Leo Tolstoy once wrote, "All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
A week after he made his promise, Darcy still hadn't visited either of them, all the doors and windows stayed locked, and none of the tutors had arrived for lessons, so both of them found that they were either spending their time in the kitchen or in Angeline's room, where they were now.
Reid and Angeline were both going stir-crazy (the girl had taken to running up and down the hall in her socks to blow off energy), but Reid knew that it was up to him, as the adult, to make sure the girl was taken care of.
"Angeline, stop squirming."
She didn't stop. She just made an unhappy sound in the back of her throat, pouting while he rubbed the aloe gel into her cheeks with his thumbs. He had tried letting her do it for herself first, but she wouldn't put on enough, so now he was forced to put her in his lap and apply it himself.
"It stings!"
"I know, I know. But that's—it's going to feel good in a second."
Reid finished rubbing the gel into her sunburned cheeks, then moved on to her bare shoulders. He had been reluctant to touch her bare body (save for panties—those, he insisted on) at all, but after a certain point, one realized that she was a kid and she had sunburn. It was okay for him to touch her.
Angeline began to relax as the soothing effect of the aloe settled in and his hands were off the worst of her burn.
"You see? It's starting to feel better, right?" He smiled at her. She slumped against his chest as he finished rubbing in the gel. Reid chuckled softly, resting his chin on her head. "I told you."
She made a muffled 'mph' sound.
"Come on, Angeline." Reid ruffled her hair, wet from her bath. She looked up at him, icy eyes bright. The bruise on her cheek had faded into a yellow color with a purple border, and the sunburn was healing nicely as well. Reid figured it'd only be a couple more days before her complexion was completely white again. "W-we should practice reading. You put in your contacts this morning, right?"
"Yeah. I did."
Her hand went to scrub her eyes. Reid caught it in his, pushing it back down in her lap. "You shouldn't rub your eyes with contacts. Go—go put on your dress and meet me in the media room."
"You sure you don't need me to push you?" She giggled and poked him gently in the stomach before wiggling off his lap, standing up on the floor and taking the bottle of aloe from him.
"Sure, sure, make fun of the cripple." Reid waved at her dismissively, a twinkle in his eye. "I'll get you back for it when my leg heals, you know."
"I'll still outrun you." She grinned at him, putting the bottle down on her bedside table and then grabbing her dress from the covers. "I'm pretty fast."
"And I have long legs." Reid started to wheel out of the room, giving her a smile over his shoulder. "We'll see who wins. What book are you in the mood for?"
She pulled the dress over her head, then ruffled her own hair. Without Darcy around, she didn't wear her hair in a braid. It was long and fell way past her shoulders. "Matilda? Can we read Matilda?"
Reid smiled, rolling out of her room. "You know you're not up to that, yet."
"Well, I want to read it anyway!" she called after him, tugging her dress on over her head. "Read it to me and I'll work on reading for myself, okay?"
Reid rolled down the hall, still smiling a smile she couldn't see. "Twenty minutes. You have to give me twenty minutes of your own reading. Then I'll read you a chapter."
The huff he could hear from her room just made him chuckle. "Alriiiiiiiight."
"This is a stupid book."
"It's a beginner's book."
"Just let me read To Kill a Mockingbird."
"That's for more advanced readers."
"And this is for babies." Angeline lay 'Anansi the Spider' down on her lap, giving Reid the best flat look she could from the couch. "Maybe I should read the Weeping Woman instead."
"That's the same level as Anansi." Sort of. Reid was reluctant to hand over the Weeping Woman more because it was a very, very dark story to let a little girl read, more than he was because of its reading level.
"Then give me To Kill a Mockingbird!"
Staying inside for three weeks was really making Angeline cranky. To be honest, he was starting to go nuts from it as well.
Reid ran his hand up and down his cast, frowning at her. He was pretty tired. He was always tired when he had to wheel around everywhere. When his leg was fixed up, he'd try to work on his arm strength a little bit. This was ridiculous.
"Angeline, you can read more advanced books once you have a handle on the basics," he said patiently, forcing himself to not react to her grumpiness.
"This is more than basic! This is just stupid!" She threw up her hands, her white brow furrowed. "Who names their kid something like 'River Drinker'?"
"For the same reason the fish gave the fisherman golden children in that fairytale. It's a story." Reid took the book off her lap, opening it up to the first page and smoothing it out. He had no doubt that the girl would learn how to read and then become an avid reader soon, but the trick was to get her to start with the first step instead of jumping to the twentieth. "And besides: different cultures have different naming traditions. There are many cultures where a person is given a name meant to describe what traits their parents want them to have, such as bravery or intellect, or else a person has a primary name as a child and then are bestowed a more apt name when they reach adulthood in order to better describe who they are as a person."
She did not become glassy-eyed in the least at the explanation. She waved her hand, scowling. "Other cultures are weird."
"And they think our culture is weird, too." He held out the book to her again, leaning forward as much as he could with a broken leg. "I know you want to just jump right into it, but everyone needs to start at the beginning. The sooner you finish this, the sooner you can start reading To Kill a Mockingbird on your own."
She frowned at him, on the edge of a cabin fever-induced fit—honestly, if she had thrown a tantrum right then and there, he would have just let her.
But then, even from the media room in which they were sitting, they heard the familiar click of the kitchen door opening.
Angeline slammed the book shut and put it beside her. Reid, reacting with instinct alone, leaned forward, ignoring the pain in his leg, and plucked the little girl from the couch before placing her in his lap, right where he could easily protect her.
The little girl's expression smoothed to cool neutrality just before the dark form of Darcy walked into the room, his broad shoulders filling out the doorway and those sharp green eyes fixed on them, his lips a thin line.
