Author's Note: I've spent so long second-guessing parts of Emily's persona in this chapter that I think I've finally come full circle to a point where any reason I could have for altering it (I had deleted a whole chunk of this a couple of days ago and replaced it with something typical and mundane before changing it back yesterday) just seems insignificant. I think my reservations came down to the fact that my readership seemed to dwindle when I decided to allow Emily to leave, as well as the fact that there really are some things that most people are incapable of understanding- that some of you will think the way I've written her is totally far-fetched/that she's jumped off the deep end entirely. I also know, however, that there'll be a few of you that will fully understand it and it's for that reason that I've decided to keep this update in; unedited and in all of its 'insane' glory.

That said, I'm also not going to delve too deeply into her 'symptoms'. By that I mean that I'm not going to have her go down the path that I would encourage someone in her position to go down. I'm no psychologist and I won't pretend to be.

Anyway, for those of you who find familiarity in her persona, I hope something positive resonates with you; and those of you who don't, I hope you don't simply label her as crazy and quit reading. I promise that I haven't lost my mind/forgotten what this story was intended to be- it will still be what I set out for it to be. The only difference is that they're both searching for peace now, not just JJ, and perhaps it will be that that pulls them together in the end.

I guess I should probably point out too: this is not a cry for help. Whilst I'm sure it is someone's truth, it is also just fiction. Jus' sayin'. ;)

Chapter Twenty-four: Part Two: The Abyss

"Secrets create barriers between people."

- Heisenberg/Walter White (Breaking Bad)

London;

"This is my punishment isn't it...?" Kate panted as she ran beside Emily. "This is what I get for... for asking so many... questions? For providing you with... so many... hangover days?"

Emily said nothing, simply smiled at the clearly unfit woman beside her and darted off suddenly; leaving a now semi-keeled over brunette in her wake.

"Oh are you serious?" The younger woman forced as she pushed herself off of her knees to catch up with Emily; her legs like lead, her face flushed almost bright red – this was not a good look for her. "Emily Prentiss... you are... are going to... pay for this!"

"Yep. Sounds like it." Emily called back smugly as she took off around the track, already a third of a lap ahead of the younger woman. "You'll have to catch me first though."

Flopping unceremoniously onto her back exactly where she stood, Kate gave up with an unflattering groan; waved her hand in the air as much as her energy would allow in a surrendering gesture and smiled up at Emily as the older woman completed her lap and stared down at her, clearly unimpressed with her efforts. "Hey, you."

"Weakling." Emily chastised with a disapproving but amused shake of her head.

"Hey, I don't... chase bad guys every day like you." Kate reasoned, her breaths still shaky. "Well, I guess I kind of do... but that just takes brain power… and I think I exercise that enough thank you very much."

"Oh yeah?" Emily nodded patronisingly, blatantly mocking the younger woman before taking pity on her and reaching out her hand to help her up from where she'd collapsed. "Come on. I'll make it up to you."

"Urghh…" Kate grumbled as she, with Emily's assistance, dragged herself up off of the ground. "With what? Five-hundred sit-ups?"

"Oh quit complaining." Emily rolled her eyes before offering the younger woman a bottle of water that she'd left by the side of the track. "And drink this."

"This is vodka, right?" Kate looked to Emily hopefully. "Please tell me its vodka."

"It's vodka." Emily responded, her face entirely serious – so serious that she could tell that just for a nano-second, the woman before her really did question whether she was telling the truth or not – before she grinned cheekily and turned to head to the locker room.

"I hate you." Kate announced, almost to herself. "I think I actually, genuinely, hate you."

"No you don't." Emily called back confidently, a smile still playing at her lips; something that she put down to the buzz that she always got from running, but a part of her knew that it had something to do with the smaller woman currently glaring into her back too – something to do with the integral and easy part of her life that she had so effortlessly become.

