Much to Penelope Garcia's disappointment, progress on Project Jem had to be postponed until the team was back in Virginia. As was always the case with her miracle team, Garcia's friends caught the unsub just in the nick of time- hardly two days later, actually, even saving the life of his would-be victim; Garcia targeted Morgan the moment he stepped off of the jet, pulling him to the corner and hoping nobody would ask why (although, really, what were the odds? JJ and Emily were clearly preoccupied with each other; Reid had his nose stuck in the book he'd been reading on the plane; Hotch and Rossi may have wondered at Garcia's obvious urgency, but neither man really understood her enthusiasm anyway and would only chalk it up to her excitable personality). As soon as the team was out of earshot, Garcia began her interrogation.

"My chocolate Adonis, you failed to update me on Project Jem after day one! What happened?"

Morgan rolled his eyes, chuckling. "First of all, pretty woman, reusing clever nicknames should be against the rules. Second of all, the case got chaotic. I didn't have any time alone with either of them." Just as Garcia's shoulders slumped and her face curled into a (rather adorable) pout, Morgan added his good news: "But on the plane, they were speaking not-so-discretely about Prentiss going over to JJ's place tonight to pick some things up, and she was gonna stay a while."

Garcia's eyes grew wide; she clapped her hands and began muttering plans to herself: she was going to stop by JJ's apartment that evening to suggest they watch a movie and would, inevitably, catch Emily there, too. Garcia knew, despite the fact that she spent her days in front of computer screens rather than around real people and that she certainly wasn't trained to observe behavior like her colleagues, that she could tell when two 'friends' were more than they let on. Yes, she was going to find absolute proof, if for no other reason than for her personal satisfaction.

/

That evening, as planned, Garcia skipped merrily up to JJ's door. Had she been walking more discretely, she might have walked in on Emily with her sweater sleeves pushed up, listening to JJ's monologue of "it's been, what, a week and a half? A very stressful week and a half, Em, and you've kept yourself safe. I'm so, so proud of you." But Garcia was anything but subtle, and the moment Emily heard footsteps outside of the door, she hushed JJ and pulled her sleeves down over her hands. She did not, however, move from her position, curled up into JJ's side.

Garcia threw the door open unannounced and tried to not be obvious as she absorbed the scene before her: two half-drunk cups of coffee, Emily's head on JJ's shoulder, knees curled beneath her, and a blanket thrown over the two of them. It was sweet, it was comfortable, and while Garcia wanted to celebrate- as she had quickly come to the conclusion that Emily and JJ were, in fact, a couple (a suspicion which she had held in the back of her mind for some time which had been strengthened and cemented when Morgan mentioned their planned evening rendez-vous)- but feared frightening her friends into silence.

"Hey, girlies!"

"Garcia, I- I mean, not that it isn't great to see you, but… what are you doing here?" JJ stumbled to find a way to convey her surprise without making her friend seem unwelcome.

"I texted you that I was going to come over? That my neighbor had his theatre troupe over and it was far too loud for my liking?" Garcia furrowed her brow, though she was, of course, lying. No such theatre troupe existed, and no such text had ever been sent, but she didn't want to come off as presumptuous or like she had invited herself over (which she had, but that was neither here nor there). Thankfully for Garcia, JJ had been complaining about her shitty cell service for some time, assumed the text had gotten lost in the virtual void, and moved along.

"Oh. Okay. Well, come in, then! Em and I were- we were just going to watch a movie. Any suggestions?"

Garcia sat down on the end of the couch opposite JJ and Emily and smiled wide. She insisted she'd watch anything they wanted to, and as soon as the other two were absorbed in the movie, she sent a text to Derek full of exclamation points and heart emojis that proclaimed the perceived relationship of her two friends.

/

After the film ended, Emily went home- partly eager to see her cat again, whom she feared would grow more attached to the catsitter who lived next door than he was to her, and partly because she'd hardly had a moment's privacy in… ages. Garcia, seeing that her spy duties were fulfilled and wanting to avoid overstaying her surprise welcome, also left, and JJ promptly fell asleep.

Emily was not quite so lucky. Her head, as she drove home, was filled with static, white noise. The fact that she couldn't figure out what was wrong only worsened the buzzing, the confusion, the sense of being completely and utterly overwhelmed. Upon returning home, she paced the apartment, watching the TV for a few minutes at a time and then flicking it off because the noise distracted her from… from what? From trying to think, and failing miserably? She would inevitably turn it on again in the hopes of finding a distraction, and then back off, and then on, and off.

Emily's solution to this was a glass of wine to at least blur the sharp edges of incomprehensible thoughts. Perhaps twenty minutes later, another glass was in order. An hour after that, one more. She continued this way until seven in the morning, the time between drinks always increasing, until she felt an unbearable urge to scream welling up inside of her. What is the matter with you? she mentally shouted at herself, There is nothing wrong! You don't even know what's overwhelming you! You don't even know what's upsetting you, so calm down and go to work!

But to even begin the process of showering, dressing, and driving to work was far too much for Emily to handle. She took a swig of vodka from the bottle, a quiet thought in the back of her head insisting that this was far too reminiscent of her young adulthood to be safe; another swig to quiet that voice. Added to that was sleep deprivation and the residual effects of the wine she'd stopped drinking… how long ago? Before sunrise, she was sure of that. Together, the numbing effects became more than Emily could handle, and she seemed to move on autopilot, watching her hands move but not recognizing them as her own, as she pulled blades from the bathroom cabinet.

A/N: So things are getting a little serious but I promise, we'll eventually get to a much cutesier point. Thank you all for reading, you wonderful darlings xo