Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed. I was nervous that Jemily might have been abandoned, but it's a relief to see you guys are still out there. Keep the reviews coming - they help to keep me motivated! (the story is written almost entirely, but I proofread before I post them and apparently like to do this at 1am, haha)
Chapter One: Intervention
Four Months Later:
March 23rd 2015, 7:13am:
As she strolled across the parking lot and the click of her heels was abruptly penetrated by the distant but familiar sound of an engine, JJ found herself trapped between time and space.
The ground, though it arguably hadn't quite returned to solidity, shook beneath her, her feet almost slipping from the tightrope that she'd been stealthily walking along for the past eighteen weeks.
It seemed so far away now, their first quasi-meeting, and her life had been such a whirlwind since then that she had almost forgotten their existence – along with the effect they'd had on her. But much like a scent plummeting a person into the past, she remembered it now like she'd experienced it then… exactly like she'd experienced it then.
Curling her fingers tight around her purse, she continued on determined towards the elevators. She didn't trust herself to look back, because she really was walking along a tightrope – a necessary one.
Apparently, when you hit rock bottom, stock phrases that she herself had used in the past – the only way is up! – are 100% useless. It wasn't that simple. It was as trying as having the decision made for her that she was moving in with a friend, because that friend was so ungodly concerned that she was going to wind up in a hospital again. It was as infuriating as spending months out of the field, because her boss was convinced that she was incapable of taking orders. It was as exhausting as rebuilding herself from scratch, when she barely had a memory of the foundations to draw from.
She'd made promises, so many promises - mostly to herself, and most involved denying herself at every turn. She remembered vividly the last time she'd consumed alcohol; the last time she'd had sex; the last time she'd taken a pill. She remembered every second of every day of the past 128 because that was the only way to ensure that she remained on the straight and narrow. There was no room in her rigid agenda for anything that may throw her off course.
But as she awaited the elevator's arrival and that all too familiar rumble of an engine drew closer, and her heart thumped in accordance with each decibel the sound grew, she found herself making room.
She didn't turn fully, but she did turn her head just enough that, over her shoulder, her peripherals were able to make out her stranger in more than just a blur. Unlike last time, she caught only a few moments' glimpse – long enough to appreciate the way the figure's body, somehow with perfect grace, jerked slightly forward and then back as the motorcycle came to a halt in a parking stall fifty feet from her.
She swallowed thickly as the rider dismounted with polished finesse, her lips parting in anticipation as they reached for their helmet… And mentally scolded herself as a startling ping and the sound of aged, heavy metal doors sliding open rudely snapped her back to the present, reminding her in the most irrefutable way that she was dangerously toeing the line between sanity and downright perverted. Now was not the time to be fantasizing over strangers in parking lots.
And yet…
She shook her head and climbed aboard the waiting elevator. Now was not the time.
Wandering through the glass doors of the bullpen a minute or so later, she was immediately met by a chipper Garcia and a mug of freshly-brewed coffee – a greeting she'd become somewhat accustomed to over the past several months.
"God, I love you." She groaned, taking the steaming mug.
"Oh, if only you'd give us a chance." Garcia swooned playfully as the pair walked towards JJ's desk. "How's the new home treating ya, honeybun?"
It had been mere days since JJ had left the safety of Garcia's apartment, and there were parts of her that struggled to call her new place 'home'. It wasn't home.
Four months ago, after Garcia had found her on that bathroom floor and ultimately made the executive decision that she was moving in with her, she'd dreaded the prospect of being babied. Now, in an apartment that echoed with silence, and cream walls that painted it more as a padded cell than a home, and nosy neighbors that couldn't comprehend why a person would go from owning a house to renting an apartment… she found herself missing the decisions being made for her.
"It'll do for now." She quirked her lip in distaste as she rid herself of her jacket and purse, and slumped into her chair. Taking a long, savoring drink of her beverage, she peered up to Garcia and smirked. "Nothing compared to casa de Garcia, though."
"Casa de Garcia es su casa." Garcia winked and squeezed JJ's shoulder.
