Back again with a new story! I know, I know. I still haven't finished my Calzona fic, and I still plan on doing so!, but I've currently hit a brick wall with it. I recently got the inspiration for this fic and I've missed writing so I really hope you enjoy this one!
A few notes before you begin reading:
This story takes place in season 6 of Grey's Anatomy, but season 7 of Criminal Minds. Although, loosely based on cannon during those seasons, it doesn't strictly follow it. This is mainly a Jemily/Calzona fic but there are a few other little surprises in here. That is all.
Enjoy and please don't forget to leave reviews!
Disclaimer: I do not own Grey's Anatomy or Criminal Minds (unfortunately).
"This is Hotchner."
The team had just wrapped up a case in Seattle, Washington. Their UNSUB was Margaret Hallman; a former teacher who'd started killing foster parents in search of the newborn son, she'd conceived with one of her students, after her release from prison.
"I'm sorry. I didn't quite catch that. Could you repeat it please?" The ever-so stoic man stuck his pointer finger in his ear, trying to block out the loud roar of the plane's engine so he could hear the frantic words of the man on the other line.
His tone caught the attention of his team members. Derek Morgan looked up from his position on the jet's couch, where he'd been looking over a few files and Emily Prentiss craned her neck to see over Rossi's head. Sitting to the left of Emily, Spencer Reid narrowed his eyes at his friends, analyzing their expressions. Eventually realizing they were staring past him, he turned his head as well. Confused by his team mates' odd behavior, David Rossi turned around in his seat to see what had grabbed their attention.
Sitting across from Spencer, Jennifer Jareau remained in her blissful state of unconsciousness. Prior to being whisked away to Seattle, the mother had spent a few sleepless nights looking after her son who'd been sick with a cold. The moment the case had ended, the woman had crashed.
"We'll be there as soon as we can," Aaron Hotchner hung up his cell, and was immediately met with the expectant stares from each of his team members.
"Be where? Hotch, what's going on?" Morgan pressed.
Aaron took a breath before speaking, "We're heading back to Seattle. Twenty minutes ago, shots were fired inside of one of their top ranking trauma hospitals."
Morgan and Emily shared a concerned look. Shootings in hospitals were rare, but they always caused wide spread panic. Hospital's are one of the few places where people are supposed to feel like their lives are safe, not be put into jeopardy.
"Rossi, you wake up JJ. Morgan, patch in Garcia," Hotch stood up and tucked his phone into the pocket inside his suit jacket. "I'm going to go inform the pilot of the situation. We should land in Seattle in about an hour."
Once the Unit Chief had disappeared into the cockpit, Morgan turned back to face the rest of his team.
"What the hell was that?"
Emily only shrugged. She was just as thrown off as the rest of them.
Across from her, Rossi was poking at JJ's arm. The brunette could only chuckle.
"Yeah, that's not gonna work."
"JJ!" Emily's voice was just barely a notch below a yell. This received a small grunt of disproval from the spent woman. "Jayje, we have another case. Wake up."
JJ only groaned louder but, with some reluctance, opened her eyes. She met Emily's gaze. "You're kidding, right?"
"How'd you know that would work?" Rossi inquired. The exchange between the two women seemed familiar, like they'd done it before. It got his profiler wheels turning.
Emily felt her eyes widen as she gaped at him. She didn't dare glance over at JJ to see her reaction to the question. She was surrounded by a bunch of profilers; they'd certainly read into it.
She managed a pretty convincing laugh. "Come on, Rossi, not all of us have the luxury of having a hotel room all to ourselves. We have to share rooms all the time." And single bed flats in Paris, Emily held back.
Rossi's eyebrow remained arched but it seemed as though he'd bought it. Emily chanced a glance at JJ, who's face held a nervous grin.
It was then Hotch returned from the cockpit and took a seat next to Morgan on the couch. Garcia's face popped up on the computer screen on the table between them.
Saved by the bell.
