A/N: Hope this is a bit better than before!
Sandy felt sick as she watched Will frantically pacing back and forth in the waiting room. He was agitated, anxious energy radiating off of him as he tried to reconcile the last 24 hours in his mind.
"Will, what happened?" she asked softly, making him stop and look up. Suddenly, in the awful fluorescent lighting, he looked as though he had aged ten years. His face was pale, fraught with a lack of sleep and undeniable anger.
"She… we were at the party," he stammered, his voice shaking as he cast a hand in the vague direction of the room JJ had been taken to. "And she and Aly went off to dance… they were gone for ages, but Colton and I were just chatting, we weren't worried, and then… then Aly came back and she said JJ was really drunk and she was scared she was going to hurt herself. We went looking for her, and we found her in a room… she was with this guy… and they… they…" He trailed off, his eyes filling with tears as he cast himself into a chair and buried his face in his hands. "They were all over each other. Kissing… touching… if we had been a few minutes later, I… I'm sure we would have found them having sex"
Sandy's stomach gave a dangerous roll as she gingerly lowered herself into the chair beside Will.
"I know she's hurting, I know this is why she did all this dumb shit, but I've been trying to help her for months and all she's done is shut me out… I can't… I can't make sense of any of it," Will said, his voice muffled beneath his hands. Beside him, Sandy had no words. Because really… what could she say that would help to reconcile what Will was feeling? He had every right to be angry. JJ might have been searching for an outlet for her own pain, but she had caught him in the crossfire as well.
Not for the first time since Michael had died, Sandy felt fearful. She had no idea what lay in the days and weeks to come.
The hangover itself was enough to make her want to commit herself. Despite the fact that she was curled up on her side in a dark room, her stomach felt like she was on a boat out in the choppiest seas. Even in the darkness, her eyes hurt every time she opened them, and her head was pounding something awful. She swallowed hard as a wave of nausea rolled over her that made her want to gag. At the same moment, the door to the room opened, allowing a flood of sounds in with whoever had opened it.
"Jennifer?" came a gentle, yet unfamiliar voice.
JJ turned her head slightly, grimacing at the wooziness that passed through her. A few moments later, a young woman with dark hair came into her view, clutching a clipboard to her chest as she rolled over the nearby stool and sat down at the edge of JJ's bed.
"Hi Jennifer," she said, smiling kindly at JJ. "My name's Kimberley Johnson… you can call me Kim. How are you feeling?"
JJ squeezed her eyes shut, bringing up a hand to shield her face. "Not so good"
"I'm gonna ask the admitting doctor to run you some anti-nausea and fluids through an IV… should have you feeling a lot better pretty quickly," Kim said gently. "Is it alright if I ask you a couple of questions?"
JJ managed a nod, pulling her knees up to her chest as Kim laid her clipboard down in her lap.
"The questions I'm going to ask you are part of a psychiatric evaluation. You've been brought in under concerns for your mental health, and therefore your admitting doctor has asked for a psych eval. Do you understand?"
JJ nodded again, finally lowering her hand. With something akin to Herculean strength, she slowly pushed herself up until she was sitting on the edge of the bed, her feet dangling towards the floor. Kim gave her a reassuring smile
"Ok, Jennifer, first I have to ask if you've consumed any drugs or alcohol in the last 24 hours"
Taking a deep breath, JJ slowly nodded, rubbing her eyes with a shaky hand. "I… I had a lot to drink. I don't… I couldn't even tell you… how much. And… my friend said I took cocaine, but… I don't remember doing that"
"That's alright. We'll do a toxicology report and a blood alcohol test on you shortly, that way we'll know for sure, ok?" Kim replied as she made a quick note on her chart. "Now… the man who was with you when you came in said you wanted him to hurt you, and you said you wanted to hurt on the outside as much as you did on the inside. Is that correct?"
JJ shrugged, avoiding eye contact as Kim peered up at her.
"Have you had thoughts of harming yourself in the last month?"
JJ shook her head. She listened as Kim scratched her pen against the paper on the clipboard. In the quiet room, it was almost deafening, seeming to drown out everything else as her head pounded and throbbed.
"Have you had a traumatic event in your life recently?"
No sooner had the words left Kim's mouth than JJ's eyes were welling up with tears. She let out a choked sob, prompting Kim to wordlessly hold out a box of tissues towards her.
"I, uh… my dad," JJ said tearfully, grabbing a tissue and pressing it to her eyes. "He died in July… he had cancer"
"I'm so sorry to hear that, Jennifer, that must be really hard," Kim said sincerely. "Do you often find yourself struggling with feelings of that loss?"
