All the Greatest Loves Are the Unfinished Ones
JJ sat anxiously on the chair outside Hotch's room, glancing before her through the window every couple of minutes for any signs of change. Tears spotted like raindrops on her blouse, and they showed no signs of letting up. Somewhere deep down in her gut, she'd known this would happen; disaster would strike before she got up the nerve to tell him how she felt. It was Murphy's Law, and now it proved true.
She felt aberrant, but she wanted Hotch to stay that way. He looked so serene, so vulnerable, so unguarded. In his current state, the world marred with rapists and murderers didn't affect him.
Without their leader, they had to be united at a time like this, but JJ felt isolated in a group composed only of her. They didn't know how she felt about Hotch; of course she was in a league of her own. None of the others felt the way she did; none of them got a silent thrill every time his eyes brushed over her even for a second; none of them daydreamed about their wedding, about the family they would have, one day.
Rossi came toward her, extracting her from her musing. He hesitated for a moment before he sat in the chair next to her, following her gaze back to unconscious Hotch in the bed.
"You love him, don't you?" Rossi asked, knowing the answer. His tone wasn't accusing - he'd said it casually, conversationally, almost jauntily - but he sounded sure of himself and that irked JJ slightly. He saw right through her. After all, it was his job.
"Is it that obvious?" JJ looked down at her lap and cringed. She had taken a strange sort of pride in expertly masking her feelings; she felt that same pride shattered as she heard Rossi's statement.
"I may have been married and divorced three times, but I do know a thing or two about love." JJ smiled lightly. "And the look on your face, that's love if I've ever seen it." Rossi mirrored her smile. JJ's pride was restored, as she knew Rossi to be an honest man. He placed his well-weathered hand over hers, meeting her eyes to ask for permission. She nodded and he left it there, covering hers on the armrest. "Why are you upset at yourself now for not telling him your feelings? Would you have told him sooner if this road bump hadn't come up?" Rossi asked gently. He was asking her the questions she'd tossed around in her mind for the past five hours. He knew that getting her to get her feelings out in the open air would help her through this. JJ shook her head.
"I was scared, positively terrified." JJ confessed. "I didn't want to cross the line. And since Will…I wasn't really sure how to be in love."
She was no expert, but she'd recognized the signs, however subtle they were: one too many broken-off dates, an overturned picture frame, her shoes mysteriously ending up in his closet as opposed to on the doormat. JJ didn't have a fit over his infidelity or make a scene of it. She gathered her things, wrote a carefully worded note and left. Later that night when he called to get a further insight on why she'd gone, she explained to him why, and that was that. One chapter of her life, over.
However, what surprised and hurt JJ the most was that Will hadn't even tried to deny it. He hadn't insisted her findings were false, or even begged for her forgiveness. He'd admitted he was at fault and accepted that she was done with him. This left JJ confused: if he'd loved her, than why hadn't he at least tried to protest, tried to refute her allegations? She felt like she'd been deceived. She'd never loved another, since then. Until Hotch.
"You know why it's all falling in love?" asked Rossi. "Because you're allowed to be scared. Hell, you're supposed to be scared. But if it's right, he'll catch you. If it's not, then you just get up and dust yourself off." A silence settled between them as they reflected on their respective pasts.
"He doesn't deserve to die like this. " JJ reopened the conversation with a bitter twist in her voice. "Men like Hotch deserve to die protecting a hostage or taking down a gunman. With dignity. Not in a crash by a drunk driver on their way home." The injustice of it all made her want to sob.
"He's not going to die." Rossi answered her, resolutely. And he was right; Hotch had always been a fighter. By the look in Rossi's eyes, she could see he truly believed Hotch would make it. Such conviction restored her strength. She felt so confident that she ventured to profess something she'd only been honest with herself about.
"I first fell in love with him on a plane back to Quantico." JJ stared through the window leading to Hotch's room, not meeting Rossi's eyes. Her mouth curved slightly upward as she talked, as if she was recalling a humorous story or something amusing Henry had done. "It was one of my first missions with the team. I asked him how he'd gotten into the BAU, what had made him want to be a profiler. He told me he used to be working as a prosecutor. Eventually he came to realize, why should he be working on the cases where people had already been killed, when he could simply stop the murder before it took place?" Of course, Rossi had known already how Hotch had gotten into the BAU, as he knew all of the team's stories, but coming from JJ it now seemed more significant. She spoke with such admirationabout him.
"His taste for justice and his strength made me realize that not all people are in this for the title, for the badge. It sure as hell isn't for the money. I was impressed that there was someone in this job that could say with vindication why he did this job.
"And I've pined after him all the days after that." JJ turned toward Rossi, a wistful smile gracing her delicate features. Rossi saw in her pale blue eyes something so unalloyed, so pure and strong, he knew it was love. He also saw devastation and hurt at not being able to tell the one she loved, for the first time, how she felt.
"Go in there. Tell him." Rossi's voice was not asking, it was commanding. He couldn't let her go on without saying what she needed to.
"But he can't-" A doctor passed by the pair at an opportune time, mentioning that coma patients have been known, about 30% of the time, to react to people speaking to them. Sometimes it even drew them from their comatose state. In any case, it was definitely worth a try, JJ couldn't deny that. If not solely for Hotch, then to liberate herself. Rossi looked at JJ expectantly, eyes kind but commanding.
She opened the door slowly, softly, as if he was just sleeping and she didn't want to wake him. She pulled up a chair next to his bed. She looked out the window expecting to see Rossi sitting there, urging her on; instead she saw her whole team gathered where she had been just moments ago. They were talking amongst themselves. The team felt closer to her now than they had before: she felt like they were on the same side. The feeling that she wasn't in this alone filled her with the courage to sit in the chair and grasp his hand. It was warm. Based on his usual demeanor, she supposed she'd expected it to be cold, and besides, she'd never touched a person in a coma before.
All she remembered after that was talking and talking; it could have been hours, maybe minutes. Time seemed to have become fluid and then Morgan was telling her she had to go.
Calls of "He's alive, he's alive!" filled her ears and she didn't know how to feel but she was crying and maybe she was happy and maybe she was sad but all she can remember was that as she was being led away and out of the room, she saw Hotch and he was breathing, blinking, smiling.
JJ wasn't sure what she'd expected to feel. She felt self-conscious, yes, but at the same time, cleansed.