SETTLING IN
Reid unlocked the door and flipped on the lights, moving immediately to the alarm system beside the door. Punching in his eleven-digit code, he told Chelsea, "I'll teach you the code in the morning, let's just get you settled in tonight." He looked quickly to JJ, seeking her approval. She smiled back at him, telling him he was on the right track. Tonight was for getting Chelsea comfortable, tomorrow they could work out house rules and the more technical aspects of security involved in living with an FBI agent.
"Spence, have you still got hot chocolate in the cupboard?"
Reid smiled, when the team had helped him redecorate - all right when the team had redecorated - his apartment, they'd learned most of his secret vices, the fact that he was addicted to hot chocolate at night as much as coffee during the day was only one of them. After all, who could resist liquid chocolate? He knew for a fact that JJ, Emily and Garcia all agreed.
Chelsea stood near the doorway looking around while JJ headed for the kitchen. Reid closed and locked the door while watching Chelsea carefully, trying to gauge her reaction to her new temporary home. Well, she didn't look horrified, so that was good, right?
Reid watched as JJ took Chelsea's arm and led her towards the kitchen. "You and I are going to go fix some cocoa while your brother changes the sheets and finds you an oversized t-shirt to wear to bed. Or would you prefer sweats? I'm sure Reid's got a pair with a drawstring somewhere."
"Anything's fine. I don't want to be a bother. I wish I'd gotten to go home and pack a bag, but today's been …"
"You just relax and let us take care of you tonight. Tomorrow Spence'll take you to the hospital to see your parents, then you guys can swing by your house and pick up some things. You'll have a better idea of how much stuff you need to bring over here after Spence talks with their doctors."
Reid listened as carefully as he could to JJ's subtle directions. He really had no clue why he was taking the sheets off the bed after sleeping on them only one night, but if JJ thought it was significant enough to mention, he'd go ahead and do it now and ask her about it later. He dumped the bottom sheet in the washer of his small apartment-sized too-small-to-do-two-queen-sized-sheets-at-the-same-time, stacked washer/dryer combo and started it before searching through his drawers for something a girl her size could wear. He might be skinny, but she was a lot skinnier.
He found a pair of pajamas that the girls had bought him as a gag gift when he'd gotten the cast off his leg a few months ago after a near-fatal incident, they were light blue with kittens and the words "nine lives" all over them. He supposed they were cute, as far as that went, but they'd obviously picked them up in the women's department and despite his lack of fashion sense, even he wouldn't be caught dead wearing them. Luckily they had a drawstring waist so with the legs rolled up they should work fine.
He could only catch snatches of the conversation, but silently added visiting his father and stepmother (it felt so weird thinking that) to tomorrow's agenda. He had called earlier and spoken to the nurse on duty and given his cell number in case they needed to contact him before morning and had arranged to meet to discuss their short- and long-term care with the doctor after his rounds in the morning, but he hadn't given any thought to actually visiting his father, after all he was in a medically-induced coma, they wouldn't be having that long-overdue heart-to-heart any time soon. He hadn't thought about the fact that Chelsea would need to see them. Probably frequently.
He took the clean sheets from the trunk at the foot of his bed and made the bed. Once he'd finished smoothing the blankets and his mariner's compass quilt over the bed, he laid the pajamas on the pillow and headed to the kitchen for hot chocolate with JJ and his little sister.
SECTION BREAK
Reid won the argument over whether or not he should walk JJ back downstairs to her car: Her side, she was an FBI agent, it was a secure building and she could take care of herself - his side, his mother raised a gentleman and besides, it was his secure building so how was she going to stop him?
In the elevator, "I can't believe you kept the p.j.s."
"Why not? I keep all my gifts. Besides, I just knew someday I'd have a pretty girl in my apartment who'd think they're cute."
JJ snorted, "Yeah, right."
"Okay, maybe I just liked the sentiment behind them."
"Two down and counting?"
"Seven more chances. Now, a baseball theme and I'd have been shaking in my boots."
"You don't like baseball?"
"Three strikes and you're out? Huh-uh. I like nine lives better."
"Just be careful not to use up any more for a long time; okay?"
"Keep the count at two, check. One question?"
"Shoot."
"Why did I have to change my sheets? You don't even know if I'd slept on them."
"Like you'd get up and change them before you left for work? Nobody's that anal retentive."
The elevator doors opened and they started across the parking garage, "Okay, you got me. I changed them the night before. So, why'd I change them again?"
"She's a teenage girl."
"Yeah, I kinda noticed that."
JJ used the remote to unlock her car door as they approached. "She's used to dealing with teenage boys."
Reid checked the back seat of JJ's Jeep before opening the door for her, "I still don't get it."
JJ slid into the vehicle and patted Reid on the cheek before saying, "Think about it for a minute, Spence. What do all teenage girls assume all teenage boys do in bed at night? She does not want to sleep in a bed that a guy's slept in without changing the sheets."
Comprehension dawned in his eyes, "Come on, JJ, I'm twenty-six, give me some credit."
She smiled at his discomfort, this was definitely not something he talked about, ever, "I know you're twenty-six, she's still sixteen. Which means she'll figure the only reason you wouldn't be not doing that is that you're not sleeping alone -- double-yuck. You've known her for three hours, are you ready to explain to her that guys outgrow leaving messes behind?"
