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“This is nice.” Emily said softly. She closed her eyes, letting the warm night air wash over her skin. There were cicadas chirruping nearby and she could hear the crackle from the log fire, but aside from that, the night was still. The log burner’s smoke touched her nostrils and she smiled softly, the warmth and the smell almost feeling like a cigarette between her lips. And for the first time in a very long time, she felt at peace – at peace with herself and with the decision she had made.
JJ watched her friend quietly. It had been a rough year. In February, Emily had been terrorised by Ian Doyle. In March she was dead. By July she was back (at least physically) and now, now it wasn’t even Christmas, and Emily was leaving again. So much had happened. Will had almost died, and now she was getting married and Emily was leaving again. And in all that time, they never really talked about any of it. Until tonight, JJ decided. She couldn’t let Emily fly away to the other side of the world without saying what she needed to say.
“Are you happy?” JJ asked softly.
“Mmmm.” Emily hummed, raising her beer, her eyes still closed.
JJ smiled. “You know what I mean.”
Emily sighed and turned to look at her friend, the flames casting an autumnal hue across JJ s skin, making her hair look aflame. She regarded JJ’s earnest eyes and decided that tonight of all nights, she should be honest. “I’m trying to be.”
JJ nodded. Ever since that man came into Emily’s life, there had been a darkness in those deep brown eyes, and even after Ian Doyle was dead and buried that darkness still remained in Emily’s eyes. Even on those nights when the team would go to O’Keefe’s and drink and laugh and let the tension of their work slip away, even then, JJ could still see that darkness hanging heavily around Emily. She wore it like a cloak. Or maybe a coat of armour.
Emily regarded her friend. “You think I’m making a mistake?”
JJ shrugged. “I think it’s a pretty sudden decision to just pack up and go all that way.”
Emily just nodded.
“Do you think you’re making a mistake?” JJ asked carefully.
Emily laughed softly. “I have no idea. But, honestly Jayje… what’s one more mistake in a whole line of mistakes?”
JJ reached across and took hold of Emily’s hand. “You haven’t made mistakes. You’ve done what you needed to do.”
Emily hummed noncommittally.
JJ regarded Emily. Emily who was the expert at compartmentalisation. Emily who was fierce and brave and badass. Emily who had been beaten down and always stood right back up to spit in life’s eye. Emily who had stunned them all when they learned of her secret past. Emily who had run into that damn station, defying orders, ignoring her own safety and sat there, calmly diffusing the bomb that was strapped to Will. Emily Prentiss. “I’ll miss you.” She said softly.
Emily smiled. “Not for long. Not with Henry and Will to keep you on your toes.”
“You’re supposed to say you’ll miss me too.”
Emily’s eyes snapped to JJ’s. “Of course I’ll miss you.”
JJ stared at her for another beat, before asking the question that had haunted her since Emily and Will had staggered out of that station. Before then, even. Ever since Emily returned from ‘the dead’ and walked coolly into the BAU as if nothing had happened. “Did you want to die?”
Emily stared at her. “I don’t know what –“
“When you went in to save Will. Did you want to die?”
“I wanted to help Will.” She replied. “I couldn’t leave him alone.”
JJ scoffed, a brow raised. “So you’re a trained bomb disposal expert as well?”
Emily’s gaze didn’t waver, a smile on her lips that didn’t reach her eyes. “How hard could it be?”
JJ shook her head, a sudden anger shooting through her veins. “It stupid! You could have died! I could have lost both of you!”
Emily sighed. “Jay… it worked out. We survived. Like always.”
JJ narrowed her eyes. “It was reckless.”
Another sigh. “Yeah.”
JJ stared at her. “You never answered my question: did you want to die?”
Emily took another sip of beer. “I don’t know.” She replied quietly. “I just…” She blew out a long breath.
“Just what?”
Emily’s hand drifted to the scar on her stomach. “I died, jay. And they brought me back, but… I should have died. Should have stayed dead.”
“No. No, that’s crap Emily.”
“Yeah? All those people JJ. My friends. And those former agents and their families – they died so he could get to me. And I lived. And it isn’t fair. I didn’t deserve to survive.”
JJ listened silently.
“And through all the rest of it,” Emily continued, “Through the operations at Bethesda and the recovery in Paris, and this whole Goddamn year trying to fit back in to a life that ended, I still feel dead. I’m a ghost here, Jayje. The team mourned me. They grieved for me. They fucking buried me. And now they have to sit opposite me at lunch and reconcile that whole shitstorm. And it isn’t fair – not for them and not for me either. So to answer your question, no, I didn’t actively want to die…but if it happened, well let’s just say it wouldn’t have bothered me.”
JJ sat in silence her thumb brushing at her tears as she tried to figure out how to react to the confirmation of what she already knew. “That’s why you’re going away, isn’t it? Because you might put yourself in that position again?”
“Maybe.” She knew it was true. Ever since she had dragged Chase out of that damn lake she had felt the pull of death. The lure. And she felt just like he had: wondering if she were to die again, would she have the same experience: the dark and the cold? Was she still damned, like Gamino had told her? Or would she be bathed in light and forgiveness? It was crazy. Logically she knew this… but that niggle lingered in the back of her mind. She couldn’t shake it. It followed her around, clouding her mind on cases and in her sleep.
“Em?”
Emily blinked, pulled from her thoughts. “A change of scenery, y’know…” she said lamely.
“Into a leadership position and all the stress that goes with it?” JJ queried cynically. “An ocean away from your friends? You don’t think you accepted too fast?”
Emily chuckled. “A kneejerk reaction to everything?”
