Authors Note: Okay, so this used to be four separate chapters but I really wasn't happy with the length of a couple of them so I combined all four into this one chapter that encompasses all of the events of May. For those of you who have read this (or the previously four) chapters before, I have changed certain things, expecially after re-watching the episode, and expecially after rereading the story. Nothing I change will be to story altering, so if you've already read this, but don't want to, go ahead. And if you've read this before and are still going to read this again, feel free, and thank you.
Thank you to all of you who actually read through all of that. I just needed to get that out there, so thank you for listening so I'm not just shouting words into the infinite void called the internet.
Any who, on to the usual disclaimer: This story takes place in the Criminal Minds universe with the occasional crossover into the Bones universe. As such, I only own my own original characters and everything else belongs to the writers and networks, blah, blah, blah.
Hope you enjoy. And please review at the end. I love hearing what you all think of Spencer and Harley. And if you have any suggestions or ideas for this story, I may not use them, but I'd like to hear them, and I'd really appreciate any suggestions you send my way. Message me, or leave your idea in the review section, I'll be looking at both.
Thank you all for your reviews and support, and all your kind words of encouragement, weather you use your account to post the review or do it anonymously! Now on with the chapter…
Chapter 12: May 2008
Part 1
"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple."
-Oscar Wilde
At the beginning of May, Harley received a little black journal, and after that, Spencer saw and spoke to Harley less than he ever had before. When he stopped by her apartment, it was almost always empty, and even her beloved dogs where gone, sent to live with Gio while Harley buried herself in research, writing and work. Her time with NCIS looked to be coming to an end, with another forensic scientist already lined up to take her place by the end of the month. When Spencer talked to Tony, Tony told him that Harley was acting like a dog with an old bone with a cold case she'd dug up, and writing like she was trying to exercise some demon though her pen (although technically it's more like her keyboard). No one he talked to seemed to know what was going on with her, and that worried Spencer more than anything.
When Spencer did see Harley, she was almost always asleep, looking like she hadn't slept in days, and looking a little gaunter in the face each time he saw her. He was worried about. Really, truly worried.
It all come to head when an explosion at the Jeffersonian landed Zack Addy in the hospital with third degree burns to his hands, the explosion having burned through his gloves. Harley dropped everything to go over and lend a hand to help the Jeffersonian's Medical-Legal lab find out what happened and help find the serial killer named Gormogon, a ritualistic cannibal who used bones from his victims to form a human skeleton with one part equaling a new victim. One finger from one, a femur from another, and so on and so forth.
And then Tobias Fornell showed up in their bullpen with the journal Harley had received at the beginning of the month in hand. The team was at the round table discussing a case when he came in without his team, and looking more somber than Spencer had ever seen the man. He hadn't looked nearly as somber when his ex-wife, Diane (who also happens to be Gibbs first of three redheaded ex-wives), had devoiced him and taken his money in 2005. And he had questions for Rossi.
"You had two children, correct? A son who died not long after he was born, and a daughter?"
Rossi looked at him shock as the team looked at Rossi in shock. Not even Hotch had known this. "How do you know this?"
Fornell held up the journal. "Your daughter was kidnapped from a park in Alexandria, correct? Armory Tot Park? She was two?"
"Yes, now how do you know this?"
"This journal talks about the kidnapping," Fornell answered. "It came to light at the beginning of the month when an agent passed it on to the woman she thought was the child of the woman this journal belonged to. I'd like to collect a DNA sample for comparison."
"What agency?"
"At the time that the journal came into the agent's position, the agent was with the CIA. The woman this journal belongs to was another CIA agent that disappeared for three years after getting pregnant and leaving the agency. When they found her, she'd suffered a psychotic break, and had a little girl in her care. Since she'd been pregnant when she left and they had a birth certificate for a daughter around the same age as the girl, no one suspected the child was anything other than the woman's daughter. Last week, with the help of clues from the journal, we found the remains of a twenty month old little girl buried outside the woman's childhood home," Fornell informed him. He looked sad, but he carried on giving the information he hadn't really been asked to give. "The agent who's possession this journal was in for the past 23 years never looked into it. They had been the woman's handler at the time of her departure from the CIA. When the woman died in the hospital she's been in for the last 23 years last month, the agent sent the journal to the woman she believed had been the woman's daughter.
"Who was she?"
"I'm not at liberty to disclose the woman's name or her handler's name until we do a DNA test," Fornell told him. "But, Spencer, you might want to go check on your girlfriend. It's been a hard enough month for her already, and they recently discovered that Zack Addy was their serial killers new apprentice. It looks like the kid is going to be charged with murder. Or so the rumors over at the Hoover building say."
Spencer could tell he was leaving out other things that might be troubling Harley, but instead chose to ignore that feeling. So instead he just nodded at Fornell who went on to collect a cheek sample from Rossi before leaving.
"You had a daughter?" Hotch asked finally.
"Carolyn and I had a son in 1979 and a daughter in 1981. Our son died the day he was born, and our daughter was kidnapped from a park Carolyn took her to at the age of two. Their names were James David and Juliet Rose. It was after that that Carolyn and I divorced," Rossi told the team.
"What happened with your daughter's case?" Morgan asked.
"There wasn't any evidence or leads or even witnesses who remembered anything, and a serial killer was active in around the same area at around the same time who had a preference for little girls. No body was ever found, but the police suspected the serial killer might have also taken Juliet. Her case was cold from the start," Rossi explained. "She's the reason I helped start the BSU."
Spencer thought about it. Harley had received that journal, which was the start of her isolation out the rest of the world and the beginning of her worrisome behavior. She was born in 1981, was removed from her mother's care at some point and spent time in foster care before being fostered and later adopted by the Isley's. Harley wasn't her birth name, just the one that Declan had started calling her because the name she'd had was "too plain" for such a rambunctious girl in the then 15 year olds mind. Her name had been legally changed to Harleen Selina Isley after she was adopted. It was all just a name Declan made up. And (possibly not so) coincidently, it just happened to include the names of DC's Queens of Crime. Harleen Quinzell, Selina Kyle, and Pamela Isley. That name was what drew her to the idea of getting a PhD when she had no idea what she wanted to do. She'd started college at 13, and she had no idea what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. She'd been a gymnast growing up and still was at 13, but she was practical enough to realize gymnastics was a short lived pursuit. She could have done anything. But she was a fan of Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, and she recognized that both villains had a PhD, so she decided to get two. And then two became four after she decided she wanted to be an anthropologist at 17.
Her mom was most likely CIA. And that didn't seem coincidental to Spencer right now. The agent who'd had the journal was the CIA handler of the kidnapper of Rossi's daughter.