JJ sniffed. "Every day. I miss him so much… it's not fair that he's gone"
"Have you felt depressed at all since he passed away?"
JJ swallowed hard, wiping at her eyes again as more tears flowed. "I guess"
The questions kept coming, one after the other, with JJ answering in an exhausted tone every time. Eventually, she was left alone again, curled up on her side once more as she tried to put the last 24 hours out of her mind… even if it was just for a little while.
Sandy felt like she had been sitting in the hospital for hours. Will had long since left, his expression so defeated that Sandy didn't even know what to say to him. She wasn't even sure how to explain what had happened… how was she supposed to bring him any sort of comfort?
"Mrs Jareau?"
Turning towards the voice, Sandy rose out of her chair, clutching her coffee cup to her chest as she approached a male doctor who looked to be a little younger than herself.
"Mrs Jareau, my name is Dr Lee. I'm the doctor who admitted your daughter earlier today. Is it alright if we go down the hall to a more private room? There's some things I want to discuss with you"
"Of course," Sandy replied softly, falling into step behind the doctor. They made their way down the hall, before he led her into a small room with two small sofas. When he closed the door behind them, the room fell into a soft silence, broken only by the rustling as they both took a seat.
Dr Lee took a deep breath, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. "Obviously you're aware that your daughter is in quite an emotional state right now. Even though you brought her in, she voluntarily agreed to a psychiatric evaluation and admission. We still have some more tests we want to do, but I wanted to talk to you about where we think she's sitting right now"
Sandy swallowed hard, nodding as she hung on the doctor's every word.
"Mrs Jareau… how long has JJ been struggling with her father's death?"
Sandy swallowed hard, her mind racing back through all the times she had watched JJ trying to process her emotions. "I… I guess since even before he died. We knew he was going to die, and JJ… she didn't really take it very well"
"Has she ever experienced any other traumatic event in her life? And have you ever noticed behaviors like what you've seen recently before?"
Letting out a heavy breath, Sandy nodded. "Her… her older sister died, just before she turned eleven. It was… suicide, and… JJ was the one who found her"
Dr Lee's face became even more somber than before. He ran a hand through his hair, exhaling heavily. "Mrs Jareau, we believe your daughter has a mental illness known as persistent complex bereavement disorder. It's not widely known, and it essentially means her brain is not wired to process grief in the same way as most people do. Generally it's hard to diagnose until it's been more than six months since the bereavement has passed… but JJ ticks off enough of the criteria that we feel we can move forward with that diagnosis"
"She… wouldn't we have noticed?"
"You have," Dr Lee said gently. "But most people just assume it's grief taking it's normal path. In reality, JJ has probably never been able to process grief properly. Did she have an extended period of grieving after her sister died?"
As she thought back to all those years ago, Sandy's heart sank. Looking up at Dr Lee, she nodded slowly. "She struggled for months… her dad and I, we… we just assumed it was because she was young and she couldn't understand what she had witnessed that morning, but… maybe she needed more help than we gave her"
"This is not your fault," Dr Lee said gently. "It's just how her brain works. She has quite a few hallmarks of the disorder, such as ruminating on the loss, depressive episodes, harmful and self-destructive behavior, and even a wish that she had passed alongside her father"
Sandy's eyes widened, tears beginning to well up. "She said that?"
Dr Lee nodded sadly. "Not in those exact words… but yes. Some of the answers she gave Kim in her initial evaluation were a little concerning"
"Is the disorder treatable or is she going to live like this for the rest of her life?"
"No, we should be able to treat her. First line response is always therapy and grief counseling, to help her build some coping responses. If the depression component worsens despite that, it can be treated quite effectively with medication"
Some hours later, she was sitting at JJ's bedside, listening to the silence as she watched the fluids running through the IV. While exhausted, JJ was starting to look a little better, and Sandy was grateful that she had least obliged to come to the hospital, even if only to get treatment for the havoc she'd wreaked on her body the previous evening.
And then she noticed it.
"Where's your ring?" Sandy asked quietly, but a sense of heartbreak was already settling in her stomach.
"He took it back," JJ whispered, her voice deadpan as she avoided looking at her mother.
Sandy bit her lip, averting her eyes up to the ceiling as she attempted to keep her emotions in check.
They hadn't even been engaged six months. She didn't yet fully understand all of what had happened in Los Angeles… but she knew it must have been bad if Will had decided to break off the engagement.