It's Hotch who finds him after the call. Reid is leaning against a table in the conference room in Springfield, Missouri, his elbows resting on the surface while his fingertips are pressed against his lips. His eyes are wide and staring unseeingly at the stained wall in front of him, and Hotch doesn't know how to describe the look on his agent's face other than pure surprise. He's concerned for a moment, but Reid doesn't look necessarily upset. Hotch glanced behind him before further making his way into the room.

Reid does not take notice of him.

"Reid?" He asks tentatively, placing the files in his hand down on the table in front of the other agent.

Reid's eyes snap to him, still impossibly wide. After a moment he blinks several times. Hotch notices the phone near the kid's hand.

"Everything alright?"

Reid opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.

Hotch briefly wonders if he's having a stroke.

Reid moves his fingers from his mouth and speaks all at once. "Maeveispregnant."

It takes Hotch a moment to decode whatever the hell just came out of his agent's mouth.

Then all at once he understands.

Maeve is pregnant.

Their youngest team member, Spencer Reid, the kid who launches film canisters across the office and curled into a ball on the jet couch was going to be a father.

"Maeve is pregnant." Hotch repeats, and then before he knows what's happening a smile has split his face in two.

Reid expects Hotch to clap him on the back or shake his hand. He does not expect the older man to tug him against his chest and squeeze him firmly. It's warm and such a positive reaction that suddenly Reid has gone from shocked to esatic.

"I get to be a dad!" The words spill from his mouth like honey and are muffed against his boss's shoulder. Hotch releases him and holds him at arm's length, a rare grin on his face. It's in that moment that Hotch knows Spencer Reid will be a fantastic father, knowing so from nothing but his words alone.

He gets to be a father. Reid is feeling honored, not burdened by the opportunity to have a kid. Hotch feels a familiar sensation of pride swell in his chest. Reid was 27 years old, very recently married, and was about to start his very own family. Their gangly hesitant genius had grown up right in front of their eyes and turned into a proud man ready to make his mark.

"When did she call?" Hotch asks, picking up his files once more. They're in Colorado, thousands of miles away from where he's sure Spencer would like to be most: with his wife at their apartment back in Virgina.

"Just a minute ago. She said she was too excited to wait for me to get home." Reid picks his phone up off the table and holds onto it for a moment before slipping it into his pants pocket. Hotch can't help but think that Spencer is glowing. The case was long and tiresome, and they had all started to wear down from lack of sleep and overrun by theories, but one phone call from Maeve had struck a match for Spencer and lit him back on fire. He was nearly vibrating with energy, and Hotch knew that the second the other's came back from canvassing they would notice the difference.

All at once Reid has turned away from him and darted out of the conference room and into the extra interrogation room where they had set up camp. "We need to solve the case!" echos back to him, and Hotch feels almost like maybe he's been relit too.

Sure enough, two hours later, the others call out Reid on his strange behavior almost immediately. The words explode out of Reid's mouth the same as before, like he still can't quite believe that what he's saying is true. He gets rattled around by Morgan who wraps his arms around him and shakes him back and forth, and kissed on the cheeks by Rossi. After ten minutes of watching the kid get bombbarded with questions from the ladies, Hotch rescues him by gently bring in a reminder that they still have a case, and they manage to get back to work.

It takes them another three days to wrap up the case, and Reid endures the teasing that he knows will not cease until the baby is born.

Baby.

They were having a baby.

When he gets home it's almost two AM, but he can see before he enters that the lights are on inside. Maeve is asleep on the couch, curled up against the cushions with her arms wrapped around her stomach. She's wearing his robe and socks both, and the sight of her with her hair splayed out on the armrest and her makeup already removed makes warmth blossom in his belly and ooze out into his limbs. All at once he's overwhelmed and in love and maybe a little hysterical from lack of sleep on the last case but he manages not to wake her up even when he almost knocks over the entrance table with his go bag. He puts down his luggage in the bedroom and changed into sweats before going back to where she was sleeping.

Spencer slipped his hands beneath her and with a huff of exertion leaned forward and then back and used the momentum to bring her to his chest. He stumbles slightly, barely managing to keep his balance. He wasn't the strongest person, he certainly knew that, but he had carried Maeve before and while he knew he didn't look like much, he could hold his own.

