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The same few dreams cycle over and over. Tonight, she is kneeling over a dying Roslyn in their shared bathroom in their childhood home. Her older sister is bleeding out in the bathtub, and eleven-year-old Jennifer is crouched beside her, frantically pressing her palms against the wounds, hoping that the pressure of hands will stop the bleeding long enough for one of their parents to find them. She opens her mouth to yell for her mother, but no matter how hard she tries, no sound comes out. She is frozen on the cold tile floor, physically unable to leave Roslyn’s side, even if she wanted to. Roslyn, drifting out of consciousness, opens her mouth to say something. Jennifer leans in close, straining to hear her, but instead of words, she hears her sister’s dying gasp and a slow exhale as the breath leaves her body for the final time. That final breath settles on her own cheek. She has just watched the life drain out of her older sister, and yet all she can do is sit and stare, unmoving, unblinking, her own breathing becoming shallower by the second. Time stops, then starts again. The sound of footsteps draws nearer. This is it. A shriek echoes from behind her, then the sound of a glass shattering. The cold contents of the glass splash onto the bathroom floor, mixing with Roslyn’s blood. It is her mother who has found them there, and now she stands in the doorway, hyperventilating and screaming desperate nonsense.
Jennifer, do something! Don’t just sit there, do something! What is wrong with you?
The whole time, Jennifer’s point of view is fixed in front of her, on the bathtub, on the blood covering her hands, on Roslyn. She never sees her mother, only feels her presence in the doorway, hears her screaming, dialing 911, kicking aside the broken glass. Her mother drops the landline and rushes to the bathtub, shoving Jennifer aside to take Roslyn’s hands in her own. And then it is over.
JJ woke with a jolt to find herself on the couch in the living room of her D.C. apartment. She placed her palm to her chest where her heart was racing, beating hard against her ribcage as her body slowly processed where she was.
She catalogued the evening in her head, trying to map out a timeline. She recalled returning to her apartment in a sleep-deprived haze. The team had been working a particularly tedious case, and none of them slept until the plane ride back to Quantico. As soon as she locked the door to her apartment, she dumped her body onto the couch, stopping only to kick off her boots in the middle of the hallway. She had only a vague idea of what time she had gotten home and how long she had been asleep. Somehow, she was simultaneously cold and coated in a layer of sweat. Her entire body felt sticky, her limbs peeling away from each other as she moved. A familiar yet overwhelming desire to crawl out of her skin came over her. She had not yet figured out how to shake that feeling.
The sun had begun to set while she was asleep. The curtains were open, and the absence of sun painted the room around her a lifeless, unsaturated blue. The apartment was eerily quiet, and it made her heart sit heavy in her chest. She drifted into her bathroom and turned on the shower. She stripped out of her clothes, tossing her wrinkled blouse to the floor and draping her slacks over the towel rack. While she waited for the water to warm up, she stared at herself in the mirror. Her body looked strangely unfamiliar to her, as if she was looking at another person - a stranger - and not her own reflection. Goosebumps prickled on her arms, the tiny hairs there standing straight up. The fabric from the couch cushions left a faint imprint on her left cheek. JJ pulled herself away from the mirror before she could stare into her own eyes. She had not been crying, not that she knew of anyway, but her eyes felt heavy as if she had. A dull sting of a headache was blooming behind them.
JJ’s body autopiloted itself through the cleaning portion of the shower. Without thought, she lathered body wash between her hands before sliding them over every inch of her skin. She cleaned herself thoroughly, washing away the cold sweat from her nap and the grimy feeling from the plane. As the warm water cascaded over her, she tried to return to herself. She was clean now, and she could start over. But through the din of the water streaming out of the showerhead and hitting the porcelain beneath her feet, she could still hear her mother’s shrieks from a faraway place in her mind. Even holding her head under the shower stream could not drown the sound out. She reached for the faucet handle and turned it towards the coldest setting. If the sound of the shower could not drown out the sounds harbored by her mind, maybe the cold water would shock it out of her. She braced herself as the water turned ice-cold, but it did not stop her from flinching the moment it first hit her. JJ gritted her teeth and let the water pour over her. She stood under, intense waves of shivers rolling through her, until her palms began to turn a pale shade of purple. Only then did she turn the water off and step out of the shower. It worked. Her mind was quiet.
