(Hello lovelies! Here is Chapter 10. I have just one week of classes until Christmas break and then I can update all the time! SO yay. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter. There is a bit of suggestive dialogue, as well as discussion of sexual identity. Review!)

"The only queer people are those who don't love anybody." Rita Mae Brown

JJ

Several days pass. I'm in the baby's room, sorting through all of the clothes we've amassed in preparation for their arrival. We received lots of wonderful things at the baby shower my mother threw me a month ago, on top of the things we hadn't been able to resist buying ourselves. Most of it was gender neutral in greens and yellows, but we had also gotten several little girl onesies hand me down from my cousin Jessica. I had gratefully accepted them, but if I was being honest I didn't think we would be using them. I hadn't told anyone, but I couldn't shake the feeling that the baby was a boy. I had nothing to support this of course, it was just an inkling I couldn't quite discredit.

Just as I finish organizing the socks and bibs in the top drawer, my phone begins to vibrate. Reaching for it, I see Emily's picture on my screen.

It's one of my favorite pictures of us. It's from the engagement photos that we had taken at the Tidal Basin in DC. The cherry blossom trees were in full bloom and it was absolutely beautiful. In the photo Emily is facing the camera and I'm kissing her cheek. I had just whispered something naughty in her ear so the photographer had captured her mid laugh. Her mouth is thrown wide open and her eyes are squeezed shut. Every time I see it, my heart feels like it will burst with happiness.

I press accept and bring the phone to my ear. "Hey baby."

She sighs. "Hey Jayje, we just got a case in Iowa."

The baby kicks me hard in the ribs. "What happened?"

"Two families have been murdered in their homes. We're thinking a family annihilator, but we won't know until we get on the scene."

"Oh God. Are you about to board the jet?"

"Already boarded. We should be flying in about ten minutes. This obviously means I won't be coming home tonight. Garcia wanted me to let you know that she will be at our home within a couple of hours to stay with you while I'm gone."

I can't help but laugh. "You people remember that I am also an FBI agent, right? I don't need a babysitter."

"Well, while I do not doubt that you are completely capable of kicking ass at 33 and a half weeks pregnant, it will make me feel a little better knowing that Pen is with you while I'm in the Midwest."

"Me too." I smile as I remember what I had been whispering into Emily's ear when our engagement picture was taken and mischievousness overtakes me. "Of course, I guess this means I'll be all alone in our bed tonight. With no one to hold me… Or kiss me… Or slide her hand between my legs and-"

"JJ, I'm on the plane!" I know her well enough to know that she's trying not to blush as she whispers into the phone.

"What? I was just thinking about how much I'm going to miss you while you're gone." I reply, voice dripping with mock innocence.

"Well, I'm certainly going to miss you. More than I can say, at the moment. In present company."

"I guess the only good thing about you leaving is that when you get home we can celebrate by putting on some jazz and we can revisit that thing we tried on the Fourth of July where-"

"You are going to be the death of me, woman. I have to go now, before I spontaneously burst into flames." She says quietly into the phone.

I laugh at the huskiness of her voice. "Bye baby, be safe."

"I will. And you behave."

"What if I don't?"

"Goodbye, JJ!" I laugh, hanging up the phone. It certainly would be a lonely few days while she was gone.

Later that evening, the doorbell rings and I hurry to answer it. As I let Pen in she is already talking a mile a minute.

"Okay so I don't know if you're hungry but I definitely am so I stopped on the way here and picked up Chinese food. Also I couldn't remember if you like beef and broccoli with fried rice and Emily likes chicken lo mein, or if it was the other way around, so I got both! And then I got myself pork dumplings, which you are more than welcome to help yourself to."

"Oh you didn't have to go to so much trouble." I tell her as she unloads the food onto the table.

"It was no trouble! I was hungry and I figured that if I was hungry just being one person, then you must be twice as hungry."

"Well I am pretty famished." I admit.

"See! And it really wasn't a problem." She takes a step back to admire her work. "Alright. Dig in!" I grab us a couple of paper plates from the kitchen and begin to load mine down with noodles. Once she makes sure that my plate has enough food for not one but two fully grown humans, we make our way to the living room.

"So what do you want to do?" I ask.

"I don't care! I mean I know I have commandeered it, but it's still your house. Do you wanna watch a movie? Or we could play a board game, not to brag but I am amazing at Clue. I beat Derek at it all the time, which is funny y'know since he's a profiler and he should totally kick my tush, but there you go."

"I don't think we even own any board games," I say with a laugh.

