Disclaimer: It hasn't changed. Criminal Minds still isn't mine.
Emily rolled herself off of the bed and wandered towards the bathroom to locate some lotion. The dry air was wreaking havoc on her soft skin. After rubbing her hands together and up and down both arms to work the product into her skin, she proceeded to shove her hands into her pockets as she walked out of the bathroom to look directly at JJ. It's now or never. I don't think I'll ever be ready to possibly lose my best friend, but this is getting out of hand. She leaned against the wall, moved her head back and closed her eyes for a few moments before resettling her gaze back on JJ.
"Did you get my note? Would that be Ok?" Emily asked shyly. Not exactly what I wanted to say or how I wanted to say it, but it's a start.
"Thanks for breakfast, and of course I got your note. The rain check idea, nice touch. It was cute, and sweet; thanks for that." JJ smiled upon thinking about it again, "The contents…? I think it's a great idea, Em. So where are we going that's actually open?"
"That depends on what you want. There's not much open. A few of the staff downstairs said there's a small diner open next door, so we could walk over. It apparently has really good food if you're up for that. Otherwise the other option is the café downstairs."
"I hope you brought some clean, dry, clothes to change into when we get back. You know we're both gonna get really wet walking over there." JJ responded, before realizing the double meaning of what she had just said.
Emily relaxed at this comment realizing all the pressure had just been removed from her shoulders, "I'm not even going to respond to that." adorning a sheepish grin to her face while staring at the flustered appearance of JJ.
"Thank you. That came out totally wrong." JJ replied, blushing profusely.
Having lightened the mood a bit, the two fell into casual conversation getting ready to head to the diner next door. The two ran into Morgan down in the lobby. "Where are you two going? You do realize the visibility is minimal at best, right?" Morgan asked, alarmed that the two were even considering going outside.
"We're aware, thanks," Emily began replying before JJ could "but we are also aware that we need to eat and if you've had anything from the café here, then you'd know why we're willing to take our chances."
"Oh, eek, yeah, I had a soggy breakfast sandwich and an unusual tasting banana for breakfast. Don't remind me." Morgan replied, looking almost mortified at the recollection. "Do you mind if I come? I could use some decent food."
Emily's shoulder's shrugged a little bit at her lunch being ruined before looking over at JJ. JJ spoke up, "I'm sorry Morgan, its just that I have some things I kind of need to talk to Emily about. We can bring you back something though." She flashed an apologetic look towards him depicting that she truly was sorry.
"Hey, no problem ladies." Morgan smiled in understanding towards JJ before pulling a 20 dollar bill from his wallet, "I don't know what they have, but between the two of you, you should be able to figure out something that I'd like. Keep in mind, if it has bacon on it, you can't go wrong."
An hour later after having stuffed themselves full, JJ's cell phone chimed to indicate she had a text message. She opened it to see a message from Garcia. A brief look of horror crossed her face while reading: 'Ask her out on a date yet? I'm not above involving myself.'
Emily frowned at the look on her secret love's face before grabbing her free hand still sitting on the table. In a sweet, soothing voice, she asked, "Is everything Ok? You look… troubled."
"No, I'm Ok. Troubled isn't really the right word." Contemplating her words carefully, "it's just that there's this person that I want to ask out, like on a date, but I haven't asked anyone out since college and I don't really know what to say."
"Hmm, the ever-eloquent, quick-witted, media liaison for the BAU within the FBI doesn't know how to ask someone out on a date, eh? Is that even legal?" Emily joked then growing more serious. "As you can see from the current state of my love life, I'm probably not the best source of information, but if there's one thing I can offer it's this: don't fill your mind with all the what-ifs, you'll just second guess yourself and never act. There's always going to be what-ifs." Looking down at their joined hand, to mask the emotion building in her eyes, "You deserve to be happy, Jennifer. Really, truly happy."
"Emily?" JJ asked, slightly tugging on her hand to try to get her to look up; she didn't.
"Yeah."
Lacking a bit of confidence, she spoke anyway, "Would you like to maybe go out to dinner with me when we get back home? I mean, would you like to go on a date with me? I know there's that girl, and I'm not trying to discount your feelings for her. I just," sighing, realizing she was nervously rambling, she stopped trying to formulate words and smiled faintly.
"Are you finished?" Emily asked not giving away her satisfaction at being asked out on a date.
"I think so. Yeah. Sorry, nerves." JJ stated a bit jittery, giving off the appearance that she'd had an entire pot of coffee.
"I would like nothing better than to go out on a date with you, Jennifer."
Relief spreading across her features, JJ's eyes lit up with joy. "Really? I mean, good. It's a date then. But wait, what about the whole 'being in love with a straight girl' thing? This isn't going to be weird for you is it? You're not going to be with me and wish it was her, right?"
"It would appear that said straight girl is really kind of crooked. My profiling skills might need a little bit of work. You're welcome to ask her yourself if you're feeling up to it."
"Why would I ask her if it's Ok to go out on a date with you? She doesn't even know you're in love with her. That would be all kinds of awkward." JJ offered incredulously, not fully understanding what Emily was getting at.
