"A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes."
Mahatma Gandhi
He was watching TV, but found himself uninterested. Show after show was the same thing: a set of terrible actors trying to simulate a "real life" activity, but had instead created a miserable excuse for the real life thing. He was especially frustrated with the crime shows. They made it seem like the bad guy gets caught every single time and the good guy always wins, but he knew that wasn't true and the sooner that TV networks figured out that the public deserved to know that, the better.
Utterly bored and even a little bit irritated, he opened his door and scanned his sidewalk for his newspaper only to find that the folded grey papers were lying in the middle of his yard, out of the plastic bag, scattered a few feet apart and damp from the dew. He shuffled over to it in his slippers, feeling the wet dew seeping on to his feet. He bent down and picked it up each page while bitterly muttering something about a lazy paper boy.
As he walked back into his house, he scanned the headlines of the newspaper. The first couple were about the Middle East and their government, while a couple of others were various new health concerns. He flipped through it, but didn't really take in any of the information. It was the same thing that had been in the news last week, but from a different perspective with a different opinion. He flipped to the next page and read about sports. USC had beaten UNC. He smiled a little bit, remembering the family that had been fans of USC. Too bad they hadn't been able to see their favorite team actually have a victory. But at least they had gotten a much better reward: final understanding. He faintly remembered the looks in each of their eyes before he did it.
The fear.
The ignorance.
The pleading.
The pain.
The sadness.
The acceptance.
The understanding.
They understood what evil was. They understood because evil itself was standing directly in front of them. And he was proud to say that was him, representing evil. It was quite an honor for a person, especially for him.
He slowly scanned more of the headlines on the next page, but none were interesting. He noticed that the Gerry family had been reported missing by a neighbor that lived on their street. A smile reached his lips, they'd be found in a few days. That family had been the first time he had kidnapped an entire family and made them understand in a location of his choice. He found that he liked that way better, it had more privacy and gave him more time to do his work with care and detail. Plus they were almost amusingly easy to control, just put a gun to a child's head and the parents would do whatever he said. It was almost too easy. And when he finished with them he started writing his latest letter.
Oh how he enjoyed writing those letters. It was almost like his way of writing a PSA to the world and it made him feel important, it made him feel heard for once in his life. He'd been sending them to newspapers too and eventually, they would put it in the paper. Once they saw that he wasn't fake or a joke, once they saw he was serious their fear would kick in and they would do whatever he said, just like those parents and just like the rest of the country would someday…or at least he wanted them to. Doing this, being this advocate for evil…it felt like he finally had a calling in his life. It finally gave his life meaning and that was all he really wanted.
He flipped to the fourth page: all of the local stories. This was where he was going to find his new victims. There was an article about a family whose house had burned down, but he knew that they were already suffering and understood the darkness that he was trying to teach. There was also a family searching for their missing son, but he needed a complete family. There were other family-related articles after that one too, but none of them were right. Some got close, but they were either already suffering, they were too far away or they weren't complete so he was forced to cross them off.
Because they had to be perfect.
It was starting to frustrate him. It seemed like none of these families would be perfect enough for his purpose.
That was until he came across another article. This one interested him. It was about a family that had been through a huge tragedy where the father had been shot and the mother had been forced to save their child from a criminal who had held the boy hostage at their house. Luckily, they had all made it out safe. And this article was a follow-up of a year later for the mother and father. They were happily married in Virginia and had just celebrated the 7th birthday of their son.
Perfect.
They would be his new victims and this time, he knew that it was going to be a challenge.
But, as much of a challenge that it would be, it was one that he was willing to accept.
JJ blinked slowly in disbelief. It had all happened so quickly, too quickly.
That would be a day that she replayed over and over in her mind, trying to forget the horrors that had happened, but the daunting thing about that was that the part that she would want to look back on the most was the part that she remembered the least.
JJ clearly recalled walking up the stairs of the house that she and the team had been going through that day. They had gotten an anonymous tip from a witness that had spotted the car of the unsub that they were looking for parked at a house in their neighborhood. The team had rushed to the location and when they arrived, the unsub's car was still parked in the garage so they had to assume that he was still in there somewhere. Quickly and efficiently, they split into pairs and then went about searching the house.
As JJ walked up the stairs one by one, she had her gun drawn in front of her with her finger resting calmly on the trigger. One of the steps creaked below her left foot so she made a mental note to step lighter. When she reached the top, she turned left towards an open doorway and Emily, who had been behind her, turned right towards a different room.
