Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The day after Emily Elizabeth Prentiss was born, the world continued to spin.

It never stopped for her father, for whom her existence lay somewhere between a mistake and a footnote. If Emily was the world, he wasn’t in a different planet but a different galaxy, solar systems away with stars knitted together that spelled out hatred and disappointment and ‘you look just like your mother.’ He seldom came home.

She couldn’t have been older than eight—scraped knees and buckle shoes and a head full of fairy stories about the brave knight who rescues the princess—when she overhears her parents shouting at each other and realizes that four walls aren’t what inhibits him.

It’s the people inside them. It’s her. Maybe not loving each other was a craft they had perfected by not loving her.

She isn’t enough.

The world didn’t stop for the babysitters who she was a job for yet still tried to trace the smallest prick of parental affection from like a doctor visiting the morgue to draw blood from someone who had long flatlined. It didn’t stop for friends she didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t make.

She was the ghost of someone else’s daughter. someone her mother might have loved if she had been born tougher, or prettier, or not at all. Her entire life was one long, unspoken apology for the sin of being born. a human-shaped mistake that was avoided with less care than a superstitious person treading over a crack in the road.

At some point Emily stopped asking if her mother loved her. By eighth grade, she had stopped asking anything.

She isn’t enough.

It never stopped for the dozens of places she had lived in. Her soul had scattered the earth but never caught up to her body soon enough to find its footing. The process of moving was as familiar as the skin on the carcass she called herself. For a moment the house was barren of much of her possessions and looked just as it was in practice: only her and her bags of misery. stripped down and devoid of the empty comfort or grand illusions of safety those taken things might provide. Places always seemed warmer on her last impression of them.

The walls breathed a sigh of relief, at last. They no longer lie in wait for voices that aren’t coming. The heaviness of denial and weight of guilt she had sewn into them evaporates.

When she was younger, she'd once told her mother that she sometimes felt sad for no reason.

Her mother had sighed, frustrated. “You have nothing to be sad about. You’re being dramatic, Emily.”

So Emily buried it.

All of it.

The feeling that she was broken in a way no one could see. That she was too much and never enough all at once. That she was born wrong.

From that day on, Emily is fine. (That’s not a lie. She doesn’t feel enough to be anything else.)

-

Some nights, she curled up under her covers and whispered, “I’m sorry,” to no one. Over and over. She didn’t know who she was apologizing to. a god she no longer believed in, her parents, her baby. every person who had ever walked this earth for having to share oxygen with her.

maybe just herself.

“Sorry for being born,” the body whispered to the soul caged within it. “I’m sorry I put you through this.”

What worse fate for a blackbird than a cage?

And if someone heard the sound of her crying, no one would have recognized it.

-

Emily still hadn’t told anyone she was getting sick.

Not a sickness like a cough or a cold, but a sickness of mind, enveloping every synapse of her body and fiber of her being and memory engraved in her brain. as if the very vessel of herself had broken and torn into every emotion she’d ever felt, convinced that her heart was its home to stay for all eternity.

She would spend that eternity loving JJ.

Emily wished she was sick. That she could take a pill or wait it out or just close her eyes and finally get some damn rest only to wake up clean. hollow and whole all at once. The poison of love that filled her soul would drain from her body like a pen bled of ink after writing a book as long as the Holy Writ on why she wanted, needed, inhaled JJ from the depths of herself.

She hadn’t told anyone ever so many things. that her brain had been becoming louder and the contents of it had begun to trail down her eyes. Emily cried as methodically as the tides turn—certain, steady, with the weight of inevitability splintering against her ribs. She was a killer in surrender. As much as she could run across the sand, the moment she turned her back on the ocean for such a fruitless endeavor as watching the footprints she left fade away, she would be claimed. Chains would ribbon themselves across her ankles, trailing up her spine as raw as poison ivy.

The only thing missing was tape crossing the length of her mouth. The ocean knew her far too well to dawdle on such a thing. It stalked her at every moment.

In her empty apartment, clutching the glass of wine in her hand like the map back to sanity. in the mirror staring back at the face the person she wanted with every thread of her existence to love her would never find beauty in. the face even a mother couldn’t love. barren ribs from skipped meals and still needing to be more and less and smaller and bigger because whatever the mess reflected in front of her is, it isn’t enough.