None of it seemed like a coincidence. Except for the part were all of this happened around the same time that their friend Zack could be sent away for murder. That part was just shitty luck.
As the team was abuzz with the news that they didn't actually know all that much about Rossi, Spencer snuck away from the round table, intent of finding Harley and confronting her. Harley wasn't good with unexpected change. She just didn't deal with it well. She'd almost dropped out of college when her uncle Bennie died, and she'd run away to Guatemala with Dr. Brennen for three months when Kaitlyn Todd had been killed. Expected change was something she could deal with, like the back problem that killed her gymnastics career, or leaving the Jeffersonian. Those where expected, and she'd learned to deal with them. But Harley tended to get wild, ill-thought-out ideas when unexpected changes came her way. And Spencer needed to be there to try and anchor her before she did something she couldn't come back from.
And he probably needed to call her father and warn him. Kieran Isley, that is.
The only problem with that last part is that Alma Isley scares him more than any of the unsubs the team has ever faced. And she's only 4'11".
_._._._._
Spencer didn't go to the Navy Yard, or the Jeffersonian, or even Harley's apartment. Instead he went to the house they'd bought in Springfield, and parked next to Harley's car.
They hadn't told anyone outside of their pparents about this place, so Spencer knew she'd go here, because next to no one would know to look for her here. Tony might have, because Harley saw him as her "brother in DC", but Tony was currently away on a protection detail for his director in LA. Spencer couldn't tell if that was good thing or not at the moment.
He found Harley laying in the cloth hammock strung up between two beams in the pergola in their back yard. They had a lot of back yard space with an attached ramada and a pergola, and an outdoors fire pit. They both kind of missed the south west where back yards could be used year round, and pools saw use all year, but Antonio was working on making sure that the backyard could be used all year, and he was even talking about maybe making a small green house in the back corner of the yard for "plants and whatnot". Where the hammock was hanging right now was where a swing was going to be put in latter. And, well, Harley loved sitting in hammocks.
She wasn't doing anything, just lying in the hammock, and staring out at the yard. She looked worn out and tired, and there was this confusion in her eyes that Spencer knew wasn't a good thing. Harley was never not sure. It was just a fact with her. She either knew something, or she's make you believe she knew something. She could even convince you she was right when you knew she was wrong. She just wasn't one of those people who ever seemed to question how the world works. But Spencer could tell that right now, she was questioning it.
And Spencer knew that couldn't be a good thing.
He pulled up a chair next to her, rather than climb in with her. Sitting in a hammock isn't one of the things Spencer likes to do, and in fact he avoids it. But he still reached a hand in to fish out one of hers and hold onto her. Or at least the tiny part of her that is her hand. "What's going on?"
"I might have been kidnapped," Harley whispered, not daring to look at him. Because if she looked at him right now, just like if she had talked to him about it sooner, it'd all be real. And it just couldn't be real. "It's just. I was adopted. That was my reality. I spent a year in foster care, and that sucked, and that was before I even really remembered much. I only remember one thing from foster care and that's one of my foster brother's who's kind of looked after me ever since. But the Isley's adopted me, and they're the only family I've ever known. And every once in a while I can forget that I'm not theirs by blood. I never questioned what my life would have turned out like if they hadn't adopted me. I never had to. But if I was kidnapped, then there's an entire other family out there that I belong to. Another life of what ifs. Another reality. And I just… I want to go back to a month ago and regain that ignorance."
Spencer sat there silently with Harley's hand clasped in his own. He didn't say anything yet. Harley still had more she needed to say. He could tell.
"I asked Fornell to look into it for me. He found a case file of a missing girl that could be me. I had him copy it and black out the names. I just… I don't know if I want to know who they are yet. My parents. My real name. I just… I want to know, but then again I don't," Harley explained, finally turning to look at him. "Does it make me a bad person that I have the ability to return a child to their parents and I'm not sure I want to?"
Spencer didn't respond. So she didn't know that Fornell was having Rossi's DNA tested against hers.
"I went into Anthropology because—because I wanted to help return children and siblings and parents to their family, you know, and I'm not even sure I want to do that right now," Harley confided in him. "When I was 17, my cousin's body was returned to my great aunt. He'd been MIA in Vietnam for years until forensic anthropologists and archeologists found and identified his remains, and I found a calling because of that. Looking at my aunt's face and seeing how grateful she was to finally have a body to burry, I wanted to help others have a body to get closure with. And for the first time, I have the chance to return someone's child alive, and I just don't know if I can do it."
Spencer didn't know what to say to that. How to respond. There just didn't seem to be words to say to make it okay. Because nothing in this entire situation was okay. Rossi had had a child stolen from him, and Harley had had a possible life stolen from her. And now both of them had had the floor ripped out from under them. What can you say to that?
"Who gave you the journal?"
"Hetty Lange," Harley shrugged. "I've known her forever. Or not, I guess. She worked with my mom. So my mom also knows my kidnapper. Hetty's the one who got me placed with the Isley's, you know? Mom had some complications having Declan and couldn't have any more kids, and Hetty basically gave me to them. Apparently I just wasn't fit to be one of her little toy soldiers."
"What?"
"Hetty watched over a couple of kids in foster care. Or maybe not a couple, I don't know. It could have been more. Orphans, some of whom where the kids of CIA assets or agents and the like. She moved them around, found them new homes each time they ran away, even raised a couple herself. They all went on to be agents for the CIA or something. She could have done the same with me, and I don't know why she didn't. And, right now, I don't feel like talking to her, let alone going up to her and asking," Harley sighed. They lapsed into silence once more until Harley spoke again. "My mom probably know, but I don't know if I want to ask her either."
For the next hour, Harley and Spencer just sat like that until Harley's stomach complained that it was hungry. They were in Toki Underground getting Taiwanese ramen by the time either talked again.
"I wrote a book aobut it," Harley told him. "My kidnapping. From the cops prospective. Fornell got their case notes from me, and I interviewed them saying I was working with some newspaper on a sort of 'remember the missing children' article. I don't know what I'm going to call it, but I just needed to put it to paper. Exercise my demons. It fits with the other books I've written. Probably a good thing I write horror and not romance."
"It's a horror novel?" Spencer asked, confused. He had though that it would be like a psychological thriller or a detective novel. But a horror novel?
"It's horrible. The child never gets returned, the case goes cold, and a body is never found. There's no resolution at the end, or any closure to the parents. They get to believe that it's possible their child was just another victim of a man who raped and murdered babies. You can't tell me that's anything other than horror," Harley shrugged, seeming almost indifferent to it now. Spencer didn't now wither it was bad or worse. But he knew he needed to call Harley's dad and see what she thought. Despite his wives desperate need to see her daughter pregnant, Kieran knew his daughter better than anyone else. Even Spencer, sometimes. She was his little girl, blood be damned.
