Secret Valentine post for crimeland, whee!
H is for Hide and Seek
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
The second-hand suddenly sounds like the countdown on a detonator, obscenely loud in her head and equally unnerving. "Henry?!" JJ pauses halfway down the stairs, waiting, for the third time now, for her son to call back. He doesn't.
She tries a fourth time as she reaches the landing, but all she gets in return is an echo of her own panic. "Henry, it isn't funny!" she tries now, seeing if her Angry Mom Voice will work better than her Worried Mom Voice. "We're finished playing!"
It's been ten minutes. She can usually find him in under five -- at three, he hasn't quite grasped the concept that just because he can't see her doesn't mean she can't see him -- and she's gotten to know some of his favorite hiding spots. Sometimes she pretends for awhile, just to give him a thrill, but today she isn't pretending, and every second that ticks by is making her colder and colder and colder.
Rationally, she knows he's probably here. Where could he have gone? Both doors are closed and locked. The open windows still have their screens. He's here. He's got to be here. There's no way he can not be here. Unless...
"Henry!" she tries again, startled by the taut panic in her own voice. "You come out right now, or you're going to time-out!"
She would've seen someone, wouldn't she? Heard them? Seen something? Of course she would have, she reasons, of course, she of all people would have, but... but how many parents take their eyes off of their child for less time than this and never see them again? How many dead kids haunt her dreams? How many missing kids?
JJ combs through the house room by room, her heart pounding against her throat, her tone getting more and more desperate every time she says his name. When she finally makes her way back up the stairs to his bedroom and yanks back the mess of covers, she nearly collapses right down next to him.
He's sleeping. Curled up in a ball in a tangle of bedclothes, passed clean out the way only toddlers can be, completely oblivious to the tremors in her body and her ghost-white face. She kneels down beside the bed and puts her head in her hands and tries to breathe, tries to let go of the thousand horrifying, gory images that have flashed behind her eyes, tries not to sob out her gratitude and terrify her sleeping son.
A is for Austin
"She's cute." JJ raises her eyes over the edge of her file and toes meaningfully at his leg.
Reid can tell from the crinkles at their corners that she's smiling, even though her mouth is hidden. He shifts a little in his seat. "What?"
"Austin. She's cute," JJ says again, clearly trying to head in a direction he isn't sure he wants to go.
"Okay," he says warily, then casts his eyes back to the book in his lap.
JJ kicks at him again. "Don't you think?"
"Think… think what?"
"That she's cute." Her smile's gotten broader, put an affectionately menacing glint in her eyes.
"She's… sure. Yeah. I guess so." Reid coughs and pretends to be absorbed in what he's reading.
"Well, she certainly thinks you are."
"No, she… no. She was under intense psychological stress, which can cause…"
"If you say transference, I'm going to kill the coffee pot, and you will never find the body," JJ says, her file now across her lap and her gaze fixed unwaveringly on him. "She liked you before all that intense psychological stress."
"What? No! How do you…?"
JJ shrugs. "I'm not a profiler, but I'm not an idiot, either," she says cryptically.
"Did.. did Morgan…"
JJ drags her fingers across her lips in a zipping motion, then shrugs. "She's cute, Spence. That's all. You should definitely call her." He shakes his head helplessly at her, then goes back to his book, chewing thoughtfully on his lower lip, until JJ breaks the silence again. "Oh, one more thing?"
Reid looks up and meets her eye, his eyebrows raised in question.
"I was first in my class in marksmanship at the Academy," she winks. "You make sure she knows that."
P is for Poster Child
They're ridiculous, the pair of them.
JJ's got a lump on the back of her head roughly the size of Kentucky, and Reid's hoisting himself around her kitchen on one crutch, hopping back and forth between the stove and the fridge, muttering sit down, sit down every fifteen seconds when she tries to get up from the couch to help him out.
"For God's sake, Spence, I'm not crippled," she says, rolling her eyes as a plate crashes to the tile floor with a cringe-worthy shatter. "And that better not have been one of my grandmother's!"
"It wasn't!" he calls back. "Where's your broom?"
"Hall closet," she responds, moving again to stand up and get it.
Again, he chides her. "Sit down! I've got it."
JJ sinks back into the cushions, grateful in all of her exasperation, and closes her eyes against the throbbing in her head. She isn't sure what hurt more -- the shovel to the skull or the shock of her own vulnerability that came along with it -- but either way, she'd been in too much agony to tell him no when he offered to take her home. Now, after a triple dose of Excedrin and mandatory couch-banishment, she's just exhausted. Exhausted and heavy-feeling and, honestly, dangerously close to tears by the time Spencer comes limping in with a plate of eggs and toast and sets it down as gently as he can on the coffee table in front of her.
