything changes.
Everything shatters.
"I've got him, you check the vic!" JJ yells, already taking off after the man. Hotch locates a young woman, coughing wetly on the gritty black ground.
"H-He s-s-said n-not t-to yell." She garbles out, hysteria leaking through her tone. "But I-I screamed. I-I s-s-screamed."
Hotch pulls off his jacket, balls it up quickly, and places it on the gaping wound on the poor woman's abdomen. He grapples with his cell phone for a few seconds before he's able to dial. The woman whimpers as he hangs up, her eyes dark and terrified.
"Don't worry, ma'am. My name is Aaron and I'm an FBI agent. I just called the paramedics, but you're going to be fine, okay? Here, grab my hand. Hold it really tight, as tight as you need." She squeezes his left hand and he feels his bones shifting. He cools his features, and smiles in a way that he hopes is comforting. "That's really good. Now, can you tell me your name?" He adjusts the jacket on her stomach so that he can better keep the pressure.
She grits her teeth and tears smear her makeup, painting her face a smudged blue. "Mel-l-lind-da."
"Melinda? I'm Aaron Hotcher."
"N-Nice t-t-to meet y-you." A smile pains her features, and beads of perspiration trickle down her forehead. Hotch feels himself almost frown, sympathy for the poor girl filling him. He saw the wounds. The ambulance is already too late, he knows. She hasn't very long.
"All right Melinda, I—" He's cut off by a scream. An all too familiar scream. His face blanks and his fingers are going numb.
JJ.
JJ screamed.
JJ is screaming.
He looks down at the woman bleeding into his hands. She stares up at him, her face panicked. "P-Please d-d-don't leave." Her face contorts into agony and her breaths increase rapidly.
Then, they stop.
He checks her pulse. Waits. Breathes in the soft air before a storm and the metal tang of her blood.
He thinks about it for a moment, whether or not he'd be able to leave a woman bleeding on the ground for JJ. Yeah, he realizes. He really would.
He pulls his hand back from the jacket, and is surprised to find them clean. He wipes what little blood leeched onto his skin onto his jeans, and closes Melinda's eyelids.
His muscles steel as he runs, pebbles spitting from his heels, air sharp and lungs hot as he follows the echoes of JJ's shouts down unfamiliar streets. Everything pauses around him as he takes the sight of her in. She's in the middle of the street, her body sprawled out over the dashed yellow lines. A short man is staggering away from her body, and he nearly loses his grip on the gritty asphalt in his mad dash to him.
Hotch tackles the man to the ground, bashes his head against the ground twice, and doesn't notice when the mugger stabs his blade (coated in her blood already) into his abdomen. He leaves the unconscious man, and nearly collapses at her side.
She looks up, eyes shrouded in pain, breath coming in a quick, labored gasps. "I… I almost had him. I got… got his arm in the street… turned too quick… stab… stabbed me and took off." Ice slithers under his skin and he presses his hands to her stomach. The blood runs over his fingers. "Caucasian. Couldn't be more than… twenty. Dark hair and… eyes. Lip piercing. Tattoo of a flower, I… I think on his neck. A rose." Her blood is warm. That's maybe the worst part. The pure adrenaline high he was in as Kate bled out kept him from picking up details like temperature. Haley was long dead. He was in too much of a rage to notice anything with Foyet. "Can't… Couldn't get anything else." This is the first time he's ever consciously been aware of how warm blood is. It's warm all the way up to his elbows and he doesn't like it.
The air is balmy and tastes of rust, he says, "Shh, JJ, it's okay. You don't have to talk. He's down, I got him. Just breathe, JJ. An ambulance is on the way, okay? Can you look at me? JJ?"
"I… love…"
"Stop. Don't." His voice breaks and he can barely get the words past his lips. They swell up like balloons in his throat and do not, cannot pass.
Her face is pained and he is trying to stop profuse bleeding with his hands. "I… love you. Jack… love Jack and Henry. You tell, them Aaron. You… tell them."
He's crying. He's crying and his tears are falling down and mixing with her blood. It is so terrible. Thunder claps overhead.
"You can't say that, Jaje. You and me, always." He reminds her. Her blood, slippery and warm, flows out from his hold and escapes to the street, slithering along the asphalt. "We're a family. You're a mom and you and I are always, and you can't do this. You c-can't. We're not married yet. We have to get married and live until we're ninety and gray. So you can't go."
