Disclaimer: I do not own anything to do with the show, obviously. This is fanfic.


Prologue

Happy Birthday

"Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good."

- Maya Angelou


The first sign should have been the lack of signs. No notes, no cards, not even a present. After so long in the unit, after so many ambushes and parties and ridiculous hats, the total silence on this day should have tipped me off. But it didn't, and I let myself hope beyond hope that they'd simply... forgotten. For a blissful time, there were no happy birthdays, no presents, nothing. It lulled me into a false sense of security, so I jumped at the chance to watch Hank while Morgan and Savannah went out for date night. The fact that I had the day off at all should've been another red flag; it was in the middle of the week.

"SURPRISE!"

Now here I was, stuck between a grinning Garcia and a laughing Morgan. A surprise party. I had been surprised, alright. Surprised enough that my gun was out of it's holster before they even finished shouting 'SURPRISE!' Pulling a gun on your friends and coworkers probably wasn't the friendliest thing to do. And from the grins on Garcia and Morgan's faces, they were never going to let me forget it.

"Birthday boy, you brought your sidearm to watch my kid?" Morgan shoved me. I flailed, to the laughter of all present, and glared at his grinning face.

"I just got out of the range since my qualifications are next week, and I know you're gun case code," I smoothed out my shirt, "Didn't want to be late."

From the playful look on my best friend's face, I was in for it now. But then, a flurry of movement out of the kitchen caught our attention. For a split second, I thought it was my savior, but no. It was just Emily, JJ, and Rossi, the former two with armfuls of presents and the latter with a colossal birthday cake. It was covered in candles, already lit, and Rossi dodged around Henry with a laugh before depositing it on the coffee table in front of me. JJ and Emily dumped presents on the floor to the right of Garcia. The unfortunate birthday boy - myself - was sandwiched between Morgan and Garcia on the couch. As my eyes scanned the room for the last time before falling to my doom, I saw everyone who was in on this. Morgan, Garcia, Emily, and JJ I could expect this from - and from their spouses and boyfriends - but the rest? Dr. Tara Lewis, Luke Alvez, Stephen Walker... people I barely knew. They'd only recently started working for the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, and yet here they were. Grinning down at me, arms crossed, though a bit back from the festivities than the rest. Hotch and Jack were nowhere to be seen. Of course they weren't. As my eyes fell to that burning cake, I couldn't help the sigh. We would probably never see either of them again.

"Hey, don't look too put out, Reid," Garcia nudged me - much gentler than Morgan - and leaned forward enough for me to see her smile, "We'd start thinkin' you didn't like us or something."

"Wh-what? Oh, oh right," I shook my head, "Sorry, no... I mean, you guys really, really didn't need to do this."

"'Course we did," Morgan thumped my back, earning laughter when I nearly faceplanted right into the cake.

I shot him a glare, earning nothing more than that damn grin in it's place. Then the whole group, children included, busted into song. I bared it with as straight a face as I could, stifling a groan. I was blowing out the candles before they even finished the song, just to get them to shut up. But it only learned more laughter at my expense. Then the presents came. From Morgan and Savannah, a brand new Playstation 4 with an assortment of games from Garcia. Probably some plot to get me to play with Morgan and Garcia more; last year it was my computer, this year, a console. The rest got me an assortment of books, those from Rossi, JJ, and Emily ones I didn't have while half those from Lewis, Alvez, and Walker I did have (the other half were new; I couldn't blame them, it's not like they knew me well enough yet to know what I had).

Then Savannah spirited the cake away, enlisting help from Emily in cutting it up for everyone. Then, in simultaneous movements so in sync it was scary, Garcia and Morgan both rounded on me. I held JJ's present - The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss - defensively against my chest like armor, "What?"

"So, Reid... I know you remember the bet we made last week, when Garcia and I rounded you into some Call of Duty and you lost in the most spectacular way."

Oh no. He wasn't talking about...? And this is why I tried never to get roped into gaming nights with those two. Of course I remembered, this was me they were talking about. I gulped, "... yes?"

"Alright, everybody!" I jumped when Morgan shouted, "Gather round! Doctor Spencer Reid here is gonna let us ask him ten questions! Whatever we want, no hold barred!"

