Chapter Two: We'll Always Have This
A long awaited event finally comes to pass.
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"Your wedding completely changes the direction of your life, you know, no matter how greatly you desire it. I think that moment of doubt and faintness comes from all those imagined and now impossible futures all pressing in on you at once. It is your last chance to experience them, you see, and they all want to be lived at that moment."
― Sharon Shinn, Jenna Starborn
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"My biggest duty as best woman and it's picking the suits up," Emily jokes as her and JJ enter the tailor's shop. The air-conditioning blasts against their faces as they walk in, and Kailo ducks under JJ's collar to avoid being blown away. JJ laughs and puts a hand up to shield him.
"You really think this is your biggest duty?" she says with a smile. "You still have to get Reid up to the altar without him trying to make a run back to Vegas."
Emily groans as she's suddenly able to vividly picture the panic on her young friend's face when he realizes that this is it, he's getting hitched. She suspects she's going to need rope.
"Don't worry." JJ looks sympathetic now as she lays a hand on the counter and peers over for the worker. "Jack's Hotch's best man. He'll help you."
"Fantastic," Emily mutters to Sergio. He twitches his tail. His face is deadpan, but she can feel his amusement. "I have a seven-year-old helping me. Cross your whiskers and pray nothing goes wrong."
"Nothing will," Kailo whispers reassuringly, his voice muffled by JJ's shirt.
He's wrong.
"Do you think Reid can fit into Hotch's suit?" Emily asks Rossi later that night as they stare despairingly at the two formal outfits laid out on the bed.
"Only if you want him to look like he's playing dress up in Daddy's clothes," Eris says, settling her wings with a loud rustle. "And the only way we're getting Hotch into Reid's suit is with a hacksaw. Reid's a stick."
Rossi hums and runs one finger thoughtfully over the delicate stitching on the breast of what should have been Reid's suit, the careful gold wolf stitched there. On the other, a leaping golden hare.
On the wrong ones.
Her most simple job and she's buggered it up. She's not quite English enough yet to keep a stiff upper lip about these things.
"Hotch is going to shoot me," she says with another groan, covering her eyes.
"Maybe not…" Rossi says. He flicks a bit of lint off of one of the suits. "I mean… well they're two men getting married. Tradition is already out of the window, right?"
She lifts her head. "I'm listening."
Maybe there's hope for the night yet.
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Morgan had happily joined JJ in teasing Reid about his upcoming nuptials.
None of them had been game enough to tease Hotch.
But he'd assumed that Emily would be the one to actually deal with Reid on the night of the wedding. Apparently, he'd assumed wrong.
He's helping Rossi with the tables in Rossi's back garden when his phone dings loudly. Naemaria looks up from where she's helping Eris string small glittering lights, her ears pricked with interest.
FROM: Prentiss
CODE I'VE FUCKING LOST REID. PLEASE TELL ME YOU'VE SEEN HIM.
Well, shit.
TO: Prentiss
How did you lose him? Just shout out an incorrect statistic and then follow the sound of him correcting you.
The reply is instant, and Rossi looks suspicious. Morgan shoots him his best 'nothing is wrong' grin and the suspicion grows.
Damn profilers.
FROM: Prentiss
HE'S TALL BUT SNEAKY. MORGAN WE HAVE TWO HOURS TO FIND HIM. HELP ME OR I SWEAR TO GOD, I'LL SHOW HOTCH THOSE PHOTOS OF YOU FROM THE FBI BAR CRAWL.
Morgan rolls his eyes at the phone, before whistling innocently and sauntering away. "Just going to the bathroom," he calls back over his shoulder, Naemaria scampering to catch up.
"When you find Reid, can you ask him what time his mom is getting here?" Rossi shouts back. His voice sounds like he's smirking. He's probably smirking.
Damn profilers.
"I can snuff him out," Naemaria offers, dropping her head and racing across the path in a happy zig-zag pattern. "I'll just follow the scent of coffee and rabbit. Piece of cake."
