Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is owned by CBS. I own nothing but my imagination.
~This story was written in response to Ilovetvalot and Tonnie2001969's Dealer's Choice Challenge for August. My assignment was: JJ/Reid and a jack-o-lantern, slippers and the ratio of American children to American cats & dogs (1:2)
Tis the Season
Spencer Reid finished typing the last word on his word processor and then sat back and sighed. Finally…he was finally done with the article he had been toiling over for the last three months. It was his own fault really, he hadn't wanted to write the article in the first place, but his friend was an editor at the American Journal of Physics and he'd begged Spencer to write an article about wave particle duality. Since his friend had saved him from more than a few embarrassing moments in college, he figured he owed him and agreed to write the article. Of course once he agreed to do it, the BAU became swamped with cases and they'd travelled almost non-stop for the last month and a half, so he'd had to wait until the last minute to write it. And of course the last minute was Thanksgiving weekend, so with all of the festivities, he'd put it off until Sunday and it was due in his friends email box by noon the next day.
Rubbing his eyes, he debated proof reading it now, or waiting until later. His decision was made for him when Buster, a black lab, got up from his dog bed in the corner, stretched lazily and then picked up his favorite pair of slippers with his slobbery mouth and ran for the door.
"Buster, no!" Reid yelled as he jumped up from his chair. He followed the dog down the hallway and into the family room and then he stopped dead in his tracks, his precious slippers forgotten. He looked around the room and shook his head, as if that would clear the sight from his eyes. It didn't. As Spencer Reid, genius extraordinaire, stared at what his family room had become, he searched for the perfect word to describe it but couldn't come up with one. It looked like a cross between Wild Kingdom and a Hallmark store on crack.
In the corner of the room, his wife JJ was putting a knit collar on one of the cats. It was a Christmas themed collar and the cat, Ferdinand, was fighting her on it. He seemed to know that an elf collar demeaned him and he was giving JJ a run for her money. In the other corner of the room, his adopted son Henry was wrestling with the other cat and was trying to pull off the cat elf costume JJ had put on it. Isabella, the other cat, did not look any happier than her partner Ferdinand and Reid wondered if, between the two cats and his wife and son, he would be calling 911 before the night was over.
The only two happy people in the room, and by people he meant a human and a dog, were his five year-old daughter Grace and their mutt Rover. Grace was dressed up as Glenda from the Wizard of Oz and she was twirling around the room, waving her wand. Rover gleefully followed her, his doggy Santa hat attached firmly with an elastic band under his neck. Reid stood in the doorway and took in the scene, his mind shifting from the people…and animals in the room to the décor of the room.
JJ told him that morning that she and the kids would be decorating the family room for Christmas and if he wanted to help, he had to be out of his study by one o'clock. Of course he missed that deadline, and the next two JJ had given him when she popped her head in the room to see how he was doing. Since he'd just finished his article at seven o'clock, his family had had the entire afternoon to work on the room and it was obvious that they were finished with it…maybe too finished with it.
In the center of the room was their standard Christmas tree and it was decked with the normal ornaments and tree lights. One of them had decided to use popcorn and cranberry strings as garland, instead of the usual plastic stuff and Buster was happily gnawing at low hanging loop of it. Along with the normal Christmas décor, there were also Easter decorations, Fourth of July decorations and Halloween decorations adorning the various walls and surfaces. Spence laughed out loud when he looked at the mantle over the fireplace and saw the nativity scene in front and a gaudy, plastic, bright orange Jack-o-lantern behind it.
Grace heard the laugh and spun around to face her father. "Daddy!" She squealed as she ran towards him. As she got close to him, she jumped up and he bent down to catch her in his arms. For someone who had never been good with children, he found it surprisingly easy to relate to Henry and Grace.
"Hi Princess," he said as he held her in his arms. "Did you help mommy decorate?"
She nodded, "Henry helped too!"
"Don't try to blame any of this on me," he said, finally getting the humiliating costume off of the cat. "I wanted to decorate normally, you know with the Christmas tree and a few wreaths, but she decided to use all of the holiday decorations and mom agreed to it!" As a ten year-old boy, JJ and Grace were lucky to have Henry helping at all, but once they started dressing up the pets, it became too much for the boy.
