Fanfic: Grief 3/4 [Criminal Minds]
Title: Grief [3/4]
Author: wanderingjasper
Rating: PG
Characters: Garcia, JJ.
Word Count: 978
Themes: Angst, gen.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, but I do take liberties with them for no financial gain.
Notes: Spoilers for 6x18 'Lauren'. Canon-compliant. Part one, part two.
Summary: A small series of vignettes set during 'Lauren.'
“People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive. It is as though they were travelling abroad.” - Marcel Proust
JJ hasn’t even got her coat off when Penelope is sobbing again. They stronger sobs than in the hospital or the car, and it’s evident she has holding back before, because now she can barely hold herself up. JJ watches as her friend stumbles over to the sofa and collapses onto it, dropping her head into her hands with a poorly-disguised wail.
A part of JJ’s mind wants desperately to go home and be with her partner and child, but a currently stronger part can’t bear the thought of doing so, because she knows when she does she’s going to have to lie to Will like she’s lying to her friends. She doesn’t have a choice; she has to lie to protect them. Doyle isn’t dead, and Emily needs to be.
JJ crosses the room and sits down next to Penelope. She can feel her own tears prickling at her eyes, and she doesn’t attempt to stop them. she puts a hand gently on Garcia’s back and the woman pulls herself up, wipes at her eye with the heel of her hand and smudges her makeup.
“I’m sorry, Jayje.” She sniffles.
“It’s okay.” JJ hushes, keeping her gaze still so Garcia can meet it. “Do you want me to make us some tea, or something?”
“I guess.” Garcia says through a hitched breath, tears still rolling down her cheeks. She reaches for a tissue as JJ gets up and moved to the kitchen.
Her hands fumble as she reaches for tea bags and she takes a moment to draw in a long breath. The hurt isn’t entirely genuine for her, because she knows the truth, and that feels like a offense to the memory of the people she’s lost. Her sister’s face comes to mind; her hurt then had been real, every sobbing, shaking fibre of her body singing with grief. The way some of the feelings now are similar to that feels like a betrayal, a bastardisation of that pure pain she had experiences when her sister committed suicide.
As she pours the boiling water into the tea pot she’s shaking and a little pours over her hand, hot enough to hurt but not quite enough to scald. She grits her teeth but keeps silent; she doesn’t move her hand away and she embraces the physical pain, as if she deserves it to hurt for what she’s had to do.
Grief isn’t new to Penelope, either. When people look at her they see a bubbly, talkative, cheerful techie; which isn’t a falsehood, but the knowledge that she has been touched by grief is never at the forefront of their minds. She lost both of her parents when she was eighteen; she had been orphaned.
As JJ makes tea in the kitchen Garcia remembers the moment she found out; she was at Caltech, and she got a phone call. A phone call was an entirely inadequate and inappropriate way to find out you had lost both parents. She had broken down on the floor by the phone, sobbing until her roommate found her.
This isn’t unlike that time; the tears, the utter despair that works its way through her. In fact it’s exactly the same; she has lost someone who is family, someone she loves more than any computer or operating system there could ever be. It’s even the same situation, that she has other family still alive but she can’t do anything to slow their grief; she feels useless.
“Here.” JJ says gently, distracting Garcia from herself.
“Thanks.” She takes her mug of tea, appreciates the warm ceramic against her hands.
“You know,” she says, sniffing back further tears, “even when Emily was AWOL, when you came back I was thinking it would go back to how it used to be.”
JJ smiles sadly over her own mug, and leans back on the sofa.
“I was even thinking about us going to drinks like we used to.” She gives a bitter laugh that is so unlike her. “How stupid is that, Jayje? Emily was fighting for her life, and I was thinking about us out on the town.”
“Pen, that’s... good.” JJ says gently. “Emily wouldn’t of faulted you for that. That’s so you.”
“Isn’t it naive, though?” Garcia asked. “That I could think after something like that... Doyle.. she’d be okay, even if he hadn’t murdered her?”
“Pen...” JJ sooths, quickly putting her mug down on the coffee table and taking Garcia’s from her grasp, as her friend began to cry again in earnest. JJ can’t tell her. She wants to but she can’t. She puts her arms around the other blonde and pulls her to her, feeling her own tears race from her eyes and down her face.
She knows Penelope; knows that when the initial grief has passed she will convince herself that there’s a possibility that Emily’s death is a rouse - she’ll try and pick up a paper trail somewhere. JJ cries because she knows that for all Garcia’s skill, she won’t find anything. Her actions are anticipated and measures taken to prevent her ever knowing. JJ’s lower lip wobbles as she pictures the moment when Garcia’s newfound desperate hope is snuffed like a bumblebee under a heavy boot, when her searches come up empty. It has to be that way; it’s the only way to keep them safe. It’s the only way to keep Emily safe.
“We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love.” - Madame de Stael