Authors Note:

There will be an epilogue, but this is essentially the end of the story. Thank you all for following along to this point. I've appreciated every favorite and review, truly.

Chapter 19:

Despite having known Spencer for such a short amount of time, the birthday party couldn't have been more Spencer than if Fran Morgan herself had thrown it.

"Guess those profiling skills aren't quack science after all," Desiree teased as she surveyed the party with her brother. The atmosphere was light and happy despite the day it had been. It reminded Derek of the peace that settles over a city after a blizzard – the streets coated in glistening white fluff, kids having snowball fights, neighbors coming out and waving hello and digging themselves out of the snow. Of all the things to feel the day before his mother's funeral… after all the confusion, guilt, and anger… he couldn't believe he had made it to peace.

"I mean… a chemistry cake," Desiree said. "How could they have known." A mostly-demolished cake shaped like two conjoined hexagons sat on the buffet. Spencer had recognized it immediately as "Two C six, H twelve, O six molecules bonded together as a disaccharide" and laughed heartily.

"Sugar, we think," JJ had filled in the rest of the room, who were much more amused at Spencer's reaction to the cake than the cake itself. The party had also featured "Pin the Monocle on the Marx" and an ice breaker bingo game with a heavy emphasis on academics, books read, and languages so that Spencer would win. From throwing the birthday party to the interrogation to the viewing, the entire team in some way had been taking care of the Morgan family all day. Spencer sat on the couch, pressed up against, of all people, Gideon. As soon as they had come through the front door, Spencer had made a bee line for Gideon and had hardly left his side the whole night no matter how many attempts Garcia made for his sole attention.

"You want more cake? I'm getting more cake," Desiree announced. She left Derek's side and grabbed what looked like half of a sugar hexagon, then joined the circle around Spencer.

"Hey."

Derek turned around to see Hotch behind him, coming in from the porch. He was putting his cell phone away, clearly having just finished with a call.

"That was the Detroit PD. Wanted to let me know that the search of William's house turned up a few items they think are souvenirs. They're processing them now. Not sure if its from the five murders we already know about or a new spree."

"Would have been highly unusual for him to just stop," Derek said. "Especially after losing his surrogate at the same time."

Both their eyes unconsciously flickered toward Spencer.

Hotch held out a manila folder to Derek and he took it questioningly. "I didn't want to have to burden you with this right now, but after seeing how Gideon used some of the information was in calming Spencer down at the viewing, I thought it might be needed for tomorrow. Just in case."

Derek opened the envelope and immediately recognized the contents. It was a photocopy of William's hand written confession and DVD which Derek assumed was a recording of the interrogation. "Hotch, you could get in a lot of trouble for this. Not only am I on a leave of absence, but at some point, that man is going to be on the opposite side of a courtroom from us. You can't just hand a copy of the confession to a victim and a witness at a birthday party."

"I know what I'm doing. And I know if the roles were reversed, you'd do the same."

"And you'd tell me you couldn't take it either."

There was a moment of silence (had Hotch ever lost a stare down?) before both men broke out into small grins. "Thanks," Derek said.

Hotch opened his mouth to answer, but a commotion by the couch took his attention.

"It's 9:16," Spencer had announced, standing up abruptly. The other adults seated around him looked up at him in surprise, clearly confused and taken off guard.

Sarah swooped in to explain before Desiree or Derek could. "Come on, you all know it takes 14 minutes to get to bed, and bedtime is at 9:30pm, or else you turn into a pumpkin."

"There's no pumpkins –," Spencer started to protest, but Garcia cut him off with a huge hug and a pinch to the cheeks which he seemed to both hate and lean into at the same time.

"Happy birthday, sweet cheeks," she said, finishing him off with a red-lipsticked kiss to the forehead. "Have fun scrubbing thatoff tonight," she winked.

"Happy birthday, Spence," JJ said, saying goodbye next. "I hope you loved your birthday party."

