Chapter 3

The flight to Elko, Nevada was going to be one of the longest they'd had in probably half a year. JJ secretly cursed herself for choosing a case that would require sitting in the confinement of the plane for five freaking hours, but then again when she chose this case, she had no idea things were going to be this intense between her and Emily.

JJ took her seat and she noticed that Emily made a point of taking a seat that was the furthest away from hers. It almost made her angry, but she tried her best to understand. It was really hard, though, knowing how much Emily was trying to avoid her. Normally they would sit on the plane together and talk about different things. Usually mostly the case, but sometimes they would cover other topics as well once all case-related issues have been discussed. JJ didn't really realize how much those conversations meant to her until Emily decided that she's rather stare out the window than talk to her. And a part of JJ understood that, because things were really weird between the two of them, but she missed Emily so much. It had only been about half an hour since the takeoff, but Emily didn't speak one single word to her, and it was driving JJ crazy. The only time when Emily found herself in the proximity of the liaison was when the team was discussing the case for about two hours and even then she refused to look directly at JJ and when she spoke, she addressed everybody, not just JJ, and it was killing the blonde. She knew that this was Emily's way of dealing with the situation and she couldn't really blame her for acting like this, but the brunette had never been this cold towards her and it scared her. It absolutely terrified her.

When they finally got to Elko, they were greeted by the representatives of local police department and taken to the town's police station. They spent about an hour discussing the case with local officers, trying to see if there was something they had missed from the original files they had. When they finally had all the information they needed, Hotch assigned everybody their tasks and they agreed to meet at the station a couple of hours later.

JJ was relieved she wasn't assigned any tasks that involved interacting with Emily, because as much as she wanted to remain professional, she knew it would have been really hard. So she breathed a sigh of relief when she learned that Emily was going to be visiting crime scenes with Rossi and her task was to interview a couple of witnesses with Reid and then prepare to face the media in the evening.

She watched Emily and Rossi leave the station and she couldn't help but think how under normal circumstances she would be looking forward to seeing Emily later in the day and comparing notes, but now she was glad she wouldn't have to face the ice cold look in Emily's eyes for at least a couple more hours.

"Everything OK?" She suddenly heard Reid's voice and saw the young doctor when she turned around.

"Yeah, why?" She asked bluntly, cursing herself for allowing her feelings to be so transparent. That was the absolutely last thing that she wanted.

"I don't know…" Reid said confused. "You seem kind of off." He finally added and looked at her intently.

"Everything's fine." She quickly replied, trying to appear normal. "I just didn't get much sleep last night, that's all."

"Well, I hope you feel better soon." He smiled at her, deciding not to bother her with any more questions. "Are you ready to roll?"

"Yeah." She smiled back as she gathered a couple of her things and the and Reid left the station.

The day wasn't very eventful, which was to be expected, because the first day on any case was usually just reconnaissance and it wasn't often that things really picked up on the first day. JJ knew they got some interesting information from the crime scenes and she knew Garcia was working her magic on some background checks, but other than that they didn't have much to go on. But she knew things were bound to get better, so she wasn't really worried.

In the evening everyone met back at the station to start working on an initial profile, which they delivered to the local police. Soon after JJ took a couple of minutes to talk to the media, while the rest of the team worked on a game plan for the next day. They didn't even notice when the dusk crept in on them, at which point they decided to call it a day.

When JJ was finally done talking to the media, she realized that the only BAU members still left at the station were her and Reid, which was fine with her, because it was going to make the ride to the hotel a little easier. She knew he wasn't going to ask any unnecessary questions or bother her. And most of all, he wasn't Emily, facing who was so difficult for JJ now.

The ride took about ten minutes and JJ was happy to finally find herself in the comforts of her hotel room, knowing that she could now get some rest. She sprawled herself on the bed, hoping she could regenerate a little before having to take a shower. She didn't feel like going to bed just yet, but she thought she at least needed a nice nap.

But it didn't take her long to realize that there was no way she would be able to fall asleep. There were too many thoughts running through her head and she suddenly felt like she needed some fresh air. At first she simply opened the window, but when she realized it wasn't enough, she decided to go for a little walk before she went to bed. She took her keycard and her cell phone and left the room.

As soon as she stepped onto the hotel patio, she realized that she wasn't the only one who had the idea to clear her head. And even though the person already on the patio had her back turned to JJ, it only took her a second to recognize Emily. For a moment she pondered whether she should maybe just go back to the hotel, but then she figured that she wasn't going to run away.

