The rest of the day had gone past as JJ had expected too, she faced some concerned glances from the team at certain points, but mostly, and thankfully for JJ, they had thrown themselves into the case and avoided any personal conversation with her, that was until evening.

Hotch announced that they'd be sharing rooms and JJ had gotten put in with Emily for the night, which usually she'd adore, any chance she had to be around the brunette was wonderful for her, but she'd worried lately that Emily had known more than she let on. JJ would hide the visible marks as best she could, but the fractured arm, and then, not a week later the cracked lip, she knew what it looked like- what it was.

That didn't mean she was enjoying Emily's constant interrogation.

They'd both lugged their bags to the room, and to avoid the crippling silence, JJ escaped to the rooms bathroom to change into her sleepwear. She'd considered having a shower but didn't have much faith in her aching leg to keep her supported for much longer.

Stripping off, she inspected her body in the large mirror on the back wall of the bathroom. It was astounding what her clothing could hide, and hide well. A mix of deep purples and blue veiny bruises littered her torso, a particularly bad patch around her ribs darkening alarmingly. The grip marks on her arms had shaded in too, and she was thankful her go bag had a long sleeved pyjamas in it.

She was sure she needed medical attention, or at least some high-strength prescribed painkillers but taking this to the ER wouldn't be easily explained away like the fracture was. She couldn't pin this on a drunken fall, a mistake, it was obvious abuse and would set alarms ringing in even the dimmest nurse she could possibly get assigned to her.

She took a deep breath as best she could, aware the every extra second she spent in here she was raising Emily's suspicions even further, so she finished getting changed as fast as her body would allow her and went back out to her claimed bed.

Emily had used her time alone to change too, and JJ very much enjoyed the sight of the dark haired agent in her deep red silk pyjamas "those are beautiful" JJ stated, wishing she could say what she really wanted to 'you're beautiful', that was without raising Emily's eyebrow

"Thank you, they're new actually" Emily smiled softly at the younger woman, and in that moment she considered holding herself back, attempting to have faith in JJ and allow the blonde to come to her if she had a problem, but her mind nagged at her as she recalled their earlier cases. JJ and her would change in front of each other without a second thought, but over the last handful of cases JJ had hidden herself away.
In fact, Emily had noticed most things about the blonde had changed in the past couple of months. She'd visibly lost weight, which Emily knew was bound to be a problem as the younger woman was quite petite to begin with.
She was quieter, more timid, afraid to voice her thoughts to the group during briefings.
She withdrew from the team in general, and hadn't been on any of the social evenings out in weeks.
All of which caused Emily to worry. This wasn't her JJ.

"Hey, can we talk?"

She'd expected this from Emily once they'd been alone, and she thought maybe slipping into bed would make Emily pick up on the fact she was exhausted and drop it, but apparently it wasn't that easy.

"About what Em?" How many more 'talks' about her well-being would she need to endure before they all left her alone, to handle this herself?

"You know what Jayje, you, how you've been acting.." Emily trailed off, wanting JJ to take over the conversation, but she didn't and left the pair in silence "you can't keep lying JJ there's something wrong, please"

The pain in Emily's pleading was obvious and it bit harshly at JJ. How could she hurt her friend like this? She imagined if she saw this sort of behaviour in Emily she'd be terrified for her, but of course, she was too selfish to notice Emily's pain until now. She couldn't keep lying, but she couldn't tell the truth either, not if she wanted to have a good quality of life.

The hot tears rushed to JJ's eyes before she turned away from Emily's view and whispered quietly "please don't make me talk about it Emily"

She crossed the room, and sat onto the bed, watching as the blonde attempted to hide her tears with the duvet "I'm not going to force you Jen, but listen to me, no matter what it is, I can try help, and if I can't, I'll be there for you to support you" she ran her hand through JJ's hair "I want to be there for you Jennifer"

The use of her name made JJ cry harder "d-don't call me that" she begged, which frightened Emily, who quickly apologised before falling silent again.

He was hurting her. He had to be.
The unexplained, or badly explained injuries in itself were enough to convince Emily that something abusive was happening, but her reaction to her own name? As well as begging not to talk about it- it screams abuse, right? She's scared, and Emily wasn't going to just sit by and see her like this.

"I know what he's doing to you" Emily stated, hoping her thoughts on the situation were right, but once she saw the look of sheer panic and horror cross JJ's face she knew that sadly they were "Jayje, he's hurting you. You don't have to talk about it now, but we will need to talk about it eventually"

JJ just lay still, deciding it was best not to confirm anything right now. Emily couldn't know and JJ wasn't going to hand her a confession either. Not with what she'd be risking by admitting it.

By the time breakfast the next morning came around, JJ was doing everything she could to avoid Emily again.

How could she have been so stupid? She nearly told her, everything. God, she wanted to. She wanted to scream for her help, have Emily save her, protect her- but then she noted logically that it wasn't Emily's job to protect her. Bitterly she thought that if it was anyone's job to protect her it was Will's- the irony.

"So what's going on between you and grumpy guts down there?" Derek asked as he sat opposite JJ with a bowl of cereal in hand

JJ looked towards where Derek had gestured and saw Emily buried in her phone, with a look of anger washed over her "there's nothing going on Morgan, we're fine"

He scoffed, and at the noise JJ was forced to hold back the shake in her hands, why does everything have to remind me of Will?

"Listen Jayje, I won't pry, but Emily really cares about you, try and fix it with her?"

JJ just nods as she stares into to bowl of now mushy cereal sitting in front of her.
Things have gotten so awful, she doesn't want to be at work or at home anymore, which leaves her wondering, where could she go if she wanted to feel comfortable?