"Badly pronounced Spanish and burnt-smelling coffee…" Emily announced from across the bullpen. She dumped her bag by her desk, then headed towards JJ's that, in recent months, had become their morning gathering spot. "Must be a Monday morning at the BAU."
"And yet…" JJ said with a fond, knowing smile, leaning back in her chair to hand an approaching Emily her cup – which Emily took without hesitation and sipped with the same appreciation JJ had, thoroughly proving the blonde's unspoken point.
"Appreciating what you have doesn't mean you don't long for something better, Jay." Emily retorted as she finally, and somewhat reluctantly, returned JJ's mug to her. "Sometimes when all you have is bad coffee, you're grateful for bad coffee."
"I won't drink to that." JJ grumbled lightheartedly, promptly placing her mug to her desk for dramatic effect.
"Or…" Garcia whispered to Emily, loud enough for JJ to hear. "Sometimes when all you have is a vibrator, you're grateful for the vibrator." Receiving a justifiably uncomfortable expression from JJ, Garcia rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, Jayje. Don't pretend we're still talking about coffee."
"I wouldn't dream of it." JJ smiled, though mostly gritted her teeth. "I simply meant to imply that you're being a little too optimistic. I don't even have the vibrator to show gratitude towards."
JJ had learnt long ago that it was better to go along with Garcia's digressions than it was to derail them. Derailing them only feeds the monster and encourages the behavior. Playing along, however, takes the sting out of the analyst's fun and ultimately ends the topic…
Apparently not this time.
Garcia's jaw dropped sharply, but for a few seconds – shockingly – nothing but silence fell from her open mouth. Eventually taking liberties with an unoccupied chair from the adjoining desk, she pulled it up to JJ's, lowering her voice as she lowered herself to the seat. "I realize you had a lot of rather persuasive reasons to give sex a break, but you stopped doing… that, too? It's been four months. How the hell are you coping?"
Finding herself trapped in an unexpected intervention, JJ cast her eyes in a pleading gesture to Emily, who opened her mouth, producing a slight burst of air, and shrugged noncommittally.
Scowling at the older woman, she looked back to Garcia. "Sex rots the brain, and I think it's fair to say that I've been thinking a lot clearer in the past few months. Denying yourself orgasm improves focus – why do you think football players abstain prior to big competitions?"
"Football players don't deal with what we do." Garcia replied evenly, to which JJ had no argument.
Garcia was right, of course, but using sex as a method of escape hadn't worked out so well for her the last time. Sex, these days, was in a special category, along with alcohol, unlabeled narcotics, and jumping off of cliffs when you don't know where the bottom lies. Because each one of those things, at some point in her spiraling, had been a utilized means of destruction.
There were still pieces of her memory that hadn't been returned to her except in flashes, and she somewhat dreaded the day when she was able to put those pieces together to create a full picture. And if she was honest, part of the reason she'd banished so much from her life altogether was so that she didn't provoke those memories. What if she began following those crumbs into the past and couldn't find her way back again?
She looked around her, and then back to her friend. "Is this really the time or place?"
"You brought it up." Garcia justified, earning herself a scoff from Emily.
"Actually, PG, I'd say you brought it up."
"What?" Garcia held out her palms, bypassing Emily's correct observation. "I'm simply concerned about my friend."
"Your friend is a grown woman." Emily rested her hand against JJ's shoulder. "I'm sure she's just fine."
"Is she right?" Garcia snapped her narrowed eyes from Emily to JJ. "Are you just fine?"
When JJ opened her mouth to respond, a sudden memory of her encounter that morning flashed in her mind, and ultimately wound up answering the question for her.
"That depends." She scrunched up her nose. "Does drooling over some random leather-clad, motorcycle-riding stranger in the parking lot justify use of the word fine?"
A shrill bark of glee erupted instantly from Garcia's lips, while Emily slipped her hand from JJ's shoulder and took a step back.
Smiling down at the blonde, Emily conceded defeat to Garcia's meddling- "I think the intervention may actually be necessary, JJ." –and then excused herself.