Her happiness in amongst her purposely ignored misery- that is what she had become. A giant ass warning sign that Emily somehow totally missed with the rush of this new drug, and missed again ten minutes later as she settled against her towel on a tiled bench and studied the blurred outline of the woman in her presence. She couldn't really tell of course - since the room was encased in a thick fog - but she was certain that the younger woman seemed a little more relaxed than she had just ten minutes ago and she smiled. Another missed warning sign, one that should have told her that she had long since past the point of nonchalance and neutrality, and now actually held some kind of care about this woman's well-being. God, she really should have seen it; and how the hell hadn't she since that was one of the major possibilities that she was so damn afraid of? How had she, in all these months that she had spent in Kate's company, not even stopped to consider or even recognise the shift within herself?

"You forgive me?" She questioned, a content smile still playing against her lips that she had no idea would contort and disappear so suddenly within a matter of minutes.

"I'm considering it." Kate returned, getting comfortable herself before bringing into question something that she had deduced in the few minutes that they'd been in here and the forty five minutes that they had been in this building. "This is one of your escapes, isn't it?"

"Um..." Emily considered the question. "I guess. Perhaps not this per se, but definitely the running. You can't quite beat how freeing it feels... Your heart pumping, good music pounding in your ears. It's pretty exhilarating. It's one of the only things these days that doesn't actually feel like running away, funnily enough. It feels more like I'm running towards something."

An appreciative expression graced Kate's features as she watched the foggy outline of Emily talk so freely behind the safety of the curtain of steam. They'd come a long way, such a long way since those first days following their shared flight when she had been certain that Emily would never talk to her again. She hadn't verbalised it of course, but there were so many ways in which this friendship - or whatever it should be called - was as much to her as she was hoping that it was to the older woman. It didn't seem to be a topic that light was ever directly shed upon, and she couldn't help but feel that Emily was as grateful for that as she was. Perhaps they were closer than they should have been, but did it really matter? It wasn't like they were doing anything to put their careers in jeopardy - like they both had in their pasts. It wasn't like they were hurting people - like they both had in their pasts, also. It wasn't like they were hurting each other... So what did it matter?

Sometimes it was just so much simpler to allow things to just be; to not question them, and certainly not admit their existence- something that Kate had absolutely no idea she had already begun. Had absolutely no comprehension that in a moment that she herself had missed, something had changed and everything that had just been for the past two months, was not only about to be brought into question, but to be erased entirely from existence when the answers were something that apparently neither of them could handle.

"Thank you." She whispered sincerely, wholly blind to what those almost silent words were setting in motion.

"For what?" Emily frowned.

"Letting me be a part of it."

Emily was very grateful for the steam in that instant, because she couldn't help but feel that this would be one of those moments that she'd feel even more uncomfortable in if she could make out those eyes that she knew to be looking at her with something that she didn't know what to do with – something that she didn't have the brain power to even consider what to do with right now. It wasn't romantic, but it was a bond that she was wholly certain she didn't want to break and that truth was right there, staring at her in the form of Kate's final sentence. She had let her be a part of it- she'd shared with her one of the only things that brought her peace these days and she hadn't even realised that she'd done such a thing.

Walls were shifting within her, locking into place elsewhere and leaving holes and gaps and clarity shining into what had been a perfect, ignorant, darkened bubble until this point. It was like a curtain had just lifted on the past two months, and now, in this blinding light, everything that had happened and was yet to come seemed so foreign, dangerous, terrifying.

Everything was contorting around her- not physically, but she could very much feel it. It was the prickling, uncomfortable heat both burning and numbing her skin; it was the heavy twist in her gut; it was the deceptive rainbows and unicorns in her mind that suddenly vanished and replaced themselves with a putrid black that dragged her down like tar, and ensured that she was about to lose a battle that she had blindly forgotten needed fighting. There wasn't a safe appeal in her shadows anymore- there weren't even any shadows in existence. No place for her and Kate to hide in ignorance. Everything was open and yet suffocating; blinded by the cruel, revealing light of day and yet darker than it had ever been- desperately questionable and glaringly obvious.

