Work Text:
The late afternoon in Washington seemed suspended in an intermediate state between the heat that could no longer sustain itself and the cold that still had not dared to fully arrive.
The light, golden and diffuse, spilled over the monuments in the distance as if it were late, as if it also did not want to leave, and the vast lawn of the National Mall stretched out before them with a kind of respectful silence, interrupted only by spaced footsteps of strangers and the low sound of leaves being pushed by the wind.
Emily walked with her hands in her coat pockets, her gaze lost ahead, as if she were more interested in the line of the horizon than in any specific point, while JJ, beside her, kept her arms loose, but her body slightly tilted toward her, an almost imperceptible detail, but constant, as if it were already a habit, as if it had always been.
“I always forget how big this is,” JJ said after a few minutes of silence, her voice low, not exactly out of necessity, but out of adequacy, as if the space required it.
This was something Emily always admired in the blonde, the way JJ knew exactly how to behave in all the situations they had been in. Tone of voice was very important in a press conference, it was very important when speaking to victims’ loved ones, it was very important when giving a profile to police officers, but it was also very important when speaking to your 4-year-old child, as it is also important in moments of intimacy. This was something natural for JJ.
“It’s big in a way that doesn’t feel real… as if it was made to make us feel smaller than we are.”
Emily let out a soft sound of agreement, almost a breath.
“Yeah… it doesn’t feel like a city,” she replied after a moment. “It feels like an interval. A space between one thing and another, as if nothing important should happen here, only what is left over.”
“An interval?” JJ repeated, turning her face toward her with more attention now. “Like a pause? Or like… a place where things get stuck before becoming something else?”
“More the second option,” Emily said, with a slight discreet smile. JJ always understood her. “As if you are no longer where you were, but you also haven’t arrived anywhere yet. Just… in transit.”
JJ observed that for a second, as if weighing more than the sentence said.
“That was strangely specific,” she commented, almost lightly, but not entirely.
Emily exhaled through her nose, looking away toward the horizon.
“I’ve had time to think and maybe too much time to not filter what I say so much anymore.”
“I noticed,” JJ murmured, with a trace of something softer in her voice.
Their steps aligned effortlessly, the rhythmic sound of both pairs of shoes creating a cadence that filled the space between their words, as if the silence were not empty, just… occupied in a different way.
Emily wore dress pants, a plain white short-sleeved blouse under her typical leather jacket and black short boots, her usual off-duty clothing very similar to what she wore to work, unlike JJ, who wore a long, loose, plain white skirt, a simple light blue long-sleeved blouse, and white sneakers. This change was something that always surprised Emily, because, even though JJ always seemed younger than she was, the JJ who was in the BAU seemed older, more… cynical than the JJ who was walking beside her.
Emily remembers her first day at the BAU, at her young 37 years, when she saw the blonde for the first time, at 27, and could have sworn JJ seemed too young to be there, in that unit. Currently, at her 58 years, she still found JJ, even now at 48, too young to have gone through everything she had gone through.
“You walk slower when you’re tired,” Emily commented, with a casualness that did not match the level of attention required to notice that. “It’s not much, but enough to change the rhythm. I’ve noticed before.”
JJ let out a small laugh through her nose, brief.
“I’m not tired,” she replied automatically, but without much conviction. “Just… walking more elegantly.”
“You always say that,” Emily retorted, now turning her face toward her, with a more direct look. “Even when it clearly isn’t just that.”
“Because most of the time, it’s true,” JJ insisted, still not fully meeting her gaze. “And when it isn’t it doesn’t make much difference to say it.”
“Doesn’t make a difference to whom?” Emily asked, with a slight raise of her eyebrow. “Because for you, maybe not. But for whoever is looking it does.”
JJ looked away, focusing on some indistinct point in the grass, as if she had been pulled inward for a moment.
“You always notice these things?” she asked, quieter now. “Or is it only with me that you decide to be specific?”
“In you?” Emily replied, too quickly, before managing to soften it. “I notice the pattern. You are… consistent, in that kind of thing.”
“Consistent in hiding?” JJ asked, now with a slight trace of provocation, but without harshness.
“Consistent in minimizing,” Emily corrected, calmly. “You reduce everything to the point of seeming manageable. Even when it’s not.”
JJ let out a small sigh, almost a laugh.
“Sure. Work speaking louder.”
“Not always,” Emily said, now lower. “Sometimes it’s just… you. It seems like this is ingrained in you.” Emily shrugs.
JJ smiles.
“When Ros died…” JJ began, and the sentence came out more slowly than the rest of the walk up to that point, as if each word needed to be pulled from a place deeper than she would like to admit. She shot a sideways glance at Emily quickly, almost defensively, measuring the space before stepping into it, like someone still not sure if it would be received or tolerated. When she found Emily’s gaze again, steady, attentive, without hurry or interruption, something in JJ gave in a little, almost imperceptibly. “I’m not going to pretend that taught me anything beautiful. There was no growth, no clarity. There was a lot of silence. And a kind of adaptation that doesn’t feel like adaptation while it’s happening… it was pretty cruel.”
She breathed through her nose, looking away for a second, as if reorganizing the thought.
“I learned to minimize everything. Not in a conscious way, it wasn’t a choice. It was easier to reduce things than to deal with them at their real size.” A small humorless smile appeared at the corner of her mouth. “There was a time... I must have been about eleven… I broke my foot in soccer practice. And I kept walking. I kept going to school, doing everything normal. My mother only noticed three days later.”
Emily immediately frowned, the impact coming fast and unfiltered, as if that younger version of JJ still existed somewhere accessible.
“Three days?” she repeated, lower, the disbelief mixed with something more delicate, almost delayed care, even if misplaced in time.
JJ gave a slight shrug, but the gesture didn’t hold the lightness it tried to suggest.
“She wasn’t functional,” she said, choosing the word precisely, like someone who has told this story before, but never quite like this. “Nothing in the house was, actually. And I… I think I understood then that there wasn’t much space for me not to handle things.” She paused briefly, eyes fixed ahead now, as if saying it required not looking directly at Emily’s reaction. “So yeah… I became an adult at eleven,” she finished, quieter.
Emily let out a small laugh through her nose, shaking her head as if putting together pieces of something that had always been there. “So you became an adult at eleven… that explains a lot,” she said, a corner of a smile appearing, light, almost teasing. “But it’s funny, because that same person who walked three days with a broken foot without complaining still calls me while going to turn on the hallway light when she thinks there’s someone in the house.” She glanced sideways, softer now. “It’s kind of comforting, actually. Knowing that the most competent agent I know is still afraid of things completely stupid.”
JJ genuinely laughed, nudging Emily’s side while making a small pout.
“Hey! I thought we already agreed that was classified information.”
The wind picked up again, messing up JJ’s loose hair, throwing strands across her face. Emily watched for a second longer than she should have before speaking again.
“You could have stayed home today,” she said, more carefully. “I wouldn’t have questioned it, despite our plans for today.”
“I could have,” JJ agreed, simply.
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
JJ took longer this time. She kept walking, her steps a little slower, as if she was choosing not only the words, but how much of them she wanted to give away.