In her bedroom, she threw on a pair of sweatpants and a long sleeve t-shirt. She could not risk seeing her own body right now, fearing that it would send her into a spiral. She padded into the kitchen and immediately forgot what she had gone in there to do. She wasn’t hungry. On the contrary, the thought of eating made her stomach flip over itself. Even if she did eat, she was not positive that she would be able to keep it down for long. Water is important, she remembered. But having a drink of water required a glass, and the glass would remind her of the one that shattered on the floor in her dream. JJ shuddered, remembering the sound it made. She swore that right now, in her kitchen, she could hear every individual piece of glass break apart from the whole and hit the tile one by one. She shook the thought from her mind, moving to turn on the electric kettle on the counter. Tea seemed like a good middle ground - easy and warm and usually comforting. As the water boiled, she dug a box of chamomile-lavender tea bags from the back of a cupboard, and grabbed her favorite mug, the one that was pink on the inside, white on the outside, and covered with flamingos. It was a gift from Penelope. The thought of her friend’s barely contained excitement when she gave her the mug made JJ smile every time she looked at the mug.
For all of the five minutes it took for the tea to steep, JJ’s gaze never left the mug. She watched the tea bag saturate and sink to the bottom, the dried flower petals turning vibrant as they rehydrated, the water shifting to a translucent pale yellow. There was such simplicity to it, JJ noted. The process was patient and deliberate and guaranteed to produce the same result each time.
Though she knew it was coming, she jumped at the shrill, tinny sound of the kitchen timer. She silently admonished herself for being so on edge as she carried the tea to her bedroom. There, she switched on the lamp on her bedside table, and sat crosslegged on the bed, sipping her tea slowly and breathing deeply into her diaphragm. Fatigue crept up on her. She shifted to lay on her back, inviting sleep to take her completely. The day had felt like a void, like a black hole containing nothing and everything at the same time. She craved the relief of starting over tomorrow. It was just nearing her grasp when her body spasmed, and she suddenly jolted awake with a fear she could not identify.
Spencer had once told her that the human body sometimes mistakes the muscular relaxation of sleep with the feeling of physically falling. You jerk awake because your body is trying to catch itself, he had explained. She had understood the sentiment at the time, but now, frustrated by the way her body betrayed her, she found the idea incredibly stupid. Her own body was teasing her.
JJ tucked the duvet tightly around herself. You are safe, Jennifer, she thought to herself, though it brought her no comfort. She breathed with intention, trying to slow her heart rate back to normal using an exercise she had learned years ago from a therapist.
Four second intervals: inhale, hold, exhale, hold, repeat.
Instead, she found that it was getting significantly harder to breathe. The panic took hold of her body minutes before it reached her mind. When she closed her eyes to sleep, her brain projected images of her sister’s bloody arm hanging over the edge of the bathtub. Here is dead Roslyn and here are the EMTs pulling her lifeless body onto a stretcher and here is our mother sobbing on the front porch steps and here is the blood that little Jenny herself will clean out of the bathtub after returning home from the hospital with the worst news she will receive in her life.
All at once, the images flashed through JJ’s mind, while the weight of it all slowly gripped her chest and held her down. She needed to get up. She needed to get up now, needed to rip the duvet off of herself and get as far away from the bed as she possibly could. She needed to get back under the cold water of the shower. She needed to leave the apartment and run until her lungs gave out. She needed to scream a loud, guttural scream - one that would rip through her entire body and leave her crumpled on the ground, gasping for air afterward.
Please make it stop. Make it fucking stop. The thought repeated on a loop in her mind over the familiar images from her nightmares. It terrified her. She thought she was going to die; Truthfully, a part of her welcomed the possibility if it meant ending this gruesome montage for good.
No, she couldn’t think like that. After all she had lived through, this was not how her life would end . She was going to die a long time from now, of old age, surrounded by people that she loved. Or if not, she was at least going to die for something. Not alone in her apartment that was too big for her own good. Not with her last thoughts being scenes of her older sister’s death decades ago. Her life had not ended then, and there was no reason that those should be her final moments.
It took work to parse her thoughts from the memories and sounds haunting her mind. She focused on one thought. Her life had not ended when Roslyn died. Her death had torn JJ apart, yes, but she had given so much of her energy to putting the pieces of herself back together. In part, that is what her sister’s death represented to her. She filed that idea away for later. Right then the most important thing was getting out of the godforsaken bed.
