Author's Note: I'm not sure how many countries Emily lived in growing up, but for the sake of this chapter we're going to pretend it's five. Also, AJ Cook must have gone and gotten 'Hollywood teeth' in recent years because I swear that, in earlier seasons, they really were how I describe them in this chapter. Google Images is making me question this theory, but we're just going to pretend I'm right, okay? ;)

Author's Note 2: This is the final chapter, and I've loved every minute of writing for you guys – I forgot how encouraging you all are. Thank you for joining me on this "ride", and I hope the final installment meets any expectations you may have. :)

Enjoy! xo

Chapter Six: Part II:

Just two hours ago, in this same spot, I'd found myself oddly elated for this holiday. Now, staring at the apocalypse that my colleagues and family have designated me to clean up, I'm beginning to find a subtle hint of Christmas hatred again.

According to them, Hotch and Rossi are exempt since they made dinner; Morgan and Garcia are too – mostly because they've been glued to each other's side since the proposal; Reid is teaching Jack how write inappropriate words on a calculator; and JJ, when it was mentioned, coincidently disappeared to the bathroom. Which left me. I somewhat felt the need to remind them of the bus they threw me under earlier and the way I took it like a champ, but I let it lie and dutifully got to work.

Brushing the remnants of Christmas Crackers off of the table and into a trash can, I can't help but smile when I come to Garcia's – and I can't bring myself to throw it out either. Apparently that suddenly-present sentimental streak of mine got a little out of control, because, really, they're just torn pieces of metallic paper and yet I'm holding them on such a high pedestal that they just escaped death row. Or, rather, a landfill. Jesus, what the hell has she done to me?

As I pick up the plates that I've neatly stacked into two piles of four, that very she that – I can't deny – really did break me, pokes her head around the door. "Did you know that proposal was coming?"

"Oh, that? Of course." I wink. "Well, actually…" I chuckle. "I did… Until the part where I suddenly had no clue as to why I was in the crosshairs of, arguably, the most terrifying woman on the planet. Morgan was planning to do it last night, and seemingly changed his plan without telling me."

Apparently neither Morgan nor Rossi realized Garcia would freak out so much, and according to Rossi, the reason he immediately blamed me was because I'm Morgan's best friend, the only other person who knew about the proposal, and thus the only one in the room who would quietly take responsibility and not draw attention to it. That's a whole lot of logical thinking he conducted in the heat of the moment – something tells me he just wanted to get back at me for winning that bet he and I had. The reward for which I still haven't received…

"Well I don't know what he had planned before…" JJ grins. "But that was perfect."

"Yeah." I smile. "Yeah, it was."

And in that moment, I suddenly realize he wasn't afraid of rejection; he simply got a little more creative. He didn't want to be just another guy proposing in a restaurant. Similarly, he didn't want her to be just another woman being proposed to in a restaurant, surrounded by strangers.

Snapping from my thoughts, I look to JJ with a raised eyebrow- "That was quite the stealthy little escape, Jareau." -and lift the plates higher in my hands to indicate my point.

"I like you in that shirt…" She smirks in digression, and stalks towards me in a manner that I know isn't going to be conducive to cleaning up the dinner table. I guess that was a pretty stealthy escape too.

I sigh, my eyes fixed on her lips. "Don't smirk at me like that."

"Like what?" She asks as she steps in front of me, but doesn't alter her smile any.

"Like you're thinking inappropriate things."

Of all the things that captivate me about her, her teeth are one of them. Literally, they're fragments of calcified tissue that's sole purpose is to make the eating process easier – in my mind, they're one more thing in a pile of many that set her apart from the rest. They're not Hollywood teeth, which is to say they're not conventionally perfect, but that's exactly what makes them so perfect. It, bizarrely, fascinates me how the front two sit a fraction back from the rest, and how the end effect of a smile is dependent solely on how she wraps her lips around them. Right now, she's not choosing to wrap her lips around them at all, but has rather reversed the equation and is instead clamping them down around her lips.

