Emily Prentiss One-Shots

Emily/JJ

Title: Five senses (and Emily) - Multimariah (Ao3)

Summary: JJ got herself in a pretty messed up situation, how and why? She doesn't know. What she does know is that she is tired of fighting. Tired of everything and everyone, except for one person.

Rating: General 

Trigger Warnings: mentions of blood and death, hints at depressed/suicidal thoughts/tendencies, mentions of JJ's (canon) trauma.

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JJ had been close to death before, dipped her toes in the pool of darkness more than once.

It was the risk of the job. A job that changes you.

She had seen it happen to Emily, especially after she had died. She had seen it happen to Spence, Penelope, even Rossi. They all were different, changed since she had met them. The darkness of this job creeps through your soul and takes a tiny piece of you after every case, even the ones with a good outcome.

People often say that pain makes you stronger, and JJ used to believe in that, had held that belief desperately close to her heart. But not anymore, because pain makes you weak, she felt that now.

JJ secretly hated herself for doing this job. For still doing it. She had two kids and a husband at home, and every time she stepped out the front door to go to Quantico, she was risking her family's life. Not because they were in immediate danger, but because she was. She knew the risks all too well, she knew that stepping out that door could mean that one day she wouldn't step back in. Back in the perfect life she had created for herself.

But it wasn't perfect, far from it. But still she kept telling herself it was. Because if she didn't, she constantly had to live with the grief of what if...

Her life actually not being perfect didn't mean she didn't love her life, or her not so perfect family life. She loved her boys with every single fiber in her body, and Will... he was Will, and she loved him. He was her rock, her comfort, he knew everything about her, almost everything.

There was one other person in this whole world who could comfort JJ just right. Years ago she had thought that maybe Roz had brought her in her life, as some sort of guardian angel. She had thought she knew for sure when not Will but Emily appeared when she had been at death's door, back when she had been kidnapped and tortured in Afghanistan. She had never told anyone about that, though. She knew it was wrong to see her instead of the man she had married.

JJ didn't know Emily had dreamed about her, nightmares in which she sometimes died. Maybe their unconscious minds showed a glimpse of them in another universe? A universe in which they had been the right person-right time. JJ hoped there was one of those, a universe where they did happen.

But right now JJ doubted the thought of Emily being a guardian angel, or she doubted Roz. Because why on earth had her person, her guardian angel, completely pulled up all the walls she had discreetly lowered throughout the years?

Emily used to look at JJ like she was some exotic, rare bird, like she was a diamond in the rough, like she was everything. And right now all JJ got was the look of nothing.

And why? JJ didn't know. She wished she knew. There had been countless times she had almost opened her mouth, where she frustratedly wanted to scream at the other woman "What did I do so wrong, so wrong that you cannot even look me in the eyes anymore!?", but she couldn't. She was exhausted.

She had given up the moment she had almost blown up a few weeks ago (not for the first time) and all she'd gotten from Emily was... nothing.

Maybe her life didn't matter to Emily anymore. So why would she still care?