The Woods, 3/?
Jennifer Jareau is ten years old.
Her mother takes her and her brother to the park to play soccer. At the edge of the park, there is a small forested area. Jennifer does not go near it.
Her brother kicks the ball into the woods. Instead of going to collect it, she adamantly sits on the swing and refuses to move. She will not go into the woods. She will not let the same thing happen again.
Knowing that no-one would believe her, she had tried so hard to convince herself that her adventure in the woods wasn’t really. Now, two years on, she almost accepts the lie as truth. There’s no such thing as monsters, is there?
But still, she won’t go into the woods.
* * *
‘JJ.’ It was Hotch’s voice; she didn’t even need to look up to know that he was just feet from her. She had been sitting in the SUV for a little over ten minutes, while Hotch presumably smoothed things over with Janet Birmingham. She took deep breaths. She could count on one hand the number of times in her life she had broken down like that. Jennifer Jareau was a communications coordinator. She did not break down.
‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.’ The smooth JJ was back. The JJ that gave press conferences, that calmed down victims’ families.
Hotch found himself increasingly concerned about JJ’s wellbeing. He had known her for almost five years, and had never seen her act this way. He believed her reason for the behavior - she gave him no reason not to - and yet he could not help but feel that there was more to the tale, whether JJ knew it or not.
‘Did you want to go back to the hotel? I can do the interviews myself.’ But even that prospect was not his primary choice. He knew that he would rather take her back to the hotel himself, to make sure that she was okay. But he couldn’t.
‘No,’ said JJ, all too quickly. She wasn’t going to let this interfere with her work.
Hotch nodded. He trusted her judgment.
For now.
* * *
Jennifer Jareau is thirteen years old.
She still has not told anyone what happened in the woods that day. By now, she has dismissed it as a figment of her imagination. Something terrible happened, but it was not supernatural in origin. It was just a tragedy in which a little girl lost her father.
She still has nightmares. She sees strange, dark things. Terrifying things. Tall beasts with glowing yellow eyes. This, she dismisses as the product of an overactive imagination. Because she isn’t a scared little girl. She’s fierce, precocious, stubborn. A typical teenage girl.
But still, she won’t go into the woods.
* * *
Prentiss saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned slightly, and even with the object in full view, she could scarcely believe what she was seeing. The beast did not fit any of her personal constructs, and yet she knew it was dangerous. She knew by the way its teeth glistened, by the way it made her hair stand on end, by the way it crept up behind Morgan, a hunter stalking its prey.
Morgan!
Mesmerised by the sight of the beast, she had not thought to warn her colleague, who remained oblivious to the creature’s presence.
‘Morgan!’ she called his name as loudly as she dared, not wanting to awaken any more strange monsters that might have been lurking the woods. He turned to face her, but it was too late - the creature was already moving to strike.
She was running towards them before she had even processed the events. She had only left herself time for one option. The angle was right that she could take him down without colliding with the beast. She tackled him at the waist, hoping that her body weight and the velocity she had built up would be enough to take down his superior mass.
It was enough, barely.
‘Ugh,’ she groaned, as she landed atop him. Her hand went straight for her gun, but the creature had already gone. ‘I don’t know how you manage to do that every week.’
‘What the hell, Emily?’ He pushed her off of him, confused. As far as he knew, she had just tackled him to the ground for no reason whatsoever.
She got to her feet, weapon drawn. Scanning the forest, she saw no sign of the creature. She twisted her neck. Goddamn, he’s built, she thought to herself. She’d be sleeping funny for weeks.
‘You almost got eviscerated by a...thing.’ She could not give a definition to what she had seen. “Thing” seemed as good a description as any.
He narrowed his eyes sceptically. Emily rarely - if ever - lied, but “almost eviscerated by a ‘thing’?” That was cause for concern. Then, he noticed the long gash on his arm. To him, it almost looked like a claw wound.
‘Thing?’ he asked her, satisfied that she was sane for the moment.
‘Monster, creature, beast, I don’t know. It didn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen. And it’s gone now.’ No sooner than she had finished, the howling started. Ethereal, unearthly sounds that neither of them had ever heard before.
Morgan drew his own weapon, and looked around.
‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ he said. ‘This sure as hell isn’t your regular forest.’
Her mother takes her and her brother to the park to play soccer. At the edge of the park, there is a small forested area. Jennifer does not go near it.
Her brother kicks the ball into the woods. Instead of going to collect it, she adamantly sits on the swing and refuses to move. She will not go into the woods. She will not let the same thing happen again.
Knowing that no-one would believe her, she had tried so hard to convince herself that her adventure in the woods wasn’t really. Now, two years on, she almost accepts the lie as truth. There’s no such thing as monsters, is there?
But still, she won’t go into the woods.
* * *
‘JJ.’ It was Hotch’s voice; she didn’t even need to look up to know that he was just feet from her. She had been sitting in the SUV for a little over ten minutes, while Hotch presumably smoothed things over with Janet Birmingham. She took deep breaths. She could count on one hand the number of times in her life she had broken down like that. Jennifer Jareau was a communications coordinator. She did not break down.
‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.’ The smooth JJ was back. The JJ that gave press conferences, that calmed down victims’ families.
Hotch found himself increasingly concerned about JJ’s wellbeing. He had known her for almost five years, and had never seen her act this way. He believed her reason for the behavior - she gave him no reason not to - and yet he could not help but feel that there was more to the tale, whether JJ knew it or not.
‘Did you want to go back to the hotel? I can do the interviews myself.’ But even that prospect was not his primary choice. He knew that he would rather take her back to the hotel himself, to make sure that she was okay. But he couldn’t.
‘No,’ said JJ, all too quickly. She wasn’t going to let this interfere with her work.
Hotch nodded. He trusted her judgment.
For now.
* * *
Jennifer Jareau is thirteen years old.
She still has not told anyone what happened in the woods that day. By now, she has dismissed it as a figment of her imagination. Something terrible happened, but it was not supernatural in origin. It was just a tragedy in which a little girl lost her father.
She still has nightmares. She sees strange, dark things. Terrifying things. Tall beasts with glowing yellow eyes. This, she dismisses as the product of an overactive imagination. Because she isn’t a scared little girl. She’s fierce, precocious, stubborn. A typical teenage girl.
But still, she won’t go into the woods.
* * *
Prentiss saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned slightly, and even with the object in full view, she could scarcely believe what she was seeing. The beast did not fit any of her personal constructs, and yet she knew it was dangerous. She knew by the way its teeth glistened, by the way it made her hair stand on end, by the way it crept up behind Morgan, a hunter stalking its prey.
Morgan!
Mesmerised by the sight of the beast, she had not thought to warn her colleague, who remained oblivious to the creature’s presence.
‘Morgan!’ she called his name as loudly as she dared, not wanting to awaken any more strange monsters that might have been lurking the woods. He turned to face her, but it was too late - the creature was already moving to strike.
She was running towards them before she had even processed the events. She had only left herself time for one option. The angle was right that she could take him down without colliding with the beast. She tackled him at the waist, hoping that her body weight and the velocity she had built up would be enough to take down his superior mass.
It was enough, barely.
‘Ugh,’ she groaned, as she landed atop him. Her hand went straight for her gun, but the creature had already gone. ‘I don’t know how you manage to do that every week.’
‘What the hell, Emily?’ He pushed her off of him, confused. As far as he knew, she had just tackled him to the ground for no reason whatsoever.
She got to her feet, weapon drawn. Scanning the forest, she saw no sign of the creature. She twisted her neck. Goddamn, he’s built, she thought to herself. She’d be sleeping funny for weeks.
‘You almost got eviscerated by a...thing.’ She could not give a definition to what she had seen. “Thing” seemed as good a description as any.
He narrowed his eyes sceptically. Emily rarely - if ever - lied, but “almost eviscerated by a ‘thing’?” That was cause for concern. Then, he noticed the long gash on his arm. To him, it almost looked like a claw wound.
‘Thing?’ he asked her, satisfied that she was sane for the moment.
‘Monster, creature, beast, I don’t know. It didn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen. And it’s gone now.’ No sooner than she had finished, the howling started. Ethereal, unearthly sounds that neither of them had ever heard before.
Morgan drew his own weapon, and looked around.
‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ he said. ‘This sure as hell isn’t your regular forest.’