And Carried Me Away
Chapter 1: My Life Had Stood Sequel
Nine Weeks Later:
Slivers of light from the morning sun sneaked into the room through the curtains, highlighting the face of the man in the bed slumbering away. A book lay on his chest and it was clear that he'd fallen asleep reading, though not because it was boring.
The dark bags under his eyes were evidence of his exhaustion. As too was the fact that his alarm clock was blaring, yet he remained oblivious to it. It wasn't until a pair of small feet pattered towards him and a small child climbed onto the bed that his consciousness drifted out of REM sleep.
"Unc' 'Encer! Unc' 'Encer! Wak'up!" Jemma shook the man, Spencer, her voice shifting from loud to soft haphazardly. She gazehd down at him, as the alarm and her voice drew him out of sleep. Not fast enough for the three-year-old, who proceeded to force his eyes open with her fingers.
He instinctively pulled away, blinking and rubbing his assaulted eye.
"Jemma, no. You don't wake someone up like that." Spencer mumbled, taking a break from rubbing his eye long enough to sign what he was saying. He smiled slightly when he saw Jemma pout, knowing it meant the child understood him. A little under nine weeks had passed since Jemma started learning sign language, and it amazed them how quickly she picked it up. Her motor skills were still developing so Jemma wasn't great at signing herself, but she understood it.
"Momma. Today we see momma." Jemma spoke while attempting to sign the same words. Her tone was cute and much softer while she was signing. Her focus was entirely on trying to move her hands fluidly. It apparently bothered her that she wasn't as able to sign smoothly as him or auntie Blake.
After realizing that the possibility of Jemma regaining her hearing was low, Spencer and Rossi decided to contact Alex Blake to teach Jemma to sign. The ex-BAU member had been delighted to teach the three year old, and also Rossi when the senior agent asked. Though she was curious about who Jemma was and questioned them, but dropped the subject quickly after hearing Rossi was Jemma's grandfather.
It was clear that, like so many in the Bureau and throughout the country, Blake knew about James. That she had either read or learned from others, about Rossi's thought-to-have-been-dead son and the crimes James had committed. She hadn't asked anything more about Jemma, which relieved Spencer. He'd worried she'd ask about Jemma's mother and that he'd have to explain about Alsie.
It wasn't that he wanted to exclude Blake from knowing the truth - that he had a sister and that Jemma was his niece biologically, and not simply because she was a part of the BAU family through Rossi. But he didn't feel right telling others when his mom didn't know the truth yet.
Spencer sighed sadly, picking up Jemma after turning off his alarm. He slid his feet into a pair of slippers and placed the book he'd been reading before drifting off on the side-table. He closed his eyes briefly as he thought, trying not to breakdown.
Seven weeks ago he'd called to arrange to visit and tell his mom about Alsie and Jemma. To tell her that his sister hadn't died and that Diana had a grandchild. He spoke with his mom's doctors first, to seek advice on how to tell her, but had been cautioned to wait. It was then that he learned that his mom was having problems, that the hospital had to adjust her medication twice in one week. He'd immediately gone to see her, to figure out what was wrong, and to help fix whatever it was.
Spencer's eyes watered as he adjusted Jemma in his arms, her small arms wrapped around his neck. His mother's recent diagnosis echoed in his thoughts. Early on-set dementia, likely Alzheimer's.
It was a diagnosis that would've been devastating in any circumstance, but it happening so soon after discovering Alsie and Jemma made it ten times worse. He didn't know what to do: on one hand he wanted to arrange a reunion asap between Alsie and their mother. It was the one thing he could do to not feel overwhelmed. On the other hand, since the newest memories were those affected first by dementia, he couldn't help wondering if a reunion would do more harm than good.
He kissed the top of Jemma's head and stepped into his small kitchen, trying not to dwell on his mom's diagnosis. Placing his niece in her chair at the kitchen table, complete with a booster seat that Rossi had bought, Spencer shifted his focus to making breakfast. A small smile passed over his lips as he opened his fridge and took out one of the containers of food.
His team had insisted on helping with Jemma after Alsie's discharge date from the hospital was postponed. No one wanted Jemma to be placed with Child Protective Services, so Spencer and Rossi both stepped in as guardians until Alsie could leave the hospital. While the rest of the team helped out any way they could - babysitting or cooking or advice.
Spencer took out one of the containers, which held something JJ had prepared for Jemma. It contained a more balanced meal than all the desserts Garcia had eagerly made for the three year old, and one that was more picky-kid friendly than what Rossi had enthusiastically tried to get Jemma to eat. Spencer hadn't been there to witness it, since it was while he was visiting his mom, but Rossi had cooked many of his Italian recipes for Jemma only for the girl to refuse to eat any of them.
That had been one of the things that prompted Garcia's dessert making frenzy to get Jemma to eat while JJ and Hotch tried to figure out what healthy foods the picky three year old would eat. It had apparently taken a few days, but JJ managed to get Jemma to eat something beside the cakes and cookies Garcia made. Spencer wasn't privy to exactly how JJ managed it, other than by being an experienced mother. According to Rossi it entailed bringing Jemma to a grocery store and allowing her to pick out some foods.
Contrary to what Rossi and a few others of the team thought, Jemma had picked out foods other than sugary sweets. Eggs had been the first things she'd picked out, which had thrown JJ at first since she'd already tried making some for Jemma. After Jemma picked out a few more foods that, while healthy, were also generally sweet JJ realized why the three year old had refused to eat eggs before. The girl disliked foods that weren't at least mildly sweet.
