Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is owned by CBS. I own nothing but my imagination.
Happily Ever After-Chapter 4
As Dave closed the door behind the two teenagers, Marie reached for her coat. "I've got to be going too Davie," she told him.
"Why don't you join us for dinner Mrs. Rossi?" Emily suggested.
The older woman shook her head, "No, I have plans for tonight, but you all have fun," she said. "And its Marie, not 'Mrs. Rossi'," she reminded Emily.
Dave and JJ walked her to the door, "Thanks again for your help with Abby this week Marie; I don't know what we would have done without you."
"It was my pleasure Jennifer, really. Any time I can spend with my goddaughter is a good time." With that, Marie stepped out onto the porch and made her way to her car. Once her car was out of sight, Dave closed the door and turned back to their guests.
"Help me in the kitchen Em?" Dave asked her, knowing that both JJ and Hotch were useless in the kitchen.
Emily nodded, got up from the sofa and followed Dave into the other room. JJ took her place on the couch and used the opportunity to lightly interrogate her friend and boss.
"So, you and Emily, huh?" She asked with a grin.
"What?" Hotch asked confused, then the light went on in his brain. "Oh, you mean us coming here together tonight?" JJ nodded. "We're just friends JJ, nothing more."
"But you'd like it to be something more, wouldn't you?"
Hotch considered lying for a moment, but he knew he owed JJ the truth. Besides, she might not technically be a profiler, but she could spot a lie from a mile away. "I would; Prentiss is a great person and we have a lot in common. If we didn't work together, if I wasn't her boss, I would probably ask her out."
"So? Don't let that stop you Hotch. If you really feel that way about her, you should ask her out and then deal with the fallout."
He shook his head, "I'm not sure how I feel about her, and I don't want to jeopardize her career, or mine, just so we can date. What if it we went out and it didn't go anywhere?"
"Yeah, but-" Hotch interrupted her.
"Just let it go JJ." Hotch told her. Because she didn't want to argue with him, she did let it go, but she filed their conversation away in the back of her head. She had a feeling she would be bringing it back up at a later date.
While JJ and Hotch were discussing Hotch's love life in the living room, Dave and Emily were discussing hers in the kitchen.
"So, you and Hotch?" He asked with a grin as he stirred the tomato sauce his daughter had left him. "Now that I'm not at the BAU on a regular basis, I'm kinda out of the loop."
Emily rolled her eyes, "Trust me, there is no loop Rossi, Hotch and I are just friends."
"Sure, sure," he agreed. "Just like JJ and I were 'just friends'."
"Yeah, except unlike you and JJ, no one has to worry about walking in on us in the supply closet. Seriously Dave, there's nothing going on between Hotch and I," she told him, taking a sip of wine.
He stopped stirring and looked at her, "But that's not how you want it, right? You want there to be something going on between the two of you."
She sighed, "What I want doesn't matter, we can't be together. It's against the rules and you know Hotch, he's all about following the rules."
"Does he know how you feel?"
"What good would that do? Even if he felt the same way about me, there's nothing we can do about it," she said reiterated, draining her glass.
"What I know," Dave said as he refilled her glass, "Is that our boss has bent and broken the rules before in order to protect the team's well-being and happiness. If he knew how you felt, he might be willing to break them this time as well."
"Yeah, but what if he doesn't feel the same way? If I told him how I feel, it could seriously jeopardize our friendship, not to mention our working relationship.
"Trust me Em, he feels the same way. The guy's my best friend and I can read him like an open book," he told her.
"I'm still not willing to risk everything for a relationship that may or may not work. Sorry, I just don't have that much confidence." Dave opened his mouth to say something, but Emily decided to change the subject. "Besides, shouldn't you worry more about the blossoming romance between your daughter and godson?" She asked, with a smile.
"You see it too?" Emily nodded. "Thank God! Jen and Hotch keep telling me I'm crazy, that there's nothing there, but there is! I'm a world class profiler for Christ's sake, of course I can see the signs between the two of them!"
"I think JJ and Hotch are too close to the situation; they've seen Jack and Abby practically as brother and sister for the last seven years, whereas you and I are newcomers to the relationship. Our views aren't as skewed as theirs are."
"What do I do about it?" Dave asked her.
"What can you do about it?" She told him. "Have you ever tried telling a teenage girl that she can't do something? I guarantee that if you forbid her to date him, she'll do it anyway, but she'll do it behind your back. At least you know that Jack will treat her well."
"That's a small consolation," he grumbled as he set the sauce to simmer some more. After that, he picked up his wine glass and went back into the great room with Emily.
