She Doesn't Need Time

Full Summary: Emily, only three months from delivering her first child, is called away along with her wife to her nephew's funeral in Sydney, Australia. Amidst a family reunion of epic proportions, and facing the prospect of two weeks in the sun with Morgan and Garcia to follow, JJ and Emily get used to the finer points of what "Til death do us part" really means. Love is for life. So is family. So are friends. Don't let her walk away. She doesn't need time.

-

Chapter 1

December 22nd, 2009

It had been 12 years since she'd seen him. He'd been 2 then, and not very well. If she was truthful with herself, it was a miracle he'd lived even so short a life as he had, but she wasn't ready to face such cruel truths just yet… not with a baby of her own only three and a half months from making its way out into the world. She could only hope that death would be kinder to that boy than life ever had been.

As Emily stretched hopelessly in her cramped, uncomfortable Economy Class airplane seat, a far cry from the BAU's cushy private jet, she couldn't help but wonder why her cousin had invited her. They had never been close enough that such an invitation should have been obligatory, and more than that, if it were Emily, she knew she could never bear to see a pregnant woman, let alone the sinner her cousin believed her to be, at her own child's funeral.

It was no secret, after all, what cousin Catherine's side of the more-than-affluent Prentiss family thought of Emily's relationship with her female colleague, Agent Jennifer Jareau, and yet Cat had specifically invited both of them, and even paid their airfare to her idyllic Sydney home.

Catherine and her husband Edward had made the move to the sunny holiday paradise just before their son Joseph's third birthday, immediately after he'd been cleared for flying after a recent operation, and it had been in a last ditch attempt to connect with her cousin before they left that Emily had revealed her feelings, at the time feelings alone, for her co-worker. She'd been trying to open a channel of trust and communication, but found it blocked off by a high-strung, immovable prejudice that Emily wouldn't have thought possible of her own blood. They'd parted on bad terms, and though she was occasionally updated on Joseph's progress via email, Catherine never called her when in town to see her aunt, and Emily had thought herself well on the way to accepting that when the boy had died suddenly.

Needless to say, their purely political relationship (forced in family situations but uncertain on their own terms) was the cause of a particularly bad case of nerves as she flew over. Though, to a degree, flattered to be remembered, entirely willing to be there to see her poor nephew off, and anxious to be there for her cousin, Emily had to admit that there was no logic to it, certain that the inevitable family reunion would be nothing but grievously awkward not only for her, but for her partner as well.

All the same, JJ was clearly doing her best to appear calm and positive as they flew over, even to the extent of putting up with Garcia's constant whining to her left.

Garcia's presence had been a last minute thing. Somewhat inappropriately excited at the prospect of a sunny holiday in a far off, as yet unseen, paradise, she had managed to get a seat beside them on the plane only days before the scheduled departure date. Neither of her travel companions bothered to question the legality of her methods. They had discovered long ago, after all, that in these situations it was usually better not to ask. In a similar fashion, Garcia had been able to rewire JJ and Emily's non-refundable tickets home to a different flight two weeks later. She, at least, had nothing to fear a couple of weeks in the sun…

"Urgh!! I can't fucking stand planes!" Garcia cried out suddenly, slamming an orange-heeled foot on the ground and only narrowly missing JJ's bare one as she yanked it out of the way, kicking Emily in the shin in the process.

"Ow! For goodness sake, I'm trying to sleep!" Emily yelped, kicking across the row of three and managing to kick both JJ and Garcia in one action. "I have a goddamn funeral in the morning!"

Pulling her legs up onto the chair in order to avoid a repeat incident, JJ offered Emily an apologetic look. "Sorry, baby, we're all frustrated," she admitted, shifting the armrest that separated them up and out of the way. "Here, lean on me…"

Emily did as directed, sighing resignedly. "Thanks, Jayj… It's just that I haven't slept all this time, and I can't stand that I'm going to have to face my family looking anything other than my best…"

"It's a funeral, not a wedding," JJ reminded her gently. "No one's going to look fantastic. And don't worry about it, we're all tired."

