Part 15

One week later

"Concentrate," Keenan gently told the three five year-old children. "Close your eyes if that helps. Think of yourself in your wolf form. Think of the pointed ears, the long snout, the amber eyes. Imagine brown fur popping up all over your body and your hands and feet turning into paws. Imagine the joints in your arms and legs popping and reshaping, and of yourself on four paws instead of two feet."

All three children did as they were instructed and imagined fur coming to replace their human skin, and of their hands and feet changing into paws. They imagined their eyes changing into the amber ones of the wolf, and of their ears turning into points and being on top of their heads and instead of on the side. They imagined their noses and mouths turning into snouts, and their joints breaking and reshaping. They imagined the wolves within themselves, feral and wild and free.

All three of them gritted their teeth and tried not to cry out in pain as their bones broke and reshaped themselves and they tried not to scratch themselves all over their bodies, for they itched everywhere, as their brown fur came in.

Finally all three fell to their hands and knees as their hands and feet turned into paws and a snout took the place of their nose and mouth. All three shook themselves and tried to walk on 4 paws instead of two feet and after a few tries they finally figured out that they had to let their wolfish instincts take over in order to manage it.

"Well done," Keenan told the three of them proudly as he immediately took off his own clothes and transformed, Spencer and Aaron doing the same. The rest of the pack had already left to start their monthly run under the full moon as they knew this was a special time for the three young pups and they wouldn't want to be watched as they went through their first transformation as that just tended to make children that age very nervous and it was a lot harder to transform if you were, especially that first time.

"Come run with us," Spencer barked at the three. "Let's your instincts guide you and you will find you have no trouble."

The three young pups seemed to immediately understand, what Spencer's bark meant and rushed to obey. The three pups started running, barking in happiness as they felt the wind in their fur and the sheer freedom of running beneath the moon. All three continued to pant in happiness as they ran through the trees catching on quickly how to truly move as a wolf.

"There's a squirrel!" Spencer barked happily, "Catch it! Let your wolf instincts guide you."

The three pups obeyed and happily chased the squirrel even nearly catching it until it raced up a tree trunk and chittered angrily at them.

"Oh, well, maybe next time," Keenan barked out. The six of them happily raced through the forest, beneath the full moon until they came to a clearing where the three children immediately plopped down on their bellies exhausted.

"We are tired," whined Seth.

"That's okay," Spencer assured them licking Seth on the cheek and doing the same to the two girls in a wolfish gesture of affection. "The more you do this, the more stamina you will have and it won't be so painful next time either as the first transformation is always the worst, but after that it's not too bad."

The 3, 5 year olds didn't hear him as they were already snoring gently beneath the full moon totally exhausted from their race through the trees.

"Well," Hotch said with an affectionate lupine grin giving his mate's cheek a lick of affection, "We might as well get some sleep as I'm sure they'll be up early."

Spencer let out a wolfish laugh of agreement and curled up beside his mate and Hotch immediately put his chin over Spencer's neck in a gesture of wolfish dominance and affection.

The two older men fell asleep curled together while Keenan was on the other side of the pups also curled up and already half-asleep as he wasn't getting any younger and didn't have the stamina he had used to.