There was a moment of tense silence. Reid wrapped one arm around the child's abdomen and the other around her chest, as if he could pull her within himself and curl up around her like a ball and protect her with his own body.
Darcy's mouth twisted into a scowl. "Angeline, your hair is disgusting." The child had no visible reaction. Those green eyes focused on Reid. "Go brush it and braid it properly. Then leave her to study in the library and come back alone. We have to talk."
The tone was cold and clipped, but controlled with the same precision Reid had always witnessed from Darcy before the escape attempt. There was no immediate danger of a violent outburst. Reid wanted to keep it that way.
He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing, and nodded before detangling his arms from Angeline's body and wheeling away to her bedroom.
As soon as they were there, Angeline jumped off his lap, closing the door behind them. As Reid nervously readjusted in his wheelchair, she ran around the room, gathering a brush and a hair tie before coming back and sitting on his good leg.
"I haven't gotten any better at this," Reid warned, wrapping the hair tie around his wrist and starting to brush.
"It has to be perfect."
"I know."
It took forty-five painful minutes. Reid's hands ached, and Angeline continually undid the braid when he was halfway done. After a whole three weeks of being confined inside in a wheelchair, he was about ready to just toss the brush and refuse to do any more.
But finally—finally—Angeline didn't undo the braid, and allowed him to tie it off in completion. Reid hoped that they hadn't angered Darcy by taking this long.
"Go to the library. I'll talk to you when I'm done, okay?" Reid patted her hip to encourage her to get off. She did so, her white braid swinging behind her, but she didn't leave immediately. Instead, she stopped by his side, placing her hands on his armrest.
"Be careful."
Her eyes were serious. Reid just nodded in response.
Then she was gone.
He sighed softly, hung his head, and wheeled away into the media room.
Darcy was sitting in his big cushioned armchair again, leaning back and looking at a book in his lap as if it were a thousand times more important than anything Reid had to say. "That took a long time."
"Y-yeah. I'm not—I'm still learning how to do it the way you like." Reid folded his hands in his lap. He didn't quite know what to say, but whatever he said, he wanted it to be what Darcy wanted to hear. "I… I'm sorry. For trying to leave."
Darcy seemed to ignore him for a minute. He finished off the page he was on, then slowly marked his place and closed the book before raising his head to look Reid in the eye.
Reid squirmed, very uncomfortable with the eye contact, and after a moment of attempting to meet the man's gaze, he averted his eyes. Submission. That was what Darcy wanted, right?
Darcy made a small derisive noise in the back of his throat. He stood up, putting the book down on his chair, and smacked the palm of his hand across Reid's face.
Reid yelped in surprise, curling up in his seat and putting his hand over the stinging pain in his cheek.
"You're pathetic."
Reid didn't respond. He just stayed curled up, hoping that the submission would satisfy the man.
"Absolutely pathetic."
There was a soft creak. Reid dared to peek out of his little protective ball. Darcy was sitting down, staring at the younger man expectantly. Reid slowly straightened out again, trying to not visibly nurse the bright red handprint that was no doubt forming on his cheek.
"I feed you, I clothe you, I shelter you—and this was how you repay me." Darcy leaned back in the chair, scowling at Reid. Inexplicably, Reid felt a pang of guilt, as though there were actually something to be grateful for, but he didn't have the time to examine that feeling before the bigger man continued. "I should have killed you, but Angeline was adamant that I not. I decided to give you one last chance at her request."
Reid swallowed, memories of how close to dying he had been flashing in his mind. He wondered what had happened to Angeline when he passed out. Did Darcy force her to stay in the sun? Did he hit her? Kick her?
"One more stunt like that, and I won't be so forgiving."
Reid focused his eyes a little below Darcy's, avoiding eye contact in a clear sign of submission, and traced the bigger man's defined, smooth features with his gaze. He had no doubt that the man was telling the truth. "I won't do it again."
Darcy examined his expression, mouth still fixed in a scowl. "You're damn right, you won't." The man stood up, smoothed his jacket, and walked past Reid. "Angeline's tutors will start coming again tomorrow. Make sure she's prepared for them. If her diction, manners, or cleanliness have slipped at all, I'll know who's at fault."
Darcy stopped at the door. He looked back at Reid, his gaze hard.
"And next time, look me in the eyes like a real man."
And he was gone.
He didn't promise that he'd never leave. He just promised he wouldn't try to escape. He still had hope that his team would find him.
Over time, that hope dwindled.
And then it died.
After Darcy came back, life got back to… well, something like normal. Darcy was in control again, and even became somewhat pleasant to talk to in the mornings before it was time for Angeline to wake up. During sleepy Saturday mornings over mugs of coffee, Reid learned that Darcy worked in investment banking, which would explain all the money, but Reid suspected that his banking went down shadier routes. During Sunday mornings, Darcy had Reid rub tinted sunscreen on Angeline, give her sunglasses and a hat, and send her to Sunday Mass with him. The tutors came every 'school' day and Reid was shackled to his bed every night.
And every night after Angeline finished whatever she did with Darcy in the evening, she would crawl into Reid's bed, snuggle up to his chest, and ask for a story.
"We already finished To Kill a Mockingbird and all the fairytales, Angeline," Reid said one night, stifling a yawn. "I'm starting to run out of stories to tell." Or, well, appropriate stories, at least.
"You can't run out of stories!"
Despite it being way past her bedtime, she was practically buzzing with energy next to him. On one hand, it was adorable. On the other hand, Reid really wanted to sleep.
"Oh really? Can you think of a story for me to tell?" He curled his fingers in her soft hair, taking comfort in her presence and wondering how the hell JJ or Hotch ever managed to get any sleep with a small child running around.