"You can say that again," Garcia whined, slipping off her 'beautiful' heels and giving the airplane socks hanging out of the seat pocket in front of her a dirty look as she retrieved them. "It's pure hell up here, but it'll be brilliant once we land." She checked the screen in front of her. "We've only got four and a half hours left!" she exclaimed excitedly, and it was incredibly tragic, Emily thought, that such an announcement could lighten their moods so.

"Thank God," she found herself sighing, snuggling into JJ's side appreciatively as the blonde's arm came around her. "I'm so ready to get off this plane!"

"I know. I really need to go to the bathroom!" Garcia cried, drawing incredulous looks from her companions.

"Wait, you mean you haven't been to the bathroom this whole flight?" JJ asked, eyes wide. "Why the hell not?"

"It's gross!" Garcia protested defensively, "Besides I can't stand the thought that if this plane crashes into the ocean, we're going to be floating around a tank full of people's shit! No way I'm contributing to that!"

JJ and Emily exchanged disgusted looks. There were no words with which either could immediately respond to that statement.

"If you say so…" JJ agreed eventually. "Have you watched any good movies on this flight? I'm sure struggling for entertainment."

Garcia shook her head dismally. "I searched every nook and cranny of the system," she sighed. "I even hacked into the business and first class sections, but there's nothing good on!"

"That's Qantas Airlines for you," Emily sighed knowingly. "I really think the best thing that this country could do for its tourism would be to make the flights more bearable. I mean, it's a gorgeous paradise, but who wants to spend however-many goddamn hours in this hell? Not exactly a selling point…"

"You can say that again," Garcia whined, shifting uncomfortably in her too-small seat and tugging up the blanket that was necessarily sitting awkwardly beneath her fastened seatbelt. Four times this flight when she had been just about to drift off a flight attendant had come by and woken her to check whether or not her seatbelt was fastened. It was. Every time. And now she was damned sick of it. "I can't wait to hit the beaches and just fall asleep on the sand…"

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Emily disagreed. "Reid happened to tell me some statistics about the occurrence of skin cancer in Australia and—"

"Whoa!" Both JJ and Garcia cried at the same time.

"Do not tell us," the latter commanded, with the expressed support of the former. "Don't you dare. You might be here for a serious occasion, Em, but let's not forget that I am here on holiday, okay? I do not need Reid to ruin it with unsettling statistics when he's not even here!"

Emily grimaced. "You couldn't have given the same speech to Reid before he told me that Australia has one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world? At least two in three Australians are diagnosed with it by the age of 70 and 1000 are treated for it every day—!"

"Hey!" Garcia exclaimed, and JJ offered her a sympathetic grin.

"Emily, honey, that was mean," she chided her wife, mock-seriously.

"So mean," Garcia agreed, pouting like a petulant child.

Emily only shrugged her shoulders and stretched her arms out in front of her, causing JJ to flinch as she cracked her knuckles loudly. It was something she'd only started doing since she'd become pregnant, apparently to relieve stress, and while JJ wouldn't begrudge her the action, it was just a little… eww, for her tastes.

"I'm going to the bathroom— baby's orders," Emily announced suddenly, noticing for the first time the look of disgust on Garcia's face as she did so.

"Don't come back until you've bathed in disinfectant," she said, making a show of pegging her nose against a non-existent odor.

JJ laughed as Emily stumbled getting to her feet, legs numbed by hours confined in the cramped space. "Careful there, sweetie."

"Yeah… I'm going to ask for a drink on my way back, do you want anything?"

"Bubbly?" JJ suggested with a wistful sigh.

"I think it's water, coke, or apple juice on this flight," Emily pointed out, grimacing humorously.

"Decisions, decisions…"

"I'll get you a juice."

"Thanks, love."

Emily leaned (or maybe fell) down to give her wife a light kiss before limping off to the bathroom, earning a soft coo from Garcia.

