JJ drives her home. She is too tired to protest, and JJ has on the face that says she isn't going to take no for an answer anyway. So they leave Emily's big, luxury SUV in the garage and JJ drives them through DC in her sporty little Audi. The passenger seat is too far forward, but Emily doesn't fix it, just hugs her knees and leans her head forward, trying to get the images of the day out of her head.
JJ doesn't speak until they're pulling into the underground parking lot below Emily's building.
"I don't have a sticker," she says softly, apologetically, as they pull up to the little security kiosk.
Emily lifts her head, feeling like it weighs one hundred pounds.
"Hey, Joe," she says to the guard who pokes his head out the window.
"Hey!" Joe says, surprised, "Emily Prentiss! Look at this hot little number!"
Emily blinks, thinking for a moment that he means JJ, realizing too late that he's talking about her car.
The silence is a beat too long for her to laugh, and too short for her to brush the comment off, but she does it anyway.
Joe's smile flickers a bit, his face softening into sympathy. "You need a visitor's pass, Emily?"
She shakes her head. "Just gonna put it in my spot, Joe, okay?"
Joe nods, leaning back. "Course it's okay. You all have a good night."
JJ eases the car forward, and Emily doesn't have to tell her where her parking spot is. She's been there enough times to know.
She pulls into the vacant spot and turns off the ignition. Emily doesn't move. Even the thought of dragging herself to the elevator seems too impossible to comprehend.
She can't get the picture of the aunt –what had her name been? Susan- out of her head.
"Emily," JJ's voice barely penetrates, but the hand on her knee makes her turn to look at the blonde sitting next to her. "Emily," she says softly. "We found her. She's alive."
…
…
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," The doctor wipes her face quickly, and turns back towards the door. "I'm sorry to have run off like-" but she pulls up short when she sees that it is Emily who's followed her out instead of Jane. For a moment they just look at each other. Dr. Isles doesn't look scared. She looks drawn, maybe a little resigned, but she doesn't look scared.
"I told her I'd come check on you."
Maura looks skeptical, which is irritating. "Are you leaving?"
Maura nods slowly. "I've called a cab. The prospect of returning to a table of people who don't want my company is not an enticing one."
"They want you there," Emily concedes. "I was out of line."
Maura considers this. "You were…being protective."
"Yes."
"Of Jane."
Emily sets her jaw. "Yes," she says.
"So. You think I'm ill-suited for Jane," Maura says slowly.
"Ill-suited in what way?" Emily counters, eyes narrowing. She is ready for this fight. "As her colleague? As the Medical Examiner overseeing her cases? Is that what you mean, Dr. Isles?"
She expects to see the other woman flush, to drop her eyes, or maybe even step away. But she doesn't. She studies Emily's face with the kind of practiced impartiality that only comes from years of galas and fundraisers, from being told to hush…and smile.
"You also think I'm a coward." An observation, not a question.
"I think you can't handle Jane. That does not necessarily make you a coward."
This comment makes the doctor's body language change. She straightens, and her hands twitch by her side. Anger, tightly controlled.
They are so alike. It makes cold, visceral hatred flare up inside of Emily.
"Jane is not a thing to be handled," the doctor says icily. "One does not handle people."
"You don't know anything about her," Emily snarls. She hates that this woman can remain calm when Emily can feel herself unraveling. This is a hugely childish thing to say, but she can't stop herself.
Dr. Isles purses her lips. "With all due respect, Agent Prentiss, you don't know anything about me. You don't know anything about the nature of my relationship with-"
"Have you told her that you love her yet?"
This interruption finally gets the desired reaction. The doctor falls silent, eyes wide. Emily knows that she has the upper hand.
"Sorry," she says, not sorry at all, "What I mean is, when are you going to tell conscious, fully awake Jane, that you're in love with her?"
Dr. Isles looks like she's going to fall over. Emily loves it. "I don't-" She begins, but Emily cuts her off again, her timing perfect.
