Title: Family Matters 2/4

Summary: Sequel to Familiar Strangers

Rating: PG

Notes: Yes I know that there wasn't going to be one. But well the bunny bit. This is the sequel to a crossover but there is barely any CSI mention. Much thanks to silentflux who edits my grammar and gracefully allows me to distract her from finals and bother her on vacation.

Hotch's house was about what Reid was expecting. Green manicured lawn, white walls and trimmed hedges. Everything was neat and matching with only the photos on the wall giving it more character.

Haley was standing there waiting and Reid couldn't meet her eyes. He felt as if he was imposing terribly, but then he didn't really have a choice, did he? Hotch lead him up the stairs, and everything seemed to go by in a blur of white, pristine walls. The spare bedroom had a soft blue comforter with a dark red wood. Spencer wasn't sure what the rest of the room's furniture looked like-- he was too busy sprawling out on the bed and crashing. He felt his shoes being removed but couldn't work up the energy to care. His instincts told him that Hotch was still there and watching him. He couldn't relax enough to fall completely asleep, but he was drifting a bit when he sensed movement reaching for his belt. Instinctively, he curled into a ball, protectively shielding his stomach and preventing his clothes from being removed. Eventually, he heard the whisper of feet on expensive carpet and he felt the last of the tension roll off of him.

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Hotch descended the stairs slowly, feeling as weary as Reid appeared to be. He worried after Reid as if he was one of his children, and it makes him dread when Ben is grown.

Haley was there when he entered the kitchen with a cup of coffee, and he smiled wanly up at her thanking heaven that she can put aside whatever fights they might be having to care for another person.

"He's tired --just going to sleep for awhile. He won't be happy when I wake him up in an hour."

"Other than the concussion he's okay?"

Aaron laughed mirthlessly. "Yeah, other than the concussion. God." Aaron's head was in his hands and his fingers at his temples, trying and failing to ward off a tension headache. "All that Spencer's gotten into, the number of times he's had a gun on him -- the idea that some shmoe talking on a cell phone and running a red light might have killed him is incredible." He looked up and tried to soften his eyes but could tell from Haley's face that it didn't work. "It just makes you wonder. We go out there every day trying to make the world a safer place, but how safe can we make it? There's always another bad guy, there's always another shmoe."

Haley's hand was on his arm and there were tears in his eyes when he tilted his head. Running a thumb under his eyes, Haley wiped them away saying, "I'm proud of you, Aaron. I might not like the fact that your job, your drive to help others, takes you from us so much, but I respect it and you should respect it too. No, the world isn't perfect and you can't ever make it that way, but you've changed hundreds of lives, maybe thousands. And there are families out there that are still together because of what you did." Haley was crying now too and her voice was shaking. "No matter how -mad," she spat the word out with a lingering bitterness, "it makes me to have you leave us all the time, I could never break up our family even if your too busy saving others to worry about your own."

Hotch wasn't even attempting to hide his tears now and he pressed their foreheads together and breathed onto her skin, "Oh, honey, just because I'm not here doesn't mean I don't worry. Every time I step out that door, I leave my heart behind. How else can I keep it clean? After all, it belongs to you." The tears stopped and Haley was stroking his face lovingly and smiling into his lips. They weren't really kissing, and there was no build up of sexual tension but this baring of souls was somehow more intimate than any sex she'd ever had.

Reid stood in the doorway a moment, taking in the scene, and then started to back away slowly, hoping not to break the spell. He¢d woken when his door had tilted just right and clicked shut. Thirsty, he'd decided to stumble downstairs and apologize for his behavior. But suddenly, he decided that a few more minutes of sleep would be the better part of valor. After all, he had no doubt that Aaron had set his watch and was fully intending to wake Spencer up on the hour.

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Two more hours passed with Aaron asking some rather absurd questions like, "What is the square root to 784?"

"Hmm, oh 28." Reid then swatted at Aaron¢s face and rolled over, mumbling into his pillow.

And Aaron's personal favorite so far, "How old are you in dog years?"

"168." Spencer yawned and stretched like a cat his shirt pulling up and exposing his stomach. Aaron caught a glimpse of purple bruising where Spencer had impacted with his seat belt. Aaron frowned a bit, but willingly left for the kitchen downstairs.

"Still sleeping?"

Aaron nodded, "Yeah. Honey, I, well thanks for letting Spencer stay here. He doesn't have a whole lot of family that can help him, and well, it's important to me."

"I understand. Besides, he seems like a sweet young man."

"Yeah, about that. Try to not, well, touch him or reach for him suddenly. He doesn't really care for it." Haley looked into Aaron's eyes, searching for whether or not she should ask. Apparently she got her answer, because she nodded. Aaron let out a breath that he didn't even know he was holding. "Okay, well I was wondering if the team could-"

"Come over for dinner? Sure."

Aaron really grinned at that, "Well I was going to ask if they could come over for an hour or so, but I'm sure that they'd enjoy some of your home cooking, too." He shook his head laughingly. "Especially Derek. I doubt that he¢s ever cooked more than pasta in his life."