"Clear." She heard Emily say as she walked into the spare bedroom that had been to the right, "Oh JJ get in here, you gotta see this."
JJ was half-listening. She used her left hand to push the door of the master bedroom open. Quickly, she checked behind the door and in the bathroom. There was no one there and just as she was ready to yell clear to her team mates, something caught her eye, the closet door was slightly ajar. Deciding not to startle the person, if there was one, she slowly walked past the bed and tightened her grip on the gun.
"Emily, what did you find?" JJ heard Morgan call as he stomped up the stairs. She bit her lip as she saw the closet door stir.
It seemed like everything was happening all at once.
She aimed her gun at the door, but it didn't move a second time. She wondered if maybe it had just been the vibration of Morgan's footsteps moving the door, but her gut told her there was someone in there.
Distantly, she heard Morgan and Emily talking in the other room. As they were talking, she walked even closer to the ominous cracked door, but before she could pull the door open she heard footsteps making their way towards the room that JJ was in. She cursed silently. They were going to scare whoever was in the closet into doing something crazy. That was what the profile had said: suicide by cop.
The footsteps belonged to Emily. She walked already halfway through the sentence, "…we found something in the other room, you might want to take a look…." She trailed off seeing the serious expression on JJ's face. She started to pull her own gun out of it's holster too when Morgan stomped into the room, cluelessly.
"Hey what's going on in here-"
As JJ's eyes shifted towards Morgan, she saw the closet doors fly open out of her peripheral vision. Out came a tall fit guy with light blonde hair, wearing a bright white collared shirt. She would remember thinking that he was dressed strangely normal for a serial killer. In his hand, he held a small handgun. Seeing that JJ was the closest to him, he pulled the trigger at close range and then turned and shot a few more bullets at Morgan and Emily before one of them managed to take him down.
JJ would never find out which one of them actually stopped him because when the bullet hit her from that close of a distance, the force caused her to fall to the ground with her back to all of the action. She lifted a pale, shaking hand and put it over the wound that was on her lower left abdominal, just below her stomach and to the left. It was the spot just underneath the end of the bulletproof vest. When she looked down at it, she could see that the blood was already dampening her shirt.
Her hands shook even more as she felt her own warm blood underneath her hands and looked down to see the dark red liquid seeping between her fingers. She suddenly needed to throw up, either because of the pain or because of all the blood…or both.
She let out a couple of painful dry heaves before realizing that doing that made her wound hurt even more so she just closed her eyes, kept pressure on the wound and breathed through her mouth so that she wouldn't be able to smell the copper-like blood smell that would most likely make her dry heave again. A couple of inches higher and all it would have caused was a small bullet-shaped bruise on her stomach underneath her vest.
A few seconds after the unsub had been tackled, JJ faintly heard someone calling her name, but it was fading out, getting quieter and quieter.
"JJ? JJ! Can you hear me? We need a medic! Morgan call the paramedics and get Hotch up here! Oh and get me…get me some blankets, a lot of blankets…actually you know what just grab the sheets off the bed…" It had been Emily's voice, but after that, JJ couldn't make it out anymore.
The only thing she felt was warmness, but it wasn't pleasant. It was almost like she underwater because she felt like the space around her was pushing down on her.
She didn't feel anything. No warmth or cold, no happiness or sorrow. It was like the world had just stilled and left her in the dark. It was black and still…that was all she could remember.
When she did wake up in the hospital, she found out that several days had passed and she had been unconscious for all of them, or at least sedated as they would put it. Glancing around, she noticed a card on her bedside table. It was titled: Get Well Mommy and was written in second grade handwriting. It brought a smile to her face.
The doctor standing by her bed said something, but she completely missed it. It sounded like she was still underwater. She blinked a few times, hoping maybe that would help.
It didn't.
She also didn't feel any pain, only this strangely pleasant feeling. She assumed it was the pain killers that they had her on keeping her from feeling the pain that she knew was supposed to be there. They were also probably the reason for her state of confusion.
The doctor spoke again and this time, JJ strained to hear. Faintly she was able to understand what he was saying to her, "How are you feeling?" He had a smile plastered on his face, amused with how the painkillers were affecting her.
"I feel…" Her voice sounded strange to her own ears. It sounded distant, but she tried to ignore it. "I feel…weird." She blinked a few more times.
"You should." He chuckled and looked down at his chart, "We've put on you on some pain killers that will have you feeling like that for the next few hours, but eventually they will wear off."
