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Chapter summary: Reid talks about his family. Originally it was longer but the chapter was begging to be be cut in the middle. Enjoy... and don't kill me. Pretty please, at least read the author's note at the bottom before you would decide to kill me.
Chapter seven: The Reids.
"Twelve people, that's not a very big family," Cameron commented.
"You think that just because you don't see sixteen kids that by my assumption are sitting in the cars," Reid snorted.
"Sixteen?" Cameron asked skeptically.
"If not more," Reid added grimly. "From the distance judging by the parents there should be sixteen. Tess, Missy, Leslie, Chad, Lars, Agnes, Betty, Cora, Ruth, Rose, Lily, Tulip, Calia, Mint and Mira. Though age-wise I can probably cross off Tess, Missy and Leslie because they are old enough to be left to their own devices back in Colorado."
"That's big," Molly interjected.
"Not really," Reid grimaced. "My grandfather had three wives and twelve sons. My father was the oldest, that gluteus maximus in yellow t-shirt is the youngest and by the time he was born my father was old enough to father him. In fact the canary over there was born in the same year as I. The only difference is that I was born in Las Vegas, Nevada in October and he was born in Brunswick, Georgia in December."
"Cool," Zack beamed. "Being older than your uncle I mean."
"Not really," Reid snorted. "The family is very extended and out of the whole twelve only four of my uncles turned out to be the people I can safely call family without worrying that they will embarrass me beyond the measures of human comprehension. Them I acknowledge as family members which in return gives me five cousins, four alive ones and two first cousins once removed, not to mention four great aunts."
"Why only four of them?" Molly asked curiously.
"Grandmothers," Reid sighed. "Who they were reflected heavily on the whole family and funnily enough my grandfather had four sons with each of them. They had taken after their mothers. Bitter, snobbish and cowardly after the first; levelheaded, hardworking and open-minded after the second; irresponsible and generally…" he hung his voice to stop himself from swearing, "after the third. I can tell you more if you want but it will be after I will figure out how to get inside without them noticing that I'm home. Because if I'm lucky they might go away, if not… you can start sending the notifications about my funeral."
Suddenly he realized that Cameron swiftly maneuvered the stroller out of his hands and started walking away.
"Hey, where are you going?" he protested.
"Home," she said simply as she turned around to face him.
"With Henry and Rory?" he asked skeptically.
"With the whole bunch," Cameron shrugged. "Your family doesn't know about them. Right?"
"They don't. That's fine, but what I'm supposed to do?" he protested. "Spurt wings and fly over them?"
"How about using what you have at your disposal?" Cameron offered.
"Kids?" Reid stared at her.
"Why not?" Molly smiled. "If they hadn't seen you in a while and you changed a lot since their last visit if you will use Jack as a shield they might not even realize that you are home, or at the very least in close surroundings."
"It's too close," Reid grimaced.
"Between your front door and my front door there are two garages and correct me if I'm wrong the cars of the merry bunch are standing by the McKinley's drive and further," Cameron said pointedly.
"If they will catch me…" Reid started.
It was incredibly risky idea but far more easier to put into action than digging a tunnel or climbing over the backyard wall and at the very least this part had all the kids rounded up in a place where they could eat late lunch and hide from Reid's private horror.
"Just wait until I will get inside," Cameron said.
He waited patiently, hiding behind the Robertson's SUV until Cameron with Molly's help maneuvered the stroller into her hall before he scooped Jack up and using him as a shield he made the beeline to the front door of Cameron's house.
He let out the breath he didn't realize he was holding only after he locked the front door with two locks.
"Great, what now," he muttered.
"Depends," Cameron said simply from her living-room. "If you are having noisy activities in mind I strongly suggest avoiding entering home until your family would go away and that I think would depend from the level of their stubbornness."
"The level of their stubbornness should end around eight o'clock in the evening," Reid muttered. "Most of them have small kids though if I'm lucky they might be gone by six o'clock."
"If?" Cameron asked skeptically.
