Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds, but I own this lovely AU of which I have traumatized the kids and make nothing, but the satisfaction of myself and my readers.
-Epilogue-
Script from the prequel "All at once"
The police arrived much too late, as soon as the first bullet was shot Garcia already had the police on the line. Camellia died in the arms of Kaleb, who promised to carry out her last wishes. Her last actions before her eyes slid shut were ones she would have never wanted to do in death. Camellia gently kissed each child on the cheek, told them to have sweet dreams and finally she walked, deep in her mind and fell asleep. She didn't realize her lungs were flooding with blood, the most important thing was telling her babies that they were important.
After the next few weeks, Spencer had a cast pasted to his leg, odd drawings doodled on by JJ and Emily. They moved in with Camellia's brother Jason. Sometimes some other people came to visit them, like Kaleb. Garcia drowned her sorrows in kittens and spoiling her younger (and older) siblings. They were going to school soon. All of it seemed so sudden, in the span of a few short weeks life had come, gone and continued on.
We find ourselves right after the tragic death of Camellia, a forgotten part of the memories of the kids, long forgotten due to the adrenaline, the thirty minute ride must have rushed by in a flash.
The five kids spilt up in separate police cars as they couldn't be trusted to be mature and still in the same one Spencer was in and followed the leading ambulance to the hospital. The convoy of cars sped off to the nearest hospital, where the people who burst in the doors a moment too late were going to treat their newest and youngest member of their family for the gaping hole in his leg. When they had finally gotten there the doctors had already rushed Spencer into the ER to take the bullet out of his leg and do all of the medical tasks that had to be done, while Emily, JJ, Derek, Aaron and Garcia arrived into the waiting room five minutes after their brother, from being stalled by over bearing police, nurses and receptionists.
The wait for the five was agonizing, especially with the police hovering around them asking stupid questions, a bunch of psychiatric aids waiting for a social worker to show up and the annoying voice of the lady behind the desk, chatting loudly into the phone as if it was going to make her life any better. Though their surroundings moved quickly and everyone emitted a lively feeling that was solemn felt in a hospital, the time went slowly. Each second was emphasized with the tick of the plain clock in the corner and it contrasted, battled over the sensation of the bustling room. Bustling over what the younger two thought, there are two dead people, the police have no one to catch and they knew nothing beyond "Dad shot Mom".
Penelope put on a strong face for the younger two, knowing that if she cried the other two would follow suit like meercats leaping off a cliff. She looked to Aaron's stern face, who politely answered all the questions for inspiration. If it wasn't such a sad period of time she would have made fun of him that his face had indeed stuck from never smiling, but she herself wasn't smiling much either. So Penelope settled for tinkering with Derek's arm, which was very tense on the arm rest of the hospital chair. He held onto the chair for dear life as if that if he'd let go he'd snap, like a stretched out rubber band and go ballistic. Though that was likely not far from the truth he'd rather not do that in a hospital where stress was already high and doctors needed their focus.
Thirty minutes of going through Penelope's bag, taut conversation, sixty full mental sing alongs to "This Little Light of Mine", one hundred "answered to the best of my abilities" later, they were all called to "room A-16" of the hospital where they saw their brother, paler than a sheet of white paper, eye circles darker than usual and his leg, elevated in a sling with several layers of gauze wrapped around it. Spencer's eyes were closed in a medicated, dream-free sleep. Garcia gasped and ran up to Spencer – as well as she could run in her heels – and brushed the hair out of his face in a motherly way and then bent down to plant a kiss on his forhead, as the remainder of their families filed in to see what went on.
Derek sat in the corner, fuming that his brother was put in a hospital bed because of his idiot father. Now the boy was hooked up to several IVs, a heart monitor and a blood transfusion bag. That was three too many things to be connected to for someone! Last time he had been to a hospital was when he had punched some kid who was picking on JJ particularly hard and broke his hand. All he got was morphine and a cast.
They sat there watching over the boy for two days as the boy was put under constant medication so his wound would seal before he woke up and even tried moving, watching as nurses came in – making them very nervous and self-conscious about their actions (as they should be!) and taking turns sleeping, making sure that at least two people were awake at a time.
Outside the room the doctor noted this "pack-like" mentality that was commonly seen in wolves, he blamed the odd behavior from resurfaced trauma and loss, the doctor suspected that the men beside him already knew, but said nothing.
The doctor sighed, it was always hard to speak with people who psycho-analyze others for a living. "Though I believe you two have already noticed, they have been showing a very peculiar symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder found in groups." He watched the two men nod. "And you would also know what the consequence would be if you decide not to take the kids Jason?" The man nods again.
"Though I don't quite know why she chose me to do it, she did. And if that was what she wanted me to do before she died I guess I'd have to do it."
The doctor nodded and smiled cheekily, dimples forming on his cheeks and crow's feet at the corners of his eyes. "Shall I introduce them to you two? Or would you rather be introduced by the gentleman that called you two?"
The man beside Jason spoke for the two of them. "The second one." Not adding please or any other information, not quite sure if it was a trait contributed by the profession or just because he preferred not to use his manners.
"I'll get him right away then." The doctor walked off to find Kaleb, so they could play meet and greet.
Kaleb had explained their mother's last wishes that were passed to him in confidence the night they had met, Kaleb himself thought it was a form of divine intervention that he had met her. Kaleb had arranged for the six of them to live with Jason Gideon, Camellia's older brother with a shared custody with his business partner Rossi, however unconventional it was the courts hadn't the heart to go against a dead mother of six's wishes.
They moved into a big house in Quantico after Spencer was cleared for flight by the doctors, of which point his cast was filled with crayon pictures JJ and Emily adorned it with. It was a spacious house, where they were to start a "road to recovery" and a "new life". They moved away from their old friends and demons, though Aaron still kept in contact with his "girl next door" via e-mail and Penelope still contacting and internet battling Kevin in between mourning, baking sweets that would make diabetics cry and coddling her siblings – regardless of their age. Spencer was bed ridden; but would be out of bed in time for the funeral of their mother. Derek of course brought along Clooney to Rossi's many protests.
Gideon and Rossi wasn't quite used to having anyone under the age of twenty-one to talk to, Jason being divorced and thus childless (and reluctantly paying alimony) were getting used to the kids being around, still getting startled when one of them pops up unexpectedly.
But Jason thought that they would get along fine, he went out and bought several black leather bound books to record his journey with, as he would like to remember it later and perhaps Rossi would write a book on it, he would never know. He added the six kid's photographs to a group of photos of kids he saved, because he was sure that he would save these ones from whatever things come their way. And so he opened one of the leather clad books and wrote in the top margin. "August twenty first, day one"
My box- Sorry for the long wait! Gosh! I took a whole year on deciding how this thing was going to be formatted, but I finally decided to make it in the POV of Rossi writing in a set of journals occasionally with the writings of the other kids as well. Very different from the first story. This story will still make sense even without reading the first, but I suggest one to read the first one just to get some retrospective on what the second one may contain. ;) Sorry for the long wait!
