(Uber long) Author's Note: I'm hoping to get the remaining chapters out to you guys before I go to New York, so you should have the next few updates fairly quickly. I actually had this whole story written before I began uploading it, but a last minute change to this chapter caused a chain reaction that meant I had to make changes further along in the story too. I think I've resolved all issues now though.
I'm a little afraid that some of you are going to think that I should have simply ended any 'conflicting' issues in the last chapter, where Emily says that all her fears and dumb rules etc fade from memory. But… I just couldn't force myself to believe that enough to be able to write it. Mostly because, as Emily realizes, her issues don't just go away simply because JJ wants something more long-term with her.
Also, I spent longer than I care to admit attempting to "redeem" JJ in this chapter, and then I realized: she's human. Humans fuck up. Humans make silly moves, especially when they don't even know the rules of the game they're playing. So I instead focused my attention on getting Emily to recognize that. I guess, actually, on getting them to both realize that they're both human and they both have flaws. Hopefully I pulled it off without making Emily look like a pushover… That's my biggest concern for this update, so please, let me know what you think. Thank you!
Lastly… If there are any questions I didn't answer in this chapter – aside from what did JJ say to Will? – please let me know. I tried to tie off every loose end in that regard, but in the thick of attempting to figure out why everything wasn't flowing right, there's a chance I may have missed something obvious.
Oh wait: One of you guys asked if there will be a chapter written from JJ's POV and I totally forgot about it until now. Sorry! Unfortunately, there won't, but she does answer a lot of questions in this chapter which will hopefully give some insight as to where her thoughts/feelings lie.
Chapter Five: Part II
Back at my apartment, she banishes me from the kitchen while she gets to work on our belated breakfast. I watch from the couch, my arms folded against the backrest and my chin atop of them. She moves around fluidly, like she knows the layout. I realize that's equal parts attributed to the fact that she's an honorary profiler, and because, as she told me, she searched my cupboards already. But I can't help but tell myself there's some deeper meaning to it.
This is all backwards, I know. Even if last night – seemingly - wasn't a mistake, I still feel it should have happened differently. I should have taken her out on a real date, instead of, in a roundabout way, gatecrashing someone else's. But then, isn't it true that that never would have happened? Isn't it true that, at no point, would I or did I ever consider simply asking her out on a date? Isn't it true that sometimes you have to do things a little backwards in order to find the courage to do them at all? And look where we are…
I watch her, and I want her, want this. I want her bossing me around and barring me from my own kitchen so she can ensure that I eat better than the cereal I'm in good supply of; I want her leaving messages on my mirror in lipstick that's going to be a giant pain to remove; I want her strutting around my apartment in nothing but her stockings just because she knows it's the perfect way to wrap me around her little finger. I want her lecturing me in the middle of grocery stores and wearing my clothes. And… I think I get to have that. I think, if I want it, it's right there in my kitchen – all I have to do is find the courage to take nine steps forward and claim it.
But while this fairytale is great… it was never about JJ. I didn't avoid affection as a result of unrequited love; I avoided it because it's messy and devastating. Love replaces you, and I can't afford to lose myself like that again. That fear doesn't magically go away just because the princess decides you're her Prince Charming – if anything, it magnifies it.
Because if this - whatever it is between her and I - is as genuine and significant as so many parts of me are beginning to believe, there is going to come a day where I have to tell her things. I'm going to have to tell her about that "desk job" they think I came off of; I'm going to have to tell her about that life I snuffed out in my teenage years; she's going to have to see me, properly. Otherwise, what's the point in doing it at all? Why exchange one charade for another?
Furthermore… is untangling that web of complications worth it? Clearly I have issues, and I can't help but feel that sifting through those issues will wind up damaging or losing me said fairytale anyway. I don't want to damage her. I don't want to damage myself. But watching from afar, as she makes herself at home and I struggle to make a decision that shouldn't even be a decision, I can't deny that maybe I already damaged myself. More than that, that she is vital in fixing myself. With her, I'm not an accumulation of pieces that vary from non-existent to fucked-up – I'm just Emily. With her, I get to be Emily – whoever that is.