“Because staying home is worse,” she said finally. “It’s not silence… it’s something else.”
“Worse how?” Emily insisted, without pushing too much, but without letting go either.
“It’s a silence that doesn’t let you get out of yourself,” JJ replied, lower. “Out here, at least, there are things happening… even if they have nothing to do with me.”
Emily nodded slowly.
“So you prefer noise.”
“Not exactly,” JJ said, shaking her head slightly. “I prefer not being alone with everything at the same time.”
“And do I fall into that category?” Emily asked, and there was something in the question that wasn’t just light.
JJ looked at her sideways, holding the gaze for a second longer.
“Sometimes you’re the only thing that can pull me out of it,” she said, without irony. “So… yes. I think you do.”
Emily let out a small laugh, but there was tension there.
“I’m going to choose to interpret that as something positive.”
“You always choose the interpretation that makes you more comfortable,” JJ replied, almost reflexively.
“And you always choose the one that keeps you safe,” Emily shot back immediately.
They kept walking, now a little closer, as if the conversation had shrunk the physical space between them without asking permission.
“Have you ever thought about stopping?” JJ asked suddenly, changing the subject with a naturalness that didn’t fully hide the deeper origin of the question. “Like really stopping.”
Emily didn’t respond immediately.
“Stopping what?” she asked, even though she knew.
“Everything,” JJ said, now looking ahead. “The work. The BAU. This routine of surviving things and calling it life.”
Emily let out a small sigh.
“Sometimes,” she answered. “But only when I’m being honest with myself enough to admit there’s a part of me that can’t take it anymore.”
“Only sometimes?” JJ asked, tilting her head slightly.
“Only when I’m not too busy pretending this whole thing still makes sense,” Emily said, with an almost imperceptible trace of exhaustion.
“And now?” JJ asked, more quietly. “Does it make sense?”
Emily took longer this time.
“I don’t know if sense is the right word,” she said. “I think it’s become habit. And habit is harder to break than purpose.”
The sky was darker now, the gold giving way to a deep blue, and the lights around them were starting to turn on one by one, as if someone were slowly reminding the city to keep existing.
JJ took a deep breath, the cold air hitting heavier this time.
“I think…” she started, but stopped.
Emily turned her head immediately.
“What?”
JJ hesitated, and this time she didn’t try to hide it.
“I think we’ve spent too much time surviving things,” she said carefully. “And now I don’t know what’s left when that’s not the focus anymore.”
Emily didn’t respond.
Their steps slowed.
“What do you think is left?” she asked, finally, in a lower voice.
JJ looked at her quickly, her blue eyes shining with a new intensity.
“I think what’s left is what we avoided while we were too busy to feel,” she said. “And that usually isn’t simple.”
Emily opened her mouth, the beginning of a question already forming in her breath—something more direct, more dangerous, something that might completely undo the careful balance they’d been maintaining—but JJ didn’t let her.
She grabbed Emily’s arm in a quick gesture, almost like someone intercepting a thought before it fully existed, and gently pulled, changing their direction without asking permission.
“Don’t do that now,” she said, in a low tone, but with a clear trace of lightness trying to surface. “You were about to ask something that would ruin this moment.”
Emily let out a small laugh, more surprised by the accuracy than the accusation.
“I didn’t even say anything.”
She stayed close to her, but closer now. “A very specific expression, by the way. Kind of… too analytical for a conversation that was still pleasant.”
“So now you read expressions too?”
“No, just yours,” JJ said, almost distracted, looking around. “It’s easier. You don’t hide as well as you think you do.”
Emily raised an eyebrow, turning her body slightly toward her.
“Is that insulting or a compliment?”
“Depends on how much control you think you have,” JJ shot back, a faint smile appearing. “If it’s a lot, maybe it’s insulting. If it’s not… maybe it’s a relief.”
Emily watched her for a second longer, as if deciding whether to respond or not.
“You’re deflecting,” she said finally, calmly.
“I’m choosing,” JJ corrected, now lightly pointing her chin forward. “Look at this.”
Emily followed the gesture, but only for a moment—her gaze returned to JJ too quickly.
“I can look later,” she said. “You can’t just drop a line like that and expect me to—”
“To what?” JJ interrupted, turning her face toward her now, more direct. “Fall apart in the middle of an open place, with people walking by, pretty lights, and a near-cinematic atmosphere?”
Emily let out a short laugh.
“Do you realize how rehearsed that sounds?”
“Maybe it is,” JJ shrugged. “Maybe I just know that if you keep going down that line, we’re not going to be able to come back to this anymore.”
“Come back to what, exactly?” Emily insisted, but her voice no longer had the same weight as before—there was curiosity there now, more than confrontation.
JJ looked around for a second, taking a deep breath before answering.
“To this moment where nothing needs to be solved yet,” she said, quieter. “Where we can just exist without turning everything into something bigger than it needs to be.”
Emily tilted her head slightly.
“You think this isn’t already something bigger?”
JJ held her gaze for a moment, and this time didn’t look away so quickly.
“I think that’s exactly why I don’t want you to talk right now. I planned everything.” she replied.
Emily crossed her arms for a second, not defensively, but like someone trying to hold back a smile she didn’t want to admit to.
“Interesting,” she murmured. “You avoid things even when you’re talking about not avoiding them.”
JJ let out a low laugh, this time genuine.
“And you insist on them even when you clearly shouldn’t.”
“I’m consistent.”
“You’re stubborn.”
“That too.”
The wind passed between them again, colder now, and for a moment neither of them spoke.
“Alright then,” Emily said finally, taking a deep breath. “No hard questions. For now.”
JJ nodded, satisfied. “Thank you.”
Emily looked around again, this time more carefully.
“And what exactly am I looking at?”
JJ gave a small smile, almost childish in the way it appeared.
“You’re looking at one of the few moments where I managed to make you stop without it being because of a case,” she said. “That alone should be significant enough.”
Emily turned her face toward her, a little closer now than before.
“You know this isn’t going to work for long, right?”
JJ tilted her head slightly, resting it against the brunette’s shoulder.
“Maybe it doesn’t need to.”
“And what happens when the time runs out?” Emily asked, more quietly.
JJ smiled slightly, looking forward again.
“Then you can ask your question.”
The path to the Tidal Basin seemed to absorb the sound of the city little by little, as if each step pulled them away from anything that required an immediate answer; the water appeared between the trees like a dark, living surface, reflecting broken lights that moved slowly with the wind, and the space there had a different quality, more contained, more intimate, as if the world had been reduced to what was essential. JJ slowed her pace first, without announcing it, and Emily followed as if it had already been expected, as if she were reading not only the movement, but the intention behind it.
“I always find it curious how places like this seem to offer an edited version of reality,” JJ said, her eyes on the water, but her mind clearly elsewhere. “Like, everything still exists, the city, the work, the problems, but from here it looks manageable. As if the context changes the weight of things.”
Emily tilted her head slightly, following the reasoning with immediate interest.
“Maybe it’s not the context that changes the weight,” she replied, “maybe it’s distance. We tend to assign intensity to what’s too close. When you step back a little, you can reorganize. Not solve it, but at least understand where each thing belongs.”