"All right. Time for breakfast." Spencer signed to his niece, placing the contents of the container into a skillet. Though it'd be easier to heat up in a microwave, he really didn't like the idea. Besides, he didn't really own a working microwave. He'd had an old one he'd been given, but it stopped working a while ago.
"Eggs! I wan' eggs!" Jemma beamed, her large brown eyes catching a glimpse of what had been in the container. Her nose sniffed the air, the scent of the sweetened eggs emanating almost immediately from the skillet after Spencer started heating it up.
Spencer couldn't help but smile at his niece's adorable voice and enthusiasm. Jemma had thankfully, aside from her hearing loss, been unscathed by her stay with Linnet. At least physically. It was too early to tell what, if any, psychological effects her life with Linnet would eventually have. The man had tortured and raped women in the same house he'd raised Jemma, and Jemma hadn't been deaf the entire time. Just for the last few months before she was found.
"Unc' 'Encer!" Jemma called out, her eyes and smile wide. She reached out her arms, impatient as she waited for Spencer to warm up her food. Her smile beamed even more after her breakfast was placed in front of her and she took the first bite. "T'ank 'ou!"
Spencer smiled back at his niece, signing 'you're welcome' back. Just watching Jemma helped him feel less depressed and less overwhelmed.
0
BAU:
A pair of heterochromatic eyes lingered over a few portraits on the wall, as though silently asking them what she should do. Cam Fitzgerald sighed. 'Maybe I should just forget about this. It's not like any one needs to know.'
"...Fitzgerald?" Hotch approached the younger agent once he saw her, surprise and concern in his voice. "What are you doing here? You're still with agent Aderhold's team, right?"
"Yeah. I took a few days off. And, um..." Cam hesitated, fidgeting with a folder she held in her hands. Something the BAU unit chief noted quietly. "...Can we talk?"
Hotch barely betrayed any sign of his surprise, though he was very much so. Fitzgerald had only ever asked to talk to him twice before, one of which had been to request a transfer and referral to Aderhold's team. The other had been when she asked for another chance in the BAU. "I have some time, we can talk in my office."
"Thank you." Cam replied, following Hotch towards his office. She didn't say anything else along the way, making Hotch wonder what it was the younger agent wanted to talk about.
"Please have a seat." Hotch said after the door shut behind them as they entered his office. He gestured to the chairs in front of his desk. Though he wasn't surprised when Cam didn't - it was clear that something was upsetting the younger agent, and when she was upset or worked up she seldom sat. He was surprised that she'd come to him and not Rossi. "...what is it? Is something wrong?"
"It's...here." Cam handed the folder she held to Hotch, who noted that it was a FBI case file.
"This is...a file on one of of Linnet's victims." Hotch perused the top page of the file before returning his gaze to Cam. "That case is over, he confessed and faces life in federal prison without parole. You know that, you're the one who questioned him and got him to confess."
"I know. I..." Cam took a breath, grimacing as she remembered that questioning session. It hadn't taken much for Linnet to admit to everything, completely ignoring the advice his lawyer attempted to provide. The sick bastard had gloated in what he'd done to his victims. "...I questioned him again, a couple of weeks ago. He'd requested it actually."
"You didn't have to respond. He admitted to each abduction and murder." Hotch paused, studying how upset Cam was and wondering if he was missing something. The younger agent had left the BAU to escape having to question and deal with people like Linnet. Her agreeing to Linnet's request was bizarre.
"I...I had my own reason for agreeing to see him. There was a...minor discrepancy between his confession and a few of the autopsy reports done twenty-four years ago." Cam chewed on her lip, hesitant to explain more. After one or two false starts she slightly shook her head and took a deep breath.
"...what sort of discrepancy?" Hotch asked, immediately flipping through the file. His first thought was if the discrepancy was something that could hurt the case against Linnet.
"That's...that's not the main reason why I'm here." Cam interrupted, her body language shifting from mildly upset and uncomfortable to distressed. "Linnet..."
Hotch closed the file he held and waited; he briefly wondered if he should call Rossi since Cam was always more at ease with the senior agent. Though if Cam had wanted to, Hotch realized, she'd have gone to Rossi rather than come to him.
"Linnet said that...he recognized me from a locket the woman in that file had. That..." Cam swallowed and crossed her arms, trying to brace herself for what she was about to tell her old boss. "I don't know if it's true, but..."
Hotch waited, part of him suspecting what Cam was going to say. It was the only explanation for how upset the younger agent was.
"...he said that that woman was my mom. That she..." Cam fell quiet, unable to continue.
"...do you think Linnet was telling the truth?" Hotch inquired, concerned for the former team member. Though Cam had never been a full time member of the BAU, she had helped out on a few cases over the years.
"I don't know." Cam spoke slowly, displaying a level of vulnerability that Hotch had never seen in the woman. "I don't remember anything about her. Or my life with her. So I really don't know. I mean, maybe. I...just don't know."
"Don't worry. Everyone on the team will help figure this out. And if...if Linnet's telling the truth and this woman is your mother..."
"Yeah." Cam nodded and covered her mouth, unsure of how to feel. Or even what would be the better outcome. She didn't want her mother to be dead, but if Linnet was telling the truth, then she'd finally have some answers. An answer to why her mother had never looked for her or claimed her after the FBI found Cam as a child.
If the woman in the file was her mom, then Cam would finally know why her mom never claimed her. The woman in the file had died, been murdered, two years before Cam was found by the FBI during a raid.