A/N: Thank you everyone for the kind reviews, and for going on this journey with me. Just a warning, this chapter's a little more emotional.
They gave her a set of scrub pants when she was done. She wore them with Hotch's sweatshirt and sat at the edge of the hospital bed, arms wrapped around herself, waiting for the nurse to let Hotch know that she was ready to leave. She was long past ready to leave. The last hours had been uncomfortable, embarrassing, painful; all she wanted was her own home and a hot shower.
"JJ?" She looked up to find not only Hotch, but Rossi as well, waiting for her. Both looked concerned, though Rossi at least was trying to smile. "The nurse said we can spring you from this place. Ready to get out of here?"
"Do you really have to ask?" She slid from the bed, holding the instructions the nurse had given her and a bag with samples of drugs she needed to take in the morning. Not even the hospital pharmacy was open this late, so they'd given her enough to cover her until the next day. PEP was only effective for the first 72 hours after a rape, and she was already at 50 hours, give or take. She also had an antibiotic for the cut on her leg and any STDs she might have been given. In a week she'd need to see her doctor to get the stitches out. In six months she'd need to get a second HIV test.
They walked to the exit, Hotch on her right and Rossi on her left, as if they could protect her from the world. She knew that they both wanted to, and knew just as well that they couldn't. Hotch's SUV was still, thankfully, parked at the curb in the red zone, probably saved by the fact that it was so obviously a law enforcement vehicle.
"You need anything at all, someone to talk to, a ride, those little chocolate truffles you like so much you call me, alright? I don't care if it's three o' clock in the morning, I'll answer." Rossi opened the passenger door for her. "I know it's hard coming back from an undercover assignment, but you're still a part of our team, and we're all here for you."
JJ nodded, not quite sure what to say. Other then the last days she hadn't been alone, but her 'classmates,' handler and Andi were all casual acquaintances. Right now, so drained and exhausted, it was hard to remember what it was like to be part of a group.
"I mean it." As she got into the car he slipped her something; a cell phone. Her cell phone, left in the apartment she'd been living in under her assumed name when she was taken.
"Thank you." She didn't know how he'd gotten it, and didn't care. It was a connection; during her time undercover it was the only way she'd kept in contact with her team and with her son.
"Is there anywhere you need to stop before I take you home?" Hotch stopped at the edge of the parking lot, his head turned to look at her.
"No. I just want to get out of here." The clock on the dashboard read a little after one; it was a new day. She didn't feel any different.
The drive to her apartment was a quite one. When he turned off the engine outside her building she didn't get out, though. "Hotch, I know there are things that have to go in the report, but I'd rather the rest of the team didn't know about everything."
He knew what she wasn't saying. "None of them will think any differently or any less of you. You're a survivor and you're brave, and they know that."
"Nothing good comes from them knowing. All it's going to do is make all of them, especially Garcia, upset. There's nothing they can do about it, so why deliberately hurt them?" If it came down to a court case they might have to find out, but that would be months from now. She'd deal with it then.
"They can be there for you to talk to, JJ. You don't have to go through any of this alone."
"Pot, have you met the kettle lately?" She felt a little mean, saying it, but didn't have the energy to care.
"JJ."
"I'll talk to someone if I need to, Hotch. You know counseling is mandatory in situations like this, and I can talk to Andi; she'll have to know everything." Not that she'd really talk to Andi, not about anything personal. She was a good person to work for, but their relationship was strictly professional. Honestly she probably wouldn't say much to the psychologist either; she hadn't the one other time she'd been in therapy.
"You can talk to me." His voice was tentative, not because he didn't mean it, but because he wasn't sure how the offer would be taken.
"I'll be okay." Maybe if she said it often enough it would become true.
Hotch sighed. "I'll do my best to respect your request, but I need you to promise me that if you need to talk about it you'll go to Andi or your therapist, or you'll come to me. You're right, I'm not always good at talking to people about how I feel, but that means that I know what I'm talking about with this. Promise me?"
"I will talk to someone if I need feel like I should." It was a waffly answer, she knew, but she wasn't going to make him any promises that she didn't feel like she'd keep."
"Alright." He opened the car door, coming around to help her out. He didn't let go as they walked to the front door. "I can come in with you."
"Garcia's waiting for me. You need to get home to Jack; I know how important it is for you to see him, especially after days like today."
"What about you? You need to see your son just as much."
"I'll call Will tomorrow. He promised to bring Henry home when I was done with this case." Hotch was too polite to ask where Will was, and why he wasn't the one waiting for her. She couldn't get into all of that now, but knew that it was one more thing that she was going to have to explain, one more secret she'd kept.