“But isn’t that just a well-constructed illusion?” JJ asked, now looking at her. “Because the moment you go back, nothing has really changed. Just the way you chose to see it.”
“But that is something,” Emily countered calmly. “The way you see things defines what you do with them afterward. Two people can go through the same thing and come out with completely different stories just because they chose different meanings.”
JJ let out a small laugh, humorless, but not bitter.
“So basically you’re arguing that we invent meaning for things because we can’t stand admitting there might not be any.”
“I’m saying meaning was never fixed to begin with,” Emily corrected, turning her body slightly toward her. “We build it as we live. There isn’t a ‘true’ version waiting to be discovered, only versions we sustain better or worse over time.”
“That’s kind of dangerous,” JJ said, crossing her arms lightly, but not closing herself off. “Because then anything can be justified. Any choice can be reinterpreted later as necessary, inevitable, even right.”
Emily let out a small breath, almost a contained laugh.
“You talk as if we don’t do exactly that all the time. How many decisions have you revisited and thought, ‘no, that was the best I could do’? Even when it clearly wasn’t?”
JJ tilted her head, considering.
“I think there’s a difference between accepting and rewriting,” she said. “Accepting is acknowledging it happened. Rewriting is trying to turn it into something it wasn’t.”
“And you’ve never rewritten?” Emily asked, a slight eyebrow raised.
JJ hesitated for half a second, but didn’t look away.
“I simplify,” she replied. “I remove the parts that are hard to carry. I don’t add anything new.”
“That’s still a form of control,” Emily pointed out, almost gently. “You don’t change the story, but you change how much of it you allow to keep existing.”
“Maybe,” JJ murmured, looking back at the water. “But at least I don’t have to convince myself there was some greater purpose.”
Emily watched her for a longer moment.
“Do you really think things need purpose to be… valid?” she asked.
JJ let out a slow breath.
“I think people need it,” she said. “Because without it… everything becomes kind of arbitrary. And if everything is arbitrary, then what stops us from just… not caring?”
Emily took a small step closer, not enough to be obvious, but enough to shrink the space between them.
“Maybe the fact that we already care,” she replied. “Before we even decide whether we should or not. Before we even understand why.”
JJ turned her face toward her, and this time the gaze lingered a little longer.
“That sounds more like instinct than choice,” she said.
“Maybe it is,” Emily agreed. “But that doesn’t make it less real. Just less controllable.”
JJ let out a small laugh, now softer.
“You don’t really like the idea of control, do you?”
Emily tilted her head slightly.
“I like it when it works,” she said. “But I don’t trust it when it involves things that clearly don’t respond to it.”
“And what responds?” JJ asked, with a more open curiosity now.
Emily thought for a second, but answered without losing herself in it.
“Habit, maybe. Fear. And… sometimes, expectation.”
JJ frowned slightly.
“Expectation of what?”
Emily looked ahead, then back at her.
“That something will be worth it in the end,” she said. “Even when you don’t have enough evidence to support it.”
JJ let out a small breath of laughter.
“That sounds dangerously close to faith.”
“Maybe it’s a more practical version of it,” Emily replied. “Less about believing in something greater and more about… continuing to invest without guarantee.”
JJ absorbed that in silence for a few steps, the sound of the water filling the space between thought and response.
“Do you think we do that with people too?” she asked. “Invest without guarantee?”
Emily didn’t look away this time.
“I think that’s the only way it works,” she said. “If there was a guarantee, it wouldn’t really be… choice.”
“And if you invest and it leads to nothing?” JJ pressed.
“Then it was still a choice,” Emily replied, calmly firm. “And choices have value regardless of outcome. Or at least… I like to think they do.”
JJ watched her more closely now, as if trying to understand not just the answer, but what led to it.
“Do you always think like that?” she asked. “Or is that a way of justifying things that didn’t work out?”
Emily smiled slightly, but there was something more honest there.
“Probably both,” she said. “But that doesn’t fully invalidate the idea.”
JJ nodded slowly.
“I think I’ve always had more difficulty with that,” she admitted. “With investing in something without knowing where it’ll go. It feels too risky.”
“But you do it all the time,” Emily pointed out, almost immediately. “At work, with people, with decisions you can’t predict.”
“It’s different,” JJ shot back. “There I have parameters. I have structure.”
“And here?”
JJ looked at her, and this time the silence was shorter, heavier.
“Here it doesn’t feel like there’s enough structure,” she said, lower. “It feels too open.”
Emily held her gaze, unhurried.
“Sometimes that’s exactly what makes it worth it,” she replied.
JJ didn’t answer immediately, but she didn’t look away either.
The dark water reflected broken versions of the city, as if refusing any attempt to form a complete image, and maybe that was why the place felt more honest than others, nothing there organized itself perfectly, nothing resolved into clean lines, and still everything remained, coexisting in a way that didn’t demand conclusion. The wind was colder now, carrying silence with it, but it wasn’t empty silence; it was dense, full of things already said and others still forming, and when JJ spoke again, there was no longer that initial careful way of circling around. There was choice.
“You ever notice how we spend our whole lives trying to define what love is as if it were a stable concept?” JJ said, her eyes still on the water, but her attention clearly turned inward. “Like we create categories, theories, models—secure attachment, avoidant, passion, bond, projection, as if naming it is enough to understand it. But none of those things really explain what happens when you’re inside the experience.”
Emily turned her face slowly, watching her with an attention that was no longer just curiosity.
“Maybe because explanation was never the real goal,” she replied. “Explanation gives you the illusion of control. Love doesn’t.”
JJ let out a small, low laugh.
“That sounds like a philosophical critique,” she commented. “Almost like you’ve spent too much time listening to Reid.”
“Reid uses theory to understand the world,” Emily said, with a faint smile. “I use it to justify why it doesn’t work.”
JJ turned toward her, interested.
“So explain it to me,” she said, softer. “If it’s not explanation, then what is it?”
Emily held her gaze a second longer than necessary, as if deciding how honest she wanted to be.
“I think love is a form of attention,” she said finally. “Not in a superficial sense. Not just noticing. It’s organizing the world around someone without realizing you’re doing it.”
JJ absorbed that in silence for a moment.
“Like a cognitive bias?” she asked, almost automatically. “You alter your perception of reality because that person starts to carry disproportionate weight?”
“Exactly,” Emily confirmed. “Except unlike other biases, you don’t want to correct this one.”
JJ let out a small breath, thoughtful.
“That explains a lot,” she murmured. “Because from a psychological standpoint that seems irrational. You invest time, energy, emotional risk, with no guarantee of return. In any other context, that would be considered a judgment error.”
“But we don’t treat it as an error,” Emily said. “We treat it as… inevitable. Or even desirable.”
“Because there’s reward,” JJ replied, already fitting it into logic. “Dopamine, oxytocin, bonding, belonging. Biologically, it makes sense.”
Emily tilted her head slightly.
“You’re reducing it again.”
JJ gave a small smile.
“I did warn you that’s how I function.”
“But you know it’s not only that,” Emily insisted, softer now. “If it were just chemistry, it would be interchangeable. But it isn’t. It’s not just anyone. Never is.”
JJ stayed silent for a few steps, eyes on the water, but her mind clearly working.
