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Emily has always been skeptical of ‘slow motion’ disaster moments. She’s been an active government agent working in the field for over a decade -- that’s to say, she’s witnessed her fair share of tragedy -- and it’s never quite that dramatic. But when a bullet from an unsub’s gun embeds itself in JJ’s shoulder, for a split second, Emily is powerless to react.
She’s stuck in time: JJ falls slowly to the ground, her hair spreading behind her in a golden halo, and she barely registers the gunshot coming from Derek’s direction, the kill shot that takes down the man she hates the most in the entire world at this exact moment. Blood pounds in her ears as a sinking feeling of dread pools in her stomach, a cold kind of fear spreading through her body and freezing her joints, her muscles, her mind. There is only a singular thought circling through her head:
I can’t lose her.
It’s only when she hears JJ whimper in pain that she snaps back into action, protective instincts clicking into motion as she throws herself down at her fiance’s side, barely registering the impact the cold concrete has on her knees, only focusing on the beautiful woman fading in front of her eyes. Immediately, she lays her palm on the gunshot wound, applying deep pressure in an attempt to quell the bleeding. It’s the right thing to do, she knows it will save JJ’s life, but continuing feels almost impossible when JJ cries out in pain, her face crumpling.
“Jayje, Jayje, baby,” she says desperately, at a loss for words for a moment, “hold on for me, okay? Hold on. You’re doing so well. Oh, God, I love you so much. Hold on for me.” Vaguely, she hears Derek calling for a medic, but every iota of her attention is on JJ.
Deep blue, disney princess eyes meet hers. This is half a relief -- JJ is still conscious, she can hear her, she hasn’t lost too much blood yet -- and half a curse -- JJ’s eyes have always been expressive. Right now they are conveying the pain of the worst agony one can inflict on another, and they are completely coloured with terror. Terror Emily has no way to diminish, no way to ease. How does one refute possibly the most rational fear there ever was?
She can feel herself crying. She vaguely hears the rest of her team around them, but right now her entire world has shrunk down to this moment, to the woman she’s going to marry next year, to the woman she longs to have children with. This is not altogether uncommon. Emily’s world frequently shrinks down to comprise only JJ: when they’re in bed together, small moments when they catch one another’s eyes across the bullpen or in a meeting, evening walks down the brightly lit streets of the city they love so dearly. It’s never as painful as this.
Derek has taken off his top and is moving Emily’s hand to place the balled material over the wound. He takes over applying pressure; Emily only notices this because it means she can focus the entirety of her attention on JJ’s face and not the profusely bleeding hole in her shoulder. The crimson blood dripping from her palm only serves as a reminder of how close she is to losing the love of her life. To being single again, a widow, a hopelessly miserable, never-to-recover, bereaved shell of a human being.
“Emily,” JJ whispers, and she’s crying, too. Her face is not hiding a single emotion raging through her, and while Emily usually finds JJ’s wobbly chin endearing, right now it’s purely agonising. “Emily, I’m scared.”
Emily has to bow her head for a moment and heave a single, shoulder-wracking sob that seems to tear though her throat with the same violence of the bullet that tore through JJ’s shoulder. She blinks the tears away and sniffs once before looking back up at JJ and offering her a watery smile, the absolute best one she can muster, and uses her clean hand to gently comb her fingers through her blonde hair, leaning down to press a lingering kiss to her forehead.
“Don’t be scared,” she whispers tearfully, brushing her thumb over JJ’s damp cheekbone, “I love you.”
“Don’t leave me,” JJ whispers back, tears still spilling down her cheeks, as they hear the sirens of the ambulance and a medic rushing into the warehouse, the floor of which will forever bear the stain of her fiance’s blood.
“I won’t,” Emily says through sobs she can no longer contain, “I won’t, darling, I’m here.”
“Promise?” JJ asks, visibly fading just as the paramedics arrive and ask Emily and Derek to make room.
“I promise, baby,” Emily cries earnestly, moving away just enough for the EMTs to do their job, just in time for JJ to completely lose consciousness.
★
The hospital waiting room is warm, but Emily feels cold.
She stares blankly at the wall in front of her, a merciful sort of numbness taking over her body, leaving her far less frantic than the emotional wreck she was in the warehouse. It’s a kind of quiet far from peaceful, but she doesn’t have the energy to care. Her hands are so cold covered in JJ’s warm blood.
