JJ and Emily fell asleep quickly that night, worn out from the events of New York.
All was well until just after one.
JJ woke abruptly and sat with a start, much to the dismay of her children, who had both been sound asleep. At first, after JJ turned on the light, she was confused about why she'd woken up, but after a few moments of orienting herself and rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she saw the reason.
Emily was beside her, tossing and turning, muttering in her sleep. She was having a nightmare.
"No! Please don't hurt me!"
Cautiously, because she'd never seen her girlfriend like this, JJ leaned over and spoke to her.
"Emelia, it's okay! You're safe!"
Emily continued tossing and turning. "Take me, not him!"
JJ tried again. "You're having a nightmare! Wake up!"
Emily did wake up, although in a way that neither she nor JJ had been expecting.
WHACK!
"OW!"
Emily had accidentally hit JJ in her sleep, square in the nose.
Emily woke up at the sound of JJ's cry, her chest heaving as she came down from the adrenaline rush, her nightmare had given her, but when she saw JJ beside her, sitting up with her head tilted back and her nose pinched, her eyes filled with tears.
"I'm sorry, Jayje! I didn't mean to do that! Are you bleeding?"
"Yeth." she answered in a nasally tone. "Dode worry, Ebby. I'be dot ubzet."
Roughly a minute had elapsed between Emily waking up and JJ promising that she was fine. Down the hallway in their own bedroom, Elizabeth and Maximo woke almost immediately, made themselves decent, and headed over to the other occupied bedroom.
When they saw Emily crying and JJ going through the procedures of staunching a bloody nose, they chose to conquer and divide with Maximo sitting on the bed with Emily while Elizabeth went to JJ.
"Come on, sweetheart." Elizabeth pulled the blanket back and helped her up. "I'll take care of you."
JJ breathed a sigh of relief and let Elizabeth guide her to the bathroom in the hallway. Once there, Elizabeth closed the toilet lid and sat JJ down on it and began fussing over her.
"Tilt your head back again." Elizabeth instructed. "Good girl."
"I'be zeeig ztarz, 'Lizbeth." JJ mumbled. "I doe id waz ad agzident, bud she hitz hard."
"Oh, that's a lot of blood," Elizabeth sighed as she replaced JJ's hands with a warm damp washcloth, taking a turn at staunching the bloodflow. "But yes, Emelia hits hard because she's always been like that. Try not to talk for a few moments."
JJ conveyed her understanding by giving Elizabeth a thumbs up and quieted.
They waited together for about ten minutes, and when Elizabeth checked on JJ again, she saw that the blood had stopped, so she worked on cleaning everything up. She sat on the edge of the bathtub when she was done.
"Well, at least it isn't broken. But if it was, I'd be able to set it for you."
JJ arched an eyebrow and spoke, relieved that she could finally speak in a normal tone. "Excuse me?"
"At school, Max got it into his head the first month to sign up for a sport since Erin and I both picked one before he did, and of all things, he chose rugby."
JJ shuddered. "Isn't that sport super dangerous?"
"Yes, but nobody could stop him, especially us."
"What sport did you two choose?"
"We were on the equestrian team, but that isn't the point."
"What is?"
"Because Max played that sport the whole time we were at school, he always came crawling back to me with injuries. I learned very quickly how to take care of them. I've been treating his cuts, bruises, and breaks ever since we were eleven."
"That's adorable, and most definitely true love."
Elizabeth smiled and helped JJ to her feet. "He is my soulmate, Jennifer; I knew it back then, and I still know it now. I would do anything for him… Actually, remind me another time to tell you about our adventures in Bosnia."
"Bosnia?" JJ exclaimed at the mention of a war torn country. "When the hell were you guys there? Emily's never mentioned that before!"
"Well, she wouldn't remember because she was en utero the whole time we were there."
"Gotcha." JJ said around a barely concealed yawn.
"It's back to bed with you." Elizabeth patted JJ on the back and began steering her back towards the bedroom. "Let's go."
JJ was very sleepy again, so she didn't they returned, Maximo was just finished up a chat with Emily. She seemed calmer and was no longer crying, but still wasn't too keen with touching too much, so he gave her hand a gentle squeeze and bid her good night, doing the same with JJ as he passed by her on his way out.
Elizabeth also told them good night, and she closed the door behind her and Maximo.