She touches her reflection as if it might feel real. It is a strange juxtaposition. cold and hard and strong and steely, and she almost begs the mirror to hold what it does in a single shard.

“Why would anyone love you?”

No answer comes.

JJ is the most beautiful person Emily has ever seen. Gentle, perfect lips that curled up in a smile as impossibly warm as the sun. Emily wants to watch it rise and set in her eyes. There would never be a need to look away. The sky is jealous that if a creator of the universe indeed exists, he placed their most beautiful stars inside of Jennifer Jareau. JJ, whose every breath of life was stolen from Emily's lungs because Emily's heart stopped in awe of her.

She loved her. to the fullest extent the human heart can allow and the universe can hold. beyond the restrictions of all flesh and being. with every cell in her body and in the marrow of her bones and every waking thought. her hands that gave Emily the gentlest of touches as the older woman could hear her heart thumping in her eardrums. She loved her in a way that could never be undone, as it was the pinnacle of all being.

But JJ deserves light. Not the black hole in Emily’s ribcage.

She wasn’t just unloved.

She was unlovable.

“I’m ready to move again, now.” She thinks, Sergio crawling at her feet as she crouches down to feed him, her hands intwining around his black fur. Not a move between houses or countries or states. A move between suffering and surrender. Between the futility of life and a permanent state of emptiness. Everything and nothing at all.

Emily pushed herself back up and grabbed the bottle of wine that sat on the counter without a second thought.

She isn’t enough.

You are nothing,

and always have been.

Chapter Text

It began as a logical next step.

As the days continued to creep forward, tears rusting against the hands of time as the smiles that once adorned her lips absconded themselves into her empty gravestone, Emily couldn’t escape the insurmountable fear that she would one day plunge into the depths of the abyss. that ink would fill her lungs and write a story of death throughout her body. each day it felt harder to breathe, eat, stand, live, as if her depression had metastasised. she had shrouded herself in armour so heavy she couldnt manage to lift it, to take medicine for her inward cancer. Emily found herself wearing a mask so cracked she could not see and so thick that any attempt to speak, to whisper or call for help or scream “im in here” cruelly ricochet, only puncturing her broken mind further with its echoes.

Excessive force tended to be used when conflicts were personal, and was there a single more intimate relationship on this earth than that of the human body in turmoil with the psyche?

Cracks in the glass she was created in had began to show. JJ noticed first, as she always tended to.

“You’re paler than usual,” she said softly, eyes sweeping over Emily’s face during the morning briefing. “Did you sleep?”

Emily shrugged. “Same as usual.”

Which was true. No sleep at all.

Rossi had begun try his damndest for the smallest grin, a sign of happiness, a sign of life from her, and emily would fray away at her skin to carve out one and oblige him. He had told her she could always speak to him about anything that might be going on. When Emily insisted that nothing was upsetting her, he had given her a look and simply said “Kid, this is the behavioural analysis unit.”

Garcia, too, was frightfully attuned to Emily in her own right so much so that the smile Emily was making herself wear around her -for fear of unraveling, for fear of admitting she was in too deep, admitting she was in love, broken, worthless- seemed to weigh a thousand pounds.

Spencer would look at her just that much longer, waiting for her to follow his longwinded statical diatribes with teasing jabs she still managed to rip from her throat. Derek would say that she ‘didn’t look so hot’ with a smile curling on his lips and a flicker of concern in his eyes like a crevice of the sun peeking through a formless shadow, and she would promptly tear a laugh from her chest, throwing her hand to her heart with an acerbic response, feigning woeful offence.

She hadn’t slept. She hadn’t eaten in two days and was existing on a steady diet of alcohol, cigarettes and the occasional gatorade or coffee, not wanting to feel the heaviness of food in her stomach. The feeling of being ruined, impure, overcome with guilt and paralysed with fear.

She felt tainted by food in the same way her body had been branded and scarred, ruined for everyone except someone who now lay six feet beneath her. She envied Doyle for that, would swap their places if she could.

(Matthew is rolling in his grave in repulsion at what she has become. Emily doesn’t know if it’s a relief or a horror that she doesn’t fully believe that.)

