Smoke Signals

1

I walked into the elevator with my coffee. It was my first day back from my week long vacation and we apparently had a new team member who's name was like Jen? Jennifer? I had no idea. Maybe it was Jessica. Who knows. I rubbed my eyes and sighed as the elevator door opened.

As soon as I stepped out of the elevator I was greeted by Penelope. "Blair! Oh my God I missed you so much!" She hugged me and I awkwardly put my arms around her.

"Thanks Pen. I missed you too." I pulled away first.

"JJ wants to meet you."

"Who's JJ?"

"The new team member."

"I thought it was a girl."

"Jennifer Jareau. She goes by JJ."

"Oh. Ok. Cool." I walked with her into the office and awkwardly smiled at everyone. "So, JJ?" I whispered to Penelope. She nodded and pointed upstairs where she was walking down. My jaw almost dropped to the floor. She was the most beautiful person I have ever seen. Her hair was up in a ponytail and it was blonde. The perfect shade of blonde. Her eyes...God her eyes. I tore my eyes away before she caught me staring.

She held her hand out to me and I shook it. "Jennifer Jareau. You can call me JJ." She said with a smile. My face heated up and I couldn't help but smile back.

"Blair...that's me." I said, still smiling. "Blaire Price." I finished, letting her know my last name. Her hand fit perfectly in mine and I didn't want to let go. But she did. Penelope walked away and I gulped, feeling very anxious now that it was just me and JJ.

"How long have you been working here?"

"2 years." I couldn't stop staring into her eyes. We were exactly the same height, it was perfect. "I should uh...I should go back to work. Where's the trash can?" I looked around and threw my coffee into the trash can. "Score!" I looked back at her and saw that she was laughing. "Sorry. I like fantasizing about being good at basketball." I was about to walk away but she stopped me.

"Hey, would you be free for lunch? I've had a chance to really formally meet everyone here except for you."

"Yeah. Yeah, lunch is good. Here, or out?"

"Out?"

"Sure." I smiled and gave her a quick thumbs up, letting out a deep exhale and smiling widely as I walked back to my desk.

She never once stared at my quarter closed left eye, partly concealing my bright green eyes. Not once. That was usually the first thing someone would look at when they saw my face since there was a small scar next to it too. Well, not small but relatively small, just under an inch long. "Who's got you smiling like that?" Morgan asked as he walked up behind me.

"No one."

"I know your different types of smiles. This one is the I'm in love."

"I'm not in love."

"It's JJ isn't it?" I stayed silent but my smile widened. "Oh my God it's JJ."

"You guys told me there was a new team member but you never told me she was that perfect."

"I think you've got a crush."

"Shut up."

"Are you having lunch with her?"

"Yeah. But she says she's had lunch with everyone."

"Yeah she has. But you'll get to know her more."

"Mhm." I pursed my lips.

"I'll leave you alone doofus."

"Thanks egghead." He laughed and walked away, leaving me to sit in silence for the next 3 hours while I waited for lunch to come.

Three hours later JJ and I were at Jimmy John's eating outside. We both for the veggie sandwich and salt and vinegar chips. "So...why did you choose this job?" I asked her.

"Well, I've always wanted to help people. That's the most important thing to me in a job is knowing that I'm helping people." I nodded. "What about you?"

"Same. I've known since I was about ten that I wanted to do a job where I could help people. But I also wanted a job where I could learn how to defend myself and others if I was just in a...I don't know a pickle." She laughed softly. "So, I either wanted to be a police officer, in SWAT, the military, FBI, CIA, anything. I applied to nearly everything and got into nearly everything but the FBI was what felt best." She nodded.

"You were pretty determined." I nodded and smiled at her. I tried not to look at her too much because I knew if I looked too much then I would end up staring. "So...how did you realize you wanted to do that kind of job? Were your parents police officers?" My smile dropped a bit and I shook my head. "What did they do?"

"I'm going to get some more Coke." I said, smiling at her before getting up and walking to the soda dispenser.

When I walked back she was done with her sandwich. "So...what did your parents do?" She asked again.

"That's uh...that's not something I really talk about."

"Is it top secret?"

"No."

"Just because of your parents then?" I nodded and looked down at my food.

"I'm not really hungry anymore. Do you wanna finish mine?"

"Sure. I forgot to eat breakfast and I'm starving." I pushed my sandwich over to her side of the table and took a sip of my Coke, feeling myself zone out a little. "Do you have any siblings?" She asked, keeping a close eye on me. I didn't register that she said anything for a couple seconds.

"Sorry, did you say something?"

"It's ok. It wasn't anything important." I nodded and looked down at the table, feeling her gaze on me. "We can go if you want."

"Yeah, we should probably get back." I stood up and waited for her to throw her trash away before we started walking back to the headquarters.

"I'm sorry if I overstepped with the whole parents thing."

"It's ok. Don't worry about it." She nodded and I kept my eyes fixed ahead.

"I'm really glad I got to know you better." I rubbed my face to hide my blush.

"Thank you. I'm glad I got to know you better too." I turned to her with a smile. She smiled back and I felt myself relax a bit. "I'm really glad you're on the team."

"Thank you. I'm really glad I met you." I was a bit caught off guard by that but I went with it.

"You too."