"Thanks," she says, catching the silverware before it skids away.
He settles himself next to her with his own plate -- dry toast only, she notes; no wonder he's a buck fifty soaking wet -- and stretches his bad leg carefully to the side. "How are you feeling?" he asks.
JJ starts to tell him fine as she pokes her fork half-heartedly into her food, but at the last second changes her mind and sets it down. "Stupid," she finally says. "Shitty, too, but mostly stupid. I have no idea how long I was laying there, you know? At any point, that fucking dirtbag could've done God knows what, and..." She stops and shrugs, rolling her eyes at herself.
"He didn't, though," Spencer says, adjusting his position to take the pressure off of his knee. "If you start dwelling on all of the things that could have happened, it's easy to forget that they didn't." He pauses for a second before adding, "Trust me on this one. I'm sort of the poster child for Confronting One's Own Mortality."
JJ catches his eye, and there's a wry grin tilting up the corners of his mouth, small and self-deprecating and soft. She laughs a little and leans her head down against his shoulder. "That you are," she says, a wave of delirious affection suddenly taking hold of her chest. "That you are."
P is for Proud
JJ recognizes him by his knock. Not two stern bangs like Hotch; not musical like Reid's or Garcia's; not Emily's four quick taps. Rossi's knock is slow and even, like he knows whoever's on the other side will wait.
She calls for him to come in, but he just opens the door a bit and leans against the jamb.
"What's up?" she asks, looking up from the papers on her desk.
"You're still here," he says, not really answering her question, but not really not answering it, either.
"Yeah. I just... I had a lot of paperwork to do."
"I imagine so," Rossi says, tapping his fingers against the wood. "Justifying your every breath to the bureaucracy?"
JJ smiles wryly. "Basically. They weren't too happy with my call on Keri Derzmond."
"No," Rossi says, fixing her with his stare. "Are you?"
For a moment, she pauses, her pen pressed thoughtfully against her chin, and then she answers. "Of course. She's alive. She can breathe. She can go pick up a gallon of milk without looking over her shoulder. You can't put a price on that." Rossi raises his eyebrows at her, and JJ laughs. She's surprised by how bitter it sounds. "Well. Unless you're the Bureau."
"For what it's worth, kiddo -- and I'm aware that it may not be much -- I'm proud of you. You listened to your gut, and you were right. And that woman can get a decent night's sleep because of it."
JJ tilts her head and smiles a little. "Thank you. That actually means a lot."
Rossi winks. "I'm still letting you sign off on it, though. I've got too many years of pissing Erin off under my belt. The older I get, the more fun it is to watch someone else do it."
Y is for Yarn
Henry's first word is yarn.
JJ supposes she ought to be a little offended that it isn't mama, but she can't really find it in herself to be too upset when Penelope calls her excitedly one afternoon to report the news.
"Yarn?" JJ asks, laughing into her phone. "Why yarn? That's so weird."
"Well... I'm pretty sure it's because of the yarn song."
"The yarn song? Okay, now I'm intrigued."
"We knit together."
"My son can't even dress himself, Garcia," JJ chuckles. "And he can knit?"
"Well, he doesn't knit," she explains. "He just holds my yarn. Well, mostly he puts it in his mouth or rolls it on the floor, but I figure what's a little dirt and saliva between friends, right? So he holds my yarn, and we sing the yarn song -- well, I sing the yarn song -- and then we have some Cheerios and something sugar-laden and terrible for ourselves, and you know... we just do our thing. Only today, we finished the yarn song and I picked him up to feed him something you'd never allow, and BAM. There it is! Yarn! Boy, Reid's going to have his knickers all in a twist when he hears this one. He's been trying to teach him perspicacity for months."
JJ laughs and shakes her head. "I'm going to pretend that I didn't hear the part about the sugar. When I get back, I'm going to expect a duet, so make sure he practices."
"Will do," Garcia says, and in the background, Henry shrieks with glee. "Okay, gotta go. He's totally just spotted the... uh.. carrots. We're definitely having carrots."
V is for Victim
"Sit," Garcia says, patting the stiff hospital sheets beside her. "Just watch the gaping chest wound, please."
