(A/N: Please review, I love any kind of feedback! Thanks to everyone who favorited/story alerted me. This chapter will be pretty sad, but also sort of hopeful. Warning: contains alcohol use, language.)
Reid didn't see Prentiss on Thursday, or on Friday during the day; he was worried, but JJ had promised to make her go to Morgan's party, and he could check on her there. JJ got busy as well, but, on Thursday as Prentiss was getting her mail and the other girls were avoiding her, whispering, JJ noticed that. Before she could react, one of them got in Emily's face, sneering "Dyke. Slut."
"Leave her alone," JJ snapped, stepping in between Prentiss and the bully.
"Ooh, Emily's got a girlfriend!" she mocked.
"She's not my girlfriend, but she's my friend. And if she wants to like women and men, she will. Let her be who she is. And if you don't, all of you, stop teasing her…I don't know what I'll do, but you won't like it!" she trailed off. Then, to Prentiss "You okay?" She nodded, looked gratefully at JJ.
Prentiss, studying that night, smiled every time JJ's actions crossed her mind. Someone cared.
Friday evening. JJ knocked on Prentiss's door. "Come on, we have to go to Morgan's, I'm taking you to the party!"
"I don't feel like it," she mumbled through the closed door.
"You need to have some fun. I'm not about to take no for an answer!" the blond insisted. "Don't make me bust down the door and drag you out."
Prentiss opened the door. "Okay, okay, I'm coming."
"Wearing that?" JJ teased. Her friend was in sweatpants and a ratty old Yale hoodie.
Sighing tiredly, Prentiss said, "I guess I should change, huh? And put on some makeup. Pretend to be normal and happy."
"You don't have to pretend with any of our friends- that's why you have them, to have people you can be real around. But, if you looked better, you'd probably feel better." JJ said.
Prentiss found a smile from somewhere inside her. "Yeah. Okay, go stand in the hall- I'll find some jeans and a nicer top, then maybe you can help me with my makeup if you want." She locked the door and changed into jeans and a black V-neck long-sleeved shirt over a tank top, avoiding the mirror on the wall as she did so. She hated seeing her scars. The top edge of the tank just managed to cover the ones on her chest. After digging out all her makeup, she opened the door and said "All right, JJ, go to it, I know you like to do makeup."
"Do you have any ideas for it?" Prentiss shrugged. She had so much to deal with, was so tired, that she didn't care how she looked; besides, JJ would do a good job.
"Okay then," JJ took Prentiss's desk chair and put it in front of the large mirror. "Sit down and hold still." Close to her, in the light, JJ noticed how worried, how exhausted she looked. The dark circles under her chocolate eyes were so extensive that she looked bruised, a map of lines radiating out from them. More worry lines planed and sloped across her forehead and were beginning to form around her mouth, and her whole face looked more angular, more stark now, as if she was losing weight.
JJ bit her lip. Not only did seeing Prentiss like this make her worry even more for her friend, but it also presented a challenge; how could she make her look like she wasn't- she winced inside at her own description- halfway dead? But she would manage it. She carefully brushed concealer, then foundation, under Prentiss's eyes and on her face where the lines were worst, to mask them, added lots of mascara and eyeliner to keep the focus on her eyes and off the rest of her face, which was paying the biggest toll for her worry, then blush to put some color into her ghost-white complexion, a warm, subtle pink lipstick, and reddish-brown eyeshadow. A dark color would only highlight the circles that JJ had tried so hard to hide.
"There you go," she said finally. "Does that help?"
"Thank you, JJ," Prentiss said "For everything, but especially for this. I finally look…well, not-hideous again."
"You're beautiful however you are," JJ said, and she meant it- even with no makeup and in pajamas, there was a certain natural look, dignity, and grace about Prentiss that gave her a sort of unconscious beauty she always carried with her. "Now let's go or we'll be late, and Morgan and Hotchner will drink, well, everything, before we get there."
"Going on a date, Emily?" one of the other girls mocked as she and JJ left the dorm together.
"No, I, she's…." Prentiss stammered. They were in the tiled stairwell, with brick walls. JJ moved so fast that Prentiss barely knew what happened, just heard the scuffle and saw JJ holding the other girl against the wall.
"Shut. Up. Now," JJ said in a cold, dismissive voice, like she was talking to a dog that had done something on the carpet. She was holding the girl tightly by her scarf. "Got it?"
The girl, massaging her neck and trying to get back to breathing normally, just nodded. "Good." JJ said.
They walked the six blocks to Morgan's apartment in a November drizzle. "Thanks for that," Prentiss said, somewhat embarrassed.
"Don't mention it- no, really, don't, because I'm pretty sure that's assault," JJ said lightly, then changed her tone. "Thank you for calling me the other night. How are you, really?"
"I don't really know. I haven't…well, in two days, I don't know how much longer I can go without it."
JJ stopped and hugged her. "You can do this, but you need help. Did you use any of the information, the numbers I gave you?"
Prentiss shook her head, ashamed. She knew JJ wanted the best for her, but it was so hard to pick up the phone, to send an e-mail, to admit she wasn't who she pretended to be.
