Note: Two updates in one day! I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever done this.
I was going to wait to post this chapter until I got back from the local aquarium tomorrow (I do volunteer work there every Tuesday), but I think I was too excited to have this out to wait.
I forgot to mention this in the first chapter, but this story takes place early season 3, so after Gideon leaves, but before David Rossi.
A big shoutout to all my reviewers: Dextolan, Sherryola, Hippiechic81, fishtrek, ahowell1993, Astrahan and laileyspenstar.
Chapter Two: Partners in Crime
For a moment, Hotch just stared.
Then he spoke. "I'm sorry?"
"I said," Garcia repeated, in a very small voice, "it's Reid."
Hotch shook his head. "Garcia, if this is some kind of joke, than I can assure you right now it's not funny."
"It's not! I wouldn't do something like this!" Garcia looked appalled at the idea. Then she said, "I'm serious!"
Hotch took a closer look at the sleeping child. He was dressed in clothes very similar to what Reid generally wore. The boy's longish hair and the way his face was pressed against Garcia's arm prevented him from getting a good look at the child's features.
"How did this happen?" he finally asked, feeling an odd sense of calm come over him. He wasn't ready to accept it and he… wasn't quite sure he could put it past the two of them to pull something like this, but… there was still the matter of the unexplained baby.
He supposed it was possible for them to have borrowed a child from a coworker, but the only other agent he knew who'd had a child had a two and a half year old daughter.
It was a far-fetched idea, he admitted, and he was half-ashamed of himself for thinking it, but the only other option, it seemed, was what Garcia had just thrown forth.
"I… I don't know." Penelope gave a helpless half-shrug. "He was staying later to help me out with something in here and… and I was only gone for a few minutes, but when I came back…" She trailed off, gesturing with one hand at the little bundle asleep on her shoulder. "I just found him. He was sleeping on the chair." She looked back at Hotch, eyes wide and troubled. "Hotch, we need to get him out of here! I can hack the cameras for a few minutes, so there won't be any footage of you taking him out to the car."
She stood, carefully passing the child (Hotch absolutely refused to call him Reid. At least not yet. Not until he was sure.) to him so quickly that Hotch only had time to blink.
The boy stirred, whimpering in his sleep, and for a moment, Hotch was afraid he was going to wake up.
With more than a little experience with rudely awakened infants, he dreaded what would happen should the baby start to wail.
"Careful! Watch it!" he told her, keeping his voice low, the instincts that came with fatherhood overriding anything else for the time being.
Garcia winced. "Sorry." She darted back to her computer console. "It should only take a moment to hack the security cameras and once I do, you'll be home free and you can get my little honey dumpling out safely."
"Garcia…" Hotch warned, though it was only half-heartedly. He was still rocking the child gently in his arms and he did have to admit that, if caught on camera, it would provide for a very… interesting conversation with Strauss later on.
He had no doubt that Garcia wanted a picture… and that she would most definitely snap one should a camera become available. Or her cellphone.
He glared at her, conveying a silent warning.
One that she seemed to ignore. For the time being, however, she wasn't taking any pictures. Instead, her efforts were entirely focused on dealing with the cameras.
"And done." She tilted her head back to look at Hotch. "It's shameful how lax the security for those cameras is," she told him, keeping a straight face fixed in place. "Something needs to be done about it."
Hotch sighed. "Garcia…" he said again.
Garcia stood. "You have a five minute window to get him out of here," she said. "Then the cameras start rolling again. But don't worry. I've fixed them so it'll look like nothing was ever missed."
Hotch frowned his disapproval at her. If she was caught… If either one of them was caught…
He didn't get a chance to speak, because Garcia beat him to it. "What are you waiting for? You've already wasted a minute staring at me like that! Get him out!"
She took his arm, turning him around. "Before he wakes up," she hissed. "I really don't want to have to explain all this if we're caught."
She didn't have to worry about that. He'd be the one expected to do the explaining if they were caught, though Strauss would likely have words with Garcia as well.
It was something he would like to avoid if it could be helped.
The baby stirred again in his arms and Hotch stiffened again, afraid he really would wake up.
That seemed to be all the invitation Garcia needed and she took his arm, pretty much dragging him from her office.
It was undignified and out of line, something Hotch would never have tolerated if it hadn't been for the outlandish quality to the whole situation.
It was then that Hotch was thankful he had stayed late.
He wasn't sure he wanted to know how this would have gone if Garcia had been left to her own devices.
It took them approximately two minutes to get out of the BAU and into the parking lot.
Taking into account, the "wasted" minute from before, that left them with two minutes to spare.
"Do you have a car seat in your car?" Garcia asked him once they were in the parking lot.
Hotch looked at her like she was crazy. "No."
He and Haley did have a car seat for Jack, but it was in the other car. There was no need for it to ever come with him to work.
"Right." Garcia looked around her and then held out her arms again to take the child. "Alright so… hand him over."
"I'm sorry?"
"He's going to have to come home with one of us. And since I doubt that you want to explain to Haley why you suddenly show up with another kid in the middle of the night, it's going to have to be me. And since we don't have a car seat, you're going to have to drive me back."
Hesitating a moment, Hotch transferred the little boy to Garcia's waiting arms. The moment the baby was out of his arms, he suddenly felt an emptiness in his place.
Shoving the feeling to the back of his mind and unwilling to try and determine what it meant, he said, "And we'll find a way to get your car in the morning."
"Something like that."
The baby stirred in Garcia's arms, the tiny mouth opening in a yawn.
The small eyes opened to slits and Garcia squealed. "He's waking up!"
Her elation didn't last long, however. The boy's tiny mouth next opened in the beginnings of a wail.
"Oh!" Penelope exclaimed, rocking him back and forth. "Shhh. Shhhh." She cast another furtive glance at the BAU.
"We need to leave," she said.
Hotch had come to the same conclusion as she.
The baby was still whimpering, pressing his face against Garcia's face as if he was still trying to wake up.
"It's okay. Shhhh. We're going to take you away from here," she soothed. It seemed to work for the boy's whimpers died down, though not ending completely.
Hotch found himself studying the boy's face, even as he guided Garcia to where his car waited for them.
He was hard pressed to deny the resemblance between the child here and his youngest agent, but he was still loathe to admit that there could be any possibility of truth behind the ridiculous explanation the technical analyst had given them.
But if that was the case, then where had the boy come from?
He opened the door for Garcia, allowing her to climb carefully into the back seat.
It was safer that way, in the unlikely occurrence that anything should happen on the drive.
The baby had quieted-something Hotch was infinitely grateful for, but he was watching Hotch curiously through a pair of very big, brown eyes.
The tiny thumb moved to the mouth.
Hotch managed a smile. "Hey, buddy," he whispered, before closing the door and moving around to the driver's side.
He climbed in, started the ignition and then sat there, fingers clenched tightly around the steering wheel.
"Hotch," Garcia said softly. "No offense, but…" He was sure she was gesturing to the child in her arms, but Hotch didn't look back to check.
"Garcia," he said, as if he hadn't heard her.
Garcia didn't answer, but he knew she was waiting for him to speak his mind.
"That's really Reid, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