"I can see that a breath of fresh air before bed still works for you too." JJ said softly and could see Emily turning around, a little startled. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." JJ added seeing the expression on Emily's face.

"It's OK, you didn't." Emily replied, her voice barely a whisper, because seeing JJ in the moonlight almost took all her strength away. "What are you doing here?"

"The same thing you are, I guess." JJ explained with a weak smile. "I was getting a little restless and I needed to clear my head."

"Yeah." Emily agreed and for a moment there was complete silence, because neither of them knew what they were supposed to say.

JJ was the first one to break the silence, "You know, when you said that you can't be with me, I didn't realize it entailed not talking to me at all." JJ sighed. "You barely said a word to me the entire day."

"Damn it, JJ, and just what do you think I did mean when I told you I couldn't be with you?" JJ could see that Emily was becoming angry. "That we could just go on like we did before except that we wouldn't be having sex? You know that's not how it works! And yeah, I haven't really spoken to you the entire day, because speaking to you actually requires looking at you. And looking at you reminds me of everything that was between us and…"

"Was?" JJ looked at Emily meaningfully, hurt clearly visible in her eyes. How could Emily be referring to their relationship in past tense? Or maybe it wasn't such a stretch, considering where things between them were at the moment.

"Just don't, JJ." Emily simply said and JJ didn't say another word. "I really do believe that me not talking to you more than necessary is not compromising the case, so please just don't make me look at you and remember how much it hurts to not be with you." Emily finished and abruptly walked past JJ only to disappear inside the hotel. JJ sighed deeply as she buried her face in her. She knew she and Emily just couldn't go on like this.

***

Solving the case in Elko took them three days, but they finally caught the couple who had been terrorizing the town for the last couple of weeks. Local authorities were very grateful and the BAU team felt that they had done yet another good deed.

JJ found it extremely hard not to interact with Emily during those three days, but she decided to give Emily her space and let the brunette deal with it the way she needed. JJ knew she couldn't give Emily what she really needed, and the last thing she wanted was to cause Emily any more pain. So she did her best to just suck it up and stay out of Emily's way, trying not to compromise the investigation in the process.

The flight back was extremely tiring and almost all of them slept through it. When they landed in Quantico, Hotch told the team to take the upcoming weekend off, but be there the next day, which was Friday, to take care of some paperwork before they left the office for two days. The prospect of not having to deal with another psycho killer for at least a couple of days was happily welcomed by the entire team. The Elko case had been a hard one and they knew they could use a couple of days to regenerate.

***

When the BAU team arrived to the office on Friday, they were surprised to find a memo from JJ telling them to be in the conference room at 10am.

"Do you have any idea what it's about?" Derek asked Hotch as they were making their way into the conference room. "Do we have a new case? I thought we were getting the weekend off?"

"I haven't heard anything about a new case, but I guess it could be some last minute thing. We've had those before."

"Yeah, I guess." Derek sighed as they went into the conference room. Emily, Rossi and Reid were already there, as was Garcia, which surprised all of them, because it wasn't often that the computer goddess joined them for a briefing.

"What's up, JJ?" Hotch asked taking his seat. "A new case?"

"Not exactly." JJ replied slowly and a little hesitantly. "And I'm sorry I am taking the time off your busy schedules for this, but there is something I need you guys to know." She said and they all could see how nervous she was. It was surprising, because she never got nervous speaking in front of people, especially in front of them. There was always some sort of tension when she spoke, due to the nature of the information she was usually conveying, but she had never been just simply nervous. Which seemed to be the case now, because she was taking deep breaths and fidgeting with the pen she was holding in her hand. They knew something was definitely up with Jennifer Jareau.

"What is it, honey?" Garcia suddenly asked, becoming a little worried about her friend as she watched the liaison getting more and more uncomfortable. This was so unlike her.

"I need to tell you something that will no doubt affect the team and maybe some of you personally, but hopefully in a good way. I have thought long and hard about it and I'm scared of what the ramifications of what I'm about to say might be, but I just can't keep it a secret any longer.

"Damn it, just spit it out, JJ!" JJ heard Emily exclaim and she couldn't help but feel how ironic it was that Emily was the one urging her to just suck it up and say it, even though the brunette had no idea what this was all about.

JJ looked into Emily's eyes for a moment and when she looked away, she finally heard the words torpedo out of her mouth, "I'm in love with Emily."

Jaws dropped, eyes got wider and a certain brunette suddenly felt like oxygen was really scarce in the conference room.