When she drops a glass bowl of pancake mixture to my grossly expensive marble floor, she stares at it for five whole seconds with her hands outstretched, before turning slowly to face me with a combination of guilt and hopefulness in her half-smile, half-grimace-
"I'm sorry!"
-and a laugh I hadn't expected bursts from my lips. I don't own this apartment, and I'm pretty sure – if the look on her face is anything to go by – that she just cost me my deposit… and apparently that's funny. Apparently, in the past twenty-four hours, I lost my ability to be outraged towards anything.
"I didn't break the bowl." She promises as she grabs a dish towel and sinks down out of my line of sight – which, of course, is totally reassuring to hear because that $10 bowl is exactly what I was concerned about.
"All is right with the world then." I reply as I push myself up, and the look she tosses me as I wander into the kitchen tells me the playful nature of my words isn't at all easing her guilt.
I survey the damage and cock my head to the side, amused. Besides the cracked marble, the whole bottom half of my jeans is covered in cream-colored splatter, as is most of the lower portion of my kitchen. Honestly, it looks like the Pillsbury Dough Boy's slaughter site. And she… she looks like perfection. Yeah… I want this. Probably sans the giant chip that I'm going to have to explain to my landlord, but I think I want this.
"You should probably remove your pants right there before you trek pancake mix through the rest of my apartment." I smirk, and she blushes. I have to say, after what she wandered around wearing – or not wearing – last night, I'm surprised.
"I can't do that." She says quietly, her eyes imploring me to understand why without her having to explain, but I just shake my head. "I'm not wearing panties, Emily. Cos, well, it's one thing stealing your clothes but I didn't think you'd take too kindly to me stealing your underwear."
Now I get why she was so overly concerned about her pants slipping from her hips in Walmart – and, of course, find it a whole world funnier. "You can't remove your jeans because you're not wearing panties…" I chuckle. "Do you really think I'd be so opposed to that?"
With a small, uncertain frown on her face, she watches me for a moment, and then says, "I don't know." Her eyes remain locked with mine, no doubt waiting for some kind of repercussion to the implications in her words. One, two, three seconds pass, and then, having seemingly found regret for redirecting us back to complicated territory, she shakes her head and shifts her focus to the mess on the floor. "I should probably fix this mess."
Using the dish towel in her hand, she shepherds the mixture into a more manageable pile, and I take a steadying breath and allow myself to sink to the floor, a puddle of eggs and flour lingering between us. I place a hand against hers to still her efforts, and wait for her to look up. "Or we could fix the other mess, before it becomes a bigger mess."
At first, she doesn't move, apparently a little caught off-guard that I'm being so bold. I'm sure she expected that she'd either have to force the answers upon me, or that I'd never ask the questions and it – and we - would eventually fade into non-existence. I think I expected that too. But there's just something so candid about this whole scenario that, strangely, calms me.
Finally, cautiously, she slinks back from her kneeling position and waits for me to speak. And I wait for my brain to catch up with the move my autopilot just made. It's baffling how easily I transitioned into that which – two hours ago – I literally removed myself from, but apparently I no longer know what I want to ask.
As I rummage through the unorganized mental debris from last night and this morning, I happen upon that one question of the night that never really did get an answer, and ride it back to the present. "Why did you ditch Will?"
Her eyebrows raise, like she's surprised I haven't already deduced the answer to that question. When she realizes that I'm asking sincerely, she looks me square in the eye and tells me, "Because I wanted you. Ever since you joined the team I… I've always wanted you."
Always? As in before last night? As in… not just as a result of last night? Perhaps I should have gathered before now that there was more to this than an "accidental" one-night stand, but with those handful of words, a few memories of others that she's offered me in the past twenty-four hours shoot to the forefront of my mind: More times than you'll ever believe. I hoped they were for you. I don't sleep with someone I don't foresee myself having some kind of a future with. You always were my Christmas wish, Emily.
And as I find myself spiraling into every memory I have of her prior to that point – every memory that, from this new perspective, definitely corroborates her words – I shake my head to dispel the fog of confusion that seems to have consumed it. "Then why did you go on that date with him? Why did you invite me? Of all people."
She opens her mouth and then grimaces slightly, like she already knows her answer isn't going to be well-received. "That question doesn't carry a simple answer, Emily."
