(Hello everyone! Here I am, back with the fourth chapter! I hope everyone is enjoying the story progression, I would love some feedback! Also on a side note, the bed and breakfast I wrote about in Chapter 3 really exists! It's called Cottage Lake Tree House Bed and Breakfast. Google it. I'm a little obsessed with it. Please, live my dreams and take your honey there. It looks so beautiful. Also! I've begun to write final chapter for Nothing Left, it should be up within the week. So be on the lookout. And without further ado, Chapter four. Please review!)

"To fight fear, act. To increase fear - wait, put off, postpone." David Jospeh Schwartz

JJ

True to her word, Emily turns the car around and takes me home. Part of me is embarrassed, this isn't me, I don't freak out like this, unprovoked. But I am mainly just thankful that I have a brilliant, loving wife who is getting me off this highway and returning me to our town home.

We don't really speak on the twenty minute ride back. She asks if I'm okay a few times and I reassure her that I am, that I will be as soon as I get home. Which is mostly true. I didn't sleep well last night. I had woken from a nightmare at five am, before the sun had begun it's slow rise into the sky. In my dream, Emily and I were out at the park. I had already had the baby and they were in an old fashioned pram a few feet from where we were lounging on a blanket, also dressed in late 1940s garb. I was teasing her and she was laughing, the wonderful, loud, open mouthed laugh that she normally kept hidden from the world. Her beautiful dark hair was curled and pinned back from her face. The joke I was telling was making me giggle as well, so I almost missed it. Missed the high pitched whine, coming from the sky. I turned away from Emily and sat up, looking for the source. No one else in the park could seem to hear it. Emily kept laughing. I stood up from the blanket and walked a few steps away, still searching. A few steps further and finally, a shadow crossed the sun and I realized that the whine is coming from a bomb. It looked old fashioned, like the World War II missiles you see in movies. It was coming straight for us, bearing down at an unimaginable speed. I turned frantically trying to get back to Emily and the baby. I needed to save them, we had to leave. But when I turned back, Emily was still laughing. I screamed out to come on, we had to go, but she just laughed. I tried to run to her, to save my family, but my legs were too heavy. I couldn't move. The baby began to cry. I looked up and saw the missile was almost upon us. I desperately stretched out my hand and then-

I had woken up, covered in sweat and shaking. I had sat in our bed for several minutes, trying to calm down but was eventually afraid that my shaking was going to wake up Em. So I had crept out of our bedroom and went downstairs.

She pulls up to the curb and I gratefully unbuckle my seat belt and push open the door. I don't even bother to grab my purse, so Emily brings it in. Once inside the house, my heart finally feels like I'm not running a marathon. The baby stops kicking so hard and I can breathe. Emily runs a hand across my shoulders.

"Are you gonna be okay?"

I nod, trying to give her a reassuring smile. "Yeah. I just… I feel like I need to stay home today. Does that make sense?"

She nods, but I can see in her eyes that it does not. "Do you need me to stay home with you? This stress probably isn't great for the baby…"

Guilt slithers into my gut. The baby. In my panic to get home and protect them, I hadn't even considered what the terror I was feeling was doing to them. Some mother I was. I slide my hands underneath my belly, silently apologizing to the little one.

"I'll be fine. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to freak out…"

"No, no, don't apologize."

I rest my head against her chest. "But to make you turn around bring me back…"

She puts a hand under my chin and brings my lips up for a kiss. "Hey. For better or for worse, remember? And if this is the worst then we're doing just fine." Her loving voice soothes me. I reassure her that I will be fine, that she can go to work, and she leaves. I sit on the couch and close my eyes. The silence is all at once deafening and welcome. I rub my hand over my belly. The baby rewards me with an especially hard kick into my hand.

"We're home." I tell them. "We made it home."

I spend my day padding around the house. I keep the TV turned on in the background as I wash dishes, start some laundry, and tidy our home. We're often so busy that the house falls into disarray, which is unfortunate because it's beautiful. I had moved into Emily's apartment after we got engaged and in the months leading up to the wedding we had spent every spare afternoon attending open houses trying to find our first home together. The minute we had stepped into the 1906 brick town home, we were in love. The open floor plan, the windows that bathed the room in sunlight. It even had a little backyard, something I had been very insistent about. I hadn't yet brought it up to Emily, but I desperately wanted children. And I wanted a backyard in which to play with them.

I find myself standing at the back door, looking at the small, fenced in space. I think about taking a book from the shelf and going out to sit on the little bench, but I don't. No, I just want to stay inside today. Which is fine! Growing another human being is exhausting work and I was allowed to have a little bit of time to myself, and if I wanted that time to be spent inside the confines of the century old walls, that was fine too. Everything was fine.

I wake hours later to the ringing of my phone. I'm confused because I didn't mean to fall asleep when I had settled on to the couch, but rather to read part of my What to Expect book and maybe look over some case files. I blearily pat around until I find my phone underneath the blanket I'm snuggled under.

"Hello?"

"JJ! Hey baby, I'm calling because we just got a case in Palo Alto, we're about to board the plane."

"Oh… okay uhm, do I need to come to the BAU?" I'm still half asleep and my mind is moving rather slowly.

"No it's fine, since you aren't feeling well Hotch suggested that you work the case from Garcia's office."

"Is he sure?"

"Of course! He all but insisted. But I have to admit, I don't feel great about leaving you home by yourself. Are you feeling better?" She drops her voice a bit. "I mean about this morning?"

I can't help but glance uneasily outside the darkening window. "Yeah… Yeah, I'm fine baby. I think I'm just a little overworked. I actually just woke up from a nap."

"Oh! Well I'll let you get back to resting. I have to get my stuff together, but call Garcia if you need anything, okay? And I mean anything. And if something happens and she can't come, you could call my mother. She's not super nurturing but she could commandeer you a jet if need be. Or you could call Strauss… Oh! Maybe you could call Jess? Hotch's sister in law? She watches Jack, I'm sure she could help out in some way."

I laugh as her brilliant mind takes off on possibilities. "Emily I'll be fine. Promise. If I need anything I will call Garcia. But I won't need anything. Because everything is going to be okay and you'll be home as soon as you can."

"Okay baby… I'm gonna let you go. And when I get home, I'm going to buy you macaroons from Patisserie."

"Mmm. I love you, baby. Be safe."

"I love you too. I will."

I hang up and slowly cast my eyes around the living room, illuminated only by the dying light from the windows and the blue glow of the TV. For the first time, I feel a little lonely. But then I receive a gentle nudge in the ribs, and I tenderly doodle my fingernail over my swollen stomach. I'm not alone.

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