Love, or the lack of it, was her undoing. But food seemed a mechanism to reel herself back together. When Emily didnt eat, she once again lacked something that she never deserved, but held the comfort of the feeling it made her somewhat beautiful.

Somewhat. Not more.

How can you have more of something which you have never possessed to begin with?

(Maybe he is crying - she is sinning with every breath, every swirl and flutter in her heart at JJ’s presence. Even now, she is sinning.)

-

The self harming behavior had started unassumingly enough. Biting her nails felt so soothing. She had graduated to the flesh on her palms and around her wrist easily, gnawing yearningly at her veins as a meek invitation to immerge from her skin. They were not necessary anymore. Blessedly, she would succumb to the burning fire of hell incessantly crackling inside her and lose the ability to keep them warm. Emily had seen thousands of dead bodies from imposing, statuesque individuals to frightfully guileless little creatures like the baby she would never be able to have. She didn’t want to become another one, another empty cage.

She wanted to be burnt to ash and released into the sky the color of old bone, loops of sunlight shrinking around her. She imagined herself dissolving into flame and then becoming something else, small and white and forgetful. She wanted to be snow, blanketing the earth rather than it swallowing her entirely.

The first time Emily hit herself, she was sitting in the back garage of a police station in some nondescript town in Ohio that’s only distinguishing characteristic was being marred in the terror of seven dead children. She’s sitting on a concrete stop block with her knees batting against her chest, hair loose, fingers red and raw where she’s been scratching herself like she’s fixing to peel away the part of her that hurts.

She balled her fingers up to a fist and allowed it to meet the edge of her jaw, head swimming slightly on impact as she released a pathetic wince. Her hands were so raw it had started to hurt to touch anything, even the twin flame of skin on a contrasting piece of her body. Emily tried it again with an open palm, repeatedly striking the side of her own face senseless.

You’re stupid. You can’t save anyone. You aren’t good for anything. You’re worthless. You don’t change anything.

Maybe if you were just a little better, the tiniest modicum less disgusting, someone would want you. Someone would stay and hold you and love you.

Stupid idea. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Emily didn’t realise her breathing had become incredibly rapid until her vision blurred and she was overcome with her own broken senses. The open sky was fidgeting and spinning above her and her body was frozen and trembling beneath her so much that there was a sense of claustrophobia in her own body.

She could hear the tiny thud of shoes permeate her sobs and willed herself to stop, but before she could take a complete breath, gentler, softer hands pulled hers down from her face and held them down, not trembling despite her whines and grunts. She’s tucked against a warm shoulder as JJs thumbs trace circles against her wrist, a metronome of her pulse. She doesn’t flinch at the animalistic sob that shakes through Emily’s ribs, instead pulling her tighter as the noise of the blondes heartbeat echoes against Emily’s chest. Jennifer’s skin is warm and soft, and the outside noises, fleeing cars and yammering of wind in the trees shrinks to the rhythm of her hands.

JJ intently rubs her lower back as if Emily had physically held the weight of the world on her shoulders, before her fingers gently caress Emily’s pounding chest in a soft, cyclical motion. She repeats the same motion on Emily’s torn hands, fingertips hovering.

“Em?” JJ’s voice was soft, worry fraying lightly at the edges of her tone, deep blue eyes boring into brown with indistinguishable flickers of gold. “Baby, look at me.”

Emily shook her head profusely. “I-I cant. I cant.” She mumbled, air catching in her throat. Receiving such a directive only caused her to react in the exact opposite manner, although the thick comfort of JJs gentle words, their skin melting into each other, JJs breath seeping into her skin and making her something sacred and beautiful and holy as if Jennifer Jareau were a Talisman to worship. The older woman couldnt bear to be seen so weak. JJ was all that was holding her together, and if she recoiled in disgust, Emily would shatter like glass at her feet.

The dark haired girl was still muttering protests until JJ lifted Emily’s head to rest in her lap, Emily’s muffled tears ebbing at JJs knees like raindrops. They stayed like that for what felt like hours yet merely elapsed a few seconds before JJ gently lifted her to her feet.

“You’re safe,” JJ whispered undeterred. “Right here with me. Nothing bad can happen when it’s us, okay? Breathe with me, Em. In…and out.”