Looking to the clock above the cooker, I turn back to her. "We have a couple of hours until Hotch is expecting us. Try me."
Her gaze lifts slowly to mine, and eventually she allows herself to sink back fully until her back is against the cupboard behind her. She rests her elbows on her knees and fixes her eyes on the half-dirtied dish towel that she fumbles between her fingers, and I try to remember the last time she looked so unsure of herself. Even this morning, there was some kind of confidence within her. Right now, she looks like it's her fairytale that's about to take a few damaging or annihilating hits.
"You're so unattainable, Emily." She finally says. "I've never known someone capable of being so sincerely present and so sincerely distant all at the same time."
She looks back to me, smiling in that way she does where the curl of her lips doesn't quite match the emotion in her eyes. It's a middle ground between media-wrangling JJ, and too-human-for-the-job-she-does JJ – I hate being in its crosshairs, and I'm grateful when she looks away.
"In the beginning, I genuinely thought you felt something for me. But it seemed that whenever I gave any indication that I wanted you, you shut down. The closer I got, the further you became. But the further I got, the closer you became."
She frowns, as if she's still baffled by that now. I know she's not. I know after my disclosure about my past relationships, she gets it. But that doesn't remedy the fact that I can see, written all over her face, how much I've hurt her – and the worst part is that I didn't even know I was doing it. I hate that push-pull game. It's cruel and it's cowardly. But to defend myself and tell her what she's saying isn't true would be a lie. Because I did do that. In hindsight, I can see it as clear as day.
"Then six months ago…" She continues. "I resigned myself to the fact that maybe the reason you didn't see how I felt about you was because you had no reason to. You weren't looking for it, or hoping for it… and it was damaging enough to my ego and my heart that I'd been so arrogant to ever think you could be, that I drew a solid line between us as friends and colleagues, and us as whatever my fantasies wanted us to be. I made you, as a rule, off-limits. And last night, I made you an exception to that rule."
A single breath bursts from my lips, and I'm unsure whether it's a laugh or simply the air deflating from my lungs. The irony is so astounding that I don't even have a smartass remark for it. How can I call myself the elite of my profession and not have known that for every second I was banishing my feelings for her, she was growing more and more certain that they just didn't exist?
I spent the whole of last night convinced that I was the one in the vulnerable position, I was the one compromising myself, I was the one blindly following where my heart led… but, actually, it was her. She was the one taking a chance on me. She really did break a self-imposed rule, and – god – me kissing her in that alley must have been torture.
She had no real certainty of how I felt about her; of whether kissing her was just another move in the game I've seemingly been playing; of whether I was going to wake up this morning distant and robotic; of whether I was just further screwing with her heart… and yet she came home with me and took that chance. And she didn't do it by half either, no parts or pieces of herself held close to her chest just in case she never got them back. She risked something as defenseless as her heart, and she did it wholeheartedly. For me.
Her voice dragging me back to the present, she concludes, "I went on that date with him, and you, hoping to find closure. You didn't want me, and I had to force myself to accept that. I had to place myself in a position where that was indisputable. He's the first person since I developed feelings for you that I could actually see myself with, and I think I hoped that last night would finally close a book that I never really understood, but couldn't willingly stop reading."
The words are like a fist to the heart… I came that close to losing her, and I didn't even know I had her. What am I supposed to feel right now? Because I have no fucking clue… How is a person supposed to feel when they realize that such a huge portion of their life has been a lie, and a lie they told themselves? Making the significant insignificant… making her insignificant, which she never was. How do I tell her that now? After three years, how do I tell her that?
"But in that bathroom…" She continues, and my attention snaps to her, only half of me wanting to hear any more of this story. "With your hands in mine while you told me you were going to leave to give Will and I alone time… I wanted to cry. The thought of you leaving made me want to cry. The thought of spending the next three years pretending that I didn't want you made me want to cry. And in that moment I realized that the only person I could foresee a future with was you. That's why I ditched Will, as you put it." She looks to me. "Because I never should have gone on that date with him in the first place."
