Wow. I feel much more accomplished today. Sometimes this comes so fast and others...well, you get the idea. As always, let me know what you think.-J

"Just a perfect day
You made me forget myself
I thought I was
Someone else, someone good."-Lou Reed 'Perfect Day'


Maggie sat in the living room surrounded by the many components of the wedding invitations. She had show tunes blaring and the cats were sleeping nearby as she addressed the envelopes, thankful for her knowledge of calligraphy, and assembling the many parts—invitations, reception cards, maps and RSVP cards with those envelopes. She was grateful this was not a larger event than it was because this was a major piece of work to get done. Maybe it was good to not have so many friends or a very close family. This was going to be a rather intimate affair and Maggie liked it that way. There would be a lot of love and no real conflict of anyone. There was no trickiness to the seating charts as there were no feuds ongoing among the guests. She still couldn't believe that this was real. She was getting married. Maggie James, perennial loser. She wasn't sure how this had happened but somehow every dream she thought unattainable was now coming true. Maybe she should try out for the Rockettes too before her luck changed. No, that was asking way too much and she laughed at the thought. The cats looked at her with annoyance and she laughed harder.

"What, are you going to tell Daddy on me? Yeah, you just tell him that I interrupted your slumber with my laughter. He'll take my side anyway. You'll never win against me where he's concerned."

She was still laughing minutes later when Spencer walked in the door. The case in Kansas hadn't been that bad at all. They had most of the profile assembled before they got there and the profile was enough to quickly ferret out the unsub. They had been gone two days only. Maggie must have been laughing too hard to have heard his car in the drive but she turned when she heard the front door open.

"What's so funny?"

"Go ahead you fur balls, tell Daddy all about it."

Spencer looked at her quizzically and then at the cats and then felt stupid. Did he really think the cats were going to answer him? They just looked down their noses and squinted at him with the superiority they believed they possessed. He looked back at Maggie who just laughed harder having just seen him look to the cats as if expecting an answer. She was doubled over, grabbing her middle and gasping for air. He couldn't help but laugh himself even though he didn't know what the joke was. In short order he was laughing as hard as she was and they were leaning on each other laughing hysterically and wiping tears from their cheeks.

Once they had gotten themselves calmed a bit and could once again speak, Spencer again asked what was so funny.

"Well, it started with me contemplating my long held desire to be a Radio City Rockette."

From there she explained the rest of it and soon the two were laughing too hard to breathe once again.

Again they got themselves under control and were just lying together on the couch exhausted and trying to regulate their breathing.

"So welcome home my knight."

"That was a pretty nice welcome. Coming home to laughter is incredibly healing."

"I'm glad. Are you hungry?"

"Starving."



"What is this about again?"

The two were walking through a department store assembling a gift registry.

"Have you honestly never heard of a registry, Spencer?"

Maggie once again explained the concept of a bridal shower and a gift registry in between taking appreciative notice of crystal vases.

"Do we really need this stuff, Maggie?"

"Some of it, some is just for fun. Oh, here, I think we definitely need an espresso maker. I can see you using that nearly every day."

"What do you mean 'nearly'?"

Maggie giggled at him.

"How about this?"

She held up a marble rolling pin.

"No way, you already have two of those things and I'm scared enough of those."

And so they went determining things that they needed and/or wanted for their home. At first Spencer balked a bit but with Maggie's help he realized that this was for the purpose of taking their home from a hodgepodge of their individual things and making it a cohesive home with input from both. He actually started feeling good about this merging and saw this as one more thing to be excited for. He started understanding why women got so into this wedding stuff and was not sure why some men dreaded it so much. Finally Maggie declared them done and as much fun as Spencer had ended up having, he was relieved and discovered that he was dog tired. Maggie was so much better at this endurance shopping than he was. Well she had more practice. He knew of all of the days that she had headed off in the early morning with Garcia and Claire and had not come home until late at night with the three of them having closed down the mall the way alcoholics were known to close down bars. And she somehow seemed energized rather than tired by the activity. He wasn't sure he would ever understand women but he was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to entirely. He suspected that some of the things women did were choreographed to keep men off balance. He found it to be part of the charm.


Later they were sitting in the living room and Maggie was reading papers from her students while Spencer went over some case files.

"Spencer, is Morgan seeing anyone these days?"

"That depends on what you mean by seeing someone."

"I mean does he have a girlfriend or anyone he's exclusive with?"

"No, not for a while now. He dates but I don't think he's had a repeat date with anyone in quite a while and that was ill advised."

"How so?"

"She was the sister of a victim and that's just setting yourself up for problems."

Maggie sort of grunted an acknowledgement and returned to grading her papers, chewing absently on the end of her red pen.

"Why do you ask?"

"No reason, really."

"I'm a pretty good profiler and you're a lousy liar. Why did you ask?"

"Claire thinks he's attractive and sweet. She wanted me to ask if there was anyone in his life right now."

"I think the only steadies in his life are his mother, sisters and Clooney, his dog."

"Claire likes dogs."

"You aren't really thinking about setting Morgan up with Claire are you?"

"No, I was just doing a little recognizance."

Spencer thought about it and decided that Morgan and Claire might be a good couple. He might even talk to Morgan about it. He wouldn't push and he should ask Maggie one thing before he said anything to his friend.

"Would it be a bad or good thing if I mentioned this to Morgan?"

"Well, they'll both be at the wedding and I don't want awkwardness so you can sort of feel out the situation as long as you don't make Claire sound like a crazy obsessed woman. Just see what he thinks of her and if he seems receptive you can mention that she said nice things about him. If you aren't sure, ask Pen. She'll know how things are."

Spencer nodded. This was very confusing.