Emily tried, shaking and quivering at first. She had to close her eyes and bite down hard on her lip. Her hands were tempted to find their way to her mouth but she herself far too intoxicated by JJs touch.

Jennifer placed her hand across Emily’s heart and Emily whimpered again, not because it was painful to breathe but because she felt tingly and it took every last drop of stamina in her being not to blush.

“That’s it,” Jennifer murmured, and held Emily as though she had no idea how sinful she was. “I’ve got you, Em. Shh, baby.” Emily was suddenly hyperaware of the extent of her humiliation. If she wasn’t strong, what good was she? She was a burden. A dead weight. To her mother, to her father, and now JJ would become the bloodied victim of her parasitic nature.

“S-sorry. Im sorry.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for, okay? It’s okay. There’s my girl.” Emily’s heart had began to hammer against the wall of her chest again, for all the wrong reasons. Theres my girl. She didn’t think there was yet another three word sentence that could mean more to her than it did to JJ, yet it was vastly less cruel than two identical ‘i love you’s with vastly different undertones.

“You got through it.”

Emily’s lips quirked weakly, eyes heavy and dark, soaking up the immense beauty in front of them like a succubus draining the very essence of life. “Only because of you.”

Jennifer’s lips grazed her temple, whispering against her skin, “Because of us.”

-
JJ had informed Hotch that Emily was too ill to work (because shes useless, dead weight) despite Emily’s efforts and she had now taken to bed, wafting in and out of sleep. JJ was at least a little disturbed by seeing her just break down like that but she had pleaded with her that she was merely exhausted. It was every bit true, exhausted of life.

Emily got so much more out of it than JJ did. Of the soft touches and the strokes of heaven painted into JJs being. If JJ knew Emily liked women, she was sure to distance herself. It was revolting and everyone would be so ashamed of her, knowing she failed God. JJ would almost certainly find her just as perverse and disgusting as her mother and her church had drilled into her, everyone would.

At first she told herself it was just to look, then just to hold it. The razor felt cold in her hand. Small. Harmless. It looked almost frail against her skin. She thought about how weak that really was - that tiny piece of metal could have real power over her.

She made repetitive thin, pink lines, each stinging just enough to make her breathe again. It was fairly easy to not make any noise, she had felt so much worse so many times. Bled so much more. But this was almost enchanting, such harsh stings. They hurt immensely more in that moment than her mind ever could, blood punctuating her every stream of thought.

Emily got in the tub and once it had utterly filled, dragged her head underneath. It was cold and painful, because she did not deserve even the smallest of comforts.

The bible had said, “purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.”

Emily laid in the tub until long after it had drained, lacking the energy to do so much as stand. She hadn’t eaten in so long, she hadn’t slept in so long it felt like cobwebs were festering behind her eyelids. She lay there long enough to feel the world remember her again, until the water had lost the warmth of her skin and become a mirror showing nothing she wanted to keep. She could have stayed, she thought, a while yet, letting the world blur at the edges until the only sound was the careful scrape of her own breath.

When will I be clean?
-

"You look like you're about three thoughts away from vanishing into thin air," Rossi remarked one day. He'd invited her over after the case, insisting on cooking, pretending it wasn't an excuse to check in.

Emily gave him a ghost of a smile, fiddling with the rim of her glass. "I'm fine, Dave."

"Emily," he said gently, his voice carrying the weight of immense patience, "You cant kid a kidder. I know you and I know when you’re upset. You’d rather chew glass than admit it, but…talk to me.”

“I’m completely fine.”

“You’re not eating,” he shrugged quietly, not accusatory, just a fact.

Emily’s eyes flicked up, in some liminal space between weary and startled. “I’m just…not hungry.”

“Mm,” Rossi hummed, unconvinced. He leaned back in his chair, studying her like he would a suspect, only softer. “You’ve been ‘not hungry’ a lot lately.”

Her shoulders tensed, but she stayed silent.

He waited. Patience was his weapon. Eventually, she sighed.

“You ever feel like you’re…a book with all the words written in a language no one else can read?” Her voice was low, brittle. “Like everyone thinks they get the story, but they don’t even know the alphabet?”

“Yeah. I’ve felt that.”

