AN: Hi, not too sure how I'm feeling about this chapter. Its a get JJ home, broach the Henry thing and do something to get the team involved again for a bit of a blow out which will be a big jump in recovery. So I'm hoping you are enjoying this.
I am finally getting towards the end of this. So not long till we get there I don't think.
Thank you Hetwaszoietsals and Jen for reviewing. They mean so much to me! Honestly your the best.
Jen- I don't mind how long it takes for you to read or review take you time. I know how sucy it can be coming off medical leave. I went on it a couple years ago and I have been back on medical leave myself for a year now. So good luck getting back into work!
Little JJ story. I've not uploaded it yet but I have one chapter done. I'm gonna get a few done before I put them up. I wish you all well. Thank you for reading and reviewing guys Keep on doing it because it lifts my spirits so much! You make lock down so much easier for me.
It almost a week later before JJ was getting discharged. Abi was glad she had taken multiple precautions, she had given antibiotics, which had kept JJ's white blood cell count at the perfect levels, she had given out extra nutrients and Abi was glad she had done that because her patients' blood levels had stayed in its boots. The young blonde had a few more epileptic fits in hospital, which had allowed Abi to learn more and more about JJ's seizures, but had set JJ back each time. Her muscles never having enough time to fully heal. But JJ was now up and walking. Albeit very slowly, and painfully but she was walking, which meant she was able to come home. It was 15 long days later, all the kids were at school when Emily had come to collect JJ and take her home.
Emily was so glad to be bringing JJ home. The two had spoken a lot about what Henry had said. What he knew and what he could have shared with his siblings. After an emotional conversation they had decided to keep Henry off school for the day that JJ was coming home, so he too was in the car with Emily as they made their way to pick up JJ. They were going to collect lunch and head home so they could have a real talk with their son.
Collecting JJ was pretty easy, a nurse had helped to get all her bags packed and her prescriptions were ready, they had even gotten JJ in a wheelchair ready to go. She was eager to leave and get back to a semi normal life. "Emily! Henry!" JJ exclaimed as she saw two of her favourite people walk in her room.
"Momma!" Henry ran forward to his mom. He was invited to sit on her lap so JJ could give her eldest a big hug.
"Hi baby. You enjoying your day off?" JJ wrapped her arms round the child and buried her head in his hair, she breathed in his scent and smiled. Her baby boy was growing up, she had missed so much the past few months being in and out of hospital. She had missed that her eldest knew information she didn't want him to know. A brief wave of anger passed over herself thinking it was her own fault. She pushed it away and continued to hug Henry.
The blonde boy nodded excitedly. "Yeah, it's better now your coming home. I missed you."
"Oh, I missed you too baby boy." JJ kept her arms tightly round her growing boy.
Emily looked round the room finding everything already done for her. "So can I just spring you from this joint or do we have to wait for discharge papers?" She asked as she gripped the handles of the chair.
"Abi said if we go to the front desk, we can sign the forms and leave." Emily pushed the wheelchair JJ and Henry were sat in, bags already on the handles on the back
She walked to the front desk and spotted JJ's doctor walking towards them, "Hi, Emily. Hi Henry." Abi smiled and waved to the child on his mothers lap. "You all ready to go home?"
"Yes, no offence but I don't want to this ward for a couple months. I feel like I'm here more than work." The brunette laughed. If she felt like that, she could imagine JJ felt like this ward was a second home. After all she was the one who constantly had over night stays.
The doctor laughed. "That's fine. As much as I don't want to see you here for a few months, I'll be seeing you next week for a check-up." From her more regular patients she heard those lines a lot. She wished regular patients weren't a thing but unfortunately it was. Abi turned to Emily. "Okay, so your wife, as you know is stubborn as hell. She has her seizure meds which we have upped the dose, new recue meds, she has a supplemental drink, twice a day until I weigh her again next week, Ibuprofen and Tylenol 500mg and Propranolol make sure she takes them all please. Oh, and before you leave, we organised for crutches to meet you at the front desk." Abi then looked down to JJ. "I have to ask again before you go. Are you sure you don't want a chair to get around home? Your arms get tired quickly still so you won't be able to go as far as you could in the chair."
