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A cheerful tune, hummed more or less in the right key, echoed through the otherwise silent apartment. It was dark, the lights still set low enough that you could barely make out the profile of the sofa and the now snack-filled coffee table in front of it.
But it didn’t matter — not when Penelope had been living in this place for so long that she bet she could walk around with her eyes closed and only occasionally bump into something here and there.
She silently thanked her past self for leaving an extra copy of her keys well hidden in her office, just in case, because otherwise it would have been a nightmare to get in.
The original key, complete with her favorite fluffy keychain, was still in JJ’s possession and, oddly enough, she had stopped texting before lunchtime. Which was why Penelope was currently trying to get into her own apartment and find out what the heck had happened to the guardian angel of help she had sent to check on Emily that morning.
“Gonna take a little longer than predicted. Don’t worry. I got this”
That was the last text she had received from JJ, almost three hours ago.
No more updates. No calls. No returning to the office.
During the drive back home, she had imagined opening the door and finding Emily and JJ on the sofa or sitting at the kitchen counter, talking about the whole Garrity thing or the case or… pretty much anything.
Finding the place silent and empty made her worry a little.
What if something had happened here?
If they had moved to either JJ’s or Emily’s place, one of them would have told her.
The lights weren’t off. Empty snack papers and juice bottles were still scattered around, so clearly they hadn’t left the way they normally would after a game night or an impromptu dinner.
“Girls?” she called out, but no answer came.
So, no bathroom and no balcony. Great.
Grabbing her phone, she dialed Emily’s number first and was surprised when the ringtone echoed through the living room.
The phone was on the floor, right next to the couch, long forgotten.
Did they get kidnapped?
Okay, no need to panic yet, right?
Cleansing breath first. Inhale...peace, not panic. And exhale…
And it was only then, while trying to calm down and reach for the phone on the floor, that she noticed something out of place, a little farther away.
Was that a shoe?
Did I leave the bedroom door open this morning?
Nope. No way. Not with the alarm set off.
Holding her breath, she slowly opened the door, making sure to keep a decent distance so she wouldn’t get shot or something — she had seen enough pictures of crime scenes to know better than to jump into a room before checking it first.
But when she peeked inside, she didn’t find a robber or a serial killer.
No, nothing like that.
Instead, she found something pretty shocking and unexpected — maybe not totally unexpected, if she were being honest, but still…not like this.
“Oh my…” she muttered before she could stop herself.
“But those are the good sheets”
Penelope immediately backed out of the room.
“Nope” she whispered to herself.
“Nope nope nope”
Three hours earlier…
“Honestly…I wanna quit” Emily said, sounding more tired than definitive.
She expected a comment back from JJ, something about how she was made for the job and couldn’t leave the team and all that JJ serious-talk stuff, but nothing came.
No. JJ simply plopped back onto the sofa, staring into nothing.
Well, it made sense, considering she had accidentally ingested like half a dozen edible Cheetos while not even being used to them in the first place.
And that was another thing to add to the list, no?
Didn’t take away the edible Cheetos when “Cheeto Breath” got into the apartment.
What a crappy Unit Chief she was.
“You’re not a crappy Unit Chief”
Emily blinked.
Did I say all of that out loud?
“Yes, you did” JJ answered after a beat.
“You are, actually”
Am I? Damn...thank God I didn’t say anything else.
The phone buzzed in Emily’s hand, making them both jump and cutting down the “what else could you have said?” question on JJ’s lips.
‘Are you sure you want to delete this message?’
So the phone was making all the right question now.
“Delete it. Delete the fucking message Emily” JJ almost growled from her precarious position at the edge of the sofa.
“I can’t delete it. I gotta quit. For the team, for you, for...ouch, JJ, what are you doing?”
JJ surged forward out of nowhere — showing an impressive amount of core strength — and tried to grab the phone. She managed to get half of it in her grip, immediately starting a clumsy battle of pushing and pulling to pry the rest out of Emily’s hands.
“JJ…stop…and why are you so against the idea of me quitting anyway? It’s not like I’d move to Antarctica, you know” Emily asked, refusing to loosen her grip on the phone but somehow amused by the whole situation.
JJ was never childish enough to start the phone equivalent of a pillow fight and Emily wasn’t high enough not to realize something was bothering her.
“Why do you even care this much?” Emily asked, breathless from struggling to both keep the phone in her hand and read a room that was still moving a little faster than it normally would — which is not moving at all, by the way.
JJ froze for a moment.
Which, unfortunately, was long enough to say everything.
Emily’s grip on the phone loosened slightly, causing for the other woman to fall back onto the couch.
“JJ…”
“Don’t quit” JJ said quietly and suddenly none of this sounded like a joke anymore.
The apartment fell silent except for the faint rustling of snack wrappers every time one of them moved and the occasional honk from cars rushing through the city outside.
And maybe it was the edibles.
Maybe it was exhaustion.