"I thought you were working on a different book," was the only response Spencer could muster.
"I was. And then that damned journal landed on my doorstep," Harley flinched. "My publisher says she understands. She still wants to have me do a book tour or something, but I just remind her that they mystery of my identity is part of the appeal."
Harley only talks to her publisher though a third party: her type A personality cousin, Murphy Anne Shane. As Harley puts it, she basically just writes the books and then washes her hands of them until the royalties come in. Murphy deals with the publisher and everyone else. Harley just has to deal with Murphy, who's like a pit bull with a bone. She doesn't just "drop it", instead shaking vigorously until she gets the end result she wants, which is usually five more chapters out of Harley, or a larger percentage of the books profits for Harley and her to split. And it does get split. About 60-40 with Harley getting the larger portion. Harley claims Murphy deserves it, seeing as she has to deal with all the people involved, and Spencer can't fault her logic there. Plus, he's not sure Murphy would take any less. And she's the second person down, on the list of people he fears.
"Not that Murphy's going to give up on having me finish the other story by Christmas," Harley added. "I just… I'm not in the write mindset to try and continue writing that, or it'll come out even more twisted than it was already looking like it was going to be."
The book she'd previously been working on was a monster story, using monsters that had haunted her as a child. These monsters hunted adult mostly, because only children and some teens could see the monsters as they hid in the dark. And monsters where afraid of those who could see them. Because children remembered the rules. The monsters where the reason that teens still feared the dark, because they remembered that they weren't safe in the dark, but they'd forgotten the rules and could thus, no longer see the monsters. And adults, while they fell victims to the monster, could never see the monsters and had long ago forgotten to fear what hides in the dark of their bedroom. The few chapters that Harley had written and Spencer had read where absolutely chilling, and the most terrifying few chapters that Harley had ever written. Which is probably why Murphy, who's a horror fanatic who'd always have Harley create monsters for her when they were still kids before they could watch the R rater horror films, wouldn't let Harley stop writing the story.
"Do you want to talk about the journal?" Spencer asked.
"Not really. No," Harley told him. She had this sad look in her face. "Zack's most likely going to end up in the looney bin. And I don't think he even committed the murder."
"Then why would he take the fall for it?" Spencer asked, confused.
"If he doesn't go to the looney bin for murder, he'll go to prison as an accomplice, and Zack's smart enough to know he won't survive in prison," Harley shrugged, looking sadder, if that was even possible at this point. "And I don't think anyone sees that he doesn't feel remorse, not because it's not logical, but because he didn't do it."
Spencer nodded, kind of understanding her point.
"Just… can we not talk about the journal, or Zack, or the Director of NCIS for tonight?" Harley asked him, sounding absolutely exhausted. "I just… I don't want to think about any of that right now. I just… can we talk about something that is far less depressing?"
Spencer thought about it. He could do that for her. For one night, at least. "So have Declan and Rowan adopted a baby yet?"
He already knew the answer because Declan had called to tell him, but he knew this would cheer Harley up.
And it did. She grinned at him. "Yeah. A little baby girl from South America. They're naming her Sophia. She's entirely too adorable."
"I didn't know babies could be entirely too adorable," Spencer laughed.
"Yeah, they can be. And they can also be butt ugly. But no one who's ever adopted a child has ever complained either way," Harley laughed. The sadness was almost seeping out of her, and Spencer loved that. "I had the most unruly hair, and mama never complained a bit. She just shoved me into some of the ugliest dresses, I swear."
"Have you ever thought about adopting?"
Harley thought for a minute. "I thought about it, sure. But now… I don't know."
Spencer nodded. So there was another topic to avoid.
"What about another dog, when we move into the house?"
Harley grinned at him, her eyes still conveying sadness, but he could tell she was at least slightly happier. "That sounds good. And you can come with me and pick it out this time."
Spencer groaned. He hated going to the pound with Harley. She'd go in for one and want to come out with all of them. And then she'd cry when she couldn't. She wasn't that way about people, or even babies, but when it comes to homeless dogs, Harley's got a bleeding heart that should killer from exsanguination.
_._._._._
Spencer ended up calling in sick to work the next day and accompanied Harley up to Trenton. She wanted to talk to her grandparents and get their opinion on what was going on, and her cousin Luca, a police officer with Trenton PD, had mentioned a couple weeks ago that he'd like Spencer's opinion on some of the cases he and his department were working. So Spencer would be in the Trenton police department while Harley was with her Nonno and her Nonna. At around four-o-clock, Harley stopped by the police department in a pair of black cargo pants and a grey Henley she hadn't had on this morning when they drove up.
Some people would consider it a long drive, but Spencer and Harley had spent their first few years as drivers in southern California, and in LA traffic, going shopping could take up to two hours if you got onto the freeway. Plus, Harley had grown up regularly driving from San Diego to Disneyland, a two hour drive in its self on a good day. Three hours driving in a car was nothing compared to the four hour drive through the desert to get home from Caltech and check on his mom. He'd driven that trip often, and even without air-conditioning on occasion. And it was even less in comparison to the seven hours they drove from Harley's parents' house in San Diego to a weeklong camp meeting in Santa Cruz for a few summers between becoming adults and moving out to DC. They'd likely end up going to camp meeting again this summer if Spencer could finagle the time off from Hotch. It was a Seventh Day Adventist camp, and Spencer knew that Harley could likely use some time to reaffirm her faith by the end of all of this shit she was dealing with. And it couldn't hurt for him to go along, too. Maybe he'd even get baptized sometime this year.
Harley grinned as she walked up to him. "The boys and I are going to go paintballing. I wanted to stop by and ask if you'd join us. So?"
Spencer grinned. There was no way in hell he was playing paintball with Harley and her cousins. He'd made that mistake once, and vowed to never do it again. They tended to get too into the game, and you end up coming out with more than a few welts in more than a few uncomfortable locations, and they'd tease you about being a wimp if you complained. It was bad enough he couldn't escape the bee-bee gun wars they started inside each other's houses, but he wasn't intentionally walking into another paint ball massacre again. He'd seen them take you a team of trained marines, and he'd hate to be on the other team again.
"No thank you," Spencer told her, making her grin widen. "Have you come to a decision about…?"