"What? Oh young JJ, we will rectify that another day. A house is not a home unless it contains Jenga and Monopoly."

"We could see what's on the DVR, if you want." I volunteer. She hands over the remote and I begin to flip through the recordings. "Alright, so we have a soccer match from earlier in the week-"

"Gross. People doing sports. Next."

"A documentary on Aileen Wurnos, the Texas serial killer-"

"As if you two don't see enough of that sadness at work?"

"Hey it was a landmark case! And we have to stay up to date on crazy killers of note."

"Did you watch that movie they made about her? With Charlize Theron?"

"You mean the one where she hooks up with Christina Ricci? Do I need remind you that I am in fact married to another woman? Of course I've seen Monster."

Penelope sits her noodles down on the coffee table. "Hey Jayje can I ask you a personal question?"

"As if you have ever refrained from asking personal questions?"

She pokes me in the side with the end of her chopstick. "No, like a super personal question."

I nod, bringing my own chopsticks to my mouth. "Anything."

"Have… Were you always attracted to women?"

I thoughtfully chew my lo mein, trying to find the correct words. "Well… yes and no. I mean, I came out of the womb liking boys. I loved boys. My… appreciation for women came later. I've always had deep female friendships. And on occasion romantic feelings would grow out of those bonds."

"Have you dated a lot of women?"

I shake my head, moving my noodles around my plate. "I grew up in a little town in Pennsylvania. I knew that girls who liked girls weren't exactly well received, so I chose to keep those feelings quiet and locked away."

She grabs my free hand. "Oh honey that's so sad."

I give her a small smile. "It could have been worse. It wasn't like I was lying. I dated boys and I enjoyed it. I just didn't tell anyone about the crush I developed on an upperclassman in my biology class."

"Once I got to college, things were a bit different. It was in a much bigger city and people were more accepting. Plus it was college, that's when you're supposed to be wild and experiment, right? I would go out to frat parties and get super drunk then make out with other girls to the boys' ecstatic cheers. Sure, she was more than likely very straight, and was doing it more for the attention, but it was enough for a while. Then I got a boyfriend. We were together for almost a year." I pause for a moment, thinking back. "Y'know I can't even remember why we broke up, I think he might have transferred to a different school. But anyways, that's when I met Hanna."

Her eyebrows shoot up beneath her bangs. "Hanna? Who is Hanna?"

I laugh at the breathless quality of her voice, already completely enthralled in the story. "Hanna was a Junior. We met in a British Romantic Literature course. From the very first time I saw her, I was overwhelmed by how pretty she was. Tall, with big round eyes set above cheekbones that could cut glass. Short curly hair that she kept out of her face with sparkly headbands. And miles and miles of smooth, dark skin."

"Ooh, she sounds totally hot. Like a girl version of Derek."

I laugh. "Not far off actually. But what really drew me in was her mind. The way she could elaborate on Mary Shelley or Wordsworth, when she spoke her painted pictures. We would go to the local coffee shop and talk for hours."

"What happened? Why did you split up?"

I sigh, rubbing my hand across the wide expanse of my belly. "Well see that's the thing. We were really close and I cared deeply for her. But she wanted us to be official and to meet my family. And I said no."

Penelope shakes her head slightly. "What? Why?"

"I was scared. I didn't want to expose that part of my life to my family. I had come to terms with the fact with the fact that I liked men and women but I honestly didn't know how my family would react. So I told her I couldn't do that. And while she understood that it was a step I just wasn't ready for, she wasn't interested in going back into the closet. So we went our separate ways."

"Oh honey."

"No really, it's fine Pen. It's all for the best. After college, I dated around, and eventually I broached the subject to my parents. And while they weren't thrilled, they also came to terms with it. And now I have Emily, and the baby, and everything worked out exactly the way it was meant to. And that's all I can ask for."

Pen smiles and squeezes my hand. "It really did. It's like a modern fairy tales. But with two princesses. Which is honestly way better because double the dresses and stuff." She glances at the clock on the wall. "Oh my goodness! It's so late! You need to get to bed!"

"Pen it's only 10:15, I'm fi-"

"No no no! I promised your lovely wife that I would make sure you got rest and food and were perfectly taken care of!"

"But it's only-"

"Not another word! Upstairs, it is time for us to retire!" I let her pull me upstairs to change into pajamas. She's right of course. It took a little while to find it, but between my wonderful wife and my fantastic friends, my life really did seem to be something of a fairy tale.

(Let me know what you thought!)