"They are the Reids and the only thing the whole family has in common is bullheaded stubbornness," Reid shook his head. "If I'm less lucky coming back home would require breaking in and entering the house from the backyard."
"Alarm system?" Cameron asked pointedly.
"Not armed," Reid said simply. "Electricity was down when I left the house in the morning. No electricity, no alarm."
"Late lunch?" Cameron offered.
"Thank you, gladly, you need a hand?" he sighed.
"With frozen lasagna?" Cameron shrugged. "Not really."
"Something I'm supposed to do?" he asked simply.
"Nothing, make yourself at home, I'll be right back," she shook her head.
He went to the bathroom to wash his hands and to make sure that the kids did too before he wandered into the living-room and flopped on the couch with a heavy sigh.
With the disaster that was sudden and unwelcomed family reunion temporarily averted and hopefully for good on that at the moment he had nothing to worry about. Except of listing the reasons why he avoided most of his relatives like a plague.
"So?" Molly asked curiously as she sat down on the floor by the coffee table. "What's the story?"
"With the family?" Reid grimaced. "Longer than The Bold and Beautiful and even more complicated."
"Story," Jack said eagerly. "Please, tell us, Uncle Spencer."
Zack nodded eagerly and sat down next to Molly. Jack sat down on her other side and Henry and Rory flopped on the ground next to the boys.
To make it even worse Cameron walked into the room with a tray full of glasses with iced tea and two iced coffees, behind her into the room, very shyly, walked in the brown-haired girl Cameron introduced as Cynthia. When Cameron settled down the tray on the coffee table and sat down on the armchair the girl climbed into her lap and looked at him with her big, open, brown eyes.
That was weird, the whole idea itself was weird and he needed clarification about what 'at the moment' meant but first he had to satisfy the curiosity of the five expectant listeners so he shook his head, took a sip of iced coffee and sighed.
"It would be the best to start from the beginning," he admitted. "The Reid family itself has English-Scottish origins but the particular branch from which my family descends wasn't very devoted to staying on English soil. One of my great-great-great grandfathers was completely fascinated with Germany and because by trade he made perfumes so quite eagerly he moved his family to Cologne, Germany, famous for the perfumes. My great-grandfather, Martin, from whom the whole story starts was educated to become a Lutheran pastor to take over the parish in Neunkirchen after his own father, Franz. He was his only son, quite early orphaned and was destined to marry the daughter of a fellow pastor from another parish."
"Did he?" Molly asked eagerly.
"Obviously he didn't," Reid smiled quickly. "If he did I wouldn't be telling that story. Also in Neunkirchen lived quite big population of Jews. The Rabbi from Neunkirchen had four daughters. The rumor had it that each was more beautiful than the other and his youngest, barely sixteen years old daughter, Ruth Rubinstein was the prettiest girl in town. Martin, wanting to have Lutheranism and Judaism coexisting in the town in peace and also enjoying the discussions with Rabbi Rubinstein visited their house often… Maybe even too often because one day Franz discovered that his only son had disappeared and so did Ruth Rubinstein."
"They ran away together, that's romantic," Molly sighed.
"And that's when the whole story starts," Reid continued. "Franz wasn't very happy with Martin's marriage and Martin and Ruth had to escape from Germany and quickly on that. It was in times when the first world war was almost upon the doorstep and Martin, wanting to keep his wife and his future children safe made a decision to abandon Europe altogether and to move to America. After all a Lutheran pastor was always needed even with as little experience as he had but he also had quite extensive knowledge so he quickly found new home in America, Georgia to be exact and to be more precise and not to mention ironic, in Reidsville."
Cameron snorted into her iced coffee and the kids grinned.
"Together they brought up eight of their kids. Abraham, Benjamin, William, Agnes, Caroline, Michelle, Zacharias and Spencer. The oldest three had joined the army and died in the second world's war. Agnes and Caroline died from pneumonia long before the war. Michelle, to my knowledge one day left home and never came back and no one knew what became of her. As for Zacharias… he had a serious drinking problem which he hid so well that his family didn't realize that he was drinking until they found him completely passed out on the street."