"I'm sure, It's going to take so much longer to recover if I use a chair. I use the crutches and I have no choice but to work for it. I'll recover quicker I know I will."
"Okay Emily. Keep and eye on her, and make sure she doesn't push too hard and takes all her medication." Abi looked to the older agent. She knew she would look after JJ. She would make sure her wife did exactly as she needed to get better.
"Of course," Emily smiled as she grabbed the papers to get JJ officially discharged "She never misses a dose with me." The doctor waved and the group parted ways. Grateful to be going home but onto the next task.
The drive home had been pretty easy. Henry had been chatting away the whole time. Telling his Momma about all the things they had been doing at home and at school. The fact that Uncle Dave had let them have TV time and he let them throw spaghetti at the cupboard doors when he was teaching them how too cook. He let her know how the system in the cupboards and fridge was a mess because Mommy forgot how it went. Which Emily tried to sink in her seat when JJ glared at her. They stopped for dinner at a sandwich shop but got a takeaway so that the conversation that JJ and Emily were about to have with their son could possibly be easy if they had a small distraction.
As they sat up to the table both parents mentally tried to prepare themselves. If they could avoid this, they would but knowing the details of what their son had heard and finding out what he understood was important to them. They wanted to shield them from as much as they could for as long as they could the world was a horrible place and the parents wanted their children to hold onto that innocence and not have to worry about the dangers of the world.
"So, Henry," Emily started, this conversation needed to get going. "You remember how we said last week we would talk about what you overheard, are you okay talking about it today?" She pushed a put JJ's plate down in front of her and Henry's in front of him before she sat down.
"Yeah." He nodded as he grabbed his plate and picked up his sandwich. He was hungry.
"Okay good. Well I was wondering if you had any questions? Because if you have any questions about what you heard we will answer them today as best we can." One thing they knew they needed to do was answer his questions.
He said with a mouth already full of food, making both moms laugh. "Okay."
"Go ahead Henry." JJ prompted.
"Was it a bad man that hurt you and made you have fits?" Henry asked as innocently as a smart 10-year-old could.
"Yeah, he did. He hurt my head." JJ admitted.
His head tipped to the side as he was curious and had more questions to ask. "Is that why you argue and cry a lot? Because of your poorly head?" The blonde child looked to his Mommy then his Momma.
JJ and Emily paused for a minute. They tried not to argue around the kids. It usually happened when they were in bed. JJ picked apart at her sandwich and Emily answered. "Not quite. When your Momma and I were hurt it upset us. And you know how when you get upset with Luke or Lizzie and you argue, it's the same with me and your mom. We get upset and then we cry, and then sometimes we shout. But we love each other and you very much and don't mean to argue like we do." The brunette hoped he understood what she was trying to say.
"Who was the man that hurt you both?"
"I… I think that's another conversation for when your older." JJ said not wanting her son to have nightmares of the man who hurt both his parents. If you googled his name his death came up, the business he was in came up and much more. They didn't want their son at 10 finding out that information.
He pouted just how his mother's did when they weren't happy. "I am old enough I promise." He argued.
"Look kiddo," The older woman began." This guy did some bad stuff, and we don't want to upset you with it. When your older we will tell you more about it if you still want to. But for now, you just need to know that this guy yes, he did hurt us both. He did hurt your moms head, and she does have to stay in hospital more now, but the doctors are going to make your momma better. I wish you didn't hear what we were saying and what your uncles said. And I wish you would have told us. If you ever hear anything you are unsure about, your scared of or anything at all will you come to us?" Emily hoped with each answered question, Henry would understand. There was not point in lying about everything when Henry knew so much.
The young child put down the last of his sandwich and stared at it. "I guess, but you'll be mad." He hadn't exactly accidentally found out. He wanted to help when he knew his moms were missing but upon listening, he knew he didn't know anything so retreated back to his uncle's office where he looked after his siblings. He knew that was a good way of helping his moms.
