Unexpected Circumstances part 5
Title: unexpected circumstances part 5/?
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: Emily/JJ
Archiving - passion and perfection if you would like it let me know layla
Summary - Emily and JJ find a case hitting too close to home for both of them, in more ways than one.
Rating - could get to R
Disclaimers: I don't own Criminal Minds, except my own
part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4
They made it through the remaining interviews without coming to blows but that was the best either of them could say about the day. Emily felt exceedingly frustrated with the outcome of the interviews she had conducted. She had truly hoped that they would have been able to discover some hidden connection, some piece of information that had been overlooked and the fact that they hadn’t just made this whole situation worse. The only thing of interest that had turned up was Gregory Michaels and he had certainly not improved Emily’s mood.
She and JJ had arrived back at the police station to regroup with the rest of the team. It would have been impossible for a group of professional profilers not to notice the tension in the air between the two women but it seemed they were all studiously ignoring it. Morgan and Reid chose to begin briefing the team on the little information they had gained, focusing on the business at hand and choosing to follow the rule to not profile each other.
“We didn’t really come across anything surprising,” Morgan began. “Each of the bodies was left within a short distance of relatively secluded parking areas so it seems fairly obvious he transported the bodies, probably in a truck or a van. The lack of evidence around the bodies indicates he kills them elsewhere.”
“Most all of which we already knew,” JJ interjects, letting a bit of her frustration read in her voice.
“True, but at least now we know for sure,” Morgan knew they were all feeling stuck but he felt the need to try and point out some sort of vague silver lining in what otherwise felt like a wasted day.
JJ didn’t respond, she just crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair trying not to let her anger play across her expressive features. She knew if she didn’t keep herself in check she was going to be in for one of those lectures from Hotch about becoming just invested enough without becoming overly involved. She was fairly certain that if he said anything to her she would probably tell him to fuck off. A response she knew would not exactly prove her case.
“So, Emily, did you uncover anything?” Hotch asked in his imperturbable way that in no way indicated his feelings about their remarkable lack of progress. He could feel the taut emotions in his team; it was part of what made him a good leader. He also knew there was something else going on with JJ but for now he wasn’t going to push it. This case seemed to be affecting both Emily and JJ in ways he’d never seen before. It was odd but unless it started to affect their work he wasn’t going to put himself in the middle of it.
“Not much,” unlike Hotch a rare note of frustration slipped into Emily’s answer, “for the most part no one gave us anything we couldn’t have gotten from the reports. I do have Garcia checking up on the brother of our first victim. My interview with him wasn’t exactly what I expected.”
“Do you think we should be looking at him for this?” Morgan wasted no time getting right to the point.
“I honestly have no idea. His religious convictions were certainly extreme but until I hear back from Garcia there’s no concrete reason to suspect him.” Emily left out the details of her vague sense of unease she had felt around him. She wanted some facts to back up her hunch before she sent the team on some sort of wild goose chase. Almost as if on cue Emily’s cell phone chirped to life.
“You have excellent timing.” Emily was extremely glad Garcia had called when she did. This would at least give them some new information to go through and would hopefully lead to something.
“Hey girlfriend, sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I dug into all the black shadowy corners of this guy’s life. I’m sending the file to you right now.” Garcia spoke with her usual enthusiasm. Her voice always conveyed a sense of satisfaction when she felt like she’d found the good stuff. “I don’t know if he’s your guy but he sounds like a creep.”
“Thanks, Garcia. I’ll let you know if we find anything that needs a deeper look.”
“No problem, keep me posted.” Garcia ended the call with a press of her fuzzy pink pen to the nearby phone and focused her attention back on the screens before her.
Emily reattached her phone to her hip and turned to the team. “Garcia is sending everything she could find on Gregory Michaels. His religious perspective definitely puts him in the possible category and the way he spoke about his sister makes me think there’s something going on there.” Emily sat herself at the conference table, pulled one of their laptops in front of her and began opening the files Garcia had sent. The team quietly assembled around her reading over her shoulder hoping something would pop off the screen. Morgan and Hotch stood directly behind her, Reid leaned in from the left and Rossi lurked to the right. Emily couldn’t help but make the mental note that usually in this situation JJ would be leaning in close over her shoulder but her presence was conspicuously absent. The blond had placed herself next to Reid, keeping the young doctor between them.
Under more normal circumstances the blond knew she would be using this as an excuse to lean in and enjoy a moment of closeness to Emily even with the entire team there. She had become practiced at taking advantage of seemingly innocent moments, of letting a touch on the shoulder linger just a second too long, of picking the spot closest to Emily when the group was together. It was now almost habit, something she did without even thinking. Her anger had not burned away entirely and her feelings toward Emily were just too convoluted and too close to the surface for her to pull off innocent right now and she had no desire to deal with anything else. She wanted the information Garcia had sent, but for now at least she had to create some distance in order to look at it clearly.
