Chapter Twenty-five: The calm before the storm
Thanks to my awesome beta, Tafferling!
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Jack's eating his dinner when there's a soft knock at his door. He doesn't recognise it, the reluctance unfamiliar. He leaves Jack under the watchful eye of Aureilo to answer it.
He's never seen her like this before.
"Emily?" he asks, taking in her ruffled appearance and reddened eyes. She shoves a lock of hair back, dark strands catching on her fingers, biting at her lip anxiously. Her nails are bloodied.
"Hey Spencer," she says huskily. "Are you busy?"
Jack laughs from inside the apartment and she freezes like a hunted rabbit. Sergio is winding between her legs in tight circles, tail lashing. "Jack's having a sleepover," Reid tells her, stepping forward and grabbing her hand, examining the cuticles. "You need to clean these. They're open." He's choking on worry. Emily is the collected one. The one who always knows what she's doing or where she's going.
Right now, she's lost. And she's come to him.
She shudders slightly, and nods, stepping into his apartment. He follows her silently, catching Aureilo's eyes when the hare hops out. He doesn't need to speak. The hare knows where he's needed. It takes two bounds to reach Sergio and playfully box at his shoulder.
"Hi, Jack," Emily greets the boy, smiling brightly at him. She looks almost normal like this. Effortlessly slipping into a mask. Reid wonders how often she's worn that mask around them recently. "Do you remember me?"
Jack peers at her with his sharp gaze, and Reid wonders just how much Jack knows about her. Would Hotch have tackled that discussion with him? This is Emily, she died but then she came back.
Not like your Mom.
Reid wouldn't blame him if he hadn't.
"You work with Daddy," Jack says. "You're a hero too."
Emily laughs, and the sound is strained. "Yes I do."
Jack picks at his dinner. "We're having a sleepover," he says excitedly, drumming his feet against the chair. "Are you going to have a sleepover with us?"
She laughs again, and it's more relaxed this time. Even Emily has trouble keeping her shields up around the exuberant four-year old. "No, I just came to visit. But I bet you guys will have a blast!" She's close enough that he can smell alcohol on her breath. She smells like smoke, like a bar. Either that or she'd taken it up herself. He wonders if she drove.
"Stay," Aureilo cuts in suddenly, bumping his head against the cat's side. "We're watching documentaries about castles." He looks up, and his tone turns sly. "Jack would love it if you did, wouldn't you Jack?"
Jack quickly agrees and Reid sees her hesitate, tempted. She doesn't want to go home. Haunted. He knows that feeling. She had been on the run for seven months.
Sometimes it's hard to know when to stop running.
"Stay," he repeats, touching her hand. She shouldn't be alone like this. "Please?"
She looks away, her hand lifts out of his, twitching as though she has to restrain herself from biting at it. "You know," she says slowly. "If we're going to be watching shows about castles, we should make our own." Her expression turns wicked, a childish sort of glee wiping away the fear. "Got any spare bedding, Spencer?"
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Dinner is wonderful. Beth is charming, polite, funny. She's everything he looks for in a woman. Coop and Hal eventually begin to gravitate together, their determination to avoid each other fading as the night continues.
They go to the concert and there's something about the sweeping overtures that makes it impossible for him not to slide an arm around her waist and pull her closer as they exit the theatre, blood singing with the atmosphere of the night.
He doesn't think of Spencer. Much.
"This is the part of the evening where a gentleman would walk me to my door and kiss me goodnight," she teases him as they slide into his car, her dress catching the glitter of the streetlights and coming alive around the curves of her body.
"Did I give the impression I was a gentleman?" he responds, smiling warmly at her and seeing her eyes darken slightly. "I'm afraid you may have been misled."
She laughs and leans over, pulling his mouth down to meet hers. It's not a chase kiss; it's damp and there's a longing to it that's coming from both of them. Two lonely souls, looking for something in each other. He wonders if he's what she's looking for.
He doesn't think about whether she has what he desires.
He takes her home and she pauses inside, looking at a picture on the wall. He flinches when he sees it. Jack and Spencer. He'd thought about taking it down, decided against it. Jack's looking at the camera, laughing. A baby still. On Reid's knee with Arelys a flicker of blurred grey fur at his side; a kitten swiping at the barest hint of a hare's tail cut off by the frame. Before Foyet.
"He's not just your friend, is he?" she asks gently.
"I have pictures of Rossi on the wall too," he defends himself. Too quickly. She rolls her eyes.
