(Hiiiiii. It's your girl. I'm sorry.
To be fair, I had written part of this, and then my computer was taken out of service by a rogue cup of coffee and I lost all of my documents because I'm an idiot who doesn't back anything up. I thought this was gone, and ended up catching the bug for a few other stories, leaving this one on the shelf. But THEN I found a draft in my email, and it gave me some inspiration. So here's the next chapter!
Also I changed the name of the story. Because why not.)
Then: May 28. 2011
The fact that Hotch had given us Memorial Day weekend off was unbelievable. The fact that he was actually able to follow through on it was nothing short of a miracle.
One of JJ's cousins had gotten engaged a few weeks earlier, so the entire family had been invited out to the lake house to celebrate both the holiday and the engagement. In the few years we'd been dating I'd only met the whole clan a few times, but I liked being around them. As an only child of two only children, my upbringing had been quiet, consisting of near silent dinners and lonely school holidays. The Jareaus were the complete opposite: always in motion, loud and messy, yelling on top of each other. They were quick to fight but even quicker to make up.
We were all sitting on the dock in lawn chairs, sodas and beers warming under the late summer sun. Her cousin Kirsten was perched on her new fiance's lap, both of them smiling widely as they recounted their engagement story.
"…and so I kept dropping hints. I'd leave out bridal magazines, point out rings in jewelry store windows, tried to get him to spend more time with my dad-"
"Y'know, real subtle," Jake cut in. Everyone laughed and he kissed her cheek. "And it's not that the thought wasn't there, I was just more than a little nervous about asking Ernie for his blessing. I just had this vision of him clocking me in the face before I even had the chance to finish asking."
"Oh he's not that scary!" Kristin giggled, slapping him lightly on the shoulder.
"Maybe not to you!" he retorted.
JJ took a swig from her beer bottle. "Uncle Ernie's a big softie. All bark and no bite."
Suddenly the man was standing beside her, his linebacker frame looming over her. "Listen to this one! She gets a fancy government job and a gun and suddenly she ain't scared of no one!" But he smiled good naturedly as he pulled lightly on the end of her long blonde ponytail.
"Well anyways I finally decided I couldn't wait any longer and that I would ask him when I went out on the boys' trip to Lake Erie. So we've been there a few days and Ernie says he needs to go out and check the jug lines to see if we caught anything overnight and I volunteered to go with him. We get out on the water and I screw up my courage and ask him-"
Ernie cut him off. "Or he tried to anyway. He was stuttering and sweating like he'd been accused of a crime."
"But I finally spit it out, and… nothing. He didn't say a word, just kept pulling up the jug lines. And I'm getting really antsy, and finally I stand up and yell 'Can I have Kristin's hand or not?' And at that moment, he pulls up the last jug line and what must have been a forty pound alligator gar."
Everyone began to laugh, but no one harder than Ernie, who was now hanging on to the back of JJ"s chair in an effort to stay upright. "It gave me quite a shock but from his reaction you would have thought I'd pulled a real gator into the boat."
Jake held up his hands. "My life flashed before my eyes. I thought I was a goner."
"Wait, I don't get it. What's an alligator gar?" I asked.
One of the other cousins, Erin, gave a visible shudder. "A horrible looking thing. Looks like a cross between an eel and an alligator. They have these nasty, sharp teeth, it makes them look like something out of a nightmare."
JJ took my hand. "They're called living fossils, and they live up to it."
Her mom leaned out the door. "Alright, dinner's ready! Everybody come eat!"
Everyone got to their feet and began to make their way inside, but I was struck by a thought. I grabbed JJ's elbow and held her back.
"What's up?" She asked once everyone had gone inside.
"If… someone was wanting to propose to you, would they need to ask for your dad's blessing first?"
Her eyes grew wide. "What?"
"Y'know… I mean we had very different upbringings, so I hadn't really thought about that aspect. But… is that something that's important to you?"
"Are you asking me to marry you?"
"No!" Her look of shock quickly changed to one of hurt and, strangely, disappointment. "Not that I don't want- I just-" I took a deep breath and took both of her hands in mine. "That's not what's happening right now. I do… very much would like to marry you, but I have no plans to ask you while we're both wearing bug spray and flip flops." Her face relaxed and she smiled.
"I don't… I'm not as traditional as Kristin. You don't need to ask my dad's blessing, and I don't think he's expecting you to. The only person you need to ask is me." She took a step closer and brought her lips to my ear. "But just for the record, I very much want to marry you too."
It felt as if an electric current ran through my body, leaving me tingling head to toe. I pulled back to look in her eyes. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." She pressed a soft kiss to my lips. "I can't imagine spending the rest of my life with anyone else."
"JJ! Emily!" One of her younger cousins, indistinguishable from the rest with her white blonde hair and tanned skin, was leaning off the porch, clutching one of the columns to avoid falling. "Aunt Sandy says there isn't gonna be any food left!"
"Alright, we're coming!" JJ yelled. She took my hand and began to lead me towards the house. I couldn't suppress the silly, lovesick grin growing on my face. I wanted to marry Jennifer Jareau and amazingly, she wanted to marry me back. If I played my cards right, I would get to spend the rest of my life with this woman.
I was the luckiest woman in the entire world.