“Maybe it’s construction,” she said finally. “Shared history. Time. Continuous exposure. We assign meaning because… we’ve accumulated enough data to support it.”
Emily let out a small laugh, almost disbelieving.
“You’re trying to turn twenty years into statistics.”
“I’m trying to find a structure that makes sense,” JJ shot back, but without defensiveness. “Because the alternative is accepting that it… just happens. And I’m not very good with ‘it just happens.’”
Emily stopped walking for half a second—not enough to fully break the motion, but enough to mark what came after.
“But it did happen,” she said, direct.
JJ turned to her immediately.
“What… happened?” JJ wanted to hear.
Emily didn’t respond in the same logic the question was given. She wasn’t direct, didn’t name it, didn’t point at it. Instead, her gaze drifted away for a brief moment, as if searching for a way to say it without actually saying it, as if trying to build a path that wouldn’t reveal the destination too soon. When she looked back at JJ, something in her had slowed down—more deliberate, as if each word needed to exist before it was spoken.
“Have you ever noticed how some things don’t start in a clear way?” she said, her voice low but steady, like someone not improvising, but not reading from anything either. “There isn’t a single point you can look back at and say ‘it began here.’ It’s more… a silent accumulation. Small choices you don’t even realize you’re making, small attentions you start directing without knowing why, and when you finally try to understand it… it’s already too big to reduce to a simple beginning.”
JJ frowned slightly, not in disagreement, but in concentration.
“Like habit?” she asked, still trying to anchor it into something more concrete.
“Emily shook her head slowly.
“Not exactly,” she replied. “You recognize habit. You build it consciously on some level, you know you’re repeating it, you know you can stop.” She tilted her head slightly, her eyes fixed on JJ in a more careful way now. “This… doesn’t have that kind of edge. You don’t notice when it starts, and when you do, there isn’t really a version of you that exists completely without it anymore.”
JJ stayed silent for a second, absorbing it.
“And you think that’s… inevitable?” she asked.
Emily let out a small breath, almost a humorless laugh.
“I think we like to pretend it isn’t,” she said. “That there’s choice, that there’s control, that we decide where to invest this kind of thing… but in practice, I don’t know if it works that way.”
She looked away for a moment, following the distorted reflection on the water.
“Because if it did, it would be much simpler,” she continued. “You would just… not choose it when it wasn’t convenient. You wouldn’t let it grow when it complicated everything. You wouldn’t sustain something that clearly doesn’t fit the rest of your life.”
JJ took a deeper, slower breath.
“But we do sustain it,” she said, lower.
Emily nodded.
“We do,” she repeated. “And the worst part is it’s not always an active decision. It’s not like you wake up one day and think, ‘I’m going to keep this.’ It’s more… continuity. You just can’t stop doing it.”
She turned her face back to JJ, and this time her gaze lingered a little longer.
“You start noticing you think about that person in moments that have nothing to do with them,” she said. “That small things accumulate. a way of speaking, a specific detail, a reaction, and it just stays. It takes up space. Not in an invasive way, but constantly.”
JJ didn’t look away.
“And when you try to organize it, put it into categories, understand it within some kind of logic it doesn’t fit properly,” Emily continued. “Because it isn’t proportional. It doesn’t respond to amount of time, or intention, or what would be more appropriate.”
She let out a small, quiet laugh.
“It’s almost inconvenient.”
JJ let out a breath, almost agreeing.
“And you don’t try… to correct it?” she asked.
Emily tilted her head slightly.
“You can try,” she said. “You can create distance, change context, fill the space with other things and for a while, it even seems like it works.” She paused, more in thought than in speech. “But then something small happens, nothing big, nothing dramatic, and you realize it didn’t go away. It just got quieter.”
JJ swallowed, but kept her gaze steady.
“So it’s not about constant intensity,” she said, trying to follow. “It’s more… persistence?”
Emily nodded slowly.
“It’s about continuity,” she replied. “About something that doesn’t need to be active all the time in order to keep existing in the same way.”
The wind passed colder between them, but neither of them moved.
“And that doesn’t change?” JJ asked, quieter now.
Emily took a little longer this time, as if the answer required more care.
“I think it changes form,” she said. “But not presence.”
She looked back at the water for a brief moment before continuing.
“There are things you can leave behind. Others you reorganize. But there are some that simply remain. No matter what happens around them.”
JJ stayed silent, but it wasn’t an empty silence, it was full of recognition.
Emily looked back at her, and this time there was no attempt left to soften what was being said, only to avoid breaking it too abruptly.
“And I think we spend a lot of time trying to decide what to do with that,” she continued, softer. “Whether we ignore it, confront it, turn it into something else…as if the problem were its existence itself, and not what we do with it."
JJ took a deep breath. ‘And what do you think we do?’ she asked.
Emily held her gaze for a long moment, long enough that the answer was already there before it was even spoken.
"Most of the time?’" she said, more quietly. "We coexist."
Emily didn’t look away, but she didn’t move forward either, as if she knew exactly the boundary between speaking and breaking something that still needed to be held together carefully, and when she spoke again, her voice was no longer analytical, nor constructed as before; it was lower, more continuous, as if she were describing something that no longer needed structure to exist.
"Coexisting isn’t active in the way it sounds when you say it," she began, almost thoughtfully, but without losing herself. "It’s not a decision you reaffirm every day, it’s not something you wake up and choose to maintain. It’s more silent than that. More integrated."
She breathed slowly, her gaze still fixed on JJ, but now with a softness that didn’t lessen the intensity, only made it harder to escape.
"I wasn’t thinking about you all the time," she continued, with honesty. "It wasn’t obsessive, it wasn’t constant in that obvious sense. I worked, I lived, I made decisions, I built things that had nothing to do with you, at least not directly." A small pause in her breathing, not in her speech. "But you were embedded in all of it," she said, more quietly. "Not as a thought, but as a kind of reference. As if some part of me was always calibrated by you."
JJ didn’t move. Emily tilted her head slightly, as if trying to make it clearer without oversimplifying.
"It’s hard to explain without sounding like an exaggeration," she murmured. "But it’s like when you learn a new language really well. At first, you translate everything, you think before you speak, you need effort. But after a while… you just understand. You don’t even realize anymore that it wasn’t natural before." She gave a small half-smile, without humor. "You became that to me. Not something I needed to access consciously, but something that was already… incorporated."
The wind passed again, colder now, but neither of them broke the moment.
"And then life continues," Emily said, more quietly. "Things happen, you follow the path that makes sense, that is expected, that is… possible. And it doesn’t disappear. It just… settles. Finds a place where it doesn’t interfere directly, where it doesn’t need to be confronted all the time."
She looked away for a second, as if revisiting something old, not with regret, but with clarity.
"I learned not to touch it," she continued. "Because every time I got too close to understanding it, naming it, giving it shape, it became harder to keep everything else intact."
JJ breathed a little deeper, almost imperceptibly.
Emily looked back at her.
"So I left it as it was," she said. "Without resolving it, without transforming it, without trying to make it become something else. Just coexisting with everything else."
Her voice dropped even lower, not out of hesitation, but out of closeness.
