criminal minds | one-shots ✓

2. regal fritillary

jj collects butterflies. 

she owns twenty five of them, her favourites being three, in specific; a nymphalis antopa, with dark maroon wings, outlined in white, with blue spots; a purely white pieris rapae, except for a single black spot on its wings; and, the rarest, a regal fritillary, one that looks almost like a monarch, but is much prettier.

she doesn't like the way they're contained. she can buy them from their shops and flea markets and trade them with a friend who has the same hobby, in boxes, with them dead, their eyes lifeless.

she stops collecting them after what her mother's deemed the incident. she throws out the butterflies, the boxes with their eyes. 

when a male regal fritillary chases a female, he flies in the same consistent circular pattern. ethan howard lingers, after roz, when he sees the necklace. in many ways, jj is glad she is so young - she could never be his type -, but then she remembers her sister, the arguments, the ways she must've suffered, and the only thing she feels is regret.

maybe she could've stopped it, she should've seen it sooner, called for help, done something other than just stood there and -

when she remembers roz, it's in a haze. a foggy dream like state, where she reminisces on things like she's an outsider. like she wasn't really there. roz's smile and laugh, the things that faded the older she got, the things that disappeared after ethan.

ethan, a necklace, and a bathtub. it's funny what changes a person's life. 

not, no, not funny. it's not funny.

she didn't cry when she found her. she didn't cry at the funeral. she didn't cry at the moment of silences the town held. when she cried, it was years later, when she was seventeen, and her sister wasn't. when she cried, she was alone.

she thinks this is how roz must've felt. so, so alone.

she wishes she could've saved her. wishes she could've taken all the feelings that roz felt and rolled them up and threw them away. gave them to someone else, burned them, buried them, doesn't matter. she just wishes she could've helped her live, could've seen see her smile one time, heard her laugh. 

but she couldn't. 

and now it's too late.