"Which leaves Spencer," Molly said pensively.
"Yeah, Spencer is the fellow I plan to introduce to you better," Reid nodded. "Unlike his brothers he didn't have higher aspirations to pursue law or theology or medicine. He was a down to earth man who believed in old fashioned work and quite early realized that he wanted to be a carpenter and that was the career he pursued. He lived from building wooden houses all over the country. His first wife Belinda, the clerk from local shop, he married early and under duress because my father was about to be born and my great-grandfather, an old man of weak health by that time, was insisting on performing the wedding and christening."
"Sounds nice," Cameron interjected. "The idea I mean."
"Well, he did perform both ceremonies except nothing good became of it," Reid snorted. "From what I learned it wasn't a match made in heaven and the two of them argued a lot. Finally grandpa threatened her with a divorce, she got angry, then drunk, got into the car and ran into a tree. Instantaneous death, he blamed himself for her death through the rest of his life, but quite seriously I don't think he should. She wasn't an angel and grandpa's fatherhood with the younger two was questioned on more than one occasion."
"That's sad," Zack sighed.
"It was," Reid sighed. "My father, William, was six at that time, Todd was five, Nolan was two years old, the youngest of the four of them, Colbert was barely two months old. Grandpa Spencer was twenty-four then. Twenty-four, recently widowed and with four small kids. Not exactly a splendid match for anyone. Luckily enough he was quite renowned carpenter and his boss dispatched him to Salt Lake City, Utah where finding job was easier. So he packed his merry bunch and moved to Utah. That's where he'd meet Cynthia."
"Cynthia…" he started pensively. "She was one of a kind and if I can be sure of anything is that they loved each other dearly. Cynthia was a teacher at local elementary school but her parents had a farm and she wasn't afraid of the hard work and devoting herself to the family. Grandpa Spencer was young and quite attractive man with great sense of humor and possessed varied knowledge not only needed in building houses but also other things and he was insatiably curious. That's a quality he had shared with Cynthia and their mutual friendship quickly turned into marriage. When he was working Cynthia stayed home at the farm outside the town, took care of the animals and brought up, at first my father and his brothers and quite quickly the four sons she gave birth to at the beginning of their marriage."
"How big was the age difference between them?" Molly asked curiously.
"Not very big," Reid said simply. "My father was born in 1954, Todd in 1955, Nolan in 1958, Colbert in 1960. David, his fifth and Cynthia's first son was born in 1962, the twins Toby and Tim were born in 1963 and finally Spencer Martin was born in 1964. Everybody calls him Spartin," he smiled fondly. "See? That's what happens when you have to share a name with family members."
"How they called you?" Jack asked curiously.
"Saw," Reid coughed.
"Why?" Zack frowned.
"Because my father thought that it would be great to name me fully after my grandfather," Reid snorted. "And my mum agreed because she liked my grandpa, his first and second name and supposedly a name after the parent gives a kid good luck."
"Spencer William," Cameron nodded pensively. "Adam?"
"Nope," Reid shook his head. "Spencer Aaron William."
"Niiice," Cameron summed up with a drawl.
"Your point being?" he eyed her curiously.
"Dispenser of provisions, mountain of strength, will helmet, protection. Your parents had height expectations from you," Cameron said simply.
"Sure enough pure torture, God is gracious on that," Reid snorted.
"Let's not forget the lioness," Cameron snorted.
"Leonarda?" Reid asked cheekily.
"Close but off the mark," Cameron muttered. "Leona."
"Your parents weren't exactly easy on you either," Reid pointed out.
"You are kidding," Cameron snorted. "I got off easily, at the very least by the time I was born they gave upon the idea of having a son. My older sisters were named Emerson and Allison and in the pool of family quirks each of us got Jane for the second name because apparently that was the tradition in my mum's family. But we aren't talking about my family so go on."
