(A/N: Chapter may be triggering, please use caution. I don't endorse self-harm! I think I'd die if I found out my writing gave someone the idea to start.)
JJ took one look at Prentiss's face and knew she would have to handle this. Prentiss had immediately tensed up, lying stiffly in her arms, and a nanosecond of absolute terror flashed across the dark-haired girl's face before she could hide it. "I can explain, please, Dad…" JJ said hastily.
"Explain what? That you're sleeping together under my roof?" he said, raising his voice. It was nowhere near like an all-out screaming fight volume, but JJ could feel the fear rolling off Prentiss in waves. Just because someone was being loud. JJ guessed she was hyper-sensitive to how people sounded, their emotions, so that she could sense when her mother was getting angry and try to get out of the way or deflect it.
"Don't yell," JJ said quickly. "We can talk about this, and you can be mad at me. But please don't yell. Or get mad at Emily. It's my fault she's here anyway. I had a bad dream last night and made her come sleep in my bed so I wouldn't feel alone. We didn't do anything." Prentiss looked at the blond in amazement; someone was taking the fall, getting in trouble, for her. It always seemed to be the other way around; Prentiss's mother, and all of the people who hurt her, always blamed her for everything.
JJ's father took a deep breath, then spoke softly, but with a lot of force behind each word, as if he wanted to be loud, but forced himself not to be. "Get dressed and come downstairs, and we'll see what your mother has to say about this. Emily, you can stay in bed a while longer. In the one in the guest room. You look really tired." She was, but she wasn't going to throw JJ into this kind of a situation alone.
"I'm facing them with you," Prentiss said firmly, after he had left.
"But, sweetie, I don't want to…if there's any conflict or stress…you might feel bad, I can't expose you to it if I can avoid doing so. Go back to sleep," JJ protested.
"JJ. Do I have to explain this like you're five years old? People who love each other don't let the person be alone when things are hard. Besides, you've helped me so much..." Prentiss trailed off.
Prentiss won out, and twenty minutes later, they stood nervously in the kitchen while JJ's father explained what he had seen of them. "What do you think?" he asked her mother, hoping, Prentiss thought, for an excuse to chew them out.
JJ's mother was distracted, elbow-deep in the turkey and with several pots cooking at once on the stove; every burner was occupied. When she turned from the counter to face them, they saw a smear of flour streaked across her forehead. "Girls, I don't care…what your sexuality is, or even that you date each other. But, if you're going to have Emily stay here with us, then you shouldn't be sharing a bed or have too much time alone together. Call me old-fashioned, but…there have to be some rules."
"We're sorry," Prentiss blurted. "It won't happen again. I'm sorry you had to find out like this, Mr. and Mrs. Jareau."
Mrs. Jareau directed her next volley of words at her husband. "There's no need to get angry with them. What's done is done, and we can trust them to follow the rules now. Yelling wouldn't undo what happened. Now, Emily, JJ, I need all the help I can get in the kitchen here."
Thank you, Prentiss thought to herself. She just became irrationally, terribly, completely afraid whenever someone yelled at her; it was almost like she subconsciously expected blows, not just words. Her phone buzzed in her pocket with a text from Reid Penelope and I will be there right around noon. Tell Mrs. Jareau thanks.
"Did you know the turkey, not the bald eagle, almost became the national bird? Benjamin Franklin said it was the best choice, but Washington wanted the eagle," Reid said as they walked in the door. Prentiss smiled- he never did stop spouting facts.
"I brought pie!" Garcia crowed. "Apple, and, er, coconut cream. Not exactly Thanksgiving fare, but it is my favorite. Spencer tried to help, but he got so distracted, telling me pie and cooking facts, that we ruined the first attempt." She playfully shoved Reid.
It wasn't a big Thanksgiving gathering; just JJ and her family, Prentiss, Reid, Garcia, and JJ's aunt. But Prentiss still thought it was the best holiday she remembered having; there wasn't any tension in the air, no raised voices, no snapping. JJ's felt like home. And she didn't feel so alone. I have a family, she thought, looking around at JJ and her friends. Even if the one I started out with was, well…None of them had seen her smile like that for ages.