"Jayj, girl, you and Em are the bomb," she said happily. "I've never seen anyone so in love… Well, except of course for my darling chocolate God... Oh, how I miss him…"

"I'm sure you can go two weeks without Morgan," JJ laughed, elbowing her friend cheekily. "He's gone to his mother's for Christmas anyway, hasn't he?"

"Wrong on both counts, sweetie," Garcia replied, waggling a finger at her travel companion. "Turns out my bags were seriously overweight at the airport, so Morgan volunteered to go back to my place and unpack anything unnecessary. He's catching a flight over six hours behind ours, so he's already in the air by now."

"Wait a minute, he's coming here?" JJ exclaimed, this being the first she'd heard of it.

"Jayj, it's two weeks! What was I going to do without him for two weeks??" Garcia protested. "He had to come! Anyway, it'd be suicide going out on those beaches without him! I'd be surrounded by gorgeous men just dying for my phone number, and I'd have to break their heats and tell them that not only do I live thousands of miles from them, but that my own heart belongs to another! No one would dare approach me if I had Morgan on my arm, though. I'm saving countless young Australian hotties from heartbreak, don't you see??"

JJ certainly did. She couldn't take Emily out to a normal hetero bar because each and every time she did people assumed that they were just friends, practically waiting to be picked up, and after the 20th time in an evening it took a lot of self-control to simply, calmly tell the guys that no, Emily was not her friend, certainly not her sister, she was her wife. "Is he going to meet us at the hotel?" she asked, just as Emily returned with their juices.

"Who's going to meet us at the hotel?" she asked, easing back into her seat, spare hand on her belly.

"I'll give you a clue," Garcia hinted shamelessly. "He's tall, dark, handsome, and some would suggest… made out of pure molten chocolate."

"Morgan's coming?" Emily twigged, one eyebrow raised suspiciously.

"This is it, Em! He's going to ask me out before these two weeks are up, I'm sure of it!" Garcia exclaimed. "He has to with what I've got in store for him!"

"Which is…?" Emily prompted, almost afraid to ask.

"Well, firstly…"

-

"I'm sorry, Morgan! It was so last minute that all they could give us was a double room— the last one, too. That's okay, right?" said Garcia, flashing him an innocent look as she popped the card key into the slip behind the door, causing the lights to flash on inside. They both knew that even if this had been the case, Garcia could easily have done some rearranging in the hotel system, but Morgan was most definitely one for picking his battles, and this one he left unfought.

"Course, baby girl. It's plenty of room," he agreed, brushing past her and heading for the bathroom, backpack slung over one shoulder. "I'm going to take a shower and get changed first. Do you want to take a nap before dinner or something?"

Garcia, who had made a point to spend the six hours between getting to the hotel and Morgan's arrival sleeping off her long trip, shook her head lightly and sat back on the edge of the bed, crossing one leg high over the over as she switched the television on. "Not right now," she said. "But if you want to sleep when you come out, I'll turn the TV off so you can get some rest."

"Thanks, baby girl," Morgan replied, slipping into the bathroom. Then just before he closed the door, he leaned out and called her name. "Hey, Garcia." She looked up attentively. "Got any shampoo?"

"Ha ha, baldie," Garcia replied, flicking her long blonde hair to the side sexily. "Go wax your head."

Clutching his heart, Morgan staggered the rest of the way in and closed the door behind him. As it shut, Garcia glanced up again, focusing her eyes on the locked door, and willing it to fall open suddenly. It didn't of course, and she returned to her show of watching TV, all the while ensuring that she was positioned on the bed to her ultimate advantage. This was going to be one hell of a holiday…

-

Unlike Morgan, Emily and JJ didn't need to be tricked into sharing a room, or a bed, for that matter. They wouldn't have had it any other way. Having mutually agreed to go out for dinner around 8:15 at the first place the concierge happened to suggest, Emily and JJ had been sleeping for the past 7 hours and were beginning to wonder if they'd get to sleep again after dinner when a knock sounded on the door.

