Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds and am not profiting from this in any way. Please don't sue.

"Wow!" Emily said, staring off towards the entrance of the bar as she put three beer mugs down on the table.

"What?" Garcia asked, picking up her beer and following the path of Emily's eyes.

JJ turned to look too.

Emily blushed a little as she turned back to her friends. "Nothing, it's just that girl who just came in was really hot."

Garcia's eyes widened, but JJ was confused.

"What?" She asked.

"You mean you…?" Garcia said in a shocked voice.

"I'm gay." Emily said matter-of-factly as she took her seat.

"Wow! How come I didn't know?" Garcia asked accusingly.

"Wait, are you actually admitting that you: Tech Goddess and Gossip Queen don't know everything?" Emily teased.

Garcia glared. "Well now that I know this, I know everything." She replied, preening a little.

Emily laughed. She turned back to see if she could catch sight of the leggy brunette who she'd been eyeing before, when JJ caught her eye. "Umm…Jayj?" She said, nudging her friend gently.

JJ was in shock. She didn't really know why Emily's revelation shocked her so much, it just did. It's not like she had a problem with it. She didn't. She just hadn't expected it. She felt a small knot form in her stomach.

"JJ?" Emily nudged her friend again.

JJ shook her head and looked at Emily. "Wha…? Sorry." She said.

"You ok?" Emily asked.

"Yeah. Yeah. I'm fine." JJ said putting on a smile.

"Sorry if I kinda shocked you. I just tend to keep my private life separate from my work life. You gals have to admit that it's hard enough as it is in our field just being a woman. I don't want my sexuality to make it even harder."

Garcia and JJ nodded in agreement.

"Don't worry sweetie. We won't tell anyone. We'll just keep this juicy tidbit to ourselves and hold it over you." Garcia grinned at Emily who rolled her eyes.

"Gee thanks. What a lucky girl I am to have friends like you." Emily responded sarcastically.

All three women giggled. For some reason, though, JJ continued to find herself distracted. She was only half paying attention to the banter between her two colleagues. Questions were bombarding her brain. How long has Emily been gay? Has she actually had sex with other women? How many? Is she actually dating someone now? Has she ever dated someone from work? Who else at work is gay that I don't know about?

Half of her really wanted to ask Emily those questions, but the restrained, professional part of her thought better of it. They worked together and there were social lined that JJ tried not to cross. It really wasn't any of JJ's business who Emily had slept with and she knew it. Emily and Garcia started laughing again and JJ joined in, not wanting it to seem like she hadn't been paying attention.

Emily leaned back in her chair laughing at Garcia's most recent quip. She took the opportunity to observe JJ. JJ's reaction had intrigued her. Garcia had reacted exactly like Emily had thought she would to her little revelation. JJ, however, had not. Emily had assumed that JJ would be surprised, but largely unfazed. Instead, the petite blonde had clearly been shocked and had seemed distracted ever since the revelation. Emily knew that JJ wasn't prejudice, so she knew that wasn't it, so why was JJ acting so strange?

"Ok, so who have you slept with? Anyone we know?" Garcia pried.

JJ squirmed in her seat. "Garcia, that's none of our business!" She scolded in a hushed voice.

"Speak for yourself." Garcia replied. "Everything is my business, and besides, I want to know!"

Emily smiled to herself as she watched JJ struggle with what appeared to be a mixture of curiosity and prudence. She turned to Garcia.

"I thought that now that you knew I was gay, you knew everything." She couldn't resist.

Garcia rolled her eyes. "Ok, maybe there are still some small gaps in my knowledge. Now dish!" She responded. Garcia leaned forward eagerly and glanced at JJ. She was kind of surprised by JJ's apparent lack of interest. JJ had picked up her beer and appeared to be examining it intently. Garcia turned her attention back to Emily and waved for her to go on.

Emily sighed. "Garcia, does it seem like I've had much of a love life since I've been at the B.A.U.? I haven't slept with anyone you know." Ok, it was a lie, but it was a little lie.

"Name some names anyway." Garcia persisted.