But it didn't last. Towards the end of the meal, she thought about this unorthodox gathering, and something like grief, hurt hit her; hurt because she had never had a family like this. No one had helped her before. Prentiss wished she could invent a time machine, go back, and find and, well, rescue herself as a young child. She would, at least, value her.
She felt like she was going to cry, felt the urge to cut fill her; but, it seemed as though by not fulfilling that urge for even a few days, it was like an animal she hadn't fed. It got weaker. She sat through the rest of the meal, kept pretending, then afterwards, when everyone was doing the dishes and watching football, said she was going to take a nap.
As quickly as she could without running, she hurried up to the guest room, where she closed the door and took her razors out of her bag. She just sat, holding the box, thinking, for maybe half an hour. If she couldn't stop herself, she would at least put it off- the immediate "dealing" with her feelings by cutting. It was as if she wanted to prove she could handle them, for at least a little bit.
But eventually, Prentiss got to the point where she absolutely couldn't handle the emotional hurt any longer. Carefully, intending to at least limit the damage, she brought the blade down on her forearm. Not too much. Just enough to stop the feelings. In the middle of this, there was a timid knock at the door. "Emily," It was Reid. When she didn't respond, he said, "Okay then. I'm coming in. I just want to check on-"
He was speechless for a few seconds, then said, almost pleading, "Put it down, Emily." She hadn't wanted him to see her cutting, so she'd stopped as soon as she'd heard his knock, but she was still holding the blade. Crap. I should have kicked it under the bed and rolled my sleeve back down, one part of her thought. But another, smaller, voice in her told her these were her friends, she didn't need to pretend or hide. The pain in Reid's eyes was more than enough to make her put it down.
He sat down next to her on the bed. "Have you got any first-aid stuff? You need to take care of this."
"In my bag," Prentiss directed; her hands were full, what with one arm wounded and the other pressing a Kleenex to the cut. Then she realized; he would also see her blades there. "Spencer, wait…I'll…" But he had already found her supplies, and the two boxes of more blades.
"Here, move your hand away. Let's fix this." Prentiss could have taken care of the cut herself, but Reid seemed insistent, and though she didn't want to admit it, it felt good to have someone taking care of her. He matter-of-factly cleaned and bandaged her, his thin, almost delicate hands gentle, not speaking until he was done. Only after that did he ask "What's wrong? Do you know what set you off?" Reid picked up one of the boxes, turning it over in his hands. Prentiss felt vaguely violated; he was in her inner life, her worst secret. "I don't suppose throwing these out would help," he mused.
Prentiss shook her head. "I'd just go get more, or improvise and use something that wasn't clean or could do worse damage. But, I've thought about throwing them out. Not now. But sometime. I promise you I will eventually. Then I'll stop." A chill went up her spine; did she really just do that, promise to stop the one thing that made her life bearable? But, of course, it also ruined her. "I'm not totally sure why I felt bad and did this, but…I never had a family like this, had a good holiday. It hurts to think that no one helped me, no one loved me, for so long. I want to go back and rescue little me. That makes no sense. And now I'm crying again," she sniffled.
"That's okay. You know you're loved now, you have us. We'll help. Can I hug you?" Reid said gently.
Prentiss shrugged. "Okay." And though Reid was shorter and smaller than her, he tried to hold her as she cried. She did so for some time, but for nowhere near as long as that night when she flipped out at Morgan's party. He didn't say anything, but after she was done, Reid asked, "Okay?"
She nodded. "You're loved now. You have awesome people who'll help you now," he reminded her. "Try not to dwell on the past."
Prentiss did feel much better; she wasn't sure if it was because she had cut, or because Reid had been there for her. Maybe Spencer, she thought. Cutting only gave her a short high, a temporary calm. Not this deeper feeling of being better, calmer. She washed her face to erase the tears, then went back downstairs to join the party, cuddling up to JJ. The blond's warmth, her arm around her shoulder, the smell of her hair product and perfume, comforted Prentiss better than anything else. And despite what she'd just done, she had her love. And had hope.
(A/N: Aww, poor Reid! Am I the only one who thinks he's too young to deal with his mom's schizophrenia, let alone helping Prentiss? Please R & R, and thanks to everyone who reviewed/story alerted/favorited!)