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Derek was on his way out when he saw a woman looking around confused, standing by the elevator, a visitor pass clipped to the front of her jacket. And if he was being entirely honest, she was capital H-O-T hot. Her blond hair cut and curled in a neat bob above her shoulders, her green eyes framed by her long eyelashes, her freckled cheeks pulling into a small smile that revealed her dimples as they made eye contact. And good god, Derek usually wasn’t the type of guy who’d go week at the knees just by a beautiful woman looking in his direction - he was used to have that effect on girls - but maybe this mystery blonde was just his one true weakness, his kryptonite (look, just because he was a player didn’t mean he wasn’t a romantic).
The woman wore a loose-fitting deep green blouse that brought out the striking colour of her eyes while simultaneously complementing her curves. She wore jeans that had seen some ware and tare but she still managed to make them look professional, the leather jacket she wore over her blouse much the same, worn and used but still nice.
Derek didn’t even think before confidently walking up to the woman, putting on his charm and his ‘Lady catcher smile™’ (the name kindly bestowed upon him by Garcia).
“Do you need any help sweetheart?” he asked and she let out a breathy laugh, and Derek swears that his heart was about to beat out of his chest with the speed that it was going.
Derek was fine, excellent really, under pressure (being on the bomb squad, that was kind of an entry level requirement), he could stare down killers and rapist without his heart skipping a beat. But here he was, standing in front of a normal fricking person (albeit the most beautiful person he’d ever seen) and it felt like he was having a heart attack, was this woman even human?
“I, is Sam here?” she asked, her voice airy and light, and Derek was pretty sure she was an angel, at least the way she was making him feel was inhuman.
Then what she said caught up to him, breaking through the mist her presence had created around his mind. “Burns? Yeah, she’s in, I think were all about to head out though. How do you now Sam?”
“Great. Oh, I guess she hasn’t told you yet, I’m her sister.”
It took a moment for what she really said to set in, they were already well on their way into the bullpen before he halted to a stop, the woman turning around and stopping too, having realised he wasn’t at her side anymore.
“Sister?” he asked, more to himself than anyone else. As he looked over the woman before him, referring to his mental image of Burns, he tried to spot any similarities. But there weren’t any, this woman’s light hair was in stark contrast to Burns’s dark-almost black hair, this woman had those striking green eyes while Burns had warm brown eyes. And even the skin tones were different, Burns had tan olive hued skin while the woman in front of him had fair skin sprinkled with freckles. In fact, they were almost polar opposites, defiantly not blood related.
He must have been staring for a while because the woman let out another heavenly laugh before saying: “It was a while since I’ve gotten that look, especially without Sam even in the room. To answer your question though, yes, Sam is adopted.”
“Yeah, no, that makes sense.” he said with a small chuckle, ducking his head away to hide the blush tinging his face a shade darker.
As soon as they stepped through glass door to the bullpen an exited shout of “Jess!” came from the form of Burns, who was booking it in the direction of the woman - Jess, apparently - arms open wide, ready to dive into a hug.
The two women crashed together, hugging tightly as Derek met the confused looks of the rest of the team, smiling to himself. After a few seconds Burns pulled away from the hug, still holding onto Jess’s biceps, the smile on her face fading into a confused frown. “Wait, why are you here?”
Jess let out a breathy chuckle, an incredulous look on her face as she said: “Really? Okay, what date is it?”
“August fourteenth.” she replied automatically, clearly still not getting whatever she was supposed to get.
A beat, in which the team looked on expectantly and Jess wore a ‘you should really know this’ look on her face, before Burns let out a quiet gasp.
“How the hell did I forget my own birthday?” she squeaked, earning a few gasps and laughs from the rest of the team.
“Really, it’s your birthday? Why didn’t you tell us?” Reid asked, sounding genuinely hurt by that fact. They all laughed at that, looking at Reid with matching incredulous expressions, for being so smart, sometimes the kid really was stupid.
“Well, I obviously forgot about it.” Burns managed to get out between laughs.
The laughter died down, but before they could settle into an awkward silence Rossi cut in. “Well kiddo, are you going to introduce us.” He asked, hiding a small chuckle behind his coffee mug.