Crap! Emily sighed again. She should have known better than to think that Garcia would just accept her first response. "Ok…um…there was Lauren Jackson and Jenny Cartwright and Audrey Smith…" She looked at Garcia who was looking at her expectantly, waiting for her to continue.

"And…? I highly doubt that a hot little number like you has only slept with three women in your life."

"You want me to list everyone I've ever slept with?" Emily asked incredulously.

"If you're offering." Garcia grinned.

"I'm not." Emily replied firmly.

Garcia pouted for a minute and then another question occurred to her. "Have you ever slept with a guy?"

Emily rolled her eyes. She'd half expected Garcia to come up with that question. "Yes. One."

"And??? Who? When? Where? How was it?" Garcia inquired.

"And it was fine. It just…I knew it wasn't me. It was when I was young and foolish and trying to deny who I really was. As for the who: It's none of your business and you don't know him anyway.

JJ's mind was reeling. Emily had had sex with women. Several women. And a man. Garcia was asking ridiculously personal questions and Emily was actually answering them.

Emily glanced at JJ. She was still staring intently at her beer. "Something wrong with your beer Jayj?"

JJ looked up. "What? No. It's fine."

"Well then are you gonna drink it instead of just staring at it?" Garcia asked.

"Yeah. Sorry. I guess I'm on another planet today." JJ replied, taking a sip of her beer.

"Yeah. No kidding! Does this planet have a name?" Garcia inquired.

"Huh?" JJ was confused.

"I think what Garcia is asking, is who are you thinking about?" Emily explained.

"Yeah. Come on! Who is he?" Garcia persisted. "Or maybe, in light of recent revelations," she nodded in Emily's direction, "I should ask who is she?" Garcia wiggled her eyebrows and grinned and Emily couldn't help but laugh.

JJ blushed. She had been thinking about a she. She'd been thinking about Emily. Not romantically, obviously, but she'd been thinking about her none the less. She felt suddenly very self-conscious about this fact and found she didn't want to admit it. "Why do you automatically assume I was thinking about someone? Why couldn't I have been thinking about something?" She responded defensively as her mind raced to come up with something else she could have been thinking about.

Garcia raised an eyebrow and grinned. "Maybe this is my dirty mind talking here, but who's thing were you thinking about?"

Emily laughed and JJ blushed deeper. Emily felt a pang of sympathy for her friend and decided to come to her rescue. "I don't think that that was quite what JJ meant, but I like the way your dirty mind works, Garcia."

"I was thinking about one of the case files I read today." JJ smiled at Emily for coming to her defense as it had also given her enough time to come up with an excuse for spaciness.

"Really? What?" Emily inquired, the profiler in her immediately interested in a potential case.

"No. Nuh-uh. No shop talk." Garcia interrupted. "We are at a bar, away from torture and dead bodies. I'd like to keep it that way."

JJ and Emily nodded. "Oh course my dear." Emily said.

"Oooh! What time is it?" Garcia asked, grabbing JJ's arm to look at her watch.

"Nine thirty." Emily replied, checking her phone. "Why?"

"I've gotta go meet Kevin!" Garcia said, chugging the rest of her beer and gathering her belongings.

"Ok, fine. Ditch us." Emily sulked. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"Apparently that's a hell of a lot, so I don't think I'll be able to oblige." Garcia shot back. "See you ladies Monday." She said giving each woman a kiss on the cheek before heading to the door.

"Bye!" The two women called out in unison after her.

"Jinx, you owe me a beer." Emily said, downing the last few sips of the one she currently had.

JJ rolled her eyes, set down her own beer and headed to the bar. She ordered another two beers, figuring she'd probably have at least one more herself. As she waited for the bartender to get both her beers and her change, she couldn't help but glance back at the tall brunette she'd left at the table she felt her gaze strangely drawn to Emily. What's with you tonight Jareau? She asked herself as she turned back to the bar.