Emily traced the rim of her glass, eyes fixed on it like the truth might spill out if she looked anywhere else. “And then you start wondering if it’s better to keep the book shut forever. Because if someone opened it, if they really read it, maybe they wouldn’t like what they saw.”

Her throat caught on the last words, and she turned her head away quickly, like she could hide the shine in her eyes.

He didn’t push, didn’t demand specifics. He just reached across the table and rested a hand over hers, warm and steady. “Doesn’t matter what’s written, kiddo. I’d read every page.”

Emily blinked hard, her lips pressing together. Something in her chest cracked open at the simple acceptance, at the fact he’d understood what she hadn’t said.

David gave her hand a squeeze. “And I promise you, there’s nothing in that book that could make me put it down.”

Emily exhaled shakily, the faintest relief breaking through her defences. A weight lifted off of her despite herself, despite the fact she hadn’t been able to say the words. Despite the bright red scratches beneath her jacket and the dark cavern in her stomach and constant ringing in her ears. Something else would go horribly wrong and she would fail and bleed through this tiny bandaid, but for now, it was okay.

There were many dreadful things about her, but for all of one night Emily would pretend that who she loved ceased to be one of them.

Chapter Text

"And lead us not into temptation..."

Emily traces the rosary beads with hands that have known too much violence, too much sin.
Each bead is a penance. A warding spell. A desperate act of defiance.

Hail Mary, full of grace.

She is not full of grace.

She is full of filth, and want, and everything her mother's God condemned. A woman should not long for another woman. A woman should not look at her best friend and want to kiss her on holy ground. A woman should not ache to feel hands that were never meant for her skin.

Especially not JJ's.

JJ with the ocean eyes and a soft smile that undoes Emily's spine.
Emily wants. And for that, she believes she must suffer.

"But deliver us from evil."

Evil lives behind her marrow.

It wears JJ’s laughter. Her touch on Emily's forearm. Her voice calling out “Prentiss” over the comms on some day that has seen so much death it’s been forsaken by humanity.

So she leaves herself at home and goes to confession admitting to a young priest with forcibly schooled features; “I think I’m in love with her.”

She sits in the booth like a teenager again, decades vanished. Emily the ambassadors daughter. Emily the disappointment. “It’s a woman,” she clarifies, begging for crucifixion.

“I see.”

It is not absolution.

It is not comfort.

-

The case was horrific from the start, bordering on downright bizarre.

Four women of quite dissimilar physical quiddity, hair from stark, raven black to the shade of autumns wistful leaves and red cardinals encircling their branches carcass, the only noose of fate tying them together being immense cruelty. The unsub appeared young and experimenting with his precise methodology of dereliction. The first girls body had been cut into like a pin cushion, the second with a shallowly cut face and with the following two he seemed to demonstrate a fondness for attempting to sever the limbs.

The team was crowded around the briefing table, Hotch’s voice low and firm as he laid out the victimology. Emily sat with her pen tapping absently against her notebook, fighting to keep her eyelids from fluttering shut. Every nerve in her body buzzed, not from energy but from the jagged static of exhaustion. She wouldn’t sleep. The emptiness of waking up alone hurt far more tremendously than any nightmare could.

She would dream of Jennifer, hands she craved to feel touching her and voice she needed to feel echoing around me, a face that looked meticulously designed to be the most beautiful person the universe could ever come up with. JJ plagued her, even in dreams. Sometimes Emily would have the sun beating down on her face, or a baby in her arms, or the mental child of peace so overpowering it couldnt be ripped from her being. Yet she would wake up with a head too full to conceive of anything but her own worthlessness, a heart so dark anyone who got too close would inevitably flee in horror, and a stomach so empty dust was eating itself and her skin was tight against her sore bones.

“Unsub’s escalating, the overkill is becoming even more extreme the more the cooling off period shrinks.” Hotch concluded. “Wheels up in 30.”

The surrounding world shifted into gear, discussing canvassing strategies and geographical profiling. Emily nodded when spoken to, contributed where she could, but her brain felt submerged in tar. Words echoed too slowly, her thoughts scrambling to catch up.

On the jet, Spencer slid into the seat across from her, his mouth opening as if to launch into one of his long, comforting monologues about geographical clusters or strangulation typologies. Instead, he hesitated, frowning slightly.

