Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds. Big surprise, huh?
A/N: This kinda morphed into what I've come to think of as the 'Fluffiest Fluff Ever Fluffed'. And so, I feel obligated to issue a warning that this story might burn your retinas from the sheer mushiness and/or put you into a sweetness-induced coma. I blame the post-Easter sugar-high I was experiencing while writing this. Also, I'd like to thank Traveller19 for her beta work.
"What could possibly go wrong?"
Spencer Reid rocked back and forth on his heels, bit his lip, and finally knocked hurriedly on JJ's front door, immediately stuffing his hands back in his pockets. How foolishly naïve those five words uttered mere hours ago now sounded. Certainly, he had spent plenty of time with Henry, and normally one evening of babysitting wouldn't - shouldn't - be considered a daunting task. Nevertheless, the only thing that Reid had been able to think about all afternoon had been the countless situations in which a rambunctious three-year-old could unintentionally put himself in harm's way—especially while under the supervision of someone whose knowledge of childcare was largely theoretical in nature. The more he thought about it, the more statistically significant the odds of something disastrous occurring seemed to become.
Sure, he had 'tag-teamed' with Garcia in the past to watch Henry for JJ and Will when the need arose, but therein lay the problem: from the moment of Henry's birth, Garcia had thrown herself into the role of doting godmother with wild abandon, and he, having never even held a baby before that day in the hospital, had let himself take a backseat to Garcia's exuberance in their subsequent interactions with Henry. He hadn't wanted to make a mistake with someone so small and fragile. Tonight, however, he would be on his own with Henry for the first time, and Reid was seriously beginning to believe that none of them had fully thought this notion through, least of all himself. Unfortunately, he couldn't very well back out now, could he? Morgan, Prentiss, Garcia - heck, none of his team - would ever let him live it down; he could confront an armed UnSub, but he couldn't handle a little boy for a few measly hours?
The door swung open and swallowing dryly, Reid managed to give JJ a smile tinged with unease. She returned it warmly and ushered him inside.
"Henry's just finishing up his dinner," JJ said over her shoulder as he followed her into the kitchen/dining room area. "I already managed to get him to eat some carrots, so the hard part's over."
Henry sat at the end of a small wooden table, shoveling the last of what looked like hamburger mac into his mouth at lightning speed. When he saw his mother re-enter the room, his face lit up and he shouted, "Mommy, all done! Dizzert now?"
JJ squatted down next to him. "Hey, Little Man. Mommy's going to go out somewhere with Auntie Penelope and Aunt Emily tonight, and Uncle Spence is going to be staying here with you. So you'll need to ask him about 'dizzert', okay?"
Henry turned to him, apparently noticing Reid for the first time. Tentatively, Reid gave him a small wave. For a long moment, Henry's large, blue eyes blinked up at him uncertainly and Reid started to wonder whether his godson had at last caught a case of what his colleagues had dubbed the 'Reid Effect' all those years ago. But then the small boy's lips stretched into a wide grin. "Uncle Spence, dizzert!"
JJ laughed lightly, and gently prompted her son, "Henry, what do we say?"
"Pweeease?"
Reid, too, had to smile at the imploring response. "Sure, Henry."
Henry clapped his hands in delight while JJ took his empty dinner plate to the sink and rinsed it. Returning to her son's side, she once again crouched down to his eye level. "Alright Henry, Mommy has to leave now. Can you give me a kiss?"
Henry splayed both hands on either side of JJ's face and placed a slightly sloppy kiss onto her cheek. "Bye, Mommy."
"Be good, Henry. I love you." JJ said. She gave Henry a hug and a kiss of her own before standing back up.
"Love you too, Mommy."
Grabbing her purse from off the table, JJ turned to Reid, who was sliding his messenger bag from his shoulder and plunking it into an unused chair. "There's Rich Krispy Treats in the fridge—I expect there to still be some left when I get back, Spence—and his pajamas are laid out on his bed. You can try to get him to go to bed in a couple hours, but don't stress too much about it if Henry puts up a fuss; we shouldn't be back all that late."
Reid nodded. Ostensibly perceiving the doubts that had crept in during the intervening hours between their conversation on the plane and now, JJ added, "Don't worry, you'll be fine."
Another mute nod.
And then with a quick goodbye-hug to him and one more kiss to the top of Henry's head, she was out the door.
Reid took a deep, fortifying breath and slid into the seat next to his charge. The little boy fixed him with an expectant gaze.
"Dizzert!"
"Oh, right." He quickly sprang up and went about serving up two generous-sized squares of the gooey treats for Henry and himself from the pan in the refrigerator. They spent the next few minutes devouring the confections, and a few more minutes after that washing the sticky residue from off their fingers.