Instead of ruling it Kryptonite #2, I finally realize and fully accept that she, as a whole, is my kryptonite.

"Well…" She leans into me. "Perhaps I'm not thinking appropriate things."

And without preamble, I capture her lips and back her against the table - something made considerably difficult when I'm precariously balancing four plates in both hands. "If I drop these," I whisper against her lips, "Hotch is going to be pretty pissed."

"Oh, we wouldn't want that." She grins cheekily and, instead of moving away, takes the plates from my hands and places them to the table behind her. Not exactly what I meant, but it works.

With my hands now free, I push her up onto the exact spot where Rossi, not two hours ago, was eating his Christmas dinner, and she giggles at the apparently unexpected move. "What's the matter? You suddenly developed a conscience?" She doesn't respond verbally. Instead, she slips her hands beneath my shirt to my hips and I gasp instantly. "Why are your hands so cold?"

"Bad circulation." She shrugs, an air of petulance about her. "But…" She slides her palms up stomach, which tenses, and dips her fingers beneath my bra and places them directly against my nipples. "These guys don't seem to mind."

They don't. Fuck, they don't mind at all.

"Ya know, for a straight girl," I breathe, flicking my heavy-lidded gaze down to her hands, "you seem to really enjoy touching women."

A bark of laughter bursts from her lips. "Did you really think I was straight?"

No. In hindsight, no, I didn't. But… "Sometimes it's difficult to tell the difference between hope and instinct."

Her eyes soften, her lips pull into a gentle smile. "It's just never really been a thing for me, Em. I fall for the person – male or female. Are you seriously telling me you've never been with a guy?"

I tense instantly – that devil I once knew bursting through my mind in a moment that he does not belong – and she senses it.

"That's not a conversation for right now, is it?" She asks, her eyes soothing, and yet her thumbs brush once over my nipples, effectively pulling a smirk from me and redirecting us back to less complicated territory.

I love her for that.

Pressing her lips to mine, her hands slide more confidently beneath my bra. As she moves her fingers in a deliciously teasing manner, my ability to kiss diminishes and my mouth remains slack against hers. It's so inappropriate but so – so – good…

That is until she rips those hands out from beneath my shirt and shoves me away without any kind of gentility.

Her eyes are wide, guilty, and I, with a distinct sense of caution and, somehow, an already certain idea of what caused such a look, follow her gaze... Follow it directly to Hotch who is stood by the door like he's frozen in time. Fuck.

Our demeanor naturally dons an exaggerated casualness that we're apparently hoping is enough to fool the leader of our team of body language experts, and he just stares. We're so screwed.

After almost a full minute of silent torment, his unreadable eyes shift from me to JJ, and then back to me; and I'm genuinely uncertain which way this is going to go. We're either about to get the not-angry-just-disappointed speech, or he's deliberating which one of us to fire.

"…I'm going to pretend I didn't see this." He finally says. "And then in three months' time, if this is more than a fling, you're going to come to me and tell me that you're serious about each other. Do not let this interfere with your ability to do your job."

And then, just like that, he turns to leave, and I still daren't move. But when he stops at the threshold and turns back with an uncharacteristic smirk that I fully put down to the two glasses of wine he's consumed tonight-

"Am I about to go outside and find Rossi and Reid exercising their right to impropriety?"

-my whole body relaxes like I'm playing Musical Statues and the song just started again. It's as wondrous as seeing a UFO whenever Hotch expresses some kind of emotion, but he really needs to slow down the frequency at which he's expressing those emotions tonight – I'm struggling to keep up.

"I don't know, Sir." I grimace. "But if you do, I don't want to know about it."

"Deal." He's grinning now, and his eyes linger – is that approvingly? – on JJ and I, before he finally turns on his heel and closes the door behind him.

"Oh, Jesus." I place a hand against my rapidly beating heart and turn back to a clearly unnerved JJ.

"Did our boss really just give us a three month trial period?" She's staring at the door through which said boss just left, dumbfounded. "Did that really just happen?"