"Loved your party," Spencer repeated to her, making her grin.

Emily left with promises that once they got to Virginia they were going to have a Russian film marathon at her apartment.

Finally, when it was Gideon's turn to leave, Derek saw Gideon hand Spencer a piece of paper which he pocketed quickly. "See you tomorrow, kid," he said.

The team filed out with smiles and well wishes, and Garcia made Derek promise he wouldn't touch the clean up ("I'll be back tomorrow Derek, and I swear if you've so much as touched a dirty napkin…"). As much as he didn't want to wake up to the mess, he didn't have any desire to do any cleaning. He grabbed the cake and put it in the fridge, then trudged up the stairs. He could hear Sarah getting Spencer ready for bed through the closed bathroom door. He paused in the space between his and Spencer's bedrooms, listening to her sing some sweet song to him in her off-key but endearing voice. It felt like a long time since he had woken up Spencer that morning, anger thrumming through his veins. He felt like a different person now. There was an aching grief, yes, but also peace.

Instead of going into his own bedroom, he continued walking down the hallway to the final bedroom: his mom's. Her room was still covered in papers and folders that the Morgan siblings had rifled through earlier in the week. How ironic that his mom had spent a life time researching Spencer but now he was now holding what had to be the most interesting (and horrifying) piece of Spencer-related information any of them could have ever imagined.

Then another sight stopped him – Desiree had beaten him to the bed, looking tiny amidst the pile of pillows and blankets. She moved slightly and pulled back a blanket in invitation. Derek smiled, remembering back when they were all young and would pile on their mom's bed in on Saturday mornings. They would talk and laugh for hours about nothing and everything. Now much, much larger, Derek took up nearly half the bed as he stretched out next to Desiree.

She turned toward him. "You know, the whole move-to-Virginia thing, I knew you guys were struggling –."

"– Des…" Derek cut her off. "Come on, I don't want to fight tonight."

"…No just listen. I was gonna say, I knew you were struggling and instead of being helpful, I was just a bitch about it. We all would have struggled. I know I said I was sorry, but I'm really sorry," Desiree said. "And I'm just saying it again because I know the struggle isn't over. When you guys go back to Virginia, its still gonna be tough. But I'm in your corner, okay?" Derek nodded thickly. "I kind of fought Sarah on the idea of sending Spencer with you originally. I just thought it was gonna be like you, and him, and some sad empty apartment… I don't know. I didn't know. You've got this whole second family… I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. I just… I love you both, okay? And I know sending you both back this time, you're gonna be alright."

Derek folded her into his arms. "I love you, too, even when you're a pain in the ass younger sister," he teased, kissing her forehead.

Sarah appeared in the doorway. "What are you two doing in here?" she asked.

Desiree looked to Derek, clearly feeling that he was the one who should explain his presence. "Honestly, I was looking for somewhere to look through this." He sat up in bed as Sarah came over and sat down in the recliner in the corner. Derek opened the envelope. "It's William Reid's confession and a DVD of the interrogation. Hotch gave it to me tonight."

Derek looked to his siblings to see how they were feeling. "Lets hear it, or actually, lets watch it. I'm not listening to my brother's voice narrate what I'm sure is going to haunt my nightmares forever," Desiree said decisively, much more sure sounding than how she actually looked.

Sarah took the DVD from Derek and popped it into the player under the TV. A few seconds later, the TV displayed the black and white image of William Reid. The camera must have been set up just over Gideon and Hotch's shoulders because he was facing the camera but looking off to the side.

"This is the taped confession of William Reid. Today is April 20, 2006. The time is 2:26pm," Hotch began. "Mr. Reid, please begin by telling us about your wife."

William didn't look anxious or upset. He looked, in fact, the opposite – like he couldn't wait to tell his side of the story.

"Why does he look so…" Desiree began.

