AN./ I have so many beginnings of stories that I don't want to post until they're finished. Literally, so many. But I forced myself to finish a fluffy little something because I felt so cruel for hoarding what I've been writing lately. This is for all my faithful readings, and especially reviewers, who put up with my long waits! –Bec xx
Calling Her Name
"Emily..."
The first time, Will wasn't even sure he'd heard her right. Now it had become a regular occurrence: his wife, lying beside him, moaning in her sleep: "Emily, don't go!"
It had been two months since Emily's death at Doyle's hands. Will had been at the funeral. He'd held Henry while JJ stood stock still and refused to shed a single tear, while she laid a rose on her best friend's coffin. He'd asked her later if she wanted to talk about it but she replied that there was nothing to talk about.
Really, darlin'? He thought now. She's all you dream about but you act like she never existed.
"No, please! Emily!"
"Shh, darlin'. Shh..." Will tried to soothe her. "I'm here."
JJ shook as she awoke. Tears streamed down her face and Will wiped them gently away.
"Don't leave me," she whispered and, not for the first time, he couldn't be sure whether she was talking to him or her fallen friend.
"You were dreaming again, JJ... You were calling for Emily."
JJ didn't reply but she held Will tight as she cried and he let her sob against him, as he always did, knowing there was nothing more he could do.
"Are you still going to grief counselling?" he asked and he frowned when JJ shook her head. "Don't you think you should, Jay?"
"I'm fine," JJ answered shakily. And that's all she'd say. It was all she ever said.
It was in the mornings that JJ really did seem fine. She bustled around the house, getting herself and Henry ready, while Will drank coffee and marvelled at her. She was perfectly composed, perfectly efficient. She even liked to get a game or two of online Scrabble in before she left for the office. She said it kept her feeling sharp.
Internally, she was a mess. Will knew that had to be the case. JJ's feelings were far too intense to only ever arise at night. He imagined that she struggled through every daylit second, maintaining that careful façade of calm.
"Darlin', I'd be less worried about you if you seemed more upset," he told her, late one Sunday afternoon. Henry was sitting on the floor nearby, flipping through a picture book, so he kept his voice low.
"More upset about what?" JJ asked without looking up from her own novel.
"You know what," Will replied and he was validated by the stiffening of JJ's expression. Of course she knew.
"I can't talk about her, Will." JJ's voice was soft. She too was acutely aware of her son's presence.
"Talking about it is part of the grieving process," Will reminded her.
"I'm not grieving," JJ answered.
At the time, Will was astounded by the depth of her denial. It would be months before he found out, along with the rest of the BAU team, that Emily wasn't really dead—only hiding. It would be longer still before he understood that JJ's grief at Emily's loss was more real than even she realised.
Weeks later, while Henry was safely away at a friend's house, Will confronted his wife again.
"The nightmares are getting out of control, JJ. I want you to get help," he told her honestly.
They stood in the centre of the living room. JJ held a cup of tea and another of her novels but she hadn't yet had a chance to sit down.
"I've always had nightmares," JJ replied, her face blank. "If you're just realising now that you can't deal with them—"
"This isn't about me," Will insisted. "This is about you not being able to cope with Emily's death except by acting like a complete robot! Don't think that Henry isn't being affected either. He loved Emily too and he's confused that you won't even talk about her anymore."
"Henry's fine. He's strong," JJ dismissed him.
Will ran a hand through his hair disbelievingly. "Our three-year-old shouldn't need to be strong, JJ!"
"It's not my fault she's gone," JJ shot back. She couldn't handle Will using her son as an argument. Especially not when she knew he was right. "I'm trying not to let it affect anyone but I have to sleep, Will. You don't understand. I see her every damn time I close my eyes!"
"You lost your best friend," Will reminded her, more gently now that she was talking to him. He wrapped his arms around her waist but drew back when JJ only stiffened against him. "...No one expects you to be okay, darlin'."
"I can't—" JJ whispered. "I can't talk about this, Will."
She left—saying she was going to take a run—and she didn't come back until her son was home. So often now, Henry was the buffer that made it safe for them to be around each other. He was also the only thing they had in common, although neither wanted to admit it.