"Do it quickly," Morgan says. There's a quick burst of affection in his chest for his daemon as she wags her tail, much cheerier on the hunt than while helping Eris decorate the backyard. "Emily's probably about to have a heart attack. Now that's going to be hard to explain to Hotch."
Naemaria bays once, softly, before bounding into the garden. Morgan follows at a jog.
Reid hasn't gone far. They find him standing at the garden's edge, watching the sun dip down with a strangely composed expression. Morgan's relieved to note that he's at least dressed, his suit cut finely around his body, perfectly tailored. Even his hair is neat. Short enough not to be sticking out wildly but long enough that there's the suggestion of curls around his ears.
"Running away, long ear?" Naemaria asks Aureilo as she taps her nose against the hare's head. Aureilo shrugs, the dimming light catching his eyes, tan fur gleaming. Morgan smiles at the bow-tie and formal cape the hare wears, hanging just over his shoulders. There's a tiny wolf in the corner of the black fabric, nowhere near as intricate as the one on Reid's suit, but still recognisable. Hal will be wearing one just like it, but with a hare in place of the wolf.
Rossi and Emily had outdone themselves with fixing the tailor's error.
"I'm not running away," Reid says quietly. "I know exactly where I'm going."
Morgan steps up beside him and touches his arm gently. "And where's that?"
Reid smiles, closing his eyes and tilting his head back slightly, just like Aureilo does when the hare stops to listen to faraway sounds. "Forward."
TO: Prentiss
Everything's fine. He's fine. He's more than fine.
FROM: Prentiss
Holy shit, Derek. He's getting married. I think it just hit me. He's all grown up.
TO: Prentiss
I think he's been grown up for a while. We've just only noticed.
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He'll never admit it, but Rossi is actually a little teary eyed at proceedings. He had kind of half expected something to go wrong by now-something usually did with these two-but it hadn't and here they are, and Rossi is standing in front of two of his friends as they finally get married.
About fucking time.
Hotshot, you dog, he thinks silently to himself, smirking as Hotch takes a very obvious calming breath and turns to face his about-to-be-husband. Reid is almost green with nerves, a look that isn't actually that new on him, but Rossi has only ever seen Hotch look this worried a handful of times before.
Eris is puffed up and proud on his shoulder, and she should be because this is a big damn moment for their weird little family. Aureilo and Hal sit together in front of the two grooms. They're close enough that their shoulders are touching, and while their humans seem determined to avoid eye contact with each other, the two daemons can't seem to look away.
If anyone there had doubted that the two men were in love, one look at their daemons would prove otherwise. Rossi has never seen Hal look so… soft.
"Ready?" Rossi says finally because someone needs to get the ball rolling or else they'll be standing here shuffling their feet all night. Or Reid will probably pass out. Rossi's not entirely sure that the kid is remembering to breathe.
Hotch nods and straightens and the strain suddenly slides from his shoulders like water from a duck's back. He smiles. Not one of his rare smiles either, hesitant and slightly hidden, but a real full smile and Rossi's only ever seen that once and Hotch was introducing him to an infant Jack at the time.
"Spencer William Reid," Hotch begins, because of course Hotch blazes a trail for the two of them to walk together, even in this. "Traditionally, this is where I would state that I choose to be yours for the rest of our lives but I don't believe that there's any choice involved. We look to our future and we see only one. In that Halaimon and I are by your side and we sleep in your arms as your family. In this moment, in front of everyone we love and who loves us in return, we vow to be faithful to that future because for us there is absolutely no other option.
Since the day I met you, you've constantly surprised me. First by being you, in every way, a force of life and vitality that I hadn't expected but one I quickly grew to rely on.
Second by being the kind of person who I could, and did, fall irrevocably in love with. I was never very good at knowing what I wanted but I knew from the moment you first smiled at me that I wanted you.
Third, you loved me back. I never expected that but I am endlessly grateful. I believe as we begin the next stage of our lives that you'll continue to surprise me, and I look forward to you doing so.
We promise to respect you as a partner, as a friend, as an equal and as a father to our son. And we will love you without pause, for everything that you are and that we promise to be. In this moment I become your husband and Halaimon a part of your soul, if you'll have us."
