AN/ Alright, so here is my submission for the "March Madness Angst Challenge." Come join us on the forum and feel free to participate. A major shout out goes to Tracia who wrote the first story for the challenge.
And, if you're incredibly mad at me for starting an angst challenge then...get over it? We'll do fluff next month :)
Regular disclaimers apply
What hurts the most, is being so close
And having so much to say. And watchin you walk away.
And never knowing, what could have been.
Not seeing that loving you, is what I was trying to do.
The elevator doors opened and JJ rushed quickly to her office. Any opportunity she could get to avoid him, even for just a few minutes, would be well worth the effort.
She cursed herself as she rounded the corner and saw his own retreating figure at the end of the hallway. She had known it was a mistake the moment their lips touched. She had planned on the awkward moments at work while they tried to maintain some semblance of a professional relationship. What she hadn't counted on was that it would hurt this much.
Closing the door behind her, she hoped it would be a subtle signal to the rest of the world to leave to a nice peaceful day to catch up on her paperwork. Sheltered in her small office, a day of paperwork would mean a refuge from having to face him.
Unfortunately, life wasn't that kind.
Within moments of looking at the case in front of her, she knew they would be off to another far off city to try to catch a monster within the hour. She groaned at having to face him. Far worse was that she had to work with him. Yesterday, the prospect of spending days in his presence would have filled her stomach with butterflies. But today, the harsh reality of life had shattered the hopes didn't know she had.
It was only last night that the dreams she had never thought she wanted evaporated before her eyes.
And it had all begun with one silly question.
"What do you see when you think of the future?" She had asked it so innocently, so naiively. She could practically still feel his arm around her shoulders, his warmth like a blanket on a crisp morning.
And it had ended miserably. Vague answers had piqued her interest. Aaron Hotchner was never vague, and when she finally pushed him to an honest answer, her world came crashing down around her.
"It's not that I don't love you JJ." His words from the night before reverberated in her mind. "I had a family. I'm not in the stage of life where I want to start that all again."
And that was it. Just like that, it was over.
What started as two lonely souls sharing an intimacy they couldn't find elsewhere ended more quickly than it started.
But it wasn't supposed to hurt this much.
Picking up the phone, she quickly dialed his extension. It'd be better to get this over with as quickly as possible. "Hotch, we have a case." She announced in the most professional voice she could muster.
"Alright, we'll meet in the conference room to brief the team." He said quickly. If she didn't know any better, she would have thought he was as anxious to get off the phone as she was.
"Ok. Bye." She said awkwardly, the former parting that she would have used even a day earlier crushed her. Love you.
The click and subsequent dial tone that answered her served only to confirm the death of their relationship.
This was why she wasn't supposed to get involved with a co-worker.
He cursed himself as he looked at the phone in its cradle. How had this all unravled so quickly? One moment he was comfortable--happy even. The next, JJ had quickly stood and told him it was over.
Where did it go wrong?
Logically, he knew where it went wrong--it was wrong from the beginning. He knew in the beginning that he couldn't do anything but hurt her, and he had let the passions of the moment control him.
"Hotch?" Morgan queried. "JJ asked me to come get you for a briefing. We're all set up."
Wordlessly, he gathered his own things and followed the younger man to the BAU room. He felt a pang as JJ refused to look in his direction, plowing into the case before them. "Dallas PD," JJ began to brief the team but Hotch couldn't force himself to focus. Instead, the friday nights watching hockey while eating homemade pizza flowed into his mind. Playing dinosaurs with Henry and Jack on a Saturday afternoon while JJ looked on fondly soon followed.
Suddenly, he realized the team was all looking at him--presumably for confirmation to take the case.
Not that they needed it. It was very rare that JJ didn't make the right decision. She always selected the right cases.
He couldn't bring himself to add the adendum that she had obviously made a mistake with him. He couldn't bear to think of their time together as a mistake. It may have been wrong, but it felt far too good to be a mistake.
There was no way mistakes could make a man so happy.
Realizing the team was looking at him curiously, he nodded quickly. "Wheels up in thirty."
JJ brushed past him as she entered the plane, cursing her body for the shivers that crept up her spine at the briefest of contact. Maybe if she was able to get far enough away from him on the plane, she could pull herself back together. She was beyond trying to keep up the facade of control for herself.
But she'd be damned if she let him see her fall apart.
"JJ? Is everything ok?" Emily asked as she sat down across from her. Wordlessly, the brunette gestured to the men at the back of the plane. "I mean, is--?" She left the question hanging, not entirely certain herself what she was asking.
"It's over." JJ admitted softly, not needing to explain further.
"I'm sorry." Emily's soft words of sympathy did nothing to fill the hole that threatened to eat her alive.
"He still loves her, Em. His dead ex-wife." She rubbed her temple as if by some miracle she could dispell the tension with her touch. "He told me last night that he could never move on."
"Really?" Emily fought not to gasp. The budding relationship between the two most professional members of the team had become a favored form of entertainment. She never would have guessed the end would have come so quickily. "It's over, just like that?"
"I've spent too long trying to convince myself to accept what others want for me. I thought I knew what I wanted. If he doesn't feel the same, then I need to find that with someone else." She sighed. There was a reason she hadn't married Will, and once she had realized the cold feet were more of an omen than a bout of indecision she had felt liberated in ending their three year relationship.
But this, this feeling that her heart was bleeding inside of her, this was a feeling she hadn't counted on.
Sitting across from Hotch, Dave quircked his eyebrow in surprise. "Trouble in paradise?" He asked, gesturing to the back of the plane where JJ and Emily were engaged in a whispered conversation. Lately, it was difficult to catch Hotch or JJ without the other. Now, it was like they couldn't get far enough away from each other.
Hotch didn't look up from the case files in front of him. Inwardly, he hoped by ignoring the seasoned profiler, he would get the hint.
He did, but not entirely.
"You know, you and JJ sure seem to make each other happy." Dave mused. "It'd be stupid to let something insignificant--"
"Leave it alone." Hotch ground out. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about his personal life.
But his old friend was like a dog with a bone, he just couldn't let it go. "Look Hotch, if you need some pointers about how to be romantic and all--"
"It's over." He admitted softly, not wanting his words to make their way over to the women on the other side of the plane.
Dave gaped slightly in surprise. Derek, who had been listening from across the aisle looked at the older men in surprise. "So where do you go from here?" Dave finally managed to ask.
Hotch looked up for the first time from the reports and photos that had captivated his attention. Staring longingly at the woman who batted the bolden hair out of her eyes, he smiled softly, "Back to work."
...And not seeing that loving you, is what I was trying to do.
What did you think? Angsty enough? I had a better idea strike me as I was writing this, so I'll probably get that one up too.