I'm a little more concerned about the fact that our boss just watched me reach second base with a co-worker than the apparent trial period but… "I think so." Apparently I'm not too concerned though, because when astonished blue shifts from the door to me, I step forward and use a gentle grip on her waist to nudge her back towards the table again. "We probably shouldn't let him down, huh?"

"Oh no." She grins mischievously, lacing her arms around my neck - seemingly no longer bothered about Arron Hotchner. "That would be bad."

And it would be bad. Honestly, I hadn't truly considered that not-so small detail in this whirlwind of a holiday romance, but now that it's out there, I'm more than mildly concerned about where this will end up… It doesn't leave me concerned for my job, it leaves me curious and petrified as to whether there will be anything to tell him in three months' time, and, if there isn't, where that will leave JJ and I on the relationship spectrum. Will we be one of the few couples able to sustain a successful friendship after being intimate? Or will we be another cliché?

"Where did you go?"

She's whispering against my lips and soothing her fingers over my neck, telling me without words that any fears in my mind are unwarranted, but I find the courage and look to her with a question regardless. After the debacle I learned of back in my apartment this afternoon I, somehow, can't bring myself to withhold my feelings from her anymore – apparently that does more damage than giving them away freely. "How close did I come to totally losing the chance I never even knew I had with you?"

She smiles, small but sincere. "I think I'm supposed to say we were dangerously close to the point of no return, but that would be a lie. Because if the past three years have told me anything, it's that that point doesn't exist." Her eyes turn serious. "You could have pushed for three more years, and you'd still be the first person I search for when I open my eyes each morning."

I have no words, but I'm not sure I'm supposed to. Hers are beautiful enough. I know – I've learnt – the danger of beautiful words. Few people realize it, when they're in the midst of getting their heart torn out, but there is always a warning – a warning they should have heeded before it got to the point of finding themselves on the wrong side of love. Beautiful words are that warning. Sent direct from a Hollywood script, they're supposed to tell you that real life isn't a movie, that those words don't really belong there. And we don't listen. We never listen, because we want to believe in something better than our existence.

But, in that moment, I realize JJ's words aren't beautiful because they're what I want to believe; they're beautiful because they're honest. The reason I know that? Because, in so many ways, I'm that wrong side of love – and she's the one taking the chance on my beautiful words.

"I'm not looking to play games, Emily." She continues. "That, ironically, isn't what I'm about. And next year, when we're stood in this very same spot, I'm going to kiss you and tell you all of this again, because I know your insecurities and the reasons for your rules don't go away overnight."

"Next year?"

She nods, a small twinkle in her eyes, a small smile on her lips. "Next year. And the year after that. And the year after that…"

I raise my eyebrow- "What about the year after that?" -and she seemingly intensely deliberates the question.

"Umm… We'll see. Depends on your performance for the first few years. I'll make an informed decision when I have more to go on, but right now it's looking promising for you."

She nods enthusiastically with that final part, and I can't help but laugh. "Is that so?"

"Very." She leans into my ear. "Now… do you think we've done enough Christmas socializing? Because I'd really kind of like to reward you for your good performance right now – and not on Hotch's dining room table."

Yes. Yes, we've done enough socializing.

CM-CM-CM

In a parked car, outside of a nondescript blue house, I'm living out that perfect cliché moment where you're certain nothing and no one could ever pull you away.

I think I forgot how much I enjoy the simple act of making out with another person, but the sentiment magnifies when that person is her. I realize this is the beginnings of a honeymoon period and that this rush of magical sensation is largely accredited to that, but this is what I missed. Simple intimacy. It just doesn't exist in one-night stands, and the desire for it doesn't go away simply because you got extra good at convincing yourself it's redundant.

It isn't redundant. It is all that matters. Because in those moments when the shadows of this job inevitably seep into my world, it isn't going to be the memories of quenching my most basic human needs that I grasp for in the dark; it's going to be making out in parked cars and eating cereal on counter-tops and playing footsie beneath crowded tables.

Not that I'll ever – ever – admit that.