Soon the clearing was quiet, except for the sound of wolfish snoring.

~~~Spencer and Aaron~~~

Two weeks later

"Welcome back!" Morgan greeted Hotch and Spencer as they walked out of the elevator looking incredibly relaxed. "You were gone for a long time."

"We had some family business to take care of," Reid explained to Morgan and the others.

"What kind of family business?" asked Emily who was sitting at her desk.

Emily Prentiss was a relatively new member of the team and had only been there a year and a half or so.

"Well, it turns out that I had more relatives than I ever knew about," Spencer begin to explain to the other members of the team in the bullpen. "Eight children were recently abandoned by their father, and the mother had died two years previously after giving birth to quintuplets. Well, these children were taken in by a friend of mine from when I was a child. Keenan happened to know both my father and the mother and knew that they were siblings, although my father had never told me that he had any brothers or sisters."

"So he called you," JJ said fascinated having come out of the office and given Spencer a hug as she had missed him.

"Yes, he did as I was the only one that he knew how to contact, although apparently my father had had quite a few siblings that I am just now learning about. In any case, I had a blood test done just to prove that I was related and Aaron and I adopted them or at least we will when the process goes through. The judge allowed us to bring them back to Washington and we were told that we would have to see another social worker who would check up on us at least for the first few months. Since both of us work for the federal government though we should be able to go through the adoption process faster since I am related to them after all."

"So how are you and Hotch going to take care of eight children?" asked Emily. "I mean with us gone so much out of town…"

Emily had been very surprised to learn that her boss and her new teammate were in a very serious relationship or that the FBI allowed it. She had learned however, that the FBI allowed such relationships, even those in the same department, just so long as they kept their professionalism while at work and Emily had to admit that Hotch and Reid had done so for you would never know they were in a relationship at all at least while they were around anybody, but the team. They always acted very professionally while they were working, but once they were finished for the night it was a different matter and both men seemed to relax a great deal or at least enough to affectionately touch each other on the arm or the shoulder or kiss the other on the cheek.

"Don't worry, Aaron and I have already arranged that with some friends of ours before we even came back to Quantico. They will be watched the whole time we are gone by them and Aaron and I will be paying them for their trouble. They will stay at our place since it's bigger whenever they're watching them."

"You don't have room for eight children though do you?" asked Morgan. "I mean you only have four bedrooms."

"Well, we have five bedrooms technically, as I used one for an office and now it's mine and Aaron's and we cleaned that out and turned it into a bedroom. It's going to be rather crowded, especially since there are only two bathrooms, but we're thinking about building on maybe sometime in the summer," Reid said. "You know put in an extra bedroom and bathroom so that Aaron and I can have our office back. In any case, Aaron and I are dealing with it. Besides, other members of the FBI are married and have children and they make it work, so why can't Aaron and I?"

"Yes, there are other options for childcare," Emily said.

"Exactly," Reid said giving Emily a smile.

Spencer turned away from the bullpen and headed for Garcia's office and the others watched him go.

"Why do you think he needs to see Garcia?" asked JJ as she watched Reid disappear in that direction

"Well, if I had to guess, he's going to have Garcia look up try to track down all the brothers and sisters that he just learned his father had," Morgan said that Emily and JJ nodded as that made sense. "I'm sure he would at least like to try to build a relationship with them and learn if they have families of their own, although most of them probably do since they would be in their 60s or even 70 by now."

"It must've been really shocking to Reid to learn that he had family he never knew about," JJ said.

"It would certainly be shocking to me if I learned that my mother or my father had siblings and I had never known about them until I was nearly 30," Emily said.

"You know Reid never did mention how many aunts and uncles he had," Morgan said looking curious, although he was also happy for his friend.

"Reid will tell us when he's ready," JJ said, "don't pester him about it, Morgan. Reid might be the smartest man I've ever known, but he does need time to get used to having a family that he never knew about. As far as he knew until a couple weeks ago the only family by blood he had was his six brothers."

"Alright," Morgan agreed, "I won't pester him."

"Good, see that you don't," JJ told him giving him as stern look before heading back to her office.

~~~Spencer and Aaron~~~

Reid knocked on Garcia's office door and then entered.

"Welcome back!" Garcia told Reid getting up out of her chair and giving him a hug.

"Thanks," Reid said hugging Garcia back with pleasure.

"So, what can the goddess of information do for you?" asked Garcia.

"I need you to do me a favor," Reid told her and then explained about what Keenan had told him.

"So you're telling me that your father had a lot siblings that you never knew about it until recently," Garcia summarized, "and you would like me to try to find them and their families."

"Yes, that's right, I don't want to interfere that lives or anything, but I'm hoping that I'll be at least well received and we can start to get to know each other. I realize that probably won't be the case with some of them, but at least I will be able to say that I tried. Some might even have died before having families or after they did, but I'm sure I have dozens of relatives out there that I never knew about."

"So how many siblings did your father have?" asked Garcia and we just handed her a list.

Garcia scanned it quickly and noticed that there were 15 other names on it.

"Your father had 15 brothers and sisters?" asked Garcia in astonishment plain in her voice and on her face.

"Yeah, but if you notice the dates of birth, you'll notice that a lot of those are twins, triplets and even a set of quadruplets as apparently they run in my side of the family. My father was the only single birth in my family, but then my grandparents were apparently much older when he was born."