"You gotta stay awake to tell a story!" She poked his stomach, making him wince before making a muffled noise. "Tell me about what you did before this!"
"What I did before this?" Reid scrubbed his eye with the heel of his hand, stifling another yawn. "I was a profiler."
"What's a profiler?"
Reid rested his arm across her body, unable to see her in the darkness. "It means that I worked for the government to help find people who did a lot of bad things."
"So… you were like Atticus Finch?"
Reid chuckled softly, settling down on the bed and running his fingers through her hair. Sometimes, that would make her a little sleepier. "Atticus Finch was a lawyer. In the criminal justice system…" he thought about it for a moment, trying to think of something simple, "…there are three categories, okay? There are people who find and take in people who are suspected of doing something bad, there are people who argue over whether or not there's enough evidence to prove that the person did something bad, and there are people who decide on how to punish that person and how to enforce that punishment. Lawyers are in the second category and profilers are in the first."
She nodded against his shoulder. She didn't even need clarification. "Then tell me a story about being a profiler."
His mind swirled with memories. Some were good, and some… not so much.
"I can't tell you about being a profiler without telling you about my team."
He could feel her eyes fixing on him even through the darkness.
"Then tell me about your team."
He stroked her hair a little more firmly. He could hear some sleepiness coming into her voice.
"I'll tell you about them, then I'll tell one story. After that, bed. Alright?"
"Alright."
He took a deep breath. He remembered. "There were seven of us, but there've been four others who were all members of our team at some point. I'll tell you about the ones there now, okay?"
She stifled a yawn. He took that as a sign of his head strokes working. "Okay."
"Okay." He smiled into the darkness, even though there was an ache in his chest. "Okay. Let's—let's start with Hotch. He's our leader. Very—he always strikes other people as stern or scary, but we all know that that's just how he is. He always feels like there's a lot at stake, but he… he takes care of the people he loves. And he's good at it, too. It always seemed like he knew what to do. When the rest of us were upset about anything, he'd know. He'd always know…"
It took a long time before he realized that most of the conversation had been in past tense.
Slowly but surely, Reid came to enjoy the quiet morning ritual before he woke Angeline.
Without fail, he woke up when Darcy unlocked his shackles. He would rub his ankles, returning feeling to them, and then follow the other man to the kitchen, where there was always water boiling in the kettle and the coffeepot bubbling.
Darcy never had a real breakfast. Honestly, neither did Reid. Every morning, Reid would shamble in after Darcy's much more clipped pace. Reid's routine was simple—drag himself to the coffeepot Darcy kindly started half an hour before waking him up, pour himself coffee, ruin it with a ton of sugar, and then quietly nurse it at the kitchen table, curled up like a sleepy cat. Darcy's routine was even simpler—pour out tea for himself, then sip for a while before washing the mug and leaving.
Sometimes, they drank in silence. Sometimes, they spoke. Reid found that he could usually predict what kind of day Darcy was expecting to have by what tea he drank. Black tea for a busy day, chai when he had an important meeting, raspberry if he was going to interact with clients, white during a normal work day, mint during the weekends or days when he didn't have work, and then there was peach. When Darcy took out a little peach teabag, Reid knew to tread lightly—that usually meant that the man was in a bad mood and was trying to calm himself down.
Despite that, Reid was rarely afraid. Darcy had an explosive temper, but there were always warning signs if he was in a foul mood, and the man always removed himself to brood in safe solitude. Peach tea only made rare appearances, especially during their sleepy conversations in the early mornings.
In fact, it was one such morning about three months after Reid's admittedly ill-advised escape attempt (now the leaves were beginning to change color outside, though he only saw them rarely) when Darcy suddenly said, "You're too skinny."
"Hmm?" Reid wasn't completely awake yet. He looked up from his coffee, blinking blearily at the sharply dressed man across from him before pushing back some hair that was falling in his eyes.
"You're too skinny. It's good to be trim, but not a beanpole." Darcy sipped his raspberry tea. Everything about him was neat. His unwrinkled suit, his finely lined face, his short black hair—how did the man manage it? "Do you eat anything while I'm at work?"
Reid blinked again, running his finger against the warm edge of his mug. "S-sure I do." He couldn't say he was surprised to be confronted on his health habits. Everyone talked to him about it at some point. "I eat with Angeline. Children who eat with guardians are statistically less likely to experiment with drugs and sex at a young age."
"You're already thinking about that?" Darcy raised an eyebrow, but then he shrugged. "I don't think you'll need to worry about her experimenting. She's being raised to be a lady. But that's beside the point—"
Reid only had time to frown a little before Darcy pointed at him. "The point is that you're unhealthily skinny. What do you usually like to eat?"
Reid furrowed his brow, taking a sip of coffee. "Well, uh… I usually eat while I'm traveling, so it's mostly stuff you'd find in a vending machine."
"So utter garbage, you mean." Darcy shook his head, taking a sip of tea. "No, you're not going to eat like that anymore. Tonight, I'm coming in here with healthy meal recipes."
…Well. Reid wasn't entirely sure what to do with that. Other than their conversations in the morning, he and Darcy didn't interact too often. "I'm not very good at… well, cooking in general. I really only know how to cook Italian." And that was because he had been taught.
"Then I'll teach you." Darcy drained the last of his tea and got up from the table. "And then you should teach Angeline once she's maybe seven and a half. She'll likely have chefs serving her for her whole life, but she should know how to cook for others."
Reid straightened up in his seat, watching the other man wash his mug. "You would do that? I thought you were too busy to stay here for long."
"I'm busy, but I can spare a couple hours a week. Now then, remember to wake Angeline at eight." He walked to the door connecting the kitchen to his side of the mansion, unlocking it. "And by the way, I think you've proven yourself. You won't have to be chained to your bed anymore, and you may have your name back."