Every night. It was every damn night. What was Will supposed to do? How could he believe his wife when she said she was okay when every night she was crying out Emily's name and waking in tears? He hated to see her go through the day so composed and calm, knowing that everyone else was falling for her façade—that nobody was helping her.
When JJ and Morgan were called away for a day to conduct inmate interviews, Will took a chance. He went to see her boss at work.
"Is there a problem?" Hotch asked as soon as he realised who was at his door. He was not a man who devoted much to preamble and Will respected that. He stepped right inside.
"It's not an emergency," he answered. "But yes. It's about JJ."
Was that a dumb thing to say? Probably. It wasn't like Will and Hotch shared any other common ground besides JJ.
Still, Hotch nodded and showed the appropriate concern. "Sit down."
Will did as directed but sat right on the edge of his chair and leaned his elbows on his knees uncomfortably. "How does— Um, how does she seem to you lately?" He asked.
"How does she seem or how do I think she is?" Hotch replied and Will was boundlessly grateful to hear that distinction made by someone other than himself.
"She acts like nothing's wrong," he confessed. "She glares me down any time I ask if she's okay. But she won't go to grief counselling and she has nightmares every night. She wakes up our son, screaming for Emily not to leave her... I'm a cop, sir. I know what it's like to lose a member of your team. JJ isn't coping."
"She keeps to schedule, appears calm and presentable at all times, doesn't eat any more or less, hasn't taken up any damaging habits, and continues to do excellent work. Some would call that coping," Hotch replied. "It may be too much for the time being to ask her to be happy as well. ...Is there something else?"
"I— I don't know."
Hotch considered Will carefully, waiting for him to elaborate. And just when he thought Will was going to change his mind and say nothing, the New Orleans detective reached into his pocket and pulled out a creased photograph, which he leaned over to hand to Hotch.
The photograph, maybe a year old, featured Emily, JJ, and Garcia, sitting on the latter's couch. It appeared to be a selfie, clumsily taken by a brightly smiling Garcia and intended to showcase JJ sitting in Emily's lap, her arms strung around the older woman's neck. She was clearly laughing, while Emily held her around the waist and pressed a kiss against her neck. Both of them were flushed, somewhere between tipsy and happy and just a little embarrassed. Garcia was holding a bottle of wine in her free hand, gesturing a toast.
"It's a great photo," Hotch chuckled fondly. "I've never seen it before."
"I hadn't either. JJ's been keeping it in her wallet," Will explained. "It fell out as she was leaving this morning and I didn't get a chance to give it back to her."
"It's not unusual for someone in mourning to keep a piece of the person they've lost with them," Hotch reassured him but Will shook his head.
"I know. It doesn't bother me," he pressed but there was clearly more that he wanted to say or that he wanted Hotch to realise. When Hotch didn't reply, Will sighed. "She talks in her sleep," he divulged, although Hotch had already gathered this. "The other night she kept saying 'I love you'. We'd been fighting and at first I thought she was saying it to me, trying to make up... But then, it would've been the first time in a long time that she's said that to me."
"She was talking to Emily," Hotch gathered. He brought his elbows up onto his desk and leaned his chin onto his hands. "Well, we all loved her."
Will shook his head. "You don't have to say that. It's fine," he replied gruffly. "How am I supposed to be angry at her when she's hurting so badly? Anyway, I'd already suspected it for a while. It's just, seeing that picture this morning... It's obvious, right? JJ was completely in love with her." He shrugged his shoulders like he'd already accepted this. "I'm only saying so because you should know—I mean, someone should know—what she lost when Emily died. I think she feels too guilty to let me help her, even though I want to. She feels like she has no right to mourn Emily, so she keeps it inside..."
That's a more astute observation than you know, Hotch thought grimly, since Emily was still alive and (increasingly) well. He was sure that a large part of JJ's angst stemmed from the feeling that she shouldn't be allowed to miss Emily as much as she did.
Aside from Hotch himself, no one else on the team even knew Emily was alive, while Emily and JJ had a basic method of communication. She'd confessed to him once that the two of them had made profiles for an online Scrabble game while in Paris together. Sometimes he caught her playing a word while on the job.