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Jack and Abby were having a great time at the banquet. They had arrived and gotten a table with some of their friends from the various sports teams, which made the mood at the table a festive one. He had won an award for his performance on the track team and when he went up to accept it, he got a standing ovation from his table; an ovation he knew Abby had started. When she won her awards for breaking numerous state records in swimming, he had returned the ovation, but also added some whistles. After that, they had eaten a great dinner and then the tables had been cleared to make room for a dance floor. They shared many dances, both fast and slow, and they were both having fun, but then they began to get thirsty. Abby plopped herself down on a chair while he went to get some punch for the both of them. On his way to get the drinks, his coach had stopped to talk to him, so it had taken him a little while to get the punch. After he filled the cups, he turned around from the punchbowl and saw Abby talking to Jeff Anderson. As he watched, he saw her laugh and then flirt with him.
'What the FUCK?' Jack thought angrily as he stomped over to the chairs they had been sitting in. He sat down and watched as his date and his competition talked and flirted. Ten minutes later, Jeff finally remembered that he had a date and left to go be with her and Abby returned to their chairs.
Up until that point, Jack had been feeling pretty good about him and Abby. He knew he felt something more for her than friendship and he had been wondering how to tell her. He had almost done it when they were slow dancing, but that moment just felt so…right with her in his arms that he didn't want to ruin it. He was also worried that she didn't feel the same way about him and he was afraid of messing up their current relationship by confessing his love for her.
Seeing her talk to that jackass Jeff had him seeing red. He couldn't believe the way she sat down next to him, as if nothing was wrong.
Taking a glass of punch from one of Jack's hands, Abby took a large drink. "Thanks Jack, that really hits the spot."
"Whatever," he said tightly. "I think this thing is about to end, we should get going."
Abby, noticing the change in Jack's demeanor, looked at her watch. "I guess you're right, it's almost eleven," she said. She grabbed her purse and shawl and they started towards the door. Their friends and coaches kept stopping to talk to them, so it took about fifteen minutes for them to get to Abby's car.
She unlocked the doors and they both got in. "So what's wrong Jack?"
"Nothing," he replied tersely.
The ride back to the cabin was a tense one. Whenever Abby tried talking to him, Jack gave her one word answers, iff he bothered to answer her at all. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that he was mad at her, she just didn't know why. What she did know was that they couldn't go back to the cabin like this; the three profilers and her mother would be all over them with questions and they had to be able to answer them civilly.
As she approached the turn off to the cabin, she pulled over to the side of the road instead.
"So what the hell is up with you? You've been an asshole the whole way home!" She said loudly, turning in her seat so she was facing him.
"I've been an asshole?" He asked indignantly.
Abby nodded, "Yeah, you have and we need to fix this before we go in and face our parents."
"Maybe you should have thought of that before you practically made out with Jeff Anderson!"
"What?" She asked, confused. "Jeff and I were just talking, what's wrong with that?"
"If you had been at the banquet by yourself, it would have been fine, but you were there with me and you still went and flirted with him!" Jack had to walk a fine line; he didn't want to blurt out how he felt about her, but he wanted her to see how shitty her actions were tonight.
"But we were there as friends! It's not like you and I were on an actual date!" Abby said, defending herself.
"But it was still rude!" Jack saw that she was about to interrupt him, so he spoke a little louder. "If I had flirted with some girl tonight, would you have been pissed?"
That stopped Abby dead in her tracks; it would have pissed her off…no, it would have devastated her. At that moment, she finally understood what Jack was feeling. "You're right Jack, I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry."
Jack felt his anger melt away, "It's okay Abby, I know you didn't do it on purpose."
"No, but you're right, it was rude and I shouldn't have done it." Abby meant what she said, she knew she shouldn't have flirted with Jeff the way that she had, hell she didn't even know why she had flirted with him since she didn't even want to date him…the only person she wanted to date was sitting next to her. She didn't exactly know when her feelings toward Jack had changed, all she knew was that they had, and she wasn't sure what to do about them. On the one hand, she could tell him how she felt and hope he felt the same way, which she thought he did, and on the other hand, she could deny her feelings and just remain his good friend. She was confused, but she knew this was not the time or place to have that conversation.
"Look, you're right too, I was being an ass about it…let's just forget it, okay?"
"Kay," she agreed and then pulled back onto the road.
Once they arrived at the cabin, Jack got out and opened Abby's door for her again, which she still thought was strange. They walked up the porch steps and stopped in front of the door.
"Are we okay?" She asked him, wanting to make sure she hadn't screwed things up too badly.
He nodded, "We are." And then without thinking, he bent down and gave her a soft kiss on the lips. He was encouraged that she didn't pull away and he ended the kiss after only a few seconds.
"What was that?" Abby asked breathlessly, as if they had been kissing for minutes instead of seconds.
"It just seemed like the right way to end the date. Was I wrong?" He asked, a bit nervously.
She shook her head and was about to say something, but at that moment the front door opened.
"I thought I heard you out here!" JJ said. "Well come in and tell us all about the banquet."
In a daze the teenagers recalled their night with their parents and Emily, but neither of their minds were on the event, they were both thinking about the kiss they had shared.