Her grin dropped. "No. Fornell called to tell me the results of the DNA test came in, but I told him I don't want to know yet. I'm going to take a week to think it over, and probably visit my parents and see what they thing. Nonno says he supports me either way, and Nonna just kept reminding me that they'll still be my family no matter what. She even started with the whole, 'you're not a single tree alone in the world, you've got an entire forest you belong to' thing she likes to instill in us. And then she wanted to know if you were ever going to ask me to marry you. Gio walked in right after that, and pulled me away, thank God," Harley explained. "We're having dinner with them before we go back, so prepare to be interrogated."
Spencer groaned. Everyone wanted to know when they'd get married and start a family. And most of them didn't understand, or even try to understand, why the young couple didn't want to get married right now. It wasn't that they didn't want to get married, they'd just agreed they'd rather do it at 27 or 28. It wasn't that far of in reality. They'd be turning 27 at the end of this year, in fact. But they both were really tired of trying to explain that.
And children were even further off the horizon. Spencer traveled a lot for work, and Harley got opportunities outside of the country all of the time to work on digs and excavations that would further her career, and having kids would prevent her from taking a lot of those opportunities, not only because of Spencer's own traveling, but because if she went, one of them wouldn't be seeing their child for a few months. And in all likely hood, that person would end up being Spencer.
"Thanks for the warning. Have fun shooting your cousins," Spencer smirked. "Make sure to hit Cruz for me."
That brought the smile right back to her face as she leaned down to kiss him goodbye. "I will."
They kissed for a full minute, longer than was usual, until Luca walked up.
"Hey! Off my cousin! I don't want to see any of that shit here!" Luca complained as he walked up to the couple with a few more files for Spencer to look over in his hands. "God! The hell is wrong with you two? You're not supposed to do shit like that!"
Harley grinned, almost resembling a shark. "Do what Luca? What did I do?"
Luca glared back at her, but didn't open his mouth to speak.
Harley laughed. "Alright. I'll see you both at dinner. Enjoy your files while I kick the boys' asses at paintball."
As Harley walked away, Luca's glare leveled on Spencer. "That is my baby cousin, and I don't want to be seeing any more of that shit. Capisce?"
Spencer didn't bother answering him, just turning back around to read over the rest of the files as he smirked. Luca, in turn, just huffed, dropping down the added files, and walked away.
All in all, the trip to Trenton ended up being both refreshing and entertaining.
_._._._._
The next day, after Spencer dropped Harley off at Dules (so she could go visit her parents for the next week) before work, he called Fornell as he drove to work in Harley's Ford Mustang.
"Did you tell Rossi?"
"Yes, I did," Fornell informed him. "I'm sorry kid, but I have a daughter of my own, and I can't imagine going through what he's been through. Besides, I figured if I didn't, your analyst would just hack her way in and find out the results anyway."
"What did the results say?" Spencer asked, even though he already had a pretty good idea.
"Harley Isley is Juliet Rossi," Fornell told him. "Like I said, I'm sorry kid. You're going to have a pretty hectic day at work if Rossi does what I think he'll do. Especially when he finds out that Ms. Garcia can't hack her way into Harley's records."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Hetty Lange likes keeping her secrets close to the belt, and she likes protecting the secrets of those around her. She's got some of the best protecting those secrets and the security of her people. And Harley is very much one of her people. There's no getting past the security around Harley's electronic files and information, much less her mother's. Far better than Ms. Garcia have tried and failed," Fornell informed him, as if talking from personal experiance. "Have fun being interrogated by the profiler who wrote the book on interrogating suspects. Now I've got to go stop Gibbs before he kills one of my agents."
And then Spencer could hear the dial tone in his ear, informing him that he'd just been hung up on.
"When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny."
― Paulo Coelho, The Devil and Miss Prym
Part 2
"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.
Delicious Ambiguity."
― Gilda Radner
Nearly three thousand miles away from her, Spencer has been saved from his impending interrogation by Rossi by a case that popped up in New York City involving five seemingly random and extremely public shootings. He breathed a sigh of relief when Hotch called the team to the table and a weight even seemed to lift off of his shoulders when Hotch orders Rossi to focus on the case, having been informed by Tobias Fornell earlier that day about what was happening. Spencer was happy. He had no idea what was going to happen. If he did, he would have taken that interrogation from Rossi in a heartbeat.
On the other side of the country, Harley had stepped off of her plane in Lindbergh Field International Airport, walked to baggage claim and rushed into the waiting arms of the couple who raised her. So many thoughts clouded her head. Did she still call them her mom and dad? Were they still her family? Was this still her home?
Harley actually started to cry as her father wrapped him in his strong arms and held her tightly. Kieran Isley was of a similar build to her brother's: he was tall and built, and physically intimidating, even as he aged. In his sixties now, his biceps where still the size of a melon, and his chest was still as hard as a rock. He gave the best hugs though. The warmest. The type that, once you were wrapped in his arms, you instantly knew you were loved. He didn't hug many people, didn't hold many people, but Harley had spent much of her childhood with in the warm embrace of his arms, or on his back or on his shoulders, or hanging from his large hands.
She loved his hugs. But now a part of her wondered if he was still her father, and the tears started falling instantly.
"Shhh," he whispered in her ear, in his deep, hits you right in the core, voice. Harley loved his voice. She wasn't a girl who'd wanted a guy like her daddy, if the fact she was with Spencer was anything to go by, but she'd always loved the way that her daddy and Declan had resembled so much of each other. Both had red hair, although her fathers had become more sandy blond over the years, both where basically oversized, over stuffed teddy bears until you made the mistake of pissing them off, and both gave some of the best hugs that Harley had ever experienced. Even now, being wrapped in either of their arms made her feel safe from the world, and powerful enough to face whatever came at her. She just needed a lot more time wrapped in this hug to get to that last one right now. "It's all going to be alright, kitten. I promise. You're always going to be my baby girl. DNA has never and will never take that away, I swear."
That was just what Harley needed to hear. She nodded in response, reaching up to wipe the tears from her eyes, and trying to shove it all back in. "Thank you, daddy. I really needed to hear that."
"Of course, kitten," he told her, pulling back to look at her face. "Oh, don't you look just beautiful. Everything with Spencer going okay?"
"Yeah," Harley nodded with a small smile. He'd really been pressing the subject of whether or not she planned to find out about how the DNA test came back, but he's always stop if she asked him too, and he'd been really supportive through this entire thing. "He's in New York right now with his team. He left me a message while I was on the plane. I'll call him tonight to see how the case is going. He's been really supportive."
"I'm sure he has," her daddy laughed. "Got enough men in this family he has to worry about having come after him if he doesn't."
Harley laughed at the truth in what her father was saying. "Daddy!"
"You can't say I'm wrong, kitten. You know I'm right," her dad continued to laugh as Harley shock her head at him.