"Where I was…" Reid frowned and quickly recalled where he stopped. "Uncle Spartin was born in 1964 and Augustus was born in 1977 which means…" he did the quick math in his head. "Grandpa Spencer and Cynthia married in 1961 and they remained together until her sudden death in 1975, they were so devoted to one another and so devoted to the family that if it wasn't for cancer I'm convinced that they would be still married for years to come. For some reasons, I never asked why but I suspect that it was because he was old enough to understand a thing or two from grandpa's and Belinda's fights, my father wasn't exactly fond of Cynthia and he fled home as soon as he was eighteen, shortly after he was joined by Todd, who listened in almost everything to him. Except when my father fixated himself on studying law Todd fled to Vegas to use life… and he used life extensively. He used it so well that he ended marrying a bartender from one of the many bars in town and in rapid succession they had the Alphabet."
"The Alphabet?" Jack asked skeptically.
"Adam born in 1973, Brian in 1974, Chris in 1975, Dirk in 1976 and Ed in 1977," Reid clarified. "But by the time I was born Todd took his wife and those five horrors to Colorado Springs where they alternatively milked the system between making the ends meet. Adam and Ed together with their wives and possibly kids are camped out by my door."
"Nice cousins?" Molly asked curiously.
"If you define locking a three years old in a barn as nice then sure they were," Reid snorted. "They had also done worse things. Thanks to them I'm mortally scared of darkness after all these time. All five of them are as bad as their papa. The only difference is that while Adam turned into a bum like his papa the other four turned into snobs full of bitterness. What they actually have in common is selfishness and narcissistic disorder on various levels."
"Lovely family you have," Cameron grimaced.
"And I didn't finish yet," Reid said sourly. "I'd never meet Nolan because he and his wife and their son Tim had died in a fire about a year before I was born and last time I knew something about Colbert he was with his wife Lisa in Australia, they don't have children on their own, luckily, for the children I mean. But that's not all of them because shortly after Cynthia died grandpa Spencer fell prey to the spoiled daughter of one of the local businessmen…"
"Businessmen?" Cameron asked skeptically.
"That's the official version," Reid snorted. "Less official version says that she was the daughter of the local…" he made a tale-telling sign of cutting of his head, then he frowned because somehow this part of the family story contained a curious by his surname FBI agent. "Daddy-in-law was actually shot in Chicago about a year after their youngest was born."
"It's supposed to be sad?" Molly asked skeptically.
"Not really," Reid shook his head. "Just curious," he admitted and the clarified. "He was shot by an FBI agent from local field office, he was named Jack Cameron if I remember Agnes's curses under his address correctly."
"Good riddance," Cameron said sweetly. "Tommy Turncoat I mean."
Reid smirked, "How do you know his name?"
"Because Agnes Reid, nee Turncoat loved to send letters under Jack Cameron's office address," Cameron shrugged. "Spelling wasn't her strongest suit. Whole Chicago's field office was rolling with laughter when he once presented first to his unit and then to his other colleagues the threat and it's a quote: you wil dye you dic."
Reid couldn't help it and he howled with laughter almost chocking on his coffee.
"You know what's the best part?" Cameron continued. "He always said that a good fed always takes death threats seriously and takes preventive measures," she added seriously. "And he was a good fed so he dyed his hair."
Reid howled with laughter again and between snickers he choked out, "Relative?"
"Yep," Cameron nodded. "My dad. But for now we are getting away from the subject at hand which is Grandma Agnes," she added quickly.
"Some grandma she was," Reid coughed. "No grandma whatsoever. But…" he hung his voice and concentrated on data. "Agnes married grandpa Spencer in 1976 and she gave birth to Augustus in 1977, Justin in 1978, Gareth in 1979 and finally to Jonah the Canary in 1981."
"Interesting uncles," Molly commented.