"Mmmm…" She murmurs against my lips. "I really need my mouth back if I'm going to leave this car."

"Really?" I ask, my mouth still smooshed against hers. "It's not detachable?"

She raises an eyebrow and pushes me away with a hand against my chest. "That is equal parts creepy and cheesy. I'm not sure I want to know what you'd do with my mouth if it were detachable."

I shrug. "The mouth is no fun without a JJ attached to it anyway."

She opens said mouth to offer some playful retort, but the suddenly mortified expression that washes over her face tells me that what she winds up saying isn't what she was initially going for. "Oh sweet Jesus… It happened."

"Um… What happened?"

"It. We became Morgan and Garcia. Talking about detachable mouths and sharing cheesy and creepy banter." Her face scrunches up in a disgusted manner, before it drops with a sigh. "Well that's it then, we can't do this." She throws out her hands and turns to climb out of my car. "Oh well, it was nice while it lasted."

"Oh-oh… No, no, no." I chuckle, pulling her back and pressing my lips instantly to hers. "You broke the curse and now you have to deal with the consequences." I kiss her some more and, eventually, reluctantly, let her go. "Now go grab some clothes and do whatever it is you need to do oh-so badly so I can work on my report card for the three year mark."

"You're not coming in?"

"I have something I need to take care of." She looks at me skeptically but follows my directive nonetheless, and I wait until she's safely inside her house before I drive away.

CM-CM-CM

When she appears at my door a couple of hours later, she gives me a quick kiss on the cheek and then runs down my hall towards the living room just like she did last night – and just like last night, it's fucking adorable. The only difference, thankfully, is that it isn't warped with questions. Well, except one…

"You didn't learn your lesson last night? Why, Jareau, are you not wearing a coat?"

"I was trying to be sexy. I didn't wear an outfit that perfectly accentuates my best assets just to then cover up with a coat." She argues with a shrug, and then notices the flaw in her logic. "And then, well, it was a lot colder than I anticipated. So now you get the sexy… but you get the frozen kind of sexy."

"Which, obviously, is the best kind." And, fuck, she really does look sexy as hell...

"Correct answer." She grins. "Wow, you really are working hard to give me good things to ponder at the three year point."

"Wait…" I hold up my finger and head towards the closet in my hall. "I have something else. There's no way you're going to trade me in for a better model after this."

"That's pretty confident talk there, Ms. Prentiss." She quirks an eyebrow as she abandons the fire in favor of whatever it is that I have. "I hope you can back it up."

"I guess that all depends on how truthful you were being when you told me how attached you are to this…" Reaching into the closet, I produce her coat, and smile contently as her face paints with pure elation. That, right there, was the reaction I was hoping for: a speechless communications liaison.

She flaps her hands – a gesture I'm certain she learnt from Garcia. A gesture that, ironically, I didn't once see Garcia conduct today. "They were open today?"

"Actually… no." I smile shyly, lowering my gaze. "No they weren't. It took seventeen phone calls to the owner and what I'm very certain is a huge IOU for tearing him away from his family on Christmas day."

I'm pretty certain I have a liquor license renewal or several expunged DUI's in my future, but that's fine… That's fine as long as I have this in my future too: two bright blue eyes looking at me like all of her Christmas wishes really did come true.

She places the coat on the stool behind her, but her eyes don't leave mine. Nor do they leave mine as she moves to stand between me and the kitchen island – the kitchen island on which I foolishly attempted to make her anything less than everything last night. And those eyes glisten with something incredible when she, with her hands gripped at the lip, pushes herself up onto granite and beckons me over.

I oblige, with far less hesitation than twenty-four hours ago, and far less detachment too. I don't want to be detached from this. I don't want to taint it with dumb rules, and I don't want to banish it until Spring. I want it now. I want it tomorrow…

I want her forever.

Reaching into her back pocket – with more than minor struggle and a few giggles at her own expense – she produces a somewhat sad-looking piece of mistletoe. Looking to it, she scrunches up her face. "Well… Perhaps I should have taken this out of my pocket before I sat down."