Her father released her from his embrace and passed her on to her mom.
Alma Isley wasn't as tall or imposing as her husband. She was short in fact, only 4 foot 11 inches tall but she was also curvy and warm, with compassionate brown eyes, and skin that was soft to the touch. She always dressed in very feminine outfits, and a closet full of dressed that Harley had loved to try on as a child. Her hair was a golden brown with the greys left un-dyed for all to view, and pulled up into an intricate updo that Harley had loved having her mother replicate in her own hair for a god part of her teen years. Her features where soft and wrinkled with age, her hugs where tight but calming, and she had a way of making people feel at home in her presents. To Harley's recollection, she was also the first adult that Harley had really felt comfortable with.
It all seemed different now, though. Harley had always known that you couldn't make a person your home, but Harley had always felt most at home with family. San Diego and Trenton would always be the places she called home because of this, but in some part of her mind, she wondered if that was even true anymore. DC wasn't home, it never had been. She'd live in the same apartment for years, and Spencer and her only live so many miles apart, but DC had never felt like home in the same way that San Diego and Trenton had. She wondered if there was somewhere else out there that she'd be calling home right now had… had it never happened. And another part wondered if DC would become home now that Spencer and Harley owned a house there.
"I'm so sorry you had to find out this way, dolce," her mother sighed, pulling Harley into her arms. "I swear, I didn't know. I didn't even know about there being a journal, or I would have insisted on reading it long ago. You have to know that I never knew. That I wouldn't have kept this from you."
Harley nodded as she rested her head on her mother's shoulder. Alma Isley may have been a spy, and a very good one at that from the reputation she had compiled over the years, but Harley had never known her to be anything but warm, open, and honest. This was still the same woman who told her that the little girls who picked on her in the ballet classes Harley had been forced into taking where going to grow up to be "bitches and whores", which hadn't, in fact, been that far off of the mark all these years later. This was the same woman who sat her down and explained where babies came from and the "wonders" of womanhood without dumbing it down, or fabricating stories because "it'd do her no good to grow up with that sort of ignorance" even if she had only been seven at the time. This was the same woman who used to bop her on the nose with a grin to get her attention when she'd taken a stroll into La La Land and given her a gentle thump on the back of the head when she knew Harley was smarter than she was being or acting at the moment. This was the woman she'd always referred to as her mother and who'd been honest to a fault all of Harley's life. This was the woman who had gotten her her first pair of heels, and taught her to walk in them. So if she said she didn't know, then Harley really just wanted to believe her at the moment. There were a million and one other thoughts running around freely in her head at the moment that required a heck of a lot more thought than if her mother was finally lying to her.
"Come on then," her father told the pair with a smile. "Let's go get her bags and them head on home."
"Can we stop for dinner first?" Harley asked, thinking of several places she missed while living in DC. This elicited a full bellied laugh from her father, and a small chuckle from her mother. Her father placed one of his large hands on her shoulder, as she mother wrapped her arms around her from the side, and the three walked closed to the thinned out crowd around the baggage carousel.
"Whatever you want, kitten," her father told her. "But I swear, if the check goes over a hundred dollars, I'm sending it to Spencer and having him pay."
Harley laughed at his very lame joke. If the check got too high, it was almost always because he ate like it was the first meal he'd had all day. He was just trying to be funny with his dad humor that hadn't worked when she was young, and worked even less now that she was older.
"Sure dad," Harley grinned. "So how's that beer belly you're working on working out for you?"
Harley's mother laughed outright as her dad mock glared at her. "I'll have you know I can still out lift your brother in the weight room young lady. Want to see how well you can do?"
"You're on," Harley smiled up at him, accepting the challenge. She'd lose, by epic proportions. But it'd be a fun thing to do with her dad, before they went deep sea squid fishing the next night.
Harley could already tell that this was just what she had needed.
_._._._._
As the team wrap up the case in New York, with the death of Agent Kate Joyner and the end of the reign of terror that the city had been under, Spencer tries his best to avoid Rossi's inquisitive looks. He knows that the older agent is waiting like a cat following a mouse to pounce and interrogate Spencer all about Harley. And Spencer knows that Hotch's gag order isn't going to last much longer. So when Spencer hears the tell tail sign of an Italian argument, he turns towards it with hope.
And a grin spreads across his face faster than a wild fire in a dry field out in California.
Nonna and two of Harley's cousins were making a beeline towards him through the hotel lobby after Spencer and the team had packed their go bags, and were preparing to make their way to the airport. The two cousins where Marco and Emilia, the twin grandchildren of Harley's uncle Gregorio. Marco's a cop in Trenton (working as far away from the Organized Crime division as possible), and Emilia runs a prohibition themed bar and burlesque lounge. Marco's newly married and Emilia is a newly single lesbian after her last girlfriend made a comment about Harley's sexuality, or lack therefore of.
The trio was bickering, using their body along with their words to convey their arguments. It's hilarious to watch, considering Nonna is much less restrained with her cursing than her grandchildren. And every time another curse fell from her lips, Spencer was amused by the scandalized looks that came across the twins faces. Spencer was used to it because Nonna along with Harley had taught him to speak Italian and Harley is much less reserved on the curses she uses in Italian than she is in English (bordering on cursing as much as her Nonna is now). Because of that, Harley tended to be favored more than the other cousins because she didn't hold as much back around her grandparents as her cousins did. She respected them, but she also didn't treat them like fragile china dolls.
"Nonna!" Marco finally yelled. "You can't say that about other people!"
"Says who?" Nonna asked, walking up to Spencer and putting her hands on his checks and looking at him. "Your too thin. Does mia nipote (my granddaughter) not feed you enough? Do I need to come down to Virginia and cook for you?"
"Harley is an excellent cook," Spencer laughed as Nonna pulled him down, kissing him on both cheeks and enveloping him in a tight hug. "I just travel a lot. Harley tries her hardest to fatten me up when I'm in town."
Like hell he was admitting that both he and Harley where often too busy with work to cook dinner and just order out most nights. Nonna would take that as Harley being a bad girlfriend. And in all honesty, despite the fact that it was both their faults that they didn't find time to cook often enough, something that had been their New Year's resolution to fix this year, the only person it wouldn't reflect well on in the old Italian woman's eyes was her granddaughter. So he fibbed.
Nonna tutted. Then she rolled her eyes as Marco and Emilia hugged him. They didn't kiss his checks like was customary, and for which Spencer was incredibly thankful for. Even after all these years with this family, kissing people who aren't Harley hasn't gotten any less weird. "You come home with us, and I feed you. Harley, Alma, and the orso (bear) are flying out as we speak with giant squid and lobster. We'll have calamari and lobster. And pasta and homemade bread. Fatten you right up."