"Good morning, my glorious crimefighter's. Unfortunately, this case I've just been informed of is so.. not that. This call was made to Seattle PD's 911 hotline twenty minutes ago by a doctor by the name of Mark Sloan."
"911, what's your emergency?"
"Some guy just opened fire in the first floor lobby. The building's already on lockdown. We need the cops here ASAP!"
"Okay, sir, where are you located?"
"Seattle Grace Mercy-West Hospital. Two nurses are dead and one of my residents has a GSW to the chest. Dammit, Lexie! Apply more pressure!"
"After that, the line goes dead."
"Everyone inside is being held hostage-"
"If there's only one shooter, how is that even possible?" JJ piped up.
"The Chief of Surgery issued a lockdown minutes beforehand. All the doors are locked. No one can get in or out," Hotch continued.
"Well that was a dumb move. Now he has complete control," Emily quipped.
"During the Alta View hospital shooting in 1991, Richard Worthington held two nurses, a woman in labor, her sister, the father, and two newborn babies hostage while trying to reach his true target," added Reid.
"Who was his target?"
"Dr. Glade Curtis. He'd performed a tubal ligation on his wife two years prior to the siege."
"Did she die?"
"No, actually. She lived."
"Good to know," Emily retorted, to which JJ bit back a smile.
"My point being, if we find out who the UNSUB's target is, we could potentially save a lot more lives."
"Thank you. Send us all information you have and any new information that arises," Hotch ordered.
"I'll get right on it, my captain."
"And Garcia?"
"Yes, sir?"
"I want you on the first flight out. We'll need your expertise in the field on this one."
413 miles away in Seattle…
Arizona Robbins turned the corner in her PED's ward, colliding with just the doctor she'd been hoping to get close enough to. The blonde had been trying not to take Callie's avoidance of her since the break up too personally. Assuming that maybe she just needed a little more time before she was able to put the effort into remaining friends, but it had been almost a month now. And they were stuck on the same floor, so Arizona couldn't ignore it any longer.
"I thought we were gonna be friends."
The brunette's eyebrows shot up. Is she serious right now?
"You wanna talk about this now? We're on lockdown, moving kids. God knows what's happening and you wanna talk about this?"
"Well, we're stuck here and we have to be together." Callie scoffed. Arizona Robbins, always such a realist. "So, yeah. I wanna talk about this."
"Okay. Fine." Callie couldn't believe her. They broke up because Arizona outright refused to compromise with her about having kids someday and then she'd had the audacity to go and make out with her in the elevator before walking away like nothing ever happened. And she thinks things are even remotely okay between them? No. 'Who the hell does she think she is?'
"I tried being friends, rising above. I tried that and now i'm over it. I'm gonna go the more traditional route of total hating your guts," Callie put as much anger as she could muster into those last words, hoping it would be enough to end the conversation before it even began. Of course, she was wrong. It was Arizona, after all. The woman never let an argument end without voicing her thoughts.
Arizona jogged around the corner and in front of Callie, stopping the younger woman in her tracks.
"I don't deserve this, okay? I have treated you with nothing but respect and love and-"
"Oh no, see. That's the thing. you think you have but you haven't!"
Arizona's brows furrowed. 'What the hell is she on about?'
"I'm sure it feels great to act like i'm the bad guy, but that's the biggest load of you know what that i've ever heard," the pediatric surgeon was mindful of her use of words. Despite being in the midst of an argument with her ex-girlfriend, she was still the Head of Pediatrics and surrounded by tons of kids at the moment.
"I just spent the last month trying to convince myself that I don't need kids to be happy."
'Oh God, this again.'
"Really trying. Like giving lectures to myself. Saying it out loud to you, and to Mark."
Arizona felt her face soften. She hadn't known all of that.
"And turning myself inside out to want what you wanted! And then I stopped for a second and thought, did you ever try? To imagine what it would be like to change for me? Because I don't think you did. What you did was you dismissed my dream. My dream. Which says to me that you don't give a rats ass if i'm happy."
