Story: Wanderer
Title: Wanderer
Author: xiotonks
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: JJ/Emily
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I. do. not. own. a. thing. blah.
“Did you know that she’s been hating air conditioners for the last 30 years?”
the-man-who-hasn’t-seen-your-daughter-for-more-than-25-years-but-knows-her-better-than-you asks you and all you can do is shake your head. Still it makes you remember the first time your daughter was about to die. Spending too much time in pretty dresses that did nothing against the cold from Arabic air conditioning caused heavy pneumonia. Three weeks she had to spend in the hospital. Two of them you spent with her, sitting at her bedside, holding her hand. Even singing to her when the pain got too bad. But when she could breath normally again and the pain and the fever had become less you remembered what had brought you to Arabia and it made you bolt off again to chase after the dream of a lifetime. Which you didn’t find.
“Not only air conditioning but dark alleyways, too.”
When she was 14 she was attacked by a man in an alley behind a bar. A gay bar, you were told later by a nosy Italian Commissario, and that the attacker had probably been out there to hurt a lesbian. Which your daughter wasn’t and you should have been with her that night. You were supposed to go see a movie together to which she had looked forward for weeks. Instead you received a phone call that made you head out to the British embassy and your daughter to a gay bar.
“She’s never been to an opera house again either”
The Semperoper. Dresden. La Traviata had been scheduled when you arrived in the city. You said it was too much of a cliché and that both of you had already seen it at La Scala but she wanted to go. She was 16 years old. You watched a superb performance together, talked about everything and nothing during the break, laughed, had fun, were mother and daughter. Then, on the way home, you saw someone you really needed to talk to so you ordered the driver to pull over and bring her home but she jumped out, too, and ran after you without looking when you crossed the street. And right in front of a car.
Now you look at your daughter’s hair that looks soft even now that she’s dead and you know that you killed her by forcing that life upon her. A life that was unsteady. That made her feel as if she wasn’t wanted or loved as a child. The life of a wanderer when she had grown up. At every time a life she didn’t want to live. You are the one to blame that she sat behind the wheel of a car you paid for, insanely intoxicated with alcohol and painkillers and sleeping pills and whatever else. Because although Emily had always said that Saudi Arabia felt like her real home you didn’t find the love of your life there. And the phone call saying that they had found a dark haired, dark eyed woman that looked exactly like the one on your photo had been nothing but a mistake and the black Audi that you saw on the street in Germany with the license Plate DD-EP-64 had Emily’s initials on the plate and also an uniformed driver but still wasn’t hers.
“You killed her”, Will hisses.
And you agree.
Author: xiotonks
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: JJ/Emily
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I. do. not. own. a. thing. blah.
“Did you know that she’s been hating air conditioners for the last 30 years?”
the-man-who-hasn’t-seen-your-daughter-for-more-than-25-years-but-knows-her-better-than-you asks you and all you can do is shake your head. Still it makes you remember the first time your daughter was about to die. Spending too much time in pretty dresses that did nothing against the cold from Arabic air conditioning caused heavy pneumonia. Three weeks she had to spend in the hospital. Two of them you spent with her, sitting at her bedside, holding her hand. Even singing to her when the pain got too bad. But when she could breath normally again and the pain and the fever had become less you remembered what had brought you to Arabia and it made you bolt off again to chase after the dream of a lifetime. Which you didn’t find.
“Not only air conditioning but dark alleyways, too.”
When she was 14 she was attacked by a man in an alley behind a bar. A gay bar, you were told later by a nosy Italian Commissario, and that the attacker had probably been out there to hurt a lesbian. Which your daughter wasn’t and you should have been with her that night. You were supposed to go see a movie together to which she had looked forward for weeks. Instead you received a phone call that made you head out to the British embassy and your daughter to a gay bar.
“She’s never been to an opera house again either”
The Semperoper. Dresden. La Traviata had been scheduled when you arrived in the city. You said it was too much of a cliché and that both of you had already seen it at La Scala but she wanted to go. She was 16 years old. You watched a superb performance together, talked about everything and nothing during the break, laughed, had fun, were mother and daughter. Then, on the way home, you saw someone you really needed to talk to so you ordered the driver to pull over and bring her home but she jumped out, too, and ran after you without looking when you crossed the street. And right in front of a car.
Now you look at your daughter’s hair that looks soft even now that she’s dead and you know that you killed her by forcing that life upon her. A life that was unsteady. That made her feel as if she wasn’t wanted or loved as a child. The life of a wanderer when she had grown up. At every time a life she didn’t want to live. You are the one to blame that she sat behind the wheel of a car you paid for, insanely intoxicated with alcohol and painkillers and sleeping pills and whatever else. Because although Emily had always said that Saudi Arabia felt like her real home you didn’t find the love of your life there. And the phone call saying that they had found a dark haired, dark eyed woman that looked exactly like the one on your photo had been nothing but a mistake and the black Audi that you saw on the street in Germany with the license Plate DD-EP-64 had Emily’s initials on the plate and also an uniformed driver but still wasn’t hers.
“You killed her”, Will hisses.
And you agree.