"And it worked," she added. "Not in an ideal way, not in a clean way, but it worked well enough for me to keep going."
She held her gaze for a slightly longer moment.
"Because coexisting, sometimes, isn’t about the absence of conflict," she said, finally. "It’s just about learning not to let it destroy everything else."
JJ didn’t respond immediately. But it wasn’t the same silence as before, it wasn’t analysis, it wasn’t construction. It was as if something inside her had given way, not abruptly, but inevitably, like a structure that holds itself up for too long and, when it finally relaxes, doesn’t return to its previous state. She took a deep breath, but the air felt insufficient, as if her body were lagging behind what needed to be said.
"I think I spent a long time trying to believe that love was compatibility with the life you can build," she began, her voice low but continuous, without stumbling. "That it was about what holds up in the real world, what works within circumstances, what doesn’t destroy everything else. Like an equation, you balance variables, choose what maintains stability, discard what threatens the system."
She let out a small breath of air, almost a laugh, but without any lightness.
"And that makes sense in theory," she continued. "It makes sense in any rational model of connection. Philosophers talk about it as an ethical choice, almost, you decide to love within limits that don’t collapse your life. Psychology calls it secure attachment, healthy construction, continuity." She shook her head slightly. "But that assumes that love obeys the structure you impose."
Her eyes went to Emily, and this time there was no turning away.
"I discovered that it doesn’t obey. Because there is a kind of love that is not compatible with anything other than existing," she said, lower now, but still more intense. "Not because it is destructive, but because it was not made to fit. It does not negotiate space, it does not adapt to the shape you need it to have in order to keep functioning."
She took a deep breath, more slowly, pressing one hand against the other and crushing all ten of her fingers.
Emily looked down, at the blonde’s hands, bare without the ring she had worn for over a decade, and felt an urge to simply take them in hers and bring them to her lips.
"And I tried to treat you as if you were a variable I could control," she continued. "Put in a specific place, define clear limits, prevent it from crossing certain lines. As if that would be enough to turn what I felt into something… manageable." A small silence in her breath, not in her speech. "But you didn’t stay in that place." Her voice softened, a confused and nostalgic smile appearing on her face. "You spread. You were in all my parts, in my chest, in the clothes I chose to wear to work, in my mood..."
JJ took an almost imperceptible step closer, as if gravity itself had shifted.
"Not in an obvious way," she said. "Not interfering directly, not demanding constant attention. It was worse than that." A breath slipped out. "You were in the things I couldn’t map. In the spaces between decisions. In the kind of silence that is not empty, but also has no name." She swallowed hard, but did not step back, she was determined. "When I was kidnapped… when Hastings gave me a break between the torture" her voice faltered for a second, but she continued, firmer after that. "I wasn’t… fully conscious all the time. There were moments when reality… didn’t really hold. And even so—"
She paused just long enough to breathe.
"You were there."
Now there was no distance between memory and confession.
"Not as a memory. Not as someone I thought to call. You were… present. I saw you." Her gaze did not leave Emily. "As if my brain had decided, without consulting me, that if anything was still real there… it was you." The wind passed colder, but JJ did not seem to feel it. "And that doesn’t make sense within any theory," she continued. "There is no functional explanation for that. It is not efficient, it is not logical, it is not… useful. It is just—"
She cut off her own sentence, as if any word after that would be insufficient.
"So I came back," she said, resuming, lower. "And I did what I always did. I reorganized. I went back to structure, to what made sense, to what I could keep without… collapsing. I went back to my marriage. I built a family. I lived a life that was… real, solid, true."
Her eyes softened for a moment, but did not lose their intensity.
"And I loved," she said. "I loved in a whole, present, conscious way. It was not replacement, it was not absence. It was real."
She took a deep breath.
"But you never stopped existing within it. Not as comparison. Not as doubt. As… another layer of reality."
She tilted her head slightly.
"I think that was what always confused me about you… because what I felt did not behave like the other things I learned to call love. It did not have a clear beginning, there was no moment where I could look back and say ‘this is where it changed’, and there was also no middle, in the sense of progress, of stages, of predictable evolution. It did not grow in an organized way, it did not turn into something more stable or easier to carry. It was as if it existed outside this logic, outside this need to move forward to somewhere."
"What I felt for you did not move toward an end either, it did not ask for resolution, it did not demand an answer, it did not need to be lived to the limit to then end or transform into something else. It simply… continued. The same way, with the same presence, regardless of what happened around it. And that was the strangest thing, because even when everything in my life changed, when I made choices that should, theoretically, displace you, when I built other relationships, other priorities, other versions of myself, that did not follow those changes. It did not adapt, it did not diminish, it did not reorganize itself to fit better. It just… remained."
"As if it did not depend on context, on proximity, on possibility. As if it needed nothing other than existing in order to keep existing. And I tried so many times to treat this as something temporary, as a phase that would eventually pass, like anything else that does not find enough space to sustain itself. But it never passed. It never weakened enough to become a memory, it never distorted enough to stop being recognizable. It never went away."
The look in her eyes locked onto Emily again, and Emily did not look away. On the contrary, there was something in the way she held that contact that was no longer just attention; it was recognition, old and silent, as if she were looking at something she had known for too long to pretend to be surprised. The corner of her mouth lifted into a small, almost restrained smile, but not out of lack of intensity — rather because it seemed too full to expand completely, as if any exaggeration would break the delicacy of that moment.
It was a different kind of smile than the others; it held no irony, no defense, no sharp edge that Emily usually used to protect herself. It was softer, more… exposed. As if, for the first time, she was not trying to control what she felt while looking at JJ, and that made everything simpler and more dangerous at the same time.
Her eyes followed every smallest movement of JJ, not in an invasive way, but too attentive to be casual, as if she were absorbing, storing, recognizing details she already knew by heart, but which still seemed new under that light, in that specific moment. It was like revisiting a place where one had lived for years and still being surprised by the way light hits each surface differently, revealing things that had always been there but had never been seen in that way before.
There was a kind of overlap in Emily’s gaze, as if she were not only seeing the JJ who was there in front of her, but all her other versions at the same time. The younger JJ, more closed off, with shoulders always a little too tense, as if ready to protect herself from something that was never fully named. The JJ who spoke too quickly when nervous, who avoided certain topics with a smile that was too light, who was still learning how to take up space without apologizing for it. And at the same time, the JJ who had been built afterward — firmer, more whole, marked by everything she had gone through, carrying losses, choices, responsibilities that settled into her deeply, but never erased that initial part.
And Emily saw all of it. Not as distant memory, but as continuity. As if nothing had truly been lost along the way, only accumulated.
Her gaze lingered on details that would likely go unnoticed by anyone else — the way JJ slightly tilted her head when trying to understand something more deeply, the way her blue eyes darkened a little when her thoughts grew heavier, the small delay between what she felt and what she allowed herself to show. Minimal things. Things that only make sense when you have been watching someone for too long.
And there was care in it, but not only that.
There was a kind of quiet fascination, almost reverent, as if Emily still had not grown tired of looking. As if, even after so many years, there was still something in her that responded to JJ with a kind of constant surprise, as if part of her had never fully gotten used to the idea that JJ existed… like that.
