calliopes_muse

Title: Taking Chances

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Pairing: Emily/Jordan

Rating: PG, kind of fluffy

Summary: It’s time for JJ to return, and for Emily it may be her last chance.

A/N: You can thank a comment by diane_nipson14 for inspiring this. I really hated the way Jordan just seemed to disappear at the end of the last episode “Normal,” so this kind of fixes it in my mind.

Emily was as stunned as everyone else to see JJ standing in the bullpen with Henry in tow. She was honestly excited about her returning, but when she saw a now familiar dark head disappear into JJ’s office, she felt a strange pang of loss and even fear.

She knew she had held her feelings for JJ inside, and she knew she had lost her chance with the blonde liaison. A small part of her knew it was for the best. JJ had Will and now she had Henry. No matter how much it hurt to let it go, she couldn’t deny that motherhood suited JJ. A larger part of Emily also was recognizing her self-imposed prison for what it was. For too long, she had locked herself away thinking if she didn’t love then she couldn’t hurt.

Seeing Jordan walk away from the group, she knew she was wrong.

Easing away from the team, she climbed the steps to JJ’s office. It was left cracked open, but out of courtesy, she knocked. Jordan turned and held a box in her hands. The same box Jordan had carried into JJ’s office on her first official day on the job.

“Hey,” Jordan set the box on the desk and began to pick up the small knick-knacks from around her. Emily smiled to herself realizing that Jordan must have taken some of Garcia’s advice about making a place your own. It was Garcia’s own way of forcing the ghosts of the dead out of her personal space. The team dealt with the ugliest parts of humanity, and saving a little piece of yourself sometimes made all the difference in separating the thin line between sanity and madness.

Emily had saved too much of herself, held too much back, trying to separate herself from the madness. All it did was separate her from everyone else.

She picked up one of Jordan’s toys, one of those dime-a-dozen stress balls, this one shaped like the head of Sigmund Freud, that could be found at any conference vendor table.

“I really enjoyed having you around, Jordan.”

“Thanks, Emily. Same here.”

“I mean,” she squeezed Sigmund as hard as possible in her hand, and let out a shaky sigh, “I, um, hate to see you go.”

“Yeah, but we knew it was going to happen eventually. Maternity leave can’t last forever after all.” Jordan held out her hand to Emily, motioning for her to give up the squeeze toy.

“Oh, sorry. Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Emily didn’t know what to do with her empty hands now so she put them in her pockets, as she teetered nervously from the balls to the heels of her feet.

Jordan moved around to the front of the desk and with a small smile, she crossed her arms and waited on Emily.

“See, the thing is Jordan, I’ve always been really reserved about, well…basically everything in my life, and I’ve realized that so many great things are passing me by. There are missed opportunities and lots of regret, and I’m really tired of that. I’m tired of holding everything in and not taking a chance and wondering if I had just said something, then everything would have been different, you know?”

Jordan looked at her confused yet slightly amused, “I think so.”

“Well, the thing is,” Emily’s hands just wouldn’t stay put and she tried to push down the nervous energy pumping through her, but it didn’t work, “the thing is, um, I wondered if, um, you’d maybe, if you felt like it or whatever and had the time or something, if you’d want-to-go-out-with-me-sometime.”

Emily finished in a rush and took a deep breath, waiting for Jordan’s reaction.

A slow, and,if Emily was honest with herself at the moment, one hell of a sexy smile spread across Jordan’s face, “Why, Emily Prentiss, I do believe you’re asking me out on a date.”

“Or, you know, it could just be drinks or coffee or something insignificant like that. It doesn’t have to be a big production or issue.”

Emily looked around quickly, wondering if there was a convenient hole she could jump into. Before she knew it though, Jordan had crossed the room and had taken Emily’s face in her hands, “I’d love to go out with you, Emily.”

“Really?”

Jordan leaned in and kissed her lightly on the lips, “Really.”