Reid, not surprisingly, spoke up first, “Well, you were correct about his feelings toward homosexuality. He seems to have made little effort toward hiding them.” Garcia had unearthed several blogs on the topic that Michaels had posted to various political message boards. He hadn’t even made an effort to cloak his identity the way many did online. He had even attached his email address to allow ‘concerned’ family members to contact him. It also seemed he belonged to several discussion groups that dealt with the topic of ‘curing’ gays and lesbians.
“He made little effort to hide his opinions in person and he knew I was investigating his sister’s murder. I can’t imagine he would seek anonymity online. It would seem more likely he would actively seek out those who agreed with him. He wasn’t seeking validation for his beliefs from me, he already has that.” The wheels in Emily’s mind were turning trying to make connections between her conversation with the man and all of the electronic data in front of her. It was all they had to go on and by now Emily had a low level hum of desperation in her head telling her to solve this case and move on.
“Is there anything in his writing that would indicate violence?” Rossi spoke up in his direct manner. He had a tendency to cut right through the potential of long discussion to the heart of what they were trying to get at.
“His writing seemed to be based solely in biblical inspiration,” Reid having such ease of recollection answered first. “He does speak of God’s justice and God’s wrath but it seems to be divine punishment rather than human.”
“At least his rhetoric is consistent,” Emily could hear the words he had said to her repeating in her head. It was no less troublesome on replay than it had been the first time. The sound of his voice in her head still made her skin crawl, it was a most unpleasant sensation but there was still nothing that linked him with the victims, other than his sister, and that link seemed strictly biological.
JJ’s voice echoed her thoughts as the blond spoke. “Is there anything about this guy that actually links him to any of the victims except his sister? I’d hate to see us waste our time on him just because his political views are repugnant.”
Emily looked away from the computer to try and make eye contact with JJ. She needed the other woman to see the conviction in her eyes. As she turned in her chair and attempted to pin JJ with her gaze it became apparent the other agent was actively avoiding that connection. After another failed attempt Emily let a small sigh escape her lips. She hoped the noise would be covered by her movements as even that small indicator of her internal struggle made her feel far too vulnerable.
“It’s not as though we have a lot of other options right now.” Emily realized too late that she probably sounded defensive. There were more words that sat on her tongue but she was fairly certain none of them would be extremely helpful. She didn’t want her earlier conflict with JJ to come back to the surface here in front of the whole team. There was no reason for either of them to still feel this way but logic and reality seemed at odds with each other in this situation.
“Emily is right.” Hotch spoke up, effectively cutting off any response JJ may have had. “Right now this is the best lead we have. I’ll get the files Garcia sent printed out and we can all look at them with fresh eyes tomorrow. Right now we should all head back to the hotel and get some food and rest.”
JJ wanted to argue that they shouldn’t be resting until the case was solved but she knew he was right. If they stayed here working until the wee hours it would just feel like pounding their heads against the wall. Maybe a meal and a shower would help clear her head. She grabbed her coat from the back of a chair and shrugged it on. As she did so she noticed Emily mirroring her motion and felt a stab of longing. She wanted to ask Emily if she wanted to grab food with her, something they had done what seemed like hundreds of times in various cities but it seemed all the simplicity had fled their relationship. JJ felt frozen between what she so desperately needed and what she couldn’t have as she watched Emily make a hasty exit. Seeing Emily disappear around the corner JJ knew she couldn’t just keep letting this happen, it was too much.
With that thought she left the others still getting themselves together and caught up with Emily in the hall. She noticed that Emily didn’t break her stride or slow at JJ’s approach. If anything was going to happen it was clear meeting each other half way wasn’t on the agenda. JJ knew she was going to have to go out on the limb here. JJ also knew she didn’t really have a choice.
“Hey Em, you wanna grab a bite?” Her voice sounded just the tiniest bit desperate but she hoped the emotion would pass undetected.
Emily stopped abruptly on her way to the door at the sound of JJ’s voice. There was a large part of her that wanted to say no, that didn’t want to risk spending time with the blond agent. A larger part of her, however, was overcome with relief that the other woman had asked. It meant that maybe they could deal with each other, maybe they could get through whatever it was that had had them at each other’s throats earlier and had threatened to resurface here at the briefing. Emily knew it was dangerous to say yes but she didn’t think any other choice would be safe either. That being the case, there was really only one thing to say.
“Sure,” Emily hoped her voice didn’t reflect too much of her inner turmoil, “maybe we should have Garcia find us a place to eat.”
JJ felt a bit of the twist that had settled into her stomach hours before ease as her offer was accepted. She didn’t know if dinner was a good idea or not. In fact, part of her was terrified at the prospect, but somehow even with all that had happened the idea of spending time with Emily made JJ feel infinitely better than the idea of spending the rest of the night alone. And this way at least she would get the opportunity to try and apologize for their earlier fight. JJ just hoped she could do that without getting into why she had gotten so angry in the first place.