And before Reid could even respond, he was gone.
When Angeline was six and three quarters, Reid asked why Darcy always took her away for a small amount of time before bed. He tried not to let onto his concern, but the worry had been gnawing at him, and eventually he had to ask.
They were outside, the air beginning to warm back up enough for them to swim again. While she picked flowers from the ground, only the moon illuminating her way, she glanced up at Reid carefully. "He said not to tell anyone."
Reid swallowed, but that was his only tell as he stood above her, hands stuck in his pockets. "I won't say anything. It can just be our little secret."
Angeline mulled over it, then turned back to the flowers, making a small bouquet of daisies and daffodils.
"Please, Angeline?"
She touched a daisy petal, rubbing it in between her fingertips. "He likes me to sing to him before he goes to sleep."
Reid furrowed his brows. That wasn't what he expected. "What? Why?"
"I don't know." She looked up briefly and pressed a finger to her lips. "Our secret."
It felt like a weight was taken off of his chest. He didn't know why Darcy would want that, but the important thing was that Angeline wasn't being touched. She was safe.
"Do you know what flower this is?" she asked as she plucked a snowdrop from the ground, showing it to him.
"Oh, that's a snowdrop." Reid knelt down on the ground next to her, gesturing for her to hand him the flower, and started to ramble about botany.
"Here are the ear drops you asked for." Darcy put the bottle down on the kitchen table, glancing over Reid's shoulder at the door. "Is there anything else you think she will need?"
"Just Tylenol." Reid picked up the bottle, checking the label to make sure it was the right brand of ear drops. "Ear infections are very common for children. She probably got it from all of her swimming."
Reid looked up at the man's somewhat anxious face and smiled, amused by how reticent the man seemed about Angeline's illness. It really wasn't any surprise that the man spent minimal time with the girl. He hadn't the slightest clue how to deal with kids.
"And you are… certain it's not serious?"
Reid nodded patiently, a small smile still on his face. Darcy was a smart man, and generally one who was very good at maintaining control, so it was kind of fun to see him so uncertain about something.
"Yeah. Yeah, the doctor—that doctor you got, he said that it was just an infection. It's nothing serious; she'll just be kinda grumpy for a few days." He gestured to the bottle. "And this'll clean it up. Don't worry about it."
Darcy nodded slowly, his eyes narrowed in the way they always were when he wasn't sure what to do.
"I'll just give these to her." Reid turned away, walking towards the door, then paused, glancing over his shoulder. "Also, we're out of coffee. Do you mind picking some while you're out?"
Darcy nodded, furrowing his brow as he walked towards the opposite door. "Light roast, canned?"
"Yes, please."
Despite his cluelessness with children, Reid had to hand it to Darcy—he knew what he liked.
"You have terrible taste in coffee," Darcy said as he shook his head and unlocked the door.
"I never pretended otherwise."
Reid chuckled to himself as he walked to Angeline's room. The six-year-old was sitting on her bed, frowning and pulling at her ear.
"Don't play with your ear, Angel." Reid sat down beside her, patting his lap. "Lie with your head here. I'll put the drops in for you, and then you should stay lying down for a little bit."
Angeline squirmed as she did as told. Reid reached over her to grab tissues from her bedside table. "How long will this last, Spencer?"
"Typically, between one day and ten."
"Ten days?!"
"Shhhh." Reid shushed her as he moved her braid out of the way. "Just let me get your ear, okay?"
She made an unhappy sound in the back of her throat, but she settled down. He dripped the prescribed number of drops into her ear, then rested his hand on her head, gently stroking her temple. "Now stay still for a bit."
"What if I don't want to stay still?" she asked, her hands twitching to scratch at her ear, a cranky edge to her voice.
"Then this will take longer than ten days. Just keep still and let the medicine work." Reid leaned down and gently brushed his lips against her temple, her forehead warm against his mouth. "You'll be glad you did it later."
As he straightened out his back again, he realized that that was the first time he had ever kissed Angeline.
If she noticed, she gave no immediate indicator. She was unhappy and cranky the whole time and continued to be so all day, deliberately challenging Reid every time he told her to do something and refusing to pay attention to lessons. He really didn't blame her—he remembered having an ear infection when he was young, and they had a way of making tempers foul. He had a feeling that she was getting frustrated by his lack of anger.
But at bedtime, he was taking advantage of Darcy's slowly built trust. Reid was finally allowed to be free from his nighttime shackles, so instead of Angeline coming to him, he came to her to say goodnight and tell a story.
(He liked the fact he could toss and turn in his sleep and Angeline wouldn't regularly keep him up anymore, but he couldn't help but miss falling asleep with a warm child snuggled against his chest.)
He finished his story—a repeat of one of her favorites, a version of Garcia's James Colby Baylor story that Reid had sanitized (Angeline loved hearing about JJ 'getting the bad guy')—and he smiled at the girl as he slid off of his seat beside her. "Good night."
"Spencer?"
Reid paused and glanced back. She reached out with one little arm, the limb too short to actually reach him. He obligingly moved close again, allowing her to grasp his shirt. "Yeah? What is it?"
"Can you kiss me goodnight?"
His eyebrows automatically went up and, he had to admit, his cheeks became a little pink. "W-why?"
The second after he said it, he could have smacked himself for how ridiculously awkward it sounded. Even after nine months, he still sometimes had no idea how to properly handle a child.
She tugged gently on his shirt, scooting closer to the edge of the bed to get a better grip.
"Because in those books we read where the kids have good parents, they get goodnight kisses. I've never had one." Her eyes became a little wider, a tried and true trick that Reid recognized and yet still fell for every time. "Please?"
…Goddamn it, how was he supposed to say no to that?