That thought pushing its way to the foreground of her mind gave her the space she needed to do so. Actually getting up was relatively easy, but her chest ached violently and her body throbbed with every step she took. Her vision tunnelled, which had never happened to her during a panic attack before. Still, she could see well enough to get herself out of the bedroom and into the bathroom, where she braced herself against the counter and held her wrists under the cold water of the tap for as long as she could muster it.
In a daze, she drifted towards the living room, searching for anything that could ground her. Of course, the living room was devoid of any comfort, and the sight of it reminded her of waking up on the couch by herself that evening with her adrenaline pumping. She wanted to run, to get as far away from this as she possibly could. Her thoughts were urgent yet vague. She racked her brain for answers while she paced the kitchen. What exactly was the “this” she felt she needed to get away from? Would she know what she was looking for once she found it?
It was all too much. Without really thinking about it, she crawled under the kitchen table and hugged her knees with her back pressed against the wall. She felt safe there, contained. She could see everything around her. No surprises. She rested her head between her knees and breathed. It was comforting, yes, but it was not a permanent fix. She needed to get out of there. Before she knew what she was doing, she took her cell phone out of her pocket and tapped Emily’s contact at the top of the speed dial list. Emily answered after two rings, leaving JJ no time to change her mind.
“Hey Jayje,” Emily greeted, and JJ could hear the warmth of her voice through the phone. “I’m surprised you’re still awake.”
JJ wasn’t exactly sure what she was supposed to say. Her friends were always telling her to let them know if she was having a rough time, and Emily had been no exception. Being that they had been dating for quite some time now, there really was no reason why she shouldn’t rely on Emily to help her through this. Emily had been by her side through countless nightmares, holding JJ until she fell asleep again. But how would she begin to explain to Emily how viscerally the nightmare had affected her tonight? JJ herself had not even begun to understand what she had gone through over the course of the evening.
After a long beat of silence, Emily’s voice pulled her back out of her thoughts.
“Jen? Are you there?”
“Can you come get me?” JJ whispered into the phone. “I can’t be in my apartment right now and I don’t trust myself to drive.”
Through the phone, JJ could hear Emily immediately shuffling around her apartment and fumbling for her keys. It was a relief. Emily would come when she called, always.
“Of course, my love,” Emily said. “I’ll be there in fifteen and I will take you back to my place, yeah?”
Emily was so sincere, and JJ wondered if she even deserved that. “Thank you,” she choked out. “Please drive safe.”
“I will, I promise. I’ll see you soon, okay?”
JJ hummed an agreement and hung up the phone. There was nothing more she had to do now. Emily was coming and she would hold her through this, no matter how long it lasted. Emily was going to take care of her.
True to her word, Emily arrived no more than fifteen minutes later, though JJ was unaware of what time it was anyway or how much time had passed since their phone call. She hadn’t moved from her spot underneath the table. Even when she heard the sound of a key turning in the lock, the door opening and closing softly, she did not move. She told herself that she couldn’t, but she simply did not feel like trying. Emily would find her. JJ could hear her walking hesitantly down the hallway.
“JJ?” Emily called out, her voice laden with concern.
JJ faintly heard Emily stumble and mutter a curse as she tripped over the forgotten pair of shoes she had left in the entryway that afternoon. She winced at the sound of it.
Finally, Emily rounded the corner at the end of the hallway, entering the kitchen. It only took a few seconds for her to scan the room and find JJ curled up under the table as if bracing for an earthquake. Emily smiled softly at her, amused, then walked over and ducked under the table to join her.
“Hi,” JJ whispered.
“Hey you,” Emily said just as quietly. “What are we hiding from, hm?”
JJ began to turn her head away from Emily, but Emily caught her chin with her hand to stop her. “None of that,” Emily said. “You’re certainly not hiding from me, are you?”
JJ shook her head with a sigh. “Panic attack,” she muttered.
Emily hummed in understanding. “I’m glad you called. Do you still want to come home with me?”
“If that’s alright,” JJ whispered.
“Baby, it’s always alright. You know I love having you. Plus, I know a spoiled brat of a cat who will be very happy to see you.”
That drew a small laugh from JJ. Sometimes she worried that Sergio liked her more than he liked Emily.