Spencer laughed. If only she knew he ate like he had a hollow leg to fill, and he still didn't gain weight. And pasta and bread is a staple in Harley's diet, so he had plenty of that. He's pretty sure Harley could only eat pasta and bread for the rest of her life without ever complaining.
"Can I invite the rest of the team?" Spencer asked looking over his shoulder at the team behind him. They were all watching. He hadn't even had to look to know that.
Nonna looked behind Spencer at the team. "The old one. The Italian. He's Harley's father?"
Spencer blinked. "How did you…?"
"I had an education before I had a husband. Harley isn't the only female with an education in our family," Nonna shrugged. "Telling who belongs to who is an important thing to know. So I'm right. Besides, Alma told me. Does Harley know now?"
Spencer shook his head. "She doesn't want to know yet. I don't think she understands how to handle this yet."
"Harley is a very smart girl, but you and I both know that doesn't help people learn how to cope," Nonna explained, nodding. "She'll be fine, don't you worry. She survived Ben's death. She'll survive this. Just give her time. She just needs to wrap her head around this. Does he know?"
"Yes. Hotch didn't give him time to ask questions. I don't know if he knows that Harley doesn't know, but…"
Nonna nodded. "Invite them. I'll talk to him."
_._._._._
When Spencer and the team arrived at Nonna's home in Trenton, it was apparent that Harley and Nonna had beat them there. Kieran was outside, unloading a large cooler from the back of Gio's truck with Gio and Antonio's help. Nonna's little, bat-shit Pomeranian came running out of the house towards Spencer, barking up a storm. Instead of coming to Spencer to be held, the Pomeranian stopped a few feet from him and started barking at the team. He figured the team would think it was him that the dog was barking at, so he moved the few feet and scoped the tiny dog up and held it like a baby, just the way it likes. It shut right up. The damn thing loves being held like a baby.
Spencer didn't know the dog's name, mainly because Nonna's got three that are exactly identical. The only one who can tell them apart is Nonna. Everyone else, even Nonno, called them Cane (Italian for dog). From the barking he could hear coming from the back yard, he'd bet the other two where back there chasing down the younger cousins. Or trying to escape from them. The three little monsters where likely already here.
"Thank you for shutting that damn dog up," Kieran laughed, with his booming laugh. "I hate those goddamn things. And don't you dare go telling my kid or my wife I said that."
"Like Harley gives a shit about those dogs," Gio laughed. "She's the only girl I know who'd be a dog lady with like twenty dogs if she could, but Nonna's three? God help them if they ever run out into the street while Harley's behind the wheel of a car. They don't shut up and they bark at the wind. God only knows how Nonno hasn't shot any of them by now."
Antonio laughed. "He drugs their food periodically."
"Of course he does," Spencer smiled. "He drugs your kids' food when they're particularly rowdy."
"Shut up," Antonio told them as Gio and Kieran laughed. "I do it sometimes too, or god knows I'd be as celibate as the pope these days."
"They're called the little monsters for a reason," Gio laughed. "There's a reason I don't have kids, man."
"Besides the part where you don't have a wife or a girlfriend?" Kieran smirked. "Spencer, you going to help unload? Or even make some introductions? And I don't mean with the agent shit in front of everything."
"UH… This is my boss Hotch, David Rossi, Derek Morgan, JJ, Emily Prentis, and Penelope Garcia. Guys, these three are Kieran Isley, Harley's dad, and her cousins Giovanni and Antonio," Spencer made the introductions. "Don't ask me the dog's name. There's three and they're all identical, and none of us can tell which is which. Just call them Cane, and they'll respond."
"Bring the god damned food in already, you ritarda (retards (A/N: I know it's not politically correct, but then Italian's seldom are, so apologies if this offends. It's not meant to, but it is men to be accurate to how the Italians I know and have grown up with talk)," Harley's aunt Marie called out from the house. "It's good to see you again, Spencer. Come inside. The coffee in the pot is still warm. And the old men have a game of cards going. Go take their money for me."
Spencer laughed. "Auntie Marie, these are the people I work with at the BAU. Agents Hotchner, Rossi, Morgan, Jareau, and Prentis. And our technical analyst, Penelope Garcia."
"Hmm… Come inside. Nonna's in the kitchen with Alma. The little cousins are out back. And I'll tell the boys to put away anything illegal," Aunt Marie shrugged. "Oh, and Harley went off for a little bit to talk to some friends in town. She should be back soon."
"She's joking about the illegal part," Spencer told the team.
"You hope she's joking," Antonio laughed. "God knows we all do."
They laughed at the truth in that statement as Antonio and Gio carried the cooler into the house.
"Come on in, you can try your best at profiling me inside," Spencer told the team. "Although, it's kind of chaos in there, so have fun."
Spencer put the dog down on the steps of the house and shooed it inside. He walked into the house and through to the kitchen where he greeted Alma, her mother, and many of the woman in her family. Only a few of them where cooking, while the rest had social hour away from their kids. The old men where gathered around the dining room table with a couple tumblers of alcohol, and a few lit cigars with the widows open to air out the smoke. There was a fan running in the room to ventilate. And most of the younger guys where in the back yard goofing off and monitoring the kids.
Spencer came up next to Alma, and slung an arm over her shoulder. Alma looked up and grinned when she saw him, reaching up to kiss him on both cheeks. "Oh, it's so good to see you, Spencer. It's been so long."
"Since Christmas," Spencer smiled, trying to appease her. "Hey, these nice women with me are JJ, Emily, and Garcia. They work with me so don't scare them too badly."
"Go play cards," Nonna told him, shooing him out of the kitchen while JJ, Emily and Garcia remained. "Beat those cheaters. Someone needs to."
Spencer laughed. "I'll try. It's good to see you, Alma. Lorena."
It's true. He could only try. He could almost always beat the team, but the old men at the dining room table right now are experienced card players and expert cheaters. They make it extremely difficult for Spencer to win a game easily. It's the closest thing he has anymore to playing chess with Gideon. And Spencer loves it.
"So the women are all in the kitchen?" Prentis asked before he walked back out of the kitchen. "That their place or something?"
"Don't ever let Harley here you say that. Or Alma. The women are in the kitchen because all of the kids know better than to go in there until it's time for them to wash the dishes. And only four or so are actually cooking. The rest are drinking and gossiping. The men are either gambling in the dining room or standing around the barbeque outside supervising the children," Spencer explained. "The kitchen also happens to be where the food gets served from, so anyone in the kitchen gets first serving. And the booze is stored in there. Harley's mother, Alma, will introduce you if you go in. And in the meantime, I need to track down my girlfriend."
