Seconds chances – chapter nine

A/N – just another look at what JJ is thinking. Lyrics are whatever it takes by Lifehouse and Save me from myself by Carpark North.

You didn't know what to think when she turned up at your door, you wondered what went through her mind when she can push you away one day and try to catch you the next; didn't she realise you'd already fallen hard? Plummeted straight through to the depths of her soul where you were happy to stay forever? But not without her. Without her it became just another lonely place, another place to think about her. It's going to destroy you walking away, you know it could obliterate your very being finally getting up and moving on; but you can't run after her forever, it's ruining you both and the cracks are really starting to show. Cracks that you thought you'd covered with her, cracks you thought she'd healed; but has she done anything except break you these past few months? Were you worthy of her love now, too spoilt for anyone else to touch? You chuckle; wrecking yourself to have something you weren't even sure you could piece together anymore.

You hadn't had the chance to live with her, but you know you could never live without her. And that's what you'd come home to do, show yourself that if the worst happened you had a life before Emily Prentiss and you were capable of re building one after, for she'd already shattered everything you'd come to know. Maybe that was her purpose in your life, to transform you; you couldn't go on being the old JJ, but you couldn't be her JJ either. You were stuck between two parts of yourself, one way led to facing up to everything, and the other led to facing up to her; and you'd found yourself at a place that you didn't know which challenged you more.

You'd told her you loved her, loved her; because if anything she needed to know what she was throwing away. It was always going to be there, whether you told her now or never told her at all, it was a part of everything now and it was time she was faced with it. You know she struggled with herself, and she struggled with you a lot more; you promised yourself you'd never force anything upon her but this was the last step, if she still walked from you after this then it was final; it concluded this messed up world you'd dragged each other into. You were so sure, and then she turns up at your door like nothing's wrong, like she turns up at your door every morning; when in truth she'd never been to your apartment before, invited or otherwise. You know straight away she hasn't listened to your voicemail, when it came to avoidance Emily rightly earned the gold medal. And if you hadn't of known her so well that look on her face gave it away in an instant; that tortured look of questioning you were beginning to want to smack away completely.

You couldn't bring yourself to turn her away, if she was reaching out without really knowing how much you cared about her what actions would those words bring? Yet again she'd prompted an immediate forgival from you; but this time you weren't forgetting so quickly. That was nearly a week ago, a week in which you couldn't bring yourself to think about anything or anyone else; this was your time to escape and yet you couldn't see anything else but her. You know your parents have noticed your distraction, they lost a daughter once and it would kill them to lose you, it would destroy them more than you're destroying yourself. You rarely come back here; you don't need the reminder of what happened in this house all those years ago, a home so full of haunted memories, memories that you'd found a way to escape but that had slowly started to seep back through. A part of you died here that day, yet compared with the mess you've made for yourself back at your real home, this place feels like a sanctuary.

You know you see your sister in Emily, both so plagued with depression they can't see a way out. You'd tried to save her, so young, so confused but so determined; and it was all thrown back at you when you found her hanging in front of your very eyes. No crime scene photo will ever haunt you the way that image does, it was all you could see before Emily, and now all you see is her. She's right here with you for you to see, to feel, and you've been so busy trying to save her that you started to save yourself. That's why you go back, that's why you face that look on a daily basis, that's why you know you couldn't possibly love anyone else; you're willing to take all the bad times with her than face the good with somebody that could never understand. Emily gets you, and you know that's what scares her.

You stare down at the object in your hands, you've been staring at it all week now; but something's stopped you from opening it. You can't help but feel like you're back in high school, somebody handing you a mixed CD; but this, this is so much more than that. She was giving you a way in, you know that she could profile someone accurately just through their music collection, and she was giving you permission to do the same, she was letting you in to that mixed up mind of hers. She struggled with words, and although these might not have been her own they meant something to her, and that meant they meant something to you.

Turning it on you flick through to the playlist, it was unnamed; ironically just like you and her. Combing through you see some you recognise and others you've never heard of, it was just like her to have such a strange mix all put together as one, just a mass of complication and longing. There are literally hundreds; they all remind her of you? You note that all of the songs on there are just hauntingly beautiful, the epitome of Emily. None of them were as simple as falling in love, they were haunted, they were tragic; never having what you wanted or getting it and losing it, or worse, destroying it yourself. She didn't see you as something simple; she saw the intricate complexities that moulded you both. She saw every rose with its thorns, she wasn't blinded by love; but she failed to escape it, she felt it somewhere.

