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“Please please please Em, it’s gonna be fun” said Garcia, sitting at the breakroom table with her friend.
“I’m tired, can’t we go there another time?” said Emily, yawning.
“No we can’t, we have to go tonight, it’s gonna be great I promise”
“What about Sergio?” asked the brunette.
Garcia frowned and smiled at the same time, knowing that Emily was trying to find any excuses to not be able to go “What about Sergio? I’m pretty sure he’s gonna survive an evening alone”
“I don’t like crowds, and Christmas makes people crazy, and there’s gonna be kids running everywhere, and I don’t need that right now”
“Can’t you make an exception?”
Garcia really wanted her friend to come, because she knew Emily wouldn’t do anything else, and she deeply needed to go out and breathe a little, especially because she knew the visit of her mother a few days earlier, and the fight they had had in front of everyone had affected Emily more than she showed it.
But there was no way Penelope was going to be able to convince Emily, she knew that, but she also knew someone else was gonna be able to.
“Okay, you win” said Garcia as she got up “I gotta go back to work”. She turned around but instead of going back to her office, she stopped by JJ’s office.
“What do you want Garcia?” asked JJ, still looking at a file.
“I need your help” said Garcia, leaning back on the door.
“With what?”
“Do you want to go to the Christmas market with me?”
“When?”
“Tonight? After work?”
JJ hesitated, she hadn’t gone out in a long time, and she was tired of spending all of her nights alone. “Okay, sure! It could be fun! But I have Henry tonight”
“Great! He can come with us, I haven’t seen my godchild in ages”
“You saw him last weekend”
“Exactly. So, as I said, I need a favor, I need you to convince Em to come with us, I’ve been trying to get her to come, but she doesn’t want to”
“And what makes you think I’m gonna be able to get her to come?”
“C’mon, you’re JJ, she’s Emily. You could get her to drive off a cliff, and vice-versa”.
JJ looked at Garcia, chuckling. “I’ll give it a try”.
It only took JJ two minutes to convince Emily to come with her. She had that inexplicable power over Emily. She came back to talk to Garcia who was waiting near her office.
“So? So? What did she say?” she asked
“She agreed”
“What did you say?”
“I asked her to come as a favor for me ”
Garcia raised an eyebrow, she was thinking something very strongly but she didn’t say a thing.
At the end of the day, Emily and Garcia went directly to the market while JJ went to pick up Henry.
“I can’t believe I’m actually going out” said Emily, getting out of Penelope’s car
“You need a life Em, when’s the last time you went on a date?”
“I- That’s not the point”
“It is, you should find someone that makes you happy, take risks, live a little”
“I take plenty of risks during my job, I’m not gonna start doing that in my personal life too” chuckled Emily.
“Not that kind of risk, you know what I mean” Penelope poked Emily, laughing.
Henry saved Emily from that conversation by jumping in her godmother’s arms.
“Oh my god Henry you’re so tall! When did you get so tall?”
JJ and Emily exchanged a smile. Every time Penelope saw her godchild, she only had eyes for him.
“Can we go see Santa? Can we go see Santa?” Henry was really excited, probably on a sugar rush.
“Yes let’s go! I have sooo many things to ask him” answered his godmother
“You too?”
“Of course! Let’s go!”
Henry grabbed Penelope’s hand and they started going towards Santa.
“You know what? Em and I are gonna go get a drink while you two have fun, okay?” said JJ, waving goodbye at her son.
“Okay whatever” said Garcia. They were already long gone.
Emily laughed as they made their way to a snack bar “Is he always like that? So full of energy?”
“Yes, it’s called being a child Emily”.
Lucky enough for them, no one was there, and they got their drinks immediately. They drank as they walked around, talking about basic things like the weather or work. Without even realizing it, they left the market. They were alone behind a wooden cabin that was used as a market stall. As they looked up, they could see some small snowflakes, slowly falling from the sky.
And just like that, all of the stress, the tiredness of that time of the year was gone. All they could think about was that it was snowing, and suddenly it was like the noise of the market had distanced itself.
Emily was the first one to break the silence as she took a step closer. “You know you’re the only reason I came, right?”
“Why?”
“Because.”
Emily took one more step. She was now right in front of JJ, she could feel her warm breath on her lips, and she could look right into her eyes and see the reflection of the stars in it, it took her breath away.
“What- what are you doing?” whispered JJ, she was afraid that if she was gonna talk too loud she would ruin the moment.
“I’m taking a risk” said Emily before finally pressing her lips on JJ’s.
JJ’s heart started beating faster as she realized what was happening. She had dreamed of this moment for months now, and it was finally happening. She couldn’t help but tear up, her wish had come true.
They were caught in the moment, and didn’t even notice Penelope approaching them with Henry. As soon as the analyst saw what they were doing, she turned around and took Henry’s hand. “You know what? We should get a waffle and leave mommy alone” she said as they walked away.
“Why?”
“Because I think she’s getting an early Christmas present that she had been waiting for for a while”
“Like me and my firetruck?”
“Exactly”.
Penelope turned around one last time and saw both women smiling at each other, without saying a word.