While Emily walked away, JJ leaned her head slightly to the side, as if searching for the comfort of the hand that had, just seconds ago, been upon her shoulder. Something in Garcia's eyes told her that the analyst had dubbed her a mission, and they all knew very clearly that when Garcia had a mission, she didn't rest until it was accomplished.
March 23rd 2015, 9:01am:
When JJ took a seat in Hotch's empty office sometime around 9am, she knew what she had been summoned for.
She'd been attending these meetings once a week for the past fifteen, but they never ceased to make her feel ungodly uncomfortable. She imagined that was because his face never changed. It didn't matter what she said or did to prove to him that she was back on the right path. She'd receive the same reaction from I downed a bottle of scotch last night, as she would for telling him: I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I'm not hoping for it to be a train.
It also didn't help that he always called the meeting without notice, and typically showed up whenever he felt like it too, leaving her to sit there and stew until he'd deemed her torment up.
She chewed at her lip and looked around the room. She crossed and uncrossed her legs for the seventh time. When she reached out to realign the nameplate on his desk, his door swung open and she stood instantly. "Sir."
"I have fifteen minutes before I have a meeting with Strauss." He responded curtly, striding right by her to his desk, where he took a seat and opened a file in front of him. No eye contact. "Let's make this quick."
She would have suggested they reschedule, but she'd done that once before and received herself a remark that she hadn't expected from someone as stoic as him: I would do that, JJ. But I can't take the risk that in the meantime, you'll ingest so many pills that you'll wind up in the emergency room again. It was the one thing throughout all of these meetings that had reminded her that he was her friend as much as her boss… and she'd scared him. Just like she'd scared all of them.
"Right." She nodded, slinking to her chair. "November 16th 2014."
Hotch scribbled onto the open file in front of him. "And medication, of any variety?"
"Last week, Tuesday. Uh," She shook her head. "March 17th 2015. 220mg of Naproxin for a headache."
Hotch scribbled again, before asking his next question in such a way that it almost seemed like he was asking what she'd like from the grocery store, telling JJ that it was her boss asking, not her friend. "And have you had any recent suicidal thoughts?"
"None." JJ responded, just as evenly as he'd asked, and inwardly cringed the same way she did every time she answered that question.
It had all made so much sense at the time – it had seemed like the most logical solution to her barrage of problems. The only solution. These days, with a little more light in her life and a little more organization in her mind, she struggled to understand how it had ever gotten to that point.
Finally, Hotch asked, "Any big changes in your life that I should be aware of?"
There was something a little more friend-like in his tone now, though not enough to jar JJ from her straight-shot answers. "New apartment; moved in this past Friday. I've already altered my address with HR."
That wasn't why he was asking, of course – he simply needed to know if there were any stressful adjustments that may affect her recovery – but it was easier for her to answer like it was.
There'd been so many occasions in which she'd been his equal – specifically with Emily's secret relocation – that having this conversation with him week-in, week-out really only served as a reminder of how much progress she'd erased rather than made.
She'd fought like hell to get where she was within the FBI, and in a few chaotic months, she'd severed the ropes she'd climbed. She was essentially back at the bottom, having to prove herself simply to be allowed out in the field. But that's what happens when you prove yourself unsafe, unreliable, and untrustworthy – all of which, though similar-seeming words, she'd been forced to learn were very different things.
Which was why, when Hotch closed their meeting with-
"You'll begin field work again on the next case. You're dismissed."
-she found herself at an utter loss for words.
How could he possibly have made that decision when he always asked the same questions and received the same answers? If their meetings were predictably similar every single week, at what point did he decide that?
She left that room with a semi-uncertain and definitely stuttered thank you on her lips… and an instant glare in her eyes when she turned the corner towards the stairs and bumped directly into Penelope Garcia. She'd hoped to avoid her for at least the remainder of the morning.
"How did it go?" The analyst asked quietly as they, without it needing to be said, headed towards her lair.
"I've been granted clearance to return to field work." JJ replied incredulously, a small but astonished smile finally pulling at her lips.
"Which is amazing news." Garcia beamed. "All we need now is to-"
"Oh my god." JJ grumbled, pushing her face into her open palm. "Is there anything that'll make this stop?"