"You're home!" The door was flung open, Garcia giving only a moment's notice before sweeping JJ up in a hug. "I didn't understand why we didn't ever meet up, why it was always only phone calls and e-mails, but now I do and you, you're such a super hero. I missed you so much."
"I missed you too." Garcia's cheerful presence was one of the hardest things to go without; only Henry's absence was more painfully noticeable. She hated, too, that Henry not only didn't have her for these past months, but also didn't have his godparents around.
"Come in, come in. I made chicken noodle soup and macaroni and cheese and brownies and those chocolate chunk cookies with the dark chocolate that you always say you're only going to eat one of but then end up with three. Morgan's at the store because I forgot milk the first time and you need milk with cookies. If there's anything you need I can call him."
JJ was only half listening, but she understood that both rambling and cooking were things that Garcia did when she was dealing with emotions, and didn't stop her. Even though they were no longer touching she could still feel the arms wrapped around her; it was the warmest she'd felt in days, if only for a minute.
"Are you sure you don't want me to stay?" Hotch stood in the doorway, not following them in but not leaving either.
"I'm sure. Go home and give Jack a hug. Garcia has all the bases covered here." She could smell the chocolate and the soup; she wasn't hungry but knew that her body needed the nutrients that the food would provide.
"I'll find out from Andi where your car is and have it brought over tomorrow. If you need anything..."
"I'll call." She held up the cell phone in her hand.
"If she doesn't I will. I've got her, boss man." Garcia's cheerful expression grew serious as she glanced at JJ then back at Hotch, an unspoken pact made between the computer tech and the profiler; they would both do everything they could to take care of JJ.
"Good." He nodded his head briefly, then turned to leave. A moment later the door was closed behind him, locked and dead-bolted with the chain thrown for good measure.
JJ looked around the living room of her home, feeling like it was all alien. She knew that she'd hung each picture, that the quilt hanging over the back of the couch was one her grandmother had made, that the rocking chair was old but the coffee table she and Will had bought together. The room was the same; maybe it was her that was different.
"Do you want some soup?" Garcia waited a few feet behind her, unsure of what to do now that JJ was actually here.
"I need to take a shower first, okay?" Her skin felt like it was crawling with dirt and filth. She'd had one shower in five days, the afternoon before the first 'auction night' two and a half days ago.
"Okay. I'll just, I'll be right here. Is there anything else I can get for you? Tea? I know you like tea."
"Tea would be good." She didn't care about tea any more than she did food, but it would give Garcia something to do. She needed to feel useful.
After closing the door to her bedroom, JJ found clean underthings and a pair of old sweats that she hadn't worn in a long time, probably not since she was pregnant and all her clothes had stopped fitting. She took them with her into the bathroom, setting them on the counter . She turned the water on before she undressed; it didn't take long since all she wore were the scrub pants and Hotch's sweatshirt, but by the time she was done the room was already enshrouded in steam.
The water was too hot, but she barely adjusted the temperature, only enough so that it wouldn't burn her. Her skin turned pink almost immediately as the water poured over her skin. It almost surprised her that the water collecting on the shower floor and going down the drain was clear; she felt as if it should be as dirty as she felt. Maybe the dirt clung to her too well for the water alone to wash away. She scrubbed at her skin with soap and a loofah; only the skin covered with a bandage to protect her stitches escaped her zealous scouring.
She didn't feel any cleaner.
It wasn't until Garcia knocked on the door that she realized she was crying, tears streaming down her face only to be washed away by the water. She hadn't cried the whole time she'd been locked up, hadn't dared to let them see any weakness. Even when the knife was being dragged along the inside of her thigh, her captor's taunting of what he could do if he chose, she'd bit the inside of her cheek to keep from letting her pain show.
"JJ? I thought you might want your tea in here. I'm going to leave it on the counter, alright?"
Through the fogged glass JJ could see the bright colored shape that told her Garcia was still in the room, waiting for some kind of response. JJ opened her mouth, but quickly bit down on the flesh below her thumb to muffle a sob. She clenched her jaw, took a deep breath, and used every ounce of willpower she had left to try and sound normal. "Thank you."
"Anything for you, mon amie." The bathroom door clicked softly behind her as Garcia left.
JJ's body began to shake and there was no muffling the sobs this time as she sank to the shower floor, her back to the tile and her legs curled up into her chest. Everything that she'd been holding in for a week, things she'd been holding in for months all came pouring out, tears falling down the drain and grief reverberating against the shower walls.
A/N2: PEP stands for Post-exposure prophylaxis. It's a course of antiretroviral medications taken for a month after possible exposure to HIV infection.