"So, um…what would you like to do now, Henry?"
Henry eagerly grabbed Reid's hand with both of his own and tugged him in the direction of the sliding glass doors that led out to the backyard. "Wanna swing," he declared.
Reid inspected the sky. The sun would be setting soon, but they still had a little bit of time. He opened the door and immediately Henry scampered out and over to the small swing set. Soon, Reid found himself caught up in the unbridled enthusiasm Henry possessed as they swung, played hide-and-seek, and examined what had to be every insect that inhabited the backyard (Henry was also keen on checking out a bird's nest in one of the trees, but Reid luckily persuaded him otherwise). The entire time, Henry peppered his godfather with questions. What makes crickets chirp? Why do ladybugs have spots? Where does the sun go at night? Henry listened to his godfather's answers with rapt attention, and if Reid momentarily forgot himself in his explanation and it became too technical or advanced, Henry didn't seem the least perturbed—he simply asked more questions until the responses made sense to him. A soft smile tugged at the corners of Reid's mouth; Henry's numerous queries reminded him of his own quest for knowledge when he was a kid. Of course, for a child Henry's age, this behavior was to be expected—their vocabulary was growing at an exponential rate and they could finally verbally express what they had been discovering about their environment since the sensorimotor development stage. Still, the familiarity was comforting.
As the last light of day began to fade away, Reid succeeded in coaxing the tyke back indoors with the alluring incentive of a movie if Henry would put on his pajamas. Once this was accomplished, however, Reid unwittingly made a fatal error: with Henry's approval, he chose The Wizard of Oz as their feature presentation. Reid had hoped that watching a movie, combined with all the running around they had done outside, would lull the three-year-old to sleep—surely nothing could possibly happen at that point, right? But it couldn't have been longer than fifteen minutes into the film before Henry was tearing around the living room, arms splayed wide, pronouncing himself a 'deadly tornado', and singing along at the top of his lungs to every song. To top it off, when Reid at last got him resettled on the couch, the little boy looked up at him with wide eyes and asked (evidently confusing the movie's 'good witch' with something from Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty), "Uncle Spence, is Auntie Penelope axe-sully my fairy godmother, like Gwinda? Are you a fairy godfather? Do you gots a magic wand?"
Not exactly the calming influence he had been aiming for.
Well, perhaps he should give the direct approach a shot.
"Hey Henry, it's getting pretty close to your bedtime. Are you maybe starting to feel a little bit sleepy?"
The reply was near-instantaneous. "No!"
His godson looked appalled that he would even propose such an idea. Or maybe that Reid was siding with his parents on the whole 'holding to a bedtime' thing.
How had Garcia gotten Henry to cooperate before? Reid suddenly recalled that the last time he had babysat with her, Henry had been a lot younger…and much less active and able to assert his will. He also remembered JJ relating one day in the bullpen to him and Emily how particular Henry was about anyone else, even Will, tucking him into bed with his favorite Bedtime for Baby Star book, so that wasn't going to be an option.
Hold on - a bedtime story. What if…
"Are you sure, Henry? I was thinking, if you were feeling tired, that I could tell you a special story my mom used to read to me before bed when I was about your age." The three-year-old continued to look rebellious. Reid rushed to reassure him, "Not the same story your mom reads you. A different one. And if you still aren't tired after the story, we can finish our movie. How does that sound, Henry? Is that okay?"
Henry's eyebrows pulled down, and he stared at Reid appraisingly. "Promise?"
"I promise."
Henry nodded, seemingly appeased by this compromise and confident in his state of wakefulness. Without further ado, he unceremoniously flopped down on the couch next to his godfather, resting his head in Reid's lap.
Reid momentarily mused on how strange it was that, right now, he was feeling the most grateful he had felt for his eidetic memory in a long time, solely because he could recite a children's book from memory.
"Okay, Henry, this story is called Love You Forever. It was written by someone named Robert Munsch.
"'A mother held her new baby and slowly rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And while she held him, she sang:
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living,
My baby you'll be.
"The baby grew. He grew and he grew and he grew. He grew until he was two years old, and he ran all around the house. He pulled all the books off the shelves. He pulled all the food out of the refrigerator and he took his mother's watch and flushed it down the toilet. Sometimes his mother would say, "This kid is driving me CRAZY!"
"But at night time, when that two-year-old was quiet, she opened the door to his room, crawled across the floor, looked up over the side of his bed, and if he was really asleep she picked him up and rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. While she rocked him she sang:
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living,
My baby you'll be.
"The little boy grew. He grew and he grew and he grew. He grew until he was nine years old. And he never wanted to come in for dinner, he never wanted to take a bath, and when grandma visited he always said bad words. Sometimes his mother wanted to sell him to the zoo!