He let his head thunk on the B-pillar of her car, "What have I gotten myself into?"
She ruffled his hair, "It'll be okay, Spence. Just remember that right now, as scary as this is for you, she's twice as scared. Yesterday she didn't even know you existed, she has no idea what you're like, you could be the world's biggest bully and she's just been put in your complete control. You have the power to change her whole life around, pull her out of her school, cut her off from her friends, turn her into your house slave in exchange for room and board, refuse to let her see her parents, steal her college fund.
"Bottom line, right now all you have to do is be nice to her and assure her that her parents are going to be fine and that the two of you will figure everything out until they're ready to come home."
"JJ, they might not get better."
"Spence, you know that. I know that. Right now there's a scared little girl upstairs who does not need to know that. So, until the doctor tells you different, you are to assume that they'll be fine in a couple months. And that's an order."
Reid smiled, "I think you're forgetting, I outrank you."
"Only at work, when it comes to dealing with teenage girls, I outrank you by a long shot."
"Okay, you got me there. I'm just afraid I'm going to do something stupid and screw this up."
"It's going to be a big adjustment for both of you, but you'll get through it. And if you need anything just call, the whole team's here for you."
SECTION BREAK
"Hey, Chelsea, I'm back." Reid made sure to call out as he came back into the apartment, given how jumpy he tended to get over the last year, the last thing he wanted to do was startle someone else -- well, most someone elses, any time he got to get one over on Morgan was great, and Prentiss was a pretty good target, too. Of course, the one time he'd really gotten Prentiss she'd socked him one in reaction. She hit hard.
Thinking of which, he'd better broach the subject with Chelsea before it came up. He found Chelsea in the kitchen drying the cocoa mugs, "You didn't have to do that, I would have gotten them."
"It's okay. I figured you'd want them done tonight," she looked around a little uncomfortably, "you keep it awful clean in here."
Reid noted the look in her eyes, he'd seen it plenty of times when someone was dealing with someone with OCD, it made you afraid to leave anything out of place.
"Trust me that's out of necessity, not desire. After you come home from a case to find fuzzy dishes trying to make their way out the kitchen door, you learn to wash them after every meal. Dirty clothes go right in the washer then the dryer, because if damp towels get left in a hamper for three weeks, there's no saving them. I dump the garbage down the garbage chute every night before bed, because if I get a call at three a.m. and leave town for a week, that empty milk carton stinks to high heaven. I go through my mail right away because I don't know when I'll get back to it."
He reached into the cupboard and pulled out a coffee cup, a saucer and a juice glass, he put the cup on the table upside down, set the saucer on it, and balanced the juice glass on top. "See, things being out of place don't bother me. If you need to move something, so you can reach it better, go ahead and move it. Now, that's not carte blanch to be a slob, but it's okay if the place looks lived in."
He could see her visibly relax and decided his little Jenga demonstration had been on the right tack. "Um, there are a couple things we do need to talk about though, well one thing really." He saw her tense as he sat at the table, "It's not anything you need to worry about, but you do need to know about it before it comes up." He held his hand out toward the chair across from him and waited until she sat. This was so hard; he hated talking about this with anyone.
"Do you know what post-traumatic stress disorder is?"
She nodded.
"Well, it's pretty common with my job, I -- sometimes I have nightmares. They can sound pretty bad." She looked concerned, "They actually look and sound worse than they are." This was a blatant lie, the team had told him how bad they looked and sounded and they were actually worse, much worse, but his little sister did not need to know that.
"The only thing is, if I have one when you're around, do not try to wake me up. I'm usually dreaming about being in a fight," actually he was usually staring down the barrel of a gun or being beaten to death, but she didn't need to know that either, "sometimes I wake up swinging. I don't want you to get hurt by accident."
"Dad always told me that waking someone up from a nightmare isn't really doing them a favor because we only remember dreams when we wake up during or right after them."
"Exactly. So, even if they seem bad, I'd rather sleep through them and not remember, than wake up to someone telling me 'it's only a dream,' okay?"
She nodded again.
"If you ever do have to wake me up, just say my name and maybe throw a pillow at me."
She smiled at the thought of chucking pillows at her new brother, "Deal. Anything else I need to know?"
Reid thought for a moment, what did the team tease him about, that might cause problems? "Um, I'm not really awake in the morning until I've had at least two cups of coffee, and I'm going to be very strict about the alarm being on and the locks being locked at all times. Criminals tend to take the easiest route, so just locking the door will send most of them looking for an easier target." He grimaced at the thought of having to explain to Morgan that he'd gotten ripped off by a teenager looking for electronics to pawn for his next hit.
"How about you, anything I need to know right off the bat?"
She thought for a moment, "I'm a teenager, I like my music loud, get all emo for no reason at all and like to stay up all night and sleep till noon. Oh, and I'm a phone hog."
"Well, I think we've covered the stay up all night part tonight, but I want to be out of here by eight-thirty tomorrow, so decide how much time you'll need in the morning and set the alarm." As he spoke, he took a paper clip from his pocket and pulled an end out so he could reset the alarm on his watch. "I'll be getting up at six-thirty to start the coffee and fix some breakfast."
