Chapter 4
Hotch had all but forced the two to be checked out by the EMTs who had arrived. It took a small miracle to get him to skip the hospital visit when the EMTs told him that JJ most likely had a few cracked ribs and Ava a fractured jaw on top of the other bruises that marred their faces. Both unconscious unsubs had woken up by the time they were being transported to a vehicle. Matt, blood still pouring from his nose, shot daggers at the women as he was carted off. The other man shouted curses and threats at the women, particularly Ava.
"I'll kill you, you filthy whore!" he cried as he was manhandled into the car. "You wait and see! I'll find you!"
"Now where have I heard that before?" Ava rolled a wrist as she walked past the man without even a glance. The audacity and disinterest, especially from someone so new and young, came as a surprise to the rest of the BAU. As she approached them, tying her hair into a ponytail, their looks of bewilderment stopped her in her tracks.
"What?" she said suddenly. "Is there something on my face?" Morgan burst out laughing, glad to finally be free of the tension of the case.
"Yea, a giant ass bruise." He dropped his heavy arm around her shoulders. Ava chuckled up at him.
"Wanna match?" she shrugged the shoulder off playfully and approached JJ who was still sitting on the curb, ignoring the laughter from the rest of the team. The blonde made a move to stand but Ava waved her back down and sat beside her.
"How's your face?" the blonde said with a slight grin.
"Hurts. How's your chest?" Ava glanced down as the blonde removed an ice pack from her ribs.
"Alright," JJ shrugged slightly, "not exactly above average but my husband doesn't seem to mind." It took a second for the younger woman to catch JJ's lewd joke but when she did, Ava erupted into a fit of laughter that was easily contagious. As JJ laughed, she pressed a hand to her side in an attempt to lessen the pain.
"You're worse than I am." Ava concluded, helping lift the woman to her feet. JJ shook her head, the now skewed ponytail waving back and forth.
"I don't know about that." The blonde frowned playfully.
"Hey, you're the one who called me a slut." Ava shot back with a grin.
"You're lucky that's all you got for trying to cheat on me." JJ shrugged, wincing as her ribs protested. Ava chuckled once more only to be stopped by JJ's hand on her arm. The blonde turned the woman to face her and Ava could tell that she was no longer kidding. "You saved me back there."
"I'm sure you would've figured it out yourself. I'm just impatient." Ava joked but the seriousness of the blonde's tone was not lost on her.
"No, I don't think I would have." She admitted. "Thank you. Really."
"What are partners for?" Ava shrugged a shoulder, unaccustomed to being thanked. JJ could sense the woman's uneasiness but reached out and wrapped her arms around her nonetheless. When she finally let go, the playfulness had returned to her eyes and she said,
"Apparently for grinding on in clubs." The two laughed once more as they joined the rest of their team.
"So, drinks when we get back to D.C?" Morgan proposed as the women approached. The looks on their faces seemed unwilling so he added, "Come on, it's newbie's first collar. It's tradition!"
"Since when?" Reid questioned, his look genuinely concerned that he had missed something. Morgan simply slapped him on the back.
"Since now. What do you say?"
"I never did get to finish my drink in there." JJ pouted, nudging Ava with her good side. The brunette shrugged.
"I rarely turn that offer down." Morgan hollered joyfully as he roped in Rossi and Hotch.
"Alright!" he grinned. "Newbie's buying!" Ava rolled her eyes at the new name, both hoping that it wouldn't stick and overjoyed to have been accepted into their family. If all it took to gain their trust was to be beaten by a man twice her size, Ava would've showed up to her first day black and blue.
That night, after a hearty few rounds of drinks had been dispersed, Ava arrived back at her apartment quite late. It was almost four in the morning and she figured that Kate would be asleep seeing as the woman was up at six every morning at the latest. Therefore, it came a slight surprise to her when she got out of the car and saw almost every light in the apartment on. She frowned as she turned the key, poking her head in and calling out Kate's name. The blonde came flying down the hall and immediately rounded on her unsuspecting fiancée.