"It's not so bad." I lie – it looks like it got into a fight with a steamroller. The steamroller won, and to celebrate its victory, it rolled over it one more time. "But it does beg the question of why you have mistletoe in your pocket anyway?"

"It's Christmas tradition. Just like pancakes and seeing Hotch smile." She grins, and then reduces her smile to something more sincere. "And since the pancake fiasco went so well, I figured I'd try again at helping you to build better Christmas memories. Because what's more Christmassy than…" She looks to the mistletoe in her hand and scrunches up her face for a second time. "This."

Chuckling, I take it from her and pull at a few of the leaves, attempting to resuscitate it but come up short. Clearly any effort on our part for Christmas tradition is never going to wind up traditional. "Well, perhaps it's like… poetic or something."

She quirks her eyebrow. "Our love started off dead, just to grow alive?"

I snicker and drop my forehead to her shoulder. "I hate to say it, Jayje. But I don't think it's coming back to life. Your butt made certain of that."

"Is that poetic too?" She murmurs against my hair, and I can tell she's smiling. "We had something that was still growing, something that could've flourished into something beautiful given the proper time and care… and I plucked it from its life source and killed it."

Parts of me want to ask what god-awful poetry she's been reading, but when I recognize that her smile gradually faded which each one of her words, I pull back and meet her eyes. So many truths are spoken in jest. "No, Jayje. It's not dead. It's not going to die. You didn't damage it… You didn't damage me. You didn't damage us."

"I hope not…" She responds quietly, appraising me. "Because I love the hell outta you, Emily Prentiss."

Not the most eloquent thing she's ever said to me, but I'll take it. "Come here." I say, pulling her into my arms.

She smells different now – like JJ rather than me, and the scent embeds itself into my memory, forever attached to a picture of her. I think I'll add this to those things that I'll grasp for in the dark. And when, after a moment, she abruptly straightens up and holds her lame effort at Christmas tradition above our heads, smiling at me expectantly, I find myself adding that to the pile too.

Something tells me that when she planned this, she expected it to be somewhat more romantic than me giggling against her lips. Apparently mistletoes kisses are a little too traditional – and cheesy - for my tough exterior. I'd rather kiss her because the mood struck, not because a piece of foliage dictated that I should. Still, she lets my lack of cooperation slide and wraps her arms around my neck as she tosses the mistletoe aside.

Strangely, free of that obligation, my giggling ceases, and I kiss her like I kissed her in every single one of those dreams that slipped through my stubborn efforts to banish her. I kiss her like Morgan was right – like she's my forever, and like it's finally time for her to be my forever. I kiss her like I love her, free of those chains that bind me to paralyzing uncertainty and stifling control.

She kisses me like she really does love the hell out of me.

"Ya know…" I pull back, just far enough to press my forehead to hers. "When I leased this place, I had no idea this spot would become so pivotal."

Shrugging, she justifies, "Well, it's the perfect height."

"The perfect height, huh?" I grin. "The perfect height for what, Jareau?"

She blushes – apparently she hadn't intended to imply what she did. "Ya know… sitting and stuff."

"Stuff…" I muse, my lips tracing the curve of her jaw all the way to her ear. "What kind of stuff?"

Her breathing alters as my hands slide just barely beneath the bottom of her shirt, and for a moment I'm certain she forgot she was asked a question. But when she pushes me back and slips from the counter, as confidently as she did last night, she takes my hand and turns for the stairs… All the response necessary.

As she leads me up my darkened staircase, I realize we've come full circle. But this isn't where the ride ends; this is where it begins. From this point, that circle becomes a single line that will guide us through the rest of our lives. A set road that will lead you to the end of time is, in so many ways, a terrifying thing; no room for error, no room for change, no room to dodge the obstacles that we'll surely meet on our journey.

But it's JJ I'm walking it with: nothing about this journey is going to be conventional. This currently straight line is going to weave and meander and at some points become circular once more. It's going to be a ride like no other I've ever experienced – and I can't fucking wait.