JJ's smile looks more like a grimace, but she settles herself down and cups her cool hand over Penelope's warm one. "What's up?" she asks.
Penelope sighs and leans her head back against the pillow. "Look... I know they need to figure this out so that they can catch Captain Psycho-date and lock him up, and believe you me -- there is nothing in this world I'd like more. Really. But..." She stops suddenly and closes her eyes.
"What is it?" JJ says, lacing their fingers together and giving a squeeze.
"Just don't... don't let them use that word."
"What word?"
"Victim. God... Jayje, do you have any idea how many times I hear that word every day? Or see it? Like, six thousand billion. And all I can think of are... bodies. Dead people. " She pauses again, and when her voice comes back, it's fragile and low. "My parents. I just... I don't want to be that. I don't want to be... part of a pattern. Or a script. Or whatever their brilliant profiling minds call it. I just... I want to be me." She squeezes JJ's hand back and blows an errant strand of hair out of her own eyes. "So will you make sure?"
JJ's smile warms up and and she pulls Penelope's hand to her lips and kisses her knuckles. "Of course. That's why they keep me around, you know. Someone has to keep them in line."
"Well, that and because you're like, nineteen different kinds of awesome," Penelope says, returning JJ's grin.
"That, too," JJ nods, rising to her feet and fixing the blankets. "And thank God you're around to remind everyone."
A is for Ashes
When Elle leaves, not much goes with her. She leaves behind her badge and her gun, of course, but she also leaves almost the entire contents of her desk. Granted, she never kept many things of a personal nature in it, anyway, but when JJ is tasked with the cleaning up -- nobody else will touch it; it's like there's some weird voodoo magic they're all afraid to disturb -- she's surprised to see that what she did have is still there.
Her one photo: a framed image of her father in his dress blues, a good decade younger than Elle herself. Some weird wind-up goblin creature that Reid bought her for her birthday (though she did take his card, which she'd stashed underneath.) And there, in the middle drawer buried under a mess of papers -- mostly blank, positioned to hide the evidence -- a pile of ashes spilled from a tray. The cigarettes were missing.
When JJ shows it to Garcia, she smiles wanly. "She used to work late and disable the smoke detector," she says. "And I used to erase the security footage."
JJ nods and rolls her eyes fondly, then sweeps the drawer out into a plastic grocery bag. She ties it off, puts it inside another, and is about to throw the whole thing into the garbage.... but stops at the last second.
She isn't quite sure why, but when no one's looking, she wraps it up small and stuffs it under her arm, then hides it in the matching drawer of her own desk, buried under a box of highlighters and some computer paper. Sometimes, she thinks, women have to keep each other's secrets.
L is for Lies
If there is anything that the title of media liaison has taught her, it's the art of verbal evasion. JJ's as good with her words as Reid is with his hands; is able to craft a near-perfect illusion with them, pull the proverbial rabbit from her hat or slip the card up her sleeve when everyone's eyes are just where she wants them.
Sometimes it's about tact. Sometimes it's about appeasement. Sometimes it's just about remembering the script.
Sometimes, though? Sometimes it's about the lie. Not the partial truth. Not the omission. The lie.
The act itself doesn't plague her conscience - she has too many untouched case files on her desk to be troubled by the concessions necessary to close the ones she does take to the team - but the ease of it, the smoothness of her own voice, the way she is able to arrange her face into a near-perfect mask of sincerity? Sometimes it's enough to make her want to crawl out of her skin.
Sometimes, she watches through the window as Hotch folds his hands neatly on the table and stares down a psychopath with an easy smile and a guileless tone, and she thinks maybe all that separates us is this thin pane of glass.
E is for Easy
Of course she made the call. Compared to the thousand tiny life-or-death decisions she had to make every day of her career, it was easy. Probably the easiest.
She'd wanted to smack Hotch clear across the face after his unfair advantages lecture, but instead, JJ just put on the most professional looking expression she could muster and listened as thoughtfully as she could manage and bided her time.
Because this wasn't leveraging her fucking PTA position to get the best third-grade teacher in DC, or schmoozing with her judge friend to get her kid's juvie record expunged. Her job - both as an agent of the Bureau, and more importantly, as a mother - is to keep people alive. Keep her son alive.
And if all that took was one phone call, one tiny phrase - keep him home today, please - there was no way she would ever be able to forgive herself if she didn't.
N is for Nightmares
She tries to brush them off at first, getting up and getting a glass of water or flipping mindlessly through an old magazine, like this is something close to normal, but nightmares, JJ discovers, are something like toddlers: the more purposefully you ignore them, the louder they get.
