When in Rome

Chapter 2

One year later

"Emily you are being positively stupid! Now let's go!" JJ yelled down the hallway of her best friend's apartment. The liaison was carrying her purse and briefcase in one hand and a one-year-old in the other. "Don't you agree Connie? Mommy is being very silly?" The raven haired child giggled as she grasped onto her godmother's hair. "No Connie let go," JJ ordered but the baby kept tugging, having no hands to pry the child's hands away so JJ just lets her continue.

"I'm not being stupid I'm just worried! Didn't I tell you she likes hair?" Emily added to change the conversation as she popped into eyesight, she took her daughter away from JJ and perched her on her hip before grabbing her purse and go bag from by the coat rack.

"Is that why you cut it off?" JJ asked admiring her friend's shorter locks.

"That and I wanted a fresh look for today. Hotch was a real hard ass the other day." She groaned, by the end, she was practically begging him for this job.

JJ shook her head as she opened the door and stepped out of the apartment. "I told you, tough but fair. And I also told you he wasn't going to take it easily. You're disrupting the balance." JJ joked; she knew how Hotch and Gideon were about who they hired. It took a lot of per swaying from Morgan to get them to give Elle a chance... and it turned out they were right about her. So taking in Emily when all of her documents were forged and technically illegal (not that they knew) was a lot harder than they hoped for not to mention Emily and Hotch's history.

Prentiss shifted Connie onto her other hip before locking the door and following the blonde to the elevator. "How was I supposed to remember he worked for my mother? I was never home!"

"Except the summer that you were home," JJ replied with a sarcastic sigh. "And you swooned at the shiny new play toy your mama had bought."

Emily groaned. "I regret telling you that..."

"But you did! So it is free game!" She laughed.

"I didn't know he was married!"

"You could have been a normal person and just ask instead of spending two months trying to seduce him."

During Emily's last year at Yale, her mother had hired a new security detail for herself. When Emily returned for the summer her mother had taken off to some European country and missed her daughter's graduation. And in Emily style retaliation she threw the biggest party Yale had ever seen. Hotch being the new rookie was in charge of watching over the house while Ambassador Prentiss was away. And as an initiation to the force, no one told him exactly what Emily Prentiss was like. As a result, he had definitely seen more of her than he would ever want to.

Emily rolled her eyes as she stepped onto the elevator. "You're right," she sighed overdramatically, "I am just jealous that you get to spend time with your boyfriend all day every day. Sharing hotels and long nights in the office! It just is not fair for the poor single woman in the world!"

"Reid is not my boyfriend!" JJ snapped harshly.

"But you wish he was," Emily replied tauntingly. "You wish for that second date he never asked you out on. He spilled his beer on you and you've just fallen head over heels."

JJ checked her watch as the elevator lowered to parking. "I'm done talking about this."

~~~~~~~~

"Take Prentiss with you," Hotch ordered Gideon as he continued down the catwalk to his office.

"Five minutes!" The senior agent yelled down into the bullpen at the new agent.

JJ stepped out of her office and down to the grouping of desks to see her friend hiding a smiled as she stacked the rest of her files on her desk. "Do you want me to call Sharon for you?" JJ asked in a whisper.