It wasn't that she hadn't bothered to stop to consider their relationship and what it meant to her until this point - it was that in the midst of it, she had been entirely impervious to its power. How could someone who, officially, was a mere acquaintance, be damaging in any way? But now, as her walls shifted into action again, she found herself both clambering to pull them down and watching on happily as they formed her ever-faithful impenetrable fortress; the oxygen was being sucked out, but the almost euphoric bliss that that lack seemed to provide was one that she was already beginning to lose herself to. The light that had so abruptly been shed on her ignorance just moments ago, was now fading with each creak of brick and reinforced steel- but oddly, that didn't provide relief. It didn't provide relief at all. Because she still had the memory, still knew what she had witnessed in the clearing light- it hadn't disappeared just because she couldn't see it anymore. Her walls had returned too late, and now that they were back in place, they weren't protecting her; they had imprisoned her with no defensive means, but just familiar demons that threatened to destroy her from the inside out...

...all because she fucking cared.

"We, um..." She spoke distractedly as she found herself no longer able to breathe in such a confined space. "We should try the hot-tub."

She was already out of the room, with an entirely stunned expression on her face, before Kate had even responded; desperately trying to find clarity in a moment that had so abruptly and cruelly abandoned her before the younger woman could recognise the disconcerting evidence of such a thing on her face. Unknowingly placing herself in a more exposed position in her quest for 'flight'; no steam to hide behind, just green eyes that were open and able, curious and threatening.

Following behind Emily and climbing in from the opposite side of the tub, Kate was preoccupied enough by the jets pumping deliciously against her muscles and the heated water soothing her skin to even notice the other woman's conflict and distance. "Okay, you are so forgiven." She grinned, her eyes still closed as she listened to the faint hum of the bubbling water, and only opened them when she didn't receive so much as a smart arse response from Emily. "What's wro-" She cut off her own words, diverted to a new topic and unwittingly became the further weight on Emily's chest as her eyes fell upon the clover-shaped scar on the older woman's breast. "Emily... What..."

She didn't need to follow Kate's gaze to know what had the smaller woman staring, but she did nonetheless- right down to the point where her bikini top had slipped just a little to reveal something that she hadn't looked at so directly in months. Her eyes glossed with tears as she found herself frozen in the moment, frantically trying to figure out what move to make here – frantically trying to figure out just who or what she was making a move against. In all honesty, she didn't know which question was preferable- the first that hadn't quite made it to fruition, or the one that had. But she was acutely aware that if the honest answer to the first one didn't exist - if she hadn't been subjected to such an oddly mind-fucking realisation just moments ago - then she wouldn't be struggling so much with the latter right now. It wasn't like Kate didn't know about Ian Doyle- it wasn't like she had no prior knowledge of the dark places that she had been to. It was the fact that now, answering that question - or any damn question for that matter - had too much riding on it. She was trapped in a world of trust and affection, and whereas for most people that would be utterly fantastic and relieving; for Emily, it was suffocating.

It was illogical, but she was far beyond the point of recognising distorted thoughts now. Her mind quickly spiraled beyond all logic, reason, clarity, and twisted and contorted into a world that made absolutely no sense. Her panicking eyes remained downcast but wide, and as she found herself unable to find any easy way out, she scratched and clawed and made her own, choosing the flight option; stood abruptly and left that tub, that room, disappearing somewhere down a corridor before Kate could even stand.

In one swift moment, something that had been so easy and simple had become something far too complex. She had no room for it; her mind was already reaching for the self-destruct button and the erase button simultaneously. Though, they were one in the same- except one presented itself in the option of turning that unwanted, intimate moment into something more destructively intimate and numbing, and the other presented itself as, well, this… fleeing in forced-nonchalance. A small, fading part of her was grateful and somewhat proud that she hadn't chosen the first option like she had in the past - like she had with JJ in that supply closet many months ago - but both were seemingly far more preferable to simply caring.

