Work Text:
It was a single gunshot, through the side of her Palizzio leather handbag, that finally ended it. After three grueling days and just as many sleepless nights, Jimmy Thompson would no longer be stalking the fine citizens of Akron. And Emily would never hear the end of it from her mother about the bag.
What do they say in Italy? Così è la vita.
Emily set the gun down on the bar counter, hands shaking. She could count on three fingers the number of times she’d entered a room with an unsub and only a thin, long sleeve shirt separating her from the business end of a gun (three times too many, she could hear JJ say), and it never got easier.
Boyfriend? Thompson had growled, smirking, and it was then Emily knew she was toast. But the long arm of the law is indeed long, and it wasn’t but two seconds after the bullet from Emily’s gun had barreled through Thompson’s abdomen that Morgan was there, swearing and shouting and snatching the revolver from where it had been clutched in the unsub’s hand.
Two seconds too many, JJ would also say. If she had been there. And not for the first time since Strauss had her reassigned to the Pentagon did Emily feel her absence like a sharp stab in the gut.
She waited, chest heaving, for the techs to come and pack up her weapon and swab the gunpowder residue from her hands. She’d be on desk duty for a week while all of the red tape cleared, but honestly she couldn’t find it in herself to care. She knew her eyes were glazed over, she knew her team would notice eventually (they were fucking profilers after all) but it didn’t matter. Emily took in the perfect ring of singed leather bored through the side of her brown bag, and sighed. The bag seemed to sag as she eyed it. Emily knew how it felt.
Penelope was at the station when they returned and pounced immediately.
“Oh my god, Emily, are you ok? You could have DIED! What were you thinking?! How did they let you?!”
“PG, stop, I’m fine,” Emily sighed, waving the other woman off. But Penelope wasn’t having it.
“Hey, hey, seriously, talk to me.” Her voice softened, laying a hand on Emily’s arm to stop her before she could pass by.
“Just another day in the BAU, Pen,” Emily chuckled ruefully, shaking her head, but when they made eye contact and Garcia saw the blue half moons settling underneath long lashes, it was over.
“Ok, you, missy, are not well. I’m talking to Hotch because you should leave. Go to the hotel, get a hot bath, I don’t care. Just don’t stay here.”
“Garcia, I’m fine.” Lie. “Just give me a minute, it’s ok.” Lie, lie, lie.
Penelope squinted at her with piercing scrutiny.
Emily glanced away.
“If you are actually fine," she said slowly, "then look me in the eyes and say it.”
“Garcia -” Emily warned, voice low, gaze lower.
It was futile. Hotch, predictably, agreed with Garcia. There was nothing else for her to do at the station. It made sense. But hotels weren’t the same anymore since JJ left. Emily didn’t want to be there, alone in an empty room, but she also didn’t want to mill around the station, making infuriating small talk and dodging Pen’s glances. So she left, an ache starting up just behind her right eye, and walked the two blocks to the hotel they’d been posted up for the case. The room was just like every other one, which was actually more of a problem than it was helpful. It was just like every other room, which reminded Emily that on any other case, JJ would be steaming up the bathroom, debriefing the day, snoring gently from the other bed.
JJ would be there. Should be there.
Everything was so fucked.
__
The plane ride home was uneventful, quiet. Reid and Rossi were playing cards at the table and everyone else was in good spirits, all things considered. But as Emily peered out the window at the tiny specks of neighborhoods and little moving cars, all she could think about was the bar. Thompson’s slitty eyes. The cold gun metal against her palm. Death was always just around the corner in this job. And sometimes, you got a front row seat.
Emily shuddered, pressing the heels of her palms against her eyes, and the seat next to her felt achingly empty.
Wheels hit the tarmac and the plane stuttered, jolting Emily back to reality. She grabbed her go-bag (trying hard not to consider the absence of a different go-bag in her other hand) and followed Morgan down the stairs.
___
Hotch sent them all home, which was fine because Emily didn’t think her mind would be of use anyways. Penelope had offered, begged, Emily to go out and have a drink, Come on, hun, you need it! but Emily could not think of a place she’d enjoy less than a sticky bar lined wall to wall with capital hill Chads. I’ll call you! Pen had promised, head popping around the closing doors of the elevator as Emily pressed the lobby button. She had merely nodded. Pen would call, Emily knew. She also knew unequivocally that she wouldn’t answer.