Reid stares at him, and Rossi thinks with glee that they've finally found something to shut the mouthy genius up.
Who knew that heartfelt vows were the kid's weakness?
Of course, seconds later it becomes apparent that although they're all waiting patiently, he appears to have either had a complete shutdown of his mental facilities or he's forgotten his own vows.
"Aaron," Aureilo says quietly; quietly enough that no one other than those gathered by the grooms can hear. "We aren't very good at being loved."
Reid jolts and snaps to life, repeating his hare's words. "We aren't very good at being loved," he says and his voice is heavy. "But you've shown us how we could be. I don't know if we can be the partners you wish us to be, but I do know we promise to try.
You walked into our lives and opened up endless possibilities and countless roads for us to travel. Somehow we managed to correctly choose the one that led us here, to this place, surrounded by these people and vowing our souls to be one. In my heart and in everything that I am, I see the future as becoming simple, the possibilities becoming singular and timeless. The wolfdog and the hare standing together, for now and forever.
Our life together holds over thirty-five hundred days within it and each one of those days holds memories that we will always cherish. In this moment, I promise to cherish the future days and memories that we face together, the good and the bad. I promise to grow old beside you, to come home to you always and I promise that every day that I open my eyes, I'll fall in love with you all over again because I still remember how that felt and I always will.
Most of all, until the end, I promise to love you without pause. Aureilo and I, as one singular being, in this moment vow to take you and Halaimon as our partners and our soul, throughout this life and into the next, for longer than we may live."
Emily and Jack are stepping forward with the rings next, and Rossi is only half paying attention because goddamn this is happening and he doesn't need an eidetic memory to look at the two men in front of him and see how far they've come.
He remembers Hotch, twenty-seven years old and cocky as a bull, rising through the ranks of the FBI with ridiculous ease. A brilliant profiler and friend but absolutely shit awful at anything requiring emotional commitment. Rossi had never expected this moment when he'd first held his hand out to the brand-new profiler and silently guessed that Hotshot Hotchner would be the making of their newly formed unit.
While he's been musing-and isn't that dangerously close to becoming the old man he's been threatening to turn into-they've exchanged rings, still holding hands as though neither is sure how to let go of the other anymore. It's Rossi's turn to step forward and loop the gold cord in his hands loosely around the two daemons, theoretically tying them together. It's a bit redundant really. There's more than a thin braid holding these two, and he can't see anything strong enough to pull them apart anytime soon.
"I pronounce you both married," he says quietly and there's more he should be saying, more he planned to say, but they've said it all and more at this point. "I guess you can probably now kiss your husband, although I wish you'd spare us the sight." He winks and Hotch chuckles. Reid just flushes.
But when the two men draw together and kiss for the first time as a married couple, even Rossi holds his breath.
The path they'd travelled to get here was thin and fraught with dangers and yet they'd still managed it.
He's never been prouder.
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Jack wriggles in his seat nervously as Auntie Emily stands up and taps her glass. Arelys is a mouse in his pocket, shivering with fear. He knows what he has to do next but that doesn't mean he's not scared.
It's a surprise for his dads. He can't wait.
"I was going to give this tremendously long speech about all the things Aaron and Spencer have done collectively to annoy me over the years," Auntie Emily begins, and Jack stops a nervous giggle as everyone else laughs.
He thinks he might be sick. The soda Dad let him have is uncomfortable in his stomach, bubbling away. Spencer glances at him and reaches a hand down to take his, smiling at him. Jack smiles back. Both their hands are sweaty. Spencer must be nervous too, although Jack doesn't know why. He's already done his speech in front of all these people.
Aunt Emily is still talking. Jack stops fidgeting to listen for his cue. "But I figured you guys already know about Spence's bad jokes and Aaron's inability to tell when someone is telling a joke…"
Dad makes a noise, leaning forward. He's smiling. Jack likes it when he smiles. It makes his face crinkle up and his eyes smile too. Spencer always looks happier when that happens.
