Authors Note: I wrote this a couple of years back, I think between the airing of seasons three and four. Set during JJ's moving away party. I own nothing, I just love them.
It was JJ's going away party, and a sort of mediocre excitement hung about the room, tangled in the cheap purple streamers, mixed in like vodka with the bad cranberry punch.
Scads of agents, most with no idea who this 'Agent Jareau' was, milled around the bull pen. The occasional friendly face stopped to shake her hand, wish her luck, inquire about the baby, but most, it was blatantly obvious, were in it for the free food.
Somewhere across the room, her husband was making nice with people he'd never met, grinning the whole time. The team was scattered through out the building, Hotch working on paper work at his desk, a half empty red plastic cup in front of him. Morgan was surrounded by a dozen or more female agents, his smile blinding in the dim lighting. Garcia had insisted the lights be dim, because after all this was a party and no one could dance in the light.
"I would like to stress that just because I'm throwing you a party, does not mean I condone this moving away business." Penelope pulled JJ into a tight hug. Her breath smelled of punch and booze and the novelty of it all made JJ want to cry.
"I know." Was all she could muster in response. The truth was, she wasn't so sure she condoned her big move either. Everything for little pink 'yes' to big terrifying 'I do' had happened in a tornado that dwarfed anything raging through Oz.
A modern day Dorothy Gale with the feeling that once she reached New Orleans, she'd want nothing more than to come back home.
Back home to D.C, back home to the BAU, back home to-
"So where's Emily?" Garcia all but slurred, one arm around JJ's shoulders. "Because if she's hiding out and playing chess with Reid, her cute little ass and my cute little shoe are going to have a serious meeting."
Emily had been sticking to the background a lot lately, finding some excuse to go off to play mind games with Reid, or talk comics and novels with Morgan. JJ had even seen her go into Hotch's office with two steaming cups of coffee and sit down for a chat.
Yet she'd been avoiding JJ for weeks, and what was worse was she's was acting like nothing had changed.
Where during briefings there had once been playful eye contact, sarcastic comments, wide smiles, there were now only vague answers and blank stares. Where they had once chatted so frequently over the crappy office coffee maker, they now met only in passing. That was if JJ was lucky to catch the tail end of Emily's nine sugars per cup at all. Where there had once been warmth, there was now a thick layer of ice.
JJ still let herself pretend that she didn't know why.
They all knew that things would never be the same after New York. After Hotch, with his stoicism and dedication lost Kate Joyner. JJ had to wonder if it was losing Kate that broke him, or if it was losing Haley, again.
It had happened to all of them; loss, pain, terror. Reid had never been the same after Georgia, Morgan after Chicago, Penelope after the shooting and even JJ herself, after a hasty run in with a Detective from new Orleans that brought her life crashing down around her. But Emily, Emily had always been the same. Even after Milwaukee, even after Carrie.
Emily had always been calm and cool and able to handle anything that was thrown at her. Until now. Until JJ threw William LaMontagne Junior in her face like warm spit.
"He looks like he's having fun." Garcia nodded in the direction of Will, who was leaning coolly against a wall, cup in hand, chatting with Strauss. "Takes a real charmer to make that woman crack a smile."
Where a lovey dovey comment like, "Ever the charmer" or "What a dream boat" would have sufficed, JJ simply shrugged. She didn't have to say anything. Garcia, her best friend, her confidant, knew everything; she knew each and every one of JJ's deep dark little secrets.
All of them.
"Go find her, Jayj."
One look into Garcia's eyes, and JJ knew it was more than the alcohol in her system talking. It was her best friend, once again giving her the advice she'd never had the courage to take. JJ's hand instinctively fell to her swollen stomach.
"I can't."
"The guests are perfectly capable of keeping themselves entertained, and I will maintain the vodka/cranberry juice ratio in the drinks. Now scoot." With a push off of her shoulder, Garcia disappeared into the throng, her words echoing in JJ's head.
"Find her. Find her."
