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Dying in Nebraska
By Fewthistle

 

The sound of knuckles rapping on the door dragged Emily from the warm depths of slumber into the stale, stuffy air of a Nebraska hotel room. Sitting up, she reluctantly threw back the covers and shuffled over to the door, peering out through the smudged peephole.

Jennifer Jareau stood huddling in the hallway, hair tousled, eyes weary, a faded blue blanket thrown over her shoulders.

Startled, Emily quickly flipped back the safety lock and slid the door open.

"Hey, what's wrong?" She asked, face concerned as she ushered JJ into her room.

"Aside from the fact that I never really imagined that my life would end freezing to death in Nebraska, because it's minus twenty degrees outside and the air conditioner in my room is stuck on high? It would also appear that there must be a circus in town, because I swear there is a dancing elephant in the room above mine, practicing its grand jete, over and over again," JJ muttered, rubbing a tired hand over her forehead.

Emily couldn't stop the low chuckle that escaped her, despite the evil look JJ directed her way.

Walking over to the bed, Emily climbed back under the covers, turning back the blankets on the opposite side and sliding over two of the four pillows she had had piled under her head.

"Come on, get in," she invited, her smile a little less amused and a little more unsure at the thought of sharing a bed with her lovely blonde colleague. Her very lovely colleague. Her very lovely colleague who was the subject of more than an occasional fantasy on her part.

"Are you sure? I mean, I can sleep in the chair. I'm just happy to be somewhere that doesn't have icicles hanging from the ceiling," JJ asked, her own voice a little uncertain, as if the ramifications of her decision to come here were only now making themselves clear to her.

Sharing a bed with Emily was something that she had often imagined, although in her imaginings the sheets weren't white polycotton and the bedspread wasn't a shade of orange not found in nature. And she wasn't wearing gray FBI sweats. Still, it was Emily and it was a bed, and if it happened to be in East Podunk, Nebraska, then she could live with that. At least she thought she could.

Until Emily smiled at her, in that way that Emily had of smiling at her, shy and sweet and sexy all at once and said, "I'm sure. Come to bed."

And JJ thought, maybe, just maybe, that dying in Nebraska might not be a bad way to go.

The End

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