Jennifer Jareau couldn't sleep.
She tossed and turned in the sheets but the sandman was playing hide n' seek and for the life of her she couldn't find him.
Then it clicked. Tomorrow it would be the 23rd of July. Well technically it already was the 23rd. As soon as that thought had entered her mind many others followed, as they did every year since she had found out that her sister had died, or rather, killed herself.
It was the grey hour, as she liked to call it, when the sun wasn't quite up, yet a pale mist of light hugged the sky. She couldn't sleep that night. She had always found it hard to sleep at the time. Going to bed had always reminded her of him, of what he had done to her and her sister.
Then, Peter came in. It was rare for him to enter the girls' room but this was no ordinary occasion. Tonight he would have to inform one of his most troubled students that her sister, the sister she would protect with her life if it was needed, had chosen to die and leave everything and everyone behind.
Fifteen years later and she still felt sick each and every year.
She hadn't actually seen her sister's body but the image her mind's eye had formed was the most atrocious thing she could ever have imagined. It was atrocious that death dared take someone so young, but it was even worse that her sister, her Jess, had chosen to give herself to him.
And just like every year, she was overwhelmed by guilt. Guilt because she had not been there for her sister, guilt because she had left her to suffer the same fate as her, guilt because she had trusted that monster, guilt, unmovable, unrelenting guilt.
She seriously considered calling in sick. Then the thought of being alone in the house didn't really seem appealing. Will had work to do, Henry had to go to school, and she would be alone with her thoughts. Theoretically the thoughts weren't JJ's thoughts, they were Shelby's. But no matter how hard she tried to disassociate her present self from her past she knew that they were one and the same, she would always be Shelby.
For years she had wished that she could start over. She did. It didn't take away her memories, it couldn't bring her the peace she had been longing for and all it had brought was a lifetime of pretending to be someone different. Somebody clean. Somebody innocent. Somebody pure. Somebody she was not.
As she stealthily got out of bed she made up her mind. She would go to work. Hopefully they wouldn't have a case and she would be able to bury herself in paperwork for the rest of the day. She had managed get through the day for the past fifteen years but this year she could have sworn something felt different even though she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Maybe it was simply the fact that she was tired of pretending, she thought. She was going to talk to Will. Let him know who he had really married. Surely he would understand. He loved her and what had happened in the past would not change that, right?
"Chère?" he said. "What's going on?" He could see that something was obviously bothering his wife and truth be told, if she hadn't woken him up when she left their bedroom he wouldn't have bothered to confront her. For some reason JJ had always been a little different in the summer. It was just how she was, but since he was up he thought it would be the right time to talk about whatever had made her this depressed every summer.
"We need to talk" she said not looking up from the cup of coffee she was preparing. "Coffee?" She offered and he nodded in response. He motioned to the living room and sat there waiting for her to come and sit with him. She was seated upright and her finger as if it was acting on its own started to draw circles on her pyjama pants. Will was no profiler but he could undoubtedly tell that she was nervous.
Drawing a deep breath she mentally prepared herself for the words that she was about to speak for the first time in years. He loves you, she reassured herself. He will understand.
So she begun. "Will, there are some things about me you do not know. Hell, you know nothing about my childhood." That was true he thought. He had wondered about that often in the past. He quickly realised that there was probably a reason for that so he had decided not to push the matter. JJ knew that she could trust him, he thought, when she felt ready he trusted that she would talk to him.
But whatever he had suspected, couldn't have been further from the truth.
She took a deep breath.
She bit her lip.
Then she pinched the bridge of her nose.
This couldn't be good was all that Will could think. Well at least she was willing to trust him with what was tormenting her now, instead of hiding like she always did.
"Here goes…" she thought.
"Will, you already know that dad left us- mom, Jess and I, when I was five." He nodded in response, afraid that if he spoke she would stop and she would never give him the truth.
"She remarried this guy- Walt, he seemed like a good guy at first" When his name formed on her lips a shiver run through her, one that didn't go unnoticed by Will, who now placed himself next to JJ, taking her hand in his, a gesture meant to show his silent support.
She removed her hand from under his. She couldn't do this. She had to do this, she reminded herself.
"Walt" she choked his name out, "He, at first he would be really nice. He used to read us stories and bring presents and he even tucked us in bed. Mom couldn't be happier. She had found a man that loved her and her daughters" or so she thought, she added in her head.
Now came the difficult part.
"It all started with a simple kiss, when I was nine." Was this going where he thought it was going? He couldn't believe this. He prayed to God he was wrong but he wasn't.
"By the age of ten he… He... Coming into my room at night became a regular thing. He started abusing me sexually on Jess's birthday that year." She said as fast as she could, as if giving it a required amount of speed would magically make it all disappear.
Will was shocked.
"JJ…" he started. He didn't get a chance to finish his sentence though.
"I ran away at fifteen." She continued. "I lived on the streets for months." She swallowed. Shit, she thought. Come on Jareau. You can finish this.
"I had to sell myself Will, I had to sell myself to survive." Now if the story before this revelation hadn't shocked him, and in fact it had, this knocked the air out of him.
He didn't mean to be judgemental, but he couldn't help but think: Oh my God, I married a fucking whore.
JJ, seemingly not detecting the change in his demeanour from a supportive husband to a really surprised and confused man, went on. "Then dad found me. He sent me to mount Horizon, a school for "troubled teens" basically and you know the rest." She wasn't done with her story though. But all that Will could think that moment was: Oh my God, I married a fucking whore.
"Jess killed herself a couple of years later. Even after that bastard went to prison he haunted her and she couldn't take it. Mom thought she'd run away again, like she had done once before." Like I did, she thought.
Still one thing was running through his mind: Oh my God, I married a fucking whore.
"They found her hanging from a tree in the woods near my mom's house a few days later." She didn't add the fact that it was all her fault. She left Jess there. She had left her all alone to fight her demons. Alone and vulnerable to him.
Oh my God, I married a fucking whore.
Only when she was done did JJ look up and what she saw scared her. Will was looking at her, there was something different about him. Then she realised what it was. Whenever Will saw that JJ was upset, he would try to comfort her by offering her the most basic of things, human touch. Now he had withdrawn from his place next to her a harsh look on his face and she could tell what he was thinking. She had had the same thought a gazillion times before.
She was dirty, undeserving of his love, the comfort that he offered her, his gentle touch. She was a whore, she was dirty, made to be used and thrown away. How could she blame him for thinking what she herself had thought? She was stupid to think that his feelings would remain the same after her true self had been revealed. Stupid and naïve, living in a fantasy world where everything was a fucking walk in the park.
The silence was what was killing her though.
The utter and complete silence.
It was deafening.
It was soon thereafter interrupted by the ringing of her phone. She got up and left, looking at her feet, she couldn't look him in the eye, not like this, not with the tears making their way down her face, not ever again.
She picked her phone up. The voice at the other end of the line, oblivious to her world falling apart, said "Hey JJ, sorry to wake you up at this hour, we have a case, be here in an hour." That was all that Hotch had said. She knew he had to call the others too, this used to be her job.
She ignored Will's stare as she made her way to Henry's room to kiss him goodbye, she wouldn't- couldn't deal with this right now. His staring made her uncomfortable. She didn't want to spend another minute in a life where people not only knew the truth about her, but also were so eager to condemn and judge her for her choices, even if not doing so out loud. And even though she couldn't quite believe it she was actually glad to have a case.