"Come to think about it if you think that Todd and the Alphabet are bad then you didn't meet Augustus, Justin, Gareth and Jonah. Their wives are even worse, well aside of Laura who had enough of common sense to bully Justin into moving to her family in France and now she is in control and he isn't, good for him. Other than that Augustus, Gareth and Jonah are definition of irresponsibility and conformism. Neither was able to hold a stable job for too long and their idea of parenting ends on participating in conception, at least for Gareth and Jonah and they are actually good with that, participating in conception I mean. Gareth, once to triplets at the age of eighteen called Agnes, Betty and Cora respectively. And Jonah… that one is quite a player, he has Rose, Lily, Tulip, Mint, Calia, Mira and Ruth. The oldest was born when he was nineteen in 2000 and the youngest was born in 2009."
"Not much of a player if the mother is the same," Cameron interjected.
"She is and she was desperate, trust me," Reid said sourly. "Actually I was introduced to grandma," he made quote marks with his fingers while he said grandma, "Agnes thanks to him and if it wasn't for some prankster in admission office I wouldn't even know that my grandfather had more than eight sons."
"I smell blood in the water," Cameron muttered.
"There was blood," Reid grimaced. "Mostly mine. At the age of nineteen I was in my last year at Cal-Tech. Note that I already had a PhD under my belt and I was on a good way to get another two. Then along came Jonah and he turned my last year at Cal-Tech into pure hell. Starting from the fact that admission gave him a room next to mine. He messed with anyone, trust me there wasn't a person on the campus he didn't manage to offend and unfortunately that vermin is the only one from the four that took his looks after the Reids, the rest looks like Turncoats. Being in the same age and sharing genes with him was a horror. At the age of nineteen, growing states apart, we looked very much the same, in fact he looked like my twin back then."
"And he was lucky and you weren't and you ended receiving everything he deserved," Cameron summed up.
"More or less. He still looks like me," Reid said grimly. "After serious brainwashing… and then some," he cringed. "That isn't the worst. The worst is that he and Gareth somehow got into their heads that I owe them what my father had taken away from them… At the very least I owe them lending them without a chance to ever see them again, money, hospitality… private possessions. I fell for it once, I fell for it twice, after the second time I learned to pretend that I wasn't home. After all I'm a genius I bring home coconuts…"
"Seriously?" Jack asked curiously.
"Figuratively. It means that I make good money," Reid snorted. "I do, in overall, but not as big as the idiot assumes I do and I'm disinclined to support the bottomless pit that he is, he is already milking the system, he doesn't have to milk me."
"You didn't talk much about the middle four," Cameron said pointedly.
"Because I wanted to leave the pleasant part for the end," Reid said simply. "From all of my eleven uncles, nine that I'd meet, the only people I willingly remain in contact with are actually Dave, Toby, Tim and Spartin, with their wives and kids. Avoiding Todd and the Alphabet was easy because Todd always supported my father so when my father left me and my mum when I was ten Todd cut off all contact altogether, he wasn't very fond of my mother either… And with Nolan dead and Colbert who knows where, with grandpa dead and Agnes acting as if we didn't exist even though later I managed to find out that she knew that we were living in Vegas while they were living in Redding, California, not that far away…"
He grimaced. He disliked admitting to failures and great and supportive family or not what he was about to say in some way was his personal failure.
"When he was still around my father plainly ignored the existence of the middle four. I knew that he had other brothers than Todd but I hardly meet them. But my mum did and she remembered that one of dad's brothers, and one of the kind ones lived relatively close, in St George, Utah. At the age of twelve I was finishing high school and looking for colleges and at first I was considering only those in immediate area so I could remain with mum." He paused and shook his head before he continued, "Those two years since dad left… they weren't easy on us, in any shape or form, especially financially… and legally…" he shook his head again. "Once, on a pleasant April morning the same year I graduated from high school but few months before I actually did… it was Saturday, I opened the front door because someone was forcefully knocking on them."
He smiled softly at the memory that played in his head as he continued, "Then I was enveloped in a very warm, very tight hug and before I managed to wake up properly I was marched to the kitchen and a smiling woman with curly brown hair started preparing breakfast as if she had done nothing else in her life. That was the first time I saw Aunt Nina since I was very, very small. Her husband, and my uncle, Toby got my mum's letter where she wrote of my ideas for future education and because at that time Toby and Nina were childless they decided that because my mum needed help and I need to not worry sick over leaving her all on her own then they should for the duration of my academic career move to Vegas…"
"And they did that in a matter of a weekend?" Molly asked skeptically.
