the years we lost

"This job, it takes a lot but it gives, it gives me-you"

Emily had never been one to believe when people said they loved her, she didn't see herself as someone lovable.

But right now, in this moment, she could just tell. JJ loved her, she could see it in the way her pupils dilated, could see it in the way her hand tightened subconsciously around what she was holding, Emily could see it in the way her breath hitched ever so slightly when she said it. she was afraid.

JJ loved her, she loved her and she always had. Emily thought back over the decade she had spent denying her feeling for the blond, she thought about every second she had spent lingering too long, every joke she had laughed at too much, every touch that lasted just too long.

And right there, on that couch, in her living room with JJ next to her watching her every move, Emily mourned.

She mourned for the life she could have had, the decade they had spent wishing for something that was just within reach. she mourned for the version of herself that had watched the love of her life walk away into the arms of someone she thought she could never compare too. But as she sat there, watching JJ sob silently across from her Emily mourned for her too, she could see it now, JJs eyes meeting hers before she had run to Will, the brushing of their shoulders as they had stood, ten years before in that New Orleans police department and watched their lives, their hopes, their secrets, unravel before them.

"I didn't know"

It was all Emily could say. She wondered if that was true, had she known? She was a profiler, JJ was her best friend, she should have known.

"Emily I'm sorry"

Not even JJ knew what exactly it was that she was apologizing for. there had been so much over the years, denial, time wasted, self-doubt and as it all came to ahead on this Thursday afternoon nearly two decades after they first met it was all she could think to say.

Emily was crying too now, the tears of a lifetime finally falling, she felt frozen, paralyzed with want and regret and doubt.

JJ was the first to move, she had always been the bravest, Emily might have been the chief, the leader, but as the years alone had shown, she had also always been afraid.

JJ cupped the older woman's cheek, her thumb running the tears away below her eye. Emily looked up to meet her gaze. JJ smiled, an understanding passed between the two women, one they had been denying for so, so long.

They were older now but the look they shared was exactly the same as the one that passed between them in that police station, she same look that they had shared in Paris when it felt like they were the only people to exist in the world. After all this time and it was still the same.

In a moment of weakness, or maybe it was strength, JJ leaned in and kissed her.

Emily kissed her back, the world she had created crashing around her, the walls she had built to protect herself, fell, brick by brick. Emily noticed a feeling rising in her chest, a feeling she didn't know she had anymore. it hadn't been there in so long, or maybe she had just gotten better at ignoring it. but now, in this moment, with JJs lips on hers, and her hands tangled in her hair, their skin wet with tears and her breath shallow, it was back.

the feeling, Emily would recognize later, was love.