Arizona's feeling of remorse faded almost as quickly as it came on. Callie didn't know squat about what she felt, what she thought. She let her go because she knew she wouldn't be able to make her happy. Not completely. Arizona couldn't have kids. Not after what happened. Maybe it would've been better if she'd just told her, but what good would it have done? It wouldn't have changed anything. The facts were that Callie needed to have kids and Arizona couldn't. Rehashing her past pain with her lover would have only made it even more gut wrenchingly painful than it already was. Arizona Robbins was a master at compartmentalizing, and she rarely ever opened those compartments up unless absolutely necessary.
"I never understood squat about who you are and now I do, and i don't like it."
Callie tried to brush past the smaller woman, but she followed her every move, blocking her in.
"Oh really?" Arizona wasn't done here. Callie didn't know anything. "I'm supposed to change for you? Why? 'Cause we're in love?" Arizona shrugged. Callie came home with another woman's, a patient's, number written on her palm. She didn't use it but how could she be sure that she wouldn't have? "I mean, 'cause you fall in love all the time. Men. Women."
As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. Callie's bisexuality had never been an issue for her, she just wanted to hit her some place where it hurt. But she didn't have time to make up for it as no sooner than a second later, one of her residents was calling out for her.
"Dr. Robbins." The inexperienced surgeon rolled up with one of her patient's, Ruby, and a nurse at her side.
"I don't feel good!"
Shit.
It didn't go unnoticed to Emily that JJ had grown more and more quiet as the flight went on, offering up her insight and ideas in the conversation less and less. She tried not to think too much about it, tried to refocus her thoughts on the case at hand, but when the blonde mumbled a swift "excuse me" before clambering over Rossi and out of her seat, the brunette couldn't ignore it any longer. She watched with a concerned intrigue as JJ shuffled over to small coffee machine at the front of the plane, directly behind the cockpit.
The agent wasn't listening to the team's conversation about the case anymore. The complete and utter exhaustion radiating from the younger woman's petite form as she lazily grabbed a paper coffee cup from the stack, was far more worthy of her attention.
Maybe she's coming down with Henry's cold? Her mind offered. Mm. JJ was clearly severely run down, but she wasn't exhibiting any other signs of such illness. No coughing, sniffling, or sneezing. But still, Emily had a feeling that it wasn't just exhaustion that was causing the blonde to act so sullen.
After observing her friend nearly spill her full cup of coffee while trying to stir some cream into it, Emily mumbled her pardons and parted from the group. She wasn't sure if they'd heard her, but at the same time, she didn't really care.
"Are you okay?" were the first words to leave her mouth as she approached the woman. Being an expert in analyzing human behaviors, Emily didn't miss JJ's swift raise of her brows before forcing a short, breathy laugh.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." It was a reflex. That reply. Always came out automatically the second someone asked her those three words, whether it was true or not. But when she glanced up and allowed her gaze to get caught in the older woman's sincere but gentle brown eyes, she felt her body relax. This was Emily. She could talk to Emily. JJ's lips fell into a small frown. At least she used to be able to. She wasn't so sure about now, after everything that has happened.
But looking into those eyes, those beautiful, warm eyes, JJ decided to take a risk and voice the concern that was on her mind.
"You don't think Rossi's onto us, do you?" JJ lowered her voice so that it was only barely above a whisper. She couldn't chance any of her team hearing her. If they did, her carefully woven web of secrets would begin to unravel. She couldn't let that happen. She had too much to lose.
Emily frowned, her dark brows drawing together formed a crease between them. She knew JJ was referring to Rossi's comment from earlier, about Emily knowing what would wake JJ up. The comment had sparked a feeling of anxiety in the raven-haired woman, afraid she may have just blown JJ's cover, but when Rossi seemed to accept her excuse, she'd decided it was nothing to dwell over. So why was it bugging JJ so much?
"What do you mean? Onto what?"
"Paris." That one word. That city. It held all their secrets. JJ's secret. "Us."