Emily glanced at JJ, then at the clock on the bedside table. It was 7:20.

When the knocking persisted, JJ put down her book and reluctantly untangled her legs from those of her spouse. Running her fingers through her hair as she opened the door, she wasn't surprised to see Morgan standing there.

"Derek, hey," she greeted him warmly, stepping backwards into the room. "It's good to see you down safely."

"Jayj wouldn't stop shaking for half an hour after this tiny, tiny bout of turbulence," Emily informed him, as he turned a chair tucked in at the desk to sit across from her on the bed. "Don't let her try to deny it. She was terrified…"

"I'm not the one who suddenly burst out 'I love you!' like we were never going to see each other again," JJ protested, nudging Emily's leg with her foot as she sat down next to her, making it perfectly clear that unlike her, her spouse had done just that. She glanced at Morgan, grinning. "Can you believe we travel every other week for work? We were a wreck!"

"Is Pen asleep?" asked Emily, supposing that there could be no other reason for him to tear himself away from her. Their mutually unacknowledged love had grown to an utterly unreasonable point these days.

"I had to get away from her," Morgan admitted, and Emily and JJ exchanged confused looks. "It's nothing she's done," he amended quickly. "It's just she was watching TV and she fell asleep in the most… tempting position. I just need to get her out of my sight for a while."

Confusion faded instantly from JJ and Emily's faces and was replaced with sympathy and understanding.

"Don't worry," JJ told him, grinning knowingly. "Remember that case a few years ago in Oregon, with the six black girls and the… you know? Emily got really worked up about that one so I told her to take a soothing bath, right? We're sharing a double room that time. Singles were unavailable or something… Anyway, three hours later I'm trying to read my book but I'm starting to worry that she's gone and committed suicide or something unthinkable like that, so I go in and there she is lying naked, asleep, in the bathtub: legs parted, arms resting on the side of the tub, breasts…" JJ coughed uncomfortably, shaking her head to clear the long-remembered image from it. "Whatever. I practically ran to Reid's room and let him read to me from the Encyclopedia for the rest of the evening. Torture, but a lesser torture, it seemed at the time."

Morgan chuckled gratefully. "Yeah," he agreed. "It's like that. We're at a funny place in our relationship at the moment..."

"Yeah," Emily put in. "It's called denial."

"Hey!" Morgan protested, hands raised in a defensive gesture. "Do you see me denying anything? I'm completely aware of my feelings for her, but I'm also aware that we've got a good thing going right now and I don't want to lose that."

Once again, Emily and JJ exchanged knowing looks.

"What?" asked Morgan, when neither one replied.

"Nothing…" said JJ.

"…It's just that that sentiment sounds awfully familiar," Emily explained. "We went through it. I think every couple goes through it. The thing with romance is that sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. You've just got to trust that if it doesn't work out, you can go back to the way you were before. No hard feelings."

"The thing to do is never let her walk away mad," JJ advised from experience. "You may think you're giving her time to cool off, but chances are she's spending that time consoling herself that she was right to walk away, and you're not helping her by giving her time— not one bit! Other than that… Never fight on the phone. It's far too easy for someone to hang up—"

"May I ask where this is coming from?" asked Morgan, still grateful but also a little confused.

"The only time Em and I ever had a real, honest-to-goodness, I-hate-you-for-this, I-never-want-to-see-you-again sort of fight, she stormed off and got herself shot on that very case," JJ said, glancing at Emily regretfully. "It could have ended badly too easily that day. Everyone fights, you've just got to remind yourself why you love that person— remind yourself that, no matter what, you do love that person."

Emily took her hand and rubbed it softly before slowly dragging her eyes from JJ back to Morgan. "Penelope is absolutely mad for you," she told him. "She reckons this holiday is her big chance to make you love her, and my guess is that she probably fell asleep in that position hoping that it would get to you. Now, feel free to hang around here, but you'd probably rather go back to your room and sleep before we have to go out again, wouldn't you? Your plane is barely on the ground compared to ours."