"We'll never be mad. It was an accident; you didn't mean to hear what you heard. Did you hear anything else?" JJ spoke up. She wanted to stay quiet. Emily was handling it much better than she ever would.
"Yeah."
JJ pushed Henry slightly. "What else did you hear?"
Henry paused and looked at his moms before turning to his now empty plate. "I heard uncle Hotch say that you were rapped. What does that mean?" He knew it wasn't good because everyone cried when they heard that word.
JJ stood up from her chair grabbing her crutches leaving the room, she couldn't deal with that. Not right now. Emily sighed. She was glad Henry didn't know the real word. But its shows just how close he was and just how much he had heard. Or nearly heard. Henry watched his Momma leave and Emily too watched as her wife left the room to avoid the rest of the conversation. "What do you think it means Henry?"
"I don't know." He shrugged. "When people rap, they sing really fast. Momma can sing but she can't rap does it mean something else?" The blonde boy asked. It really did show he was still their innocent baby boy.
Emily wanted to laugh. It was almost funny. It was very true. JJ couldn't rap to save her life. She had tried it once with the kids, and they had just laughed. "The word you heard wasn't the word rap but it was similar. All It means that your Momma was hurt really bad and the doctors had to make her better. Which they did. Didn't they?"
"Yeah. Nearly." Henry shrugged. His Momma was almost better. Once her fits stopped, she would be better. That's what he thought.
"Do you have any more questions baby?"
"No." He shook his head and pushed his plate forward towards his Mommy who was collecting the plates.
As Emily collected the plates she stopped in front of Henry. "If you have any later you can ask me you know. Me or your Momma you can ask us."
"I know." His hair was ruffled by the brunette parent, so he moved his hair back in place. Tidying up the mess his mom had made on his head.
She put the plates in the sink and eyed up her son and the house. She had to check on JJ and keep her kid busy until she had managed to deal with whatever state she was about to find her wife in. "Do you wanna go watch some TV?"
"Yeah please." He jumped up from his seat enthusiastically. Henry was trying to decide what he could watch. Maybe scooby doo. Or even some of the power rangers. He loved those.
"Alright, you go in the living room and watch some TV, I'm gonna get your Momma and just have a chat with her."
"Okay." The blonde-haired kid ran off into the room with the big TV. He was getting a day off and extra TV time. It was the best day off. In the past he'd only been off when he had been ill, but he'd slept all day so for the 10-year-old boy this was more like a vacation day.
Emily met up with JJ who was slowly walking up the stairs. She took a mental note of how long it had taken JJ to make it from the kitchen to over halfway up the stairs. Clearly, she was exhausted, and she had ditched her crutches at the bottom. She put an arm round JJ's waist and the other pulled JJ's free arm over her shoulder. It helped her get up the stairs quicker. He muscles which still hadn't healed were giving her big trouble. "You know your walking like you shit yourself, right?" Emily tried to joke. Her wife was getting upset. She was herself but she didn't have time to cry right now.
JJ ignored the comment and focused on getting up to her room. She needed to cry, and this wasn't the place to do it. Once they reached the bedroom JJ flopped onto the bed and let out her tears. "He knows. He doesn't know but he knows."
"I know baby." Emily took hold of one of JJ's hand trying to provide some comfort and to soothe her distressed wife. "It was an accident that he found out. But he knows now and there's nothing we can do to take that away."
The blonde pulled her hand out of Emily's she was too annoyed right no. She had never meant for this to happen. "I know but he shouldn't know. He shouldn't know that word. He's 10. He's still a baby."
"He does now. What do you want to do about it? Do we tell him? Do you want to put him in counselling?" The older profiler tried to reason. Of course, she hated that Henry knew these details, and she wanted to cry. She wanted JJ to not feel the way she did. Anything that was going to keep her partner on the right path she would do. Anything that was going to help her son and hopefully not land him with a traumatic childhood she was going to do.