JJ could feel eyes on her as she pushed off of the snack bar and into the crowd. Following her every move, every polite smile, every careful step through the dense mass of bodies. She looked up to see Will, refilling his drink, his eyes glued to her. A cold shiver ran up her spine and she turned away, moving more quickly down the hall before he could follow.
There had been a time, at the peak of their relationship, when he was chivalrous and kind and she was running like hell from her feelings for Emily, that his gaze would leave her feeling comfortable, wanted. Now, after the explosion, after what he knew, his eyes left her feeling nothing but scared.
JJ felt the explosion more than she heard it. Shaking the ground like the hand of God punching justice into the heart of a pulsing city.
She scuttled down the hallway, casually glancing in doors in search of the elusive Emily.
Will was beside her, talking calmly about getting to the hotel, calling to find out what had gone on, but she couldn't hear him. She didn't hear his shout of surprise as she whipped back through oncoming traffic to make an illegal u-turn or the string of swear words directed at her.
First she checked the conference room - empty. No surprise there. No one wanted to sit and think about murderers when there was booze to be had.
She didn't even kill the engine before jumping out at the police barricade, already up, keeping them from the site of the explosion. Flames danced from the smoldering SUV, shattered glass lay everywhere, and in the distance, just out of sight, someone was dying.
"Oh, god." But she couldn't even say the words. She was shaking too hard, sobbing too loud, forgetting to breathe.
Next she checked the break area, where a dancing janitor was singing Cher into his broom handle, oblivious to her presence thanks to the head phones in his ears.
And then she was held in warm arms, cooed by a soft voice. Her tears soaked a blue FBI windbreaker and dark brown hair fell against her neck. Emily.
The flood of relief and shock and joy and pain and love was so overwhelming that JJ didn't care that two dozen cops surrounded them, that one of her team mates was dead twenty yards away, that Will was watching her through narrow eyes.
In a last ditch attempt, she decided to poke her head into Garcia's office.
"I was so scared I'd lost you." She whispered, pressing their foreheads together. Then, without inhibition or shame, she pressed her lips hard against Emily's, putting everything she'd felt over the past year into a single kiss.
The lights were off, but a dim glow permeated the room from the dozen active computer monitors. Some had code scrolling through them, some held simply the FBI logo across a blank screen, and three, the main three used by the quirky tech analyst, were full of grainy, black and white versions of everyone at the party, milling about and dancing.
Lounging in Garcia's black swivel chair, watching the party with a bored look, was Emily Prentiss.
JJ closed the door quietly and leaned against it, watching the oblivious Emily for a moment before speaking.
"Well aren't you creepy." She couldn't help but smirk at how Emily whipped around in shock, misjudging her own momentum and spinning around twice before coming back to face JJ.
Emily glared at her in jest for a moment before shrugging.
"It was like this when I got here. I didn't want to touch anything for, you know, fear of losing my hands." She held up ten thin fingers.
"Good call." They stared at one another awkwardly for a moment, brown eyes boring into blue, before Emily swiveled back to face the screen. Taking her cue, JJ pulled up the chair from the back of the room and sat next to her. They watched the screens in silence for several minutes.
"Quite the shindig you have there, Little Miss Popular." JJ supposed Emily had meant it in jest, but the statement sounded cold and a little bitter.
"I don't even know half of those people." JJ shook her head. She glanced at Emily's profile and sighed. "The party was fine, but it was missing the one person I really wanted to be there."
Emily said nothing, but finally turned to look at her, a mix of disbelief and awe on her face.
"What are you doing in here, Em?"
"Just had to get away from the noise for a minute." Emily's elegant shoulders sagged slightly at the look she was given. "Okay, fine. I was hiding."
"From who?" JJ's head tilted to the side a fraction.
Emily said nothing, but her eyes returned to the computer screen where Will and Morgan were bargaining over what looked to be the last sandwich.
JJ felt her heart crumble just a little.
"Oh."
"And you." Emily always was the straight forward one. JJ knew she deserved the stab of pain that cut through her.