Her smile grew a little more, still contained, still intimate — not a smile meant to be seen, but one that simply… happened, inevitable, in the middle of all that recognition. And there was something deeply intimate about it, because it was not only the present Emily was seeing. It was JJ’s entire timeline. Who she was, who she tried to be, who she needed to become. As if every version of JJ had found a place inside her, and none had ever truly left.
"I think that’s what happened to us." JJ continued, without hesitation, also smiling now, seeing the way Emily was looking at her. "Not because we chose to let it go," she continued. "But because there was no space where it could exist without breaking everything else. So we did what we could. We displaced it."
She let out a small humorless laugh.
"You became what I never touched directly," she said. "But also what I never completely stopped feeling." Her voice lowered even more. "And that didn’t diminish over time, it just became more integrated into me."
She held her gaze. "So no… I didn’t coexist with it the way you described." JJ held Emily by the elbows, turning the woman with silver hair completely toward her now.
The reflection of them in the water of the reflecting pool was not sharp enough to form two complete figures; it was more like an unstable outline, two blurred presences stretching and breaking as the wind passed, as if even there, in that artificial mirror, the world refused to offer anything fully defined. The night had advanced enough to dissolve details, and what remained was shape, movement, and light — enough to recognize, but not enough to fix.
They stopped near the edge, without planning it, and for a few seconds they looked more at their distorted versions than at each other.
"It’s strange how we trust reflection," JJ said, eyes still on the water. "Even knowing it’s not precise. Like we automatically accept that it represents something real, even when it’s clearly distorted."
Emily followed her gaze, watching her own outline move alongside JJ’s.
"I think it’s not trust," she replied. "It’s necessity. We need some kind of external confirmation that we exist in a coherent way."
"But there is no coherence there," JJ retorted, tilting her head slightly. "Look at this. We’re literally distorted."
Emily let out a small low laugh. "And yet you know it’s you."
JJ stayed silent for a second, considering.
"So maybe it’s not about accuracy," she said. "Maybe it’s just about enough recognition."
Emily nodded slowly.
"It’s how most social things work," she commented. "No one sees anyone completely. We only recognize enough to keep interacting as if we saw."
JJ looked away from the water, now looking forward, at the long axis of the mirror.
"This is kind of uncomfortable," she murmured. "Thinking that most relationships are based on partial versions."
Emily shrugged slightly.
"But it’s also what makes it possible," she said. "If we had full access to the other person, everything, without filter, it might be unsustainable."
JJ raised her eyebrow slightly, now looking at Emily.
Emily saw JJ’s blurred reflection looking at her through the water.
"You think we couldn’t handle it?"
Emily thought for a second before answering.
"I think we would lose the ability to simplify," she said. "And simplification is what allows continuity. You choose which parts you consider, which you ignore, which you reinterpret."
JJ let out a small breath of air.
"So relationships are, essentially, selective constructions?"
"Mostly, yes."
"That sounds kind of manipulative."
"It’s inevitable," Emily corrected. "It’s not a conscious choice most of the time. It’s cognitive limitation. You can’t process everything, so you filter."
JJ crossed her arms slightly, thoughtful.
"But that means we never really know someone."
Emily tilted her head slightly.
"It depends on what you consider ‘real’," she said. "If it’s totality, then no. If it’s consistency over time… maybe."
JJ looked back at the water, the reflection trembling with the wind.
"Consistency can just be repetition of behavior," she commented. "Not necessarily essence."
Emily smirked slightly.
"You’re trying to find essence in people," she said. "That’s already a problem in itself."
JJ let out a small laugh.
"So it doesn’t exist?"
"Not in a fixed way," Emily replied. "We’re constantly changing. What you call essence might just be a temporary pattern you observed long enough to believe it’s permanent."
JJ stayed silent for a few seconds, absorbing it.
"That would explain a lot," she murmured. "Including why sometimes it feels like you know someone deeply and, suddenly, you don’t anymore."
Emily nodded.
"Because the person changed or because you changed the way you see," she said. "Or both."
JJ tilted her head slightly, now looking directly at Emily.
"And you think that’s inevitable in any relationship?"
Emily held her gaze for a moment before answering.
"I think so," she said. "The only difference is how willing you are to… update the image you have of the other person."
JJ let out a small breath of air.
"Most people aren’t."
"No," Emily agreed. "Because updating requires letting go of a version that was already comfortable."
JJ looked away again, back at the water.
"And sometimes the comfortable version is the only thing that allows the relationship to keep existing," she said.
Emily didn’t respond immediately this time.
"Sometimes."
Their reflection moved again, distorted, inseparable for a moment, while their hands, stretched by the water, unreal in form but unmistakable in intention, met in that unstable mirror. The touch was not immediate in the real world, but it existed first there, on the trembling surface, as if the reflection had courage before they did, as if it was saying something that had not yet been allowed outside the water.
The wind passed lightly, breaking the image for a second, undoing the outline into fragments of light — and then reorganizing it again, closer, more blended.
On the bank, the space between them shrank without announcement. There was no clear decision, no marked gesture. It was an almost organic approach, as if the body understood before the mind, as if that point had been inevitable long before any words.
JJ’s fingers brushed Emily’s first, a contact too light to be considered definitive, but long enough not to be accidental. And then they stayed. Not intertwined, not firm, just… present. A silent recognition that did not require confirmation, that did not need to be named in order to exist with intensity.
There was something deeply careful in the way it happened. It was not urgency, not impulse. It was as if every centimeter of that touch carried the weight of everything that had not been done before, of all the moments they had come too close to each other without crossing that line, of all the times the gesture had been restrained, redirected, forcibly forgotten.
And now it wasn’t anymore.
The closeness changed Emily’s breathing first, slower, more conscious, as if she was allowing herself to feel it without the need to control it. Her gaze was no longer on the reflection, nor completely on JJ; it was somewhere in between, as if she were absorbing the reality of that moment with almost reverent care.
Her hand responded to the touch without haste, adjusting slightly, not to hold, but not to lose. As if letting go were no longer such a simple option.
And still, nothing was said. Because there were things that, finally, did not need language.
And still, nothing was said. Because there were things that, finally, did not need language.
JJ was the first to react, not with words, but with something smaller, more intimate. The corner of her mouth rose slowly, as if she were testing her own courage to feel it without pulling away, a light smile, shy in just the right measure, as if it had been born before she could stop it. She let out a small breath of air, almost a silent laugh, her eyes still fixed for a second on the distorted reflection of them both, as if that alone was enough to explain everything.
But when she looked up, Emily was already looking.
Not casually, not as someone simply following the moment, but as if she had been waiting for exactly that, as if she had not looked away for a single instant. There was something deeply exposed there, without the usual filter, without calculated care, a full gaze, dense, carrying an amount of feeling that no longer fit into silence.
Her eyes moved over JJ with an attention almost too gentle for the intensity they held, as if every detail still mattered even after so many years, as if looking was still something new. There was warmth there, but also something deeper, something that did not pass quickly, a permanence, an old recognition that no longer needed to hide itself.
And Emily’s smile came with it.