I half leaped from my chair, "Ten?! The bet was for five!"

"I dunno, I think-"

"Five is fine!" Garcia shot him a look that was all smiles. Then, just as some of the tension melted from my back, she turned that look on me, "... unless you wanna try out that Playstation, double or nothing."

From the sneering look on both their faces, that was just a bet even I, a Vegas native, would never want to make, "Uh... five is fine."

Soon, plates of cake and ice-cream were passed around and I found myself at the center of a group of eager children - the actual ones and my coworkers (in Morgan's case, former) - included. My palms grew warm and started to sweat, along with back of my neck. Prickling little hairs stood straight as - finally - Garcia spoke after rustling in her pocket, "So, Morgan and I made a list-" I leaned forward with a loud groan, burying my head in my hands. A list? I'd wondered why they hadn't just grilled me when I lost last week.

"Come on, boy wonder, they aren't that bad," Garcia chuckled, smoothing out the crumpled paper against her thigh, "Okay, number one - JJ, might wanna cover Henry's ears - are you a virgin?"

I sputtered, eyes wide as I rounded on the peppy blonde, not missing a giggling JJ clasping her hands over a squirming Henry's ears, "Excuse me?"

"You heard her, Reid," Morgan said.

"I thought you said they weren't that bad!"

"You should have seen the original list they had, Reid," Rossi said from somewhere behind me. I twisted on the couch to shoot him a glare, "You're welcome."

I could imagine. Between Garcia and Morgan and whatever their perverted little minds could possibly come up with... "I... I'm not answering that."

"Deal's a deal, Reid."

"But... what... I mean..."

"You are, aren't you?" Morgan wrapped an arm around me shoulders, jerking me close enough I could feel his chest rumbling with laughter, "Ain't nothin' wrong with that, Reid. It'll happen someday, 'specially for someone as pretty boy as you."

I threw his arm off, cheeks warm as vasodilation occurred and blood flow was increased throughout my face. I focused on it, counting and naming off the muscles and blood vessels of the face to keep calm. Buccanator, orbicularis oris, procerus, levator labii superioris- "I know that look; ask the next question before we lose him to whatever he's got goin' on in that head of his."

"What is this, Make-Reid-Die-From-Embarrassment-Day?" I mumbled, head in my hands.

"Now, now, the rest aren't that bad," Garcia said, "Figured we'd start off with the funny one."

She passed the sheet over my head to Morgan, who read the next one. They were true to their word, though the answers led to much laughter at my expense. A rather short answer about my dating history prior to joining the BAU (answer: none), whether or not Lila was my first kiss (it was), then the third being a short question about my rather nerdy habits that somehow devolved into an impromptu lecture about the actual scientific accuracy of the original Star Trek.

"Okay, Reid, enough about the physics of the warp drive," Now it was Morgan's turn to groan to the laughter of all. Good, at least I got some payback.

"Well, did you know-"

"Reid."

"Alright, boy wonder, one more," Garcia snatched the paper back from Morgan and cleared her throat noisily, "You could've done anything with that beautiful brain of yours. Cured cancer, engineered a colony on Mars..."

"What're you getting at?" My eyes narrowed.

"Well, why'd you join the FBI, and the BAU, of all things?" Garcia set that damned paper down, finally, next to the discarded present wrapping paper.

I blinked once, then twice, feeling a sense of cold in the tips of my fingers. A flash came to mind, an image courtesy of this memory of mine. The memory that forgot nothing, no images, no faces, no people from my past... "I... I, well, I wanted to help people."

"Oh come on, my man!" Morgan thumped my back again, "That ain't it! We've all got a story here; I may not be with the agency anymore, but still-"

White hair. A laughing girl, young. Brilliant red eyes. Red like the blood on the wall. 'Case has gone cold.' It said that in the newspapers. They showed her smiling in the newspapers, the T.V., talked about her during the Amber Alert. White female, age thirteen, missing and suffering from a host of illnesses, last seen at her home in-

"Reid?"

I leaped from Morgan's arm on my shoulder, shooting up as my voice spilled and crackled, "I... I... well, I just liked helping people. Thought saving them was the best way, you know?" You wanted to catch them, Reid. You wanted to catch people like them. Like those people who took her, like those that killed them... I slid back onto the couch, the cold inching up my wrists like skittering bugs, up my arms, my neck, constricting the vessels in my face and bleeding out the warmth from my previous blush.