It doesn't make any sense. This can't be happening. He needs a warning signal or some time to let it sink in. With Haley, he knew. He didn't want to accept it, but he knew. When you lose someone, you have to know. You can't have them ripped so violently from your life. There was always a sort of warning beforehand.
But here, now. There is no warning. She's bleeding out on the street and it is far too quick, too sudden to be real
She smiles and she is beautiful even when she's not. "I love you. You…" The sky opens up and, for the last time, she is granted the privilege of feeling rain on her face.
A sob rips through his body, the pressure on her wound shifting. He tries to find his spot again, but it's too late. "I love you too."
The rain and his tears and her blood are sloppy and plunk into each other with little droplets until it simply doesn't matter where one begins and the other ends.
She looks up at the sky, opens her mouth as if about to say something more, raindrops sneaking onto her tongue, and she dies.
Falling backward onto the ground, he crab crawls away from her corpse. He trips over the curb and scrambles to his feet. He looks down. Sees the knife that killed her protruding from his stomach. He pulls it out, and lets the metal clatter to the slick ground.
He looks up at the sky, opens his mouth as if to scream, the rain cold but his hands warm, and he does not feel much else after that.
And it's ridiculous, of course, because vanilla and mango? They do not, should not, go together. But with her, there is something else that bridges the gap between the two scents, something utterly JJ in essence. Vanilla and mango and JJ all swirl together and end up being perfect. She smells like happiness, because when he is around her, this is all he knows.
People try to fill in his spotty memory. The ambulance that came and found JJ, having bled to death from the jagged, multiple stab wounds, and found him, covered in so much blood they hadn't noticed his nasty gash at first. That it'd been touch and go in the bus. That the team was calling in JJ's family and making sure Jack and Henry were more than taken care of, not to worry. The man that killed her was in jail. It was his third strike, he was gone for life. Just a random mugging from a low life, no real reason behind the chaos. Good news, at least, he won't be back to murder you and your sons on some vendetta.
Their words do not soothe him.
The doctors and the team and the world mull together, boiled down in a stew. He puts the lid on the pot and walks away, trying to remember how exactly happiness smells. How she looks when her smile is that of the sun, head tilted, nose wrinkled. How her eyes twinkle and laugh and are sad sometimes, too, but always, always beautiful.
He loves her. She is so beautiful with her kindness and her humor and her soft, strong, warmness.
But she is dead. And so now she smells like death and blood. Her mouth is pale blue and cold, completely still. Her eyes are closed forever. She is dead, not beautiful, and she is dead, not kind or funny. She is cold, hard, dead, and his chest aches terribly and he can't breathe, he can't even breathe—
He is still in critical condition. These are words that the stew shoves down his ears when he is awake. Other words like 'death' and 'we'll see' and 'vital organs' get jumbled from the doctor's mouths. He does not care. He is hazy and aching and their voices aren't liquid light, and he is not drowning.
He is empty and terribly dry.
It is raining when she dies.
After all, my erstwhile dear,
My no longer cherished,
Need we say it was no love,
Just because it perished?
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds. I am, however, really looking forward/really sad to see how they're going to be writing off Emily's character come the season finale. (Eeek! Just a few weeks away!)
A/N: Yaaaay! Another super dark oneshot.
Seriously though, my muse has been all "SUPER ANGST!" on me lately. I have like four incredibly dark and angst-y oneshot-ish fics glaring at me from my documents.
I hope you liked this! I really like JJ/Hotch romance and wanted to try my hand at writing it, but then my muse was all, "Okay, you can write romance. . . but someone has to die." I know it was sorta fast paced but I wanted to show a bit of how, really, you can blink and your whole world is altered so dramatically you haven't a clue of what it hit you.
Also, JJ and Hotch are crazy, and Bohemian Rhapsody IS GLORIOUS. Also I've had the song stuck in my head for maybe a month now.
Anywhoozle, thank you so much for reading. Like always, this fic is unbeta'd, so any and all mistakes are mine - apologies if you spot any, I try my darnedest to edit them all out. Please drop a review to let me know what you thought of the story! : )
Thanks again for reading, you beautiful mouse-wielder, you!
-Yellow