Chapter 1: Emily

Emily's notebook began on the first line. There'd be no messing around with blank pages or fancy titles for her. Her own name was double underlined at the very top. Below that was a list of (sometimes) loosely related bullet points, which she added to whenever she could and revised several times a day.

Emily Prentiss
- Analytical nature, methodical attitude to problem solving (because this is how I chose to address my amnesia)
- Have been in hospital often (saw doc with my file, which looked thick; also he said something to imply this—forgotten what exactly)
- Am a bit of a control freak. Probably have a very clean home, everything in its proper place. Think it would annoy me not to.
- If I have a spouse/partner/significant other, they are probably neat too. Or it's a problem between us. (But if I was seeing someone, surely I'd have heard about that by now?)
- The idea of picking up after someone else is abhorrent to me. I probably don't live with a slob.
- Ideal partner: CLEAN, clever, fit(?)
- Getting stir crazy. I probably have an active life. Do I run? I feel like running, so I must.
- Ideal partner should also be funny. I like funny people (evidence: Doctor Carter), people who are easy to be around—honest, down-to-earth people.
- I do not like jelly and I do not like pudding cups. Either I am a culinary snob or I dislike desserts in general.
- I think I like pasta.
- Actually, I remember how to cook pasta (and some other recipes, mostly Italian) in quite a lot of detail. Don't know where I learned it though.
- Shit. Some people just passed my door speaking Greek. I know how to speak Greek.
- I have an American accent but it's still possible I've travelled.
- Have been watching world news on an iPad someone left me (employer? apparently loads of my colleagues have been here wanting to see me—nice, but I'd rather figure this out myself; next dot point should be: independent). Tally of languages I speak has grown: Italian (related to my apparent pasta prowess?), Spanish (not uncommon in the US), Arabic (?), French (?), Greek (?), and some Russian (not fluent—could scrabble together basic understanding of news stories).
- I'm sarcastic as fuck. Probably why I get on with Doctor Carter. And most of the nurses don't like me.
- I react with affection toward shows of loyalty (Doctor Carter fending off a unit of FBI agents on my behalf, for example—PS. Have learned that I am an FBI agent… what the hell?)
- Holy shit. Just realised I know a lot about guns. A lot, a lot. I am, like, a gun expert.
- Remember that independence thing? Got really pissed when this blonde woman (a colleague?) came in and told me all this stuff about myself (I have a cat and I was right—I did spend time in Italy).
- …It also kind of turned me on that she defied me and the doctor like that, though.
- And she's seriously fucking hot.
- I may be a lesbian.

Jennifer arrived just after 9am the next day. She'd been to Emily's house and filled a bag filled with fresh clothes, toiletries, books, magazines, snacks, and other assorted items. Emily lifted the book at the top of the pile curiously.

"Did you get this from my house?"

"Oh, are we speaking today?" Jennifer asked with a sly grin.

Emily smirked in return. Yes, she definitely liked this girl. "I haven't decided yet... Did you, Jennifer? Get this from my house?"

"Yes," Jennifer answered and for some reason she was blushing. "But you call me JJ, not Jennifer."

"JJ, then…" Emily acquiesced. "Do you think I like this book?"

JJ shrugged evasively. "I thought you didn't want me to tell you any more about yourself."

Emily placed the book back on top of the pile and gestured for JJ to pull a chair closer to the bed, which she did without hesitation. "I'm not trying to find out about me," she replied. "I want to know more about you—and our relationship. I want you know whether you went to my house, threw a bunch of things into a bag, and left as quickly as possible or whether you took your time, picking out things you knew I'd like—well-read books, magazines you've seen me with before... Am I a particular fan of Cheetos? Or was that just something you picked up from the vending machine in the lobby? Then the clothes: the first things you found in my closet, clothes I like to wear a lot, clothes you'd like to see me wear a lot...? All those et ceteras." She smiled, knowing she was coming across far more confidently than she felt.

JJ's confusion gave way to understanding and then amusement. She pulled the bag into her lap and tapped a hand against Emily's leg, encouraging her to shift away and make some space on the bed. Then she began to lay things out methodically, starting with the pile of books.

At the top of the pile was Slaughterhouse 5.

"Kurt Vonnegut is your favourite author," JJ explained, giving the book a sentimental tap. "And I heard you mention this one to Morgan—um, to a colleague of ours—years ago. You hadn't read it in a long time and you were excited to re-read it, so I thought you might want to read it again. I didn't know who else you liked so I read the back covers of a few you had lying around and picked the ones that looked the most interesting." For a second she looked embarrassed before revealing the last book: a well-worn copy of Pride and Prejudice. "This is my favourite book. And it's my copy too so watch your pudding cups, okay? Ordinarily, I don't think it's something you'd read, but while you're stuck here…" She gave a small laugh. "Well, I thought I'd bring it. The first time I read it, I was about 15 and home sick from school. I finished the whole thing in a day. And I'd never done that with a book before. The next day I woke up and I was totally well again, as good as new. Since then, I've always read it whenever I got sick."