"We're looking out for her," Hotch replied, knowing that was what Will needed to hear. "JJ is lucky to have you. She knows that."
"Thanks," Will replied dully. He moved to reach for JJ's photograph but Hotch stopped him.
"Do you mind if I make a copy of this?"
Hotch wasn't entirely sure what he was hoping to learn as he entered Garcia's office but, once Will was gone, he'd known he had to speak to her. He brought the copied photograph of Emily kissing JJ's neck and laid it on Garcia's desk when she asked how she could help him.
"Oh," the usually bubbly tech softly sighed. "I haven't seen that photograph in such a long time. I gave JJ a copy... Did she give it to you?" Her expression suggested that she strong doubted that.
"Will found it," Hotch replied honestly.
Garcia's eyes filled with tears. She was not only less able to hide her emotions than JJ was; she was also far less inclined to. Garcia had never held back her grief at Emily's death, even when it may have been easier to.
"I love that photo so much," she confessed. Then she took a personal USB out of her purse and loaded it, finding the same picture and blowing it up on one of her screens. "You can just see how happy they are…How in love. I'm guessing you're here 'cause you figured that out."
"JJ's husband told me he suspected that was the case," Hotch answered and he noted the way that Garcia cringed when he referred to Will as JJ's husband.
"JJ has never cheated on him," she felt the need to assert. "As far as I know, she and Em never even acknowledged their feelings for each other. Not in words anyway. But sometimes, once they'd had a few drinks each, they could loosen up to this stage where it didn't matter that neither of them had ever admitted their love. It was just kind of taken for granted..."
Garcia flicked through a few more of the photographs from the same night—ones Hotch had never seen before and which Garcia herself hadn't felt strong enough to look at again since Emily's death. She looked at them now, soaking up all of the love and happiness in those photos. The last one was taken after Emily and JJ had fallen sleep.
They'd both slept over at Garcia's that night and, in this photograph, they were lying spooned together on the couch. Emily lay behind JJ with her nose pressed into the base of the younger woman's neck and her peaceful smile was made only just visible by the angle of her head. JJ's face was obscured by her hair but she clearly held Emily's hand pressed against her chest, keeping that arm wrapped around her. A blanket had been pulled up over them both.
"And I have a video!" Garcia remembered suddenly. "JJ took most of it, actually, on my camera. But it's from that night." A few more clicks and she had the video up on the screen, playing with surround sound.
"What are you doing?" giggled Emily, who had her hand in a bag of marshmallows. She looked surreally happy and alive. The last time Hotch saw her, she'd been grey with blood loss. "Are you really taking a picture of this?"
"Nuh-uh, I'm filming!" came JJ's disembodied voice. She swept the camera around and settled on Garcia who was sitting by an abandoned Monopoly board and waving. Upbeat music bounced softly in the background.
"Hiiii!" she called.
"Whose turn is it?" Emily asked. Her words were slurred together slightly but she was still intelligible. She took another drink, as if to remedy that.
"Mine!" JJ answered excitedly.
"Truth or dare?"
There was a brief silence as JJ considered her (two) options and Emily shoved a few more marshmallows into her mouth.
"Dare," JJ decided.
"Gimme the camera," Garcia demanded, sounding pretty excited herself.
The picture wobbled as JJ did as she was told. Now both she and Emily were visible, sitting cross-legged on the floor beside each other. "I dare you..." Garcia began, "To take a marshmallow from Emily's mouth using only your mouth. No hands and no cheating!"
"You mean with me like this?" Emily asked, picking up another marshmallow and holding the edge between her teeth so that it stuck out of her mouth.
"Yeah, and JJ has to take it with either her teeth or lips," Garcia giggled.
JJ just laughed softly. "Pen, isn't the idea for the dare to be difficult or unpleasant in some way...?" she teased and then she dropped forward onto all fours and crawled towards Emily. Garcia zoomed in, focusing on Emily and JJ's faces.
Hotch watched in poorly concealed surprise as his usually sensible and professional agent knelt before Emily, placed her hand on her chin, and leaned in. She wore a deliberately sultry expression.