"Em..." Kate yelled quietly. She'd seen probably two other people since they had arrived here a little over an hour ago, but it was a nice place - a really nice place – and she half expected there to be a no yelling, no talking, no breathing sign somewhere. "Emily..." Several more steps and a turned corner, and she found the older woman quickly pulling on her clothes over her wet bikini. "Emily, wait... Please. I didn't mean to, I mean... I didn't know-"

"It's not a big deal." Emily spoke distantly as she grabbed the rest of her things from her locker and began shoving them into her bag. It clearly was a big deal - a huge fucking deal - but not for the reasons that Kate probably thought. It was nothing to do with Ian Doyle, and everything to do with her. Everything to do with her fucked up mind that seemed to have the emotional capacity of a flea.

"The case with Ian Doyle doesn't haunt you like you think it should and that's why it's difficult for you, isn't it?" Kate guessed - actually not wrong at all with her assumptions, but way, way off the mark too. "I get that, Emily. I get spending so long in the darkness that at some point, you begin to enjoy it and need it. Perhaps that's why I allowed myself to fall deeper into my... well, whatever it was with Amy." She sighed and shook her head uncomfortably as she, for the first time, divulged real, substantial information about her own demons- completely clueless to the fact that she had chosen very much the wrong time to allow her own walls to slip. "I think I enjoyed torturing myself because I was certain that I deserved it. But more importantly, because it made me feel alive. I just didn't realise that that knowledge, that that whole experience, would one day ensure that I was really nothing more than that- alive, but not living. Actually, afraid to live because to me... living either meant blinding myself with false security only to have the ground ripped out from beneath me, or just as blindly allowing the devil on my shoulder to convince me that it was good for me."

Emily's jaw clenched as she stared at nothing in particular on the far wall; her heart thumping as doors swung open in her mind and she fought to shove the contents back where they belonged before it was too late. But it was already too late. Perhaps, if this moment had been different, she would have found gratitude in the younger woman's words- perhaps if she had been differently wired and significantly more like a normal human-being, she wouldn't be panicking at the mere sound of what was actually understanding, compassion, empathy. Friendship.

She was split in two, torn between wanting to run, or turn and hug this woman in relief; take a risk with something she was most terrified of, and fully succumb to the feel of the weight that she had carried all these years slipping from her shoulders. But without that weight, would she even be able to stand anymore? If she handed herself over to her fears, would she find herself cursing the day that she ever met Katherine Chandler in several months' time?

Which is why, as she snapped back into reality and continued nonchalantly gathering her things to leave, Emily took the safest option; her face blank and disinterested like the past fifteen minutes – the past two months - had literally not taken place. She was like a whole other person, and even she wasn't blind enough to miss the look in the other woman's eyes as she offered her lame and unfair closing statement. "Look, perhaps it's better that we just don't do this anymore. It was nice getting to know you but…" She shrugged- she actually fucking shrugged to add credence to her neutrality towards whatever happened from here, and the hatred she felt for herself coursing through her veins turned to lava that numbed more than it burnt. "Well, whatever." Whatever? Are you twelve, Emily?

"Um..." Kate blinked and looked down, more than a little taken aback by Emily's response; but given that she was wired very much the same as the older woman, instincts kicked in and that dejected surprise faded into nonchalance that was very much intended to give Emily's a run for its money. "Yeah, sure. If that's what you want."

"It is."

And she was gone. Just like that, she had found the off switch that many, many people long to hold in such a moment and flicked it; shut down the feelings that she found herself with for this younger woman, and walked out of that building like she had just opened a new door rather than closed one. Like her world was now open to freeing possibilities, rather than closed to the one thing that may have just set her free.

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She almost jumped with the quiet click of her front door as it closed behind her; the sound so oddly loud and penetrating that it caused her to wince. Of course, it wasn't the sound at all- it was the eerie silence in her mind that it had pierced through like a bullet. It was the total emptiness that she honestly could not work out if she welcomed or despised for what it represented. She'd felt wholly like she'd won first prize in the ending that had taken place back at the gym, but now it didn't feel like a prize at all... It felt more like one of those medals given to everyone who had taken part, for just merely existing, and she already had pile upon pile of those.