I think story time is over, but in a sea of conflicting thoughts and emotions, I have no idea what I'm supposed to say. I think I'm supposed to be happy that the reason she's still here right now isn't simply an effort to tell herself at a later date that she at least gave her drunken mistake a chance, but that emotion is buried beneath questions – so many questions – that make my brain hurt beyond logic.
"Six months ago…" I muse out loud. "Did that- I mean…" I swallow. "Was that anything to do with me climbing into your bed? I'm sorry if that was another case of me misleading you. Or…" I roll my eyes – I guess it wasn't really misleading. "Just adding more complication to the situation."
"Actually…" She shakes her head and smiles. "No. I needed that. Sometimes that is what you need, ya know? For someone to just do. To cross a boundary. If you'd asked if I needed anything, I would have told you I was fine, and I think we both know I was far from fine. What you did, was what I needed." She keeps her eyes locked with mine until she's satisfied that I believe her words, and then she redirects her gaze to the towel between her hands and continues. "It was actually two days after that. You'd just gotten done explaining to me why you had to rain-check our movie night for a third time, and Morgan saw me falter. Damn profilers… There was no evading the issue at that point."
"Morgan?" Apparently that's enough to snap me from my somewhat dazed state, and I shoot a look to her. "Morgan knows?"
"Morgan knows everything." She nods, almost regretfully. "He's somewhat become my… sponsor, in getting over you."
I almost choke on my own breath. He's helping her to get over me? Like I'm a drug and she's the addict… Why wouldn't he just tell me how she feels? Of course, the answer comes to me immediately: just like I imagined he was protecting me last night, he was also protecting JJ. From me. From the emotionally distant person I've allowed myself to become. JJ isn't that way. JJ wears her heart on her sleeve and, consequently, it's open for damage. Damage that I would inflict… And maybe he's not totally unjustified. What can I really offer her?
"And after we left the restaurant. You said you wanted to get drunk…" I look to her, and I know there's something unjustly defensive in my tone. But there's nothing like learning you were wrong about so much to bring about the irrational. "Was that my fault too? Did I make you want to get drunk?"
"None of this is your fault, Emily." She responds quickly, sincerely. "This isn't a blame game. You wanted to know, and so I'm telling you. I'm not criticizing you. Because I get it… I do."
I don't say a word, and she must realize that I'm still waiting for an answer, because after a moment she sighs and continues.
"Wanting to get drunk was a search for courage. And I certainly needed it in order to be honest with you – especially after I learnt that you had very good reason to avoid romantic situations. I tried several times, and yet every time I looked at you I froze. I became so afraid that I'd lose you entirely." She pauses for so long that I think she's done, but then, out of nowhere, she looks back to me and smiles fully – smiles like her Christmas wish really did come true. "And then you kissed me, and I found my courage."
I stare, blankly, dumbly, dumbfounded. The events of last night play on repeat in my mind, like I'm watching a movie for a second time and finally noticing everything I missed. Except this isn't a movie – this is my life and I was totally clueless to its narrative. And something tells me I'm going to have to replay it quite a few more times before I finally recognize all of those pivotal points in the plot.
"I think I fucked up, Emily." She randomly says, and her tone has changed. There is no media-wrangling glint to her expression now, just a too-human-for-me one. "I think in letting last night happen, in not enforcing this conversation before it happened, I've given you more reason to fear affection and that was never my intention." She drops the dish towel and shifts both hands to palm away the tears against her cheeks, almost in frustration, like she doesn't feel she has the right to those tears. "I'm not them, Emily. I know… it's easy for me to say that, right? Because I'm sure they said or implied it at some point too. Everyone always does. But I'm not."
"I know that." I say, even without deciding to, and I'm shocked at how much I mean the words. "I know you're not."
"Do you?" She asks. "You can't possibly, at least not yet. Not right now. Because right now it looks as though I tricked you to get a rise out of you."
It kind of does, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't placing conscious effort into forcing myself to remember just who this woman is. She isn't manipulative, not like that; she's just human. And how can I even begin to allow myself to feel tricked by her when I've technically been tricking her and myself for the past three years? How can I when I gave her no real reason to believe that last night was a difficult position for me to be in? Or even any real reason to believe that if she were to outright tell me of her feelings years ago, I'd have been positively or objectively responsive?