JJ and Emily laughed while Garcia gave him a skeptical look, as they walked into the kitchen and were greeted with loud and happy welcomes.
"So, gambling in the dining room?" Rossi asked.
"Only if you have a lot of money your willing to loose. They cheat. It's hard for me to beat them. It's just the uncles and great uncles. None of the cousins want to try. They stick to playing 31 at the end of the night," Spencer explained. "Anyone under sixty tends to stay outside with the kids."
"I think I'll try my luck," Rossi told him with a look that told Spencer he knew that was where the young agent was going to be.
"Come on, I'll show you two outside, and introduce you to some of the cousins," Spencer told Hotch and Morgan, walking them to the door out to the back yard. "And then I'll be back in to play poker."
"Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been."
― John Greenleaf Whittier, Maud Muller – Pamphl Andet
Part 3
"I don't care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching-they are your family."
― Jim Butcher, Proven Guilty
"This is part of what a family is about, not just love. It's knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame. Not work."
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie
Spencer sat down at the dining room table with the old boys, Rossi sitting across the table from him and one of the little cousins in his lap. Around the table, there was Nonno, Nonna's remaining brother's (Vincent, Greggori, and Joe), and several of Harley's uncles and older generation cousins. The child sitting in his lap right now, is Aurora, who's the great-grandchild of Vincent. Aurora is three, and Spencer and Harley have noticed that she shows some of the early signs of dyslexia, so they've been paying special attention to her to confirm it. It just helps that Aurora has a huge crush on Spencer and basically attaches herself to his hip whenever he comes into her view. Spencer had sat down right in front of the fan because of the three year old, so that the tiny brunette got the cleanest air in the room
"Alright," Spencer smiled, "what's the game?"
They usually cycled through several games, including poker, blackjack, bridge, gin rummy, and BS. Occasionally they even pulled out the old Uno deck. The only problem with playing with them is that several of them swap cards, and the rules tend to change on whim. They are the biggest bunch of cheaters Spencer's ever met, and he'd grown up in Las Vegas.
"Poker," Nonno told him. "You going to help Spencer win, Rory?"
"Uh huh," Aurora grinned. "I'm gonna win."
"Of course we are," Spencer grinned.
"No, me. Not you," Aurora stated, giving Spencer the sternest look her childish face could manage. "Play."
The table laughed. And Nonno dealt, and the game began with money and chips pilling up on the table.
"So how long have you known Re—Spencer?" Rossi asked, stumbling over his name after realizing that the people at the table knew him by his first name rather than his last name.
"Mia nipote brought him home for Christmas a few years ago," Nonno shrugged, focused on the cards in front of him and the crystal glass of scotch in his hand. "In 2001, after the towers fell."
"He wasn't even her only boyfriend at that point," Uncle Joe added with a grin. "But he was the only boy she ever brought home."
Spencer grinned. It wasn't until 2003 that he and Harley became exclusive and she'd had multiple other partners at that point. And not all of them where male. And it was also around the time they became exclusive that Harley stopped forcing herself to comply to the amount of sex that most people thought was normal to have. Harley had had a point when she'd tried to have as much sex as was possible to try and force herself into enjoying having more sex than she wanted. Needled to say it didn't work out. And now they only have sex maybe once a month. Sometimes even once every two months. Which, don't get him wrong, Spencer is fine with. Harley wouldn't be Harley if she was normal. He'd known she was beautiful before he'd ever even seen a picture of her. Harley was special. And he liked that about her. And they'd never needed copious amounts of sex to keep their relationship going.
"What was Harley like growing up?" Rossi asked. Nonno gave him an inquisitive look. But he answered.
"We knew early on that nothing and no one was going to stop that girl. Nothing was going to get in her way and no one was going to put her down," Nonno told him. "Very stubborn. Very smart. And the first silent hell raiser that I've ever met. She, Giovanni, and Antonio where that generations triplet terror. And now poor Tonio is being paid back three fold while Gio and Harley sit back laughing."
"She was a sneaky little shit," Uncle Gregorio chimed in. "You'd think she was an innocent little girl, and then she'd clean you out over a game of poker, lie to your face over a game of Bullshit, and take all of your money in Monopoly. She played on the way people underestimated her and then kick you right in the balls without anyone even realizing how it happened. And Kieran would just laugh like it was the best thing in the world."
Gregorio cursed under his breath in thickly accented Sicilian, mindful of Aurora and how she just loved to parrot your bad words right back at you.
"They put her in normal school for a couple of months until she'd bitten, punched or kicked every last school bully, and staged a few riots in her class against her teacher or whatever else she found unfair. She was too smart, and normal school just didn't cut for her. It would have held her back in the long run, so my niece and her Irishman finally just hired some tutors and let Harley learn at her own pace, and learn the things she wanted to learn that school wouldn't have been able to teach her," Uncle Vincent shrugged, eyeing his cards before flicking his eyes to Spencer with an accusing glare like he believed Spencer was just going to steal the money out of his pockets. Spencer smirked in return.
"Kieran travels a lot for work, and he'd take Harley with him sometimes, while Declan and my daughter stayed at home because of school," Nonno smiled. "That girl learned to love travel early on. It's probably why she moved schools so often with college. Georgetown is probably the longest she's ever stuck with one school. Girls got ants in her pants, always has."
"You better not be saying anything bad about me," Harley laughed from the door way where she stood with one of the triplets on her hip with his head buried in her shoulder. She was bouncing him a little and running a hand down his back soothingly. The triplets had just exited the even more terrible threes, and moved on to the even worse fours. Of the three boys, there was Zion, Xander, and Zeke. Harley was holding Zion, the tiny little ringleader, who currently looked more sedate than normal.
"He okay?" Spencer asked, shifting Aurora on his lap as he turned to look at Harley.
"The diavolo povero (poor devil) conked his head on the edge of the island when he came running in for juice just as I got back from the Haywood building. Carmen's upstairs with a migraine and Tonio still has two others to chase down so he's stuck with me until he feels better. Nonno, do you have a copy of the Harry Potter books upstairs?" Harley asked, walking around to stand behind her grandfather. The Haywood building ment she was at Rangeman LLC's Trenton office, likely talking to her friend, and the owner of the multimillion dollar security company, Ranger Manoso
"Si," the old man replied. "Margo's little punk shit left it over Christmas."
Harley laughed. "Paulie's 12, Nonno. No normal twelve year old is anything other than a little shit. You can't expect more from the poor kid. He's still young, stupid, and surrounded by worse."
Uncle Vincent laughed. "Kid's an idiot. No excuse."