When she finally gets back to sleep, they rise out of her unconsciousness more ferocious than ever, picking up right where they left off with their vicious-looking fangs and gut-wrenching growl. Sometimes Reid's there, too, in the background flashing on a screen, bloody and battered, or sometimes right in front of her, his eyes full of accusations more terrifying than the prospect of her own goddamn death.
The harder she shoves, the stronger they get, and suddenly her bedroom's a crime scene, all horror and gore and an exhaustion that eats at her bones like acid.
It doesn't help to wake up and walk into the office and see Reid's face like a mirror staring back at her, gaunt and drawn and full of ghosts he can't exorcise. She looks at him and her guilt metastasizes -- she has no right to feel so fucking bad when he's the one who endured it, really.
It's like trudging through a night terror only to find yourself in the waking version.
Sometimes, when she sits with her coffee on the couch at 3am staring at the ugly green glow of the television, she sets her phone in her lap and fingers the buttons. He's Number Three. All she has to do is press and hold and then... and then what? I'm sorry to wake you? I'm lonely and I'm too tired to sleep and I'm scared to close my eyes anyway? Or maybe Hey, just calling to say that you look like shit and it's keeping me up?
No. Of course not.
What she ends up saying, actually, is hello?, because one night, there she is in an old t-shirt and socks to her knees, curled in a ball with the phone against her belly, when it starts to vibrate. It takes her four rings to work up the courage to answer, and when she does, it's like the world crashing down and rolling off her back. A blow that knocks her breath out and leaves her lighter.
Hey, he says. I thought you'd be awake.
I am, she answers, and she doesn't ask if he's okay. Nobody calls after midnight if they're okay.
Good, he says. Are you... do you want some company?
JJ feels her body sag down in relief, in sympathy, in some sort of strange gratitude, and she shuts her eyes and tells him Please.
T is for Trick or Treat -- or Tinkerbell!
The second JJ opens the door, she nearly collapses in a fit of giggles. "Oh my God! You look fantastic!"
Garcia twirls in a whirlwind of glitter and tulle, tapping JJ on the head with her homemade wand. "I know, I know," she says. "Even Walt Disney himself couldn't have fashioned a better Tinkerbell. Alas, I'm just a few years too late to help the poor soul. Now tell me: where is Young Master Peter? Did the hat fit all right?"
"Perfect," JJ says. "He's in the living room making a mess of himself, no doubt. He's obsessed with that feather." She turns to go retrieve Henry, but then stops and turns back. "Hey, where's Spence? I thought he was coming with you."
Garcia's face turns sour. "I'm afraid Captain Hook has been banished to the car for the time being," she says, "on account of his reluctance to wear the required ensemble."
JJ stops cold for a second, and then the laughter bubbles up from her chest and comes loose. "Oh, no. Please tell me that tights are not part of the equation."
"Not tights," Garcia says, feigning offense. "They're leggings, thankyouverymuch. And very manly, pirate-esque ones at that! It totally isn't my fault that he wouldn't stand appropriately still for the fitting!"
I is for Intimate
Hospitals are intimate places. Even with their odd, sterile smell and hallways full of strangers, they have a peculiar feeling to them. When you visit someone there, there is an automatic vulnerability between you -- the forced vulnerability of illness, fear, uncertainty.
It is never more pronounced for JJ than when she walks into Spencer's Georgia hospital room four hours after he is admitted. He's pretending to sleep -- she knows him well enough, has seen him curled into himself enough times on the jet, to know that he's conscious and very much aware of her -- with an IV line in his hand (for hydration, mostly, they've said) and his heartbeat tracing lines across a screen.
For what is probably not the first time since she's known him, she's just a little bit grateful for the wall he's put up. She's not ready to talk to him. She's not even ready to talk to herself. Mostly, she just wanted to see him, wanted to touch him, wanted to make sure that he's really safe, alive, in one piece. Mostly, she just wanted to make sure that his shaking arms around her hadn't been another hallucination.
For a long time, she just stands in the doorway and watches, the beep beep beep of his monitor like the nagging press of her conscience. When it gets to be too loud, starts whooshing through her skull like freight train, she steps inside and closes the door, then crosses carefully to the chair at the foot of his bed. From there, she counts the uneven rise and fall of his ribs until the numbers make her eyes cross and her head ache. When she finally closes them for more than a blink, he speaks.