"I heard you. I heard you telling her you loved her after Hoyt. I heard you after she put that bullet through her stomach. 'Jane, don't leave me, I'm so in love with you. I couldn't function without you here with-"
"Stop it," the doctor's voice is barely audible.
"Then she wakes up. She comes back to you the way you've begged her to. And what do you do? Nothing. You don't do anything. She drags herself back from the dead, time and time again, and you smile, and squeeze her hand, and you say nothing."
Emily doesn't think she is mistaken that Dr. Isles is on the verge of tears. "That's not fair," Maura whispers.
"Oh, I agree!" Emily says, not bothering to fight the way her voice rises. "It's not fair at all. She deserves so much more. She deserves someone who-"
"Isn't like you?"
Emily stares, trying to recover. Dr. Isles does not even seem to notice Emily's speechlessness. She looks down at her hands, seemingly ashamed.
"I know a lot about you. Jane talks about you and Olivia all the time. You're as much family to her as her brothers are," she pauses, but doesn't lift her eyes to meet Emily's. "We are the children of wealthy, ambitious, neglectful parents. Jane used to tell me all the time, 'you should talk to Emily.' Or, 'one of my best friends, Emily, she was alone a lot like you. You should connect sometime.'" Maura waits until Emily is looking directly into her eyes.
"But we don't talk, do we?" she asks. "That's not the way we've been trained. We don't talk about our feelings…to anyone."
…
…
"Talk to me." Emily feels JJ sit down on the couch next to her. She sits
"Children aren't pawns," Emily says through gritted teeth. She is beginning to regret letting JJ drive her home, letting her into her apartment. She's been in DC for nine months, on the team for just over six. It is not the time to let any of them see her break down, especially not this woman, with her gentle blue eyes.
"Children aren't pawns," JJ repeats softly. "You're right." She puts her hand on Emily's upper arm. JJ, apart from the others, has made an effort to make Emily feel included. She has invited her to girl's nights with their technical analyst, Penelope. She is kind, and smart, and beautiful.
And dangerous.
JJ must be able to feel a shift in the air, because she removes her hand. "I'm sorry," she says, and then like she wants to be clear that she is apologizing for the action, but not for the feeling that inspired it. "You don't do touching. I'm sorry. But you don't have to keep all of your emotions so close to your chest." She waits for a moment, but Emily doesn't answer. She doesn't trust her voice. JJ sighs. "We're like a family, Emily," she says quietly. "You'll come to see that you can trust us all."
She pauses again, maybe weighing her options or gathering her courage, then she leans forward and puts her forehead against the side of Emily's face. It is the most intimate anyone has been with her in years, and it causes a rush of heat all through her body.
"You can trust me," JJ says. And then she's standing. She's telling Emily to get rest. She saying she'll be back in the morning, with coffee. She's at the door.
"Bye, Emily. Rest okay? I mean it."
Emily nods numbly. "I take my coffee with-"
"Sugar, no cream," JJ says with a smile. "I know."
….
….
"Well, we're talking now. There isn't much of a choice. So tell me, Agent Prentiss, what are you so afraid of?" Maura's voice breaks through her memory like an icepick. "I can see how much you care about JJ, how much you love her and her son."
"Don't you dare bring JJ into-"
"So you're not jealous of our relationship," the doctor continues as if Emily hasn't spoken. "So what is it? Why are you so dead set against Jane finding what you have found? What Olivia appears to have found. What is it about me that displeases you?"
Emily doesn't answer immediately. She doesn't know how to articulate everything she wants to say.
Jane and Olivia are her sisters. Her kid sisters. How kind they are, how passionate. They followed her into this job and they are getting hurt. Olivia's heart still so new and trying. Jane so fierce and protective; still so soft when all she wants is to be tough, like Emily.
How much weight she feels. How much responsibility. And underneath all of that, how much guilty pride at the knowledge that she, of the three of them, is the strongest. She, alone, must help to guide them.