Auntie Emily shushes him, just like Dad when Jack is noisy when he's trying to watch the news. He looks just like Jack does as well, sinking back into his seat and frowning like he's in trouble. Jack really does giggle this time and Spencer squeezes his hand.
"…. So I thought I'd ask someone else to give the speech instead. Because we're not here today to celebrate the union of just two people we all love very much. We're here to celebrate the union of three. Jack?"
Everyone turns to look at Jack as he stands and almost trips from the shock of seeing so many faces looking at him. His face is burning like he's got a really bad sunburn and Arelys squeaks in terror and tries to burrow further into his pocket. He can feel her claws catching on the material.
He doesn't know how to make his voice loud enough that everyone can hear him, even though they've all gone very quiet. So he pretends he's his dad, shouting at a bad guy. He's found that pretending to be his dad helps a lot when he's scared.
Dad isn't scared of giving speeches. Jack knows. He's seen him on TV and he never looks sick or sunburned.
"Hi," he says, because he's completely forgotten what to say and Emily drops a hand to his shoulder and rubs it. He focuses on that and not on the soft laughter of the people at the table.
Dad is looking right at him, and he's not smiling but there's a look on his face that he usually gets when Jack does something really good at school, or Spencer says something in the low, quiet voice he uses when Dad and him are alone and he doesn't think Jack can hear. Jack looks right back and decides that he's just talking to his dad. His dad and Spencer. Because that's why they're here today.
Arelys scurries up his arm and there's a folded piece of paper in her mouth. He takes it. Emily's handwriting is clear and easy to read, especially after they've been practising the words secretly all week. He only has to look at it a little bit to remember what it says.
"I love my dad," he says after a deep breath and this time there are muffled awws from the people there. He ignores them. "He's always been there to help me, and I know he loves me no matter what. I didn't really understand what he meant when he told me that he was marrying Spencer because I thought being married was living with someone and loving them more than anything and maybe kissing sometimes."
He wrinkles his nose, not really wanting to think about that too much. Dad looks away and when he looks back, his cheeks are red and his mouth is doing that weird twitching thing that Aureilo's whiskers do right before he sneezes. Maybe he's nervous too.
"No ad-libbing," Emily says quietly after snorting. Jack doesn't know what that means, but he assumes it has something to do with adding the kissing bit. Alright, no talking about kissing. He's fine with that.
"I thought that Dad and Spencer do all those things anyway so why do they need to get married again. And then I asked Uncle Dave and he said that it wasn't just doing all those things – he said that getting married meant making a family. It meant that everyone would know that Dad and Spencer are in love and that they're both my parents and no one would be able to say otherwise."
He pauses for a bit because his voice is starting to squeak and the paper is shaking in his hands and Spencer is looking down at the table and not looking back at him. Dad is though, and he's smiling again.
"I still think it's silly," Jack adds, and Spencer looks up and raises an eyebrow in a very dad-like way. "Because we've always been a family, always, and I don't need my dads to get married to prove that to me. But I'm happy that they are, because I want everyone to know and to know how much I love both of them and how proud I am of them."
Emily wrote most of that bit. Jack would almost be embarrassed to read out something so sappy but it's true, really. And he likes that he finally gets to say this to them because they say it to him all the time.
He's smudged the last line and he can't remember it, so he makes it up. Nothing about kissing though, so Emily can't get mad. "Thanks for letting me be your son," he says to Spencer. "I hope you're proud of me too."
Spencer looks like he's about to cry. Jack hopes he's not going to get in trouble for making him cry. He did at school when he pulled Eliza's hair because Elliot said it was fake and he was dared to check.
"How could I not be?" Spencer says, just loud enough that they can hear him, and now a whole bunch of people are crying.
Weddings are stupid.
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JJ thinks that dancing is probably the oldest form of profiling. If you want to know someone intimately, just dance with them.
Take Morgan, for instance. He dances like he's waiting for something to happen. A faster beat, a friendly touch to the arm, something small or something life-changing. He dances like he's about to spin off into a different rhythm, ready to start the next stage of the dance before the first half is even close to being finished.