"You've been doing that pretty well for weeks now," JJ could feel herself getting angry and defensive. "It's like every time I walk into a room you just stop talking, or walk out, or even worse, pretend I'm not there. We can't even work together effectively any more. And you acting like it's all my fault isn't fair, Emily. That's bullshit."
"I'm sorry if being kissed by someone one week, and attending her wedding to some prick the next, threw me for a loop." Emily stood defensively, crossing her arms over her chest. Her stance was distant. JJ stood a moment later, hands falling to her sides in disbelief.
"Well, I'm sorry if being heterosexual for twenty-nine years and then falling in love with a woman threw me for a loop." Emily stared at her.
"Then why are you with him?" JJ sighed, running a hand through her neat, blonde hair.
"Because, I'm a wreck. Seriously. And not just a tiny fender bender. We're talking huge, fifteen car pile up on the interstate with log trucks and smooshed motorcycles and exploding SUV's." Emily raised her eyebrows. "I couldn't put you through that."
"We've dealt with exploding SUV's before, Jayj." Slowly, she reached out, taking JJ's fingers between her own. "I'm willing to again."
"Why?" JJ asked, almost suspicious. She could barely fathom how someone would be willing to put up with her, let alone want to.
"Because I love you." It was such a simple statement, said with honesty and sincerity. "Even if I'm subjected to Monday Night Football, or never cooking with garlic again, or picking your wet towel up off the bathroom floor every day for the rest of our lives." Emily looked into JJ's eyes sadly, dark hair failing in front of her eyes almost shyly. "Even if it means letting you go. I just love you, JJ."
"Then why?" JJ squeezed Emily's hand, pulling her fractionally closer. "Why did you let me marry him?"
Emily dropped their joined hands, placing her own on her hips and looking down in shame. She'd asked herself that same question a thousand times. She'd known that she loved JJ for years, and when the blonde kissed her, she'd thought maybe they had a chance. But the night came and went, mornings passed and it was never mentioned again - by anyone. Wedding bells chimed, dress shirts were ironed, finger nails were painted, and Emily quietly sat in the third pew from the front, watching JJ marry the father of her child.
Morgan clutched her hand tightly the whole time, danced with her at the reception, kept her to her word at having only one glass of champagne, and held her shaking body as she sobbed on her dark front porch hours later. The memory alone brought the glimmer of tears to her eyes.
"Because I loved you too much to destroy your world." Emily licked her lips, looking up at JJ slowly. Without hesitation JJ wrapped her arms tightly around Emily's neck, hugging her so closely that she could feel both of their hearts pound.
Emily's arms instinctively wrapped around JJ's slim waist, pulling her impossibly closer. She buried her face in soft, blond hair, feeling her own neck quickly become wet with tears.
"I didn't want to marry him," JJ admitted, voice muffled against Emily's skin, drawing ragged breaths. "I wanted you to stop it. I wanted myself to stop it." Emily pressed kisses to JJ's cheek bones, her temple, her brow.
"Pick me." She kissed the whisper into JJ's ear. "Don't leave." It was the first and only time anyone had heard Emily Prentiss beg. "Please."
And suddenly the baby kicked, a tiny foot against her insides and a giant fist around her heart. Inside of her a life was moving, growing, expecting to come into a world with her mother and father and a sense of normalcy that JJ herself had always been searching for.
She jerked away from Emily like she'd been slapped. Emily flinched, recoiling into herself. And in that moment, of terrified faces and stinging tears, they both knew that it would never work.
"I'm sorry," JJ whispered, hugging herself almost as tightly as she'd just been hugging Emily. "No." Emily didn't want to hear it. The excuses and the reasons for why JJ couldn't, wouldn't be brave enough to leave him.
On a grainy black screen tiny figure of Will LaMontagne wandered down an empty corridor, heading right for them, like a bloodhound. Emily pointed to the computer, silent tears sliding down her cheeks that she wouldn't acknowledge.
"Don't come back here." She muttered, turning and slipping through the door without another glance at the woman who shattered her heart, the woman she would never see again
Because if JJ was anything, it was obedient.
END.