Emily watched JJ cross the room and get back under the covers before speaking again. "How are you doing now? I'm so sorry for what I did!"
"It was an accident, and you were having a nightmare, so we both know it wasn't on purpose."
Emily nodded. "Jennifer, I just have to say this, but you know I would never ever hurt you, right? Never ever."
JJ realized that Emily was no doubt feeling really guilty about hurting her, even accidentally, because the last person she'd been in a relationship with who had physically struck her had been her abuser.
"I understand, Emelia."
JJ held a hand out to Emily, wanting to see if she'd take it. Her heart leapt when Emily obliged.
"I would never hurt you, either." she kissed Emily's open palm. "We've been through a lot since the night you found me after I broke my arm, and we're both works in progress. You helped me when I really needed it and you never gave up on me, so I'm going to return the favor with you."
"Even after nights like tonight?"
"Mhm." JJ kissed Emily's palm again. "And you know what? After the babies come, we can work together on losing the baby weight!"
Everybody on the BAU team were at various levels of athleticism, but it was no secret that after Derek, it was JJ and Emily who were the most athletic.
Emily actually smiled. "If you indulge me in a few nights of kickboxing at the gym, I will train with you for your next marathon, even if it's a 25K."
"Deal." JJ turned Emily's hand over and kissed it again. "Let's get some sleep now."
JJ agreed and they both finally turned in after she shut off her lamp. They both fell asleep very quickly.
They both dreamt only of pleasant things for the rest of the night.
In the morning, Maximo was already gone at work by the time JJ and Emily were awake. As for Elizabeth, she could be found in her office, having a conversation on Skype with Sandy about the finer details of their families meeting.
JJ and Emily had a lazy day, but after lunch, and well into the afternoon, they camped out on their bed while they hashed out ideas for wedding dates and baby names.
Wanting to be mindful of everyone in their lives who were expecting babies, they settled on August twentieth. That only gave them seven months to prepare, but they had no doubt that they could pull it off.
When it came to the part about baby names, though, they had a bit more fun.
"Ethan?"
"Uh-uh."
"Jacob?"
"That's actually a cute name, but Em, didn't we already agree that none of these babies will have names that start with e or j so they can all have some individuality?"
"Oh, yeah." Emily laughed nervously. "This must be the dreaded 'pregnancy brain' kicking in. At least Baby Bear finally stopped hiccuping."
Emily's and JJ's little boy seemed to get the hiccups more than their little girls, making him the one who hiccuped the most. He'd already put Emily through two hiccuping jags before noon, and neither had lasted less than an hour. It was now approaching five in the afternoon, and the third hiccuping jag—blessedly only fifteen minutes that time—had ended only fifteen minutes before.
"Yeah, there is that."
Not wanting to jinx it, Emily put the conversation back on the right track. "What's a letter that you don't often hear for a name?"
JJ thought for a moment. "H. Let's pick a name that can have a good nickname, especially for when he gets bigger."
Emily nodded in agreement, flipping to the H section of the baby name book she'd been using earlier while JJ made use of the H section on a baby name site she was looking at on her laptop.
She was the one who found the name they could both agree on.
"What about Henry?"
No sooner was the name out of her mouth than Emily gave a cry of surprise and dropped her book, putting both hands on her middle. JJ set her laptop to the side and moved closer to her girlfriend.
"What just happened?"
"He just gave me a huge kick as soon as you said Henry!"
JJ smiled. "Then I think Baby Bear just became Henry, then."
Emily prodded her middle methodically, beaming when she felt a strong flurry of kicks in response.
"Baby Bear, are you our Henry?"
He gave her another kick, almost bigger than the first. Emily giggled at the sensation, a sound that was music to JJ's ears.
"Babe," Emily said giddily. "Feel this!"
Just for a moment, Emily forgot her woes about being touched and took both of JJ's hand in her own, placing them on the bump. In a very happy mood, the baby kicked and turned somersaults repeatedly. His joy even rubbed off on his mothers, putting them both in even happier moods.
"Yep—he's definitely our Henry." JJ said as she sat back up and took back her laptop. "What about a middle name?"
"David." JJ said after perusing through a new list of names. "It means beloved."
Emily tried the name out. "Henry David… I really like it, and so does he because he hasn't stopped kicking yet."
JJ smiled in sympathy and set her computer aside again, changing positions on the bed slightly as she felt the twins' gentle pressing against their confines as they stretched out.
