Disclaimer: Sammie050301, aka me, does not own Criminal Minds. Although it would be honor to own said show, she'll stick to writing fanfiction and gushing about cats.

This chapter is a response to a guest reviewer that simply went as "K".

0-0-0-0-0

When Haley and Hotch had found out a couple of days later that Spencer hated his bed sheets, they fixed it instantly. Now, the child could possibly sleep comfortably in peace. They were wrong, the child never stopped.

Hotch and Haley should've considered the possibility of this happening. With three children, children that were traumatized in some significant way, were going to have night terrors and nightmares. They rarely happened to Emily, probably because she was very quiet about them. It consisted of how she envisioned how her parents death took place. Haley and Emily had a long conversation a while ago about these nightmares, the one time Haley had heard Emily scream in her sleep...

"Talking about them will help, you know," Emily was avoiding Haley's eyes, her head facing in a different direction. Her eyes looked different; distant, "I know, it doesn't mean they'll go away."

"Maybe they will, maybe they won't. You won't know if you try," Haley tried again, this time more gently, "Have you told to any other foster family member over the years about your nightmares-"

"Don't call them that," Emily had snapped bitterly, "Nightmares are for children, I'm not a child."

"You're thirteen," Haley said, "That's a minor under the law, therefore, you are." Haley took in a breath and said, "By the way, you're wrong. Adults get nightmares as well."

"Right..." Emily said disbelievingly, with a roll of her eyes, "I'm sure you got nightmares..."

"Did I ever tell you on how I became a foster mother?" Emily was curious on how Haley changed the topic, but she secretly knew that it was a way for Haley to link this to her topic prior and make a lesson out of it. Slowly, the teenager nodded. Haley took a deep breath and began to explain, "Aaron and I have known each other since high school. We've always wanted children; but we couldn't."

"What do you mean?" Haley sighed,

"The doctor said I was infertile, therefore I'm unable to carry children."

"...I'm sorry."

"My point is," Haley starts off, "-is that I would have nightmares every night; I was miserable. Eventually I talked about them with Aaron. Then, you came along." Haley had a broken into a wide smile, which made Emily do the same. "-and that's when I knew everything would be okay. I love being a mother."

"Now do you wanna tell me about your nightmares? I mean, you were screaming loudly in your sleep."

"That normally doesn't happen."

"I know, that's why I"m concerned." That's when Emily explained her nightmares, in vivid detail.

It sucked. One of the things that bothered Haley the most about being a foster parent was hearing the sad stories. Kids being so traumatized by events that can describe every little thing so perfectly. Times like this made Haley wish that the kids didn't have such keen eyes for detail, it would've been better that way. It would have been easier. There would be less pain.

JJ's nightmares happened frequently, with her abusive alcoholic father one day coming back to strike her down. Emily would hug her and hold her like a big sister would until she'd cry herself to sleep.

"I get to the part where he's growling," JJ had fearfully said to Emily, "His breath smells bad, like what he drinks..."

"Think about it like this," Emily said softly, "He's gone now, he can't hurt you anymore." JJ shakes her head and buries it in Emily's chest.

"He can hurt me in my dreams," JJ says back, muffled. "He's always found a way to get to me there." Emily began to stroke JJ's hair,

"Well...Haley and Hotch don't hurt us, and I trust them. The way your dad was...it was sick."

"It hurts. Touches that aren't hugs hurt."

"Touches?" Emily asked, she let go of JJ, looking absolutely horrified, "What do you mean by that?" JJ looked down at the floor in shame, the tears going farther down her cheeks. Emily lifted JJ's chin up slightly so the younger girl could look at her in the eyes, "JJ, what do you mean by touches? Did he...touch you in bad places?" To Emily's horror, JJ had nodded with confirmation. Emily took a breath, thankfully it wasn't caught between her teeth,

"...Where?"

"What I use to use the bathroom," JJ answered, "It's a private area..."

"Anywhere else?" JJ now put a hand to her own chest, "Here too. Please don't tell Hotch and Haley! For now, please don't!"

Fuck.

Damn it.

What can she do?

"Did your dad ever..." She didn't want to say the word, she didn't want to ask, but she had to, "JJ, did your dad ever rape you?"

Silence.

...

...

...Shit.

"Oh, JJ..." Emily said, shaking her head in sadness.

The word 'Rape' should never have been apart of JJ's vocabulary. Time and time again, Emily as well as Hotch and Haley, would say that JJ was only seven.

Emily couldn't not tell Hotch and Haley, couldn't she? Wait, maybe they already knew. The thirteen year old was conflicted on what to do. Deciding to give her the benefit of the doubt, Emily hugged JJ tight and said, "I won't say anything."

Little did Emily know that was a huge mistake.

Spencer had night terrors a lot. That could be seen as an understatement, comparing on someone's views on how often nightmares should occur. Haley and Hotch thought it was an understatement. Spencer's nightmares plagued the entire house with screams of horror, cries, and the sounds of him thrashing wildly on his bed.

Haley had run into his room like she'd usually do when Spencer would have a nightmare. Hotch would usually follow right behind her.

"Sweetie, it's Haley—"

"I-I want my mommy! I want her back!" Spencer wailed in his sleep. Haley reached over to him and wrapped her arms around his small frame, "I'm so sorry baby..."