"I see that," Reid said, smiling at his son before turning to look at his daughter. "Tell me about all of the decorations you used, Gracie."
"Weeeeellll," she said, deep in thought, "We put the Christmas tree up and then the Christmas wreaths and the nativity and it was all just green and red, and mommy and I thought the room could use some more color, so we got some of the other stuff out," she said, gesturing at the wall behind him. He turned and looked where she was pointing and had to stifle a loud guffaw. On the wall there was a giant cutout of Santa and another of the Easter Bunny and it looked as though they were having a conversation…a patriotic conversation, seeing as Santa appeared to be holding an American flag in his right hand.
"Can we take a picture and send it to Grandma?" Grace asked and Spencer winced. He loved his mother and she was surprisingly great with her grandkids, but he wasn't entirely sure that seeing this room wouldn't send her into a full-blown psychosis.
Just as he was about to answer her question, Spencer saw Buster run by with his slippers in his mouth and he set Grace down on the floor. "See if you can get my slippers away from Buster, okay?" Grace always had better luck with getting the animals to follow her directions than he did. It seemed that some of the 'Reid Effect' had followed him into his later adult years.
"Okay daddy," she said as she took off after the gentle dog. A moment later, his wife of seven years sidled up to him and stood next to him, her head resting on his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her waist and sighed. "I missed it."
She nodded, "You did, but you were working on something important. Besides, all you missed was your son doing his best impression of an uncooperative teenager and your daughter running around in circles, knocking things over. Believe me, I'll definitely let you have this duty next year," she said tiredly.
"What's with all the cross-holiday decorating?"
"Hey, have you ever tried saying no to our daughter?" She asked defensively. "I tried telling her that we only needed the Christmas decorations, but she informed me that we couldn't let the other decorations get lonely. She then looked at me with her 'sad little girl' face and I couldn't say no!"
Reid shook his head and was about to say something else, when Grace reappeared with his slippers. "Here you go daddy!" She said as she handed him the slobbery shoes.
"Thanks honey," he said, holding the slippers between two fingers, as he didn't want to touch the dog slobber.
"Gracie, why don't you and Henry go into the kitchen and we'll make some Christmas cookies," JJ suggested.
"Yay, Christmas cookies!" She yelled. "C'mon Henry, you don't want to miss the cookies!" Henry was no fool, so he ran after his sister towards the kitchen.
"Wash your hands first," Reid called out, looking at the dog drool on his slippers. JJ followed his eyes and saw what he was holding.
"Oh, that's your favorite pair," she said sadly and Reid nodded. "Remind me again why we have two dogs, two cats and two children?" JJ asked as she snuggled in to her husband's side.
"Actually," Reid began, "Did you know that the ratio of American children to American dogs and cats is 1 to 2? So it means our family is normal…in that respect," he quickly amended.
"Well in that case, we'd better get two more pets," she said softly.
"What?" Reid asked.
"I said, if we want to remain normal, we'd better get two more cats or dogs," she told him, waiting for his reaction.
Reid was momentarily confused, but then the light bulb went on in his head, "Do you mean…"
JJ nodded, "Yup, I don't have some crazy virus; instead I have a whole other human being growing inside of me."
A grin slowly spread across Spencer's face, "You're sure?" He asked, not wanting to get his hopes up in case it wasn't certain.
His wife nodded, "The doctor told me yesterday that I'm two months pregnant."
"That's wonderful JJ!" He exclaimed as he engulfed her into a hug. He released her and started rambling about all of the things that needed to be done before the baby's arrival. "We need to convert the guest room into a nursery, we have to find all of the kids old baby clothes, you need to tell Hotch, we need to redo our wills, we have to-"
"Spence," JJ interrupted, "We still have seven months before junior arrives, I think we can take tonight to enjoy our other two children, don't you?" She asked.
Reid nodded, "I love you Jennifer Reid."
"I love you too, Spencer Reid," she said as she gave him a kiss. They broke apart after a minute and then JJ said, "Come on; let's see what kind of mess our kids have already made."
He nodded and followed her to the kitchen. He knew his gift to her this year would never top hers. She'd given him the best gift of all.