Chapter Thirty Six
It's been eight weeks since Emily's death and Spencer is finally coming to terms. JJ was just reinstated at the BAU yesterday. Hotch pulled some major strings to get her back but it's been a source of happiness for everyone. There was a dinner party at Rossi's last night to celebrate and I've agreed to go out with JJ and Garcia today to do a little bit of shopping. I'm only 20 weeks so we still have all kinds of time, but I will admit the bigger I get, the more real it becomes. We go into a little store in the mall and I'll admit, this kind of makes me want to know the gender. They go on a tangent about planning a gender reveal party and I tell them that I'll just have to think about it and talk to Spencer. Just one more month and everyone gets a vacation. Meaning that's when Spencer and I will do a lot of our baby prepping. He says I can do it without him but I know how excited he is so I decided early on that I would wait until vacation time. In the wake of Prentiss's death and with everything else the team has been through, they're getting two weeks. We plan on getting all we can done in the first week and then going to see Spencer's mom for a few days. We're in another baby store when I make the decision. This gender reveal is happening.
"Okay. I'm going to let you come with us to my appointment tomorrow, Penny. If that's okay with you."
"That is perfectly fine with me!"
...
"A gender reveal?"
"Yeah. We figured it would be fun."
"You told me you didn't want to know. We mulled over it for weeks."
"Yeah but I know how bad you want to know."
"I told you, it's completely your call."
"I just made the call. Besides, when I was in that store, looking at all of the baby stuff. I wanted to buy it all. That's when I realized how bad I wanted to know."
...
Three weeks later and we're all gathered at Rossi's house. Everyone casts their votes before we cut into the cake and it's a girl! Spencer picks me up and swings me around, chuckling. After all is said and done, we spend the rest of the night cuddled up in bed, looking at baby girl things.
...
I shake my head at Spencer as he's rattling of statistics about cribs. It takes us two hours and three stores, but we finally settle on one that's up to his safety standards. It's all white with a changing table attached to it. Then comes the mattress dilemma. Once we make it over that hurdle, we head home to set up the crib and move some things around. We end up rearranging our bedroom and putting the crib on the wall opposite the foot of our bed.
"I need to try and find us a bigger place."
"Maybe in a year or so. Really, I don't see the point in rushing to move. We will want her in the room with us until she's at least two."
"I see you've been reading the information I gave you on SIDS." He sounds impressed.
"What am I going to do with you?"
"I'll let you be the judge of that. But I do have a few suggestions." He folds me in his arms and backs me toward the bed.
...
When we arrive at the sanitarium, Spencer stays behind to talk to the doctors as I go ahead to see his mother. The second she lays eyes on me, her face lights up.
"I wasn't expecting a visit."
"Well, we're here now. How've you been?"
"Alright. I can see you're working on grandchildren."
"Looks like it." I give her the run down and she's just as excited as Spencer was to hear that we're having a girl.
...
We spend the whole day with Diana before leaving right at bedtime. I get confused when he doesn't stop at any hotels. Instead he's driving out of the city.
"Where are we going?"
"Back to the mountains." He gives me a sly smile as he watches my face
"The mountains?"
"Yep."
"Just the two of us?"
"Mhm."
"No phones?"
"No phones. Just me and you and 72 hours of peace."
"You really are the best."
"I have my moments." He lifts my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles.
"I just thought it would be good to get away before the baby comes."
"You thought right."
...
We're on the plane back home and even though everyone else around us is asleep, we can't stop talking about babies. We talk about everything from birth plan to breast feeding. I want to have a natural birth but I can tell that makes Spencer really uncomfortable.
"I just don't want to put you in a position where you could possibly trigger ptsd from what happened."
"I understand that but this is what I want to do. Besides, if it gets to be too much I can always ask for medication."
"Only up to a certain point."
"How about this, we discuss is with the doctor next time we go?"
"Do you just not want to argue in front of people?"
"Kind of. I can see this going south. And I like to keep us behind closed doors. Don't want everyone knowing our business."
"I feel the same way. You have a good point."
"I know. Now, in the meantime I need you to stop reading all of those medical journals and studies on deliveries gone wrong."
"I just want to run through every probability."
"Spencer, stop worrying yourself to death okay?"
"Okay..."
...
When we return home, he works for a while and I decide to go ahead and pack up his go bag since he's going back to work tomorrow. I know it'll be the first day back but it never fails, they always end up with a case right off the bat. We end up not sleeping at all. We just hold each other all through the night, silently bracing for tomorrow when our bubble will burst and he will have to go back to all of the evil and depravity the world has to offer.