Emily did not push her to get up, only sat with her silently until she was ready. JJ thought they must look ridiculous, two grown adults crouched under the kitchen table in the dark. Emily must really love her to humor her like this.
Eventually, JJ stretched her legs out and moved to get up. Her limbs felt weak and shaky, like if she rose to stand she would collapse back down onto the floor. Emily, noticing her hesitation, got up first and held both her hands out for JJ to take. Emily carried most of the weight in pulling JJ’s body off the floor - a feat that, if JJ had tried to do it herself, would have exhausted her - and yet she made it look so easy. Once JJ was on two feet again, Emily placed her hands gently on JJ’s hips to steady her.
“Can I hug you?” Emily asked, and JJ nodded. It didn’t matter to JJ one way or the other. She did not feel like she was fully present in her body. Emily pulled JJ in, and they stood there for several minutes, bodies pressed as close as possible, swaying lightly in the darkness of the kitchen. It felt like slowdancing. The resemblance was sickeningly bittersweet.
Because Emily was Emily and she was so painfully considerate of the woman that she loved, she waited for JJ to be the one to pull away. When they parted, JJ let Emily collect a few of her belongings to take to Emily’s apartment. JJ felt useless, leaning on the doorframe of her own bedroom and watching her girlfriend shuffle through her drawers. She wanted to tell Emily that it was no use, that she didn’t want to see or touch anything that came from her own apartment right now. But the sentences were not forming quite right in her head. Instead, she stood there in silence.
The drive to Emily’s apartment soothed JJ. She felt herself slowly coming to. Emily had asked if she preferred music to the silence, to which JJ had responded “please,” and nothing more. Emily switched the radio on and turned the dial until soft jazz music emanated from the car speakers. The symphony of saxophones was simple and underwhelming. She looked over at Emily. Emily, who was at her beck and call, who had dropped whatever she had been doing that evening to rescue JJ from herself. Emily, who had one hand on the steering wheel and the other on JJ’s left knee. Emily, with her face illuminated by the red of the stoplight in front of them, her dark hair reflecting the pale street lamps, looked as beautiful as ever. This was JJ’s life now. She understood, at that moment, that she was right to call Emily. Emily was the only person who could bring her back to herself.
-
As soon as they stepped through the doorway of Emily’s apartment, the black cat came trotting over to them, chirping happily.
“Guess who’s back,” Emily announced. Sergio ignored her and went straight to JJ, brushing against her ankles and purring loudly. “Yeah, yeah, Jen’s your favorite,” she said, rolling her eyes. Turning to JJ, she muttered, “as if I’m not the person who feeds him twice a day.”
JJ couldn’t help but smile. It was a running joke, the way Emily exaggerated the tension between herself and Sergio. In reality, the cat trotted after Emily wherever she went in the apartment, and she moved his favorite blanket from the couch to the foot of her bed every night so he could sleep with her. But JJ, who had not had a pet since she was a little girl, loved the attention. Plus, the cat was something she could focus on that had absolutely nothing to do with herself.
Emily disappeared into the kitchen while JJ followed Sergio to the couch. When she sat down, he promptly jumped into her lap, meowing his demands for attention. Moments later, Emily returned, beaming at the sight of her cat in her girlfriend’s lap. She handed JJ a glass of water and placed a bag of Cheetos Puffs on the coffee table before sinking into the spot beside JJ on the couch.
After a few minutes, Sergio decided he was bored and retreated from JJ’s lap. Emily reached for the bag of Cheetos, opened it, and held it out to JJ, who shook her head at the offering.
“Can I get you something else?” Emily asked gently. JJ shook her head again. “When was the last time you ate something?” Emily questioned again, and JJ looked down sheepishly in response.
“Jennifer,” Emily said sternly. The tone prompted JJ to look up and meet Emily’s eyes. Emily tilted her head to emphasize her last question.
“I don’t think I can keep anything down right now,” JJ said quietly.
Thankfully, Emily knew when to quit. She nodded solemnly and dropped the subject, instead nudging the glass of water in JJ’s hand, urging her to drink it. JJ, though feeling slightly childish, obliged. She could not argue with Emily, she knew she needed it. Besides, was that not why she had called Emily in the first place? For comfort, yes, but also because JJ could not take care of herself in this state, and she knew better than to just let herself rot in her apartment alone.