“Oh, right, yeah…everyone this is my sister, Jess” she gestured to the person beside her, before quickly adding on “adoptive sister” to skirt around that awkward conversation. “Jess, this is David Rossi, Dr Spencer Reid, Emily Prentiss, and the man you seemed to have already met is Derek Morgan.” She said, pointing to each person as she said their name.
“I was here to take Sam away to get some birthday drinks, but you’re all welcome to join us if you want.” Jess said to the team, electing a low groan from Burns.
Rossi laughed “what? don’t want us to come with?”
“No, no, I just wasn’t prepared to go out to a bar today. You all can come; you have to ask Garcia too though, or else she will feel left out.”
----
20 minutes later and Jess, Derek, Burns, Reid, Garcia, Emily and Rossi sat in the corner of some random bar downtown. They’d invited JJ and Hotch as well, but both had declined, something about ‘having paperwork to get done’.
There weren’t that many other patrons in the small homey looking bar - probably something to do with the fact it was a Wednesday night. So, they were almost alone, a few sad looking fellas sitting by the bar and drowning their sorrows in beer their only company.
When Garcia had met Jess, she’d talked so fast Derek was worried she’d explode if she didn’t stop to take a breath soon. And sure, he’d been on the bomb squad, but that did not make him equipped to handle an explosive Garcia. And like Garcia did with everyone she met, she made sure that Jess knew that they were now best friends. And even if Jess didn’t reciprocate those feelings, unless she did something Garcia deemed ‘uncool’ (for example murder or being mean to Penelope’s friends) Garcia would still put effort into the possibly one-sided relationship.
After ordering drinks, Rossi, the surprisingly sociable man that he was, started talking, which soon turned to round table small talk (although it was mostly centred around Jess and Sam). He learned that Jess was a police officer at the same precinct that their dad was captain of, and that they had a brother who was a nursing student. He also learned that Burns was apparently a boxing champion, which he could honestly believe just by seeing her in action taking down an unsub, and he’d now gotten her promise that they were going to work out together sometime.
The team shared stories and in return Jess and Burns (mostly Jess) shared stories from their childhood. Most of them being embarrassing ones about Burns, she was the birthday girl after all.
Jess was in the middle of telling one of those stories when the front door opened and a head of dishevelled pink hair popped into view.
“-and then she runs up to dad completely covered in flour-“ Jess cut herself of, turning around to look were everyone else was looking. Her face lighting up in that magical smile of hers when she met the man’s eyes, waving him over, her dimples on full display. And looking over, Derek could see Burns was wearing the same expression, though her eyebrows were raised in shock.
The man saunters over, an amused grin on his freckled face, his hands in the pockets of his brown leather jacket, adorned with patches along the sleeves. His pink mop of hair was a light brown at the roots, the tips of his bangs hanging Infront of his hazel-green eyes, a layer of light stubble on his chin. He wore ripped black jeans and a graphic-tee of some band Derek’s never heard of, a backpack hanging of one shoulder.
And by the man’s physical appearance and the two Burns’s reactions, he had a pretty good idea of who he was.
His suspicions were proven correct when – after exchanging hugs with both Jess and Sam – Jess introduced him. “Okay, our party just got a little bit bigger. Everyone this is Ashton, our brother.”
They all exchanged pleasantries and when they started talking again it was Ashtons turn to take the brunt of most of the questions.
Derek learned that Ashton apparently had a band (which really wasn’t all that surprising) and that they were actually coming down next week to play at some local bars. Which they were now all invited to.
---
It was nearing midnight and they were packing up to leave. All of them were different levels of tipsy or drunk so they opted to order a few cabs and carpool to their desired destination.
Derek ended up in a car with Jess and Emily, their places and hotels closest together. Emily leaning against the window, asleep. She wasn’t even a lightweight, she just drank so dam much sometimes. Jess pressed against his other side, their knees and shoulders touching. Derek’s skin burned with the heat of where they made contact, even through the 2 plus layers of fabric separating their actual skin.