His cheeks became a little rosier as he sat back down on the bed. "Y-you know, it's not that abnormal for people to not kiss children…" Especially when said children were technically not theirs.
"But it means that parents love their kids, so…"
That gave Reid pause. The pause lasted long enough for Angeline to lean forward and give him a peck on the mouth, contact so brief and light that he could hardly tell what had made him nervous in the first place. "Good night!"
Then, with the biggest grin he'd ever seen, she settled back into bed and pulled the covers over her head.
"…Good night, Angel."
He decided to make one last concession with his general discomfort with touch—every night, Angeline could get a goodnight kiss. Sometimes, he'd even give her a kiss on the face because he just had the urge to.
When he realized that he was perfectly fine with that, he knew in his heart that he loved her.
There was once a time when Reid dreaded braiding Angeline's hair in the morning.
As he ran his fingers through the girl's hair, combing it with his hand before giving it a proper brushing, it was hard to remember why he would ever feel that way.
"So, how does it feel being seven?" he asked, smiling as he ran a brush through her hair. Beside him lay a delicate row of fully bloomed wisteria they had picked last night while romping around the backyard. The purple flowers had been growing on the side of an old unused gardening shed, and Angeline had begged Reid to put her on his shoulders to let her pick some, despite the fact she was quickly growing to be tall enough to get it herself.
"A lot like being six. Which was a lot like being five." He could tell she wanted to turn around to see him, but she had gotten better about sitting still in the year he'd been here. "Thirty feels different than seven, six, and five, right?"
Reid chuckled softly, parting her hair into three perfectly proportioned sections. "It feels very different. But it's not like you just suddenly feel older on your birthday; it's more subtle than that."
With a twist of his wrist, he gathered any stray strands of hair in their given sections, making them neat and free of flyaways. "I'm betting you act very different than you did when you turned five."
"I don't think so."
"Like I said, it's subtle." He picked up the wisteria, starting to braid it in her hair, putting a splash of lavender in the overwhelming white. "You know, you haven't asked what your present is."
She made a little squeaking sound. Reid could feel the excited tremors as he twisted her hair and the flowers together. "You're giving me a present?!"
"Of course. It's your birthday." He leaned forward, kissing the part in her hair. "It took me a while to talk Darcy into it. You have to be on your best behavior."
"What are we doing? What are we doing?" The girl was trying very hard to control herself, but she was always worse at that when she was alone with Reid than if she was with Darcy. Her caretaker couldn't help but smile warmly as he kept braiding her hair.
"We're going to a museum. In the daytime."
She gasped. Reid's smile turned into a grin.
"Now, I talked him into it because it's educational and today's going to be rainy, so there won't be much sun. I know that there's not much they can tell you there that you don't already know, but it's different being able to see things, believe me." He tied off her braid, patting her shoulder to tell her that he's done. "There are going to be some rules, but—"
As he withdrew his hands, Angeline jumped in place, spinning and hugging him around his neck tightly. "Thank you! Thank you, Spencer!"
That hug that threatened to choke him made all the days trying to convince Darcy worthwhile.
"Come on, Angel," he gasped out, patting her back while his Adam's apple tried to move under her (remarkably sharp) collarbone. "Come on, Angel, I need to breathe."
"No you don't."
She pulled away anyway, those pale blue eyes bright. "I'll be on my best behavior."
"I know you will be." He patted her cheek, unable to stop smiling when he saw how happy she was. "But I'm still outlining the rules for you. You have to wear sunscreen, a hat, and sunglasses. Stay by my side at all times, and if I tell you to do something, you need to listen to me. Darcy wants you to represent him and your etiquette teacher well, so be polite, okay?" He impulsively leaned forward and kissed her on the nose, eliciting a giggle.
"Okay, Spencer! I can do all that!" She bounced in place, reaching out and taking one of his hands in hers. "When do we go?"
"When you're ready. Darcy hired a driver for this one day. You start putting on sunscreen and I'll get the things you need to wear, okay?"
She was off like a bullet, rifling around her room in search of sunscreen. Reid smiled, sliding off her bed, and started walking to grab the hat and sunglasses he had convinced Darcy to get.
It didn't occur to him that he was being given an opportunity to escape.
It still didn't occur to him when they actually were in the museum. Even if it had, he would have been immediately terrified of even trying—over the months, he had unknowingly cultivated the notion that Darcy was omnipotent—but more than anything, he would just be scared of seeing Angeline cry like she did ever again.
"Angeline, don't touch the exhibits." Reid knelt to the tiled ground, taking her hands in his and pulling them away from the rope separating them from the life-sized diorama of a regiment of the Southern army and a regiment of the Northern army aiming their guns at each other.
"They look weird. It looks like they're fake."
"That's because they are." Reid straightened up, but he kept one of Angeline's hands in his, instincts from his last life telling him to hold tight in case one of the strangers bustling around them took an interest. "They usually make these models out of a combination of papier-mâché and chicken wire."
"Why don't they just pay someone to stand there?"
"Because that would be expensive." Reid smiled down at her, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. "And who would want to just stand there all day anyway?"
Angeline shrugged, looking at the plaque fixed in front of the display. It was just listing dates, really, but she was interested in reading it anyway because when else would she get this opportunity?
Reid kept her hand in his, but he took a moment to steal a glance around the museum. He had to admit, he felt extremely uncomfortable in a crowd after so long being isolated. He didn't like having his back to all these people, and the steady hum of lots of people talking at once put him on edge. He didn't know anyone here, so he couldn't be sure that none of them would hurt Angeline.
A couple came closer to them, and Reid used the term 'couple' loosely. He ducked his head, moving a little to pull Angeline further away from them while a big man continued to talk very loudly to a woman who seemed very much like she didn't want to be there.