"I can tell you're a romantic," Emily chuckled. Her voice was low and teasing.

"So are you," JJ retorted. "You hide it better than I do, but I think you'd like to settle down, marry. You'd never stop working to do it, though. You're really passionate about what we do…" She bit her lip as she realised that if Emily's memory didn't come back she'd probably have to re-train for the position, or at least re-prove her competency. Would she want to, if she couldn't remember all they'd been through as a team? Or would she want a fresh start, away from the violence and despair of the job? JJ tried to push the thought from her mind for now. The doctor was confident she'd get her memory back. "We talked about kids once," she remembered.

Emily's interest was piqued by that. "You and me?" she asked. Having children together?

JJ nodded, misunderstanding. "You were considering adopting a girl a couple of years ago but the circumstances were wrong. She was tied up in a case of ours and she had family coming to get her."

"So we have no children?" Emily confirmed.

"We?" JJ repeated. "You don't, but I have a boy. Henry is eight. He's in the 2nd grade. His dad and I have been divorced for a few years now." She smiled anyway. "He dotes on you, Henry. He missed you like crazy when you went away."

Emily was confused and getting frustrated. She couldn't figure out her relationship with JJ. And where had she gone for JJ's boy to have missed her? How long had she been away? She swallowed hard—too many questions. She needed something lighter to talk about.

"…How about the magazines?" Emily squinted at the covers as JJ lifted them out of the bag and laid them on the bed beside her.

"Crosswords and word searches and stuff," JJ explained. "You're kind of into that sort of thing. If we get a morning flight back home after a case, sometimes you pick up the paper on the way and we do the puzzles together on the jet. You're good with words. And you're clever. You're always beating me in Scrabble."

So they travelled for work, Emily gathered. On a jet? What exactly did their job entail!? Was the doctor sure he hadn't heard wrong? Maybe she only played an FBI agent on TV. JJ was certainly pretty enough to be an actress. Maybe all that stuff Emily seemed to know about guns had been for research purposes?

She checked her notebook as JJ's comment about her being good with words struck a chord. "I know French, Russian, Spanish, Greek, Arabic and Italian," she recited incredulously. "When'd I ever get the time to learn all that?"

JJ grinned at Emily's astonishment. "Pretty amazing, right?" she agreed. "Your mom travelled a lot for work. I'm pretty sure you picked most of it up from immersion. Wish it were that easy for me!"

Emily nodded, a contemplative smile forming on her face. "It's strange. I haven't even thought about family since I got here. They must be worried. Did someone tell them I'm in hospital?" Her face fell as Jennifer winced.

"Em…"

"Oh. I don't have any family, do I?" Emily was embarrassed to have asked now. "That's fine. Seriously, I don't care. It's not like I remember them—why would I be upset about losing a family I don't remember?"

JJ seemed to struggle with herself for a second before pulling her chair closer still, so that she could lay her hand over Emily's. "It's not as bad as you think," she replied, although she sounded less than convincing. "Your mom's alive, she's just not around much. You and her don't get on… Listen, we are your family, Em—the team. No matter what you do or don't remember, we love you. You're not alone in this."

"You love me," Emily stated quietly. "I can tell. I could tell last night, even when we were sitting in here, not saying a word. I just can't figure out how."

"How I love you?" JJ's hand tightened over Emily's. "Em, you're… amazing. You're gentle and loving and compassionate—always, no matter what toll the job exacts. You're patient but determined, you're fiercely loyal. You would die before you— Well, you almost did die. Yesterday. I mean, Jesus, Emily, you took a bullet for me and you ask me how I could love you? Get a clue!"

Emily had been trying to hide a smile throughout JJ's whole speech but now she couldn't help it—she laughed. "Thanks, JJ,but that's actually not what I meant." When the giggles died away, her voice turned apologetic. "When I asked how you loved me, I didn't mean how could you, I meant in what way. You said we were like a family—the people we work with?"

"We are," JJ replied, flushing a little. Defensiveness edged her tone.

"Well, do you see me in the same way you see all of them?"

JJ said nothing for a few moments, as if afraid of misinterpreting Emily again. "Are you asking me if I have feelings for you?" she asked. Then she reconsidered her question "…Sorry, I shouldn't use euphemisms when we're already getting confused here. What I mean is: are you asking me if I'm in love with you?"

As Emily studied her face, JJ seemed to be holding her breath. "I'm sorry if we've had this conversation before…" she apologised, trying to ease the tension that had been struck between them.

