Emily hated high school. No, that was a lie. She had begged her mother to get to go to a public high school and somehow had gotten the stalwart Elizabeth Prentiss to cave in, sending her to a public school the next time they moved. Emily loved high school. She loved half-heartedly complaining about the twenty metric tons of homework given out by just Mr. Moyer's AP Government class alone. She loved that because the private tutors her mother had insisted on and the private schools she went to that she could make a nice chunk of pocket change teaching her peers how to study for and pass the standardized testing. She loved bitching about Principal Strauss and she even loved the questionably textured rectangular pizza on the lunch menu on Wednesdays.

Emily loved high school; it was high school parties she couldn't stand. Emily wasn't an extremely popular girl, but her best friend, Derek Morgan, was a total jock with the stereotypical accouterment of popularity that entailed which meant she was always getting invited to parties. She first made friends with him at the beginning of the year assembly after seeing him reading a worn copy of Slaughterhouse Five and at first, getting invited to parties was novel but after the third one, she decided that was her least favourite part of high school.

Derek was allowed to pull exactly one 'because you're my best friend and I want you to go' reason a semester for parties though. In general, she'd much rather be at home binge watching Netflix than avoiding getting hit on by boys drunk on mostly water beer but she still somehow found herself at most of the parties Derek invited her to. It wasn't fair really, Derek got too sneaky. He stopped asking her to go to every party that came up which sounded like a good idea in theory but he'd found a sure fire way to get her to go to most of them and he saved up his freebie for when he really needed it.

The reason Emily was so willing to go to these parties she professed to hate was sat beside her in the tiny, cramped guest bedroom of one of Derek's football teammates. Jennifer Jareau was sitting so close to her, she was practically in her lap—not that Emily was complaining. JJ was best friends with the object of Derek's poorly hidden romantic interests—Penelope Garcia—whom he flirted with shamelessly at every available opportunity. That was a big difference between Emily and Derek. Derek had no problem openly flirting with girls that caught his eye while Emily was more awkward, more shy. JJ was a year and a half younger than the rest of the 11th grade class having skipped a grade. She was in several of Emily's classes and they usually sat next to each other. They tended to gravitate toward each other at parties and in school but Emily had yet to spend time with JJ with just the two of them. JJ had her number from a study group they'd been in together but the fact that the blonde never used it for non-school related things made Emily think that she didn't want to.

Currently there was a joint being passed around the room and while neither JJ nor Emily smoked with any frequency, they stayed in the room so they didn't break the flow of rotation. They were huddled close and talking; Emily regaling JJ with stories of the far flung locations she'd lived and JJ giggling along with her.

"So that was the last time I hung out with the kids from the French Embassy before I moved here." Emily was saying, delighting in the grin on JJ's face.

"I'm really glad Penelope dragged me out tonight." JJ admitted with a shy smile.

"I thought you loved these parties?"

JJ shrugged. "It's something to do but usually I come for Penelope when she needs support for hitting on Derek all night."

Emily laughed and shook her head. "That sounds like why I come for Derek."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, those two need to get a clue."

"You're telling me." JJ said with a chuckle, standing up when the room started to be cleared and holding out her hand to help Emily up.

They went to the backyard and promptly lay down in the grass, staring up at the stars.

"What do you want to do after school?" JJ asked, tilting her head slightly so that she rested on Emily's shoulder.

Emily shrugged. "I honestly haven't thought about it. We still have to get through junior and senior year still. I want to go to college, I know that."

"Me too. I'm going to major in communications."

"You sound so sure of yourself."

"I am. I'm going to try to go to school on a soccer scholarship and do communications."

"I think I'll take a year after high school, just wander around for a while."

"That sounds nice."

"Yeah, I—" Emily was interrupted by the sliding door to the backyard opening and Penelope's chipper voice calling out to them.

"I'm not interrupting anything am I?" she asked hopefully.

JJ laughed embarrassedly while Emily shook her head confusedly and they both stood up.

"Good." Penelope said with a firm nod. "We're going to play spin the bottle."