Spencer desperately tries to get her to come to the bathrooms and wash it off, but Emily refuses, just in case this is the last thing she has to remember JJ by. In which case, she has revolved to forever have a stained right hand as a permanent mark of her crippling grief. She will be branded by her devotion to JJ, and by the end that devotion came to.
Her only thought is of W. H. Auden’s poem Funeral Blues. It was read at her uncle’s funeral a few years ago. What a funny thing grief is: she could grasp the concept of such emptiness and utter misery filling your life after the death of a loved one, of course she could, but she’s never tangibly understood that kind of grief. She does now, and JJ -- as far as she knows -- is still alive. If she does lose JJ, though, she knows for an absolute fact that her life will forever lack meaning, lack purpose, lack joy.
Pour away the ocean, indeed, she thinks. Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Emily knows, academically, theoretically, the damage a bullet can do. The shoulder is a complex weave of nerves, muscles, bones, tendons, and arteries; really, it’s one of the most complicated pieces of human anatomy, so, naturally, a gunshot wound in that particular area is far from desirable.
Spencer tells her as they’re waiting that the amount of blood JJ lost indicates that instead of the bullet hitting the incredibly delicate network of blood vessels, which would have led her to bleed out in minutes, it instead shattered the joint. This is good news and bad news. JJ is still alive. But she will need reconstructive surgery. She may never regain full range of motion. She will need months, maybe years of physio. Emily doesn’t know if this is what she wants to hear or not, but she vaguely appreciates that Spencer is falling back on his academic knowledge of an incredibly emotional situation as a coping mechanism.
Not that anyone really doubted it, but Spencer is proved right by the doctor that comes to greet the family of Jennifer Jareau six and a half hours after they arrived.
“Ms Jareau’s humerus was shattered, and her clavicle and scapula did not get off scot free, either. Luckily, the bullet missed her large axillary vessels, which is the most consolation I can offer you at this stage,” the doctor explains kindly. “We’ve stabilised her condition through surgery in which we did our best to tidy her shoulder, but she will be needing a total shoulder replacement in the very near future. Though, I understand she resides in DC and is in well-enough condition to be transferred there for the major operation and ensuing recovery.
“I understand… Emily Prentiss is her next of kin?” she asks, consulting her clipboard.
Emily nods blankly, the reassurance that JJ is alive beginning to settle in, weaving its way into her heart.
The doctor smiles empathetically. “I can take you to see Ms Jareau now. Her sedation will be wearing off any minute.”
The world gradually stirs back into colour as Emily lays eyes on JJ, very much alive, blinking sleepily in her hospital bed. Her gown is carefully tucked around the bandage on her shoulder and the fabric sling her arm has made its home. She’s ever so pale, sweat beading on her brow from the pain, but she’s alive. Emily will not have to recite Auden in a Church built for a God she doesn’t believe in while the only person that made her believe in anything lies in a coffin. Alright, she thinks as she walks into the room and sits down next to JJ’s bed, the moon can be unpacked. The sun reassembled.
As JJ manages a smile, though, reaching her good arm out for her fiance, craving physical comfort and affection, Emily thinks that the stars don’t need to be relit. The one in front of her, broken as she might be, long as her journey to recovery is certain to take, is bright enough to put all of them to shame.
Emily can’t help but break down in tears of gasping relief as she clasps the hand JJ’s outstretched for her, gripping it tightly and bringing it to her face, kissing it gently before pressing it to her cheek as her crumpled eyes leak pitifully.
“Hey, don’t be scared,” JJ murmurs in her croaky, post-surgery voice as she echoes Emily’s words some seven hours earlier, “I love you.”
Emily can’t help but laugh happily through her relieved, messy emotion at that, leaning forward to press a warm kiss to JJ’s slightly chapped, pale lips.
“God, I love you so much,” she promises, so much sincerity behind her words that JJ tears up in response. “I’m gonna be here through every step of the journey ahead, you know that.”
“Yeah, I know that,” JJ whispers, as her face contorts, emotion twisting her throat in knots. “I never doubted it for a second.”
And, well. Doesn’t that just say everything Emily needs to hear.
Clasp me close in your warm young arms,
While the pale stars shine above,
And we’ll live our whole young lives away
In the joys of a living love.
- I Love You, Ella Wheeler Wilcox