When Emily wakes up for her 3 a.m. bathroom break she is alone in the bed. She sighs.
"Damn it, Jennifer," she mutters as she goes to the bathroom.
After taking care of business, she checks in on Henry and sees JJ is not in there with him. She starts to go downstairs but stops. Instead she turns and makes her way to the bedroom at the other end of the hall. JJ lies on the bed, her back to the door.
From the threshold, Emily just stares at her wife. She had told JJ to wake her if the nightmares invaded her sleep. Instead, JJ had just walked away.
"What the hell do I do for you, Jennifer? How the hell do I get you to trust me?" Emily thinks to herself.
JJ suddenly senses she is not alone. She rolls to her back, Amy's photo hugged to her chest. She sees the disappointment in Emily's face. She sighs and sits up.
"It's not what you think, Em."
Emily steps into the room and closes the door. "You had a nightmare and instead of waking me like I told you to do you ran away. Right?"
"No. I swear." JJ carefully places Amy's photo back on the nightstand. She stands and approaches her wife. "I woke up to go to the bathroom. I checked on Henry and…and I just suddenly needed to talk to Amy."
"I see. About what?" Emily asks, still not sure what to believe.
JJ stares at her wife a moment. She looks down. "I guess I deserve your mistrust," she says dejectedly.
Emily winces. "No! I mean…shit, Jen…what the hell is wrong with us lately? Every time we talk you either end up pissed at me or thinking I don't trust you or you try to get me to run you off. Well, I've got news for you, Jennifer Jareau Prentiss: I do trust you and I'm not going to run off." She takes JJ's hands. "I love you, damn it! Stop trying to piss me off! You do it well enough when you aren't trying!"
JJ stares at her wife a second then starts to laugh. Emily frowns. JJ raises a hand to stop the rant she can see building behind her wife's eyes. She grabs her wife by the back of the neck and pulls her into a deep kiss. When it ends, she stays as close as Rocky will let her.
"I love you, Emily Elizabeth Prentiss. And I swear I wasn't trying to piss you off this time. This was an unintentional piss off." Emily can't help but smile. "I planned to be back before 3, knowing you usually get up about then but I lost track of time. I was actually telling her how great you have been since I started having doubts about the job and myself, while I as in Afghanistan, and how much you are helping me as I try to get past the PTSD and other crap that has my head splitting sometimes. Funnily enough, I was telling her how you made me promise to wake you if I had a nightmare."
"And yet it wasn't a nightmare that woke you this time," Emily says, grinning at the irony.
JJ nods. "Exactly. I promise you, Em, I will wake you when the demons attack."
Emily pulls her into a hug, feeling something settle inside her. "I believe you, Jen. Please…come back to bed?"
JJ nods. "Okay, sweetheart."
Emily opens the door, her arm around her wife's shoulder. They run into Sandy in the hallway.
"Everything okay?" Sandy asks nervously.
JJ smiles and nods. "Yes, Mom. Just had to have a chat with Amy and Emily came to take me back to bed."
Sandy smiles. "Good. Get some sleep, ladies. You both need it."
Emily nods, her eyes studying the dark circles under JJ's eyes. "I second that emotion."
Sandy watches until they are back in JJ's room. She reaches up and rubs the cross she wears around her neck.
"Please, God, help Jenny heal. And thank you, God, for putting Emily Prentiss in her life."
After a good breakfast, JJ and Emily are on a blanket under the tree in the Jareau's backyard. Henry is "helping" Sandy weed her garden as Alaska watches over them. JJ watches her son and mother, her hand stroking through Emily's hair. Emily is laying down, her head in JJ's lap, her feet up on a pillow as she works on the newspaper crossword puzzle. It was a wonderfully peaceful morning in East Alleghany.
"Thank you," JJ says out of the blue.
Emily looks up from her crossword, "What?"
"Thank you for not letting me run away from you," JJ says.
Emily smiles and reaches back to stroke JJ's arm. "Thank you for not running so far I couldn't catch you."
JJ takes a deep breath. "The woman in your photo album…Svetlana…do you still think about her? Or others?"
"Where is this question coming from?" Emily asks.
JJ shrugs. "She just seems so…so worldly and wise. Others you were with at, say, Yale were smart. I'm sure you dated, or at least spent time with, others overseas. Sometimes I wonder…never mind."
"You wonder what? Talk to me, Jen."
"I just wonder how I stack up against all those exotic, smart, rich women. I worry that at some point you're going to look at me and wonder what you might have missed."
"Jennifer, you are smart. Exotic isn't all it's cracked up to be. And rich is just a number in a bankbook."
"So you don't have any regrets about the path your life has taken? About…about me?"
Emily sits up and turns so she can stare into her wife's eyes. "Svetlana is my past; other women I have been with are my past. You, Jennifer Prentiss, are my present and my future. Never, ever doubt that."
JJ stares into brown eyes filled with love and honesty. "I never will again."
Emily smiles. "Good." She strokes JJ's cheek. "Ever wonder how two ridiculously insecure people finally got their shit together enough to end up married?"
JJ laughs, her eyes sparkling with happiness. "Well, if we hadn't figured it out, Garcia would have done a 'thing' and forced us together."
Emily laughs and lies back down. "True. And Morgan would have helped her. I'd say we drove them both crazy with our lovesick laments. HEY! Lament! That's 22 down!"