Us. Emily's eyes fell shut involuntarily at the word. It'd been nearly a year since, but the two women had never truly spoken about what took place in that one bedroom flat, under those white satin sheets. Emily had managed to compartmentalize it enough, but at JJ's mention of it, all the emotions felt that rainy night were flooding back. The night before she left her alone in Paris with her new identity and headed back to her life. To her new job that was changing the innocent woman she once knew right before her very eyes. To Will.
There was no them.
"There is no us."
JJ had to refrain from rolling her eyes. "Come on, Em. You know that's not true."
'What the hell does that mean?' The brunette thought. But before she could voice it, Hotch was calling them over.
"We'll be landing in ten minutes," he informed as they settled into their seats.
"Her blood pressure's 90 over 60 and dropping. Let's hang some more fluids," the orders left her lips with ease as she removed the stethoscope buds from her ears.
"I have the portable ultrasound!" Her resident announced, jogging up to the hospital bed.
"Alright, check her appendix. I will be right back!"
The surgeon took off to find the nearest cart of medical supplies. Luckily for her, there was one right around the corner. Aware of the footsteps behind her, she knew Callie had followed her.
"When are you going to forgive me for not being a good enough lesbian for you?"
Arizona had been planning on ignoring her as there was a more dire situation at hand, but she just had to send a glare in her ex's direction at the absurd question. Their issues had nothing to do with Callie's sexuality, and she thought they'd cleared that up ages ago.
"When you do something to convince me that you're falling in love with me and not with being in love. When you do something to convince me that I'm different from George O'Malley, Erica Hahn, Mark Sloan, or the girl at the coffee cart. I mean, you have a huge heart and I love that about you, but I don't trust you!" That was their issue. Callie's heart was so huge she often let anyone who showed interest into it without thinking of the repercussions. Sure, she'd become more weary since the whole George and Izzie fiasco, but the attending still wore her heart on her sleeve, always up for grabs. The way she let Mark walk all over her, interrupt their conversations, their sexual intercourse, always made Arizona feel as though she was less important. "Why would I?"
Arizona's confession burned a hole in Callie's heart. She never knew Arizona felt that way. She'd never said anything. Before Callie could think up a response, they were being called back by the resident again. Ruby's appendix had burst.
Dammit.
"So I have more information on the horridness that is this case. Based on the 911 calls the Seattle police department has been receiving, it seems that our shooter is lingering around the surgical wings. Many department heads have been making urgent calls. As they are surgeons being left surgery-less, they have many patients in need of immediate attention." Garcia spewed the information within seconds of appearing on the screen.
"Who are the department heads? One of them might be our UNSUB's target," Hotch questioned.
"Uh, lemme just pull up the hospital employment records and-," the bubbly blonde drew out in her usual sing-song-y voice. "Walla!"
"Okay, so Mark Sloan, who I mentioned to you earlier is the head of plastic surgery, and whom I am currently refraining from voicing some very inappropriate thoughts that should only be shared in the bedroom about."
"Garcia," Morgan spoke up, stopping her ramble.
"Oh, don't worry, Chocolate Thunder," Penelope grinned. "You're still in the lead."
"Oh, Babygirl, I wasn't worried."
"Sure you weren't, hotstuff," the blonde muttered seductively.
Aaron cleared his throat. It wasn't the first time he had to realign the conversation once Morgan and Garcia got started.
"Moving on," she may not be a profiler, but Penelope got the hint. "Next, we have the head of Orthopedics, Calliope Torres. Another Latina, I love it. Head of trauma surgery is Owen Hunt. Cardiothoracic is one Theodora Altman. Head of general is… currently up for grabs apparently. As is Neurosurgery. A Derek Shepherd was the Head of that department but is now the Chief of Surgery. Lastly, we have a Doctor Arizona Robbins, Head of Pediatrics."
Emily's eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. "A doctor Arizona who?"
"Robbins," Garcia confirmed.
Emily swallowed hard. The sensation could only be described as trying to swallow sandpaper. Her throat had gone completely dry, any and all liquid evaporated into thin air.
She hadn't heard that name in twenty years.