“You’ve got…bruising on your jaw,” he said softly, tilting his head. “Did you-?”

Emily’s pulse spiked. For one terrifying moment she thought he knew, that he could see straight through the makeup she’d dabbed hastily across her skin that morning. He’d see into broken, filthy bloodstream, to her skeleton filled with dirt and sin in every crevice, the fact she was the very shape of worthlessness. Maybe if she were to be examined the sin would become visible? Her brain would give it away, pleasure centres lighting up like a Christmas tree at the thought of perfect, soft, sweet, agonising girls.

“Walked into a cabinet,” she muttered, forcing a small laugh. “I’m more dangerous to myself than any unsub.”

He didn’t look convinced, but before he could press further, Derek called his name and the seconds ticked away. Emily let out a breath so sharp it stung inside her. JJs feet keep batting at hers and she felt quiet ecstasy at the faint little meeting of skin at the openings of their respective heels.

-

The woods were quiet except for the crunch of boots against brittle leaves. Emily pushed through the underbrush, flashlight cutting thin beams of light across the darkening trail. Derek walked a few paces behind, his broad silhouette steady, grounded, as though even the forest bent around his certainty.

“What a mess. Ground’s disturbed here,” Emily murmured, crouching low to study a patch of dirt near the tree line. Her voice came out huskier than she’d intended, like the words were dragging themselves through shards of glass.

“We know he isn’t large enough to physically subdue them, we’ve got that from the toxicology. He can only hurt them with drugs and the element of surprise. It isn’t about reactions, the act of destroying them is where he gets off.” Derek concurred. It was true, the victims had all been drugged to high heaven before the unsub first made an entry wound. He seemed to like them best asleep, defenceless.

You are vulnerable when you sleep.

As they trudged back toward the SUV, Derek watched her from the corner of his eye. "You know, you usually throw me at least one jab when I say something dumb. Been waiting all day, and nothing. Kinda hurts my feelings."

Emily let out a small, breathy laugh. No matter how much she tried to pry it off, there was this hollowness inside her. She couldn’t find it within herself to find anything funny. She had once heard the very act of being alive entirely stripped down to human ability to react to stimuli, to feel. If that was true, Emily lay as slain before Derek’s eyes as the corpses they’d visited in the morgue a mere hour prior. “Mhm.”

He straightened, narrowing his eyes. “That’s it? Just ‘mhm’?”

Emily forced a ghost of a smirk. “Guess you’re not as funny as you thought.”

“You wound me, princess.”

She granted him a real giggle that quickly boxed itself in, lacking the necessary oxygen to seep out of her and grant itself existence on earth. She was hyper aware of every single breath she took, they all hurt so agonisingly. Emily wasn’t a foolish being, she knew that not eating was hurting her. Her existing low blood pressure had plummeted, she had become cold and shaky, always lightheaded and with consistently less hair to brush, less body to hold up, less life to live day after day. The chest pains and accompanying dizziness were likely the worst of it. Reoccurring panic attacks were so much worse when she couldnt attempt to regulate her breathing without her heart trying to carve itself out of the prison of belonging to her.

"You know," he said, achingly gentle, "you don't have to keep all of it locked in. Whatever's eating at you..it's showing."

Emily's steps faltered just slightly before she covered it with a shrug. "It's nothing. Just tired."
Derek didn't push, and for a moment he said no more, as if he had finally encountered a door he couldn’t break down. A barrier he couldnt cross. He had encountered the very same problem as Emily, that no matter how much she ripped herself open, she would always cease to unchain the formula for disaster that existed inside her.

“Can’t blame you on that.” He acquiesced, not totally convinced but relenting. They had truly been working themselves to the bone. The unit had reached the horizon of an insurmountably dark ocean and Derek could hardly blame her shaky exterior for lacking in fortitude.

“You know where to find me, yeah? Day or night."

She nodded, throat tight, eyes lifting to the sky where the trees loomed dark and endless.

"Yeah," she murmured. "I know."

I know where to find you, just not where to find me.