"You'll abandon her," she says finally.
"I would never," Maura says fiercely.
"She kissed you?"
A pause.
"I…yes. We've…yes."
"And then what?"
"I don't see how it's any of your busi-"
"And then nothing. Nothing. She doesn't bring it up and you don't bring it up, and she spends all this time in agony wondering-"
"Agony!?"
"Yes! Agony. You think she's not torn up about having feelings for you. About whether or not you're going to-"
"and you think I can afford to lose her?" Maura sounds furious for the first time, and Emily blinks, brought up short. "You think that I can afford to push her into something she's not ready for and risk losing even a friendship with the woman I cherish above everything else?" Maura takes a deep breath, but Emily can tell it is only to forestall her angry tears. She has much more to say.
"I know how you grew up. Our childhoods were very much the same. But don't think for one moment that makes us the same. Or that it makes me unworthy of Jane."
Emily wipes at her forehead and finds – to her utter embarrassment – that she is sweating. "You can't just-"
"You flew back from London when her father found her with that girl, didn't you?"
"Excuse me?"
"When her father walked in on her with her fellow trainee? You flew back to see her. To support her. Am I correct?"
Emily has misjudged. She feels as though she's walked into an interrogation with the wrong profile. "I don't see what that has to do with-"
"Seeing her, after what he did to her. Knowing what filth he fed her for all of her childhood. Knowing that she…that she thought he was the sun," Maura gives herself a beat to compose herself. "I know you know all of that. What you're accusing me of. What you're accusing me of not doing…it would tear us apart. I can't do that. I can't." She turns away from Emily for the first time, though it seems she does this more out of disdain than out of a need to regain her self-control.
Emily shuts her eyes, trying to think.
…
…
"I'm a liar," Emily hears herself say it just as JJ's hands close over her own, freezing in the weather.
"No. You're not," JJ whispers leaning in so that her breath is against Emily's collarbone. "You're not, Em. You're…You're bleeding!"
"I wanted to walk by myself, JJ."
JJ isn't listening. She presses at Emily's shoulders, forcing her to sit on the front step of a darkened brownstone. "Tip your head back, like that. God, Em, have you been eating enough?"
"I want to be alone, JJ."
JJ's hand tightens on her shoulder. "Tough shit," she says quietly. "You have a nosebleed, you're a little disoriented, you're pale as death."
"I'm fine."
"You're not."
"JJ,"
"Em, you just stated that you're a liar. You can't be a liar and be fine. Pick one."
Emily shrugs out of JJ's grasp so that she can run her hands through her hair. "I'm a liar."
JJ waits a beat, and then sits down on the stoop next to Emily so that their knees are touching. "So then, you're not okay."
Emily doesn't know what to say. She has spilled one of her secrets to Rossi already, and more are threatening to break free inside the warmth of JJ's comforting presence.
"Emmy," JJ whispers it so softly that Emily could pretend she hasn't heard. She takes Emily's hands in her own, pulling them to her chest. "I don't want to watch you keep doing this to yourself. I want to help you. I…After the explosion at the commune…"
"No one calls me Emmy."
JJ doesn't waver. "I do."
"I'm a liar, JJ. It's what I do. I lie and I destroy things and then I move on. I'm good at my job because…because I'm just like the sociopaths that we hunt. I-"
"Do you know the first moment I fell in love with you?" She states it boldly, over Emily's declaration, and the brunette can't help but stop talking. "You remember the little girl that went missing in the mall? Her aunt abducted her because the uncle was-"
"I remember. I'll see that woman for the rest of my life."
JJ nods, she brings Emily's hands up to her mouth to blow warmth on them. The action is affectionately absentminded. It is like JJ has been doing it forever.
And now that Emily comes to think of it, hasn't JJ been a constant source of comfort? A reassuring hand on her arm, an extra cup of coffee when she needed it.
"You walked towards me and Morgan, you knew that the aunt had done it. You told me you had to question her. That it was going to get dicey."