"You never knew you had so many aunt or uncles before?" asked Garcia in astonishment and Reid shook his head. "You know that me and my father didn't exactly get along, not from the time I was very young, and he didn't mention them at all. The only one I knew about, was Victoria, because I met her when I was very young. I get the impression that Aunt Victoria was his favorite sister when he was growing up, but other than that no."

"I wonder why your father never told you about his siblings?" Garcia said.

"Well, from the information I got from an old friend of his that knew him quite well and also his parents, apparently they all left Las Vegas as soon as they were grown and went to college. None of them ever came back after that, not even for visits at least as far as I know. I'm actually surprised that my grandmother survived the birth of so many multiples, as the technology back then isn't what it is today, but we both know that some people are just more hardy and not only did my grandmother apparently survive the birth of all her children she was around to raise my father until he was grown, but after that, I'm not sure what happened to her, but she was quite old by that time so she probably just passed away."

"I'll do my best to track them down for you, although I know you realize that they at least be in their 70s or so by now," Garcia said.

"Well, even if they are or they've died or whatever most of them will have families that I'd like to get to know if possible," Reid said. "I'm not sure why none of my father's siblings came back to visit him or at least tried to keep in contact, although I realize that that was much harder decades ago to do than it is now as cell phones weren't around until the 70s and they want they weren't reliable over long distances and calling on a landline could get expensive if you talked for any length of time. It took decades to develop the technology that we have now where a cell phone will work almost anywhere."

"I'll get right on this," Garcia promised Reid, as she was determined to track down as many of his relatives as she could, because she wanted him to be happy and who wouldn't be happy to learn that they had a ton of relatives that they had never known about until recently. It had been so many years, that Garcia was that there was probably close to hundred relatives out there that he had never known about if you counted children and grandchildren. There was no way that Reid would be able to get to know them all, but he would at least like to learn about them and Garcia could hardly blame him for that.

Garcia shook her head mentally, as she thought about the fact that a woman had had so many children, especially multiples way back then. It wasn't that so many children back that many years ago was uncommon, because it was a very common practice since so many of them died from various diseases that didn't yet have cures, though she had never heard of a woman having several sets of twins, triplets and even a set of quadruplets back then and surviving and the babies surviving as well. Garcia studied the sheet again and noticed the birth dates were beside each name, so that should make it easier to track them down. All of the names had been born like in the 30s and the 40s she noticed, which would make all of Reid's aunts and uncles at least in their late 70s if they were still alive that was and even if they weren't she was sure that the majority of them had gotten married and had families and there might even be some that were around Reid's age, which would be nice if she proved correct.

"I'll get started on this," Garcia promised.

"One other thing before I let you get back to work," Reid said.

"What's that?" asked Garcia.

"Well, the daughter of one of my father's siblings that I know is dead had eight children and that's where we were for the last couple of weeks making arrangements to adopt them. Keenan told me that the mother of the eight children that Aaron and I are in the process of adopting was named Donna and that her father was Rick, one of my dad's brother."

"Oh, you and Hotch are adopting eight children," Garcia said looking excited. "When can I meet them?"

"It's going to be awhile," Reid told her, "the oldest boy Seth who is five is giving us some trouble at the moment as he doesn't trust us very much. I don't want to introduce any strangers to them until they've settled in."

"You'll gain Seth's trust fast," Garcia told him confidently and Reid didn't bother to tell her that it was going to take a lot in order to do that. The main problem Reid knew was that Seth was an Alpha, and would likely grow up to be a strong one, but right now he was just a child. However, Reid understood that Seth was used to looking after his two sisters and five younger siblings and had been in charge since their father was always busy. At the moment Seth refused to accept that someone else other than their father that had abandoned them had authority over him or his siblings, but Reid had several ideas in mind of how to solve the problem. He knew that he needed to prove that he was in charge, so that the wolf in Seth would obey. A wolf cowered at the command of the one in charge, although occasionally he would challenge the leadership, but he would do it openly and honestly. Reid just needed to prove that he and Aaron had authority over the younger wolf and would for many years.

When he was grown and out on his own he would be responsible for himself, but right now he was only five years old.

"We'll see," was Reid's only comment then added, "Seth strikes me as the stubborn sort, and I have a feeling it is going to take some work to get him to listen to my authority or Aaron's either for that matter. He is used to looking after his seven siblings while his father was busy after his mother's died two years ago, so it will likely take a lot to get him to listen."