"Yeah, at a conference. Suits and ties and polished shoes." She reaches up, touches the glass covering Reid's face. "Not dressed casually, holding your son, and looking at the person holding the camera as though they're the only thing in the world that matters."
He should take that picture down. Later.
"We were… more," he admits finally, closing his eyes against the rush of disappointment. "Not now. Not for a while. He's still important to Jack."
"He's still important to you," she corrects him, taking his hand and pulling him towards the stairs. The bedroom. "That doesn't change anything about this."
"Doesn't it?" It should. Rossi had predicted it would. He really needs to get Rossi out of his head, his conscience was starting to sound arrogant and vaguely Italian.
"Not if you don't let it."
He doesn't.
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Jack and Emily gang up on him. Which will be Spencer's defence when Hotch gets there in the morning and finds the six of them sprawled into a pillow and sheet fort that, thanks to Emily's weirdly specific knowledge of sheet structural integrity, and Spencer's rigid adherence to apartment OHAS, spans the entirety of the living room.
Reid lies under the canopy of carefully arranged bedding with the sound of their quiet breathing next to him, and wonders how anyone could ever voluntarily walk away from this. Reaching over the sleeping child to grab the remote and switch the TV off, he's never felt more vulnerable.
Without the light from the screen, Jack's face is lit by the soft gleam of the hallway light filtered through the pale sheets. Emily is on the other side of Jack, curled away from them, tucked into a ball. Self-contained. Distant. But still there. Reid memorises this moment, innocent and perfect, and holds it close. He's learnt to treasure the good times.
He doesn't think Hotch would ever take this away from him, not while Jack still wants it, but Beth can offer them so much more than he ever could.
Emily? She'll do what she has to. He knows that. And he'll be there for her no matter how much it hurts.
If she has to go, he'll hold the door open for her.
"Stop thinking," Aureilo mumbles sleepily, curled around the snoring Arelys. Sergio is the barest suggestion of black fur on the other side of him, a sluggish rumbling purr. "You'll need your energy in the morning for when Aaron gets here and asks why you let his kid sleep on the living room floor under a sheet."
Reid is quiet for a moment, memories of his own childhood and the snippets he'd picked up from Aaron's floating in his mind. "Somehow I don't think he'll mind," he replies quietly.
This was something neither of them had ever had. It was something neither of them would ever give up for Jack.
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Reid wakes up one morning and knows instantly what day it is. The downside of his memory.
He rolls over and pulls a pillow over his head and tries not to think of standing by Hotch's bookshelf at the start of something new.
They could have had so much more time.
If it wasn't for Hankel and Foyet, they would have.
Their job demands sacrifice.
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It's not until lunchtime that Hotch realizes.
Morgan is bickering with Emily in the squad room with Reid happily pointing out the logical fallacies in their arguments. Hotch watches them and speculates on how long this family of theirs can last.
"He's an odd duck, that one," Rossi hums, walking out of his office and glancing down right as Morgan aims a half-hearted swipe at Reid's ear. "He still surprises me. Hard to believe I've known the kid five years now."
"Five years, really?" Hotch says distractedly.
"To the day. As he informed me over the percolator this morning. In great… great… detail."
"Oh," says Hal, and her shoulders slump. Hotch stares at her for a moment, trying to work out what had upset her. It only takes him a second.
Oh.
"Five years," he murmurs, watching Reid lean back in his chair and laugh, looking relaxed and happy. And alone.
It wasn't long enough.
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Reid buys Jack a globe for his birthday, elegantly layer with the countries of the world. He traces his fingers over the uneven surface, the delicate lettering naming each locale. It's beautiful. Reid had one just like it when he was younger. He used to spin it and let his finger trace over the surface as it went; calculating where it would land. When he was right, he'd imagine what life would be like there.
When he was wrong, he'd thought of life where he was.
Hotch answers the door with a party hat perched crookedly on his head and his 'talking to reporters' smile firmly in place. It vanishes when he processes that it's Reid and Aureilo at the door, replaced with a much warmer one. His gaze lingers for a long moment around Reid's neck, the scarf covering it.
"I bring the gift of knowledge," Reid says with a shy smile, holding the shabbily wrapped present out. Hotch looks down at it, gaze remaining on a stray tab of sticky tape hanging off one side, a tuft of tan fur trapped under it.
"Hey, no one ever taught us to wrap presents, all right," Aureilo defends them, sitting upright. "He's about as handy as a sea sponge, and evolution didn't grant me opposable thumbs."
