DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything, I'm just a fan and borrowing the characters.
CHALLENGE: Written for the second 24 Hour Challenge.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Profiler Profiled
By lysachan
Penelope Garcia tended to know absolutely everything that went on in FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. She might not have been out in the field with the other agents that often, but people would've been surprised what she could do by googling alone. Besides, everything related to their cases eventually came through her, for archiving purposes if nothing else, so most of the time she was better informed than any other member of the team. She observed, and that's what had made her office the command center of the BAU's gossip pool.
She didn't like to meddle into other people's business—just knowing about their business satisfied her—but sometimes it couldn't be helped. And this was one of those times.
Special Agent Emily Prentiss stepped out of the elevator and practically ran to her desk. Throwing her coat haphazardly towards the chair and snatching a notebook with her, she hurried up the metal railing and towards the briefing room.
The door was closed, which usually meant that a briefing had already begun, and this prompted her to mentally kick herself for not getting back faster. She'd been in the middle of a late night dinner when she'd been paged, and, against all instructions, she'd finished eating before heading out. Now she wished she hadn't.
Feeling slightly sheepish, she knocked lightly—why exactly, she didn't know—on the door and swung it open. Emily wasn't quite sure what happened next. The room was almost empty, only a single person standing on the other side of the table, and the moment she registered all this, that other person spun around and leaped across the room towards the door.
"Don't let it-." The door closed with a loud click until the person could reach it. "Dammit!"
"JJ?" The look on Emily's face was perplexed, and she was still trying to get her pounding heartbeat under control. "What's going on here?"
"I wish I knew." JJ groaned and flopped in one of the chairs.
"I...I was paged," Emily said, her eyes darting around the room. There were no case files, no photos, nothing indicating that they had a new case. She unhooked the pager from her waist and studied it, frowning.
"Yeah, so was I. Which is odd, since I usually do the paging." JJ leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling.
"But..." Emily blinked.
"There isn't a new case," JJ stated and turned to look at her. "Either someone's playing with us, or our pagers are malfunctioning. Somehow I doubt it's the latter."
"I..." Why was it so difficult suddenly to form coherent sentences? Emily glanced at the door, but before she could place her hand on the knob, JJ's voice stopped her:
"It's locked. And apparently it can only be opened from the outside, or with a keycard, and mine seems to have mysteriously disappeared. I'm assuming you don't have yours with you either." Her sigh was resigned.
Emily rummaged through her purse only to come up with nothing. "But I had it with me this morning," she muttered, emptying the contents on the round table. There was no keycard to be found.
"I'm guessing there's no cellphone either?" JJ studied the various items Emily was now stuffing back into her bag.
"Oh, I have my cellphone!" Emily patted the pockets of her jeans and then swallowed. "...in my coat pocket." The same coat that was now a shapeless bundle on the flood beside her desk. "Shit."
"It would've been too easy, anyway." JJ sighed again, turning her eyes back to the ceiling.
"Wait, you don't have your cellphone with you either?" A press liaison without a cellphone? That was odd.
"It's on the table in my office, neatly between my coffee mug and the files of last week's case in Denver." Seeing the confused look on Emily's face, she continued: "I didn't think I needed it during the briefing. And my office is just around the corner anyway."
"Well, this sucks." Emily rubbed her forehead and sat on a chair next to JJ. Then she suddenly turned to the other woman. "I mean, I don't mind your company or anything, it's just that these other circumstances are...well...you know?" she furiously backpedaled and felt more and more ridiculous by the second.
"Yes, I know." JJ's smile was amused and Emily could feel her cheeks grow warm. "You're adorable when you blush." She was grinning now.
"Yeah, right." The brunette chuckled self-consciously. "Anyway, what are we supposed to do? I mean, what's the point in locking us in here? I'm assuming it's just us, since no one else has shown up."
"I honestly don't know. Someone did this on purpose, though. I just can't think of..." JJ's voice trailed off and the two women looked sharply at each other. There was only one person who'd do something like this.
"Garcia!" they both exclaimed.
"Of course." Emily shook her head and pushed herself up from the chair. Pacing restlessly around the room, she tried to come up with a reasonable explanation. Drawing a blank, she turned back to the blonde. "I don't understand..." She paused. Why was JJ suddenly looking at her like that? "...why...she'd..." JJ subconsciously licked her lips, a small smile playing on her lips, and Emily could feel her heartbeat speed up again. "...do that." She finished and swallowed hard.
"You know what?" JJ stood up as well and walked slowly to the other woman. "Garcia, she's just as much of a profiler than any of us. And I think we both know exactly why she did this." Her voice was low, seductive.
"Yeah?" It sounded like a squeak to Emily's own ears. JJ nodded slowly, locking her eyes with Emily's, and this caused the brunette to take a few involuntary steps backwards. It didn't do any good, though, since JJ in turn stepped forwards, and soon Emily found herself trapped between the wall and the blonde press liaison. "Right, okay," she said and gulped.
"Don't tell me you haven't thought about it," JJ said, her eyes fixed on Emily's lips.
"Well..." The truth was that Emily had thought about it. Quite a lot, actually. Seeing JJ's eyebrows raise in a questioning manner, she finally gave up. "Yes. Yes, I have. Since the first time you briefed me about the team's procedures, really." Her breath hitched at the look she saw on JJ's face.
"Can I kiss you?" the blonde's question was a whisper, and Emily found it somewhat amusing that she'd ask for a permission when she already had her cornered like prey.
"Oh, God, yes!" Emily heard herself say, and the last coherent thought she had before JJ's lips landed softly on hers was that Garcia seemed to be a hell of a lot better a profiler than either one of them.
Fiddling nervously with her keys, Penelope Garcia strutted down the corridor towards her office which, at least from a distance, seemed to be unoccupied. Slowly turning the key in the lock, she pushed the door open and peered carefully into the room. Taking a tentative step forwards, she switched on the light and, after nothing exploded, let out a breath she'd been holding.
Because of her little plan, she'd been fretting all night and eating criminal amounts of chocolate in order to calm her nerves. Maybe she should've left a keycard in the room, just in case? And then there was that tiny, tiny possibility that she'd actually been wrong about things to begin with, and now neither Emily nor JJ would ever speak to her again. How could she ever have a ladies night out then?
When she finally stepped fully into the room, she noticed a small orchid plant placed on the table between her keyboard and the countless computer screens. Narrowing her eyes, she scooted across the room and snatched the note attached to the flowerpot.
"- Thanks to you, the night guard will never be able to look us in the eye again."
"Scoooore!" She did a little victory dance before the ringing of a telephone interrupted her private party. Seating herself in front of her beloved computers, she grabbed one of her glitter pens and pressed the speaker button, grinning like the cat who got the cream.
"The temple of almighty Penelope Garcia, goddess herself speaking."
The End