"More or less," Reid nodded. "Toby was a surgeon and Nina was a nurse and a good surgeon and a good nurse were always needed. Without mentioning a word to my mum they quit their jobs, bought the house next to us because it was on sale and they moved to Vegas. Then uncle Toby said that after the rest will arrive he, me and uncles Dave, Tim and Spartin will have a man to man discussion about my academic career. It turned out that before they left St George Uncle Toby called his brothers and in not overly nice words told them what kind of a man my father was."
"Before the day was out I learned that regardless of what I remembered what my father said about them, not that there was much of it, he was completely wrong when it came to Cynthia's sons. Dave and Sheba together with Samson and Daniel came from Prospect, Maine on an incredibly short notice and they had their own business to run but they dropped everything when Toby called them and because they were living in the same town on their way to Vegas Dave and Sheba hailed Spartin and Mina on the board. Tim and Tina came from their ranch in Oak Hill, West Virginia too. It was…" he realized that his voice was trembling slightly and the corners of his eyes were burning. He cleared his throat and added slowly, "Anthony Brandt said that other things might change us but we start and end with family. There are two images of a family that I have firmly locked inside my brain. That Saturday evening in April when the twelve of us had gathered in the backyard of my house to eat dinner, the smile on my mum's face as she talked with my aunts and this heady feeling of freedom not to worry about things other twelve years old aren't supposed to worry. The other is the one of the team at every hardship, at every loss. This, is the family for me," he shook his head before he pointed at the window and added, "This… this is not a family, they think that they are but they aren't my family."
After that he had no other choice but to flee the room to not end bursting in tears in front of the kids. He made it to the garden and sat on the lowest step of the porch.
He didn't check how much time had passed and wasn't interested in checking but for sure it had to be few minutes before Cameron flopped on the stair next to him.
"Speaking about the family the kids are watching The Incredibles," she said pointedly before she took a deep breath and asked bluntly, "Were you thinking about having family on your own?"
"Are you offering?" he deadpanned tiredly.
"Me?" she shook her head. "God forbid. Don't get it wrong, I like you, as a person, but as possible love interest…" she shook her head again, "I'm not interested and for many reasons on that."
"Humor me," he sighed.
"First, I'm nineteen, you are thirty, that's huge age difference. Second, I'm a mother of a twelve years old who is a handful, genius or not, actually genius part in him is more handful than the twelve years old part, I'm hoping for improvement because of the tour de family. Third, I have shitty genes which excludes the idea of me ever having children on my own."
"Same here," he muttered. "The shitty genes part at least and the age difference. No twelve years old geniuses to bring up."
"Yet," Cameron coughed. "They might be in about a decade."
He stared at her in shock as he mumbled, "What you mean?"
"Would you like short version or long version?" she asked uncomfortably.
"One and then the other," he said quickly. "What you are implying?"
"I'm not implying anything," she said simply. "Do you remember Ruby Devaine?" she asked slowly. "Tallish, rather lanky, a mass of red curls, green eyes," she said.
He did remember Ruby Devaine, all too well. It was back in time when he still lived at his old apartment and was still struggling with his addiction and wasn't succeeding in beating it. Ruby was an associate, not really a prostitute, not much of an exotic dancer except… for him she was all those things and she was someone who knew the right people in the right places.
"Cynthia?" he asked quietly. "How do you know…"
"Flu vaccine," she said simply. "Last year," she pointed at his left arm. "Birthmarks are dominant. She has exactly the same one and if it wasn't for the birthmark her general appearance would have me suspecting a relation of some sort."
"Why do you even have her?" he asked quietly.