"You're right," Morgan agreed, grinning uncertainly as he stood. "I'll see you at quarter past eight."

As he left the room, Emily moved to ponder over the drawer she'd claimed for her clothes. She'd already set out a simple outfit for that night: black jeans and a white shirt, red cardigan… but now she started fiddling with the clothes she'd planned for the funeral the next day.

Emily loathed dresses, absolutely loathed them… but she knew that every female in her family would be dutifully wearing one to the funeral, and she knew that wearing a suit outside of work would earn her, quite likely, an even higher level of disapproval than bringing a female guest would (not to mention that it would make her, in her family's inexperienced view, the 'butch' lesbian of the pair, and she didn't think she could bear to face up to that stereotype). To that end, before leaving DC, she had bought a simple, black sleeveless maternity dress with a modest 'V' down the front, and though it made her more than uncomfortable to wear it, she had to admit that it looked decent on her. Better than decent if JJ's reaction in the store was anything to go by. Of course, in her eyes, JJ herself looked a million times more gorgeous.

"You're not still nervous about wearing that silly dress are you?" JJ asked, raising an eyebrow at her over the book she had just picked up again. "You'll look gorgeous. …I'm far more worried about meeting your family, to be honest."

Emily grimaced at the thought. "The small, close wedding was really a very cleverly sentimental way for us to avoid that in the past, wasn't it?" she agreed. "Just remember that after tomorrow you'll have to face them at least one more time, so don't do anything too silly."

JJ quirked an eyebrow in confused amusement.

"When the baby's born," Emily explained, resting a hand on her stomach as she closed the drawer and turned around, returning to her seat on the bed. "They'll want to put in an official viewing, so that they can say to themselves and to their friends that they have at least seen the child. After that you needn't worry— you won't see the majority of them again after that until I'm dead. They'll put in a necessary appearance at the funeral too, and I'm sorry about that. I know it's probably not a time you'll want to see them or anything..."

JJ laughed quietly, not entirely sure that her wife was even joking. "Do you think they'll be okay with us?" she asked, admittedly quite nervous about the lunch that would inevitably follow the funeral. "And with me being there even though I didn't know the boy?"

Emily smiled grimly and reached into her pocket for her wallet, taking out a picture of the boy as she'd last seen him, 2 years old. "Here's his baby picture," she said, passing it to her wife. A few seconds later she took it back. "There you go," she said. "Now you know him just as well as everyone else in my family, save his parents— better even. Most of them have only just once glimpsed him as a newborn. They won't have seen anything more recent."

JJ felt awkward. "How many people will be there?" she asked.

"Oh, maybe a hundred Prentisses," Emily replied lightly. "Don't worry. They're all politicians; they won't say anything to you that's out of line. They might hint at it, especially those who make a show of being religious, but there'll be nothing more sinister."

Without being told, JJ knew that the last statement was a grimly humorous reference to her own cousin, Jane, who had punched her in the face when she'd heard the news, and begun ranted passages of not-quite-relevant bible verses. She smiled grimly. "That's good…"

"I'm going to brush my hair and cover the bags under my eyes before we have to go out," said Emily, clutching at her wife's shoulder briefly before walking over to the bathroom door. "Try not to worry too much, Jayj. It's just one day. And I won't let anyone talk down to you, I promise."

"Let me brush your hair?" JJ suggested, smiling bravely as she stood and wrapped her arms around her wife's swollen belly from behind.

Emily smiled at the gesture, placing her hands softly over JJ's. "Sure," she agreed. "…Love you, Jen."

"I love you too, Emily."

"Don't let my family scare you off tomorrow."

"I won't."

Emily turned her head up slightly to kiss JJ softly and felt her smile against her lips.

"…After all. They're the reason you're here."