Garcia stopped sharply, the expression on her face one that clearly showed she felt the answer was obvious. "I think you know the answer to that question."
With that response, JJ stopped too, and cocked her head to the side in blatant disapproval, before stepping ahead of Garcia and pushing open the door to the analyst's office. Inside, she grabbed a chair – knowing better than to commandeer Garcia's – and pulled her legs up beneath her as she sat.
"Let's say I take your advice…" She began. "What does that achieve?"
"Aside from the obvious?" Garcia smirked dirtily, dropping into her own chair. "Another piece of you is what you achieve."
"There are so many implications in that sentence that I don't know which one to put to you first." JJ quirked her eyebrow. "Instead, I'm going to allow you the opportunity to explain to me exactly why what you really meant isn't the insult it sounds like it could be."
"By insult I assume you mean that I'm implying you're a nympho?" Garcia asked with a wink, relishing the blush that dusted the blonde's cheeks. There's the sweet and innocent JJ she'd grown to love - it had been a long time since the younger woman had had the good grace to blush. "But no, my dear, that is not what I mean. What I mean is that… sex is a great way to find yourself."
JJ groaned inwardly. She was more than aware that sex helped you find yourself. It was only logical, since it was so goddamn good at helping you lose yourself.
"There are some pieces that are better left unfound, Pen." She replied evenly, picking up one of her friend's notoriously colorful pens and spinning it between her fingers as she awaited a response.
It was a habit she'd picked up somewhere over the past few months, when these little chats had become an almost daily occurrence. Thankfully, Garcia's lair was full of delightful treasures to keep her hands occupied while the analyst interrogated her.
"Honey, you haven't set foot in a bar with us in months; you drink one cup of coffee a day; you hesitate when taking pain pills; and you've apparently thrown sex out with the bathwater too." Garcia's tone was determined, but her expression was simply concerned. "Total deprivation is as bad as over-indulgence. You can't stay in limbo forever – that's not who you are."
JJ's eyes saddened. Why couldn't she? She was doing well – she had her friends back, her sanity back, her job back. Why should she change her methods now? What's so bad about limbo?
"Have you seen your stranger since this morning?" Garcia asked out of nowhere, causing JJ to tense visibly. "See." The analyst grinned. "If you're fantasizing over strangers in parking lots, I think you're about ready to be taking your first step back into that beautiful world of orgasms and-"
"Okay, Pen." JJ waved her hand to silence her friend, but her friend didn't silence, only softened her voice.
"Taking that particular first step alone, is probably better than taking it with someone else. And if nothing else, it'll stop you drooling over strangers." When JJ looked up curiously at that final remark, Garcia continued and hit the nail on the head. "The world isn't going to fall apart as soon as you begin to be human again."
How do you know that? JJ thought, genuinely wanting an answer, but too afraid to ask the question. Because there was no way Garcia could possibly know that – especially when her history proved otherwise.
March 23rd 2015, 12:23pm:
The rest of the morning passed slowly, and Garcia was very much the catalyst behind JJ's decision to take lunch out of the office when noon rolled around. The woman was her most unbearable when she happened upon some of her infamous good intentions, and the eight thousand square foot BAU offices had very quickly began to feel more like eight hundred – promptly encouraging her to grab a smoothie and a sandwich from the cafeteria and take up refuge in her car.
Emerging from the elevator and onto the third level of the parking structure, it quickly – too quickly – occurred to her that the super-sleek and strangely alluring contraption of metal and wheels that had held her captive on more than one occasion, was nowhere to be seen. Of course, neither was its rider, which she was apparently more concerned about.
The disappointment it evoked in her was ridiculous, and far too premature, and ridiculous. It could be anyone behind that mask – anyone, including her superiors. She shuddered at the thought.
Dropping her sandwich to the passenger seat and slipping her drink into the cup holder mounted into the center console, she pulled her phone from her pocket and rolled her eyes at the not-so unexpected text message from Garcia.
She didn't need to open it. She probably could have, in fact, written the message for her. And that's because she'd had the same nuggets of wisdom recited to her seven times, in three different variations, since that meeting in the analyst's lair.