Wagging a knife at her mischievous husband, she said, "Perhaps you could put some of that energy into a salad."

Hotch threw his hands up in the air defensively. "Oh no. This was your idea. I'll go call the team. Besides," he tossed over his shoulder, "just because I think Derek can't cook, doesn't mean that I can."

Aaron who had turned back around completely so that he was walking backward. Unfortunately, he ran right into Reid who'd been leaning in the doorway watching the scene of domestically with a grin. "Oof." Reid stumbled backward a bit, but managed to catch himself on the doorframe.

"Oh, sorry, Spencer. Are you okay?"

Aaron peered worriedly at Spencer, who was slowly straightening. "Yeah I'm okay." A smile started to play across his lips. "Better than you. At least I can make a salad."

Aaron shook his head, laughing, punching Reid lightly on the shoulder as he walked by.

Reid hesitantly picked up the lettuce and started tearing it into a large bowl. Haley pushed a knife to him, telling him, "You can use I knife if you want."

"Lettuce turns brown because air hits it and it oxidizes. Cutting it with a metal knife just accentuates it."

"Oh." A smile played across her mouth, "Aaron tells me that you know just about everything."

"Confucius said that true knowledge is knowing that you know nothing."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Knowledge in and of itself is pointless -- without context it means nothing, and without action there's no context. The universe is so big, what I know -- those are useless facts that fill my head and the teams ears. 91.3 percent of my knowledge is useless because there's no context for it. What does it matter the average number of kernels on an ear of corn? Or that in1893 the Supreme Court declared tomatoes a vegetable even though biologically they are a fruit."

"Oh really? How did that happen?"

"Well, the case was Nix vs. Hedden, and the US had an import duty on vegetables but not on fruit. So an importer of course claimed that tomatoes are a fruit and shouldn't be taxed."

"Of course. So if biologically a tomato is a fruit, how come he lost?"

"Well, the common definition is vegetables are eaten at dinner and fruits are eaten at dessert. In general."

"You're kidding. That's seriously how it works?"

Reid nodded shyly, answering, "Yes. I mean we call a lot of things vegetables that biologically aren't."

"Like what?"

"Well, bell peppers for one." Reid brandished the bell pepper like an exclamation point, something to emphasize his statement. Taking it, he sliced it cleanly in half and displayed it for Haley. "This outside wall starts out as the wall to the ovary. When the flower is fertilized, it starts to grow and distend while the seeds develop inside the ovary." He points at the seeds clustered in the middle of the fruit. "The biological definition of fruit is a ripened ovary. Green bell peppers are the unripened while red, orange, yellow, white, purple and brown are the ripened form."

"Wow I didn't know that they came in so many color varieties."

"Well, the last few aren't very common cultivars."

"So what can you tell me about onions?" She points her knife at the onion next to Reid waiting to be cut up.

"Well," Reid slices the onion in half, "the onion part here," he gestures to the bulk of the onion, "are actually leaves. The stem is this very small place right here, between the bulk of the onion and the roots."

"Really?"

"Oh yes. Onions are really very interesting. Vidalia onions, grown only in a small part of Georgia, are the same breed as other onions but they're so much sweeter because of very specialized soil in the area. See a trifecta is hit where the nutrient content, soil composition and sunlight are just right to produce sweet Vidalia onions. Before the government stepped in to regulate the onions, anyone could just call an onion a Vidalia onion. Actually," Reid laughs a bit as he gets side tracked, "there was this man that wanted to grow Jamaican onions, so he buys a bunch of land in Texas, names the town Jamaica and calls the onions Jamaican."

Haley shook her head at him and she helped put the finishing touches on the salad. "Is there anything you can't talk about?"

"Of course," Reid said.

"No," Aaron said at the same time, their voices overlapping.

"So which is it?"

This time Aaron got there first, telling her, "Spencer is humble enough to say that he doesn't. But the team has a pool going on who can stump him. Whoever finds a topic that he can't speak about gets nine hundred dollars."

Reid¢s eyes widened as he asked, "Wow it's up to that much? Who else is in on this?"

Hotch smiled warmly, laugh lines creasing around his eyes as he told him, "Just about everyone. Including the janitor."

"Huh. Well that explains why he asked me about the migration path of the whooping crane."

"And you told him?"

Aaron smirked at his wife and winked quickly, grinning at Reid who excitedly started talking about ultra light air crafts and changed migratory paths and the increased population from specialized breeding programs. Unfortunately, the door bell rang just as Reid was going into the details of which species of birds are currently having their flight paths changed by ultra light air crafts.

Preview for part 3:

Hotch hurried to answer the doorbell, not wanting to keep the team waiting. Gideon shoved his way in first. "How's he doing?"

Aaron looks over his shoulder smiling fondly, "he's rambling about whooping cranes."

Morgan shoulders his way past, "so in other words he's fine."