"Time for naming Kitty and Ladybug," JJ pulled back her shirt and ran her hands over her middle. "But I already have some names that I like."
"How many?"
"Five."
"Five?! When did you have time to come up with five?!"
"I had a lot of time to kill in the hospital during our most recent trip to New York."
Emily immediately simmered down. "Okay, what are the names?"
"Isobel, Naomi, Alexis, Olivia, and Sophia."
"All of those names are so adorable!"
"Which is your most favorite? Let's each pick one."
Emily quickly flipped through the name book, looking up all of the names before she settled on one.
"Alexis is my most favorite. We can even call her Sasha."
JJ's heart melted—she knew Emily had suggested the Sasha idea as a tribute to her pride of being part Russian, and also because when Russian translated to English, that name in particular was a nickname for the name Alexander and names that were similar to it.
"Alright, and Sasha and Alexis are both very beautiful."
Emily nodded in agreement. "Both names mean 'defender of man,' and that's quite fitting when it's taken into account what you and I do for a living. Do you have a name that's your most favorite?"
"Olivia—it means olive tree in Latin, and do you know what olive branches are a universal sign of?"
"Peace." JJ answered. "Hey—that actually goes hand-in-hand with Alexis. Do you know what I mean?"
"Yes, actually. We achieved naming our twins without giving them over-the-top or cliché rhyming or anagrammed names like oh so many other twins have been saddled with."
"And one of our girls protects people while the other stands for peace."
"Perfect. What about Jane as a middle name for Alexis? It means 'God's gracious gift,' and it's also just a cute name."
"It definitely is," JJ blew out a breath when she felt two different pairs of elbows hit her. "But are we calling her Sasha or AJ?"
Emily shrugged. "Maybe even both, depending on what she grows to prefer. I mean, I respond regularly to Emelia, and you respond all the time to Jennifer, don't we?"
"Touché. All that's left is a middle name for Olivia."
"What about one of our middle names for her?"
"I like that, but since you have one and I have two, let's use yours. Abigail Grace can be for our last baby girl."
"Sounds fair. Olivia Magdalene it is."
Emily wrote all their kids' names down in the back of her book. "So we've got Henry David, Alexis Jane, and Olivia Magdalene. What about last names?"
The sound of wind chimes filled the air suddenly—JJ's phone was alerting her to a new text, but…
"Isn't that your texting tone for Haley?"
JJ nodded and opened the text, which read, Would you & Emily like to come over? Aaron & Jack are at a baseball game and I miss you two.
JJ sent back, Sure! What time? Anyone else coming?
Cho is already here, (because they lived in such a small world, JJ's brother and his family had moved into the house for sale next to the House of Hotchner) And I'm about to reach out to Penelope + my friends Charlotte & Quinlan are visiting from out of town.
Remembering something that Ingrid Fitzgerald had said, JJ wrote back even faster. Charlotte & Quinlan Fitzgerald?
O_O how did you know?
JJ turned to Emily. "Haley's inviting us over to her place just to hang out. She's got friends visiting from out of state, and Cho is also there. She's going to talk to Penelope next."
"Go ask mother to ring the chauffeur for you—Henry and I are going going to take a rain check."
"Are you sure?"
Emily held up three fingers, putting them down one at a time as she counted backwards. "Three… two… one… *hic* I know *hic* *hic* *hic* our boy."
JJ sent a text back to Haley. I'm in, but Emily is taking a rain check. I'll be along in awhile. Should I bring anything?
Just Tupperware to save some for food for her. C & Q cooked, and they made a lot.
I can't wait to meet them! See you soon ;)
JJ put her phone in her sweater pocket and turned to Emily, who had started channel surfing on the TV mounted on the wall across from the bed while she'd been conversing with Haley. Of all things, she'd settled on vintage Flinstones.
"Are you going to be okay?"
Emily said nothing, plagued with hiccups, but showed JJ a pair of crossed fingers.
"Alright." JJ stood and stretched. "We'll save you some food."
"Thank *hic* you. Love *hic* you."
JJ blew Emily a kiss. "Love you, too. I'm going to go find Elizabeth now."
Even more plagued with hiccups now, Emily turned her attention back to the TV after JJ left.
Hopefully the rest of JJ's day would go better than hers currently was.