Maybe it was months — years — of unresolved feelings crashing together at the worst possible moment. But whatever it was, it shifted something.
At some point, JJ had wrapped one hand around Emily’s wrist, fingers warm and oddly steady despite everything else about her current situation being questionable.
“You scared me, okay?” JJ admitted.
Emily blinked. That…had not been the answer she expected.
“I’m sitting right here, JJ. Maybe not at my best, but I’m still here”
“You were talking about disappearing”
“I was talking about paperwork and burnout”
“That’s profiler code for di-sap-pea-ring” she said, stumbling a little while trying to put emphasis on the last word.
Despite herself, Emily laughed softly and JJ looked entirely too pleased about causing it.
“There it is” she murmured.
“What?”
“The laugh. You stopped doing it lately, with all that’s been going on. I missed it, though.”
“Oh my God” Emily muttered, already feeling her face warming.
“Are you THC-enhanced emotionally perceptive right now?”
JJ squinted at her, as if seriously considering the possibility.
“I think the Cheetos unlocked my full potential”
That got another laugh out of Emily — a real one this time — and somehow that turned into leaning closer and then not really moving apart again afterward.
At some point, the phone slipped from Emily’s hand and disappeared somewhere near the couch.
Neither of them noticed nor cared, though.
Not when the rest of the world seemed to disappear too, all words and thoughts suddenly useless, as if the moment might vanish if they dared to acknowledge it out loud.
It was a split-second decision, the same kind they had to face in the field when guns were flashing and a single moment could change everyone’s lives forever.
Except…this felt heavier than any decision Emily had made so far.
But if she had to quit, to go down, to di-sap-pea-r as JJ had mumbled so damn adorably just moments ago, then why waste it? Why not take the risk and finally kiss her, like she’d wanted to do for years?
They could always blame it on the edibles, right?
That is, if JJ was going to remember any of it at all.
Emily, on the other hand, was definitely going to remember it. Every single detail, committed to memory forever.
Absolutely.
Maybe.
Well, something between kissing, being kissed back and stumbling while trying to get up from the floor — when did they even fall off the couch? — might have become a blur, but can she really be blamed for it?
The walk to the bedroom that came right after was less of a decision and more of a slow, badly coordinated migration involving one missed turn toward the hallway, JJ losing a shoe at some point, Emily laughing so hard she nearly walked into the wall and at least one serious discussion about whether the floor was being “slightly aggressive” when they eventually fell onto it again.
By the time they actually reached the bedroom, both of them had entirely forgotten about the resignation text, the phone, and the World outside the dimly lit apartment.
Unfortunately for Penelope Garcia…they had also forgotten where they were.
“Nope nope nope”
Penelope backed away from the bedroom so fast she nearly tripped over the abandoned shoe in the hallway, soon leaving Emily’s phone of the coffee table, dropping it as if it burnt.
She didn’t look back.
She absolutely did not look back.
Behind her, the apartment stayed quiet for exactly two seconds, then...
“Did she just...” JJ started.
“Yeah” Emily answered.
A pause.
Another one.
From inside the bedroom, JJ let out a slow breath that sounded suspiciously like someone trying very hard not to laugh.
“We should probably say something” she said.
“Nope” Emily replied immediately. “We should absolutely not say something”
“We’re saying something later, though”
“Waaay later”
A beat.
Then, in perfect sync:
“Not tonight”
Penelope, meanwhile, had made it all the way to the front door.
Key in hand. Victory in sight. She exhaled, finally letting go a breath she didn’t realize she was holding so hard.
“They didn’t see me” she whispered to herself. “They absolutely did not see me. I am invisible. I am a professional. I am—”
A faint vibration cut through the silence.
From the living room.
Penelope froze.
Slowly, she turned her head.
“Nope, none of my business”
She left anyway.
Behind her, inside the apartment, there was a long pause.
Then JJ’s voice, muffled but very clear:
“We should replace the sheets.”
Emily immediately replied:
“No, she loves this sheets, she’d go feral if we threw them away”
A beat.
“Garcia is never letting this go” JJ added.
“She was never letting this go anyway, JJ” Emily said.
Another pause.
Then, quieter.
“Those were the good sheets, I kinda feel guilty about it now” JJ admitted.
Emily made a sound somewhere between a laugh and regret.
“Yeah” she said. “We’re buying her new ones, whatever she likes”
Penelope, now halfway down the hallway outside the apartment, suddenly stopped walking.
She stared at the wall for a long moment, debating her life choices, then she grabbed her phone and left a voice note for Emily:
“I would like it formally noted that I am emotionally damaged, spiritually inconvenienced, and materially affected by the loss of premium bedding”
A beat.
“And I will be invoicing accordingly until the damage is fully repaired”
She resumed walking.
After a pause:
“Also, I did see you. And it was about damn time”
She stopped again, before adding something else, as an afterthought.
“…I just wish my good sheets didn’t have to be sacrificed in the process”