She'd left soon after she'd found herself uncertain of her own words. Not that that had helped her any, because the deities had made it a rare slow day, which really only encouraged certain relentless analysts to wander out of their caves and meddle with the world.
But now, with the remnants of seemingly genuine disappointment still floating in her gut, she had to admit that perhaps Garcia was onto something… As delusional as it was to be drooling over someone whose face and name she didn't know, wasn't it encouraging that she was drooling at all? Didn't that suggest progress? Or did it just suggest that she wasn't quite as out of the crazy-woods as she'd thought?
She dropped her eyes to the dormant screen of her phone, tapped her thumb against it as she pondered the dangers and benefits of lifting at least one of her self-imposed bans… and then slipped into instant - and somewhat comical - stealth-mode when the familiar sound of an approaching engine pierced through her deliberation.
From her furtively slouched position, she watched intently as her stranger alighted their bike, and then allowed her gaze to discreetly follow them across the parking lot.
There was so much confidence in their every step, and yet it was more graceful than arrogant – perhaps a confidence learnt and perfected, rather than a confidence genuine. One of their leather-clad hands held a brown paper Panera bag, while the other bounced a set of keys exactly three times before slipping them into the front pocket of a heavy jacket - a ritual-esque gesture that left JJ fascinated.
Like any other time, she couldn't see their face, or even really see them… but she didn't need to. She didn't mind. Devoid of those two parts, she was permitted to see and appreciate a whole lot more: the way they carried them self, gestures that were quintessentially them, the fresh, clean look of their leathers that told her this person was someone who placed appearance high on their priority list. It was like reading a book without having had the often hindering opportunity to judge it by its cover.
Until they were out of sight, she studied them closely. And once the metal doors of the elevator closed behind them and sane thought resumed, the absurdity of what she'd just done was enough to return her instantly to her phone, where she typed the name of a well-known adult toy store into Google. She was bordering on frickin' stalker, and maybe if she just tested Garcia's theory, she'd find that mysterious biker and all their inexplicable – and inconvenient - appeal banished from memory.
In that effort to prove to herself she wasn't crazy, she tossed several items into her cyber cart and soon found herself idling over the checkout page. Sure, this was less embarrassing than walking into an actual store, but did she really want that showing up on her credit card statement?
She had to laugh at herself. Four months ago, she was prowling local bars for suitable strangers to fuck away her memories, and doing so with a confidence bordering on arrogance in her step and an intent beyond reckless in her mind. Now she was afraid of placing a little online order for a vibrator?
With that logic, she quickly moved to hit 'proceed to checkout', but when her phone chose that very second to spring to life with a call, she physically jumped.
"Jennifer-JJ. Jareau." She pressed her palm into her forehead and closed her eyes. Well that could have come out a lot smoother.
"Hm." Rossi murmured, clearly amused – he recognized a guilty conscience when he heard one. "And what, my dear, has you so flustered?"
"Nothing." JJ replied dismissively, hoping her next question would swiftly divert the conversation into less embarrassing territory. "Case?"
"'fraid so." Rossi responded solemnly, allowing JJ her escape. "A bad one."
A bad one, JJ thought, were they ever good? "I'll be right up."
She made that journey to the twelfth floor of the BAU offices on extra high alert – it was time to prove to Hotch that she was ready for normalcy again. Perhaps even prove that to herself. But as she took a small detour to the break room and placed her untouched sandwich in the fridge and dumped her mostly-empty cup into the trash, she was helpless to the way that that determined brain of hers, for just a split second, malfunctioned.
"Jayje…" Morgan frowned as he passed by the break room to find JJ staring catatonically into the trash can. "You comin'?"
JJ looked up quickly, but her eyes didn't meet Morgan. Instead, they looked to the bullpen beyond him, searching… before she finally remembered where she was and why she was there.
"I am." She smiled, hoping he hadn't noticed her falter, and followed behind him towards the conference room - leaving her intense curiosity and the tossed-out Panera bag that had provoked it in her wake.
Apparently her stranger worked on this floor. But so did she, and she had a job to do.