Derek could feel the heat from his left side spreading throughout his body, igniting a fluttering flame in his stomach. The flame inside him grew, tickling the inside of his stomach with every breath escaping Jess, the scent of her vanilla perfume enveloping him. He watched as her long eyelashes fluttered against her freckled cheeks as she looked outside the window, her cheeks rosy from the alcohol.
She was honest to God (a god he didn’t really know how to feel about) the most beautiful woman he has ever met, and the intense need to want to learn everything about her just made the nervus, giddy fluttering in his stomach stronger.
He was so raped up in watching her, admiring every freckle on her skin and every strand of her hair, that he didn’t even notice when the car pulled to a stop. He only realised that they had stopped moving when he heard the door to his left clicking open. He looked over to see Jess had unbuckled her seatbelt and was climbing out of the car. She gave him a small smile and a soft “goodbye” before she closed the door between them.
Before he really registered what he was doing, he had unbuckled his own seatbelt, told the cab driver Emily’s address and was climbing out of the car after Jess.
“Wait” he shouted out after her retreating form, making her stop and turn around.
He jogged up to her. Standing mere inches apart, slightly breathless, more so from the anticipation of what he was about to do (what the hell was he doing?) than the physical exertion of running from the car.
Jess looked up at him, searching his eye. And her eyes were glowing, catching the light from the streetlamps overhead. He swallowed and licked his lips, and somehow Derek Morgan, the man with the highest body count (sexually) in the BAU, only riveled by David Rossi, didn’t know what to do. He froze, just straining at the woman before him, their faces so fricking close, both of their lips already parted, anticipating what comes next.
“C-can, I?” he stammered, a blush creeping up his neck, tinging his cheeks a shade darker.
Jess nodded breathlessly, and apparently that was all it took for Derek to get his mojo back, his body unfreezing. He surged forward, meeting their lips in a soft but passioned kiss. Her lips were smooth and soft and tasted like strawberries, everything about it was the perfect kiss; the feel, the taste, the person.
As he pulled away, Derek darted his tongue out to lick his lips, a sigh of happiness escaping him when he tasted Jess’s strawberry Chapstick again.
He looked into those beautiful green eyes that were looking into his own chocolate ones, and he was completely gone (‘maybe something to do with the alcohol’ his more sober brain would say, but right now in that moment his mind was clouded over with the haze of her perfume, rendering him unable to form a coherent thought).
He’d never felt this kind of attraction before, not really. He’d had his fare share of just physical attraction; someone he’d have a one-night stand with but nothing more, someone he couldn’t be in a happy relationship with because their only attraction to each other was through sex. A few times he’d felt like he truly loved someone, that they could be together and actually be happy if the circumstances were right, but that feeling he had then was miniscule in comparison to what he was feeling now. He felt like his heart was beating solely because hers was too, like now that they’d met something inside him shifted, making room for this woman - this woman who he’d known for less than a full day, mind you – to be with him forever, to have their hearts beating in sync as they slowly grew old together.
The others would laugh at him just now if they could hear his thoughts (really, when the hell did he become such a sappy romantic), but he just couldn’t be bothered to care about that, not when everything he didn’t know he wanted was right in front of him.
He'd never really believed in love at first sight, but calling what he was feeling right now anything less seemed lacklustre. (Garcia would squeal with glee if she was here to witness her big strong ‘chocolate thunder’ melting by the mere presence of this beautiful woman).
He leaned down slowly, pressing a drawn-out peck on her lips, savouring the taste of her Chapstick and the smell of her perfume. He pulled away a moment later, electing a small whine from Jess that made him chuckle. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a business card (something, something FBI. The important thing was that it had his phone number on it), holding it out to her between two fingers.
She took it and smiled, leaning forward on the tips of her toes to kiss him on his cheek. With a great amount of effort, they pulled away from each other and said their goodbyes, steeling one last kiss before parting ways. Jess in the direction of her hotel and Derek in search of a new cab (after impulsively abandoning his old one) both of them giddy from the nights events and looking forward to the next time they spend time together.
Who knew that all it took for Derek morgan to melt into a mushy pile of cheesy quotes and sappy romanticism was one amazing woman (probably Garcia, but it was supposed to be rhetorical).