"Spencer!" Jack screams, hurtling between his dad's legs and clinging to Reid's knee. Reid stumbles back, heel slipping on the stoop and almost tips backwards. Hotch moves faster, grabbing the front of his jacket and pulling him upright.
"Woah, buddy!" Hotch says with a strangled laugh. "Let's not kill Spencer until after he's given you his present, okay?"
Something darts around Hotch and gambols around Reid's legs in a happy dance. Reid blinks, looking down and staring at the glossy-coated otter smiling whiskery up at him. "Arelys?"
"It's our birthday!" she trills, tackling Aureilo and nipping playfully at his ear. "We're five!"
"Happy birthday, Jack," Reid tells him proudly, ducking down and brushing his lips against soft blonde hair. "And you, Arelys."
Someone calls out Jack's name and he vanishes back into the house, following the sounds of laughing children. Arelys bats at Aureilo's ear once more before chasing after him, claws clattering on the floorboards.
"She's shifted again," Reid says, barely able to contain his delight. "Aaron, that's fantastic!"
Hotch's eyebrow lifts. "You're not upset?"
"Why would I be?" Reid is genuinely confused, studying Hotch intently. "This means what happened with… it means he's recovering, Hotch. Foyet tried to hurt you both, but he's already fading from Jack's memory. That's how it should be."
Hotch's face brightens, the smile softening and becoming something warm and glowing. It's a smile that Reid's only seen a few times before, and almost always aimed at his son.
A woman with neat brown hair and a kind face appears behind Hotch. "Aaron, it's freezing. Why are you standing out the front?" A husky appears behind her, peering around and focusing on Aureilo.
Ah. Beth.
Hotch steps to the side. "Beth, this is my… colleague, Dr. Spencer Reid and his daemon Aureilo. Reid, this is Beth and Coop."
Beth smiles warmly at them, but her eyes are considering. "Dr. Reid, lovely to meet you. Hello, Aureilo." She looks down at the hare, studying the ragged scar on the hare's head. "I've always loved hares. So tremendously streamlined. Coop wishes he was as lovely as you."
The flicker of conceited delight from Aureilo is expected, and Reid has to fight not to roll his eyes as the hare preens. "We are noble animals indeed," he says proudly, puffing out his chest. "I like this one, Aaron. You have good taste."
Hotch coughs and Reid wonders just how much Beth knows.
He has the odd sensation that he's become the dirty secret of the Hotchner household.
"I should go," he says softly, handing the package to Hotch and turning back to his car. "Have a great day everyone. Was wonderful meeting you, Beth."
"Take care," she says, waving after them.
Hotch doesn't say anything, just watches him go with an inscrutable expression.
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"Doing anything for Christmas, Boy Wonder?" Morgan asks on his way out the door. His eyes on Reid, but Reid can tell his mind is already in Chicago.
"Going to see my Mom," Reid lies, because Hotch is near enough that Hal will hear him if he says otherwise.
He doesn't think of his mom's doctors quietly suggesting that a visit would be unwise in her current condition, and he certainly doesn't think of a Christmas tree in a house that was filled with so much more life than his current apartment.
"Give her my regards," Morgan says with a grin, ruffling his hair and practically bolting for the door. Naemaria licks Aureilo's face, panting hotly into the damp fur with a doggy smile.
"Merry Christmas, little bunny," she tells him before bounding after her human.
Emily hugs him as she leaves, but her eyes linger suspiciously. He considers asking her to come over for Christmas, wonders if she's going to be alone. Thinks of the empty cupboards of his pantry, and the sparse fridge. Filled with Jack's favourites and little else.
He can't quite bring himself to ask, and she leaves without sharing her plans.
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His phone buzzes plenty Christmas morning as he watches Jack sit quietly by the tree examining his gifts. It's a subdued Christmas, haunted by the faces missing from the room.
He tries to pretend he's not waiting for one particular buzzing. That doesn't stop him from lunging at the phone every time it hums.
S. Reid – Merry Christmas, Aaron. Give Jack a hug for us. Best wishes.
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His phone beeps once.
Aaron – Merry Christmas, Spencer. Hope your mom is well. Love Aaron and Jack.
He puts the phone down without answering and lays back on the couch, wrapping his dressing gown around himself. His laptop hums on the table in front of him, light flickering on the screen from the muted TV set. His apartment is silent.
He reaches over and taps the send button on the laptop as well.
…. Merry Christmas, Maeve. Thinking of you….