"…I mean, everyone knew that the North would kick the South's rear, so you know, it was all about shaking their fists. The War was really about the South stamping their feet and the North spanking them, you know—"
"Actually, the South looked like they were going to win for a while there." It was out of Reid's mouth before he even realized it. As the couple turned their heads to look at him, he kept talking, the habit ingrained, and he bounced lightly on the balls of his feet as his free hand came up near his chin and a couple fingers folded towards his palm. "The North assumed they would win because of superior resources, yeah, but the South used very intelligent strategizing and mostly played towards defending themselves. It wasn't until the Battle of Gettysburg that the war turned in the North's favor, and that was partially because Robert E. Lee never tried to invade the Northern territory again, as up to then, attempts to invade the North consistently ended badly for the South. And then Sherman obliterated the South with his application of 'total war', which crippled the South physically and psychologically. So really, winning wasn't guaranteed at all—even—"
"You're a rude one, aren't you?" The man glared at Reid, cutting him off in a way that made Angeline immediately look up at him and frown. While the woman with the man tried to hide her smile, the man continued, "What makes you think you know any more about it than I do?"
"The fact that he's the smartest man you'll ever meet?"
All eyes turned to Angeline, whose white brow was furrowed and whose eyes were a little narrow, and she continued before Reid could cut her off and drag her away, "And he's right. Actually, it was a lot bigger than just a tantrum like you implied. The South was angry about Lincoln being elected because they felt like they weren't represented—which was actually kind of true, since Lincoln wasn't even on the ballot in some Southern states. The South was divided between a lot of Democratic candidates while the North was pretty unified behind Lincoln, so the more densely populated North got its choice. The big issue of the time was whether slavery would spread or not, but the South was angry about more than that." She was gesturing a lot with the hand she had free from Reid, hovering it around chin-level and folding a couple fingers towards her palm, a little like her hand was some kind of pincer. It was exactly the way Reid always held his hands when he was rambling. "And, you know, even if you're still going to call it a tantrum, tantrums don't usually have casualties of up to 170,000 people."
There was silence. Angeline bounced lightly on the balls of her feet, her chin stuck out defiantly.
And then the woman who previously didn't want to be there burst out laughing. She drew confused glances from her date and Reid, but she ignored them, clapping her hands together once and grinning. "Oh, that is fantastic. Aiden, when a little girl corrects you on your history, it's time to brush up." She looks at Reid, her face still lit up despite the darkening of her date's. "Your daughter's brilliant. You must be very proud."
Reid felt color come to his cheeks. The woman smiled and took the man by his wrist. "Come on, Aiden. Before you embarrass yourself more."
And then with one last glare, the man allowed himself to be dragged away.
It took Reid a moment to respond again. He looked down at Angeline, his lips turned into a small frown. "You know, I should have told you to apologize to him. You were rude, Angeline."
She met his eyes, her chin still stuck out. "He was rude to you first."
Reid shook his head, but he really couldn't bring himself to scold her too harshly. "Two wrongs don't make a right. Why don't we look at another exhibit?"
He didn't acknowledge that the woman had mistaken him for Angeline's father. Neither did Angeline, at first.
And then that night, after they had finally left the museum and Angeline had solemnly declared that day the best birthday of her life, Reid had trouble tucking her in. She was bouncing off the walls, rambling about how fascinating the exhibits were and wondering if Darcy would let them go again and how other people seemed so strange and some people's hair was really too colorful and didn't he think that simple white or brown or black was better—
But Reid finally quieted her down, got her into bed, and leaned close to say good night.
"Sleep well, Angel."
She leaned forward, giving him a light peck. "Goodnight, Daddy."
And then she flopped down in bed and closed her eyes, saving him from having to respond. Good thing, too, since he had no idea how to respond. He hadn't really thought at length about what Angeline was to him.
He thought about it over the course of the night. He still hadn't figured it out by the morning.
But still, that morning, Angeline was difficult to wake as usual. She just put a pillow over her head and mumbled, "Five more minutes, Daddy."
He decided to let her keep calling him that.
When she was seven and a half, Angeline's dance teacher, Ms. Turner, quit. She said that she pursuing a job with a theater company. While Darcy immediately got a new instructor (Mrs. Carpenter), Angeline wasn't used to change, and she definitely wasn't fond of people going away.
So Reid was stuck with a very, very difficult child for a week.
"Angeline, take off your socks while you're running around near the stairs. You're going to fall and hurt yourself," Reid chided, trying to keep from running out of patience. It was difficult after three days of straight 'No' and 'I don't want to' and 'why?'
Angeline gave a cranky harrumph, deliberately sliding across the floor of the hall, paying little attention to the staircase. Reid took a deep breath, reminded himself to pick his battles, and sighed softly, sitting slowly on the top step of the stairs with the book Angeline was reading with him. He had hoped a change of scenery (or… well, the closest they could get without going outside) would calm her down a little, but apparently not.
"Do you want to talk about Ms. Turner?"
"No."
Reid pursed his lips, resisting the urge to rub his temples. "Then what do you want to talk about? You don't seem to want to read."
"I don't want to talk about anything."
At this point, Reid was pretty sure she was trying to provoke him.
"Do you want to tell me why you're angry, Angeline?"
"I'm not angry."
"Yes, you are."
"No, I'm not."
"Angeline." Reid turned in place to face her, frowning. "You're getting too old for this. You're upset. Sit down and talk about it or try to handle it on your own—either way, you can't take it out on other people."
Angeline gave the biggest scowl she could, sliding towards Reid in her socks. "I'm not taking any—oh!"
Her foot slid out from under her. It felt like the entire world slowed down. She tumbled down the stairs, her bones making sickening crunches with every hit, and then she was prone on the ground, still. Completely and utterly still.