Emily broke the silence again, asking if JJ wanted to talk about it. JJ knew Emily was going to ask her that sooner or later, but she had not prepared an answer. She turned the idea over in her head and came up with nothing.
“I don’t know,” she whispered helplessly to Emily, and she meant it. She did not want to hide from Emily, but she also did not know how she would even begin to describe what was going on in her head.
Emily, as if reading JJ’s mind, nodded and said, “I get it. It’s a lot.”
JJ looked at her with a hint of desperation in her eyes. She needed Emily to tell her what to do.
“There’s no wrong thing to say,” Emily continued. “Anything you can articulate is enough. You don’t need to carry this on your own, Jayje. I’m here to carry it with you.”
Tears formed rapidly in the corners of JJ’s eyes. Her heart ached at the tenderness and sincerity of Emily’s words. JJ tried to blink the tears back, but when one inevitably rolled down her cheek, Emily reached up and gently brushed it away with her thumb. Before bringing her hand back down, she brought her palm to rest against JJ’s cheek.
“Talk to me, my love,” Emily softly encouraged.
JJ took a long, shaky breath, trying to prevent herself from breaking down completely. The memories of the night clawed at her. She could recall her own voice in her head repeating please make it stop over scenes of her sister’s death. Without realizing, she was shaking again. Emily placed a hand soothingly on her thigh.
“Come back to me, JJ,” she said. “Tell me what happened.”
JJ opened her mouth to speak, hoping that by doing so she would find the words. Instead, all that came out was a jumble of stuttered syllables. Emily had a sympathetic look in her eyes. She knew this was unimaginably difficult for JJ, but she also knew that JJ would destroy herself trying to push these thoughts away.
Emily had an idea. She held up a finger, signalling for JJ to wait, and retreated into the kitchen. JJ heard a drawer open and close before Emily walked back into the living room. She handed JJ a notepad and a pen. She sat beside JJ, waiting patiently for anything JJ had to give her.
For a while, all JJ could do was mindlessly trace a spiral over and over with the pen, darkening the lines until the paper sank beneath the ink and threatened to tear. Then, she figured if she told Emily what started all this, Emily could ask her questions instead of waiting for JJ to come up with the words herself. She abandoned the spiral and wrote, Bad dream. Roslyn, before tilting the notepad towards Emily.
“The dreams are back?” JJ confirmed this with a nod. “Jen, honey, that’s awful. I’m sorry,” Emily said. She added, “And we both know you could’ve used the sleep.” JJ shrugged. Slowly, hesitantly, Emily asked, “was it the dream where you get locked in the bathroom with her, or the one where your mom is screaming at you?”
JJ, still holding the pen, wrote a 2 on the notepad. Emily knew. She knew about all of them, every rendition of the nightmare, and she had held JJ through them countless times. Emily nodded, looking at JJ with so much love in her eyes. Though, she also looked like she wanted to fight the version of JJ’s mother that existed in the dream.
I can still hear her, JJ wrote.
“Oh, honey,” Emily said sadly. “What can I do?”
JJ shook her head. There was nothing to be done, really, and they both knew that. She also knew that Emily would not stop trying.
JJ took a deep breath. She had the words now.
“I woke up on the couch and I just felt so deeply alone,” JJ said, her voice cracking. “The sun had gone down and the apartment was dark and I was still in my clothes from this morning when we finished with the case.” Emily nodded, encouraging her to continue. “It felt like… like I had slipped into some alternate reality where all that existed was the room around me, and I would be trapped there until I died. Alone. In silence.”
Emily maintained eye contact through JJ’s monologue. She needed JJ to know she was really, truly listening. Stability was a promise that she wouldn’t dare break.
“I managed to get out of it,” JJ continued, “took a shower, drank some tea, tried to go to bed. But when I closed my eyes, I could see Roslyn in that bathtub. And I was hit with this overwhelming thought of oh my god, if I fall asleep I’ll slip back into that place, and this time I don’t know if I will be able to escape it.” JJ was crying now, shaken by her own account of the episode. She took a breath and tipped her head up to meet Emily’s eyes. Her brown eyes were red-rimmed and glassy, tears threatening to cross the threshold. She blinked rapidly to fight them, but it did not work. It never does.
“Emily, I am so tired. I don’t know how to do this and I never really have. And I’m scared,” she whispered.