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Strangely, considering his determination of the last year to keep moving forward, Reid finds that he's the only one left standing still.
Hotch has Beth and Reid can see the subtle changes in him that she brings. He knows Hotch won't have seen them, but he'd spent over five years knowing the man intimately. And he knows what it looks like when Hotch begins to fall in love.
It's slow. Reluctant. But it's there. And it breaks Reid's heart, just as much as it pleases him that Hotch is okay.
Emily doesn't talk about the night that brought her to Reid's door, and he doesn't ask. One day he might. One day he'll have to. But as long as she still wants to be there, he'll wait.
JJ has Will. Garcia has Kevin. Even Morgan buys more houses, fixes them up. Keeps on keeping on. Reid goes to work, and goes home. Considers going out. Makes excuses. He doesn't bring home another stranger. He got his answer from that experiment.
It was just sex and Reid has little interest in that because it reminds him far too much of the alternative.
Then comes San Francisco and the Zodiac copycat and Reid begins to wonder if his whole life has been a mistake. He's done so little with any of it. Has he actually done anything that matters?
"Here's me," he says into the mirror of the bathroom, water dripping off his chin. "Mr. Wasted Potential."
"What does that make me?" Aureilo asks cuttingly, flattening his ear and glaring at him.
He presses his forehead against the mirror, feeling a low throbbing start up in his skull. "So much less than you should have been."
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They all have cases that reflect back, showing them parts of themselves that maybe they'd rather ignore.
This one seemed to be Reid's.
"Is he alright?" Morgan asks, watching Reid feverishly shuffle through the mountain of comments he'd requested printed. "He looks… manic."
"He's always manic," Hotch deflects. Morgan doesn't look convinced.
"How smart would a person have to be to write code like that?" Hotch asks Reid later that day, and the man twitches slightly. There's a cup of dark, bitter coffee in his hand, his fourth in as many hours. He'd been mainlining it.
"Beyond smart. Profoundly gifted. An IQ of at least 160." He frowns, looks at his shoes. Hotch can see the corner of his mouth twisting in something resembling distaste, and apprehension crawls up Hotch's spine. Okay, perhaps Reid was a little more manic than usual.
"That changes the profile, then," Emily suggests.
Reid shrugs. His foot is tapping frantically against the floor as his leg jiggles restlessly. Hotch makes a mental note to hide the coffeepot. "The unsub could still hold a menial or low-level job. Many believe that beyond an IQ of 120, success is determined by other factors."
Ah. Morgan catches his gaze and there's a defeated kind of triumph in his dark eyes. Told you he wasn't alright, his expression screams.
Hotch should talk to him. He's not sure if he can talk to him. Friends again they might be, but not anywhere near the level where Reid would be comfortable sharing something like this with him. Hotch can see the doubt creeping into hazel eyes, the sneaking suspicion that he was failing to live up to expectations. He'd seen it enough in the mirror, growing up and now. Expectations at work, expectations as a father.
He can't imagine how much heavier those expectations would be as a prodigy.
When Reid walks out, Emily follows, and Hotch can't help but feel relieved.
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"I don't know why I'm in the FBI." The words cost him everything to say.
Emily's mouth twitches. "I see. You're a genius, but you have the same job as me, Morgan, JJ."
His mouth moves before his brain can stop it. "Yeah, exactly." She snorts. "Wait, no, that's not what I'm saying." He can't help but laugh at the look on her face, the tension breaking.
"Sometimes we think we should have done more," Aureilo finishes off for him, leaning against his leg. "We thought we'd… we thought we'd have cured schizophrenia by twenty-five."
Emily looks sad. "Ahh, come on. You're only, what? Twenty-nine?"
"I'm thirty."
Her face falls. "We missed your birthday? Why didn't you tell us?"
"It wasn't important." He doesn't look at her. He doesn't want her pity.
"Point is, there's still time. And you're saving lives, every day. You think those lives don't matter?"
"You'd have saved them without us."
It's Sergio who answers, his deep voice stern. "Not as many. Not as fast."
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Rossi's head is tucked close to Emily's, whispering. Sergio and Eris sit close together, the cat's tail twined around sharp talons. They're an unlikely pair. Hotch finds that it's highly unsettling to see them together.
They're planning something, he can feel it.
"Prentiss, Rossi," he greets them coolly. "Problem?"
Rossi looks at him and for a second, he looks angry. "It's not important," he says, his voice mocking. Yep. Definitely angry.