They kept walking, and this time there was no longer that invisible space between them, their hands now intertwined, not as something that needed to be reaffirmed, but as if it had simply found a natural place where it had always belonged. The touch was no longer hesitant; it was calm, almost unconscious, as if both were more focused on sustaining the conversation than questioning the gesture. And perhaps that was exactly what made it more intense: there was no longer any effort to seem casual.
JJ took a deep breath before speaking, her eyes following the long line of the water mirror, as if trying to align her thoughts with the steady rhythm of their steps.
"I think the problem is that we were taught to treat time as if it were a kind of authority," she said, her voice slower now, more structured, as if she were building something larger than a loose observation. "As if it had some kind of moral function, almost as if the passing of years was, in itself, enough to transform things, to resolve, to close them. We grow up believing that, if something hurt, eventually it will hurt less; if something was left unfinished, at some point it will stop mattering. But that assumes that time acts on things in an active way, as if it had intention, as if it were responsible for organizing experience."
She tightened her fingers slightly around Emily’s without noticing, not as a conscious gesture, but as an involuntary anchor.
"But it doesn’t do any of that," she continued. "It just… passes. And the rest depends on how we absorb, or don’t absorb, what happened within that interval. There are things we really process, integrate, understand in some way and those things change, dissolve, find a place where they don’t weigh as much anymore. But there are other things that don’t go through that process. Not because we don’t want them to, but because they can’t be reorganized within any logic that makes enough sense to…accommodate them."
Emily wasn’t just listening, she was completely inside it, her gaze fixed on JJ with an attention that was no longer analytical, but deeply involved, as if every word was fitting into something she had already felt herself, but had never structured that way.
"And that’s where the idea of ‘enough time’ starts to fail," JJ continued, now with more intensity, as if following a line that finally made sense. "Because what would be enough, really? Enough to forget? Enough to stop feeling? Enough to turn something into the past in a definitive way? There is no objective measure for that. There is no point where you can say ‘now it’s over’ and it just obeys."
Emily let out a small breath, almost a humorless laugh, but there was agreement there, immediate.
"Maybe because we’re trying to apply linear logic to things that aren’t linear," she said, her voice lower but completely engaged, following the reasoning without breaking the rhythm. "Time works in sequence, cause and effect, progression. But experience doesn’t. Experience is cumulative, layered, sometimes even contradictory. You can live years of something and still have a single specific moment that carries more weight than everything else combined."
She tilted her head slightly, her eyes still fixed on JJ.
"And the problem is that we keep expecting duration to justify meaning," she continued. "As if what lasted longer should matter more, as if what came after automatically had more value than what came before. But it doesn’t work like that. It never did."
JJ turned her face toward her, interested, almost relieved that Emily wasn’t just understanding but expanding it.
"Exactly," she said, more firmly now. "We create this artificial hierarchy, as if time validates choices. As if ‘having lasted’ is enough proof that it was what it was supposed to be. And that completely hides the fact that there are things that were never replaced, just set aside."
Their steps slowed a little, not enough to stop, but enough to make each word more present.
"And the strangest thing," JJ continued, her voice lower now but even more charged, "is that these things don’t disappear because of lack of space. They just stay somewhere else. They don’t directly interfere, they don’t interrupt what you’ve built, but they also don’t stop existing. They stay there, intact in a way that doesn’t move with the rest of your life."
Emily tightened her hand around hers slightly this time, a small but conscious gesture, as if responding not only to the touch but to what was being said.
"It’s as if some experiences aren’t subject to time’s wear," she said more slowly, choosing her words carefully. "They don’t evolve, they don’t transform, they don’t adapt. They remain in their original form. And that’s almost counterintuitive, because everything else changes. Everything else adjusts, reorganizes, is lost or redefined."
She paused briefly but didn’t break the flow.
"But those things don’t," she continued. "They stay exactly as they were when they happened. With the same weight, the same intensity, the same presence. And maybe that’s why they don’t fit into everything else. Because everything else keeps moving, and they don’t follow."
JJ stayed silent for a second, absorbing it, but there was no resistance — only recognition.
"And then we call it the past," she said, almost in a breath, "because we don’t know where else to put it."
Emily looked at her with even more attention, as if that sentence had hit something specific.
"But it’s not the past," she replied, more softly. "Not really."
The wind passed again, colder this time, but neither of them let go of each other’s hand.
"Because if it were, we wouldn’t be waiting this long," the blonde replied.
JJ’s cheeks were slightly flushed, not from the cold, or not only from it, but from something more internal, harder to hide. There was a warmth there that didn’t match the night, a subtle trace that broke the steadiness she had been holding until then. And Emily noticed it before anything else. JJ seemed determined about something, and Emily really wanted to find out what.
She noticed the way JJ’s breathing seemed more conscious, as if each inhale was thought through before it happened. The small delay between the moment JJ looked at her and the moment she actually held her gaze, as if she were gathering some specific kind of courage not to look away. The way her shoulders, usually so controlled, seemed slightly tense, not in defense, but in anticipation. JJ didn’t usually allow herself this kind of exposure, not like that, not so visible, not so open. And maybe that was exactly what made something inside Emily give in, soften, almost as if everything else—every analysis, every caution, every restraint Emily thought she still had—had lost its strength in the face of that.
She didn’t say anything. But her gaze changed. It became more amused as she watched JJ mentally struggle over whether she would do something or not.
JJ took a small step forward, placing herself in front of Emily and preventing her from taking another step forward.
And that was enough for the space between them to stop existing as it had before, no longer a neutral interval, but something charged, electric, as if any minimal movement could completely change what was about to happen.
She lifted her gaze again, this time without looking away.
And for a moment, she seemed younger. Not in appearance, but in the way she was there. More open, more vulnerable, without the layers that normally protected every gesture, every word. There was something almost delicate about her now, as if all the strength she carried had been set aside for a very specific moment.
"Emily…" her voice came out lower than before, but not weak, too honest to be controlled. "I really want to kiss you."
She took a deep breath, as if that alone had already required something from her.
"Can I kiss you?" she continued, her eyes locked onto Emily’s, with no escape, no retreat. "Can you kiss me?"
Emily didn’t think of it as a decision, nor as something new. She thought of it as delayed recognition, almost irritating in its own obviousness. As if suddenly everything she had spent years organizing, pushing into safer places, naming in other, more acceptable ways, had completely lost its usefulness in the face of the simple fact that it had always been this. Always. From the beginning, before she even knew how to shape what she felt, it had already been there—whole, persistent, passing through everything that came after without ever truly diminishing. God, she always would want to kiss JJ, always wanted to be kissed by JJ. She had always wanted this.
She didn’t need to search for specific memories because they came on their own, not as isolated scenes, but as a continuous line that now made sense in an almost uncomfortable way. Small moments that, at the time, seemed neutral or easy to ignore, but that, seen now, carried an intention she simply hadn’t wanted to face. The way she always paid too much attention to JJ, how any minimal change in her mood never went unnoticed, how her body reacted before her mind could justify it—all of that wasn’t new, never was. She just chose not to name it.
She thought about the day she told JJ that she and Will would make a beautiful couple, when all she truly wanted was to pull JJ in and kiss her in that crowded precinct, so everyone would know she wanted to be JJ’s, and only hers.
