Title: Why the Lack of Flinch?

Author: cyandragonfly

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Pairing: Emily/JJ

Rating: PG for language

Disclaimer: I'm not one of those people who's name crops up during the credits and thus, own nothing.

Distribution: P&P, WIK and - others ask.

Summary: Everyone always asks why.

AN: Just to let you know, I'm an Aussie and my spelling is too. When I can spell right.

--

"Em," JJ asked softly from behind the couch where the brunette was stretched out with her eyes shut. The younger woman put her hands on her girlfriend's shoulders and leaving a soft kiss on the top of her head making the brunette smile. "Ages ago, do you remember when I asked how you coped so well with all the stuff we do?" She felt Emily stiffen slightly as the smile was lost. She responded by trying to soothe her question by moving her fingers in small circles. "Was there - I don't know, another reason? Not just all that stuff about compartmentalising?"

As Emily took a deep breath, JJ felt her relax enough for her to stop the light massage.

"Here, lean forward." The blonde moved around the couch to join her girlfriend, taking out the pile of pillows the brunette had been leaning against and replacing them with her own body. She put an arm gently around Emily as the room fell into a brief silence.

"Yes." The brunette said it definitively, as if that was the end of the discussion. Only, before JJ could ask again, Emily gathered up enough courage to continue. "Practice, I guess."

"Because of stuff with your mum?"

"Yeah - well, partly."

"Which part?"

"The part that put me in therapy." The way she spat out the word therapy, and the bitterness that her words were laced with made JJ instinctively tighten the arm she had around Emily.

"Therapy for what?" It came out as a whisper, although she hadn't meant for it to. The pause lasted longer this time, almost five full minutes, as the older woman gathered the courage to describe one of the hardest experiences of her life.

"Therapy for when Melissa died."

--

"Hi Emily, come in and take a seat." The therapist was falsely bright and happy, already too much for the grieving teen. "You can call me Trisha."

As the girl sat down on the old worn out brown couch opposite the woman with too large glasses, she automatically tightened her tight pony tale tighter. It hurt for a flash, but the feeling of hairs being pulled from her scalp and the lingering pain in her head was strangely satisfactory.

Looking up from the olive green carpet she glared at the small woman with mousy brown hair, ignoring her first attempt to invoke conversation. Trish tried to hold the raging teen's eyes but gave up after only a moment - instead, moving her eyes to the notepad on her lap and clearing her throat.

"Your Mother thought it best you talk to someone after your friend passed away. So -"

"My girlfriend. My girlfriend died. Melissa." The therapist looked up, startled, and peered over her glasses, which Emily thought was quite a feat considering their size.

"Now when you say girlfriend - "

"I mean I loved her, and she loved me." Emily crossed her arms over her chest, in defence of what she knew was to come.

"So you identify as a lesbian?"

"No, I don't identify as a lesbian. I am one. Okay?"

"Do you realise it's a sin to act on homosexual urges?"

"Oh my God!" Emily jumped up and stormed over to the woman as she began her tirade. "You're fucking preaching to me about sinning when they raped her - all four of them raped her - and then they slit her throat and left her to bleed to death! They put a note in my fucking locker. She'd been missing - and dead - for three whole days when I found her. Do you know what it smells like - do you know what it's like to walk through that wall of the smell of rotting flesh when you know how good her scent used to be? Do you think you'd ever be able to remember what she looked like when she was happy and alive and free - before she was violated and torn to shreds by people she used to share jokes with? Do you think you could forgive yourself for not being with her that day because your mother needed to be at a meeting and had to take you with her?"

As her anger came to a peak, Emily took a breath and felt something inside her break. She took a step back from the shocked, cowering woman in front of her and forced the last whisper to come out because she knew this would be the only time she'd ever say it out loud.

"And do you think you could forgive yourself for wanting her back, even if she was as broken as she lay on the floor of that basement, just so that you could have her back with you? Could you forgive yourself for being that selfish." But the real questions, the ones without an obvious answer, had stopped long ago.

And the freeze had begun. That all consuming sweeping cold that flowed through Emily's body, immobilizing her heart, dissipating her unfallen tears and strangely clearing her head. Clearing it so that the next time something was said that would upset her, her face would be like a statue made of ice. It would not blink, it would not falter, it would not change.

Not until a warm sun shone from above and released the frozen woman within.

--

"Oh, Em." JJ mummed, her chin resting against raven locks. "I can't imagine - "

"No." The older woman turned slightly and placed her palm against JJ's cheek as she looked deeply into saddened blue orbs. "And I hope that you never will." Without blinking, the blonde held her gaze.

"Me too."

There was a pause before both leaned in slightly, pressing their foreheads together, solidifying their love for each other in a silent pact. JJ allowed her eyes to close as she let her nose brush Emily's and a breath escaped her.

"Can we talk about something happy now, please?"