Fic: Deep Sleep - JJ

[shamir-26.livejournal.com]

Title: Deep Sleep – Part 7

Author: Sara Nublas

Character: JJ

Rating: FRT

Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters of the show Criminal Minds. No infringement intended

Warning: Spoilers to 6x23 'Supply and demand'

Summary: sleep is the only moment when profilers expose their troubles and fears without being able to control them, so I decided to try and dig into their minds to see what’s most frightening or bugging them. There will be one shot for each profiler, all the stories are completely independent from each other and take place in different moments, the only common theme being sleep

Notes: Beta’d by the amazing freddlerabbit

 

 

 

JJ: Awakening

JJ rubs her forehead, hunched over her sofa, intent in skimming through the pages of a file.

She’s so caught in her thoughts that she startles when Will comes and sits next to her.

“He’s finally asleep,” he whispers with a relaxed sigh, then he nods to the stash of papers, “I understood that one of the pros of this new job was travelling less and not taking any work home”

She looks at him, her face hinting at an uneasy smile “I know, I’m sorry. It’s just some documents I really needed to take a look at” she justifies and gathers the files.

Will frowns when he spots the content “You going back?” There’s no anger or resentment in his voice, just pure surprise.

JJ’s mouth falls open while she tries to figure out a plausible answer “I’m thinking about it. It’s just an idea.” She dodges his gaze and takes a pause “Will… I was going to tell you. I just wanted to wrap my head around this before saying something”

“I know,” he responds pensively.

JJ arches an eyebrow, trying to understand if his calm is real or if he’s hiding his disappointment.

“C’mon,” he chuckles “You think I haven’t noticed how much you don’t like this job?”

Feeling like a kid caught with her hands in a cookie jar, she surrenders “Working at the BAU was incredibly tough. I was away all the time, handling horrible cases and seeing people facing the worst moment of their lives. Sometimes I wished I wasn’t there…”

“But?” he prompts.

“But it had a meaning” she looks at him, desperate. “We were helping people. People with faces, names, stories. We knew that as much as annihilating as the job could be at times, we were doing some good, making things go according to justice”

“And you don’t feel the same at the Pentagon…” he encourages her, pulling an arm around her shoulders.

“I’m part of a chain of command I ignore the most part of, and when they give me some more information, I worry whether I’m standing on the right side,” she tries to explain.

Will nods pensively, “Why didn’t you tell me before that you were so unhappy?”

“Because 99 percent of what I do is classified. And it wouldn’t have changed things anyway, then.” she argues.

“But now it’s different..”

“Now, there might be a chance for me to go back to the BAU” she looks right in his eyes.

“I see.”

“Will, it’s not something we have to decide now…” she explains.

“I’ll be by your side anyway” he smiles, “I want you to be happy JJ. And I miss your smile” he kisses her forehead and bids her goodnight, heading to their bedroom.

 

JJ sits still for a while, in the dark room; she likes to imagine her life as a house with solid foundations, the way you lay each brick influencing the whole structure. When she was still working at the BAU, she would come back home at the end of a case with some memories impressed in her mind; the smile of a child, the hug of a mother who found her daughter still alive, the sober goodbye of a torn family that finally found closure. That was a good way to build her house.

Now the secrets she has to keep, the art of deception she had to learn, the versicolored nature of truth, make her feel like she’s groping her way through a dark maze. She definitely doesn’t like what she’s building here.

 

Her thoughts slowly start to become hazy, her limbs so heavy, no way she’s going to make it to the bedroom, she thinks. It’s a matter of seconds before she’s out.

It’s a cold sunny morning, a thin layer of frost covers the roads, people hurriedly walk through the streets, bracing themselves through their coats, and rows of parked cars are completely covered with ice.

She’s standing on the sidewalk, waiting for the green light to cross the street. Everything is so still. The street is completely empty; not a car passing by, not a police officer, not a sound. It’s like as if all of a sudden everyone just vanished and the city has been left lying silent as the bleached wreck of a dead whale.

Only then she notices a woman waiting on the opposite side of the road with her kid. He looks five or so and he must have just said something funny because the two can’t stop giggling. The woman smiles at her son and ruffles his blonde hair. Finally the green light comes and the two women start crossing the street in opposite directions.

JJ doesn’t see where the car is coming from; she just notices a black shadow skidding and stopping inches away from them. A man in a black hood comes out, armed.

Then everything happens so fast and so painfully slowly at the same time.

He extends an arm and points the gun. She tries to yell at the woman, but no sound comes out of her mouth. Then the deafening noise. A button flips in the air off the woman’s coat and what seems to be to be ages later it lands on the ground, besides her lifeless body.

Her son stands beside her and can’t stop crying.

Then the man who fired, walks toward the woman and checks her pulse.

Once he realizes his work is done, he turns toward JJ. She can swear he’s grinning at her through the fabric of the hood. He lifts a finger and poses it on his mouth, bidding her to silence. Then he goes back to his car, and drives away.

JJ wants to grab a phone and call the police. She wants to run toward the woman and check her vitals. She wants to take that kid into her arms and soothe his cry. She wants to get that son of a bitch and see his face, before shoving him in a jail for the rest of his life. But none of these things is an option; she’s frozen, immobilized. Her mind is present and reactive, but her body is like a splinted bone.

 

She wakes up with her fists clenched and her limbs sore with spasms. She doesn’t think a minute and goes to check on Henry. Once she has made sure he’s fine, she grabs the car keys and heads straight to the car.

 

The BAU is half empty when she comes in. As she silently glides through the familiar corridors and sits down waiting patiently, a rising tension gets to her guts. She’s frantically recalling particulars from her dream as if she had to report them to the detective in charge of the investigation. Except that there is no investigation, because there is no crime. It was just a dream. Finally a door opens and brings her back to the present.

 

“We said we needed to talk,” Rossi smoothly comments, feigning his surprise when he finds her in his office “but at 2 a.m?”

“I saw the lights were on” she smirks.

“And you couldn’t sleep,” he carries on

Well, let’s not get into it, she thinks.

“Which tells me you’ve given some thought to what we discussed,” Rossi concludes.

“I’ve never stopped thinking about it,” she admits.

“So?”

“I’m coming back”