And the worst part was that it hadn’t been due to a single moment of lack of courage. It had been more subtle than that. A sequence of small, seemingly correct choices that, added together, created enough distance to keep it contained. Doing what was expected, guiding JJ toward a more stable, simpler, more logical path. As if logic had any real weight against what this had always been.
The world seemed to slow down.
Emily didn’t respond immediately, not because she needed to think, but because she was… feeling. Absorbing every detail of that moment with an intensity that made any quick answer feel insufficient. Her gaze traced JJ’s face carefully, lingering on the same signs she had noticed before—the light flush, the contained tension, the way she stayed there even with everything exposed.
Emily took an urgent step forward. Her hand rose quickly, finding JJ’s face with a delicacy and haste that did not diminish the intensity of the gesture, her fingers settling there as if they already knew exactly where to be. Her thumb brushed lightly over the warm skin of JJ’s cheek, feeling it, confirming it, almost disbelieving that she was touching that face, that face she loved so much and was about to kiss.
And then she leaned in, capturing JJ’s lips with her own, wanting to feel her completely, wanting to consume and taste JJ more than she wanted to breathe.
When their lips finally met, JJ let out a small soft moan and grabbed Emily’s waist. The sound itself was a surprise, but JJ wanted it so much that she didn’t feel even slightly embarrassed. Actually, if they weren’t in public, she thought she would’ve moaned properly.
The sound alone pushed Emily to take one of her hands away from JJ’s cheek and move it to the back of her neck, as if she were trying to fuse her hands with the loose blond waves she loved so much, pulling JJ’s face closer, deeper into hers, while the other hand settled gently on her neck.
Their tongues fought for a kind of control both of them were willing to lose, their mouths full of living movement, as if they had a life of their own. The air became thin, and Emily briefly considered not pulling away at all, even if it meant drowning them both in a simultaneous, desperate intake of breath.
When they finally separated, Emily bit JJ’s lower lip, pulling another one of those beautiful sounds out of her, the same kind she had heard just moments before.
JJ took a deep breath, barely giving Emily time to do the same, before kissing her again, pulling away quickly this time, now being the one to bite Emily’s lower lip, holding it a second longer before releasing it, while Emily let out a soft moan and felt that sweet sting.
“If I had known you kissed this well, I would’ve talked less,” JJ murmured, still close to Emily’s face, making her laugh out loud.
They didn’t say much after that.
Not because there was nothing left to say, but because everything felt simpler now, in a way that no longer needed to be filled all the time. The walk continued almost on inertia—many stolen kisses, lighter steps, sometimes uncoordinated, as if neither of them was really paying attention to the path anymore, only to the fact that they were still there, finally together for real.
It was JJ who pointed first, a small, almost absent gesture toward a cart lit by a warm yellow light, slightly improvised, standing out from the more organized city around it.
"I think I need something extremely greasy right now," she murmured, with a half-smile that still carried traces of what had happened minutes before.
Emily let out a small laugh, low and easy.
"What are we waiting for, then?" she replied, following her gaze.
The smell reached them before they got there—hot dough, melted cheese, overly strong sauce, everything mixed in a slightly chaotic but irresistible way. The slices were too big to be practical, oil dripping over thin paper edges, clearly not meant to be elegant.
And maybe that was exactly why it fit the moment so well.
They bought two, laughing softly while trying to balance them without immediately getting messy, and stepped away from the movement, finding a quieter corner, leaning against a cold low wall, far enough not to share space with anyone else.
As soon as they sat down, JJ immediately opened the box holding her huge slice of pizza, not afraid of looking crazy about food, after all, this was Emily. Her Emily. They had known each other for twenty years.
JJ took the first bite without ceremony, and the small sound of surprise that escaped her—half laugh, half approval, made Emily smile before she even tried her own.
"This is ridiculously good," JJ commented, still chewing, wiping the corner of her mouth with her thumb in a distracted way.
Emily watched her for a second longer than necessary, her gaze lighter now, looser, as if she were still adjusting to the fact that she could look at her without having to hide it anymore.
"You always have these very refined choices after emotionally complex moments," she said, almost teasing.
JJ let out a soft laugh, shaking her head slightly.
"I have very well-defined priorities," she replied.
Silence returned, but different from before—filled with small things that somehow felt bigger than any conversation they had had throughout the night. The distant sound of the street came muted, as if it couldn’t quite reach them in that quieter corner, where everything seemed to exist on a smaller, more intimate scale. The thin paper in their hands made a soft sound with each movement, a loose, irregular crumpling that followed the rhythm of bites and relaxed gestures neither of them was trying to control. Sometimes their fingers brushed without intention—a brief, accidental touch—but it was no longer ignored the way it had been for twenty years, no longer something that passed without being registered.
Emily thought, without really deciding to think it, about the simple, and at the same time absurd, fact that there were still so many things that had never happened between them. Small things, everyday things, almost mundane when seen from the outside, but which now seemed to carry an unexpected weight. First times that, in some way, had been postponed for years without her fully realizing how much that was significant.
The first time she would wake up next to JJ without needing to pretend it was circumstantial. The first time she could touch her without measuring the gesture, without recalculating the invisible boundary that had always existed. The first time a longer look wouldn’t need to be disguised, redirected, hidden behind something else more acceptable.
Simple things. Ridiculously simple… She could have all of that now.
The thought didn’t come with urgency, nor with anxiety, it came with a kind of… stillness. As if she were simply recognizing something that had always been there, but had never had space to exist in a concrete way. As if, for the first time, she could imagine those possibilities without immediately discarding them as unlikely or inappropriate.
Emily looked at JJ again, more calmly this time, letting her gaze rest without rushing, without the need to hide it. The way she still seemed slightly distracted, smiling to herself sometimes, as if caught in her own thoughts. The simple movement of wiping her fingers on the paper, the almost nonexistent care in the way she ate, as if there was no need to maintain any image there.
The way JJ’s cheeks were still flushed from the kiss, her lips still slightly swollen. That was when the question came.
Not heavy, but not light either.
“Why today?” Her voice came out lower, calmer, but direct enough not to leave room for deflection.
JJ didn’t answer immediately. She took another bite, slower this time, as if it wasn’t about gaining time, but about feeling time before responding. Her gaze dropped for a second to her own hand still holding the pizza, the oil shining under the dim light, something too ordinary to match what was coming.
When she looked up again, she met Emily without hesitation.
Her blue eyes, which throughout the night had carried curiosity, humor, intelligence, even an unexpected lightness, now looked too sad. Not a contained sadness, not desperate, not even fragility in the most visible sense. It was something else. A clean sadness, almost silent, that didn’t ask for an immediate reaction but existed in an absolute way, impossible to soften. As if it carried a kind of acceptance that didn’t come from relief, but from understanding. An understanding that could no longer be undone.
Emily felt it before she thought it. Her body reacted first, her posture adjusting, her weight shifting slightly, as if instinctively she had moved closer without even moving yet. Her gaze scanned JJ’s face quickly, almost searching for another explanation, some detail that would undo what was beginning to form there, but she found nothing that could ease it.
“Because I’m dying, Em.”