"Because apparently the dentist on 35th Street is partly deaf and considers as a doctor only the doctors of medicine. You aren't one," Cameron said grimly. "Twenty minutes past two o'clock I was coming home and she was sitting by my front door, with a bag full of clothes and few toys and she was clutching on the file. From what I managed to get out of her was that mommy is very sick and that she has to go away and that she said that she has to stay with daddy now but everything is going to be fine…"
"Sick?" he stared at Cameron in shock.
"Lung cancer, inoperable," Cameron sighed. "I don't need to be an oncologist to see that it's bad and that she doesn't have much time left. Everything is in the file. All of Cynthia's legal paperwork, birth certificate with your name on it, the address on the documents on which your name figures is old. There are also copies of Ruby's medical files and a goodbye letter, to both of you, separately. I'm sorry but I had to read yours because I don't find kids on my doorstep everyday… Cynthia was the first."
His vision started graying on the edges and he started feeling overwhelming coldness when suddenly his head was pushed to his knees and he choked to take a breath.
"Breath," Cameron said calmly. "Spread your knees and take deep breaths."
He slowly inched his legs apart and took another shaky breath.
"I…" he mumbled.
"Breath, don't talk unless you aren't planning to faint," Cameron said quickly.
Several realizations were dawning on him at once.
First, the life he left behind did come back after him against his best efforts. Two, in spite of taking precautions he wasn't as careful as he thought he was even in the worst part of his life and it was a good thing that during his stint with drugs he didn't catch something worse than a cold, like HIV…. Three, his plan to never have children on his own was just that, a plan because reality had different ideas. Four, said child was about three to four years old and today was the first time he ever saw her. Five, her mommy left a letter… Six, he hated getting goodbye letters of any kind. Seven, considering the number of shocks he had today he was on the best way to finally lose it…
…and because having major depressive episode would be too simple what was ahead of him was a psychotic break.
'Compartmentalize,' he told himself firmly. 'You can't dissociate. Focus on surroundings. Breath slowly. Think of the kids. If you'll lose it now Hotch will kill you, Jess will kill you, Will and JJ will kill you, and on the top of that you would be leaving your daughter who was already abandoned once in last few hours and you have too much of abandonment issues on your own to do the same to her…'
Slowly he became aware of two things, of Cameron running circles over his back, slowly and methodically and then of small arms that wrapped against his right calf. Too unsure to be Henry's and too short to be Rory's.
It was Cynthia. It had to be her and something inside him broke. His daughter's first hug. It was slow, tentative and full of hope. He raised his head just a bit and saw that she was observing him fearfully which made him realize that right now he wasn't a perfect picture of mental stability and he willed himself to calm down even harder.
Big, brown eyes surrounded by the curtain of brown curls with the same thin lips like his mum's… her grandmother's… his daughter. Slowly he smiled at her and she beamed at him.
That was it. Come what might there was no power in the world which would be able to take her away from him. Four PhDs, two BAs, many different awards had paled in comparison to Cynthia's simple smile. He would have no problems with handing everything over to anyone willing to take it if only it would grant him watching how Cynthia would grow.
"Congratulations, it's a girl," Cameron said quietly before she patted his shoulder and stood up leaving him and Cynthia on their own.
Like it? Hate it? Let me know.
Author's note: Cynthia... she wasn't in the original plot but the longer I thought about Reid with the kids the more appealing the idea became. Eventually I figured out that with his fear of developing schizophrenia Reid wouldn't willingly agree to father a child and in any case he would take great lengths to prevent himself from becoming a father because of his fear. Therefore the only window for maneuvers was those few months when he was still using, which makes Cynthia about three years old, three years and five months old to be exact and makes her older than Henry and younger than Rory. And I picked Cynthia as a name for a reason, you can either check it out by yourselves or you can wait for next chapter where Reid explains the meaning (by pondering over it).
Additional explanations about the dramatic ending: well considering the still growing list of shocks at least ONE of them had to bring Reid to the edge of losing it and considering how the original version of the chapter grew I decided to cut it in what seemed an appropriate place (well, for me).
Next chapter: It's a Girl! Reid reacts, the others react, Garcia implores death threats, Hotch considers drug-testing. The Reids enter the scene again. Plus many more.