Tossing her keys into the bowl by her door, Emily followed through to the lounge and allowed herself to sink back against the cushions of her couch; flicked mindlessly through the TV channels like she would actually sit and watch a full show even if she found one remotely appealing. But she was in such a numb trance right now that she probably couldn't move if she tried. The volume was muted- it always was in these moments. The moment that she had arrived at far more times than she had ever been willing to admit until now. How many times had she done this? How many times had she slammed on the breaks long before the journey was over because she couldn't face the possibility of what she may find at the end?

She was certain that she should feel some kind of remorse, feel some kind of anything- but perhaps the emptiness was her feeling. It represented her soul shaking its head at her in disappointment, packing up its bags and abandoning her; and just as she'd learned with Hotch all those months ago, disappointment really was the worst kind of reprimand.

The TV settled on a show, one with a character who was spiraling far worse than herself. His appearance was a comfort and she kept the volume on silent as she pulled her knees up against her chest and studied the dude with eerie chaos in his eyes with familiarity. She couldn't hear what he was saying to the blonde in his company, but she didn't need to- she knew that it was a lie. One to keep up the façade around his somewhat self-created turmoil. She recognised the silent desperation in his eyes, the already-lost war that he was waging against the wrong people, the emotional distance between the two people on screen that she was certain he had inadvertently created in his quest for something better.

The road to hell was paved with good intentions- and didn't she have a ton of those lining her path until this point too?

She couldn't help but feel that she was supposed to hate the protagonist that she was examining through her profiling eyes, but she didn't. She actually felt bad for him- pitied his naivety that was still telling him that he could have normalcy and distance; a pretence that she had so recently realised was a lie. Having both wasn't an option, and if he was as cowardly as her, he'd eventually choose the latter or it would simply win out anyway. With no one to intervene – something that she had assured in both of her recent departures - it always did.

For the next thirty minutes she observed him in silence as the light from the TV bounced off of her face and cast shadows around her otherwise darkened living room. It was the dark, peaceful bubble that she had been trying to retrieve back in that small room two hours ago. It was right there, hers once again and yet somehow, in that moment, it just didn't feel right. It felt empty where it had once felt safe; it felt scary where it had once felt soothing; it felt unsatisfying where it had once been her main source of comfort. It felt more like insane and fruitless repetition- this aftermath was something that she always came to in her journey, but it never was what she had initially strove for. Yet she constantly found herself back there- three steps forward and ten steps back.

Then one more, then one more, then one more until she barely recogised her surroundings.

She didn't want that anymore. She wanted the normality that she knew the guy she had just been studying didn't get in the end- she didn't want to wind up bleeding out on a warehouse floor with nothing left in her wake except the destruction that overshadowed any good, like she knew it ended for him. She wanted her own life, one that wasn't dictated by an enemy that she couldn't see or touch or even really fight. And with that thought, a sudden glimmer of hope arose in Emily. It was clarity and bravery all rolled into one. But before she could hop up off of that couch and go get the girl, or girls, or people, that she loved - the ones that stood like angels at the end of her dark tunnel - the spark of hope caught fire elsewhere and turned into something so suddenly dangerous and intense.

Because she'd forgotten. For a moment, she'd forgotten that she couldn't have that. Emily Prentiss didn't get to experience normal. Emily Prentiss was incapable of normal and the hope that had just lifted her had now slammed her back to Earth; nothing more than a cruel joke that, once the initial winding sensation had ebbed, finally settled as a mere niggle in her gut.