"Yo, hey, Reid... man, you alright?" Morgan's arm was comforting now, draped across my shoulders and his voice lower.

I looked at the rest, seeing the jovial mood slowly leeching from all my friends. Even my godson, Henry, was looking up at his mother with such a look of confusion that I just... couldn't. I squared my shoulders and flashed a grin at the little boy, who gave me a smile of his own. At least he seemed immune to the 'Reid Effect'. I patted Morgan's hand where it rested on my shoulder, "Yeah, yeah, 'course. But it's just that. I mean, we catch bad guys and help their victims." I looked at each of my coworkers and friends in turn, hoping my expression and smile said that this was the end of this conversation, "Just... helping people, you know?"

That seemed the break the spell of ice that had settled over the room, and soon they were all right back to poking fun. I took the books and, with some help from JJ, organized them into neat piles with the rest of my things on the dining room table. While we did that, JJ and Savannah disappeared into the kitchen and soon the smells of popcorn joined the cake and ice-cream.

"What now? Movies?" I called as they brought in overflowing bowls of popcorn.

Morgan tossed something and it hit me square in the chest; I had to scramble to catch it. Spock stared up at me from the cover, along with others. The Wrath of Khan. I shot Morgan an amused look, "So this was the reason behind the Star Trek question?"

"Would've been halfway through the movie if you hadn't gone on that physics tirade," Morgan ruffled my hair, "Now budge up, genius."

I did, rolling my eyes as everyone took comfortable seats all around me. My friends, my family, passing around cake and popcorn. I smiled in spite of myself as Henry bounded up to insert the movie into Morgan's Playstation. Maybe birthdays weren't such a bad thing after all.


At the same time, in a place so far away, a young woman blew out the candles on a cupcake. All around her was blankets, pillows, fluff forming the gentle nest. Billowing curtains, lace trim, silk. All cushioning her, cushioning her child, in it's warm embrace. She looked up from the cupcake at the faces of the two in front of her. She focused on the Nurse. The Nurse was always kind and gentle, though she was new. The Nurse was kind to her children. But the others... no, the others were not. Never kind. Never kind to them...

"Are you going to eat it?" The one she thought of as Nurse sat down next to the woman. There was a strained smile on her lips, and the young woman knew why. Her eyes traveled, sliding down from the Nurse's tattered shirt to the fresh blood on her wrists, and the shackles and chains linking them to her feet. She could move, walk, take care of the young girl as they instructed, but no further.

"Yes, I..." her hands fell to the roundness of her abdomen. It was large, like all the others, and the feel of it brought a smile to her face. Maybe this one. Maybe this one she could keep, "My child likes sweets, I th..."

The words died on her lips as the mood shifted. She knew the mistake made the second he slid from the darkness surrounding the bed to stand before her. The young woman shrank back, arms wrapped protectively around her stomach. The comforting embrace of Nurse shielded her from the man's furious, hooded gaze. Always hooded whenever Nurse was in the room. Always hidden then, but never when Nurse was not. Never when Nurse was not.

"Take her away."

They came for the Nurse. She fought, kicking and punching as much as her weak, stick thin and malnourished form allowed. The young woman reached for her, choking back sobs, until Nurse was rested from the room. Then her arms fell, face calm and all emotion scrubbed clean, bright eyes gone dull as they settled on the man.

"They are not your child. This one is not worthy of being the angel's child," He stepped up to the edge, leaning forward enough to plant one knee down. The young woman didn't move. She knew what this meant, and the penalty for resistance. There was not point in the resistance.

"I know."

"I will have to punish you for the indiscretion."

"I know."

"But not tonight," The knee slid off the bed.

The young woman's jaw went slack, and she blinked once, "Not... not tonight?"

"No," The man slipped back into the darkness of the room, "Tonight, we celebrate, remember? For the first time in so long, we have a day to celebrate."

And he smiled, so she smiled. Because to disobey was to be punished. And to be punished, in such a state... she could never keep her child then. Because, even as the man told her they were not, they were her children. They were all her children.


Author's Note: Rewatching Criminal Minds leads to this :D