"Hey, no hands!" Garcia declared from outside the frame.
"My hand isn't touching the marshmallow," JJ protested, stroking her thumb against Emily's cheek pointedly.
Emily tilted her head up, waiting for JJ to take the treat, and yet JJ seemed intent on drawing out the exchange. She leaned in torturously slowly and closed her eyes as her lips closed around the marshmallow. Emily released it into her mouth and then gave a sigh, watching as JJ chewed it slowly and then swallowed. JJ's hand remained on Emily's cheek and their lips remained a marshmallow's breadth apart. Emily's seemed to part automatically. Her hand raised to cover JJ's on her cheek and her eyes fell closed.
"Kiss, kiss!" Garcia cheered and for a split second it looked like they would. JJ moved in, impossibly close but not touching. Her mouth opened slightly but her brow furrowed like she was fighting every urge in her body to keep herself from actually kissing Emily.
Surprisingly, it was Emily who drew back, offering an understanding smile. They leaned their foreheads together instead and JJ appeared relieved; Emily, a little disappointed.
"I'm tired," JJ breathed. "Let's go to bed."
Garcia sighed and the video ended a beat later.
"Jayj wanted to love Will but she couldn't," Garcia told Hotch now. "I kept telling her that she needed to acknowledge it and deal with the consequences. Emily loved her back, we all knew that, but she wasn't about to tear JJ's family apart and JJ wasn't about to let her. They didn't want that relationship... It's just not fair, Hotch. I've never seen two people more in love. But Jayj won't even talk to me about Em anymore. It's like she's trying to pretend she never felt that way!"
"She's been carrying that photo around in her wallet," Hotch replied, shedding doubt on that. "Her husband says she's been calling for Emily in her sleep." He leaned against Garcia's desk, looking uncharacteristically helpless. "What do I do?"
"Aw Hotch," Garcia sighed. "You're not God... Unless you can bring Emily back, you'll just have to settle for supporting Jayj along with the rest of us."
"Emily... Emily, please don't leave me. I love you..."
Will awoke slowly. JJ wasn't crying out so much as mumbling quietly but the longer-than-usual sentences made him (briefly) assume that she was awake and trying to talk to him. He did his best to dive into consciousness. It was only when he was awake enough to start processing individual words that he realised JJ was talking to Emily again.
"Em, I'm so sorry I never said it before. I'm so sorry, baby. I know you loved me. I'm so sorry..."
"Shh, it's okay, darlin'," Will soothed her sleepily. Her brought his arms around her in a protective embrace. "JJ, I know you loved her. If you're not talking to me because of some kind of guilt over that, just don't worry about it. I want you to be okay... I know you couldn't help loving her."
At first, he wasn't even sure that JJ was awake enough to hear him, then he felt her arms tightening around him as she began to cry.
"It's okay," he promised. "It's okay that you loved her. It's okay that you miss her. Darlin', I understand."
"Why don't you hate me?" JJ wept. "You've always been so good to me, Will. Y-you don't deserve this."
"You love who you love, darlin'," Will replied. "It's not a matter of what I deserve. You deserved to be with her and I'm sorry you didn't get that."
"Thank you," JJ breathed. "Thank you so much..."
"Maybe you wanna tell me about her?" Will asked, fighting back a sudden onslaught of nerves. It was a risk but he was praying she'd let him in this time. "It might help, Jayj."
"You knew her," JJ said softly but she still complied. "Emily is— She was beautiful... She was everything I couldn't want but did. She made me feel strong and weak at the same time. She scared me with everything she made me feel. And I think I always knew—somehow, I knew—that I was going to lose her and that it was going to hurt more than anything had ever hurt me before." She sighed as Will rubbed her back gently. "And I was right... I don't know why it was her I fell in love with. I wanted it to be you, Will."
Will laid a soft kiss on JJ's cheek and shook his head. "It doesn't matter, JJ. I love you; I love our son. What we have would be enough for me if it were enough for you... But it isn't, is it?"
"Will, there's something you don't know that's going to change everything," JJ whispered, almost despite herself. "But if I told you right now, I'd be putting someone else's life in danger. Actually, the whole team's…"
"I don't understand," Will answered needlessly.
