Chapter Text
JJ knew something was bothering Emily. Her first thought was that maybe they didn’t include her enough so the brunette probably didn't quite feel like she was belonged yet. JJ was really trying to make things right with Emily, so they wouldn’t all end up in the same situation they were a year ago with another brunette.
Deep down, the media liaison knew Elle’s downfall was on all of them.
The entire situation, starting with how they handled the Fisher King could’ve been dealt with better, had they paid more attention. JJ would never say it out loud, but she carried some of that guilt with her. And that feeling had gotten more and more intense ever since Emily had came into the team. After hearing Elle saying that she had never really felt like she was part of the team, JJ figured the best she could do was make really sure that Emily never felt like that.
This is how she ended end up on Emily’s desk, waiting for her to come out of whatever meeting she had. Who she had a meeting with, JJ did not know, which did struck her as bit a strange, given that when it came to the BAU, everything had to pass by JJ first. So if the brunette had a meeting, JJ should know who with, how and when. But Emily knowing most of the higher ups due to her mother, JJ just brushed it off.
A couple minutes later, JJ knew she had work to do, she couldn’t just afford to waste her time waiting for the brunette all day. Instead, she sent a message to Emily telling her to come to her office when she was finished.
Deeply engrossed in her files, still debating which case to choose, a knock pulled JJ out of her thoughts. When the brunette came in, JJ felt her breath hitch.
She was so beautiful it made the blonde’s heart ache. If she was honest with herself, she knew she had a crush on the brunette, but she tried to rationalize by telling herself that crushes happened, it was totally normal.
Plus, she didn’t know if Emily was attracted to women, but she wasn’t about to pull herself out there and make a fool of herself. So JJ waited for an opening, a possible opportunity casually to bring it up.
Still, every time she saw the brunette talking, smiling or just doing anything really, she could feel that it was way more than a crush. She was falling. Hard. She could faintly hear Emily’s voice in the background but she couldn’t make out anything that was being said. Emily started to laugh and said her name a little bit more forcefully.
“JJ! Are you even listening?” The brunette’s tone brought her back to reality she heard, and the blonde started laughing softly, mumbling something about being tired and needing some rest.
“You said you wanted to see me? Is everything okay?” Emily said worryingly.
So far, Emily had gotten along great with the blue eyed woman. She had been nothing but friendly ever since she joined the team, immediately taking her in.
Emily knew she was in a tough place with the team. Everything that had been going on with Hotch and Strauss was complicated to say the least. She did thought she had proved herself to Gideon on her first case, but she knew it was nothing solid, and could unravel at the slightest mistake. At first, she was constantly nervous, feeling like everyday was going to be her last on the team. Hotch and Gideon were the leaders, so Emily naturally expected their view of her shape the team’s.
However, she quickly realized how they both felt about her didn’t really affect the other members’ opinion. She had apparently been wrong? For her to be so far off didn't make sense. In a team like that - a family if you will - there is always a person who’s opinion shapes the other members’. A moral compass, someone who is deeply trusted by the team, someone who everyone rely on because overtime, they have proven themselves to be trustworthy of making such judgements of character.
Emily had naturally assumed at least one of the leaders to be that person. However she had been wrong. She thought about who it could be? Garcia always saw the best in everyone, and though it was a great personal quality, a whole federal team could never rely on it. Reid seemed way too inexperienced for the team to hand him that responsibility. So it only left Derek and JJ. Suddenly, she was taken back to an incident that had previously happened.
A couple weeks after her arrival, Emily had started hearing rumors, saying her mother had heavily influenced her place in the FBI, that she has gotten that spot in the BAU without deserving it, just because her mother knew Hotch. She knew it was unfair, and it pissed her off because damn had she had to work to get there. But she never said anything. Losing it over stupid things she had heard her entire life wouldn’t do any good.
A few days later, she heard the same group of people snickering behind her back and she had enough, feeling herself about to snap, she chose to exit the room instead. Trying to calm down, she took a sip of her beverage, quickly realizing she had forgotten to put sugar in her coffee. After debating with herself whether going back was worth it or not, she decided to give it a go, just in and out, no more than 30 seconds if she hurried.
However when she came back, she was met with a completely different sight. The blonde seemed pissed and the group that had looked so smug earlier, all suddenly looked a little between ashamed and scared, scrambling to find something to do, not daring to meet Emily’s eyes.
No need to be a profiler to notice they had just been told off by the media liaison. For what though? Emily didn't know. She obviously suspected that it had to do with what they were talking about when she came in, but the brunette didn’t want to assume.
The black haired woman took a few steps, intending to tell the woman she didn’t need to do that, but she was interrupted by the blonde’s phone ringing. She simply winked at Emily before saying “What good is a team if we don't have each other’s backs?” and left to take the phone call in an another room.
Emily hadn’t heard a single rumor about herself since then, she wasn’t foolish enough to think that people now thought different of her, that they finally saw her efforts and how dedicated she was, but at least, they weren’t vocal about it anymore. The brunette finally understood, for the first time, how good it felt to have someone have her back.
