Chapter 7
Earlier that day...
Back in the basement.
They sit on opposite sides of the semi-darkened room. Less than 20 feet apart. But a seemingly insurmountable barrier between them.
"Do you think he's coming back?" JJ's hesitant voice breaks the awkward silence. She cant stand it, sitting there in the dark, not saying a word. She knows Emily could keep it up for hours, maybe days. If the silence is to be broken, she's going to have to swallow her pride and do it herself.
It's only the tremble in JJ's voice, betraying her deep fear, that makes Emily push aside her own bitterness and expend her own energy to formulate an answer.
"No." She tells JJ confidently. "His fantasy is blown. He will move on. Start again. We are no use to him now." She assures the other woman with a steady voice echoing across the darkness.
"But isn't it a little sloppy to leave us alive?" JJ points out.
"It doesn't matter to him. He has a lot of self control. It's part of what makes him so dangerous. He doesn't care about witnesses. He's left witnesses before. He believe he is above the law, above being caught. And he has no use to torment or kill us. Not now you've blown my cover. It's ruined his whole fantasy. And he is nothing if not a perfectionist. He will simply move on, start again." Emily shudders as she pictures the poor unsuspecting, undeserving woman about to fall prey to him.
"You seem very certain about that." JJ states, as if she doesn't quite believe Emily, but isn't prepared to openly challenge her.
"Aren't you? The profile is solid." Emily asserts.
"It's just a profile, a guide, it doesn't mean anything." JJ tells her.
"Well you've picked an interesting career, since you think profiling means nothing. It's what we do. It's why the government pays us. Why we have a private jet. Someone, somewhere, must see some value in our profiling ability."
"You know what I mean. The profile isn't rock solid. You can't predict the future. It's a guide, and it's open to interpretation." JJ maintains. "Sorry I'm not as calm as you. I would imagine it's natural to be a little freaked out under the circumstances. It's only human."
"Where as I'm totally heartless, I suppose?" Emily finishes. "Less than human?"
"God, why do you always have to do that? Put words into my mouth? I'm not criticising you. I wish I was like you. We all do, if you must know. You're so calm under pressure. And here I am, just sitting here, wondering if I'll ever see my baby boy again, and you..." JJ trails off.
"Oh, please, finish that sentence." Emily pleads sarcastically.
JJ wishes it hadn't come out quite like that, but there is no turning back no. "I see that look in your eye, Em. I know you, better than you might like to think. " JJ insists.
"You've just been telling me about my secret life, how you don't know me at all." Emily reminds her. "So which is it? I'm getting confused."
"Why aren't you afraid, Emily?" JJ asks.
"I told you. The profile. Were you paying any attention as the rest of us spent six weeks putting that thing together?" Emily asks.
JJ refused to dignify that with a response. "You just don't care." She accuses Emily.
"Believe me, I care very much, and if I thought there was any danger to you, I would tell you. But the profile is solid. And you're forgetting I've spent the better part of the last week up close and personal with him. Trust me, killing either of us at this juncture is not going to satisfy him in the least. He is long gone."
"Why did you even accept this undercover mission? You're obsessed with this case, with catching him. You don't really care one way or the other if he kills you, as long as you get him. That's the bottom line, it's all that matters to you. You don't care about anything else, not even the rest of us."
Emily feels as if JJ has struck her. "I'm glad to hear you think I have nothing to live for. It might surprise you to know that, even without you, my life has some meaning. I'm not quite ready to throw it all away just yet, but thanks for that."
"That's not what I meant. But, Emily, you take too many risks. Don't think I didn't see it."
"See what?"
"In your eyes." JJ continues.
"I don't know what you mean." Emily tells her. And even though JJ can scarcely make out the other woman's face across the darkened room, she can picture precisely the look on Emily's face. That hardened mask that gives nothing away.
"That anger in your eyes, hatred." JJ tells her.
"He murdered nineteen women, yes I'm angry." Emily acknowledges.
"You want him to pay."
"Yes." Emily admits.
"At any cost." It's a statement and not a question.
"Yes." Emily is quick to answer, without censoring herself. It was a bad habit she'd always had with JJ. Some part of how they had first clicked. Something that JJ quickly learned to use against her.
"Just how were you going to lure him into any kind of trap?" JJ asks.
"Hotch explained it, we worked on it for weeks. And I almost had him." Emily is losing patience.
"It never would have worked." JJ protests.
"Interesting. I didn't know you could predict the future."
"Emily, ever since you came back, you've been trying so hard to fit in."
"What's wrong with that?" Emily asks.
"It's like you'd do anything to win back the team's trust again." JJ observes.
"I still don't see the problem."