"We haven't," JJ replied, too quickly. "Em, we have never had this conversation before. Or anything remotely like it." She ran a hand through blonde hair, rattled. And even though Emily could only remember two days of having known her, she sensed that JJ being so visibly rattled was unusual and she felt uncomfortable with that realisation.

"I think I'm gay," she blurted out, letting JJ off the hook with her answer. "Have I ever mentioned that to you?"

Again the pale white hand stroked through fine blonde hair. "No, Em…" JJ let out a shaky sigh and then cleared her throat. "Sorry. ...Sorry, you've honestly never mentioned it." She looked like there was more she wanted to say but she held herself back.

Emily's brow furrowed. Could her list of observations have led her wrong? No, it couldn't be. It wasn't just something she wrote down on paper, it was something she felt, strongly, in her heart. Even when she'd had no idea who JJ was, seeing her had felt familiar, right. She had been happy to argue with her but just as happy to sit in silence with her. And JJ had forced her way in when everyone else had let Emily push them away.

"I haven't got a lot of tact right now," Emily admitted. "I can't remember enough about you to know what subjects I should treat sensitively. For all I know, you spend your weekend picketing soldiers' funerals and yelling about God hating fags. Maybe there's a reason I never came out to you—"

"I'm going to cut you off right there and say that you are way, way off base," JJ interrupted with a bit more substance behind her voice now. "If you're gay, that's okay with me. Hell, it's more than okay with me. I hope you knew that, before you forgot everything." For a moment she looked sickly pale and she leaned her elbows onto the bag in her lap. "God... Em! I don't even want to think about you worrying about what I'd think about that, feeling like you couldn't tell me. I know you can't remember, but we are so close, Emily. You're just going to have to take my word for it. You can always tell me anything. And that, what you just told me then, is just so far from being an issue that it's ridiculous."

"That's a plus," Emily laughed weakly. She almost considered taking the plunge and admitting her particular attraction to JJ but, on the sizeable chance that there was more going on with her than there appeared to be, she decided against it. "What else have you got in that bag?" she asked instead.

JJ looked down, surprised. She'd been so distracted and distressed by Emily's confession that she'd forgotten what they'd been doing.

"Oh, um, right!" she yelped. "Cheetos, obviously… Um, actually, maybe not so obviously." She was still startled, waiting for her brain function to kick back in. "It's actually me who has the Cheetos obsession. It's a bit of a joke with us… When you were away we used to play online Scrabble all the time. It's complicated but nearly everyone but me had to think you were dead for a long time while we sorted some things out… You were in danger. The only way we could really keep in touch was this way, via Scrabble. I called myself Cheetobreath." She laughed uncertainly. "We played almost every day."

"Did I win?" Emily asked, trying to keep her voice light.

"Almost always," JJ admitted. Then she winked. "I'm actually pretty sure you let me win once or twice just so I'd keep playing with you."

"Mother lions pretend to be hurt when their cubs bite them to encourage them to keep trying," Emily replied.

JJ's eyes widened and for a moment she looked shocked but then she laughed again. "You've told me that before! How can you remember things like that but not who I am?"

Emily ran one finger along the spine of Pride and Prejudice uncertainly. "It's going to be strange for you, if I don't remember and you have all these memories of the two of us. You keep talking about our team and I don't even know what we do."

"Do you want to know?" JJ asked, sounding concerned, but Emily shook her head.

"I'm still hoping I'll wake up tomorrow morning and just remember…"

JJ squeezed Emily's hand gently. "Yet you've been taking notes. Just in case." She gave a half-hearted smile. "It's very like you."

That didn't mean much to Emily. She still had no idea whether whoever-she-was was worth regaining. She was saved from replying by the sharp sound of a phone ringing.

JJ leaned back, removing her hand from Emily's guiltily. "Oops…" she sighed. "This isn't even supposed to be on… Do you mind if I answer?"

Emily waved a hand to show she didn't care.

"Garcia? Yeah, I'm with her now." JJ spoke self-consciously, keeping an eye on Emily. "No, Pen. Don't come down. She doesn't want to see anyone. It'd probably be a bit much anyway, if you all swept in… Hang on, I'll ask." JJ put her hand over the speaker and turned her full attention on Emily. "It's a friend of ours. She wants me to put her on speaker. Just to say hi," she explained.

Emily kept her face impassive, although her heart rate was picking up. The monitor beside her was taking notice. "Okay," she agreed. "Just quickly."

"Just quickly," JJ promised. "Okay, Garcia. She's here."

"Princess!" came Garcia's too-shrill voice. "You scared the crap out of us! When can I come see you?!"

"Easy, Pen! She doesn't remember anything," JJ snapped protectively. "Try not to be so overwhelming."

"Sorry, sorry!" Garcia apologised. "I guess I'm a pretty overwhelming person… I should introduce myself right?" There was a pause as Garcia attempted to restore some pep to her tone. "Penelope Garcia, Oracle of All Things Knowable and Unknowable, at your service."