Emily wasn’t blind, she saw how everyone in the team underestimated JJ, and maybe that was why the woman even came to her defense in the first place. But she also noticed others things.
Despite being often undermined as an agent, JJ had quite a lot of weight in the team as a person. Hotch relied very heavily on the woman, Garcia was her best friend and often went to her for advice, Reid obviously had a crush on the blonde and would probably do anything she asked. Which, Emily could very much see where he was coming from. And even Morgan, had told her from day one not to ever get on JJ’s bad side. She had once given him an ever-lasting stack of tedious paperwork for two weeks after he had pissed her off.
This was the day that Emily realized for sure that JJ was the one everyone trusted to assess wether or not someone deserved to be part of their family.
Although taking very seriously the threat of a potential bureaucratic hell, Emily knew she had to stay on JJ’s good side for other reasons. She had noticed from the start that the blonde was the glue that held the team together. If JJ accepted her, the whole team would soon follow. And they really did. Even if Hotch was still weary of her, she had earned her spot on the team.
Which is why when Emily gets out of her meeting with Strauss, she panicked when she saw the text message of JJ summoning her to her office.
The blonde had been nothing but a breath of fresh air, constantly providing Emily with a safe place to unwind, to ask questions and to be herself. To be honest, she could feel herself falling for the younger woman a little bit more each day. But in her defense, it was very hard not to, JJ was funny, smart, caring, and really, like really beautiful.
Trying to shake the bad feeling she had, which was probably just a result of the conversation she just had, she headed straight to media liaison’s office.
Hearing a faint voice telling her to come in, she did. As she made eye contact with the blonde, she felt all the negative emotions she carried prior to stepping into the office melt away. After a few moments, she asked the media liaison why she wanted to see her, but strangely got no answer back. JJ was just staring at her and the brunette started to try and recall if she had done anything that warranted getting the silent treatment.
After going over everything she had done in the last few days, she was just hoping JJ hadn’t learned what Strauss was asking from her. Emily figured it would ruin the trust that had been built over the course of their newfound friendship.
The older agent started laughing nervously before asking “JJ? Are you even listening?”. That had seemed to shake her out of her whatever spell she had seemed under, and Emily felt herself physically relax as the blue eyed woman started laughing along with her, saying she was tired.
Still she needed to make sure that everything was okay between them, and that she hadn’t gotten herself in trouble. All the worst case scenarios were whirling around in her head. She watched as the younger woman put her file down, walked around her desk to softly lean on it. She starting running her hand in her hair, taking a deep breath before she started talking.
“Yeah of course, everything’s fine. Actually, I… um. I kinda noticed that something has been bothering you lately. I just… I don’t know. I just, I wanted to make sure you knew that whatever it is, you don’t have to bear it alone, you know, I’m here for you. If you ever need me to be I mean.” JJ could feel herself blushing, she couldn’t get herself to stop talking and she had just embarrassed herself in front of the girl she was trying so hard to impress.
Emily suddenly averted her eyes looking down as she felt like she had been struck by lightening. A sudden feeling of warmth spread across her whole body. JJ cared about Emily. She was genuinely worried about her. In her whole life, the brunette had never had someone look at her with nearly as much care and sincerity than JJ. When she looked up, she could see the media liaison.. blushing? She had made JJ blush?
Emily had never had a diary, but if she did, this would definitely be written in bold capital letters. Emily had made JJ blush.
Suddenly emboldened, the brown-eyed woman took a step forward, getting dangerously close to the blonde’s face. She looked down at her lips, genuinely meaning to say something. To thank the younger agent for her support, or to reassure her or something.
But when she looked back up at JJ’s eyes, she felt her breath getting caught in her throat. JJ had beautiful eyes, she had noticed them the very first second they met in Hotch’s office. But seeing them so close was an otherworldly experience Emily wasn’t sure how to come back from.
Lucky for her, the media liaison had other plans. All this time, JJ had been waiting for an opportunity. She had caught the older woman’s gaze stopping at her lips earlier and she knew, this was the opening she had desperately longed for.
Trying to prevent herself from overthinking, the blonde decided it was a now or never kind of situation. So she cupped the other agent’s face gently in her hands and slowly leaned in, letting enough space for Emily to back away if she wanted to.
Emily was pretty sure anyone in the building could hear her heart beating out her chest. She closed the gap between them and when their lips met, Emily felt like she had never started living until this very moment.
Her 36 years on this Earth had meant nothing until she had met JJ. Now knowing how it felt to kiss the woman currently attached to her lips, the brunette was sure would be chasing this feeling for the rest of her life.
For her part, JJ had imagined this moment a thousand times, in her head when she was alone in her bed at night, or daydreaming about it whenever she caught sight of the older woman. But no amount of imagination could ever compare to what she was experiencing right now. It was simply perfect.
Suddenly, the blonde’s ringtone hung in the air, bringing both women back to reality, two sets of lips breaking apart with a soft sigh.