Rain slid down her windshield in rivulets as she drove through thick, DC traffic. Thompson’s death, and her almost one, was by far not the worst thing Emily had ever experienced. Hello. Doyle. But she hadn’t come this close in a while, close enough that a tendril of panic had slithered down her spine, that for a brief second her brain had fuzzed out like a snowy TV screen. Am I going to – she shook her head hard, trying to dislodge the memory. A light flipped red. Emily closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the headrest.
She needed a cigarette.
___
Smoke curled around her lips as she breathed out, a camel crush (her not-so secret vice) tucked between two fingers. The metal of the fire escape cut sharply into the back of her thighs and the wind threatened a spray of rainy mist. Emily declined an incoming call for the 7th time in two hours, the analyst was nothing if not persistent, and instead sucked in a sharp, mentholated drag. Some days she just needed to brood. JJ had understood that. JJ understood most things about Emily. It had only been a month since Jennifer Jareau had walked out of the BAU doors for the last time, but between learning her new job and single-parenting Henry, the other agent hadn’t been by, and their overnight case in Ohio meant they’d missed their weekly call. The Pentagon was less than 5 miles from FBI headquarters, but it might as well have been 50.
If JJ was there, she’d be stealing Emily’s cigarette, coughing out her exhale, and Emily would laugh. If JJ was there, she wouldn’t say a word, just rest a gentle hand on her shoulder. If JJ was there, Emily would brood, but a little less , and JJ would roll her eyes, but endearingly, and it would be perfect. Emily sighed, and flicked a smoldering butt over the railing.
The sun dipped below the horizon, and the lights of the traffic below blurred into white and red streaks before Emily finally peeled herself off the fire escape. She stretched, back stiff from the cold air.
A sharp rap on the window pane startled her so badly she jumped, her half-empty pack tumbling to the street. She reached automatically for her gun, which she remembered a half a second too late was already tucked away into her safe.
Panic flared, but dissipated just as quickly once she realized who it was.
“Emily, hey, it’s me,” JJ held her hands up, stepping gracefully through the open window.
Emily shook her head sheepishly. “Sorry, I’m sorry.”
“No,” JJ spoke slowly, the faintest shake of her head. “I’m sorry.”
Emily stared at her for a long moment, taking in JJ’s pencil skirt and badge. She must have come right from work, her mind posited absently. Her work without you, it reminded her, and her mouth tasted suddenly bitter.
“What are you doing here?”
JJ’s blue eyes widened at the hardened edge of her tone.
Emily didn’t mean to sound that way, didn’t know where it had come from. JJ certainly didn’t deserve it, had done nothing wrong. But it was a hard case and an even harder four weeks and, fuck, every uncomfy emotion Emily had been dutifully shoving down in the days since lodged in the back of her throat, burned her eyes.
JJ swallowed hard. Did she look nervous?
“I tried calling. Pen said she couldn’t reach you, said –” JJ paused, shrugging, eyes flitting away.
Emily didn’t speak, taking in the way JJ’s fists clenched and opened, the crease worried between thin brows, the low glow of the street lamp feathering over familiar blonde locks. This was JJ. Her JJ.
And Emily was walking the edge of being an ass.
She shifted, breathing out unsteadily, any traces of fight seeping away. “Said what?” she asked, voice soft.
JJ glanced back up, head cocking to the side, eyes searching her face.
“Said that she was worried about you. Said that something happened.”
“It’s fine, I’m fine–”
“Em, she said you were almost shot .”
The last word tumbled out into silence, in a hushed voice twinged with disbelief and something else that she couldn’t quite name but sounded an awful lot like regret.
Emily looked away then, biting her lip. The skin around her thumbnail burned as she picked at it.
“I was fine, we had it controlled. I knew what I was doing.”
It was JJ’s turn to simmer. “Emily, what the fuck.”
Emily’s eyes flashed up to meet hers, startled for the second time in as many minutes.
“You were in that bar, no vest, only that stupid bag—“
“Hey,” Emily murmured, “that bag is fine Italian leather—“
“Fine, your stupid Italian bag, and you could have died and I wasn't there, Emily.” She stopped and sucked in a breath. “I wasn’t there, and you could have died and—“ her voice cracked, and Emily broke a little.
“Hey, look, I’m here, ok, and I’m fine. Look,” She held out her arms, as if to prove her tangibility, her wholeness. “I’m right here, I didn’t die.” And as she said the words, Emily wasn’t quite sure who most needed to hear them.
JJ loosed a shaky breath. “You’re fine,” she repeated. “You’re here.”
“Yeah, I am.” Emily took a finger and tilted JJ’s chin. “Right here.”