With a smile on my lips for the adventure that awaits us, I grip her hand a little tighter - not as a silent reassurance to myself that she won't leave me walking that line alone, but as a reassurance to her that I won't let go of her hand. I won't, no matter what, because she's never let go of mine.

While love is a monster I know I can't defeat, it's also a monster that fascinates me… Even when I avoided it, I spent every second marveling in it. Its capabilities truly are astounding. Sure, it can weave webs so tangled that we'll never fully free ourselves from them; but it can also bust open shackles with a simple embrace, or kiss, or a two inch crack in a marble floor.

It is what ensures that a man who has lost love in the worst kind of way still holds a genuine smile for his son. It is what drives a player to quit the game. It is what inspires trust in eternity in someone who once fled from the prospect. It is what keeps a genius forever searching for ways to understand that which he could never fully understand. It is what carries a man through three divorces and ensures he sees the other side. It is what creates a family out of strangers.

It is that which travels thousands of miles, five countries, four languages, three counts of heartbreak and one count of erasing itself entirely… and somehow finds who it always was at the end. It is that which can be rejected for three years and still remain loyal.

I'm still no closer to knowing just what it is that makes one person different from another. No closer to knowing why the exact same thing can feel different with different people, or why something you don't typically care for becomes all you want to do with one person. I don't know why her lips feel different; or why her touch feels different; or why the warmth of her body feels different. I don't know why, with her inside me, I feel like the whole world is so - so – small, but also vast and magnificent and at my fingertips.

I don't know why, but I think that's okay. Maybe we're just not supposed to know. Maybe the monster we call love isn't supposed to be profiled, but simply accepted as the one thing in this world that remains the same even as it takes on different forms – even as we take on different forms. Maybe we're just meant to cherish the fact that it was bestowed upon us.

And when my very own love comes undone beneath my touch, offering me every inch of her without hesitation, and peers up at me with those beautiful blue eyes of hers, I make silent promises to never fear her as a monster again.

"What are your thoughts on New Year's Eve?" She asks, her voice still breathy and tremulous.

"I'd rather sleep through it."

"Well…" She grins, and shifts enough to meld into my chest. "I like the bed idea… Perhaps not the sleeping part."

"Oh, um, did I mention that I'm not fond of Mondays, either?" I smirk, pressing my lips to her hairline. "Or Tuesdays, or Wednesdays, or Thursdays. Not really partial to Fridays. Or Saturdays." Throwing my head back dramatically, I add, "Urgh, Sundays suck."

"Yes they do."

That is the last thing she says to me, with the most intoxicating, candid, content chuckle, before she rolls onto her side and pulls my arm around her. And with my hand pressed to her bare tummy, with her snuggled into the contours of my body, with a new affection for Christmas, I fall asleep.

It would be ludicrous to suggest that my fears are alleviated overnight, because real-life fairytales don't work that way. They work by never allowing yourself to forget that what you hold is a fairytale, and by remembering that, once upon a time, you were the villain of your own story. They work because a princess, the most beautiful princess you've ever known, never allows a day to pass without showing you, in some form, that you are the Prince Charming she always dreamed of. They work because that very same princess returns to you everything you once loved about yourself, and encourages those parts. They work, not because fears don't exist, but because something more powerful also exists.

And one year later, when I receive an unexpected phone call from a pretty blonde reminding me that it's "officially Christmas", I realize that all those differences I couldn't quite decode were within me. The difference is within me.

Love isn't a monster at all: fear is. And curses don't exist: fear does. And history isn't what will forever tie you to the past: fear will.

You can make the rules, and you can pretend that you don't love her, and you can probably even convince yourself enough of that to keep walking through life one day at a time… but what's the point? What's the point in the rules if they're just further giving you reason to make them? What's the point in pretending you don't want her when so much of you is constantly aching for how much you miss her? And what's the point in walking through life one day at a time when, really, all you're doing is killing time?

I'd much rather kill time with her. And, thankfully, I'm blessed with that privilege – yes, even beyond that third year.

-END-