Mostly.

She stirs and wraps her arms around his neck, recongizing him and tucking her face against his collarbone. Reid has to stop where he is, standing in the middle of his messy living room, surrounded by half-read books and forgotten coffee mugs, the low light of the side table lamp spilling over them, Maeve heavy in his arms, and take a deep breath.

There had been happy moments in his life. Graduation, his mother's lucid days, being accepted by the BAU team. Reid was content with his life, and happy with the work he did, even if it did not bring him joy necessarily. The overwhelming good moments were few and far between, but he had learned at a young age to find happiness in the small things, such as sharing a drink with Morgan or watching movies in Garcia's liar with Prentiss and JJ.

But never before, had Spencer Reid ever found himself so deeply content.

Maeve shifts against him, curious as to why they've stopped, and he kisses her forehead before he heads back to their room. It would have almost have been a perfect moment except that he turns too abruptly and smacks his shoulder into the wall, along with her legs. She jerks in surprise, a sort of startled yelp coming from her as he startled forward, knowing with certainty that they were going to fall, and aiming for the bed. They make it barely, fueled by momentum, and the bed shifts with their sudden weight. She's laughing next to him, her arm still slung around his neck, and he thinks maybe it's perfect after all.

They learn that she's due in March, and he does everything he can to make it to as many of her doctor visits as possible. Whereas he used to have no problem leaving town at the drop of a hat, it now bothers him slightly, and he's faced with missing her appointments and sleeping with the fact that should something go wrong she would be alone.

They're partners for a reason, and it's because she's just as strong as him, and she does a good job at reassuring him that she's okay— just as fine alone as she was before.

But it's obvious that she misses him, and he misses her too.

But he loves his job, and he's not sure if he could do anything else without feeling empty, and she knows that. So they make it work, and they love what they have.

They're not a perfect couple by any means, and as all couples do, they fight. Some days the pregnancy hurts and makes her ache, and some days the job picks away at his mood until he's snappish and then on worse days they collide and take their hurts out on each other. It's always stupid things, and they don't always manage to apologize to each other, but they always come back together and they always sleep in the same bed.

Spencer's anxiety about the future shows through exactly as could be expected from him. He buys over twenty books about parenting, births, and pregnancy, despite knowing almost all of already. He reads almost all of the research papers that exist on the best way to care for children, and he brings it up at any possible moment in conversation. The team is used to this, and so is Maeve. He's done it before, and it only takes a gentle reminder to snap him out of his baby info dumping. In a sense, it's his latest hyperobsession, having replaced Bell's theorem the moment she had called to tell him.

She's nervous about being a mom, and he's nervous about being a dad, but they are also too excited to fall too deeply into the type of self doubt that could do any real harm.

In January they learn that they're having a baby boy, and they all go to Rossi's house to celebrate. She's used to his team now. Their odd tendencies and their histories etched in her mind, and Maeve has accepted them as her family now too. She's learned that she can talk to Garcia effortlessly about anything, and through her friendship she earns herself a periodic text linking her to a funny video or adorable animal ("It reminded me of you!) and therefore another reminder of Yes. This is right. This is all so right.

JJ is her best source of information, and at some point Maeve finds herself asking JJ more questions about motherhood than she asks her own mom, and she wonders when the hell that happened. She brings it up to the other woman at the BBQ, and JJ just laughs and hands her another glass of lemonade,, saying she was honored and then lowering her voice to tell her that she couldn't be happier to have gained a friend like Maeve.

Prentiss is a quiet sort of presence in her life, always with them and occasionally bumping shoulders with her to share a quick joke and a smile. There's a fierce protectiveness that lingers around her, and while there's not much reason for it, Maeve feels safe when she's around her. When she recognizes the feeling it seems ridiculous- of course she was safe in a backyard surrounded by seven FBI agents, but the feelings is extra strong around Prentiss. She accepts it for what it is and tries not to question it too much.

Jack and Henry are there, squealing as Spencer tricks them into thinking he's made a quarter disappear, and then the three of them are running, Jack and Henry chasing her husband around the yard as quickly as their short legs will let them. They all three come back with grass stains, Spencer looking far more sheepish than the other two.

She's been accepted by her husband's family just as quickly as hers had accepted him, and while she sits at the table in that backyard with lemonade and laughing and a baby below her ribs and the love of her life's hand in hers— she realizes that she's home.