"But at night time, when he was asleep, the mother quietly opened the door to his room, crawled across the floor and looked up over the side of the bed. If he was really asleep, she picked up that nine-year-old boy and rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And while she rocked him she sang:
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living,
My baby you'll be.
"The boy grew. He grew and he grew and he grew. He grew until he was a teenager. He had strange friends and he wore strange clothes and he listened to strange music. Sometimes the mother felt like she was in a zoo!
"But at night time, when that teenager was asleep, the mother opened the door to his room, crawled across the floor and looked up over the side of the bed. If he was really asleep, she picked up that great big boy and rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. While she rocked him she sang…'"
At the beginning of Reid's storytelling, Henry squirmed and giggled in glee at the story-boy's antics. Reid began to lose himself in the tale, his narration falling into the light, exaggerated tone of the text that so tickled his godson. But as he neared the completion of the story, he found his voice growing softer, the words feeling as though they wanted to catch in his throat. The little boy next to him seemed to sense the change, becoming more subdued, yet curiously alert and intent on something as well.
"'…That teenager grew. He grew and he grew and he grew, He grew until he was a grown-up man. He left home and got a house across town. But sometimes on dark nights the mother got into her car and drove across town. If all the lights in her son's house were out, she opened his bedroom window, crawled across the floor, and looked up over the side of his bed. If that great big man was really asleep she picked him up and rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And while she rocked him she sang:
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living,
My baby you'll be.
"Well, that mother, she got older. She got older and older and older. One day she called up her son and said, "You better come see me because I'm very old and sick." So her son came to see her. When he came in the door she tried to sing the song. She sang:
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always…
"But she couldn't finish because she was too old and sick. The son went to his mother. He picked her up and rocked her back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And he sang this song:
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living,
My Mommy you'll be.
"When the son came home that night, he stood for a long time at the top of the stairs. Then he went into the room where his very new baby daughter was sleeping. He picked her up in his arms and very slowly rocked her back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And while he rocked her he sang:
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living,
My baby you'll be.'"
Reid let the last refrain trail off. A serene hush enveloped the room, and as the silence lengthened, Reid sneaked a glance downward to check on Henry. Interestingly, and a little puzzling, Henry was lying quite still but nonetheless appeared very much awake, looking as though he was pondering something of great importance. Quiet reflection wasn't really all that common of a state for children this young, to Reid's knowledge. In the next moment however, Henry stirred and curled even closer into the space between Reid's arm and side. With his face half-nestled into his godfather's shirt, Reid only just made out the muffled words spoken next.
"You too, Uncle Spence?"
Reid's brows furrowed in confusion. "What was that, Henry?" He gently probed.
"D'you love me like how Mommy and Daddy say they love me, forever 'n' ever?"
The simple, earnest query caught him off guard. But instantly his surprise was overwhelmed by the flood of warmth spreading throughout his chest and he instinctively wrapped his arm tighter around Henry's small frame.
"I do, Henry. Very much so."
"Good, cuz that's how I love you. Uncle Spence?"
"Hmm?"
"Will you tell me 'nother story?"
"Yeah, you bet. Let's see—do you know the story of Robin Hood?"
Henry didn't, and so Reid reflexively launched into one of the ballads his mother would often read to him when he was young. Eventually, Henry's eyelids began to droop and his body relaxed; the adventures of Robin and his merry band of outlaws blurring from his imagination into dreams.
As the account reached its conclusion, Reid gazed down at the slumbering boy. Hesitantly, he laid a tender hand atop Henry's head. The familiar and yet somehow new swell of emotion for this kindhearted little boy swirled inside of him. It wasn't that he hadn't considered how much he cared for Henry before, but he couldn't recall it feeling as tangible as it did now, as though it had finally caught up to him, coalescing into something he could keep hold of. His concerns from earlier that evening seemed foolish in light of this. It was clear that JJ, Will, even Henry, trusted him entirely, and always had. He hadn't had any trust in himself, however. But exactly what evidence did he have that merited doubt? It was only supposition, really. It didn't seem possible that he could feel any more certain that he would do anything in his power to keep Henry protected. And happy, like he had been tonight, with Reid. He had always found it immensely difficult to relinquish responsibility for those things that were out of his control, but he wasn't the only one to feel that way, was he? And In this moment of clarity, he realized he could accept that reality.
He knew he would always be the best godfather he could for Henry, whether it be babysitting, helping him with algebra homework, or being the world's best human pillow, as he was doing right now.
You're safe with me, Henry.
Note: Love You Forever was actually published in 1986, so I'm bending the facts a little to have Diana have read it to Reid. It was just too fitting to pass up!
Thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you think - good, bad, or indifferent. :)