"But when I consider the fact that you gave me closure, in the form of being happy for me to be with another person, and yet everything still felt so painfully open for me… How can I then say that my motives were pure?" She looks at me determined, seemingly taking accountability for something I'm not even sure she did wrong. "I don't think I was searching for closure, Emily. I think I was just searching for you."
And there it is… that arguably reckless honesty that I've always found in her. It's what makes me trust her without hesitation; it's what, in this moment, she's certain will be the catalyst strong enough to push me away entirely. Because who admits that? Who admits that they're human and that they fuck up at a point where they should probably be selling themselves as the epitome of perfection? Her, apparently.
Instinctively, I reach out and slide her towards me by her knees. One of my legs remain outstretched, curved around her as a security blanket of sorts, as my hands shift to her hips. She seems so small in this position, and I feel like I hurt a baby bird. It's terribly ironic though… who knew that I'd hurt her more by keeping my distance than letting her see that I'm totally flawed? No… who knew that I'd hurt myself more by doing that?
"Happy is a complex term, JJ." I tell her, and her eyes lift slowly, tentatively. "Was I happy that the guy I was certain had your heart was decent and kind rather than being a total douchebag? Yes. Was I happy to have to sit and watch you be happy with someone other than me… In some ways, yes; in selfish ways, no."
"In some ways yes?" She asks, and my mind instantly jumps back to my earlier musings about exchanging one mask for another.
There really is so much that she doesn't know about me, including the fact that I just realized in the most sobering kind of way that that is part of the reason for my botched past relationships. I mean, I didn't coerce them into bed with their ex, or their best friend, or their fucking secretary; but climbing into bed with a robot each night is a pretty good incentive to look elsewhere. For so long, I blamed my failed romantic endeavors on that monster we call love. It's impossible now. Couldn't it be argued that I'm my own monster?
"I don't know what I can give you, JJ." I finally respond, and though I hadn't consciously decided upon saying it, and though I don't want to be saying it, it is exactly what needed to be said. It is one of the few things I know to be absolute truth in this moment.
"…I know." She nods, something authentically compassionate in her eyes, and reaches out to cup her hand at my cheek. "And that's okay."
Is it? If it's so okay, why do I feel like I just cut off my own limb or carved out my own insides? I find myself searching for honesty in her eyes again, solely so I can erase it. Perhaps if she tells me it's not okay, I'll be able to snap myself out of this stale state and offer us both the chance for something more than this cliché ending. But she looks so sincere, so considerate; placing my conflict above anything, just like she always does. Why can't she just tell me it's not okay? Because it's not. This isn't how it's supposed to be.
As my eyes remain on her, searching, hers find determination that I don't want to see. Because it tells me that she's about to utilize that age-old theory that if you love something you have to set it free, and I don't want her to do that because I'm not certain I'll find the courage to return to her.
I feel her moving even before she does, small twitches of muscle beneath my fingertips that cause a burst of panic to consume every inch of me. But when her hands settle against my shoulders and she shifts into a kneeling position, she stops, and I'm grateful. I'm not ready for her to leave…
She's looking at me exactly how I looked at her for most of last night – like she knows she's playing a dangerous game, but that she just can't stop playing. Her eyes shine like the marble beneath us, fixed on my lips like she's trying to talk herself down; and when she kisses me, it's hesitant, terrified. I feel a breath rush from her lips and fan against mine; hear the devastation in it, the goodbye that she doesn't want to be offering.
And when I pull back and see a hurricane of emotion in her eyes I – without logical thought that, let's be honest, doesn't belong here - place my hand to the back of her head and kiss her in a way that is nothing short of desperate. It is desperate. I'm desperate. I need back whatever voodoo she worked last night; I need back the parts of me she returned to me last night. I need to remember what it's like to be the carefree Emily that once existed, before my very own series of unfortunate events warped that person beyond recognition. She reminds me of that person. She reminds me I'm still capable of being that person. She makes me believe that I really could be that human-being that lurks beneath my superhero persona.
I want to be that human. I don't want our fairytale to end here.