Emily watched JJ as she stood up at the bar. She really was an attractive woman. Emily wasn't sure if JJ was telling the truth about her mind being on a potential case or not. Sure, cases haunted all of them, and JJ even more so because the cases she turned down weighed heavily on her conscience. None the less, Emily had thought that JJ was distracted by something else. She'd seemed pretty normal before Emily had admitted she was gay. It wasn't like Emily'd been actively hiding this fact. It just hadn't really come up, and she'd been happy to keep her sexual orientation out of the workplace. She was kind of surprised that the profilers she worked with hadn't figured it out though. After all, her eyes did ten to linger ever so slightly on an attractive female. Emily actually suspected that Hotch might know, but he could be so hard to read, and he'd never say anything about it, so neither did she.

"Here is your beer." JJ said setting the glass in front of Emily.

"Thank you." Emily replied. "You got another one? You're only halfway done with your last one!"

"Yeah, well, I'm lazy. What can I say? I like making the least amount of trips to the bar possible." JJ grinned and Emily raised an eyebrow. She knew that the blonde was anything but lazy.

"So tell me about the case that you've been thinking about." Emily was asking both out of professional curiosity and to see if JJ really did have a case in mind.

"It's just this one in Clifton, New Jersey. Three young girls found raped, beaten, and murdered. All three were high school athletes. Strong girls who I just feel like should have been able to defend themselves. I dunno, something just seemed off about the case file and I can't even put my finger on it." This case had indeed lingered in JJ's mind earlier at work. She intended to bring it to Hotch's attention first thing Monday morning.

Emily was impressed. Maybe JJ really had been thinking about a case. You're just being paranoid, thinking that once people know you're gay that that's all they'll think about! She scolded herself for doubting her friend. "I can read over it on Monday if you want." She offered.

"Well, I'm hoping that Hotch agrees that we should take the case in which case you'll all set to read over the case file."

"Ok." Emily was curious. She began running over the information that JJ had given her, already building a possible profile of the unsub.

JJ squirmed in her chair as the lull in the conversation dragged on. The questions that had been pestering her brain earlier, were still there. She cleared her throat and opened her mouth as if to speak.

Emily looked up. "Sorry. I guess I zoned."

JJ shrugged. "It's ok."

Emily examined JJ for a minute. "Were you gonna say something?" She asked curiously.

JJ shook her head. "No."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. It was nothing."

"What was nothing?" Emily raised one eyebrow.

"Nothing." JJ's mind raced as she searched for a topic to change the subject to.

"Nothing is nothing." Emily stated looking even more skeptically at JJ who nodded. "Oh good. Well I'm glad we cleared that up!" Emily rolled her eyes. "Come on! What's on your mind?" She coaxed.

JJ blushed. "I was wondering about things that are none of my business." JJ finally said, then she quickly gulped down some of her beer, partially to use the beer mug to hide her face behind.

Maybe I wasn't so off-base. Emily thought. "Like what?"

"Em, you're making it very difficult for me to not be nosy by encouraging me to ask questions that I have no business asking."

Emily grinned. I was right! "Jayj, we're friends. Quite frankly, I was surprised you didn't ask any questions before. Ask away. If I don't want to answer, I won't."

JJ tried to think about which question was the most innocuous. She took another swig of beer. She suddenly felt like it was really stuffy in the bar. She needed air. She didn't know why, she just longed to go outside and breathe in the fresh, crisp fall air. Maybe then she wouldn't be so nervous about asking the questions she was wondering about. She glanced longingly at the door.

"You wanna go for a walk or something?" Emily asked, reading JJ's body language.

JJ nodded nervously. Why am I nervous? It's Emily. Besides, she gave me permission to ask whatever I wanted!

Emily looked longingly at the rest of her beer, then she looked up at her friend. JJ's face was flushed. Emily could tell she was uncomfortable and decided the air would do her good. She'd make JJ buy her another beer some other time. She grabbed her coat and guided JJ out of her seat and out the door of the bar. Once outside, JJ and Emily both slid their coats on. JJ relaxed a little as she breathed in the fresh air.

Emily studied JJ's face. Why is she so nervous? "I'm not that intimidating you know." She finally said.

JJ looked startled. "I know! You don't intimidate me! I just…I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm just surprised, I guess."

Emily nodded. "Ok, so about your questions. Ask away."