Emily, breathing deeply to compose herself, reached over to take the pen and notepad out of JJ’s hands and tossed them to the side. She took both of JJ’s hands in hers firmly.
“Jennifer,” she began. “You are the single strongest person I know. I am so in awe of you and how you carry all of this while doing the job that we do. It may not seem like it, but you do it all very well. It’s okay to falter sometimes. You can’t help when it consumes you. I know it’s incredibly scary when it does, but in the end, you got yourself through that, all by yourself. You are so strong, Jen.”
JJ looked unsure. “Why can’t I feel it?” She asked.
“During times like this, you’re dealing with so many other feelings and emotions, it’s no surprise that this one gets lost. But that’s what I’m here for - to remind you. JJ, I am so proud of you for calling me. I know it sounds kind of patronizing but I mean it, it’s a hard thing to do and you deserve credit for it. I mean, I think we both know I wouldn’t be able to do it.” JJ exhaled a laugh at Emily’s last statement. She wasn’t wrong.
JJ allowed herself to internalize what Emily had said to her. Logically, it made sense for her to be strong. She was halfway through her thirties now, and had lived through, what, twenty-five years of post-traumatic stress nightmares? Still, the concept seemed foreign to her, like it was somebody else's accomplishment.
It would take a long time for JJ to believe Emily. Both women knew this, and yet Emily would spend a lifetime reminding JJ of her worth. And she planned to.
JJ felt drained, as if she had physically been fighting for her life (in a way, she had been). She surrendered herself, allowing Emily to pull her into her lap and wrap her arms around her waist. JJ’s back was flush against Emily’s torso now, and Emily placed kisses to JJ’s shoulders through her t-shirt, bracketing each with whispers of her love. She pulled JJ’s hair to one side, creating space to plant kisses up her neck and on her jawline, then repeated this on the other side. Finally, she took JJ’s chin gently in her hand, prompting JJ to turn and face her.
“Jennifer Jareau,” Emily whispered against her lips, “I love you, always.” She kissed her gently, softly pulling JJ’s bottom lip with her teeth as they parted.
They spent the next hour fused together, melting into Emily’s couch. The TV droned at a low volume, a nature documentary playing in the background. JJ pecked lightly at the Cheetos that Emily had brought over, the gesture meaning more to her than the actual sustenance did. Sergio joined them and sat in JJ’s lap, refusing to budge even when she attempted to shift her body into a different position.
“Is it just me, or is he being more clingy than usual?” She asked Emily.
“He can sense that you’re hurting. Cats can actually detect changes in tone and body language. So he is being more cuddly, yes, because he’s trying to cheer you up. They’re very smart creatures,” Emily said.
“Yeah? Did Spence tell you all that?” JJ teased. Emily feigned offence and playfully swatted JJ’s arm.
They fell into a calm silence, half-watching the documentary. Emily hummed quietly and played with JJ’s hair.
I could stay like this forever, JJ thought. No working, no eating, no sleeping, just me and Emily and Sergio in a pile on her couch for all eternity. It was a dangerous game to play, pretending that she would get to spend a lifetime with someone when there never truly is an absolute guarantee. But god, did it feel good to imagine in that moment.
Emily’s hands moved to JJ’s back, and she lightly dragged her nails in repetitive circles there. The feeling was bringing JJ closer to sleep than she preferred to be right now. Her head dipped as she dozed off, and every time it did, she fought hard to pick it back up and keep her eyes open.
Emily laughed softly from behind her. “You need to sleep, babe. Let yourself sleep.”
JJ shook her head quickly. “I can’t,” she whispered, and Emily hummed in disapproval.
“Well, you should at least try,” Emily said. When JJ sighed, Emily took it as a concession. “Come on,” she said, tapping her fingers against her girlfriend’s shoulder. “Let’s get into bed, shall we?”
Emily moved to stand up from the couch, and as she did, she grabbed JJ’s waist and hauled her up simultaneously, knocking a sleeping Sergio to the floor in the process. The cat let out a startled yowl and sprinted away.
“Hey,” JJ drawled sleepily. “Be nice to your son.”
“Our son,” Emily corrected, taking JJ’s hand and leading her toward the bedroom. “You’re as much his mother as I am.”
JJ smiled a real, genuine smile for the first time that day, or maybe even that week. The thought of having a child with Emily, human or otherwise, made her heart swell. She turned Emily to face her and kissed her deeply.
