Author's Notes: So this is just gonna be a little collection of scenes about the childhood friendship/hinted romance between Henry La Montagne, JJ's son (obviously) and Joanna Reid, middle child of the Reid family. Joanna's mother was originally going to be Lila Archer, but I dropped her in favor of an OC whose story I have yet to write but might soon enough. I was also originally going to do a whole multi-chapter about Joanna and Henry with a whole plethora of case-related bullshit involving an old friend of Joanna and Henry's from high school, but I decided against because it was just kind of cliché. This is just going to be a few little stand-alones following them up from where they are here to when they're adults. Enjoy.
"I just don't see why she has to be here. Couldn't Uncle Spencer hire a babysitter?" twelve-year-old Henry La Montagne whined at his mother.
"He did. You. Spencer is a very busy man, and so is Rachel. They didn't have time to go around, interviewing people to babysit. They know you. They trust you with their daughter. Shouldn't you be grateful?"
"Mom, I'm barely two years older than her! I'm hardly responsible!"
JJ rolled her eyes at her son as she and her husband Will gathered their things for a night out with Spencer and his wife Rachel. "Do not play that card with me, Henry David. Now you will take care of this little girl and keep her out of trouble and make sure she gets fed until we get home, you understand?"
"But Mom—"
"It's just two hours, Bud, you'll be fine," Will interrupted. "You best listen to your mother." He walked out the door with JJ behind.
"Bye sweetie!" JJ threw over her shoulder as the door shut. "Be good!"
"Yeah, yeah," Henry muttered as he collapsed on the couch. The little girl—what was her name? Jessica?—sat at the other end. Her hands were folded neatly in her lap, wisps of straw-colored hair falling out of her neat ponytail into her face, her eyes trained on her neatly-polished Mary-Jane flats. Everything about her was neat.
Henry had a younger cousin about her age living on a farm with her family in Pennsylvania, and the two were radically different. Alexis was a rough-and-tumble tomboy who bathed only when forced to and could almost operate a tractor on her own. This polished and neat child couldn't even compare.
It wasn't as if Neat-and-Polished was a stranger to him, though. The team now consisted of Aaron, Emily and their brood of diverse children—Jack, at the moment a moody teenager with an affinity for skateboards and fishing, Samantha, the golden child with the good grades and popularity, and Catheryn, Sam's polar opposite, who had just recently been suspended for punching a peer in the nose—Kevin and Penelope, the young married couple trying for children, but were perfectly content for now chasing around their many nieces and nephews, Derek, the still-untied-down player, and the growing but distant Reids, who had just moved back to Virginia after spending a few years in Vegas, and who had also just discovered they were expecting after having two children—Neat-and-Polished here, and her older sister who Henry had yet to meet, and Henry's parents and him. Whenever they got together, he saw her standing next to Dr. Reid, silent and small, her little hand clutched in his.
"Hey," he said to her. She was unresponsive. "Hey, kid, I'm gonna watch a movie. That cool?"
Her head snapped up and she nodded tersely. Henry took this as a yes. He flipped to some old kids' movie about penguins. He would've watched something else, probably a horror movie, but he didn't want to have her wet the bed or something and then have to take the blame. This was safe. Plus, he didn't know exactly how old she was, somewhere around eight, so this was a good median, because it wasn't too much out of either of their age ranges.
About two hours into it, he heard her talk for the first time. "My name's Joanna," she said.
"Huh?" Henry had been so engrossed in the movie, he hadn't heard what she'd said. He just knew she'd spoken.
"You called me 'kid' earlier. That's not my name. My name's Joanna. Some people call me Jo, but mostly just my big sister. Andi—that's my sister—she's thirteen."
"Okay, Joanna. I'm Henry."
"I know."
"Oh. Hey, how old are you, anyway, kid?"
"Nine."
"You're pretty smart for a nine-year-old. I'm almost thirteen, like your big sister."
"Thanks. My dad says when people say that to tell them I'm pretty smart for anybody."
Henry smiled. Intelligent as she was, she still clung to parental figures. Not surprising. "You want something to eat? It's past dinner and I'm starved."
Joanna's eyes lit up. "Okay."
"Mac n cheese sound good? It's the only thing I really know how to make, so it's pretty much our only option anyway."
"Sure, it sounds perfect."