"I know. I'm sorry..." JJ sighed. "I hate keeping things from you."
Will shook his head. "You tell me when you can, JJ. Whenever you can..."
Will knew the morning everything changed. JJ was up far earlier than usual but she hadn't left for work. She merely sat, dressed and ready, in the kitchen, nursing a coffee, which had long since gone cold, and staring into the middle distance.
Will put the coffee pot back on and then exchanged JJ's mug for a fresh one in silence. She couldn't meet his eyes. It had been seven months now since Emily's death and JJ barely resembled the woman he had married. He'd seen her genuinely smile only a few times—always on those rare occasions he could get her to remember Emily without crying. It was tearing Henry apart to see his mother so miserable and Will knew that if JJ could do something about it, she would...
She wasn't smiling now but something was definitely different.
"I can tell you now," she told him as he sat down. She pressed her palms against the sides of her hot mug cautiously. "I just don't know how."
Will glanced toward the door; Henry was still in bed. He lifted an arm around his wife's shoulders, pulled her against his side, and simply waited. Seven months had taught him nothing if not that his wife would not be pushed into talking before she was ready.
"That man who was after Emily, Ian Doyle... He was one of the most dangerous men we'd ever come across," JJ began faintly. "Emily worked undercover a long time ago. She gained Doyle's trust. He fell for her, wanted to marry her, and she betrayed him. Well, she did her job. She took his son away and sent him to prison."
"What happened to him?" Will asked. He tried rubbing JJ's shoulder but stopped when he realised the touch was only making her more anxious.
"He got out. He found her, he stabbed her, and he escaped," JJ answered. "And we knew, Hotch and I, that if he was out there and he knew that Emily had survived... She was never going to be safe and neither was the team."
"But she did survive," Will realised. He took JJ's coffee from her hands and took a long, disbelieving drink, trying to wake himself up. "Emily's alive."
With tears in her eyes, JJ nodded her head. "Emily wanted to do it. I mean— She didn't at first... We made the decision before she even woke up from surgery. I— I had to inform the team that she'd died on the table. But when she woke up, she understood. Doyle would've targeted the team to get to her—he'd threatened to before. But if Emily were already dead, there'd be no point in him hurting us. The object of his rage wouldn't be around to care. ...It'd be like shouting into an empty room."
Will stared into their shared coffee and now it was JJ who leaned into his shoulder, wrapping her arm around him. It had to be the first time she'd initiated contact in seven months, he thought bitterly.
"I was in Paris with Emily, that weekend I told you I staying with my parents, getting away from it all," JJ continued. "I delivered her three new identifies complete with bank accounts, which would allow her to move around overseas, to lay low until we got Doyle and she could come home. After that I wasn't allowed to know who she was or where she'd be. And she looked like a ghost, Will. She'd coded in the ambulance and then again in surgery. We'd come so close to really, truly losing her and then we were shunting her off into the unknown, alone... I know I had no right to fall apart, to shut you out. But I've felt so guilty, Will, being here with all of you, being taken care of by all of you... I feel like I've deserved to be alone..."
"But now?" Will pressed. His voice was tight, unfamiliar. "If you're telling me this, you must have caught the bastard."
JJ shook her head, looking ill as she squeezed her arms around his shoulders. "But we need her. Doyle's son has gone missing from the school where Emily set him up. There's some kind of trouble. Hotch has already called for her to come back in. She's probably on a plane right this second."
"JJ, you have to tell her how you feel," Will told her. He forced himself to return her embrace firmly. "You're miserable without her. I know you feel guilty but, darlin', I don't want you staying with me if you're unhappy. I do not want you to. This is all kinds of crazy but any idiot could see that you're being given a second chance here. You'd be stupid not to take it. And, JJ, you're not stupid."
"But what about you and Henry? Will, I can't—!"
"I'm asking you to, JJ," Will insisted. His eyes were filled with tears. "Darlin', we'll figure something out. When things settle down, we'll explain to Henry. We'll get a divorce and settle things fairly and you can stay here until you're ready to move on. Just don't argue with me, please. I can't ever be happy knowing you're not. This is what's best for both of us."