Emily could feel JJ’s breath in little puffs on her lips. And felt her own hitch as JJ pressed a hand to her chest, resting it on the fabric of Emily’s button down, right above her heart.
JJ’s eyes closed briefly, and Emily’s heartbeat pounded in her ears.
JJ was beautiful, duh , something Emily knew in no uncertain terms since her first day at the BAU, when JJ took her through the department policies and Emily felt the first blushes of a baby crush. But over the years, that burgeoning flicker morphed into something different. In some respects it had to; they were colleagues, and then of course, there were the years Will was around. So JJ became her best friend, her confidant, her meilleure amie . Lately, after Will tapped out, things had started feeling different again; this time deeper, with an intensity that quite frankly terrified her. Emily had worried for months that it was just her, this was just friendship, it was nothing more. JJ’s move to the Pentagon, and the distance she felt spiralling out between them, hadn’t helped.
But when JJ opened her eyes, something fierce and protective flashing through them, Emily thought maybe, just maybe, she hadn’t been imagining at all. Her hand fell away from JJ’s face, and for a moment, they stood there, inches apart, JJ’s hand on her heart and Emily’s heart in her throat. Until she asked, so quietly that Emily wasn’t even sure what she had heard, “Can I kiss you?” and Emily could only nod.
JJ’s lips were soft and warm against hers; the kiss almost excruciatingly gentle. Time unfurled in liquid whorls around them and for one moment the whole world seemed to hold its breath. Emily Prentiss was kissing Jennifer Jareau. Emily Prentiss was fucking kissing the Jennifer Jareau. She felt 14 again. The intensity of her butterflies was criminal.
Emily was lightheaded as JJ pulled back, touching her lips, eyes wide.
“Well that was…something,” Emily said, biting back a smile.
“Good something or bad something?”
“Mm,” Emily pretended to think. “Good. Unexpected, but decidedly good.”
They shared a look before bursting into laughter. When JJ's smile faded and she looked down, Emily grabbed one of her hands, and threaded their fingers together, a silent question.
“Sorry, I think I’m just not used to…not being there with you,” JJ said sheepishly, rubbing her other hand on the back of her neck. “You pull crazy crap all the time, but at least I know when it’s happening. At least I get to be there afterwards to make sure they stitch you up right.”
Emily was quiet, processing. She swept her thumb over the back of JJ’s hand, before she smirked.
“Hey, don’t apologize. I think it’s cute.”
“What? What’s cute?”
“You. When you worry ,” Emily sang goofily, “because you like me .” JJ promptly punched her arm. “Woah, hey!” Emily exclaimed, but wasn’t nearly close to being put out, especially not when strong arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her close. She relaxed into the hug, chuckling, and pressed her lips to the side of JJ’s head.
“So I have to ask; how did you get in here?”
JJ quirked a smile, pulling out a dangling piece of metal on a little string. “You left me a key, remember?”
Emily did indeed not remember. She may be a trained spy, but blonde agents from small town America were apparently her kryptonite.
Emily leaned in and brushed her lips against JJ’s. The other woman didn’t hesitate, pressing the rest of the way to deepen the kiss. Somehow JJ’s hands were everywhere, and Emily burned and burned where nimble fingers had touched her. She swiped her tongue against JJ’s lips and slid her own hands under the hem of JJ’s shirt, leaving them to rest on the soft skin there. JJ moaned low in her throat and Emily was sure she was liable to combust.
She finally broke the kiss, and leaned her forehead against JJ’s as they both tried to catch their breath.
“So,” JJ asked softly after a moment, “are my key privileges revoked from scaring your pants off earlier?” She was teasing, but Emily could see a real question there, hiding.
“Nah, keep it.” She drew a finger up JJ’s arm, to her neck, before burying her hand into the golden strands there, earning her a soft sigh.
She leaned in close, talking low in the shell of JJ’s ear.
“You can use it when you come back from the store on the corner.”
“And what, pray tell, would I possibly be buying at this late hour?” JJ whispered with an amused scoff, slightly breathless.
“Well, someone owes me a pack of smokes.”
JJ barked a laugh. “Oh do I, Emily Prentiss? How about you just shut up and kiss me.”
Emily, FBI agent, rogue spy, and Yale graduate, didn’t need to be told twice, thank you very much. The moon was just cresting over the buildings on the horizon as Emily closed the distance between them, for not the first or the last time that evening, and kissed the curved lips of her best friend, her fem fatale, her Jennifer Jareau.