But Emily knew that niggle, remembered so suddenly that it was up to no good, that it really wasn't just a niggle at all and her whole body froze in fear. How had she forgotten that? How had she missed the signs? She could feel her skin pulsating along with her heartbeat, the warming burn that settled across every inch of it as she shivered at the realisation. If only she had stopped. If only she had quit over-thinking ten minutes ago and just allowed herself to bathe in the freeing solitude that she had found in the moment that she'd shunned Kate- if only she hadn't ventured down the path of what ifs. Because now those what ifs were spiraling, twisting, tightening. The certainties that had once told her that she needed to spend her entire life in solitude were actually working against her; prodding her and taunting, pushing her to do something that they themselves had left her afraid of. They suddenly wanted her to open up her world, let it see the monster she really was no matter what the repercussions were and declining didn't seem to be an option.

She knew that feeling and she leant forward with an unsteady breath; her fingers gripping at the lip of her couch as she tried to breathe through it- take control of it before it was too late. But in that moment, there was ignoring the fact that her off switch hadn't been an off switch at all- it had been an on-switch for something far worse. Something she hadn't felt in over three damn years, and had stupidly believed she would never feel again.

Her heart thumped as she quickly shut off the TV and pulled her legs to her chest again in defense- there had been no sound on the television of course and yet somehow it had still been far too loud. Perhaps if she had utter, still silence in this room, she could place logic and order back into her mind again. But it didn't make the blindest bit of difference.

Her stomach twisted, swooped and dropped in ways that it hadn't in months, years even, as her breaths fell as almost desperate pants. She wanted to cry, and vomit, and breathe, and laugh, and run, and fall, and she couldn't do either- it all sat knotted and twisting somewhere in her torso, swelling and swelling until it spread throughout her whole body. Everything was speeding by and yet not moving fast enough; she felt like she'd drank twenty cups of coffee and even her thoughts were feeling the effects- flicking erratically like a dying light bulb, sparking like a broken power line and illuminating only in brief flashes and glimpses of everything and nothing. Nothing she could fully grasp ahold of, at least.

She was lost now- by herself and to herself. It was odd, almost like she was watching herself morph into something unrecognisable. Like the logical Emily, the normal Emily, was looking down at herself and yelling at her that she was being ridiculous- only, she couldn't really hear the sound. This other sound was far too loud and nothing, absolutely nothing, steadied her, settled her malfunctioning mind or calmed her erratic demeanour. She was sat wholly still but inside her mind was flailing and fighting, pushing and pulling in all directions like she was being jostled around a crowd; only the crowd was her own mind, and the shoving and bustling was the responsibility of an invisible enemy that had settled there like a parasite.

How do you fight the invisible? But she'd try, and she did try. In vain, she'd tried so damn hard to stop the noise and the silence; her fingers tangled in her hair and clawing at her skull like a mental patient. Ironically, still unable to admit that maybe that is what she was. A patient without a doctor, the diseased without the medicine. And it was her own doing- both the fact that she was back here, and the fact that she was back here alone.

But before she had the chance to wander down that path of self-pitying, punishing and conflicting thoughts; it started- the next part of this movie, the scene that erased any remaining questions of what this was, the plot twist that calmed her erratic-ness to a once again blank stare whilst her skin hummed on with a throbbing and yet soothing burn. Soothing because it was now the only thing that she could feel. In one fell swoop she had jumped so suddenly back to nothing – far more nothing than she had felt when she returned home fourty-five minutes ago - and as her mind cleared she realised that she needed the noise back. The noise at least meant that she was still fighting, still had the fight left in her- the silence though, marked a victory that was not her own.

With a foggy mind that seemed oddly clear, full thoughts now came into view. One after each other like a marching band of freaks they strode out from the darkness and filtered through the light; contaminated it with the twisted and depraved, the contradictory and the illogically logical, the questionable and the uncertainly certain.

There really was no pretending what this was anymore, but she never remembered it being this bad. Of course she wouldn't though, because she hadn't learnt from the last time. She'd found her way out back then and simply shoved it the experience into one her many boxes; naively assumed herself invincible, indestructible, and convinced herself that she'd won. That her silent enemy would never return to wreak havoc.