JJ looked down at her body. Even that looked weird to her, it looked distorted. She wasn't sure how, but it definitely didn't look the same as it used to. Slowly, she lifted her hand and was half-surprised to see the hand lying on the bed lift upwards. It looked far away for some reason. She stared at her own hand intently, still confused.
The doctor watched her, but then interjected, "Oh I almost forgot. I am Dr. Phillips, I'll be your doctor for the next day or two before you're released." He smiled again.
JJ lifted her eyes to look up at him. She nodded slowly.
"Well, while you're awake, let me fill you in. You came in on Thursday with a gunshot wound to the abdomen. It caused a little bit of internal bleeding and just brushed your pelvic bone. It took one surgery to fix your injuries, but we put you in a medically induced coma for two days because your liver, which was the organ that had been torn by the bullet, needed a couple extra days to repair without disturbances. And right now we have you on some strong pain killers because it's most likely the pain from the pelvic bone is going to be severe." Dr. Phillips smiled, "Also…there's been a lot of people asking to see you. The names I have here are…William LaMontagne Jr, Aaron Hotchner, Spencer Reid, Emily Prentiss, Derek Morgan, Penelope Garcia and…David Rossi."
"Did my husband come…?" JJ asked.
Dr. Phillips glanced back down at the list, noticing that she had missed her own husband's name, "Yes I believe so… You husband is Detective William LaMontagne Jr, correct?"
JJ blinked, "Yes."
Dr. Phillips nodded slowly and scribbled something down on the clipboard he was holding. When he saw her staring he explained, "We just needed to confirm that he was who he said he was. And you have a son too?"
"Henry…" She trailed off, a smile reaching her lips at the thought of her adorable son.
Dr. Phillips scribbled that down as well, "Good well…I believe that your son, husband and a couple other very persistent people are here to see you today as well. Would you like me to send them in?"
"Mmmm…yea." JJ smiled, nodded and then watched him leave the room.
A few minutes later, the door handle moved down and the door swung open to reveal Will standing in the doorway with Henry in one arm and a bouquet of flowers in the other. He set them down on her bedside table.
Their eyes met and he smiled his adorable crooked smile. "JJ…" Was all he said.
He leaned down and pressed his lips gently against hers. They both heard a small "Eww!" coming from behind them, but they were too in love to care. When they pulled apart, Will touched his forehead to JJ's. "Don't ever scare me like that again." He whispered, kissing her once more on the cheek before completely pulling away.
"Henry," Will took their son's hand, "say hi to mommy."
Henry let go of his father's hand and walked up to his mom's bed. He rested his arms on the edge, "Hi mommy." He examined her, "Are you hurt?"
JJ closed her eyes, smiling. "I…was, but now…I'm just resting. I'm gonna be fine, buddy…" She told him.
Henry nodded, "I heard the doctor say that you had a hole in your stomach…" He glanced down at her heavily wrapped stomach, "What does that mean?"
JJ glanced at Will, "Ummm…well a bad man took a ball about this size," she showed the small size with her fingertips, "and shot it at me. It hit me in the stomach…and…I guess it left a hole…?"
His eyes widened, "Woah…cool… You're like a…superhero!"
JJ cracked a smile and heard Will laughing in the distance. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a doctor walk by her window. He glanced inside as he was walking by, but then did a double take and quickly entered.
"Who let you two in here?" The doctor asked, looking at Will and Henry.
Will glanced at the doctor, defensively. "The nurse said that her visiting hours were open…" He responded.
The doctor looked confused, but then shrugged, "Oh well…that must've been a mistake in the computer. I haven't even had the chance to check her vitals yet or even talk to her about her condition. Umm…you two could stay for that if you like…" He suggested.
Will nodded and took a seat on the chair by her bed, sitting Henry down on his lap.
As the new doctor introduced himself as Dr. Langston, started to check her IV and began to explain all the details of her condition, she protested. "Wait…" She mumbled, "Wait…" She pushed his hand away.
Dr. Langston tilted his head, "Yes? Is there a problem Mrs. Jareau? Are you feeling any pain?"
"Someone…already did this…" JJ stated, giving Dr. Langston a confused look. "He…Dr. Phillips came in…and he told me about my condition and checked some of my information…" She explained.
Dr. Langston stopped and picked up the chart clipped to her bed. He looked at it, but then shrugged and returned to her bedside, "You said his name was Dr. Phillips…?"
JJ nodded slowly.
He glanced at Will before looking back down at her, "There is no Dr. Phillips registered at this hospital."
"It's strange how dreams get under your skin and give your heart a test for what's real and what's imaginary."
Jason Mraz