You instantly recognise Lifehouse, their album had been quietly playing when Emily had dropped you off at the airport, although you don't remember hearing this song. You'd noticed she regularly listened to them on the way back from cases, lazed out on the jet like nothing but the music mattered; that look she'd got from Morgan, like it was the only way to lose yourself in something safe after seeing things so horrific. You'd started really listening to them then, wanting to submerge yourself in her form of escapism, wanting to know what she was thinking about as the lyrics hit home.

A strangled smile fell from your face

It kills me that I hurt you this way

The worst part is that I didn't even know

Now there's a million reasons for you to go

But if you can find a reason to stay

You smile to yourself, already it's summing up Emily, she really wouldn't know, sometimes she's so blind to the world around her; she's made everything about work and outside of that she struggles to know what defines her. She shuns away anything that could potentially break down that wall but you were doing it, slowly but surely you were going to help her see that what she did doesn't ever have to define who she is; that she can be whatever she wants to be. Did she see that from the outside she did have so many reasons to leave, but that she'd always stay, even without a single one? She was all the reasoning you could want.

I'll do whatever it takes

To turn this around

I know what's at stake

I know that I've let you down

And if you give me a chance

Believe that I can change

I'll keep us together whatever it takes

Does she know how badly she's hurt you? You've never shown her your weakness; you built yourself up to be so strong around her that you've forgotten how to be fragile anymore. If this is going to work she needs to see that you can break, that you have been broken for so long, but that she puts you together again, she needs to know that she's strong enough to do that whether she's realised it or not.

She said "If we're gonna make this work

You gotta let me inside even though it hurts

Don't hide the broken parts that I need to see"

She said "Like it or not it's the way it's gotta be

You gotta love yourself if you can ever love me"

You've been inside of her, but you want to really get in her, crawl up in everything that makes her who she is; no scar, no fear, no damn wall was ever going to change that. You doubt at times that Emily even likes herself let alone can comprehend how to love herself, but you have enough in you to love her until she can finally see what you've seen all along; what you'll always see. You saw how she was on that case, she's never loved anyone, but you don't doubt that she can.

I'll do whatever it takes

To turn this around

I know what's at stake

I know that I've let you down

And if you give me a chance

And give me a break

I'll keep us together

I know you deserve much better

You didn't deserve any better than her, and all these songs are beginning to show that that's what she truly believed. How could she ever doubt that anyone could make you feel the way she did? That anyone else could take away your pain while giving you so much more?

But remember the time I told you the way that I felt

That I'd be lost without you and never find myself

Let's hold onto each other above everything else

Start over, start over

I'll do whatever it takes

To turn this around

I know what's at stake

I know I've let you down

And if you give me a chance

and believe that I can change

I'll keep us together whatever it takes

You realise that this was the most played song out of them all but you refuse to get your hopes up just yet; this was all about someone finding the courage to believe in change, she never needed to change a thing about her; she just needed to break free of herself to find herself. Quickly flicking through to the next track, this time it's something you don't recognise; although it's as equally moving as it is troubling.

Lost

My heart is hard as stone

On my own

Alone, I carry it home

Gone

I used to waste the days

So distraught,

I thought:

I'm changing my ways

Now you're changing my ways

You save me

Save me from myself

There is no one else

I'd lean on

Save me

You save me from myself

There is no one else to set me free

Start

The start of something new

Is what I find

When I'm

Just looking at you

Lift

You lift me off the ground

Keep holding my hand

I won't land

Won't even look down

Don't look down

You save me

Save me from myself

There is no one else

I'd lean on

Save me

You save me from myself

There is no one else to set me free

By the time the songs over you know you have to see her, you came here to clear your head, to find a way to breathe without her, but she needs you as much as you need her and she's finally facing it. She wasn't running right now, she gave you something to catch hold of her.

You're broken from your thoughts by the buzzing of your phone, its already eight in the evening, you've been sat breaking your way through to Emily's psyche for near on two hours now and you have a family party to attend in just under half an hour, you hardly ever come back here, you owe it to your parents to stay, Emily will wait. She told you there's always another tomorrow; and you were going to hold her to that. Reaching down you re read the text a further three times before letting it sink in; you know where you first heard those words and know who she's with now, leave it to Garcia to be the one to finally break through.

If everything happens for a reason, then I hope my reason is you. Let me prove it to you – Em.