Reid didn't remember getting up. All he knew was that a moment later, he was kneeling next to her, his heart hammering in his chest and his hands grasping her little arms.
"Angeline? Angeline, are you okay?"
He was certain she was dead, his throat tight, like someone was strangling him, and he quickly touched his finger to her wrist, praying to a god he didn't believe in.
He let out a breath he had no idea he was holding. There was a heartbeat. His hands were shaking with adrenaline as he quickly checked her over for cuts, bruises, and broken bones, fingers fluttering over her body and touching, prodding, moving.
As he saw she had no injuries, his anxiety changed into relief, and then that relief turned into fury that he didn't remember feeling for a long time.
He grabbed her shoulders, grip rougher than any other time he had ever touched her, and he took a deep breath to give her a vicious scolding.
Then she whimpered.
All the anger rushed out of him.
"Daddy, it hurts…"
Her entire body started to shake. He quickly double-checked to make sure he hadn't missed any damage, his grip on her shoulders loosening considerably. "What hurts?"
"Everything."
She leaned into his chest, burying her face into his shirt. He could feel tears wetting the cloth above his heart.
He wrapped his arms around her, careful to listen for any sounds of pain, and stood up, keeping her balanced on his hip. Her cries were quiet, confined mostly to whimpers and soft sobs that made her body convulse against his. "Come on. We're going to go to your room. You get classes off today."
She nodded against his chest and allowed him to carry her up the stairs into her white room before sitting her down on the bed. Then Reid sat down behind her, grabbed a brush, and undid her braid.
As he ran the brush through her hair, his touch as gentle as it always was, her sniffles began to wane, and eventually, they stopped.
When she was eight, he started teaching her biology and some biochemistry.
Reid was making lunch—honestly, he should have been teaching Angeline how to cook while he did it, but she was busy right now—as she sketched out each stage of mitosis on a paper without using any reference.
The frying pan sizzled when Reid put the soon-to-be grilled cheese sandwich on. Two years ago, he would have burned himself while doing this. Now, he hardly had to watch himself.
"That smells good," Angeline mumbled softly, her white brow furrowed as she kept drawing.
"Just keep working. Then you can eat it." Reid put aside his spatula, taking out celery sticks and starting to chop them up.
He had cut three and put the pieces on her plate before she said, "Hey, Dad?"
Reid turned around to look at the girl. Her pencil was resting against an unfinished sketch, her brow furrowed in a familiarly curious expression. "What is it, Angeline?"
She looked up at him, her brow still furrowed. "How do humans reproduce?"
…
…
…
…Fuck.
"Uh…"
Angeline burst into giggles, dropping her pencil and covering her mouth. "Oh, you should see your face right now!"
Reid opened his mouth, then closed it, his face burning red. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuuuuuuuuuck.
"I'll, uh…" What was he supposed to say? Or do? Or… oh fuck it never occurred to him that he might need to actually have this conversation at some point. "I'll… tell you when you're older…?"
"No." She giggled again, shaking her head while she kept her mouth covered. "No, not after you react like that. You're gonna tell me how it happens."
"Going to," Reid automatically corrected, though his mind wasn't on her enunciation.
Oh damn it, how the hell was he supposed to do this?
Reid chewed on his lip, slowly shuffling towards the half-done grilled cheese. "Uh… why don't you just… finish those sketches, and we'll talk over lunch, okay?" After all, he had to tell her some time, right?
She giggled again, and then nodded. "Holding you to it." She looked back down at her paper, but she still burst into occasional giggles.
Well, at least Reid had a little time to think about how he would approach this.
But not enough time. When she finally put her paper and pencil aside and he slid her plate in front of her, he still had no clue how to talk about it. Maybe she would forget that he—
"So how do humans reproduce?"
Reid hated his life.
He slowly sat down across from her, his face bright red. Alright. Alright, alright, alright, alright…
"W-well… it's like what we've been learning. There are sex cells that hold genetic information, and… well, humans don't asexually reproduce."
Angeline arched an eyebrow. It dawned on Reid that he really was her only source of proper information—had he ever even told her that it took two to have a child?
Fuck.
"Y-yeah. To reproduce, humans need someone of the opposite sex. Women have ova, whereas men have spermatozoa." Maybe talking about it like a science lesson would make it a little eas—
"How do the sex cells come together and make a zygote, then?" Angeline cut in, nibbling on a piece of celery.
Reid really, really hated his life.
"Th-that's…" Okay, so this couldn't just be a science lesson. Reid put his elbows on the table and slowly ran his hands through his hair. He had to stop thinking like an awkward man who barely knew how he himself felt about sex and start thinking like a guardian. How did he want Angeline to think about these things?
"Okay. Okay, I'm making it seem like a bigger deal than it is." He took a deep breath, then straightened his spine, unable to stop chewing his lip but doing his best to get rid of the rest of his awkward body language. "The thing is that it's an entirely natural process that most complex organisms go through, but with humans, it's… well, it's a very personal thing, so some people get embarrassed, myself included."
Angeline kept nibbling on her celery, watching him. Despite her maturity and her intellect, Reid knew that he was basically alone in shaping how she turned out. He didn't want her to be as uncomfortable with sex and intimacy as he was.
"How much do you know about the differences between male and female bodies? I was going to work up to that from the cellular level, but we can jump ahead."
Angeline frowned, then held up a hand, tilting it side to side in the air. "I don't really know much. I know that women have breasts and look curvier than men, but not much more than that."
Reid cleared his throat, still struggling to keep from getting immobilized by embarrassment. "Do you know about the difference between human male and female genitalia?"
She cocked her head, giving him a quizzical look. "What?"
Reid had failed as an educator.
"Okay. Okay, we'll start at the basics, then."
