Author's Note: I hadn't intended to do the fight, but I try to honor requests, so here goes. BTW, might want to grab the tissues. Also, it's a little short, but it really felt like they needed to end it there.
FIGHT
"So, what's the last piece you have to do?"
"Dad already signed the permission forms, and my art teacher has a former student lined up to model for me."
Garcia prodded this time, she'd taken some art classes herself and had an idea what was coming, and she had a very bad feeling that Reid was going to need some serious convincing to go along with it, "Come on, Chelsea, it's not like any of us don't understand art."
They barely heard the mumbled reply, "I need to do a study of human form."
Emily's eyes snapped up to the doorway as the empty chip bowl hit the floor; Reid couldn't have picked a worse moment to come in for a refill. "No. No way. You are not painting a nude while I'm responsible for you. No way."
Chelsea dropped her cards and for a moment Garcia thought she was going to burst into tears again. She spun around to face her brother and her eyes flashed. Garcia smiled as the pair faced off for their first (but probably not last) fight. Reid defending his baby sister's honor; Chelsea fighting for her future. Considering they'd each been tiptoeing around desperately trying to make the other happy, Garcia felt it was a very good sign for the health of their relationship.
"I have to."
"No, you don't. There's no way any college is going to require that a minor paint a nude in order to gain entrance."
"It's part of a standard portfolio. Everyone does one."
"I don't care about everyone else. I'm responsible for you, and it's not happening." Reid recognized he was raising his voice, but at least, for once, it wasn't squeaking.
"Dad already gave his permission, you can't just say no, now."
"Oh, yes, I can. That's what being a legal guardian is all about, preventing you from seeing things you shouldn't be seeing."
"I'm an artist. It's not like I'm asking you to let me look at Internet porn or something like that."
"No, you're asking me to let you hang out, for I don't know how long, with some naked guy. It's not happening."
"It's not hanging out and I don't have to be alone."
"Oh, okay. I should leave you alone with some naked guy and the nutball teacher who put the idea in your head to start with? I don't think that's any better."
"She's not a nutball. She's a great teacher and how dare you judge her when you haven't even met her?"
"Easy. She's telling my baby sister to run around painting naked people. What am I supposed to think about her?"
Chelsea let "baby" slide for the moment, she'd learned to argue from a lawyer, she knew how to pick out the salient points, and while that one was important the other was more immediate, "That she's one of the best art teachers in the country? That she knows what I need to do to get into a really good art school? That she knows that just because you see someone naked it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with sex? That she knows that the human body is nothing to be ashamed of? That I've been to hundreds of museums and seen paintings and drawings and statues, but I can't do an original painting based of off another artist's concept of the human form? That I won't be the best artist I can be until I can really see the bone structure and musculature beneath the clothes."
"Then I'll take you to the science department of the museum. You can see a cross-section of a human body. Bones and muscles included."
"I've seen it. It's not the same thing. A cross-section is interesting, but it can't pose. There's no feeling, no emotion, no connection."
"I thought you said it wasn't about that?" Reid thought he had her there.
"No, I said it's not about sex. Art needs emotion. There's a difference - look it up."
Reid heard Morgan snort behind him. Not often he was told to look something up. "I know what the difference is. But looking at pictures in a museum is a lot different than sitting in a room with naked people. A picture isn't going to come on to you. I mean what kind of pervert poses naked for teenagers in the first place?"
"They're not perverts. They're college art students. They volunteer to pose and they get college credit and fifty bucks. Haven't you ever been to a college football game? They streak the field on a five-dollar dare."
"Oh, so now we're talking some drunk frat guy. Not a convincing argument."
Chelsea winced; she'd blown that one. "No, I'm talking a struggling art student, who's not ashamed of their body and needs a couple bucks for spending money."
"Exploitation. Nuh-uh." Reid was becoming more confident in his arguments. He may not argue often, but he'd learned logic and negotiation from two of the best in the world. There was no way he could lose a battle this important to a teenager."
"It's not exploitation, if all they're getting is beer money."
"It is if they're an alcoholic. And how would you know what they're doing it for? It could be a junkie looking for their next fix, it could be an exhibitionist looking to get his rocks off and the fifty bucks is just a bonus."
"They're not strangers. Miss Paola knows them. She's checked them out herself and they've posed for her college classes before."
"Look, I don't know this Miss Paola from Adam's off ox, I'm not taking her word for anything."
"Well, I do know her and I trust her. If you don't trust her, trust me. I mean this is a two-way street; I have to trust you about my whole life. I have to trust that you're going to get me to school. I have to trust that you'll let me see mom and dad while they're in the hospital. I have to trust that you really do want to get them the best care even though part of you must hate him for leaving you; must hate Mom for taking him away. I mean when you said you'd take me, how did I know you wouldn't hate me because Dad stayed with me, but not with you."
Chelsea could feel the tears starting, but couldn't stop them or the worries and fears that flowed from her very soul, "You could have hated me, but you don't. I know you don't because look at everything you've done to protect me. You could have let Mrs. Hammerstein take me back last night, said it was too much to handle. You could be keeping me locked up in here so I'd be safe, but instead you trusted your friends to keep me safe. You could have made me pick through whatever clothes those assholes didn't destroy and live with what was left over, but I'm glad you didn't, because even if there was something left that they didn't tear apart, I don't think I could ever forget that the men who tried to kill Mom and Dad had touched them. You didn't even blink when Garcia told you I wanted to do a mural, even though it means you have to sleep on the couch longer.
"And it's just not fair. You shouldn't have to sleep on the couch, and Mom and Dad shouldn't be in the hospital, and Dad should have told us about each other years ago, and you shouldn't have to pay for all kinds of new stuff for me, and you shouldn't have to give up your privacy, and I'm sixteen my biggest worry should be if I'm going to get a date to Prom and instead I'm worried about what kind of health insurance Mom and Dad have, and is their physical therapist good enough, and do whoever those goons are want to kill me, or just kidnap me, and all I want to do is complete my art portfolio the right way so that if I live through this I can have a future, and …"
Reid's heart broke as he listened to his sister's fears and he did the only thing that felt right; he reached out, pulled her into his arms and held her tightly while she cried herself out against his chest. He let her cry as he whispered, "It'll be okay, Chels, I promise, everything is going to be okay."