JJ rolls her eyes and leans down to kiss Emily's forehead. "Glad I could help my little nerd out with her crossword."
From across the yard, Sandy had watched the interaction between her daughter and daughter-in-law. She saw the brief moment of tense interaction, obviously spurred by something JJ had said. She lets out a sigh of relief when she sees Emily take control of the situation and calm her wife.
"Henry, your mothers are two wonderful women."
"Love Mama! Love Mommy!" he agrees.
Sandy chuckles. "I know you do. I am just so glad they found each other."
"WEED!"
Sandy looks back at her grandson and sighs in amusement. "Actually, that was a pansy. Oh well."
Henry just smiles proudly and throws the "weed" in the trash pile.
That afternoon, JJ and Emily are heading to the store to pick up some diapers and a few other things. As they turn down one road JJ suddenly steps on the brakes. Emily grabs Rocky protectively.
"What the hell, Jen?"
JJ is staring at a house with a For Sale sign in the front yard, her mind obviously miles away. Emily reaches over and rubs her thigh.
"Jennifer?" she asks with concern.
JJ swallows and turns her attention back to the road. Emily can see the strange look in her eyes, a look she doesn't recognize.
"Jennifer…you're scaring me," Emily admits.
JJ glances at her. Seeing the worry in her eyes she pulls to the side of the road.
"Sorry. That just…kind of threw me for some reason."
"Who lives there, Jen?"
JJ takes a deep breath. "That's where Jacob Wellers grew up," she says softly. "I guess it's okay to have a drug addict for a son but to know…to know what he did to Amy and to me…" her voice fades off.
Emily just holds her wife's hand. She doesn't understand small towns but she does understand how the rumor mill works.
"Raping Amy and trying to kill you means they have to leave, right?" Emily confirms.
JJ nods. "Yeah, I guess so." She looks at Emily. "Do…do you think they knew?"
Emily shrugs. "Oh, honey, I don't know. I don't know them. I'd like to think they didn't."
JJ turns back to the windshield. "Her friends knew. They had to have known. Why didn't any of them say something to us? Why didn't they give us a hint?"
"I don't know. Except…Jacob told people she was willing. Maybe no one wanted to believe any different. It would only compound their pain."
"Maybe," JJ concedes. "Or maybe her friends are just a bunch of assholes like Jaime Dealers."
Emily nods. "Could be that, too. Do you need to know?"
JJ bites her lip as she considers that a minute. "No, I don't think I do. I think the answer would only make me angry, no matter what the answer ends up being."
She puts the SUV in gear and continues on to the store. Emily just keeps her hand on JJ's thigh, reminding her she is not alone.
At the store, they gather the things they need. As they are about to leave, JJ makes her way to the flowers, picking a large bouquet with all sorts of colors. Emily smiles.
"For your Mom?"
JJ shakes her head. "No. We…we need to make a stop before we go home."
Emily nods, having a feeling she knows where they are going. "Okay."
Ten minutes later JJ stops the SUV in the church cemetery. She looks at her wife. "Come with me?"
Emily squeezes her hand. "Of course."
They make their way to Amy's grave. JJ kneels down, pulling up a few weeds and placing the bouquet in the built in vase on the base of the marker. She knocks a couple of leaves off the top of the tombstone.
"Hi, Aim. I remembered a gift this time," she says. "I got the prettiest one I could find, lots of colours just like your room. I remember when you convinced Mom and Dad to let you splatter paint it all those vibrant colours. I started plotting that day a way to make them have us switch rooms." She wipes a tear as she chokes out a chuckle. "Plan never did work."
Emily wipes her own tears away.
"Thanks for the talk last night, Amy. I love and miss you, big sister."
JJ slowly stands. Emily steps to her and wraps her arms around her from behind. "I'll take care of her, Amy," Emily vows. "I'll never let her or you down. I promise."
JJ spins and engulfs Emily in a hug, her tears and sobs ripping at the older woman's soul.
"I've got you, Jen. It's going to be okay. Let it out, baby. Just let it all out."
Emily knows the tears are not just for Amy. They are for a child killed by her own father in Afghanistan. They are for children blown up just because they went to school that day. They are for a young soldier who died in JJ's arms. They are for fear of death. They are for having to kill to stay alive. They are for all the victims, all the families, all the innocents that they work for everyday.
And they are for an 11 year old girl who lost her big sister.
Emily kisses her wife's temple. "I love you, Jennifer." Emily just holds her wife, rubbing her back comfortingly as JJ finally lets loose the emotions that she had been struggling to contain for far longer than anyone should.
As the sobs finally cease and the tears stop falling, Emily leans back to look into blue eyes that are clearer than they have been in a long, long time. She brings her hand up and gently wipes away the tracks of the tears.
"Better?"
JJ manages a smile. "Yeah, actually I am. Thank you for…God, Emily, there is too much to thank you for."
"I don't need thanks, Jen. I just need you."
JJ smiles…and finally Emily sees the twinkle that had been missing. "Charmer."
Emily smiles, relief flowing through her. "Always."
She pulls JJ close again, relishing the knowledge her wife truly had finally made the breakthrough they had been waiting for. After a few more minutes, they turn and, arm in arm, go back to their SUV.