They are given a crib by Maeve's friend from college, but it's heavy and cannot be taken apart and the only way it fits in their building's elevator is to make it ride alone. The picture of the crib showing up unaccompanied on their floor makes Morgan laugh, and between Morgan and Reid they manage to wrestle the stupid thing into their nursery. He stays for dinner and when Maeve admits that she had always wanted a swing instead of a rocker, Spencer's eyes light up like candles. He disappears out the door for several minutes, which leaves her and Morgan to make ridiculous assumptions about where he might of gone to.

When he comes back he announces that he dropped by the landlord's apartment, and that he had already gotten approval.

Unfortunately, while making and hanging a swing seems simple enough they don't know how to find a stable place in the ceiling to start.

So they call Hotch.

They paint the nursery a pale yellow, and the write crib doesn't completely match the dark changing table, and they would like to hang a name on the wall except that they cannot for the life of them pick a name, but it's already full of toys from their families and there are three beautiful homemade quilts that are draped throughout the room. The curtains have ducks on them and the bedding is blue and maybe it's not a masterpiece of interior design but it's warm and cozy and Maeve is absolutely in love with it. When she tells Spencer she can already call it her favorite room in the house he wraps an arm around her and suggests adding a bookcase.

The swing is already by far her favorite part of the room. It's made of rope and cushions hung on a large C frame that is at an easy height for her to get in and out of. It's heavy enough that it moves without too much pushing but too heavy to go too far. Spencer puts several blankets on it and one night she goes into the nursery to add a few decorations and makes the mistake of sitting down in it, because she's pregnant and tired and it just lolls her to sleep before she even thinks about standing back up.

By some blessing by the gods, she goes into labor when Spencer is in town. Hotch drives him to their apartment where she's waiting with her bags packed, and while they all know that Hotch didn't necessarily need to be there, no one says so. They're first time parents and Reid's hands are already shaking. His presence there calms them both, and gives Reid extra reason to hold onto his composure.

The labor lasts twenty hours, through which the team drops by and visits for hours at a time, making them promise for updates once they've left. Her mother is there the entire time, and her father listens to Spencer talk about baby names for an entire hour. She smiles despite the pain at the sight. Spencer was nervous, and his nervousness always led to ramblings. Normally she was his main target, and it was a duty she enjoyed. There was peace in listening to him and the information he had— now however, she isn't the best company, drugged and short tempered, so her father takes him instead. Not once does he seem annoyed, and not once does he try to escape or change the topic. Her heart swells infinity, and when she starts crying she blames the hormones and being overwhelmed.

Twenty hours of labor mean nothing, because in the end they take her back for surgery anyway. She wishes they'd made that decision nineteen hours ago. Spencer accompanies them, and when the doctor warns him that some of the procedure could be nauseating, she can't help but smile and slur that she's sure he's seen far worse. The nurses she'd been conversing with earlier inform the doctor that Spencer worked with serial killers, and the doctor stopped warning him after that.

She's too far out of it to notice when they hold a screeching bundle of something slimy by her face twenty minutes later, but when she wakes up her husband is there, practically vibrating with excitement to show her their son. Everything is a little blurry around the edges, but she can tell that they're alone besides two nurses that are adjusting an IV and readying cradle.

She's naked but covered by a blanket, and holding her son for the first time is a sensation so natural that tears slip out of her eyes and there's probably snot too and before she knows it she's full blown sobbing, overwhelmed and so impossibly happy.

It must be Spencer cleaning up her face because a moment later and he's there too, and she's practically wrapped up in the love of her lives and her family that she feels no pain.

People visit in rounds, and they all ask for a name, and they never have one to give them. They have a list, but it wasn't shrinking. Abu? Amory? Maybe Ben. No Calvin. What about Ralph?

In the end it is Jack Hotchner who decides. He comes in with his father after school lets out, and doesn't need an invitation to walk right up to the bed and pronounce his love for the new baby while simultaneously calling the baby an 'it'. On impulse Maeve asks Jack if the baby was Edgar or Cooper, and when Jack leaned over and said Coop firmly, they decided that was as good as it was going to get and signed the birth certificate.

And thus, baby Cooper Edgar Reid joined their family.