Who Knew, Huh?
Chapter Fifty Two (52): 100
Reid had just finished getting ready for work... well it wasn't really work but a team questioning about that faithful day at the old Hotchners home. As he went down the stairs, he saw Emily, who had blood shot eyes from crying, and was watching over her children... and he watched his family.
Seconds later he saw her look up to him and even she saw the fatigue showing on his face. It had been hard on all of them, but mostly on Aaron Hotchner. Both of them still remember pulling up at the house and knew that they were expecting one body count... but not what they walked in on.
"We have to get going" Reid called out loud enough for everyone to hear. Emily carried Archer in her arms, while Cassie held Aria's hand and both little girls made there way to the front door, with Alessandro and William right behind, and Matthew followed last, but was picked up by Spencer who walked over and soon out of the house.
While Emily was locking the door, he made sure the rest of the kids were well seated and that their seat belts were fasten correctly, before she handed him Archer and went to the driver's seat.
The entire drive was dead silent. Even the kids knew that something wasn't right, and decided to follow what their parents were doing. Remaining quiet.
Even after dropping the kids at the daycare, neither one spoke to one another for the entire ride to the sixth floor. When the doors slid open, they heard something small running around.
"Oof!" Emily felt something or rather someone running into her.
"Hi aunty Em'ly" Jack Hotchner said, while looking up to her.
"Hey, there Jack" the brunette smiled at the young child, "Where's everyone else?"
"In the circle room" he answered, both agents knowing that he was talking about the briefing room.
"You wanna head up there with everyone else?" Reid asked, as he saw their former leader gazing at them from the door frame of the briefing room.
"Okay" the young boy agreed, before being picked up by his aunt Emily and about a minute worth of walk later, the entire team were in the briefing room, dead silent as well.
"Agent Jareau?" Anderson made his presence known.
"Yes?" JJ answered as she stood up.
"Strauss is ready for you" he told her as he and JJ left the room, leaving the entire team thinking about how their quiet morning was turned upside down into the worse days in their entire lives.
Hotch had remained quiet. He was deep in thought with everything that has happened in the last couple of days.
Flashback to that morning, in the Reid household...
Both husband and wife were enjoying the afterglow of their recent physical activities, when Spencer lay on his side and watched a fast asleep Emily sleeping.
"What's bothering you, honey?" Emily asked with sleep in her voice, while still having her eyes shut.
"How did you...?" Spencer was confused at how she knew that something was bothering him, while her eyes were still closed.
"We've been married for almost six years, I know and sense when something's bothering you" She smirked at him, before slowly opening her eyes and looked into his.
"You know that Strauss is going to pick each of us. Trying to trick us into saying that it was all Hotch's fault right?"
"Tell her to go f-" Spencer decided to cut her off by covering her lips with his.
"How about saying something that won't get any of us fired, dear" he lightly chuckled.
"Use your Eidetic memory. No one is going to challenge you"
"What about you though?" he was genuinely worried about her because of the past conflict versus Strauss and her.
"I'll throw her word back... while remaining polite" she answered.
"How?" that confused him.
"I'm the daughter of an ambassador sweetie, I can make anything sound polite" Emily smirked, when she saw her husband laugh, before pulling him to her and kissed him.
End Of Flashback...
Spencer Reid was deep in his thoughts, but his stare never moved from watching Jack and Emily drawing together. When thinking back all those years ago, he would have never thought or see himself married and literally having half a dozen kids, and a sassy feline. He was very thankful that he had met Emily that morning on the subway... and extremely grateful that her gold bracelet had fell of, because he knew that the probability of him seeing her again would have been very slim.
But then his thoughts wandered to what had happened that day...
Flashback to days ago...
Everyone had been working none stop for almost 30 hours straight. Everyone was exhausted, but the main reason Morgan had let everyone have a morning for themselves, was because of the fact that JJ had told her unit chief that Henry was sick and that her and Will were heading to the pharmacy to get his prescription.
The entire Reid household was dead quiet. Every child, baby and adults were fast asleep. This was a very rare event. But like always, there off morning was cut short when Reid's phone started ringing.
"Hello?" he answered groggily.
"Spencer, it's JJ. Get to the bureau, I think I found a solution at what meds Foyet's using"
"JJ... we know what he's using"
"Not if he mixes over the counter meds. A pharmacist confirmed this with me"
"Alright, we'll be there as fast as we can" he hung up,and woke Emily up.
Within 40 minutes, the kids were at the daycare, and both parents had just gotten off the elevator and were making there way to the briefing room. They both knew that today was not only going to be a very long shift, but a very stressful one that could probably have a bad outcome.
End of Flashback...
"Garcia" Anderson called out, "Strauss is waiting for you"
"Alright" the TA got up and walked out of the briefing room, just as JJ walked back in.
"How bad was she?" Emily asked.
"You were right... she's trying to put the blame on Hotch" the media liaison said.
"Sounds like I'll have to have a small talk with her" Rossi declared.
"Guys, we just tell the truth and we say it so that it doesn't sound like we're incriminating Hotch" Spencer said.
"The kid's right" Morgan said.
"I have six children, Morgan! When are you going to stop calling me kid?"
Emily was suddenly thinking back to that morning after she and Spencer had just arrived in the conference room.
Flashback to days ago...
After both Reid's entered the bullpen, they saw both Hotch and JJ walking away from his office.
"What'd we miss?" Spencer asked.