"I don't think a five-year-old's stubbornness is going to stand up too your determination to get him to obey you," Garcia suggested.

"As I said we'll see," Reid said. "Thank you for doing this for me, take your time though I'm in no hurry, let me know the results when you can."

"I am the goddess of information," Garcia said loftily causing Reid to laugh. "This shouldn't take me too long, so long as you guys don't catch a case or anything."

Reid gave Garcia another hug and then headed back to the bullpen.

~~~Spencer and Aaron~~~

A couple of months later Spencer held his hand all the information on his family that Garcia had found for him.

"Wow! This is pretty amazing!" Reid told Hotch as he read the information at warp speed. "I knew from Keenan that I had other relatives out there that I had never known about, but from what Garcia dug up I have more than I ever dreamed about."

Hotch who had already read over the list that Garcia had generated had to agree.

"Yes, each of your father's siblings had at least five pups and some more than that, then those pups got married, and had pups of their own so really you have close to 150 relatives that you never knew about. However, your father did have quite a few brothers and sisters, so it really shouldn't be all that surprising."

"Yes, I have to admit that 16 children is pretty normal in a werewolf family, although a lot of them keep it down to 10 or less," Reid said. "In any case, I think it's better if I try to stick to contacting those that are around my age at least for right now. I would like to get an explanation out of my dad's actual siblings as to why they never tried to contact their younger brother, at least the ones that are still alive, but I believe that can wait."

"So have you decided how you going to approach them?" asked Hotch. "You know that they are going to want proof of how you are related to them."

"Well," Reid said thinking about it, "I can take Garcia's research with me as she did a good job of tracing the family lines. I can just tell them that I just learned that my father had other siblings that I never knew about until very recently, which also happens to be true. I would like to have some kind of a relationship with some of them anyway, but if they tell me to get lost then I guess I'll have accept that they don't want to get to know me. I realize that there're too many relatives here for me to get to know more than casually, not that that's really all that unusual in werewolf families, or normal human families either and I'm sure a lot of them I have absolutely nothing in common with."

"I would try contacting the ones that are in the Virginia area first," Hotch suggested who along with Reid had been surprised to learn that some of Spencer's relatives lived close by, although most of them were spread all around the United States, and a lot of them were dead, like Donna the daughter of Rick Reid, who was also dead and had been for 15 years. Less then half of William Reid's siblings were still alive, but before they had passed away they'd had children, and a few of them had had more than ten, while others had only five or six, so all in all Reid had close to a 150 cousins that he had never known about, some of whom were around his age.

"Yes, that's what I was going to do," Reid confirmed with a smile kissing his mate on the cheek.

"It looks like two of my dad's siblings moved to this area and their families have settled in as well. One of them, by the name of Garrett is in a rest home that isn't too far from here."

"I'm surprised that his family put him in a rest home since I'm sure that a wolf needs to change up until the day they die, and he can't do that there."

"He has very advanced Alzheimer's," Reid explained, which was in the information that Garcia had given him after work today. "With that particular disease he probably doesn't even remember he has a family, or that he's a werewolf or if he does he probably thinks it's just a dream or some kind of delusion. Unfortunately, us werewolves aren't protected from things like Alzheimer's."

"Well, we are protected from a lot of human diseases," Hotch said philosophically. "At least we can't get cancer, which kills the person who has it more often than not depending on what type it is."

"Yes, just because we are werewolves doesn't mean we are protected from every disease that a human or a dog can get. There's a lot of things that we can't get due to our being only partly human and unfortunately, Alzheimer's is one of them," Reid said.

"So are you going to go visit him?" asked Hotch and Reid nodded.

"I need to see for myself," Reid explained and Hotch nodded. "Besides, a lot of times old folks give off little gems of information without realizing or remembering what they're saying and that the staff just takes as part of the disease. I'll arrange to go down there sometime in the next week or two, as it's only an hour or so drive from here. The Alzheimer's is only way I see his family risking putting their relative in a rest home, since he would be bound to talk about werewolves if he remembers they exist, but thanks to the disease the staff wouldn't believe him and think he's making it up out of his own imagination I doubt very much that he can still transform as that happens sometimes when old age hits or whatever relative placed him in there would never have risked doing so."