Rossi is slow and observant. If she missteps, which she does often, he's already guiding her and making her mistake simply another part of the dance. She's safe from mishap in his arms, pulled easily through the crowd as though he was born to lead another.
Hotch dances carefully. He's observant, sure, but he's stiff and awkward. He knows all the steps, he knows all the theory, but he's only ever learnt them with one other. With anyone else, he's lost.
Will leads without leading. A laugh, a smile, a shyly ducked gaze. His attention is fully on her the whole time and she's never felt more cherished. If she goes, he follows, but he does so in a way that gives the appearance that he's still the one in control. She doesn't mind. She's happy to lead or follow him, so long as he doesn't go somewhere where she can't.
And Spence.
Her Spence. Her colleague, but mostly her friend. Sometimes she catches him watching her in the office and she wonders if he knows just exactly how much she loves him.
When she dances with him on this night, she knows he does.
He dances with careless abandon and leads easily, strangely confident on the floor. He has none of Hotch's stiffness or Rossi's slow care. There's not a trace of Morgan in his steps, waiting for something that might never arrive. He dances in the here and now and there's a smile in his eyes and his mouth and his touch that makes her smile in return.
His hand on her side says friend and the way his face softens when he looks at her says loved but when he dances alone with Hotch in the centre of the floor, every part of him is lined with the promise of forever.
If she cries at the sight it's okay, because Garcia has long given up on her makeup and Rossi's cheeks are suspiciously red.
Emily hugs JJ once as the newlyweds' dance comes to a close and her makeup is perfect, her eyes dry, but JJ doesn't need to dance with Emily to profile her.
If she cries, she won't let any of them see.
Morgan watches silently and unlike them he's not bawling, but there's a hunger in his face that makes her own heart ache, and she hopes that they all in the end get what they've been waiting for.
But for now she just enjoys that two of them have.
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Tod finds her first.
Alex is nursing a glass of champagne and standing on the outskirts at the wedding of two team members she'd walked away from when Tod barks a short greeting and vanishes from her side. She follows curiously, the people around her either strangers or awkward enough with her that they may as well of been.
Her old team is on the dance floor, and while Alex knows that if she was to walk out there and offer her arm to any one of them they'd take it, she can't help but feel like she's burnt that particular bridge. It's a lonely feeling.
She finds Tod greeting a fellow daemon with solemn regard, dipping his head in respect with his eyes glowing happily. She's not as quick to place the name of the woman sitting by the side of the scruffy cheetah but when she turns her head to smile crookedly at Alex with a familiar gleam in her eyes, Alex knows her immediately.
"Dr. Reid," Alex says, holding out her hand. "I'm Alex Blake. It's lovely to be able to put a face to the name, Spencer speaks of you often."
Diana beams at the mention of her son and gestures to the seat next to her. Alex takes it gratefully, turning slightly to see if she can spot the younger Reid in the throng of dancers.
"He's mentioned you many times in his letters," Diana says quietly, her hand falling down to rest on her daemon's sleek head, tracing the spots with thin fingers. Her skin is pale, paper thin and stretched over fragile bones. Alex can see why Spencer worries about her so much. "He says you're the only person to have ever beaten him at his crossword puzzles. He was so proud to have been beaten."
She looks like she could fade away in an instant and be borne away by the breeze. It reminds Alex of her mother, before the end.
"He was very tired that day," Alex says with a laugh. "I think he let me win."
Diana shakes her head with an adamantly stubborn look in her eyes that Alex recognises from her son as well. "Spencer wouldn't allow you to win. He values the struggle to gain what you desire much more than the actual victory. In most things, anyway."
Her eyes fall on a spot in the crowd and when Alex follows her gaze, Spencer is there holding Jack in the air and laughing. Aureilo bounds at his feet, almost dancing himself. Alex suspects that no matter where Reid had been standing, Diana would have found him with ease.
"He's happy," Alex says. Reid puts Jack down and the boy follows the hare from the dancefloor, face flushed and eyes glowing. "If you ever worry about him… you should know that. He's happy, and loved by so many. I know what it's like to worry over a child."