She was her own worst enemy. She'd allowed the scales to tip too far- lost the balance that she needed to get through the day like a normal human-being, and now the cogs and springs of that balance scattered around her tauntingly; laughing in her face as she found herself in a sea of nothing. She had gone from feeling absolutely everything, to feeling absolutely nothing in the blink of an eye- and she genuinely wasn't sure in that moment which side of the scale was worse, or which side she had really fallen on.

For hours she ran on fumes; clung to the last tendrils of strength that she had, clung to the 'normal Emily' that she could vaguely make out in the black around her, in the hopes of catching this before it was too late- completely unaware and yet wholly certain that it already was too late. She wandered the house like a zombie; filled each room with music as loud as she could get away with if only to create some noise to replace the dangerous silence in her mind, and then silenced it when it had a backwards effect. She tried to clean- perhaps she could pretend that the semi-mess in her house was the mess in her mind. Perhaps if she could clean that, tidy that, it would fix those invisible forces too but her energy was waning. And it was only when she slumped down on her bed several hours later that she noticed it; the pain in her wrists that, when she looked down, represented the bright white of her knuckles and fists so tightly clenched that they looked fit to burst- the tiny crescent shaped indentations in her palm when she forced her fingers open that told her that she truly had lost the fight. That she truly was clinging to nothing.

She silenced her phone, shut out the world and pulled the covers over her head; laid there in the darkness with her eyes tight shut like that would force sleep and a few hours reprieve from what she was now certain was the inevitable. Her mind ran with memories of the last time- the last time that she had lost herself to this dark place; memories of the torment and the torture, the damage and the chaos that it had inflicted and left, and the energy that it had taken to win.

But she didn't have that energy this time. She didn't have the energy to do that again.

"No. No, please. Not again." She willed aloud to herself as she shoved back the covers with once again tightly clenched fists - her jaw locked and her heart aching as the fact that she was talking to herself truly settled in her mind. The fact that told her that she truly had crossed the line of sanity, that it wasn't fair, that she hadn't done anything to deserve this- that she had never realised that she was this weak, this fragile. That she truly was only ever one emotion away from insanity, and that that line had probably been crossed a long time ago; she had simply been clinging to it and willing it not to be so.

But this, the right now, was the bottom of an abyss that most people didn't even realise they were lucky enough to never know, witness, experience. She envied those people and the mundane life they had no clue was a damn gift. She pitied herself like she pitied the elderly woman on the bus who talks to anyone who will listen; she hated herself like she was some kind of monster; she feared herself for the same reason. She felt alone and lonely; realised that she had felt that way for far longer than she had paid attention to.

It had never been a change in JJ that had kept her awake at night back in DC, it was never something missing from her relationship with her that left her feeling empty- it had been something missing from within herself. It was the fact that she felt so damn alone in a room full of people that loved her; it was the fact that that was her own fault for keeping everyone, including JJ, at arm's length, for choosing to fight herself alone, for not giving them the opportunity to love her, for not trusting that they would understand because whilst love was sometimes strong enough to blind, it was also, when given the chance, strong enough to place understanding in something entirely illogical.

And now it was too late. So she squeezed her eyes tighter shut and conceded her defeat- only this time, somewhere in the flashes of light behind her eyelids, something emerged...

No, she didn't have the energy to do this again. But perhaps she didn't need to. Perhaps - just like the last time - her energy reserve to win the war was elsewhere. Perhaps she should have considered what she was about to do- and 'normal' Emily would have. In fact, normal Emily probably would have sat there for hours deliberating such a thing until sleep took over, but this Emily didn't have hours. To this Emily, one full second felt like one full life time.

"I'm not doing this again." She shook her head quickly, almost frantically as she grabbed her phone; her body's tension moving from her fists to the muscles in her arms as she unclenched her fingers. "I'm not going there again." She repeated the mantra over and over in her mind like that alone might stop… this. "Please answer..." She gripped the phone hard in her palm, her other hand clutching at her shirt as she focussed mentally on each ring; silently begging that the recipient would both answer and ignore the call. "Please..."