Emily kicks him, smirking when he winces. "We forgot Reid's birthday." Her tone is impassive, but Rossi glares at him with a clear, "You forgot Reid's birthday, idiot," on the tip of his tongue.
Shit. His gut drops with the realization. Wait, but that would have been… months ago. Shit.
He's thirty now. No wonder he's worrying about whether he'd wasted his talents.
Rossi straightens and smooths his jacket down. "Fortunately," he says with a grin. "We have a plan."
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He looks stunned as they shout 'Surprise!' at him. Emily laughs and pushes him towards them, and he disappears under a sea of arms as they swarm him.
Hotch thinks that maybe this is the first surprise party he's ever had. He tries not to dwell on that.
He eventually surfaces and turns to Hotch, a silly kind of grin splitting his face. Hotch tries not to respond to that and fails, smiling back. "Do you feel thirty?" he teases.
"Feel thirty?" Reid wrinkles his nose. "Sometimes I'm not ever sure I'm an adult at all, let alone thirty."
"You're not the only one who feels like that," Rossi assures him with a snigger.
"Why didn't you tell us we forgot your birthday?" Hotch asks him later as they leave the BAU side by side. The air is crisp and clear and bites at exposed skin. Their shoulders brush against each other as they exit the doors. Hotch thinks of Beth.
Reid shrugs, face still flushed with excitement. He'd had fun. "Everyone had bigger stuff going on. It didn't seem important."
Hotch grabs his arm and pulls him around to face him. Reid's eyes widen and he freezes. Hal and Aureilo watch from ahead, heads tilted. "Don't ever say that," Hotch says, his voice rough. He can't bear to hear that from the most brilliant person he knows. If Reid thinks he's unimportant, what does that make the rest of them? "Don't put yourself down like that. You are always, always, important to us, Spencer. Whatever it is, whatever you need, you come to us. Okay?"
He's breathing heavily and Reid looks like he's about to crawl out of his skin in shock. "Yes," the other man says softly. "Of course."
Hotch doesn't believe him. He can only hope.
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The day comes for him to ask, spurred on in part by Hotch's startling declaration weeks before. "You are always important."
There are others who need to know that as well. Beginning with Emily.
He waits by her car for her. After she pulls her gun on him, it occurs to him that maybe that wasn't the brightest of ideas.
"Would you have actually shot me?" he asks her after his heart-rate slows to a reasonable pace again. She shoots him a dismayed look, skin a ghostly grey in the dingy lighting of the carpark.
"I was in witness protection, looking over my shoulder daily, for seven months," she states, eyebrows drawing together dangerously. "I come home and now I hunt serial killers, and I'm still not convinced Rossi isn't planning on murdering us all as a plot for his next book. What do you think, genius?"
"I think we should confiscate your gun," Aureilo mutters from under the car. He'd shot under there as soon as Emily's weapon had come out, and was refusing to emerge. Sergio had joined him, chuckling darkly at the indignant expression the hare had levelled at him.
"Any reason you decided to give me a heart attack?" she asks eventually.
He thinks of how Hotch would do this, careful and precise. He'd make her come to the conversation, put her so at ease that she'd volunteer the information he wanted. JJ would look worried and motherly and have the perfect words ready to help. Morgan would scowl and start a snippy argument, until eventually Emily would get so frustrated she'd shout the answer he wanted just to make him stop. And as soon as she did, he'd be there for her, strong and resolute and loyal as hell.
Reid can't do any of those things.
"You're going to leave, aren't you?"
She closes her eyes, reels slightly. "I don't know. I don't… I don't know. I don't know where I belong anymore, Spencer." Opens them again. They're tired and it makes him hurt to look at them. She has shadows around them that match his. "I don't think it's here anymore." It's his own thoughts in her voice, but with more feeling behind them. In his heart he knows he belongs here.
In his heart, he knows she doesn't anymore.
He nods and tries to channel JJ, find those perfect words. He can't even manage Garcia. She could make someone feel precious and needed just by looking at them. He can't put his feelings in a single expression, can't find the words to tell her how much she belongs.
"I'm not Elle," she says finally as the silence grows painful. "I'm not going to walk away and never come back. I'm not Gideon."
He knows that. "I know what it's like to lose your place," he says eventually, looking up and at her and hoping everything he couldn't say was visible to her. She's damned good at her job. He knows she'll pick up on at least some of it. She does. Her face softens, eyes shiny. "You have to do what you can to find it again. Do me one favour?"
"Anything."
"Don't leave without saying goodbye."
"Of course I won't. How could I ever do that to you?"