-
The motel lamp cast a dull amber glow, stretching shadows across the room. Emily sat slouched against the headboard, hair loose around her face, eyes heavy-lidded. Her favorite person had accompanied her back to her room. Emily knew what a dangerous game it was to hold Jennifer so tightly, to suffocate her so much. It was hardly decreasing Emily’s heavy soul, barren of anything but love claimed only by JJ, but she had been enjoying their conversation, they had been giggling so and Emily couldn’t bring herself to be the one to pull away.

JJ pressed a hand to her mouth at something the older woman had said, shaking with laughter. “God, you’re awful.” Emily had smirked, satisfied. “Awful, maybe. Wrong? No.” Emily’s quite attenuated arm found itself slinked around JJs waist for stability as she failed to suppress a yawn.

“You should sleep,” JJ murmured, turning on her side to completely face Emily. “You’re running on fumes.”

Emily gave a half-hearted shrug, lips quirking just faintly. “If I fall asleep, I’ll just have to wake up again. Doesn’t seem worth it.”

JJ pinched the bridge of her nose lightly. “Em…that’s not how it works. You need rest.”

“I need…” Emily’s voice trailed off. She blinked slowly, lashes dragging down before forcing them open again. “I don’t know what I need.”

For a long moment, they just sat there, an amalgamation by virtue of the simple fact they existed. Emily gently stroked Jennifer’s cheek and the touch made Jennifer’s breath catch, her heart stutter as Emily’s finger faltered at her lips. Jennifer averted her eyes for the briefest of seconds, trying to regain her bearings while Emily’s never left her delicate form.

Eventually, JJ shifted, starting to stand. “Alright, I should let you get some rest.”

Emily swallowed pathetically, forcing her lips into a brave curve. “Goodnight, JJ.”

But her voice cracked just enough to betray her. JJ knew that Emily was strong and perpetually fine, but it hardly took a Reid-calibre genius to see that her eyes were big and sad, and the tired smile on her face didn’t quite reach them.

JJ hesitated, then sighed softly. “You don’t want me to go, do you?”

Emily shook her head quickly, then forced out, “I don’t need you.” Her voice was quiet, defensive, as if saying otherwise would expose too much.

JJ crossed back to the bed and slid onto it beside her, slipping under the covers without another word. She rested an arm gently around Emily’s waist, tugging her close. “Well, I do,” JJ whispered into her hair.

Emily froze, stunned by the warmth pressing against her back, the steady heartbeat she could hear if she just leaned a little closer. Then slowly, shakily, she let herself melt into it, letting JJ’s embrace hold her together when she couldn’t do it herself. Emily was practically on her lap with her head leaned against a warm chest and wondered sleepily if the feeling in her chest was down to exhaustion, starvation or simple euphoria.

“Better?” JJ asked, voice low, her breath brushing Emily’s temple. Every syllable was unparalleled in its beauty, Emily wished to bottle it up, intently stitch and sew it into her eardrums when no one was looking. To tuck away one single cell of Jennifer in all her preciousness and hold it mockingly against gentle daisies and harsh roses, full oceans and galaxies and dare them to find such beauty as what was held in a single piece of Jennifer.

Emily swallowed, eyes fluttering shut as warmth seeped through every frayed part of her. “Yeah,” she whispered. “Much better.”

JJ’s fingers traced absent patterns on the blanket, a grounding rhythm. Emily clung to the feeling, fighting sleep even as it pulled at her harder and harder.

She wanted to stay awake, to soak in every second of JJ’s presence, every heartbeat, every breath. JJ closed her own eyes, but Emily entered a cage match against sleep and set about committing each and every detail to memory

Her heart ached with how badly she wanted this. How badly she wanted it to be real. Emily was practically writhing in desire.

And that was exactly the problem.

She wanted to stay with Jennifer her entire life and reach nonexistence cherishing the fact her most recent state of being had belonged to Emily. She wanted Jennifer to be hers. Her precious and beautiful thornless rose, handcrafted for her arms and loved down to the layers of her flesh. Such deep infatuation Emily would shed her human skin and surrender to what she felt for Jennifer.

Emily wanted to be rewarded for living in sin. Even after more than four decades of her parents views that she would not undertake such sinful actions and finally be strong to outgrow her perversion, she still lusted and formed the same hysterical bonds she had as a fifteen year old who’d attempted to cure the symptoms of her affliction only to become pregnant. She foolishly thought she could cure herself, with the correct medicine. Exposure therapy. All girls liked boys, and her mother had explained that anything else was simply unnatural. She had to find the right boy.