"You never really stop worrying about them, do you?" Diana replies, and her eyes are locked now on Alex. "No matter how far they go from you… or how long they've been gone for."
Alex thinks of Ethan and she sees Diana's face soften, a knowing look in her eyes. She's not overly surprised. Reid had to have inherited his gifts from somewhere and she's always had a suspicion it wasn't from his father. No clever person could walk away from a person as brimming with potential as Reid.
Except he had. And so had Alex, in a way. What did that say about them?
She opens her mouth to say something, but the cheetah chirrs. There's a shriek of barely contained excitement nearby and Diana laughs. "Excuse me," the older woman says as she stands. "But I believe it's time I danced with my grandson. And I believe there is someone wishing a dance with you as well."
Alex looks and Reid and Jack are heading towards them. Jack is careful with Diana, sliding to a stop in front of her and holding out his arm, taking her's as though she's made of spun glass and leading her towards the dancefloor. He's beaming proudly, gloriously excited to show off his new grandmother to everyone there.
Reid watches them go then turns to Alex. "You've met Mom," he says with a strained smile, looking nervous. Alex touches his arm reassuringly.
"Funny," she says to him. "But I feel like I met her a long time ago."
When Reid leads her to the dance-floor and lays his hand on her waist, the others make way for them effortlessly, as though she'd never left.
She's beginning to suspect that this is the kind of family you don't just get to walk away from.
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The newlyweds have departed, bless them. JJ and Will are gone, taking home the over-excited Henry. Jessica and Jack are gone too and Garcia doesn't envy Jessica the chore of getting that bundle of hyperactivity to sleep tonight, especially after seeing the amount of sweets and cake Reid had been slipping him every time Hotch looked away. Morgan is on the drunker side of smashed and Garcia herself is starting to feel the effects of the delicious champagne. Her thoughts are racing, rambling, and she can't work out if she's giddy with alcohol or life or love or just everything.
But she's not quite ready to spill herself and her drunk-but-still-sexy Morgan into a taxi and head home, not yet. Especially not when that would somehow involve her wrangling a boxer who appears to have forgot how to coordinate all four long legs at the same time.
Besides. She's still, rightfully, a little emotional and she doesn't want to get all weepy in the taxi thinking of Hotch cutting the ridiculously cute cake that Emily and JJ had somehow found, the icing all swirly and white and patterned with hares that you could only see if you held them to the light and squinted sideways; or thinking of the way Reid would catch sight of his reflection in the glass of Rossi's sliding door occasionally and pause, his hand coming up to trace the outline of the gold wolf on his heart and his face a soppy smile.
Nope. Nosirrie. She's not going to think of those things at all because she's already completely ruined her makeup and Emily still somehow looks gorgeous even though she's absolutely plastered and barefoot on the grass, her dress hiked up around her knees as she laughs and chases Morgan, threatening him with the lacy bow she'd stolen from somewhere.
She's not going to think of Reid and Hotch beginning their lives together because it hurts but in a good way and her eyes are already gritty with the amount of crying she's done tonight.
Morgan seems to finally have grown tired of the awkward dodging he's doing and scoops Emily up in his arms, dumping both of them onto the grass. He laughs, Emily shrieks and Sergio joins in with a joyful yowling that's probably the most outrageously odd thing Garcia has ever seen the dignified Prentiss do in all the years she's known her.
Garcia flinches, thinking of grass stains on a silky dress and muddy knees but then Emily starts howling with laughter and Naemaria trips over Sergio and they both fall in a heap and she can't help but join in.
The other guests are gone, it's just them and Rossi and the night is cool enough to nip at exposed shoulders.
It's perfect.
Garcia joins them on the grass and doesn't even care that it's thick with dew and that the sky is going to lighten soon. Rossi eventually comes over and doesn't say anything, just sits next to them, sprawling with a casualness that defies his dignified age.
They stop laughing and they don't talk and they stay there until the sun paints the sky with an icy blue dawn and they're all exhausted and sober and it's absolutely perfect.
And Garcia knows that all things end, eventually but she'll always have this.
They all will.