Fanfic: Souls at Sea [Criminal Minds]
Title: Souls at Sea
Author: wanderingjasper
Rating: PG13/FRT
Characters: JJ/Emily, team
Word Count: 1090+
Themes: Preslash, angst.
Warnings: Major character death.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, but I do take liberties with them for no financial gain.
Notes: One-shot. Fill for the prompt "drowning" at angst_bingo
Summary: JJ and Emily are left to drown out at sea by an unsub. This fic has 2 possible endings.
“Let them think what they liked, but I didn't mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank - but that's not the same thing.” - Joseph Conrad
Thirty four hours, twenty two minutes, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen seconds. JJ knows that’s how long it’s been because Emily's watch is waterproof to fifty metres. JJ has the sense to check the time when they go in the water, pushed off the unsub’s boat at gunpoint, both women groggy from being sedated. The cold water soon sees them completely alert.
Emily doesn’t start to struggle until JJ can hear the call of birds.
“Seagulls!” she shouts, lifting her chin to avoid getting a mouthful of sea water as a wave crashes into them. “Emily! Seagulls!”
Emily is struggling, sinking, head not staying above the water.
“Come on!” JJ yells, reaching under and hoisting her up under her arms, even though the extra effort makes all the muscles of her body scream in protest. Whatever she’s feeling she knows it must be worse for the other woman; she’s a little older, and without the years of team swimming behind her.
“JJ..” the other women sees it rather than hears it over the sounds of the sea in the freezing dawn.
“Seagulls, Em!” she repeats, because she knows it’s important, but for a few moments she can’t remember why, so she pulls Emily with her, their swimming slowed in a break from exertion, but not stopping. “They stay close to land!” she yells, voice hoarse. “Reid told me once. They don’t fly that far out to sea.”
“Reid... clever Reid...” Emily murmurs. Her body is limp against JJ’s, heavy. By a twist of fate that should have been inconsequential to their lives, but now governs their mortality, JJ naturally floats, Emily doesn’t.
The sound of a ship’s horn sounds, and it doesn’t sound far. Emily perks up, trying to keep herself afloat as well as holding onto JJ.
“HEEEEEEELP!” JJ bellows, and she’s sure she feels something in her throat snap with the effort.
“HEEEEELP!” Emily echoes, but it’s weaker, and it seems to cost her a great deal of energy.
“HEEEEEELP! HEEEELP UUS! HELLO!”
The horn sounds again and it seems to be closer. JJ splutters out sea water, kicking hard with her legs and throwing her hands up, waving frantically.
“”HEEEEEEELP! OVER HEEEERE! OVER HERE!”
It’s almost a full minute of yelling when she realises Emily isn’t holding onto her any more.
“Emily?!”
She can’t see her, and they have come this far, swum this long, and she’s not going to lose her. She dives under and keeps her eyes open, even though they burn and itch from the salt, and just a foot below the surface it’s murky and impossible. But through the gloom there’s Emily, sinking slowly. JJ grabs at her hair because she’s almost out of reach, grimacing to herself as she drags her friend back towards the surface by her scalp, grabbing under her arms when she can and breaking the surface.
“Emily?!” she yells. The other woman’s head lulls against her shoulder, her mouth open, unconscious.
The boat horn sounds again, but it’s far away. JJ sobs suddenly with frustration, but fights it down and takes a firm hold on her friend, swimming on her back difficult while trying to keep Emily afloat.
And then it gets earlier, because the waves are moving in one direction, and it’s the same direction they’re going. Each kick of her legs hurts like hell and feels useless as a wave rolls them back, but then they surge forward with the next one.
JJ grabs Emily's wrist. Thirty six hours, fifteen minutes, seven, eight, nine seconds. She can see the shore. She can see it, and she cries out.
“Emily! Emily! We’re almost there! Emily?”
No response. She’s limp and pale, and she’s not moving so she’s even more at risk.
“Emily!”
The waves get choppier the closer they get to the shore.
“HELP!” she yells, casting her eyes out to the beach ahead through the morning mist. “HEEEELP!”
She dips below the water, Emily heavy on her, a mouthful of sea water, but she manages to resurface. Long moments of struggling and her heels hit something solid, and suddenly she’s curling her toes in sand underfoot. It’s hard to get momentum, so she lets the rolling waves help.
Emily is still unresponsive and JJ is exhausted, her muscles burning, her throat and her eyes are raw, they’re soaking wet and freezing as she drags the other woman up onto the beach. They’d still in the rolling surf, but JJ can’t manage any further.
“Emily...” he says hoarsely. “C’mon.”
Emily isn’t breathing, and JJ gasps painfully, because she doesn’t know how long it’s been.
“Em,” she says even as he pushes the woman’s dark hair away from her face and tilts her head back. “HELP US!” she cries out to the empty pebble beach, before she pinches Emily's nose and closes her mouth around the other’s breathing a long breath into her. Her chest doesn’t move.
She pushes Emily's shirt up over her chest, and almost laughs at the sight of the woman’s bra: it’s red with little black hearts printed all over it - a girl’s-nights present from JJ three months ago. She laces her fingers against Emily's chest and starts compressions, counting in a hoarse whisper, using all the strength she can muster against Emily's chest. Thirty and then another breath. Thirty more, one hundred a minute.
“HELP US!” she screams, and administers another rescue breathe. “Come on Em, Em!”
Emily's lips are blue, but suddenly she’s breathing, water bubbling up from out of her mouth. JJ grabs her shoulder and turns her, patting her back as she coughs weakly.
“E-e-e-m-m-ily,” she says, shivers suddenly worse out of the water. The other woman’s breathing is laboured, and it’s all JJ can do to hear it over the gulls, the waves, the shouting -
The shouting.
And then everything is moving. Arms grab hold of her, trying to pull her to stand, and when that doesn’t work whoever it is grabs her under her knees and carries her. She realises when she grabs around their neck that it’s Hotch, and a few feet away, moving up the beach with them is Emily, lifeless but she knows, breathing in Morgan’s arms.
“Emily!” she calls, reaching out, but nobody slows, and somebody says her name in what she works out later was probably reassurance. “Emily..” she tries again. Then everything is dark.
---
Ending A - 100% Angst [778 words]
Ending B - 50% Angst ]457 words]