"JJ?" he says, his voice low and gravelly and strange.
She can't quite bring herself to answer or to look at him full-on, but she sit up a little straighter, adjusts in her seat to let him know that she's listening.
"I'm sorry."
JJ has a brief impulse to choke the life out of him for apologizing, for trying to lift the weight of the only thing that's been keeping her grounded - guilt, regret, responsibility - but instead she takes a deep breath that shakes on the exhale and opens her eyes.
His are still closed, but somehow, he knows that she's looking. He lifts his untethered hand and gestures for her, so she gets out of her chair and comes to stand at his side. "It's not your fault," she finally says, letting her hand rest against the starchy-feeling sheets. Her voice sounds like it's about to collapse from exhaustion.
"Sit," he says, and she does, balancing herself carefully on the edge of the bed. He still won't look at her, but he curls his cold fingers around hers and squeezes. "It's not your fault, either." Then, after a moment, "Thank you."
"For what?" she asks, letting her thumb wander over the prominent ridges of his knuckles.
"Not being afraid to come in here."
"Oh, I was afraid," JJ says, her laugh dry and brittle.
"You came anyway."
"Of course," she says, her breathing easier now, falling into the rhythm she's watching on the screen. "Yeah. Of course."
N is for Nothing... as in, this drabble has absolutely NOTHING to do with the letter N ;)
"Thank you for coming with me," Emily said, surveying the room. "I think I would've been a little overwhelmed trying to do this alone."
"I'm just surprised you didn't go to some hoity-toity breeder," JJ teased, reaching down to stroke the striped back of the tabby cat that was currently twining itself around her ankles. "I pegged you more as the pure-bred Persian type."
Emily snorted. "Riiiight. Can't you see it? Me walking around with some flat-faced thing in a little purse. Excuse me, Hotch, do you mind seeing if we can turn the temperature up in here? Muffy's got herself a chill."
JJ laughed and scooped up a sleek, black cat against her chest. It promptly rubbed its cheek against hers and started to purr. "What about this one, Em? Statistically, black cats are the most difficult to adopt from shelters, and he's so friendly!" Her voice went up an octave. "Aren't you baby?"
Emily grinned and scratched under his chin. "Thanks for your input, Doctor Reid," she laughed. "He is awfully cute, isn't he?" The cat began to purr almost frantically, rubbing its face against her hand, and Emily couldn't help but lean forward and kiss his nose. She lifted the tag dangling from his collar. "Okay... Sergio," she said. "What do you say? Are you looking for a girlfriend?"
E is for Eleven
At eleven, she was old enough to understand that death was permanent, that it meant someone was not coming back, that the things they left behind -- a closet full of clothes falling off their hangers, a fork in the sink, the necklace fastened around their sister's neck -- are all that remain of their touch. The last small parts of them, like fingers clawing at the earth.
JJ's sister had beautiful hands, graceful and calm like their mother's, and there are nights -- still, there are nights -- when JJ wakes with a start and swears she feels them against her forehead, concerned at the heat that pours off of her body. Maybe she's a ghost. Maybe not. Even after all these years staring down death the way other people file expense reports, JJ still doesn't know what happens afterward. If that was what she was pursuing when she joined the BAU -- some intimacy with death, some understanding, some wisdom whispered in her ear at a crime scene where the body's still warm -- she hasn't gotten it yet, and she's not sure she ever will.
At eleven, she'd understood the how, but she couldn't grasp the why. Couldn't make sense of it. Couldn't imagine not wanting more birthdays, more butterflies, more hot soup on a cold day. The only conclusion JJ could draw was that her sister wanted something else. Something better. Something after. That she had to have heard the secret somewhere, like the way she found out about the hidden passageway under their neighbor's stairs.
And all this time later, as she slides the clasp of her sister's necklace between her fingers -- she always takes it off before bed; she's afraid she'll break it in her sleep -- JJ still wonders. Still puts her head down on the pillow and closes her eyes and says goodnight, just in case.
S is for Socks
When JJ hears the knock at her door, it sends her into a mild panic. She's in a state of barely-dressed chaos, her shirt buttoned wrong (she's had to change it twice in as many hours, thanks to Henry's upset stomach), her hair in disarray, one eye made up and smeared already and the other one completely untouched.
She hasn't had time to even look at the clock, but Spencer's never late -- at least, not when it comes to her -- so she knows she is dismally behind. She flings open the door with Henry squalling on her hip, her eyes apologetic and harried, and can't decide whether she wants to slap or kiss the grin Spencer gives her when he takes in the scene.