What Emily remembers about that night is the drive through the city that night in JJ's car. How the blonde had put her hand on Emily's knee and said "Almost, Emmy. Almost home, Babe."
"God, I wanted to hold onto you after that case. That was the first time I felt it. The first time I loved you."
"JJ," Emily owes it to her to try again. To make her see. She goes to say that she is a liar, to repeat herself, but what comes out instead is,"Я практически стала матерью."
JJ doesn't answer right away, she slides each of her fingers between Emily's, and the sensation makes the brunette shudder.
"Say it again," JJ murmurs. "More slowly."
"Я практически стала матерью," Emily says. She used to whisper it to herself at night, that first year she was away at college. Just that one sentence, a confession and a thrill, all at once.
"Again," JJ says, and Emily knows they could continue on this way, until sunrise.
She takes a deep breath. "I was almost a mother."
JJ brings Emily's hand to her lips. "I love you," she says simply.
Emily gives her head a little shake, trying to dispel the tears. "Ты самый важный человек в моей жизни*," The Russian feels good and foreign on her tongue. Like she could be someone else, if she needed to be. "Я не могу, тебе не понять.**"
JJ only shrugs and grips her hand tighter.
"I'll wait."
…
…
"Henry deserves to be treated with love, and care, and respect. He deserves to be treated like an individual with feeling and thoughts that are as valid as anyone's."
Maura turns, confused. "Henry?"
"And JJ. I…when I'm with her – with them – I try to," She moves her hands in a vague way, trying to find the right words. "I try to be…"
"Everything you were taught not to be," Dr. Isle fills in.
Emily drops her hands.
"Jane is the first friend I've had in a long time. With her, I don't feel like the geeky, awkward teenager my mother frog marched through countless museums. I had my first girl's night with her. I…" Maura hesitates. "I am someone better when I am with her. She is…"
Emily nods. "I know."
"You are not the only one who can overcome your history, Agent Prentiss."
"Call me Emily," she answers. "Please."
The sound of the door opening makes them both look around. Jane and JJ are standing there, both with twin looks of concern.
"You're still here," Jane looks wholly relieved, and Emily watches Maura's whole face change when she looks at the detective.
JJ gives Emily a meaningful look and then smiles warmly at Maura. "Please don't leave, Dr. Isles."
Maura smiles weakly. "I shouldn't interrupt your reunion any further."
"Stay," Emily says, and after another look from JJ, she repeats herself, trying for a softer tone. "Stay, Doctor, please."
Maura looks to Jane, who takes a half step forward. She glares at Emily, who hangs her head; a show of remorse that she hopes will spur Jane forward.
"Stay," Jane says. "Please, Maura."
Emily has to admit, Dr. Isles does have a simply radiant smile.
…
…
*"you mean everything to me"
** "I can't, you don't understand."
Hi guys. Here are two chapters just for you. It's a thank you for bearing with me while I was away. For those of you that don't know, my fanfiction account was hacked and I didn't have it for several weeks. I think I've managed to reach out to all of the people who got nasty messages from me, but if you received a horrible message from "me" in the last couple of weeks, just please know it wasn't from the real me. It was from a very nasty human who was looking to inflict as much pain on me as possible. She was pretty successful. But it's over now, so, on we go. If you have a burning need to know more, you can check out my tumblr (colormetheworld dot tumblr dot com). I hope you enjoyed these two pieces. I'm actually really enjoying writing this one. Hope you all are too. Shout out to Maticky, luckypenguinbuddy, sideadde, you guys were supportive and lovely through all of this. Welcome to Nannyalberte, hope you enjoy the ride. Softgodphase, thank you! I've reworked Chapter 5 so the names make more sense.
The CM episodes in Emily's flashbacks are Seven Seconds (3x5) and Demonology (4x17). Really great episodes. The whole series is on Netflix so….you know…you really should check that out if you can ;)
Happy reading
tc