"I guess you're right. She's too busy being a media liaison to take the profiler course because if she had she'd have pieced all of this information together a few minutes ago." Emily stated casually, then taking a sip of her drink staring expectantly at JJ for realization to dawn on her.
"Whoa. Wait. What? So, let me get this straight." The waitress approached and dropped off the To-Go box with Derek's lunch inside. JJ nodded a thank you towards her before continuing, "Wow, that's a lot to take in at once."
Emily sighed, "I'm sorry JJ. I wasn't exactly expecting to tell you that you are the girl I was talking about last night, but you were getting your jealous-girlfriend demeanor firmly in place so I diffused the situation the only way I knew how."
"That was so totally not jealous girlfriend," JJ huffed, moving to stand up and get ready to leave.
"Too bad. Your jealous girlfriend persona is kind of hot." Emily added with a touch of playfulness, also moving to stand.
Admitting the obviously, "Ok, maybe I was a little bit jealous."
"Just a little? Right, keep telling yourself that, Jennifer. So, I didn't scare you off? Not too big of a gap between my feelings and yours?" Emily asked, needing to know either way.
"Absolutely not. After the way you described your feelings last night, I'd be crazy to walk away now. This is just the beginning, Em. I want to be with you, in every way imaginable. I will require one thing of you though. Interested?"
"Sure, what is it?" Emily asked, a bit confused.
"You, Emily Prentiss, need to keep calling me 'Jennifer' the way that you have today. I never used to like it when my family said it, but I love the way it sounds coming from you."
"Hmm." Emily stated, pretending to think it over. "What if that's too much to ask?"
Picking up on the light-hearted mood, "then the offer is off the table, Prentiss. Take it or leave it." JJ replied with mock seriousness, pushing open the door to head back to the lodge.
After taking a few steps outside, "That's too bad." Emily said grabbing JJ's left hand in her right before stopping, pulling her into a hug, "I was kind of looking forward to kissing my jealous girlfriend." Emily leaned forward and placed a quick peck to JJ's lips before breaking the embrace and heading back toward the lodge. Upon taking a few steps and realizing JJ wasn't following she turned to ask, "Are you coming?"
"Yeah," shaking off the fog, "yeah, but first, can we do that again?"
"What, you mean this?" Emily retreated back to JJ and cupped her hands to her cheeks and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. JJ's lips were warm and soft, only vaguely familiar. After a moment, she deepened the kiss, urging her blonde beauty to open her mouth and relished in the feel when she did. Despite all the touching and fondling taking place previously in both of their minds, they hadn't actually kissed. It was in that moment that she realized how much she needed this. Emily slipped her tongue into JJ's inviting mouth as the smaller blonde's arms wrapped lightly around her (to not drop Derek's lunch.) Part of her mind, the tiny, rational part that was drowned by her emotions, knew she was playing with fire. Knew it, but didn't care. She pulled back slightly then rested her forehead against JJ's.
"Wow" Emily spoke, silently voicing, so you were right about the whole getting wet and needing to change thing. Way to go Jareau.
"Yeah, that. We should probably head back now and get changed. Look at us." Both covered with snow that they brushed off before walking off to the lodge.
Upon arriving back at their lodge, JJ went to drop off Derek's lunch to him. Emily took the opportunity to give Garcia a call and advise her of the recent turn of events.
Opting to forgo the usual Garcia greeting, she answered, "Hello Princess, any updates?"
"You could say that." Emily gushed but not wanting to divulge all of the details in the first 8 seconds.
"So? You called me to make me beg? You're cruel. Continue, please."
"Her and I went out for lunch today. I bought her lunch at a little side mom and pop cafe next to the lodge. We each ordered a milk shake and she didn't like hers so we switched. It just felt right being there with her, watching her sip from my glass, and laughing at my stupid jokes."
"Aww, that's so cute. So you swapped saliva, eh? Indirectly of course."
"And directly." Emily added, incapable of hiding the fact that she had just encountered a delightful lip lock with one Jennifer Jareau.
"What? You kissed her? So is this official now?" Garcia squealed, incapable of containing her delight.
"Yeah, I did, and yeah I think it is. We talked a lot, about a lot of things. About family and some previous lovers/haunts. We talked about sports, even though I know nothing about them. That made me relax, at least as much as I could considering I was a mess just being around her. We talked about the future, goals, aspirations, and about this and that as we ate. I don't know half of what she said because I was staring at her so hard that I missed almost the entire conversation. I know this though, when she talks about something she's passionate about, she turns her head to the side slightly and looks at you with these intense blue eyes and it's just... amazing."
"Aww, who would have thought Emily Prentiss was such a romantic? I'm so happy for you."
"Thanks. So we made a date for later this week when we're back in DC. She actually asked me. This is all so surreal, Pen." Emily stated, unable to fully express her delight.
"Again, Em, I'm really happy for you. You deserve it. I should let you get back to her though. Don't do anything too naughty. Your room is right next to Hotch." Penelope couldn't help but add the bit of information.
"Garcia! We just had our first kiss like 10 minutes ago. I hardly foresee us having sex." Emily stated, slightly embarrassed about divulging such personal information.
"We'll see. In any event, I expect more info later. For now, Garcia out." And with that, the line went dead.