“Yeah.”
Emily shrugged again. “I guess I’ve always been one to jump in with both feet.”
JJ smiled sadly. “You aren’t changing your mind then?”
A shake of the head. “I think I need this, Jayje.”
JJ exhaled and nodded. She could see that changing Emily’s mind was like catching a greased pig. “You had better keep in touch.”
“Thursday scrabble?”
JJ groaned. “Ha ha.”
“Yeah. I hate scrabble.” Emily nodded.
JJ smiled. “Hey, if you hate it so much, how come you always beat me?”
Emily shrugged. “Couldn’t let you win, Jareau. I’d never hear the end of it.”
“I wish I could have done more for you. Then. Now.”
Emily took a firm hold of JJ’s hand. She fixed her with her unwavering eyes. “You’re the best friend I ever had, JJ. I’ll miss you so Goddamn much! You kept me alive in Paris. You gave me something to live for. Those damn Thursday scrabble games.” She laughed softly. “They were the only thing that felt real, y’know? Those moments, when you and I were connected on that damn game, they were the only times I felt safe. The only times I felt happy. And you can’t ever know what that meant to me.”
“I felt so helpless over here.” JJ whispered. “I felt like a piece of shit for leaving you there. For being forced to pretend you were dead. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you ever apologise Jennifer Jareau.” Emily said firmly, her tone of voice commanding. “Not to me. Not ever. You saved me. And I need you to know that I will do the same for you. No matter where I am. If you need me, I’ll be there. And that is a Prentiss promise.”
JJ laughed as Emily’s fingers brushed the rest of her tears away. “Don’t go, Em.”
Emily smiled. “I have to. And you aren’t allowed to be sad. You’re getting married. You’re going to have a wonderful life and I’ll be right here for the wedding, and I’ll be on the phone to you so damn often that you’ll probably hate me!”
“Impossible!” JJ laughed.
Emily smiled and watched her friend. “You want the truth? There was a time that I wanted to die. I did what Hotch wanted. I got out of that damn hospital and sat on that damn jet and went across the world. I did it for him. For the team. Because me being alive put the target right back on them. So I did it. I pretended it was okay and I went, but all the time I just wanted to die. When you left, after those first few days I seriously thought about it.”
“Em.”
Emily nodded and took a breath. “There have been three times in my life when I just wanted to get swallowed up and disappear forever. I was fifteen the first time. And the second was after we arrested Doyle that first time eight years ago. God… coming out of that mission was…” she trailed off. “Hard doesn’t begin to cover it.” She paused. “And then in Paris I almost did it. I got real drunk. Really drunk. And I remember tipping the pain meds I had into my hand and just…. staring at them there. It would’ve been so easy, y’know.” She stared ahead for a beat, before blinking back to reality and looking across at the devastation on JJ’s face. The devastation of a woman who had already lost a sister to suicide. “Oh shit Jayje. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t brought that up.”
JJ smiled in appreciation of the apology, tears running silently down her cheeks, her finger absently toying with Roslyn’s necklace. “What stopped you?” she husked.
“You did.” She watched for JJ’s reaction. “I thought about you. The risks you were taking communicating with me, even through fucking scrabble. And I imagined you, watching your screen, waiting for me to log on, and I knew how scared you’d be if I wasn’t there. Maybe you’d think Ian had got me. Maybe you’d think I’d just run again. And then I remembered Roslyn, and I couldn’t do that to you. Wouldn’t. So I put the pills back in the pot and waited for our game.”
JJ tried to smile through her tears – tears for Emily and tears for Roslyn. And tears for herself and the hole that Roslyn’s death had left inside of her.
Emily sandwiched JJ’s hand between both of hers. “You saved me Jen. I want – I need you to know that. Because I know you always carried a little guilt inside you about your sister; about not being able to stop her. Which is crazy JJ because you were just a kid. But I know it’s there, in your heart and it probably always will be. But you saved me. You did. You saved me Jennier.”
The tears continued to flow down JJ’s cheeks, and her eyes closed as she felt Emily’s calloused thumb brush them away. She held that hand close, her manicured fingers drifting over the misshapen, bitten down nubs of Emily’s fingers. “I couldn’t save these though, huh?” she joked, sniffing her tears away.
Emily laughed softly, their eyes locked together. “They’ve been doomed for thirty years.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
“I know.”
“Then stay?”
Emily shook her head. “I can’t. I-I need to reset. There’s too many ghosts here and I have to figure out who I am again.”
JJ scoffed softly. “Most people ‘find themselves’ by taking 6 months backpacking in Thailand – but you, Emily Prentiss, you have to find yourself by dumping one 24/7 job for another 24/7 job – one with an even heavier workload. In London! Your idea of resetting sounds an awful lot like burying yourself in work and not doing one damn second of finding yourself again.”
“I guess you know me too well.”
“It worries me, Em, that you’re just going to compartmentalise the last year – stick it in some box in your brain and never open it again.”
“Sounds good to me.” Emily whispered.
JJ sighed and pressed her lips to Emily’s knuckles. “Do me a favour, huh? Take time for you. Take a little time to unpack that box and come to terms with it.”
Emily smiled. “That’s some big ask, Jayje.”
“You owe me that.” JJ countered.
Emily nodded. “I guess I do.”
“Stay in touch?”
No scrabble? You sure? I guess I’d better save up for my phone bill then.”
“Damn straight!”
They laughed together, the tension vanishing as they settled back into their seats and watched the flames, the sparks rising and drifting apart.
JJ held Emily’s hand tightly. “Call me every week.”
“Every week.” Emily nodded.