Emily giggled like a teenage girl as they parted. “What was that for?” She asked.
“Because I love you,” JJ said. “And I wanted to thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me, my love. Just let me take care of you.”
JJ had to admit defeat. “Fine,” she said with a dramatic sigh. When they entered Emily’s bedroom, JJ went straight to the dresser, rifling through a drawer of t-shirts to find her favorite one. Once she did, she discarded her own shirt and pulled on the black Fleetwood Mac shirt that Emily had had since she was a teenager. The scent of it was so distinctly Emily - a combination of Emily’s fig-scented perfume, the sage oil reed diffusers placed strategically throughout her apartment, and the faint smell of wood from the drawer.
JJ disappeared into the bathroom to brush her teeth. The bedroom was empty when she came back out. Without Emily’s presence, she found herself feeling like a baby deer, confused and unsteady. She could hear Emily puttering around just beyond the bedroom walls, tidying the living room and talking softly to Sergio..
Emily is right here, she reminded herself. JJ stood in the middle of the room, hugging her arms across her chest, staring blankly at bed and waiting for Emily to return.
She could not imagine this night not ending awfully. She had been sleep deprived for days, and when she finally had the chance to catch up on rest, her own brain punished her for it. She was exhausted before the nightmare, and was exponentially more exhausted in its wake. All of the anxiety had drained the life out of her. There was nothing she needed to do more than sleep, and yet there was nothing she wanted to do less.
She had not realized she was trembling until Emily came back into the room and placed a hand on her shoulder. JJ stilled and turned to face her. Emily handed her another glass of water and again urged her to drink it. Emily’s eyes trailed over JJ’s body while she drank. When JJ set the glass down on the bedside table, Emily took her hand and directed her to sit on the edge of the bed. Emily sat down next to her, never letting go of her hand.
“What are you afraid of?” Emily asked her in that gentle, breathy voice of hers that never failed to make JJ melt into a puddle at her feet.
“I think… I’m scared of getting stuck in a cycle, you know? The nightmare, the panic, the exhaustion, all feeding into one another.”
Emily looked at her with a blank stare for several seconds, and then she said, “well, fuck, I can’t argue with that.”
JJ gaped at her in disbelief. “You’re supposed to be helping me,” She exclaimed.
“Hey! I am helping,” Emily said, holding her hands up in surrender.
It was true, JJ had to admit. Emily’s response had momentarily shocked the fear out of her system. Then there was the validation of it all. Emily knew that JJ’s fears were completely plausible, and she told her as much. She didn’t sugarcoat it, didn’t make JJ seem irrational. It was normal to be afraid because the dreams and the panic attacks were undoubtedly scary.
“I hate it when you’re right,” JJ muttered.
“And I love you,” Emily responded.
“Whatever,” JJ said, rolling her eyes and tossing a pillow at her girlfriend.
JJ moved to pull the covers back on the bed and rearrange the pillows. Emily went to the living room to retrieve Sergio’s favorite blanket, returning with the blanket under one arm and the cat in the other.
“You’re going to be okay, beautiful,” Emily told JJ as she climbed into bed beside her. “I’m going to keep you safe, I promise.”
“Em?” JJ whispered.
“Yes, my love?”
“Will you hold me?”
JJ could hear the smile in Emily’s voice when she said, “of course.”
“I will hold you through the whole night if you need me to. I was going to do that anyway,” she added with an innocent shrug.
Emily outstretched her arms and legs to allow JJ to make a space for herself against her body. When JJ settled, Emily wrapped an arm around her and threaded their legs together. She reached over to turn off the lamp on the bedside table, then settled her hand in JJ’s hair. She hummed quietly again, JJ feeling every vibration where her cheek rested against Emily’s chest. This time, it was a song that JJ recognized.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night,
Take these broken wings and learn to fly.
All your life,
you were only waiting for this moment to arise.
Emily was fighting for her. Not fighting to keep her, but fighting JJ’s battle with her. Through the descending haze of sleep, JJ briefly wondered how she could possibly repay Emily for simply being in her life. She would revisit that later. For now, all that existed was the warmth of Emily’s body beneath her, the soft rhythm of her heartbeat against JJ’s cheek, and the sound of the cat purring, like the distant revving of an engine, echoing through the darkness.