"Excited?" Derek finished. "He's a narcissist. He probably never thought he'd get caught but once he knew they had him, he couldn't help but confess. He wants everyone to know what he did."

"I met my ex wife Diana McAlister while I was a law student at UN Las Vegas and she was an English professor. We were married in 1979, right after I graduated. We had Spencer a few years later. I loved him, I loved her, I loved our family. I started practicing at a firm in Las Vegas, we had a house, we were truly that happy family in the perfect neighborhood, life was good.

A few years after Spencer was born, Diana began to change. It wasn't noticeable at first to anyone but me. She was paranoid, heard voices in her head, made life miserable for me. All these rules… can't talk in the car because they're listening, can't watch TV cause they're watching us back, can't wear certain colors on certain days, eat pre-packaged foods, on and on. But I could cope with it in the house… things changed when she started taking the freak show in public. Got arrested twice, once for disturbing the peace and once for public indecency. I'm sure you can imagine how well that went over at the law firm. She was an embarrassment."

"Tell us about when she got committed."

"Third time she got picked up by the police they drove her to the hospital instead of jail. She spent a few days in the psych ward. Got herself diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia."

"Why did you check her out AMA instead of letting her get treatment?"

William laughed. "And risk her telling her shrink about the padlocks on the closet door? How the only way to get her to shut up about the voices in her head or watch TV in peace was for me to knock her unconscious? Even though she was certifiably crazy, I couldn't risk anyone believing her. I checked her out AMA as soon as I could."

"And what about your son?" Hotch asked.

William laughed again. "That little piece of shit son, he was worse off than his mom. Don't know how I got so lucky to play Nurse Ractched to my Cuckoo's Nest family. But god did I love…"

He faded off, lost in thought. After a moment, Hotch cleared his throat. "Continue," he ordered.

William smiled and looked straight at the camera. "God did I love bath time," he said.

Desiree turned away from the TV. "Oh my God," she said, "I don't know if I can watch this."

"They wouldn't have given us this if it was too graphic," Derek assured her, hoping and praying her was correct.

Sure enough, Hotch and Gideon didn't ask follow up questions to that statement.

"What happened after you checked her out of the hospital?" Gideon asked on the tape.

"Loaded them up in the car and just started driving. There was nothing special about Chicago, just the closest big city once we had been on the road a few days."

"Tell us about the murders. How many women did you kill?"

"Five, including Diana," William answered. "Didn't know the others' names 'til you told me. I'd lock Diana and Spencer in a hotel and find some girl on the street. We'd have sex and then while they were lying there afterwards, I'd take my knife and slit their throats."

"And then?"

"And then… well you've seen the pictures."

William took in a deep breath like he was about to explain just how each mark had been made on each victim when Gideon cut him off. "Tell us about the day of the fourth murder – Andrea Maher."

"Andrea Maher," William repeated, enjoying her name on his tongue. "The fourth one… she was unplanned. I saw her walking outside our hotel, talking to herself, from the moment I saw her I knew she had what Diana had. And god… I can't explain how badly I needed that one."

"If you were so mad at Diana, why didn't you take your anger out on her? She was right there."

"Because if I killed Diana, who would take care of the kid?"

"Spencer, you mean."

William nodded. "Diana was crazy, but I will say, for as crazy as she was, she was an amazing mother. That little shit didn't deserve how good she was to him."

"Well I assume you made up for that," Gideon said.

William smirked. "We had our fun father son moments," he said with a smile that made Derek want to throw up. "But all that ended that day I saw Andrea. I left the hotel and followed her, but I didn't realize Diana and Spencer were following me. I grabbed Andrea from behind and pulled her into an abandoned parking garage. I raped her good and was about to slit her throat when I saw them. They were just standing there in the entrance, staring at me. I knew I had to do something or else eventually Diana would go to the cops, so I grabbed her and tried to force her to take the knife so that she's was the one that killed the girl, I knew she wouldn't turn herself in and risk losing Spencer. But she refused to kill her, she was trying to fight me, so finally I grabbed a piece of wood and started beating her until she was the one that was bleeding. Finally, I had to threaten to kill Spencer if she didn't do it. That's what finally made her take the knife and stab the girl in the throat. She didn't know what she was doing. The long smooth cut across the neck, much prettier."

