Emily jumped as her phone buzzed in her pocket. She dug it out quickly, expecting it to be Garcia calling. She was mildly surprised to see that it was Rossi; since half of the team had been sent home four days ago she had taken exactly 24 worried phone calls from Garcia. She hit accept and put the phone to her ear.
"Hi, Rossi." She winced at the weariness in her voice that was clear for all to hear. Maybe the airwaves would hide it though; everyone sounds different on the phone, right?
"Hey, Emily. How is she?" Rossi had resisted calling Emily since returning to Quantico, figuring that she had enough to deal with trying to cope with JJ and fielding Garcia's incessant concerned phone calls. He had phoned Hotch instead, but Hotch was very much focused on negotiating with Santiago, Morris and the DA's office on some kind of deal to keep JJ out of prison. Morgan had taken as many, if not more, calls from Garcia as Emily.
"She's doing better, I guess. In a physical sense at least. Mentally…" Emily sighed heavily. JJ's panic attacks were becoming more and more violent as she regained her strength. To Emily at least, they seemed to increase in frequency as well, but maybe that was just her weariness distorting her sense of time. Medical staff now simply let the attacks run their course until either JJ calmed down again- which was rare- or she passed out.
It was better, or at least so Emily told herself, than the alternative, which was keeping her on a constant dose of sedatives.
They had administered some anti-anxiety meds to go along with the countless other pills and vials she needed to take but Emily found JJ's reluctant obedience when taking her medication to be deeply unsettling. She could see the way she eyed them with fear and suspicion, but took them anyway, presumably fearing some brutal reprisal for any hint of disobedience or dissent.
"Emily? You still there?" Rossi prompted after a suitable length of silence. Emily shook herself, with a mental note to concentrate.
"Yeah, sorry, still here." She massaged her temples for a moment. "They've moved her off the pureed meals and onto more solid food." Emily almost smiled for a moment. Those pureed meals they had put her on for the first couple of days had smelled foul; the only thing she could equate it to was the smell of one of her boots when Sergio had last coughed up a hairball into it.
The first time they had tried JJ on a pureed meal, she had eaten it so fast she might as well have inhaled it. That was, until she threw it up again 5 minutes later. Even now, she ate quickly, hunched over it protectively as though someone might try to take it from her at any moment. But with each meal she ate, she always left a small portion, a portion she wouldn't touch no matter how hard Emily tried to coax her into it.
"The nurses are getting better with her."
"Yes?"
"They're wearing the cotton gloves like you suggested, and they've finally got the hang of the whole 'no sudden movements' instruction." Emily replied, a genuine note of cheerfulness entering her voice, even if it was colored with a hint of exasperation.
Three days ago they had attempted to start mobilizing JJ- it was only supposed to be to edge of the bed but at least it was a start. Or rather, it should have been. Unfortunately the process required physical contact, and a lot more than JJ was comfortable with. It had ended disastrously, with JJ cowering in a ball in one corner of the bed, shaking like a leaf and muttering to herself in Russian between sobs.
It had been Rossi who had suggested, via Garcia, that perhaps it was the skin-to-skin contact that JJ found so difficult. One of the nurses had been doubtful at first but had tried wearing latex gloves anyway. When they had tried again, JJ had been a little better, if better was simply shrinking away from her touch instead of actually trying to escape. The third time they had tried sterile, one-use, cotton gloves.