"I'll come with you if you like," Hotch offered and Reid smiled at him gratefully.

"Thank you, but I think for this visit I need to go by myself, but when I go to visit my other relatives that live in the area I would appreciate having you along," Reid said.

"Perhaps, you should try calling them first and arrange a meeting maybe at some restaurant," Hotch suggested.

"Yes, that's a good idea although it's possible they'll think it's some kind of practical joke, or a prank phone call," Reid said.

"All you can do is try," Hotch said and Spencer nodded in agreement. "It's too late to do anything tonight, so there's no point avoiding about it, and we could be doing other things."

Reid laughed and asked, "Is that all you ever think about? Sex?"

"When it comes to you? Absolutely!" Hotch told him with a wicked grin not at all embarrassed.

Reid laughed heartily and joked, "It is nice to know that I'm wanted, even if that's just for sex."

"I love you for a lot more things than just the sex," Hotch assured him kissing his cheek.

"I know, I was only teasing you," Spencer promised him. "Besides, we both have to admit that the sex is always bloody spectacular, so it's not surprising that we have sex so often, even with eight pups in the house."

"Besides, there's no way that we could stop having sex just because they're now pups in the house," Hotch said. "as I seriously doubt that other parents don't still have sex, even if they have two or three pups or more and there is no way that any parent stops cold turkey making love just because they have children."

"Even if they don't have anymore pups," Spencer added. "Besides, for werewolves especially True Mated ones it's a little different. There is no way that a True Mated couple could stop having sex even when they're old and gray like happens to human couples or even wolf couples that are married, but are not True Mates sometimes. I plan on showing you I love you for the rest of my life and I don't care how old we get as I don't ever plan to stop making love with you."

"Same goes for me, there's no way I could ever stop lavishing your body with attention on a regular basis," Hotch said with a leering grin as his eyes roved up and down Spencer's naked body. "I am a man after all and a man's sexual drive doesn't ever go away completely, although it does die down the older he gets."

Spencer blushed, pleased at the attention that his mate was giving him as they lay in bed together. "While that's true, because we are keeping in shape our sexual drive should remain fairly high as well as our stamina and our werewolf genes help with that. Now if either one of us let our bodies go to seed like so many men do then yes, our sexual drive, stamina as well as our energy level would drop."

"That's good to know," Hotch said with a smirk, as he continued to let his eyes rove up and down his lover's body.

"Of course, also being deeply in love will help with our sexual drive although it won't do a thing about stamina or our energy level," Spencer said. "The reason that a lot of men don't have as much sexual drive as they get older is that they fall out of love with their spouses, but that's not going to happen to us."

"Definitely not," Hotch immediately agreed, as he began to caress Reid's body tenderly causing the man he adored to start to shiver slightly and his cock perk up in interest

"At least you finally managed to convince Seth, mostly anyway that it wasn't a good idea to try to run away," Hotch said, continuing what he was doing with his hands as he talked.

"I knew that I had to prove my authority to him," Reid explained his voice starting to sound hoarse. "He is partly wolf just like we are and the wolf in him quails when I use my Alpha voice on him, which I only do when he's causing mischief or he goes directly against an order that either you or I have given him. He's slowly learning that I mean what I say and that he will be punished for disobeying, which is why he's doing much better than he was. He also realizes that even though he's disobeyed on multiple occasions we won't stop loving him or his siblings just because they get into trouble, although I admit that's mostly Seth. Their father was rather lax when it came to disciplining them, but then he was trying to take care of eight children all by himself and it was a good thing he had neighbors to look after them while he worked or he would not have managed as well as he did. Seth will be a really strong Alpha someday, but he'll be a much better one if he learns his lessons now and doesn't turn into a bully."

"Enough talking," Hotch said with a feral grin, "It's time to get serious."

Spencer didn't have time to respond as Hotch leaned over his mate and kissed him very roughly and passionately on his lips, his tongue sweeping inside his mouth without even bothering to ask for his permission. Spencer groaned in desire as their tongues battled each other neither really winning.

Well, that was certainly one way to stop a conversation, was Spencer's last coherent thought as his mate begin to expertly work his body until he was panting for more and that was how they spent the remainder of the night making love multiple times with very little sleep in-between.

~~~Spencer and Aaron~~~