William paused for a long while before he began again. "When she finally died, I started in on her, and then after a while I realized Diana and Spencer were gone. I ran back to the hotel and I saw she had taken the car. I started running down the street and that stupid woman, she had only driven two blocks to a gas station, so much for a grand get-away. She was alone. I told her to tell me where Spencer was, but she wouldn't tell me. I threatened to stab her if she didn't tell me, and she wouldn't, so I stabbed her just like this -," William mimicked plunging a knife into Diana's stomach like they had seen Spencer do. "And that was that. Put her in the backseat of my car. She was dead before we hit the freeway."

"And you never wondered about your son?"

William shrugged. "Kid never talked, could barely feed himself, couldn't use the bathroom on his own. He wasn't a liability. Diana though… I knew her blood and fingerprints would be all over that girl's body. As soon as I could I found someone to erase me out of her life, which wasn't that hard pre-internet. She took the fall and it never got traced back to me."

"Until Spencer gave his statement," Hotch finished.

The video ended. All three siblings were frozen in the silence and darkness of the room, letting what they'd just heard settle in to their minds and hearts. Finally, Sarah whispered, "Spencer will kill us if we all go sleep in his room with him, right?"

"Definitely," Desiree said.

"Outside the door, then, yeah?"

There was another moment of silence, and then without another word, the three siblings walked out of their mom's room, grabbing pillows and blankets as they went, and walked down the hallway. Sarah laid a comforter on the ground, and the three of them settled in front of Spencer's door for the night.

Sarah's 6:55am Spencer Alarm came too quickly. Her beeping cell phone woke them up just slowly enough for the three siblings to stare at each other in confusion until the events of the night before came into focus. Derek couldn't help but groan as he tried to sit up, his bones as stiff as the time the week before when he had fallen asleep holding Spencer's hand across the wall of luggage.

"Who's doing the honors today?" Sarah asked.

"Can't we just let him sleep in?" Desiree countered, yawning.

Sarah pushed her sister lightly with her foot. "We don't want to borrow any more trouble than the day's already gonna bring by messing with the schedule," she said wisely. "Besides, the funeral's at 10am. Can't really delay much longer."

"This is going to be a disaster," Desiree said. "I can't believe we're letting him do the eulogy." She sighed deeply then reached up and turned the doorknob of the door she was currently propped up on. She half fell into Spencer's bedroom, laying exhausted on his floor, then her eyes shot open, pretenses of drama suddenly dropped.

"You're awake," she said in surprise.

Sure enough, Spencer was sitting up in bed, staring at them with wide, confused eyes. "You slept in the hallway?" he asked.

"Long story," Derek said, pulling himself up. "Its 7 o'clock, ready to get up?"

Spencer held out a piece of paper to Derek.

"What is that? Is that the eulogy?" Derek asked. It didn't look long enough to be a full eulogy, but he didn't know what else his brother would be reviewing the morning of the funeral.

Spencer shook his head. "My name is Spencer Morgan. I was adopted by Fran Morgan when I was 10 years old."

"I… you… what?" Derek asked. He took the paper out of Spencer's outstretched hand and immediately recognized Gideon's handwriting on it. He followed along with the writing as Spencer spoke the words he had memorized.

"Before I was adopted by Fran Morgan, I lived with my father William and my mother Diana. William was not kind to me. Diana took care of me as best she could. When I was 9 years old, I saw William stab and kill Diana. It was sad and scary. Now he is in jail and can't hurt me anymore. Even though it was a long time ago, it is okay to be scared or sad. After Fran became my adopted mom, I lived with her for sixteen years. We had a very good life. On April 10th2006, she died in a car accident. This makes me feel sad and I know I can talk to my family about it any time I need to."