He gestured for her to wait a moment, then he gets up from his chair and leaves the room. It didn't take him long before he came back with a notepad and a pencil and sat beside her, making a rough sketch of male genitals, diagramming it and labeling every part, from the scrotum to the vas deferens. His face burned while he did it, but it made it easier when he thought about the fact that this was just a teaching tool.
Angeline put her sandwich down slowly, her brow more furrowed than ever as she watched his hand work. "That looks like an alien."
"Yes, it does, but it's not an alien."
Reid tapped the drawing with his eraser when he was finished. "It's a penis. Every person who's born as a man has one between their legs."
Angeline glanced between him and the paper quizzically. "Even you?"
He had really been hoping she would keep this theoretical and not ask about him. "Yes, even me." He started sketching again before she could ask more questions, only this time, it was a diagram of a woman's reproductive organs. "Now, since you have this, you're a little more familiar with female organs, but there are a lot of internal parts to it that you probably don't know about yet. Women have evolved to be able to incubate and later care for children, and their biology reflects that. I'll get into more detail at another point, because this is just a basic overview." Also because he didn't want to try to explain periods without at least some kind of… oh, he doesn't know, a book aiming to educate prepubescent girls. Because seriously.
Angeline's brow furrowed further. "But how does the spermatozoa fertilize the ova? Where are the sex cells coming from anyway?"
He could feel his blush coming on again. "W-well…" Deep breath, Reid. Deep breath. "Spermatozoa are produced here," he tapped the drawing of testicles with his eraser, "and ova are stored here." He tapped the drawing of ovaries. "Once a month, a mature woman ovulates, and a singular ovum leaves the ovaries and is made available for fertilization. And, well…"
Shit shit shit fight the blush, Reid, fight it.
"Well, male and female genitalia fit together. Sort of like puzzle pieces? With sufficient stimulation, a man will, uh, ejaculate the appropriate sex cells within the woman, and that gives them a chance to create a zygote. There's, uh, there's a little more to it than that, but I can explain the biological processes in more detail later." Later, as in when he had a textbook to help do the explaining for him.
He took a deep breath, leaving the notepad on the table for Angeline's further inspection and walking to the stove to wash the utensils he used to cook. "So, uh, right. That's how humans reproduce."
"Does it feel good?"
…Well, that blush is definitely back now.
"E-excuse me?" Reid glanced back at her, trying and failing to keep his embarrassment contained. "I—why do you want to know?"
"Because I'm guessing I'm going to do it at some point, so I want to know."
…WOW he had never felt so uncomfortable with the thought of someone having sex in his life. No, Angeline. You are not allowed to have sex, you are not allowed to go out with boys, and you are not allowed to grow up so start asking questions about mitosis or something and finish your lunch.
Or, well, that was what he wanted to say.
"It…"
He gently rubbed his temple, feeling a headache coming on. After this, he was going to just get her started on a pop quiz and then curl up in his room with the lights off until the migraine passed.
"Okay, I'm going to do my best to be honest because I don't want you to think this topic is off limits."
He moved away from the sink, wringing his hands dry and sitting next to Angeline again. "The truth is that yes. It does feel good. People do it with measures put in place to avoid pregnancy, because it's not always about children. A lot of the time, it's about intimacy."
He gestured for Angeline to give him her hands. She rested them against his palms, the hands half the size of his own. He curled his fingers around them and gave her a squeeze. "That's the thing. It's really intimate, and people value it differently. There are some people who use sex as a commodity and sell it, and there are some people who choose to wait until they're married so their spouse is the only one they'll ever sleep with. I-I personally think it's really important and requires a lot of trust and love, or else it doesn't really mean much."
He worked his jaw, staring at her tiny hands in his. His mind flitted over his own past sexual partners—the person he had slowly worked up to during graduate school, the very few people in his professional life, the people who came onto him when he was high and whose names and faces he couldn't even remember after coming down—and he lightly ran his thumbs against the back of her hands. "So… you're not ready, Angeline. You won't be for a while. But when you feel you're ready, try to wait just a little longer to make sure, because it is really affecting, and I want you to talk to me about it first, no matter how embarrassed I get. It's important that you feel like you can come to me if you need anything."
Reid finally looked up to make eye contact. Angeline's mouth was in a straight, serious line. He reached out, his expression softening substantially, and pushed a lock of hair that had escaped her braid behind her ear.
"Because you're a beautiful, smart, wonderful little girl, and you'll be a beautiful, smart, wonderful woman. I think… I think you should wait until you meet someone who deserves that."
Her serious expression flickered, her eyes getting a little glassy.
"And if anyone at all ever touches you without your explicit, willing permission, I want you to tell me." He stopped, then squeezed her hand gently. "And… And tell me if anyone even wants to touch you before you're at least sixteen. Because that's not alright, and it will never be alright." Even after all the years, somewhere, something in the back of his mind was wary. Wary of Darcy, and why he might have a girl that wasn't his own. "Okay?"
"Okay. I get it." Angeline nodded solemnly. "I'll talk to you."
"Good." Reid leaned forward, giving her a gentle peck. "Finish lunch, clean up after yourself, and start diagramming meiosis. I need to go lie down."
"Alright, Dad. I won't bother you."
And luckily for his migraine, she didn't.
Over years, he forgot things. He forgot that he never agreed to be there. He forgot what freedom and friendship felt like. His old life became a dream.
Even his team faded in his mind, becoming only part of the stories he told.
All that was real were Darcy and Angeline.
All he really cared about was his daughter.
N/A: First of all, sorry about the slow update, but with the start of the school year, my beta and I both have stuff to handle. But don't worry, I have no intention of abandoning this story. This work was beta'd by nutella4ever. Please review.