"I think he needs to be. If he heard that and he's only just telling us now god knows what else he's heard. He needs to talk to someone, a person that can help him process everything and knows what's acceptable for him to know and not to know. We have no idea Emily. We could have fucked him up for life." It was hard to admit that this could be there fault. Running through JJ's head was maybe having another kid wasn't a smart idea. They already fucked up one so why have more to mess up.
Emily protested. "No, we didn't do that. It wasn't our fault." They were doing the best they could do as parents. They did everything they could for their family and that's what made them as good a parent as they could be.
"We need to go to the office. I need to talk to them." JJ begun to stand up, but her wife pushed her back down.
"No, JJ, your stressed. Like extremely stressed," Emily could see the heat building up on JJ's face, as well as her tears and frustration. "Abi said that's one of your triggers as well as being exhausted. We can go tomorrow. You still need to have your supplement to keep your levels up. So, lets sort that out and we'll go when Henry's not here."
JJ again tried to get up. "No, we have to go now. They need to know what they did was wrong." The blonde stood in front of Emily swaying slightly. Her Jelly legs were useless, she couldn't drive safely. Emily had to take her.
"I'm not taking you," The brunette lead her partner to their bed again. Encouraging her to sit down. Where she would be safe and wouldn't be a fall risk. "And you can't drive. Your too sore to move yourself so yourself, so it'll take you hours to get there and I'll just carry you back." She wasn't going to allow her wife to go somewhere right now that could potentially cause more stress and seizures. They didn't want more nights in a hospital.
"Emily please. Please take me." The younger agent begged as she moved towards the head of the bed with her wife.
The brunette adjusted JJ's pillows as she sat back against the headboard, "No, I'm gonna grab your lunch meds and you can chill out, then tomorrow, we can go. Alice is back tomorrow lunch so we can stay as long as we need." JJ hadn't eaten her lunch at all, and Emily knew just how stubborn the blonde could be. So A supplement would do. Thinking about it, she wondered why everyone didn't have them as a meal replacement, especially in their line of work they were convenient.
"Her mom died; she's not going to want to look after kids all day." JJ huffed. As if Alice was going to want to look after 6 screaming kids, pick them up from school and prepare dinner. No one who lost a family member wanted to get up and do their job, just a short few weeks after the death.
"She does. I already spoke to her. She's bringing the rest of her stuff from her mom's. She wants to look after the kids. She already said she wants to get back to normal." Emily grabbed JJ's prescription bag and went downstairs to prepare everything. One thing she grabbed out of the kitchen cabinet was her old sleeping pills. She grabbed all JJ's pills and half of one of her own. She crushed them all mixing them in with her supplement drink. She made her way back upstairs and hopefully by the time JJ noticed she would be pretty much asleep, or even not notice at all. "Here you go babe." She was practically drugging her wife, but it needed to be done. She didn't want her to have another episode right now. It would set her back more.
JJ took the drink from her wifes hands. Still annoyed. She'd left her phone downstairs, but her legs were way to sore to keep moving. So, she just had to sit there. She drunk the drink which was supposed to provide her with all extra vitamins and minerals and help her gain some of the weight she had lost the past couple of weeks. "After I've had this, we are gonna go down. I need to do this today Emily. They should have watched what they were doing. They should have known our boy was listening. He always wants to help."
"Babe I know. Stop being so stubborn, we'll go tomorrow. You need to have a nap. I understand how angry you are. Trust me I'm just as angry, but this can wait. Come on. Come lie down." The couple lay down. JJ let her angry tears fall. She was well and truly fed up of this shit. They both were. Every time they got somewhere something came back to fuck things up for them. All this progress and nothing.
It only took a couple if minutes before JJ drifted off into a nap. Emily would tell JJ when she was up what she had done but for now she needed to sleep, and Emily had to make calls. She would fix her family. It was her fault it had been messed up and now she was going to make amends. Then tomorrow when Alice would back, she would talk to her team. Or rather she would let JJ go mad then she would try and be there for support. Deep down she knew it would have been hard to prevent her inquisitive child from listening in, but they could have taken better precautions so letting JJ go mad would get slight justice for the both of them.