A/N: Just an idea that wouldn't leave me alone. This was only supposed to be a short drabble, but somehow got away from me. Still not terribly long, but... Ah well.
Disclaimer: Still not mine. Still making no profit from it. Still heaping the drama on Reid, anyway.
A Very Sick Cat
"…according to his veterinary bills, he has a very sick cat."
Days later, once the shock and guilt had worn off, Spencer Reid was still angry with his father.
Not angry again. Not anew. No less. Not really even more. Just… still. It had been covered, buried, painted over with the strain of the investigation into Riley Jenkins' murder, but not for a second did it ever truly dissipate.
If anything, it was only justified further.
Spencer didn't fully comprehend the meaning of that seemingly harmless comment until a few days after their return to DC. He hadn't been able to bring himself to write her after all that happened in Vegas, but once he'd set pen to paper the words came just as easily as they ever had. He folded the letter when he finished, pulled an envelope from his desk drawer, and carefully wrote out an address he remembered so clearly from habit more than his eidetic memory. He was staring down at the drying ink when it hit him, pen slipping from slack fingers.
"…according to his veterinary bills, he has a very sick cat."
It was the familiar anger, the pain he'd carried for so long making itself known again, but it was so much more than that. He felt like he'd been punched, the air rushing out of his lungs as so many thoughts and feelings and memories washed over him. At the forefront of it all, though, were two things: he was writing to his mother in the hospital, and William Reid seemed to be very devoted to his cat.
That phone call had been meant to exonerate his father both of the crime at hand and partly, in Garcia's ever hopeful mind, of the nearly twenty year absence in his only child's life, but merely managed to accomplish one while effectively condemning him of the other. The man's life after he'd left his family had been a quiet one, unassuming, almost predictable except for that one key element gone unnoticed until now.
Bills. Plural. Meaning multiple visits to the vet.
He was taking the time and sparing the expense to take care of his sick cat, but his wife? His much sicker wife to whom he'd vowed his eternal devotion, in sickness and in health? True, it took him six whole years to break down under the weight of his wife's secret, her illness, the stress of their… family. Their life. Spencer will give him that much. He tried. For six years he kept trying to be a father and husband, to be present and supportive and take care of things the way a father is supposed to.
Then, he stopped trying.
His absence left a gaping void in his son's life that was quickly filled by a steadily growing anger as he watched his mother struggle. She was ill and needed care- real care and supervision, the kind only a competent adult can provide. He was only ten years old, and struggling every bit as much with his own life, and quite frankly he knew all along nothing he did would be enough for her. But he tried. He tried, the anger fueling him when times got bad and it all seemed so hopeless and trying was just so hard. Hated himself when he realized he couldn't do it on his own any longer and had her taken away, feeling like he'd ended up like his father, anyway, giving up on her when things got tough.
Now he knew better. At least he'd done something. He was there. He took care of her the only way he knew how, visited when he could, wrote a letter every day … without fail, he was there. Made damn sure his mother knew it, too.
"…according to his veterinary bills, he has a very sick cat."
Just across town, and his father was doing more for a sick cat than a sick human being.
Yes, the anger was still there. Days later, when Vegas and Riley Jenkins and bloody clothes were allowed to slip away from the foreground and become a memory and life could resume again he felt it there, settled deep in his chest just like always. Now, though, he had a reason for it. He didn't like it, and he no longer felt comfortable carrying that anger with him knowing what his father had done to protect his family, but it was there and not likely to go away anytime soon.
Spencer affixed a stamp perfectly square in the upper right hand corner and set the envelope on a table next to the door to be put in the mail the next time he went out, taking one last glance at the address printed black against white paper.
Not just Las Vegas, Nevada.
Not just Bennington Sanitarium.
Not just Diana Reid.
Mom.
The anger was there, but it had been tempered by the love and fierce devotion he felt toward his mother. He wasn't giving up on her, and if that was all they had, it was enough. He'd never missed a letter when he could help it, and he never would.
'Good luck, cat. Take care, both of you…'