"Right now, we're all meeting in the briefing room, while JJ and I head on over to Garcia's to get started on the over the counter meds that can be substitute from his other meds and find the ones that can't be substituted and then find him"
"Alright" both said at the same time as they walked pass their former leader and went into the briefing room and waited for the rest to arrive.
It wasn't long before both the rest of the team, and Hotch and JJ came in and started analyze everything they had gathered on Foyet in the recent event with Karl Arnold. Emily was the first to point out that the Reaper had stuck around Boston to watch the former chief of the precinct deteriorate, which immediately made her feel guilty about how she had made it sound like.
"It's alright, I know he's been watching me and waiting for me to fall apart. It's apart of the reason why I originally stepped down as Unit Chief" he told everyone, but Morgan's facial expression showed that he didn't agree. But before Emily could ask Morgan to talk in private, Garcia came in running with Kevin's laptop saying that she had found the drug that couldn't be substituted that was called "Tapazole".
Then just at the right moment, Spencer connected the profile on Foyet and wrote out both his name and his media nickname, "The Reaper". Within minutes he had found a name... Peter Rhea. Then seconds later Garcia had pull out Peter Rhea's address and everyone rushed out, while Morgan called for SWAT to meet them at the address they were heading.
End Of Flashback...
Garcia had been seated and helping Jack with the colouring, while Rossi was asked to go to see Strauss next.
Meanwhile on JJ's couch, with the camera away from the furniture lay two very exhausted and sweaty bodies of Spencer and Emily Reid.
"I'm so... glad that I... wore a turtle neck" this caused Spencer to chuckle, while he pulled his pants back up and was putting his belt back on.
"Yeah... Sorry about that" he told her. Before kissing her.
Once they were fully dressed and didn't look like they had sex in their Media Liaison's office, the married couple left and slowly made their way back to the briefing room.
"Agent Reid, Strauss wants to see you now" Anderson said.
"I'll see you soon" he told her as he followed Anderson, and Emily went back to where everyone else was.
CM~BAU~CM~BAU~CM~BAU~
Twenty minutes had passed, when Emily and Spencer crossed path again, only this time he raised his eyebrows in a signalled that she's seen many times before, "Good Luck". She knew that Strauss was going to pick a fight with her.
Meanwhile Spencer walked back in the briefing room and this time Morgan left to go wait patiently outside of the interrogation area.
"Uncle 'Pence!" Jack exclaimed happily as he jumped into his uncle's arms.
"Whoa, hey Jack" he smiled at the young boy, who still smiled even after everything happened. Maybe because he didn't quite understand yet, but he hoped that he would never understand what happened inside that house ever.
CM~BAU~CM~BAU~CM~BAU~
Flashback to days ago...
Emily and JJ were seated next to each other in the back of the SUV along with Reid. Garcia had just told them that Foyet was calling Hotch... only then... it was actually Hailey. Everyone in that SUV knew the moment they heard her voice, that their gut instincts had been right. Things were going to end, but not without death. What they hoped was that Foyet was the one death and not Hailey or Jack.
Morgan drove as fast as he could, while they all listened to their conversation. Then they heard Jack Hotchner's voice, and how Hotch wanted him to work the case with him. This got the team confused.
JJ could feel the tears stinging her eyes, after hearing the little boy saying to his mother that he was hugging him too tight. Emily felt what JJ was feeling, but she was certain that Spencer was feeling it as well. But they quickly turned back to agent mode, when they heard Foyet speaking.
Then the goodbyes and promises were exchanged before... the sounds of gun shots were heard. Three to be exact. This tore everyone apart. Emily had to look out the window, while fighting back the tears, JJ soon let the tears fall and Spencer did the same as Emily, but Rossi saw the young man's tears. Morgan and Rossi looked to one another seeing the damage that one man... no, one monster had caused to this family.
End of Flashback...
After they were all dismissed, Hotch took Jack back home... to his apartment, while everyone else made they way out of the bullpen and their way back to their home, where the quiet and need to be near loved one was dearly needed.
JJ immediately called Will to tell him that she was on her way home, Garcia left with Kevin and Morgan who were going to go watch a couple of cheesy chick flicks, Rossi was headed back to his mansion, where his dog Mudgie would keep him company, and finally both Emily and Reid had finally out their children in their seats and car seats, before driving home.
CM~BAU~CM~BAU~CM~BAU~
It was around one in the morning when Spencer was startled awake from a nightmare. He looked to his right and saw that were Emily usually slept was currently vacant. He got up and made his way out of their room, checked in every child's room, from Cassie's, to Alessandro's, then Aria, Matthew and William's room, but she wasn't there. He then slowly entered Archer's room and saw Emily in the rocking chair fast asleep, along with Archer against her.
He gently placed his youngest son back in his crib before gently waking Emily up.
"Em... Honey, wake up" he whispered.
"Spencer?" her eyes were half opened, but soon her brown eyes were wide opened when she didn't feel Archer near her.
"He's back in his crib, dear" he whispered to her, while they quietly went back to their room.
"I can't stop thinking about what happened and what we saw over there" she admitted, after lying back on her side of the bed.
"I know... What would you do If I did die in the field?" he asked her.
"...I know I would have to pull myself together for the kids sake... but if we didn't have children, then I know that I couldn't put myself back together. What about you?"
"The same. I'd stay strong for the kids... but without them I'd just be a mess" he wrapped his arms around her, "But we're not going to let Hotch even think that. We'll all be there for him"