JJ couldn't say anything further; she just held Will close and sobbed against his shoulder while another mug of coffee grew cold.
"You haven't slept," Hotch observed. He and JJ stood on the balcony overlooking the bullpen, waiting. Emily was due in at any minute.
"Have you slept?" JJ retorted.
Hotch had to give her that one. But then, he rarely ever did sleep.
JJ leaned forward against the railing and shook her head, looking unusually rattled. It seemed that the woman who had refused to bat an eyelid at Emily's 'death' was just short of falling apart at her return.
"I can't stand waiting," she ground out.
"You've been waiting seven months. You can keep it together for a few more minutes."
"My heart feels like it's about to fall out of my chest," JJ sighed.
Hotch watched her curiously. "Well… This was always going to hurt you more than the others."
JJ's eyes widened at that. "...You knew?"
Hotch gave a rare and elusive smile. "Not until after," he admitted. "You hid your feelings for her just as skilfully as you've hidden everything else these past seven months."
Before JJ, in all her bewilderment, could even consider how to respond, she caught Hotch's head lifting in her periphery. His body stilled beside hers and JJ heard a gasp without registering that it came from her own mouth.
"Emily..."
No one had heard her enter and, as Emily stood frozen in the doorway, JJ's eyes flew over Morgan, chatting to Reid; Rossi, working with his head down; and every other person in the office going about his or her daily business without a clue.
And then JJ was running past them all—unthinkingly, like her body wasn't her own.
She heard Morgan laugh and call after her: "What's the hurry, Jayj?"
Then, one by one, their colleagues began falling silent, looking up, freezing, and—for JJ—they might as well have disappeared altogether. She threw her arms around Emily's neck and she kissed her like she'd done it million times before. No fear, no anxiety, just a kiss that made her heart and her knees feel weak.
How had she gone seven months without touching this woman, seeing her face? How had she gone a lifetime without kissing her until now?
Emily returned the kiss just as desperately. One hand braced against JJ's neck, pulling her closer, while the other firmly held her waist. And finally, through the crowd, burst Garcia, who had received a message from Morgan to come urgently to the bullpen, and from her lips spilled a tearful, "Oh my god," that pulled the pair apart.
Emily released JJ with one last caress of her cheek and then turned to allow herself to be swept into a hug.
"How is this possible?" Garcia wept against her shoulder—the voice for everyone in the room. "How are you here?"
Hotch answered.
"Seven months ago I made a decision that affected every member of this team," he explained lowly. "Although perhaps no one more than JJ. I made the call that neither Emily nor any of us would be safe while she and Doyle were both alive and free and I made arrangements for her extraction before she ever left surgery. I take full responsibility for that."
"But where have you been, Em? Why couldn't you let us know you were safe?" Garcia cried, clinging on tightly.
"I wanted to," Emily swore and her voice shook just as much as Garcia's. "Every day. I thought about all of you. I thought of what you must be going through..." She met Morgan's eye, taking in the furrows of his forehead and his expression of total betrayal. "I wanted to protect you." She was almost pleading.
"You should've let us protect you," he replied stiffly. But as Garcia stepped back from Emily, every part of him that wanted to be angry at her melted away. He hugged her tight, placing a disbelieving hand on the back of her head to keep her close. "God, I've missed you."
"We all have," added Rossi, who hugged her next. He looked faintly amused on top of being bewildered. "...Although I think it just became clear why JJ took it so badly."
"Apart from Hotch, I was the only one without a valid reason to," JJ protested softly. "I knew Emily was alive and I still..."
"You still lost the woman you love," Garcia supplied. Her voice was mild and forgiving and, as Rossi stepped away, JJ found herself being pulled back into Emily's arms.
"I do," she whispered, cradling Emily's face in her hands. "I should've said it a million times before now, but I do. I love you. I even told Will so. I—"
Emily cut her off with a firm kiss, which sent Morgan and Garcia into peels of helpless laughter, more from relief than anything else.
"I love you too," she sighed, sending the gigglers a poor attempt at a glare. Then she shared a glance with Hotch over JJ's shoulder. "…We should get to work."