"Ok. But you asked for it." JJ replied reluctantly. "When did you first realize you were gay?" JJ asked, beginning to pace.

"Would you like to walk as we talk?" Emily asked, JJ's nervousness unnerving her a little.

JJ nodded.

"Ok…when did I first realize I was gay…hmmm…I dunno. I kinda of always knew. But when was the first time I consciously thought about it? I'm not sure. Maybe in middle school when all the girls in my class were falling for Anthony Riesgo, and I had a crush on his sister Ashley." Emily replied thoughtfully.

JJ was surprised. Don't be an idiot, Jayj. Just 'cause you didn't know 'til now, doesn't mean she just figured it out recently.

"Ok, next question?" Emily asked with a smile and a sidelong glance at JJ as they continued down the street.

JJ thought for a second. "I'm really not sure. I mean…I dunno. I guess…Ok…How old were you the first time you kissed a girl?"

"Well…what kind of a kiss are we talking about here?" Emily responded.

"I don't know. A kiss. I mean on the lips obviously." JJ squirmed.

"Ok, well I had my first peck on the lips with a girl with Ashley Riesgo as it turns out, eighth grade. My first kiss…and by that I mean no tongue, but a little more than a peck…that was when I was maybe fourteen or fifteen. Then my first real kiss with tongue with a girl…I was like nineteen. I spent most of high school trying to deny that I liked girls. It was just easier socially to pretend that I liked boys. And it's not like I don't appreciate a hot guy. I just have no desire to sleep with him."

JJ nodded. She could understand that.

"Ok, I think it's only fair that I get to ask you some questions too. Otherwise I have to do all the sharing, and I don't get to find out anything." Emily grinned.

JJ gulped and glanced nervously at Emily. She was never comfortable answering personal questions. She'd give Garcia vague recaps of her dates because there was no way of avoiding it, but other than that she was a fairly private person. Still, Emily was right. It wasn't fair that JJ got to ask a gazillion questions and Emily couldn't ask any. "Ok. What do you want to know?"

"How about the same question? When was your first kiss?" Emily asked.

"My first peck on the lips was when I was ten and my first real kiss, with tongue and all, was when I was fourteen. I went to a co-ed soccer camp that summer, and there was this really cute guy, and we ended up kissing after one of the bonfires. We dated for the rest of camp." JJ wasn't sure why she'd shared that last part.

Emily nodded thoughtfully. "Ever kissed a girl?"

JJ stumbled a little. "What?"

Emily grinned to herself. Wow. She seems a little shaken by that question. I wonder why? "I'm not asking if your gay JJ. I'm just asking if you've ever kissed a girl. Lots of people experiment in college. Or do it for a dare…"

"I know." JJ tried to recover. "I um…I mean not really."

"Umm…I believe that answer requires an explanation, Jayj."

JJ sighed. "Like you said. In college I kissed one of my close friends. We were at a party and we'd been drinking and some guys wanted us to kiss and we kinda figured what the hell and we kissed. It was pretty chaste. No tongue." JJ's heart beat a little faster as she recalled the kiss. There hadn't been any tongue, but it had…well, she wasn't really sure. It certainly hadn't been a peck. And JJ had to admit that she'd enjoyed it. The girl's lips had been really soft. Softer than any of the guys she'd ever kissed. It hadn't been a big deal and they'd kinda blown it off afterwards, but every once and a while JJ found herself thinking about it.

Emily was kind of surprised. She had never thought that JJ would kiss a girl. Not that she thought JJ was a prude, she didn't. It was just…she couldn't picture it. She tried to and immediately wished she hadn't. It was a really hot image. Hotter than she'd expected having never viewed her colleague in a sexual manner before. She'd always been firm about that. She never looked at anyone she worked with sexually. That was her number one rule. She swallowed hard, putting the image of JJ kissing a girl out of her mind. "I see." She finally managed to say. "What's your next question?"

"Ok…um…that guy you slept with. How old were you?" JJ had been confused by Emily's reaction to her story about kissing a girl. She didn't think Emily had noticed, but she'd stopped dead in her tracks. Had she actually shocked Emily? If so, why?