Her arms link around my neck as she kisses me like she's just been given another shot at life; and mine latches across her waist as I - with little care for the still untouched mess on my kitchen floor - lower her backwards. She melds into the contours of my body, a piece of my puzzle, clutching and pulling and grasping with a similar desperation to the one coursing through my own veins. Perhaps we're both searching for the same thing…
But almost at the same time, we both realize that this isn't the way to find it. My hand stills against her stomach, its journey downward thwarted by conscience, and hers move to my arms and grip at my shirt: a silent, collective stop.
Her eyes are closed, her breaths struggling to catch up with her now still state. And as I look down at her, I watch a stray tear slip from the corner of her eye and follow it into her hairline, and wonder if there really is a way out of this maze that I built around myself. She found her way in here, didn't she? Doesn't that surely mean that there's a way out?
When she eventually opens her eyes, her gaze wanders, as if taking in our positioning, and then she swallows and says, "You literally have the upper hand, Emily. You did last night; I gave it to you, in every capacity. When it comes to me, you always had it. If this is the game you're afraid it is, then you're the reigning champion…" Frowning, she shakes her head slowly. "But I don't want to be your opponent."
The woman who makes a living off of words… has such a heartbreaking way with words. Because she's right. It doesn't take a profiler to comb through the events of last night and see that every single move she made was giving me the upper hand. And now that I'm more aware, it also doesn't take a profiler to see that for every day of the past three years, I've been the one in control. Suffocating control. She's bared herself to me in every sense of the word, even when I gave nothing in return. She still is – even when I'm physically refusing to let her go, and at the same time offering nothing to prove that I want her to stay.
I don't know where this story goes from here... I don't know what she'll find between my pages, and I don't know if there could possibly be a happy ending. But I can't let this be how it ends. Our conclusion can't be a tornado of uncertainties that just agree to disagree and go their separate ways.
"I really don't know what I can give you, JJ…" I tell her. "More than that, I… I don't know if I'm afraid of giving you too little, or of giving you too much."
It's only when I say that that I realize how true it is, because I'm not sure I have a middle ground anymore. At this point in my life, with the history that precedes me, she's either going to get all or nothing… neither of which, in my experience, is a good basis for a successful relationship.
"But I think I'd like to try…" I lift my eyes slowly to meet hers, hoping that that's even my decision to make, and that she hasn't made one already that doesn't involve me and the many complications that tag along with me. "I know I'm three years late… but am I too late and offering too little for us to try?"
Through her tears, she smiles; a small burst of air leaving her lips that speaks of relief. I know that it's relief because, as soon as I heard it, I felt relief too.
"Oh thank god for that." She places her palm against her forehead, her eyes closed, and when she looks back to me, there's something in her eyes strikingly similar to that which we see in the eyes of relatives when we tell them we managed to save their loved ones. "I was prepared to do it if that's what you needed but… Do you have any idea how crushing the prospect of walking out of here and never knowing you in this way again was?"
"About as crushing as the prospect of letting you walk out of here." I smile.
It's one of those moments that seem absurdly beautiful, so flawless that it shouldn't be taking place in the real world. For three whole seconds, it is untainted and perfect. But as I shift my hand to push myself up, and accidentally place it directly in a puddle of pancake batter, I'm reminded that it's arguably more absurd than beautiful. My landlord is going to kill me. And… were we really going to have sex on this floor?
As I purposely lift my hand to JJ's line of sight, she throws her head back and laughs in that utterly free-spirited way she was just last night… and the moment finds its perfection once more. I think I'd take lying on the kitchen floor in a mixture of pancake batter while watching JJ laugh any day over any cringe-worthy scene fiction could dream up.
"I guess we probably should clean this mess up, huh?" I grin, then lean into her ear with a whisper. "And for the record, Jennifer. I have absolutely no qualms about you walking around my apartment without panties."
She groans and presses her lips to my ear to return my whisper. "For the record, Emily. I have absolutely no qualms about you using my given name."
"Is that so?" I quirk my eyebrow. "I'll have to make a note of that."
"Yeah, you do that." She smirks, and then pushes her hand into my chest in a not-so subtle hint. "Now, let's get this mess cleaned up before I lose you the apartment that your inner perv is hopeful I'll strut around sans underwear."