"I WANT HER BACK!" Spencer screamed louder, trying to break free out of Haley's strong hold. Haley wouldn't budge, she never felt this horrible in her life. Hotch had watched from behind, possibly even more stunned than his wife.

How was she supposed to explain to a four year old about mental illness? Let alone a smart four year old with Asperger's? This was going to be so hard for her, as well as for him. Spencer was a smart kid, but that was the main point; he was still a kid. He was barely out of toddler hood. He wanted his mother, his real mother. He didn't want to be in a room filled with strangers. Where was his father? Why couldn't he take him in? What kind of parent doesn't want their own child? The thought of that made Haley's heart break into many bits and pieces.

She thought about Emily's past foster parents, who had been given a job and failed miserably. She was mistreated and lacked trust in adults.

She thought about JJ's biological parents, who were abusive and treated JJ worse than that of a dog. Rosaline was more of a parent to her, but she killed herself.

Now, she was thinking about little Spencer's parents. One was his mother, a paranoid schizophrenic who wouldn't remember to eat unless she was medicated. Although Spencer claimed he loved his mother more than anything in the world, including books, she wasn't fit to take care of him. How the fuck was Haley supposed to explain that? How was she supposed to explain that his mother was locked away from the rest of the world, mentally unstable? Next was his father, a lawyer for gods' sake, that didn't even want him. It was because of fear. Was it because he was autistic, Haley knew that without a doubt, and it made her skin crawl.

How...how was she going to explain that his father didn't even want him? How would Spencer be able to process that in his mind? Foster children who had been abandoned by their parents often ask one question that consisted of one word;

Why?

Why did my parents leave me? Why didn't they keep me?

She didn't want Spencer to ask these questions for the rest of his life. A four year old, let alone any child, should not be asking those kinds of questions.

"WHERE IS MY MOM!?" Spencer cried out again. Haley sighed, this was going to be a bitch to explain. Times like this made her seriously wonder her ability to be a parent. Those foster parenting books she read did not teach her how to coax a 13 year old girl to help her stop obsessing over her parent's death in vivid and gore detail. Those books did not teach her how to stop a 7 year old girl from screaming after someone calls her by her full name. Proven by now, those books did not teach her how to explain to a toddler about his mother's delusions of the world.

Fuck the books, she had no choice but to wing it.

"She's in an institution, do you know what that is?" Spencer stopped crying and looked up to her, blinking slightly,

"It's a society or organization founded for specific purposes," he replied, sounding like a textbook. Haley smiled sadly and nodded, beginning to run her fingers through his messy hair. He had tensed for only a second, before he relaxed into the soothing motion, "That's right."

"W-w-why?" Why. That word had popped up already; and it only made this conversation even harder to explain. She had to do it though, it wouldn't be fair to him. She didn't want him to ask him this question his entire life of WHERE his mother was. Haley, however, knew for sure that he'd never stop asking about his father.

"Does your mommy ever act a little weird sometimes?" Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say, as his face grew very dark in a matter of seconds. He pulled away from her, her hand no longer massaging his head,

"Mommy's not weird," he snapped, "She's peculiar." Haley moved a little back and said sincerely,

"I'm sorry if I offended you," Haley realized that the only way to do this was to speak to him on his level, "What I meant to say was...Does mommy have bad days? Where she does things she's not supposed to do?"

"She's a good mom!" Spencer roared angrily, "She reads me books, she tells stories, she's a literature professor!"

"Was," Haley interjected softly, "Did you know that your mommy takes medication or is supposed to?" Spencer nodded knowingly,

"Yeah...doctors say she's sick. She lays in bed all day. I don't understand it but..." Spencer drew his knees to his chest, "It keeps the bad things away."

Haley was reeled in, "What kind of bad things?"

"The screams and hits," Spencer muttered brokenly, about to burst into tears once more, "But she's a good mommy when she takes it! But I hate that she has to take something to feel better!"

"Do you know why she takes it?"

"Yes! Because she's sick!"

"Do you know what kind of sick?" That stop Spencer completely, his face went from really angry to really confused. Because he was confused, he went back to being angry, which showed all over his face again. Once again, he hated not knowing things. Nonetheless, he was curious, so he shook his head no.

"Your mommy has something called a mental illness," Haley explained quietly, reaching her hand to stroke Spencer's hair once more. This time, he didn't stiffen.

"A what?"

"It's when your mommy does the bad things. The screams, the hits, the crying, that's all in her mind. She's seeing things that she's not supposed to see, and she's hearing things she's not supposed to hear."

"L-Like when she says she's being poisoned? Or-or—"

"Yes," she interrupted again, still with her calm demeanor, "Her mind is telling her that. But now, she's getting help." Spencer looked disaapointed,

"So I didn't do well enough..."

"No, no, no, honey...you did wonderful. You did everything you could to help her. There's only so much a kid like yourself could do. So now you understand?"

"I-I think so. Will I ever see her again?"

"Someday you will," this answer prompts Spencer to latch onto Haley as she hummed the same melody she'd always hum to him. At first his facial expression is blank and expressionless, it later turns into sleepiness and drowsiness as the four year old drifted off to sleep without dreaming.

0-0-0-0-0

A while back, I recieved an anonymous review on whether JJ was sexually abused. I didn't want to answer that question personally, so that was another reason why I made this chapter. To whoever that reviewer was, I hope this answers your question.