"Where the hell have you been?!" As Ava closed the door behind her and turned around, Kate gasped at the sight of her bruised face. "Oh my god!"
"Kate, I'm fine." She insisted. "It's just a couple of bruises." Ava dropped her bags and went to embrace the woman only to be swatted away.
"'Just a couple of bruises'?!" Kate cried. "I've been waiting for you for hours since you told me you were leaving. Last time I checked, the flight from Dallas to D.C takes four hours, not nine!"
"Kate, I told you I was getting drinks with the team after we landed." Ava sighed. "I even told you not to wait up because I knew I'd be late."
"And when did you happen to tell me this piece of information?" Kate tilted her head. "In between you getting your ass handed to you by god knows what kind of criminal and getting drunk with your new best friends?"
"Getting my…I'll have you know that I took down not just one, but two murderers who were killing people just like us." Ava tossed up her annoyance to exhaustion, alcohol, and the pain radiating from her face, but refused to relent as she pulled out her cell phone. Scrolling through her texts, she selected Kate's name and passed the blonde the phone. When Kate saw that she had, in fact, sent her a message as soon as they'd landed informing her that she wouldn't be coming straight home, the blonde blushed furiously and lowered her head.
"Wh-what do you mean 'people like us'?" Ava knew better than to expect an apology from the woman. Kate wasn't accustomed to being proven wrong.
"Gays, homosexuals, whores, sinners," Ava rattled off a few of the terminology as she entered the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water, "take your pick."
"Sinners?" Kate lifted an eyebrow as she placed a careful hand on her fiancée's waist. Ava took a large gulp before responding, her back still facing the woman.
"That's what they called us." Ava shrugged. "Don't worry about it, they're both going to prison for quite a long time."
"I'm not worried." Kate informed her. "Are you?" Ava's anger flared once again as she turned to face the blonde.
"What is that supposed to mean?" the agent anticipated what came next as Kate cautiously treaded forward.
"I mean, you don't have to be a 'sinner'." She averted her gaze. "You could be with someone else."
"And by 'someone else' you mean a man." Ava knew the conversation almost by heart.
"Well, yea. It's an option for you. At least then you wouldn't be seen as a whore." Kate regretted her sentence the moment it left her lips as Ava's emerald eyes flashed angrily. Ava slapped the hand on her hip away and narrowed her gaze at the woman.
"An 'option'?" she spat. "Is that how you think it works? You think that I can just turn off what I feel for you- for anyone- just because I'm bi?" She waited for Kate's response but it never came. "Do you think that I give a shit about what a murderer has to say about who I sleep with? I honestly didn't peg you for such an ignorant person, Kate."
"Ignorant?" Kate's own eyes sparked with indignation. "Ignorance has nothing to do with it. I just-"
"That has everything to do with it!" Ava shouted, slamming the glass onto the counter. "You know what, I'm not doing this." Ava ran a hand through her hair and took a deep breath. "I'm going to take a shower and then I'm going to bed. Whether you're there or not, I don't really care right now." Ava ignored the sudden appearance of tears in her fiancée's eyes as she brushed past her and locked herself in the bathroom. Even as she ran the water, she could hear Kate sniffling and packing the things she would need for the night. While the two were engaged to be married, the apartment was still in Ava's name and she could, technically, do whatever she wanted with it. Anytime they argued badly enough for one of them to want to spend the night alone, it was always Kate that ended up leaving. While, most nights, Ava felt bad that she would have to ask a friend to stay overnight, tonight was different. She was tired, she was in pain, and she had just spent the entire day trying to catch a criminal who attacked a community she was a part of but not truly accepted in. As she lay down and took in the empty space beside her, Ava felt a few tears of frustration stinging at her eyes. Swiping them away angrily, she turned her back to Kate's side of the bed and fell into an uneasy and fitful sleep.