Her baby was a casualty of her illness that had caught inside of Emily like a phantom limb. She’d never deserve a baby.

Her throat tightened, eyes burning as she tried to keep her breathing even. JJ shifted in her sleep, pulling her a little closer, and the movement nearly undid her.

She’s not holding you because she loves you. She’s holding you because she pities you.

Emily took one last look at JJ, all blonde hair strewn around the pillow and sleepy murmurs, and willed her own mind quiet.

-

The morning sunlight bled pale and gold through the thin curtains, soft enough that Emily didn’t stir at first. She was too comfortable—her head pillowed on something warm and solid, JJ’s arm draped lazily across her waist.

For once, Emily hadn’t woken in a tangle of panic. No racing heart, no ringing in her ears. Just the steady rise and fall of JJ’s chest behind her, the comfort of knowing she wasn’t alone.

“You awake?” JJ’s voice was soft, husky from sleep.

Emily hesitated, eyes still closed, then hummed, “Mmhm.”

“Comfy?”

Emily smiled against the pillow, the smallest, shyest thing. “You make a pretty good blanket.”

JJ chuckled, giving her a little squeeze. “The highest compliment, baby.”

They stayed like that far too long for it to be innocent, until the shrill sound of JJ’s phone alarm cut through the depths of adoration. JJ groaned and reached over to silence it, but Emily caught her wrist.

“Five more minutes,” Emily murmured, eyes opening just enough to meet JJ’s. “Please.”

JJ’s heart squeezed. She brushed her thumb over Emily’s knuckles and whispered, “Five more.“

The further the day drew on, the more they seemed to orbit each other. Emily hovered near JJ far more than usual. Their shoulders brushed when they sat, their coffee cups swapped without comment, JJ’s hand resting at the small of Emily’s back when they crossed the crowded hallway. She knew she should deny herself the comfort, she knew was hurting JJ by infecting her but couldn’t fathom living without the smallest tether. She didn’t want to live anymore, not really. No matter how much a certain someone made that far less a certainty.

You don’t deserve it. You don’t deserve her. She’ll eventually piece that together.

Emily sighed, knowing food would not be touching her lips tonight either way.

At the precinct, Rossi found Emily by the coffee machine. She was fiddling with her cup absentmindedly, eyes tracking JJ on the other side of the room like a compass needle locked on north.

“You seem happy,” He said casually, pouring his own coffee. At least, happier than she’d been in months.

Emily startled slightly, her cheeks warming. “Do I?”

“Yes.” He gave her a sidelong look, a little smile tugging at his mouth. “I've been around long enough to recognize when someone's got it bad."

Emily bit down on the inside of her cheeks intently, trying to suppress any further outward display of emotion, and ducked her head, pretending to straighten a stack of files. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you don't." Rossi's tone was gentle, teasing without cruelty. "Just...don't overthink it, cara mia. You deserve to be happy."

Emily was interrupted by her brief pondering of how someone could know her so deeply as to find themselves in the vestiges of her mind, and how to erase such horrifying vulnerability until Garcia’s voice crackled over speakerphone, rapid-fire and so sugary it swirled in Emily’s brain like warm milk. The unsub’s profile had sharpened into focus: early twenties, experiencing significant personal upheaval, fixated on women who seemed strong, untouchable. He wanted to prove he could break them. Garcia’s search dug up a name that fit: Finn Healy, a dropout with a history of animal cruelty, reported violent outbursts, delinquent behavior and a string of domestic disputes with girlfriends who always dropped the charges.

“He’s been frequenting a local dive bar,” Hotch said, dropping the file onto the table. “It’s his hunting ground. We need someone to make contact, to draw him out.”

Emily felt the team’s eyes slide toward her before Aaron even said it.

“Prentiss. You fit his victim type. You'll go undercover tonight. Blend in.” As her pen slid between her fingers and clattered onto the table, his face was creased in something awfully akin to sympathy and Emily wanted nothing to do with it. She was not frail.

She cleared her throat quickly, forcing a nod. “Understood.”

What could possibly go wrong?

If something did happen to her, perhaps it was divine intervention.