At the end of the day, Will arrived in the bullpen with his son and sought JJ out. She wasn't hard to spot. Although the office was half empty by now, she still sat on Emily's desk, glowing like he hadn't seen her glow since Henry was born.
Will squeezed Henry's hand gently. "Who's mommy talking to over there?" He asked. "Why don't you go and see?" He watched with a smile as Henry obediently ran off.
"Aunty Emily!" came the cry as he got close enough to see and suddenly there were tears streaming down the almost-four-year-old's face. "Aunty Emily, is it really you?!"
JJ's head shot up and, as she spotted Will hanging back a bit, she smiled broadly. "Wanna say hi to Em?" She asked Henry and when he gave a rapid nod, JJ picked him up and settled him into Emily's lap.
Emily cuddled Henry lovingly, pressing her cheek into the long blonde hair that was so much like his mother's. "I'm sorry I had to go away, kiddo," she apologized, her voice choked. "I'm sorry you had to think I was dead but I'm not. And I won't go away again, Henry. I promise I won't. I'm back for good."
"Emily, I missed you," Henry cried. "And mommy missed you too!"
"And I missed seeing JJ this happy," Will added. Then, to everyone's surprise, he bent down to wrap his arms around both Emily and his son. "I'm glad you're back," he told her. There wasn't much more he could say, since he hadn't yet explained to Henry what was going on between Emily and his mother, but he hoped that both Emily and JJ knew how happy he was for them.
Will was also moved by Henry's reaction. When he saw his little boy curling up against Emily's chest, blissfully closing his big, wet eyes, he knew for certain that he couldn't hate this woman who had won over both his wife and his son. He loved them too much.
"Hey—Em, Jayj, we're all heading out for a drink. You're coming, right? ...Oh, hi, Will." Morgan smiled awkwardly as he took in JJ's husband. "...And Henry!"
"Hi, Uncle Derek!" Henry chirped, dutifully raising his arms to be picked up.
Morgan was helpless but to comply.
"Go, celebrate with your team," Will told JJ, dropping a kiss onto her cheek. Then he hugged Emily again—a parting gesture. "It's good to see you," he told her. Then, more quietly, he added, "I know it's strange, coming from me, but if you want my blessing with JJ, you have it. Unreservedly."
"I— I do. Thank you," Emily whispered back and he could tell by the way she held him tight that she meant it. "Thank you so much, Will."
"Don't thank me," Will answered, releasing her with a genuine smile. "Just make her happy. ...Come on, Henry. Let Derek go—looks like it's just you and me in tonight!"
JJ smiled as Will patiently led her son away—Henry kept stopping and looking back, as if to check that Emily was still there and okay, or maybe just to revel in the fact that his mother was smiling again. It had been so long that her cheek muscles were starting to feel strained.
Other than that, she felt lighter than air—never better. She turned back to Emily with that familiar look of astonishment in her eyes like she couldn't believe it either.
"You realise that your husband just gave us his blessing?" Emily asked.
"You sound surprised," JJ laughed. "If I'd had to put up with me for the past seven months, I'd divorce me too. It's just good luck for Will that I was already in love with someone else." She knew she was being frivolous and that it was more painful for Will than he let on but she was so happy she couldn't contain herself.
"But you were so controlled in front of us," Morgan argued. "Me and Garcia were waiting for you to break down. We actually wished you would—just so we'd get some little glimpse of how you were doing. You never said a word out of place."
"No, she only screamed it," Hotch replied, standing behind him.
JJ looked up, blushing. "I suspected Will talked to you about that," she admitted. She tried to come across as disapproving but it just wasn't possible. She leaned into Emily's side and closed her eyes for a few long moments as Emily shrugged an arm around her shoulder. "I was having nightmares," she explained softly. "Um... Loud ones. Every night."
Emily kissed her forehead, smiling in order to mask her guilt. "We'll have to see what we can do about those..."
And from that night on, when JJ awoke in the dark, begging for Emily not to go, the first thing she felt was a pair of warm arms around her waist, then a kiss against her lips. The first thing she heard was Emily's voice:
"I'm right here, Jayj. I'm not going anywhere."