"Was there more to your disappearance than Ian Doyle and Chief Morris?"
Jay's breath caught in her throat as the smell of burning flesh filled her nostrils. Her eyes flew to Crow's, but he was okay, so she scanned the room rapidly trying to identify the source of the smell. There was no fire anywhere. Then as quickly as the smell had arrived, it vanished again. She looked around in bewilderment.
"JJ, are you okay?" Hotch asked gently, just as Emily entered the room.
"Hotch, it's okay, I've got this." Emily said, watching JJ carefully. She pulled a chair over to sit opposite her. All the while Jay rubbed her thumb along the back of Crow's hand, letting him know that she was okay, and that Emily wasn't a threat.
"JJ, what happened in the months leading up to your disappearance? Did it have anything to do with your assignment at the State Department, the backstop?" She said quietly, searching JJ's face for answers.
Jay just looked back at her in confusion; when had she been with the State Department? What book was Hotch talking about? What key? She didn't understand. Whenever she tried to think back, to remember, she was met by the smell of burning skin. She didn't like it; it was making her feel sick.
As Emily watched, JJ visibly paled, but she pressed on. She had to know whether the suspicion that had been growing at the back of her mind ever since Hotch had told her about the key was correct. Did her disappearance have to do with the year she spent away from the team? At the time, all the evidence had pointed to Doyle, he had to have taken JJ, how else would he have found her in Paris? It wasn't until recently that they had discovered Chief Morris's involvement. It still made her blood boil just thinking about it.
"Do you remember our conversation on the flight to Paris, the one where you commandeered an Interpol jet?"
Jay shook her head, she didn't remember. Whether she wanted to or not, it was as though the memory just wasn't there. Then suddenly that damn smell was back again, hitting her like a wall, and she could feel her left palm burning. She looked down at the mottled scars that covered the skin of her palm.
She bit down on the rag in her mouth as she brought the lighter's flame to her palm, forcing herself to let the pain engulf her mind as the fire licked the already burned skin. As the scent of burning flesh registered in her brain she repeated one word, over and over, until it became a part of her: forget.
Emily was still speaking, "We talked about a phoenix and a blackbird. You were worried, about your assignment, you didn't trust the people you worked with."
Jay frowned, her eyes steely. "I don't remember, Emily. I don't want to remember."
Emily looked taken aback by her response. "Why not? Surely if someone else was partly responsible for what happened to you, then they should pay for they've done?"
"The same way Morris paid? The same way Doyle paid?" Jay asked bitterly. Emily winced and subconsciously rubbed her thigh, an action Jay noted carefully. "Jennifer Jareau is dead. The woman you remember is gone. It doesn't matter how she was taken. It doesn't change anything."
Emily met her gaze, unsure whether she meant what she had said. When she did speak again it wasn't to say what Jay had expected. "How did she die?" She asked, "The woman I remember?"
Jay stayed silent and looked away. She knew exactly how she had died; they had chipped away pieces of her until nothing remained, and when that final piece was taken from her, she had been relieved.