"Sounds like you're just the woman I need," Emily joked.

"You betcha, Princess! I can tell you anything you need to know!" Garcia chirped.

"She's trying to figure things out on her own," JJ stepped in.

"Typical Prentiss! Loses her memory and still won't ask for help!"

JJ laughed at that and Emily managed a weak smile.

"Why do you call me 'Princess'?" she asked.

"Morgan started it," JJ answered for their friend. "You'll meet him too,whenever you're ready."

"He was like crazy scared when you went down, Em," Garcia volunteered. "Like, everyone was scared, but he was out of his mind. I've been over the video footage like 600 times now. …Ahem. You got pretty hysterical there yourself, Jayj—"

"Pen, there's no point talking about stuff she won't remember," JJ interrupted, but Garcia stood her ground.

"Hey, she can take all the time she needs remembering," she countered. "And if she never does, we'll make new memories. But she's got to know how much we love her and miss her, okay? Hear that, Princess?"

Emily had to clear her throat before she could make her voice come out right. "Yeah. I hear you…"

"Whenever you're ready, you just let us know, we'll be there like the Flash, okay?"

Emily bit her lip and gave JJ a look that meant I'm done talking right now, and JJ made an excuse to hang up.

"Sorry," she said quietly, once Garcia was off the line.

JJ cleared the contents of Emily's go bag from her bed and sat down. "Don't over-think this, okay?" she warned. And then, as if too nervous to wait for a response, she quickly lay down beside Emily and slipped her arms around the injured woman's waist. "I'm sorry if this is weird because you don't remember who I am. It's just… Garcia's right, Em. I'm trying not to freak out but I've been so scared. I just need to feel you're okay for a minute."

Emily nodded, swallowing past the lump in her throat. She raised a hand, with some difficulty, and laid it on JJ's back. "JJ, I'm afraid that if I let everyone in, let them start introducing themselves… It'll be like accepting I'm not getting my memories back. This is a nightmare."

"It's barely been 24 hours," JJ answered, laying her head against Emily's uninjured shoulder. "It's still more than possible that everything is going to be okay. You'll be in hospital for a while either way, so there's not much you need to worry about—work, your place, and all of that can wait. I'm feeding Sergio."

"My cat, right?"

"Yeah."

Emily smiled. "Wish they'd let you bring the cat in here."

"Sergio's a bit of a wuss anyway," JJ replied. "I don't think he's been outside your apartment since he was a kitten. He's been missing you though… As much as cats ever miss the humans who feed them."

"God, I hope I didn't leave a mess at my place," Emily thought suddenly, causing JJ to laugh in surprise.

"You're never home long enough to make a mess. We work like 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you know?" she joked. "Plus, it's not like you. I'm the messy one."

"But you seem so put together," Emily sighed, feeling a little disappointed, despite herself.

JJ smiled into Emily's shoulder. "You're the only one who knows I'm really not… I put on a good front. Plus, I have a kid, so my place never stays clean for long." Her voice sounded sad out of nowhere.

"Where is your son?" Emily asked, although she sensed that it wasn't that that was bothering JJ.

"Oh, he's with his dad," JJ replied easily. "Don't worry about that. And I've had some leave coming. I got it started early so I could be here without worrying about being called out of state to work."

That was too much. Emily was horrified to feel tears welling up in her eyes, and the realisation that she was going to cry only brought it on faster. Within seconds she was sobbing.

She wasn't the only one who'd lost something, she realised. All of these people she worked with—her friends, who kept begging to see her—had lost someone they loved too. JJ had lost someone she obviously cared about a huge, huge deal, and now she was wasting her holidays and giving up time with her son for Emily, who felt like a shitty replacement, a phoney. And there JJ was, lying against Emily's side, trying to comfort her, when this had to be her nightmare too.

"It's okay," JJ soothed her. "Emily, I swear, everything's going to be okay. I've got you. We'll get through this."

Emily sucked in breath and tried to calm down but it was useless. She clung to JJ and waited for the tears to subside.

"I love you," JJ whispered. "I'm here…"

"I love you too," Emily choked. And then she felt bad for saying it, because she knew JJ couldn't believe her. Still, she took more comfort than she was willing to say in the light kisses JJ pressed against her shoulder. "I… Um… I'll start meeting the others tomorrow," she promised quietly. "Just let me rest today."

JJ nodded and let her eyes fall closed. Rest sounded incredible right now and she was grateful that Emily wasn't asking her to leave. On the contrary, JJ smiled as Emily's hand on her back slid up into her hair and played soothingly.

"I should've expected your hair to be this soft," Emily admitted. "I could smell your shampoo the second you walked in the room."

"You've always had a thing for my hair," JJ chuckled in response, but she didn't explain and Emily didn't ask what she meant.