"Gideon gave this to you?" Derek asked.

"Gideon," Spencer echoed in confirmation.

"And it helps? This…"

"Social story," Spencer filled in. "A tool created by Carol Gray in 1991 to improve social skills and help of people with Autism Spectrum Disorder cope with new situations or change in their environments. And yes… it helps."

"I'm glad," Derek said, noting that this was the second time Spencer had casually mentioned he was autistic.

Derek sat down on Spencer's bed. "Did Mom write you social stories?" he asked.

"Sometimes," Spencer answered. He was picking at cotton pills on his comforter.

"Did Mom ever… did she talk to you about autism?"

Spencer shrugged. "She never talked about diagnoses. She said she didn't like them. She said they didn't help anyone."

Derek mulled Spencer's answer over as he got Spencer ready. Fran had always been so resolute in her decision to make Spencer as "normal" as possible. No diagnoses in his school files or medical records if she could help it. It wasn't that she didn't want Spencer to be himself, or that she wasn't proud of him just as he was. She just wanted him to have every opportunity in life, and she thought that the best way to do that was to make sure he went through life without labels. She had been raised in a different time, when having a disability meant you were a broken version of a "normal" person.

They drove to the church in silence save for Spencer's intermittent mumbling of the social story. Even Desiree didn't have any comments to make as they made their way into the church. She and Sarah were immediately surrounded by Fran's friends, having been much closer to them than Derek since they had stayed in Chicago. Spencer was holding onto Derek's arm tightly, his head buried behind his shoulder, making it awkward for them to make progress up the steps of the church. Just like when they entered the FBI for the first time, Spencer's grip finally tightened to the point that Derek had to pull his brother into a side room as soon as they entered the church.

"We can hang out here –," Derek began, but he was cut off by his cell phone ring tone. He looked down – it was the Chicago PD. "It's the CPD. Do you want me to answer it?"

Spencer didn't miss a beat. "Answer it," he said.

Derek had to smile. When they had left for Virigina, Derek had entertained a wild fantasy of he and Spencer being crime solving FBI brothers. But considering Spencer's knack for solving crimes and his obvious interest (not to mention he probably held more degrees than the lead directors of the FBI combined), Derek wondered if he couldn't find some kind of work for his brother at Quantico.

"SSA Morgan," Derek said into his phone.

"Agent Morgan, this is Detective Pierce. We met a few days ago when your family was here at the station. I'm calling with some information I thought you'd like to know."

"I'm on a leave of absence," Derek said quickly. "Any information should be directed to my unit chiefs."

"No, sorry I wasn't clear," Detective Pierce said. "I meant I have information I thought your family would appreciate knowing. We got a call from the Detroid PD that the raid of William Reid's house turned up a few souvenirs. Long story short, we were able to identify the third victim and give her family closure after almost two decades. Wouldn't have happened without your brother's testimony. Just wanted to call and let you know, and say thank you."

Derek thanked the detective and pocked his phone, staring at Spencer all the while.

"Its not polite to stare," Spencer pointed out after the seconds stretched on.

Derek wanted to laugh, but all he could do is look at his brother. His strong, courageous brother who had suffered beyond what anyone could imagine and now sat before him full of kindness and love, a brother who had made it clear over and over that he was moving to Virginia not to be taken care of but to take care of Derek, a brother who wanted to honor his mother with the perfect eulogy.

Derek sat down next to Spencer and tapped his messenger bag. Spencer dutifully handed him his speech book. Derek opened the front cover. "Spencer's Eleventh Speech Book. Here's to empty pages staying empty. Love, Mom," he read, reverently ghosting his fingertips over the handwriting.

"Its not empty," Spencer said.