"Do you need some help?" he asks, reaching for Henry as JJ shuts the door behind him.
"Yes. Please. That's why you're here!" she calls, already rushing back towards the hall. "My appointment is in half an hour and I'm not even dressed!"
"Close enough," he says, adjusting Henry against his shoulder as he follows JJ into her bedroom for instructions.
"My dentist is going to think I'm insane," she sighs, yanking a brush through her hair. "Oh, well. I suppose I shouldn't be in such a hurry to get to a fucking root canal anyway, right?"
"Right."
JJ rolls her eyes at her image in the mirror and lines her naked eye with pencil. "He's been cranky all day and spitting up all over the place, and I'd never leave him with you like this normally, I just..."
"I know," he says, catching her eye in the reflection. "You go and take care of yourself. We'll be fine." He jostles Henry, whose screaming has slowed to a low roar, a bit and says, "Won't we?"
JJ smiles a flustered smile and shoos them out of the room while she fixes her buttons, then grabs her purse and kisses her son on the head on her way out. "Call me if you need anything!" she hollers. "Dentist's number is on the fridge!"
She's halfway to the office when she feels her phone buzz against her hip. She makes a disgusted noise and yanks it out of her pocket. The text is from Spencer.
Just wanted to let you know that you left the house wearing two different socks, but don't worry. Henry and I both approve.
D is for Donut
"Too late." JJ smirked as Morgan started at the sound of her voice, causing the door to slam shut behind him.
"Aww, shit, really?" he asked, turning around to find her leaning against the table, the box of donuts empty in front of her.
"Mmhmm," she said, taking another bite. "This is the last one. Wanna split?"
"Yeah. Hurry up before Reid gets here," he laughed, reaching behind himself to shut off the lights.
JJ rolled her eyes. "Good idea. If he sees someone in here, forget it. He's the one who ate the rest of the box!"
"Does that boy ever consume anything not drowning in sugar?"
"Never." JJ plucked a knife from the drawer of the break room and cut the donut neatly in half. "Did you know that he found my fucking candy stash? In the bottom drawer of my desk! He says it wasn't him, but the whole thing is gone. He's the only one who can polish off a bag that size in a day."
Morgan took his piece of the donut and took a bite. "Should I have a chat with him?" he grinned. "He shouldn't be thieving from a lady."
"Oh, don't worry," JJ said with a wink. "If he finds my latest hiding spot, he's going to have a lot of explaining to do."
Morgan paused with the donut halfway to his mouth. "I don't want to know do I?"
"Deeeeefinitely not."
A is for Astraphobia
"I don't understand it," JJ says, fiddling with the tag on her teabag. "Isn't it usually the other way around? Most kids don't like the noise, but are totally into the light, right? Leave it to me to have the weird one." She rolls her eyes fondly and takes a sip.
"Astraphobia." Reid reaches across the table and sticks his fork into one of JJ's potatoes, raising his eyebrows in question. When she nods, he moves it to his own plate and continues. "Fear of lightning. It's a sign of intelligence, actually." He sticks the potato in his mouth and chews it thoughtfully.
"What do you mean?"
Reid swallows. "Well. Out of the two, lightning is the one that can actually harm you. Thunder is just sound, and its decibels rarely, if ever, reach dangerous levels. Lightning, on the other hand, is responsible for seventy deaths per year. So I'd say Henry's instincts are pretty much correct, weird or not."
JJ watches as Reid steals two more potatoes from her plate and dips them into his ketchup, his mind already moved on somewhere else, and ponders his off-the-cuff assessment of her son. He's right, she thinks - he usually is - and it gives her a little comfort.
Maybe, then, it won't be so hard later. Because what is mothering, after all, but teaching your child to be afraid of the right things, even if they're pretty, and to ignore the ones that just make noise?
Y is for Young
Sometimes, the only way she can get through a case is to stop, breathe deep, and think of them all -- serial killers, rapists, pedophiles, arsonists; every brand of sicko she has to open up her nightmares to -- as small. Scared. Tormented and abused and excluded and wounded; little kids with dirty knees and broken hearts. She has to believe that somewhere, somehow, someone created them; that an alternative was at least possible, if only for a moment.
It's the only way she can get any sleep some nights. It's the only way she can convince herself that what she does is more than just reactionary triage.
... And it's the only way she can bring herself to get on a CB radio frequency and mother Billy Flynn.