"Emily! JJ!" Morgan's tall frame filled the doorway as he let the girls in. "Good timing- Spencer's just about to have his first drink ever! Aaron's here, but we're waiting on Penelope- no doubt she's still in her closet coming up with one of her unique outfits for this. Well, unique puts it mildly."
They congratulated him and went in; eventually, Garcia showed up, and the party got into full swing. The warmth of Derek's place, the presence and laughter of everyone, seemed to help Prentiss, and JJ watched her carefully to make sure she was all right. But then, something changed in Prentiss, broke. She couldn't stand the need to hurt herself any more, and stupidly, she'd left her bag with her blades at the dorm, so she couldn't sneak off somewhere and take care of it.
Well, maybe there's another way, she thought as she was sipping her second drink. She downed that, then a third, then a fourth, a fifth, and had just drunk Reid under the table, daring him to drink two shots of straight vodka right in a row (he couldn't even finish one, and she was past caring about the taste or the pain in her throat,) when the crying started.
"I'm okay, I'm okay," she insisted at first, but she wasn't. She only started to cry harder, totally unable to pull it together despite her internal voice screaming at her to do so, to not be a baby, not cry.
"Emily, baby girl, what's wrong?" Morgan asked as he entered the living room."This is a party, you don't need to be sad."
"She's had a lot to drink," JJ said worriedly. "I should have watched out for her better." By now, Prentiss was crying so hard she could barely breathe.
"I don't…can't even begin to explain this…Nothing, everything's wrong," she choked, slurring her words a little.
"Try," Garcia said softly. "We're all together here anyway, so we'll listen to you."
The usually quiet Hotchner said, "We're all here for you, okay? I'm sure not everything can be wrong."
"It is! I…I…" she stammered. "I-I've been c-cutting myself, and everyone is being mean to me because I'm b-bi, and I've been fighting so much with my mom. I really need to cut right now but I can't and I just don't know how to deal with this pain! Derek, you usually c-carry a pocketknife, don't you?"
Morgan saw where she was going with this and said "I don't have it on me, and I'm certainly not going to goddamn give it to you," he said as calmly as he could. "But we're all here, and we'll help you get through this." He was sitting next to Prentiss on the sofa and moved to hug her. Before he could react, she'd hit him in the jaw, and now over and over in the chest as he tried to hold her.
"You don't understand how much I need this! I hate you, I hate you, Ihateyou, Ihateyou!" she protested.
"You can- ow! hate me all you want, sweetie, I'm not letting you do this- ow! Stop fighting, I'm trying to fucking help you!" he responded. He looked over at Hotchner. A little help here?
Carefully, so as to avoid hurting her or getting hit himself, Hotchner pinned Prentiss's arms behind her back as Morgan held her. After what seemed like an eternity, she stopped struggling, now merely exhausted, crying in Morgan's arms as the pain that she thought would kill her washed over her.
Morgan looked at Hotchner. I think you can let her go. "Baby girl, Hotch is going to let go, only don't hit me. Things really will be all right." He did, and Morgan saw that Reid was conferencing with Garcia in whispers in the corner, and JJ set a glass of water on the coffee table and gave him some tips. He really had no idea what to do.
"It's all right, Emily. Shhh. Just try and breathe, nice and deep, ok? We're all here for you," he said clumsily. She calmed down some, but was still crying. By that time, everyone had gathered back around her.
"Don't scare us like that, Emily!" Garcia half-scolded- she couldn't yell at her, not with a constant stream of tears going down Prentiss's cheeks and her makeup going all over her face, like an abstract painting. Garcia was almost crying herself. "How could you- ever- it- why?" she said incoherently as she wiped Prentiss's eyes with her sleeve.
"I don't know! I've just…this has been off and on for years, I-I don't know how to deal with life without it. There's this pain inside- it just hurts so much. I feel like if I don't cut, I'll have to face that." She started crying harder, while Reid used his research to explain a little to the others.
"So what can we do?" Hotchner asked, but Prentiss only shrugged and looked down. Now that it was all out there, she felt so ashamed, exposed; as if she had stripped herself naked.
"I think I'll offer to rearrange the face of anyone who is mean to you," Morgan said. "Don't you think I'm suitably intimidating? Hotch could help too." Prentiss nodded, tried to smile through her tears.
"And, and, Spencer and I can use our mad skillz to find you some help. Hell, I'll even hack in and divert money from some corporate account, to pay, if it turns out you can't afford to see a professional. Trust me, some fat-cat CEO needs the money a whole lot less than you do."
"And you know I'm always here for you," JJ said gently. "You can call me whenever. Or any of us."
Prentiss cried a bit more, but slowly managed to stop, and JJ made sure she got back home okay. The dark-haired young woman crashed into bed immediately, sleeping like the dead. She woke up the next morning with a pounding headache, upset stomach, and a feeling that she'd done something very wrong. Then the memories, though hazy, of the night before, hit her. Wait…shit. But they all said they'd help. Still, I feel like a freak, a total idiot. Is there a large rock I can hide under somewhere?
(A/N: Aww, Emily, you don't need to be ashamed! Things start getting better from here on out, I swear. What did you guys think of the big reveal?)