Derek took a deep breath. "I know, and that's why I wanted you to pull it out. I know you had your heart set on delivering the eulogy because you wanted to prove to her you could do the one thing she always hoped you could conquer, but there's no shame in letting someone else do the eulogy. Its not that I think you can't, its just... I've been thinking about what you said earlier, about how mom didn't like diagnoses, and before that, how you wanted to do this to prove to her you could public speak. Man, I get it, I really do. You don't know how many times in the last few weeks I thought I was letting her down. I thought it was my responsibility to keep this family together, to get everyone through the grief in one piece. Mom wanted us to be happy and okay so badly, and every time we weren't I thought I was failing her. But that's just not true. At the end of the day, mom was proud of me just because I was her son, and she was proud of you for the same.

I know you feel like you have something to prove by delivering the eulogy, but you don't. You've already proven how strong you are. You survived horrible things as a child. You've confronted your past. You got through the questioning about the police station. You told us about the murder weapon. Its because you grew up so well that Maria finally felt comfortable to come forward with what she knew. And it was your eye witness account that got William to confess to five murders. That call from the CPD was from a detective letting me know that after two decades, because of you, the third victim's family is finally going to have closure. That was you man, you did that.

But regardless of what you've done or haven't done, or if you can or can't public speak, she'd still be proud of you. Because she didn't love you for what you could do; she loved you simply because you were her son. And I know…" Derek faded off, unsure of if he should say what he really wanted to say.

Spencer looked up at him curiously.

Derek swallowed. "I know that not every who call themselves your parent treated you that way. What your dad did was wrong. And Mom – our mom and your birth mom – Diana and Fran, they loved you so much. And I know that all they'd want for you is to know that you are loved and for you to be happy."

Spencer opened his mouth to talk again, but nothing came out. Instead he took his book back and turned to a well worn page. "When you have the good life, you fight to keep it," he read aloud.

Derek's eyes filled with tears at hearing his mother's words. "I'll always fight for you," he said.

"Always," Spencer echoed back. He opened his messenger back and hesitated… then pulled out a slim folder and handed it to Derek. He opened it up to find a few printed pieces of paper.

"The eulogy?" Derek asked.

Spencer nodded.

Sarah poked her head into the room. "Family's supposed to be lining up," she said. "Everything okay in here?"

"Okay," Spencer echoed, getting up.

The Morgan family finished lining the sides of the walkway just as the black hearse pulled up. The driver opened the back and six teenagers from Fran's church came and took their places as pallbearers. Derek stood holding Spencer's hand tightly as their mother's body passed by.

"Come on," Sarah whispered as the family filed in behind the casket.

As they walked into the church, Derek couldn't help but think of not so long ago when he and Spencer had entered the bullpen for the first time. How he hadn't wanted to tell his team his mom had died. How they had hardly known he had a brother. Now, seeing his team sitting in the second row of the church, feeling his brothers hand in his, it seemed like a lifetime ago that he had been so closed off from his team. It seemed like a lifetime ago that Spencer hadn't been an integral part of his every moment. It seemed like a lifetime ago that he thought he was all alone, left to fight for his family by himself.

It hadn't come easy and there were still storms to navigate, but settling down next to his brother, surrounded by his team, Derek felt a deep peace overtake him. For as much as he had fought for his family, he knew Spencer had fought for him just as hard, and his team had fought for them both. Surrounded by so much love and support, even at his mother's funeral, he couldn't help but smile in appreciation for all he had.

This was the good life.

Authors Notes: I really had no idea when I started this chapter if Spencer was going to be able to deliver the eulogy. The more I thought about it, the more I didn't want him to be Inspoporn. Besides, the story was never about Spencer "getting better" (whatever that means) but about two brothers learning to take care of each other and learning to be taken care of.

Epilogue will be posted in the next few days. Thank you again everyone for following this story! Please drop me a review if you have time, I'd love to hear the good bad and ugly of what you thought!