I wake up feeling very well-rested, but for a moment, I have no idea where I am. I open my eyes, and it only takes a few seconds for me to realize I'm in my supervisor's office.
In the same moment, I also realize I'm lying in someone's lap. When I look up, Emily Prentiss' dark brown eyes meet mine. She smiles softly, but I pull away quickly, embarrassed that I ended up on top of someone I barely know.
"JJ are you alright?" Emily's smile is replaced with a look of concern.
"Yeah. Yeah I'm good. Sorry I ended up in your lap. I must've moved in my sleep." I can feel my face redden, and I can't quite look her in the eye, so I look at my watch instead. 7:30.
"It's okay! Sorry I didn't wake you. You looked really peaceful, and I'd only been up a couple of minutes."
I feel even more embarrassed knowing that she must have watched me sleep. I silently hope that I wasn't doing anything embarrassing.
"I hope we don't have a new case today. I would really like to have 24 hours where I don't have to travel," Emily picks up her phone from the table as she speaks.
"Me too. I want to take a shower in my own apartment for once." I stand up and stretch slowly, trying to act like I'm not looking for the best way to end this conversation. "Before everyone else gets here, I'm going to try to make it look like I didn't sleep in the office." I grab my phone and walk out the door, not looking back. I still feel pretty embarrassed about the whole sleeping thing. Good thing I have an insane amount of work to do today.
Once I make it into the bathroom, I splash cold water on my face and run my fingers through my hair. I realize I probably should've grabbed my bag from my office so I could change and brush my teeth before work starts, so I run back to get it.
Half an hour later, I'm sitting at my desk going through the still mountain-high pile of cases. Some are fairly easy to sort through. I single out a few to give extra attention to. One in California, one in North Carolina, and one in Vermont. Unless we get a more pressing case, we'll probably be flying to one of these locations within the week.
I call and speak with the detective in charge of each case to try to get a bit more input for my decision. I decide to throw out the case in California, as they got a tip from a reliable source just an hour before I called.
That leaves North Carolina and Vermont. It's difficult to choose, but by lunch, the Vermont file is put on top of the others. Hotch told me last night that we probably wouldn't take a new case for a few days, so I'll give him a short briefing about the Vermont case tomorrow morning.
The rest of the day passes fairly quickly as I finish up paperwork from our last case. When I close my office door, I'm thankful that we don't have to travel anywhere over the next couple days. Even though I avoided Emily for most of the day because of last night's sleeping situation, I hope she didn't notice. It isn't really her fault, but I still feel awkward.
I'm thinking about how ready I am to head back home for a much-needed shower and glass of wine as I step into the elevator, already starting to relax. Then, Emily slips in just before the doors close.
Shit, I think to myself, and I close my eyes for a moment. When I open them, Emily is looking at me, concern on her face again.
"Are you okay, JJ? You seem a little off today," Emily says after a few seconds.
"Oh, um, yeah. I'm good, Emily. I just need to drink a glass of wine and get some sleep, I think."
"I was thinking about going to the bar for a little bit. Want to come with?"
"Not tonight. I really just need to decompress for a while." Her face drops for just a second, so I add, "Rain check though. I do want to do that soon. Maybe we can ask Garcia too!" She seems happy with this response, and by then, the elevator doors are open again.
"Goodnight, JJ. I will see you in the morning!" Emily walks in the opposite direction of my car. I wave as she looks back over her shoulder, then turn and walk to my car.
...
My alarm goes off much earlier than I want it to the next morning, and I snooze it until I have to rush out of the door to make it to work on time.
Great, I didn't even have time to make coffee. Thank God we have a pot in the office, I think as I drive down the road toward the Bureau.
The previous night, I had taken a shower so long that it was definitely in the running for a world record. I decided during that shower that I was definitely overreacting about the whole falling-asleep-on-Emily thing. There was no need for me to feel awkward since she obviously didn't think anything of it. Thoughts about my schedule and our prospective girls' night fill my mind for the rest of my drive.
Forty-five minutes later, I finally walk into my office, and the phone rings before I even have a chance to sit down. I pick it up, already bracing myself for whatever case we are probably about to take on.
"This is SSA Jennifer Jareau," I answer the phone on the second ring.
"Agent Jareau, this is Deputy Andrew Crawford. I know y'all probably get a lot of calls like this, but we really need your help..."
...
"Okay brace yourselves because this one is pretty nasty. A week ago, the body of 22 year-old Juliet Monroe was discovered in a park in Enterprise, Alabama. She had been strangled, and displayed like this," I bring a picture up onto the screen. I hear the sharp intake of breath from several of my colleagues as they look. The photo shows a girl with one rope around her neck and another around her waist, securing her to a bench.
"I definitely did not need to see that," Penelope Garcia says, quickly averting her eyes.
"That is disturbing. Wait a minute. Is that bench next to a playground?" Emily leans forward over the table as she takes a closer look at the photo.
"Yes. Thankfully the body was discovered by a dog walker before any children arrived," I respond, turning back toward the screen.
"Obviously the unsub wanted the body to be found. But why here?" Spence grabs the file in front of him and flips through it quickly.
"This is gruesome, but what makes this a BAU case?" Morgan's deep voice fills the brief silence left after Reid's question.
"Three days ago, another body was found, killed and posed in the same way, but this time, it was displayed on a bench at the local high school," I bring up another picture onto the screen. "Victim's name was Anthony Micheals. He was a 30 year-old cashier at a grocery store."
"This victim is posed the same way, but look at his clothes. His shirt looks too small on him. And he's missing his shoes..." Emily makes this observation and shakes her head.
"Unfortunately, it doesn't stop there. This is 19 year-old Caleb Matheson. He was discovered two hours ago on a bench in front of an ice cream shop," I turn away from the images to look at my team.
"The cooling off period was short to begin with, but it's even shorter now," Agent Gideon spoke for the first time this morning, looking down his nose through his glasses at the case file.
"We have no time to waste. Wheels up in thirty," Hotch closes his file and walks out of the room.
...
On the jet, I sit next to Morgan and across from Hotch and Emily. We take a closer look at the files, trying to figure out a common link between the three victims.
"They're from different socioeconomic backgrounds. We have two white victims and one black victim. They're all young, but I feel like there has to be another connection besides that one," Derek says, turning toward me.
"I agree, there probably is another link between them," Reid jumps into the conversation for the first time since we took off. "None of these victims seems to live the type of high-risk lifestyle that makes them susceptible to a crime of convenience."
"There's definitely more to it than we can see right now. I also want to look into the dumpsites. They're all extremely public places, important to the community. What message is the unsub trying to send by dumping the bodies here?" Gideon takes off his glasses and rubs his forehead.
"We have a lot of work to do here. JJ, come with me to get set up at the police department. Gideon, will you and Morgan take the most recent crime scene, and also go look at the first two as well to see if they missed anything. Reid and Prentiss meet with the ME and look at the bodies. With the cooling-off period getting shorter and shorter, we could be looking at another body soon. Get some rest everyone. This is going to be a long day." Hotch closes his case file after he gives everyone their first assignment.
Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading so far! There's plenty more to come. Feel free to follow my author instagram tris_the_gray for updates and other fun things!