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Virginia:

JJ stared into darkness and chewed the inside of her lip as Leah's advice ran through her mind like a song on loop. Henry was with Reid, her phone was silenced, there were absolutely no interruptions to speak of... except the one in her own mind. The last time she had allowed herself to go there, to feel herself as Leah had put it, she had wound up falling asleep feeling completely broken and shattered; her heart in tatters as result of the reminder that she herself had forced- those fingers, those fingers causing her great pleasure, would never again be Emily's, and because of that, they had wound up causing her great pain.

And just like then, such a reminder brought with it unbearable guilt.

She wasn't stupid- she knew that if you got down to technicalities, it was somewhat understandable the path that she had taken and thus, lead Emily and the people she loved down. But that didn't change the fact that it had cost her in a big way, cost her family in a big way, had cost Emily in a way that she would probably never fully comprehend.

She didn't want to be laying in the dark bringing herself to euphoria... she wanted to be in the light, doing such a thing for Emily and studying each minute flicker in those beautiful, big dark eyes as she did so. She wanted to feel Emily's arousal flood her fingers, the laboured breaths to be a combination of both of them; she wanted to ghost her hand over pale skin and watch in awe as goosebumps arose in its wake. She wanted to make Emily tremble and quake, to reduce her to a quivering wreck right before pushing her over that exquisite edge into a world were whimpers and cries were the only sound that bathed her ears. She wanted to breathe 'I love you' against her lips as she came, press her forehead to one slick with sweat as she moved with the brunette through her orgasm and make silent promises to never hurt her again, because at this point, the idea of such a thing hurt far worse than the knowledge that her mother hated her.

She didn't want to lay in the darkness on her own and search for heaven - she wanted to dance in the light with Emily and experience it.

But there was no denying that it was there - the wetness between her thighs left by the vivid images that she had, for the first time in a very long time, allowed herself to paint in her mind - and her breath hitched with utter relief as she finally, tentatively allowed her fingertip to graze over a now aching clit; the fingers of her free hand gripping into the sheets beneath her as she circled that finger, slowly, teasingly beneath the comforter, following the exquisite, writhing images of the woman she loved in her mind. Perhaps she really shouldn't be thinking of Emily in that way, perhaps she had long lost that right, but it truly was fucking beautiful, and just for a moment, she was able to believe that maybe one day, she would hold that right again.

Maybe one day, she would again be given the opportunity to witness such beauty- only then, she would not waste it, not even a second of it.

It wasn't long before the thin material of her strangely very restricting panties became too much to bear- they had to go. However, as she used her free hand to shove away the comforter, as her blue eyes opened briefly in her process of kicking it away, they caught sight of the brightened corner of her bedroom, the source of the light coming from her nightstand.

"God dammit." She muttered to herself, knowing that she couldn't possibly ignore it in case it was Reid. The last time he had called her at this hour when he was taking care of Henry, it was because the small boy had a fever of 104 and she'd already done enough to shove her son aside when it came to the issue of her sexuality- she wasn't going to do that again.

Pushing herself up onto her elbow, JJ squinted as she lifted her phone and caused the bright light emanating from it to blur her vision; unconsciously taking a glance at the time in the top corner before she even fully recognised the caller ID. But when she did, the fact that it was almost 11pm didn't even register in her mind. In fact, only one damn thing registered in her mind as her no longer squinting eyes widened. Emily...

She was conscious now; fully snapped from her aroused state and sat up in bed as she answered the call with a racing heart and an equally buzzing mind. However, when a full ten seconds past without so much as a breath on the other end of the line, she was all but resigned to the fact that it must have been a mistaken call...

Resigned to that until she heard a faint sniffle and suddenly her heart sank further than it would have had it been a mistaken call; her next question rhetorical really because she already knew- she knew this movie because she'd seen it before, because she'd even played a supporting role in it before...

"It's happening again... isn't it?"