"Seventeen. It was an embassy kid. He was a year older than me, and we were good friends. We kinda dated, and then I figured, what the hell, if anything was gonna prove to me that I was straight it would be sleeping with a guy. So I slept with him, and then I broke up with him a week later. I didn't come out right after that, but I think he knew anyway." Emily surprised herself at the detail she was going in to. JJ hadn't asked for that much information.

JJ just nodded. "So when did you come out?"

"A year later. I just told some close friends. I've never loudly broadcast the fact. I'm not ashamed of it. I just never felt that it was anyone else's business who I sleep with."

"Makes sense." JJ said. It did. It's not as if I broadcast my sex life, and it's apparently a whole lot less interesting than Emily's.

"When was the first time you slept with a guy?" Emily asked. Surprised by how interested she was in the answer to this question.

JJ blushed a deep shade of red. "I…umm…" JJ cleared her throat. "I was fifteen and it was my best friend's older brother. Guess I should say ex best friend actually. It turns out she wasn't all that pleased about me sleeping with her brother. We'd been dating secretly and then during the second time we had sex my friend walked in on us and, yeah…she kinda exploded. She was so furious with us that she didn't talk to either of us for the rest of the year…and after that she only interacted with us if she had to. Her brother was great though. We dated all through high school. We broke up when we went to different colleges. We both decided it just made more sense. We loved each other, but we knew we weren't in love with each other, if you know what I mean. We still keep in touch actually. He's married now, and has three kids." Way to over share JJ! She didn't ask for all of that information! Why are you rambling on?

Emily smiled. She's rambling. She only rambles when she's nervous. Why's she nervous? Is she possibly not as straight as she seems? Nah. Never. Still, she never shares this much! But hey, I'm not gonna complain! This is the most I've ever found out about Jennifer Jareau. "And the first time you slept with a girl?" Emily winked.

JJ, on the other hand, choked on her own saliva. "What?" She asked in between coughs. "Never! I haven't! I don't…I mean…There's just…I haven't…"

"I'm kidding Jayj…Relax." Emily replied.

JJ laughed nervously.

"How about we call this Q and A session over for the night and we go back and have another beer?" Emily suggested.

JJ relaxed a little. "Sounds good." Why're you being so weird JJ?

Emily watched JJ as they turned and headed back towards the bar. Why's JJ so nervous? Does she think I'm gonna start hitting on her now? "By the way, don't worry. I'm not gonna hit on you just 'cause I'm gay. You're not my type." Emily teased. She was slightly curious to see how JJ would react. Yeah, cause gorgeous and successful isn't your type! A voice said sarcastically at the back of Emily's mind. Colleagues aren't my type! She clarified firmly to herself.

Emily commented startled JJ and she tripped, falling over and hitting her knee painfully on the sidewalk. "Ow." She breathed in sharply.

Emily immediately knelt beside her. "You alright?"

"Yeah. I just hit my knee…I'll be fine." JJ replied. She looked up at Emily and felt her stomach tie in knots. "I didn't think…I knew you wouldn't hit on me."

Emily sighed. "Sorry. I was teasing. Here, let me see your knee."

JJ pulled up her pants leg. Her knee was scraped, but not bleeding badly. Emily rubbed her fingers over the scrape then began to feel around the rest of the knee, checking for any signs of swelling. "It doesn't look too bad. Did you twist it at all? Does this hurt?" She asked, pressing on the side.

"No. It's ok. It just stings a little." The knots in JJ's stomach tied tighter when Emily's hands touched her. She's not hitting on you Jayj! Just relax. It's Emily. Same old Emily. Your friend.

Emily smiled at JJ. "Here. Let me help you up." She stood up and held out a hand to JJ, who took it. "Maybe you don't need another beer." Emily joked as JJ stood up.

JJ glared. "I'll have you know that I don't need any alcohol at all to trip and make a fool of myself." She joked.

Emily laughed. "JJ, you very rarely make a fool out of yourself. Come on, I'll buy you a beer." Are you hitting on her, Em? No. You can't. Besides, it's JJ. You don't like JJ. You work with JJ. She thought as the two headed back to the bar.