"It's like you'd be perfectly willing to sacrifice your own life for this case, just to get everyone's approval."
Emily doesn't bother with any outright protest. "I trust the profile, I trust the team. It's more than I can say for you. Why do you even do this job? If you're so worried abut making it home in one piece to your son? You could have stayed at the pentagon, better hours, less risk. This job is what it is, and it has always involved a degree of risk. I'm not the only one taking a risk, we all do. Every day. But I trust the team, and the team trusts me."
"Are you saying I'm a bad mother?" JJ asks.
Emily sighs, she doesn't quite know how JJ put those words into her mouth. But she is rational enough to look back over the conversation and see it's a pattern they both fall into too easily. And she isn't getting sucked into that argument.
"I'm saying, if you were so damn worried about the un-sub, why didn't you just stay on the sidelines with Morgan?" Emily asks.
"That's how you want it, isn't it? Yourself in the spotlight, taking all the risks, and the rest of us on the sidelines."
"What on earth are you talking about? I didn't choose this case. Hotch chose me, because I fit the un-subs profile." Emily tells her.
"You could have said no. Hotch asked you if you were ready, and you should have said no." JJ insists.
"Is that what you said to Hotch?" Emily asks. "When he asked you, all of you, if you thought I was ready. Because, he obviously didn't take your word on that."
"How could I tell him that I didn't think you were ready, everyone else gave him the green light, even you, how would it look if I told him no?" JJ asks.
"It would look, JJ, like you had some sort of personal problem with me." Emily answers.
"That isn't true."
"You've been determined from day one, to sabotage this case." Emily accuses her.
"Now you're just being ridiculous!" JJ responds.
"You didn't even want the team to take it." Emily reminds her.
"We've spent nearly two months on this. There are other cases we haven't taken, people we could have helped. And no, this case wasn't my choice."
"You don't think his victims deserve justice? Or that the world will be a better place with him off the streets? Or that he deserves to pay?"
"There are so many cases out there, we can't solve them all. We've spent so much time and effort on this one case, and we've got nothing to show for it!"
"Maybe so, but we're here now, on this case. We need everyone's head in the game."
"My head is in the game, thank you very much. I'm looking out for my team, making sure we all go home in one piece."
"You totally blew my cover. Everything we all worked for." Emily accuses her.
"You want me to just leave you here in the clutches of a serial killer?"
"I was fine. Better off without you."
"That's your opinion." JJ responds coldly.
"Well where is Morgan then? He didn't think there was any danger, did he? Does he even know where you are? That you've single handedly blown the case to hell?" Emily demands.
"There wasn't time to explain it to him." JJ tells her, and even to her own ears it sounds like a feeble excuse. And panic is rising in her voice as she continues, "But Morgan is watching closely, he will know something has gone wrong."
Emily finds herself reassuring JJ again. There are some things she just can't stand to hear in the other woman's voice. And terror is one of them. "You're right, Morgan will know soon enough. The team will find us soon, and nothing is going to happen to us before then. Who knows, maybe the team is following him, maybe that's why they aren't here yet."
"Do you really believe that?" JJ asks again.
"I do." Emily asserts.
"You're still thinking so much about the team, about the case, about catching him." JJ can't help but say it, even though she knows it was high time to drop the conversation.
"I still don't see what's wrong with that." Emily protests.
"I'm only thinking about you. That I'd die if anything happened to you." JJ whispers across the darkness.
Emily tries, so hard, to shrug that comment off. "That's the job, JJ, It's not without risk. You know that. You still leave your child and come to work every single day. Because you know that what we do is important. It makes a difference. You have to focus on the big picture. You can't value one person above the whole, above the work we do. You can't let yourself get caught up with protecting one person. You just can't do that."
"I have to." JJ admits softly, but assuredly. "I don't know how to stop. I don't know how you can expect me to risk anything happening to you. I just don't know how to do that. I don't know how to sit back and watch you on this insane undercover mission, this stupid plan that was never going to work, and that dark recklessness in your eyes, as if you don't care one bit about what happens to you. Well I care, Emily. Don't you know that you mean everything to me?"
Emily inhales sharply, still trying not to let herself really hear what JJ is saying. "It's been a long time since you've said these things to me." Emily tells her. And it has, it feels like a life time. And it's something she never expected to hear from JJ again. "You just finished telling me all about your husband and your baby and how you had no choice in the path your life took."
"I don't have all the answers. But something has changed between us, don't you feel it?"
"Has it, JJ? It doesn't seem so from where I'm sitting." Emily tells her.
"Well then, my mistake. Never mind." JJ retracts her words almost as quickly as she had spoken them.