Harley laughed, shaking her head. "Whatever. I've got a book to go read and a pink little money in my arms. Hey, Uncle Joe, you might as well fold right now. It isn't going to get better if you play longer."
"HEY!" Uncle Joe yelled as Harley swiftly left the room. "I don't need you to tell me—Shit I fold."
The men around the table laughed.
_._._._._
Later as the family all sat around the extended dinning room table that a pair of the teenage nieces had set, along with one of the long folding tables, with the children all set up at tables in the living room, Spencer got pulled down to sit next to Alma Isley with the team broken up and seated at odd spots along the table. Harley was helping her cousin Mary place bowls of food on the two clusters of tables. Antonio and Carmen where seated at the far end of the adults table, closer to their kids but still far enough away from them to have a few moments of peace. And Gio was seated at the kids table, where most of the under 30 crowed got placed. Spencer had never sat at the adults table at Nonna's house before, and for that matter, neither had Harley. Spencer knew that she would automatically go to sit at the kids table, because nobody who wasn't married or over 35 ever got to sit at the adults table. And Harley wasn't either of those.
"Kitten, your sitting at the adults table tonight," Kierian told Harley, as he grabed her arm and pulled her down into the seat next to him and across from Spencer as she deposited her last bowl of food and moved to go to the kids table in the other room. For her part, Harley didn't question it, instead choosing extract her arm from her father's grasp, and smile at him.
"One minute. I've got to go rub it in Gio's face that I made it to the adults table before him."
"Harley!" Alma glared as Antonio barked a laugh from down the table.
"Fine, I'll do it after dinner. Shheess, you'd think I committed cardinal sin right in front of everyone," Harley muttered under her breath as she took her seat.
"Harley, say grace," Nonna demanded from the top of the table.
"Harley can't say grace, she's not catholic," Luca reminded her, to the teams confusion.
"Than you say it, stunad," Nonno shot back with a stern look. Luca paled and Harley bit back a laugh. Luca seemed to catch that look and shot her a glare from down the table. "Luca!"
Luca's gaze softened before he clasped his hands together and bowed his head. With most of the rest of the table following suit, even some of the team, and Harley and Alma. "Bless us, O Lord! and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen."
"Amen," the rest of the table echoed.
"Let's eat," Nonno called, reaching to grab a serving from the dish in front of him. For the next couple of minute's plates where passed up and down and around the table as everyone tried to get all of the things they wanted to eat. Even some of the kids and occupants of the kids table flocked to their table as they tried to get items that weren't also on the kids table. When all of the motion and bustle of the getting everyone's share of food was over, conversation broke out around the table. Harley and Kieran where in a debate that Spencer couldn't hear, Nonna and Alma where talking about Spencer and Harley and most of the team was asking the person nearest them about Harley, and Harley and Spencer. Rossi seemed to be particularly interested in that last one.
"So, Harley, you decided where you're going to work once your time working at NCIS is over?" Uncle Joe asked from a few seats down.
Harley got a look of her face, the same look she got on her face every time she was asked to talk about something where she has more information regarding a situation than she could admit to or talk of. Which made Spencer think that not all was right over at NCIS. And that concerned him because Harley is still employed there, and Tony works there. And Spencer loves Harley and he lives Tony on most days (mainly the ones where the other man isn't going and doing things with Harley that Spencer had planned to before one case or another ruined that. And those days weren't even really Tony's fault). He didn't want anything to happen to either of them, and the look on Harley's face told him he probably wouldn't get what he wanted.
"I got an open ended offer to go back to working at the Jeffersonian because of Zack's… departure from the institute. But I probably won't go back for a few months. Murphy is going to be on my ass about deadlines for the next few months so it'll let everyone collect themselves in the meantime. And Julian wants me out in LA for a couple of photo shoots with Dmitri."
"It'd be nice to have you near home for a while," Alma smiled. "Or it would be if I didn't already have plans to spend a few months in Tacoma with your brother and my first grandchild."
Harley rolled her eyes at her mother's obvious alluding to grandchildren. "And one of the brothers of an old friend of mine invited me over to England to help fix some problems of his for a little bit. He promised it'd be worth my wile and some added bonuses, just in case. Nothing has been set in stone yet so…"
Translation? "An old friend's brother, who runs the British government, called to tell me that said friend had once again fallen off the sobriety wagon again, and he wants me to come and help him clean it up. And there might also be some other things involved that we need not get into because they're likely above the security clearance of just about everyone else at the table. Oh, and he was willing to make it worth my wile if I did him this one favor."
"Then again, Devin Harper is doing a video series of extreme sports and activates from around the world, and he's asked me to come as a part of the group he's putting together. It sounds like fun, and he needs someone who's surfed big waves before. So, you know I have options."
That one didn't need a translation except the distinct feeling Spencer got that this trip was a cover for some other thing, and Devin Harper was absolutely not involved at all. Besides, when Harley went and did something with Devin, she almost always dragged Spencer along with her.
Alma was giving Harley a look of disappointment, like how dare she think of taking any offers that took her away from Spencer and set their not-yet-even-developed plans for their future back even farther. Rossi had a heart broken expression at the thought of the daughter he hadn't yet had time to get to know leaving the country before he got that time. And Kieran had a look of understanding on his face, just wanting Harley to do whatever was best for her at the moment.
"Well, now seems like a good time to toss my hat into the ring," Kieran smirked. "I've got a movie in the works right now that I could really use your monster makeup magic on, if you don't mind spending a couple months in New Zealand."
"Well it's not Australia," Harley laughed. "I've made a vow to never spend more than a few days in Australia after that time I found a huntsman spider in my coffee cup. I couldn't drink coffee for months afterwards, and I still don't know which was more traumatizing: the spider's leg touching my lip or the coffee withdrawals."
"The coffee," Antonio, Luca, and Spencer agreed as most of the table and the team laughed. Harley just shook her head with a smile on her face.
"I don't know, I'll think about it," Harley decided, going back to eating her food. "Did mom tell you guys all hear about Declan and Rowen's new baby already?"
And with that, the topic of conversation around the table changes, and Spencer watched Harley as words where passed up, down, and around table. And he watched how Harley's smiles seemed to begin to reach her eyes and the weight she'd carried on her shoulders seemed to leave her. And he knew that despite everything, despite her career being one step away from being up in the air, despite her biological father being seated just down the table without her knowledge, Harley would come away from this family gathering much happier than he'd seen her in a while. And that, despite everything, was well worth anything in Spencer's eyes. Harley deserved to be happy, Spencer had known this for as long as he'd known her. And she would come away from this night happy once again. Spencer could feel that in his bones.
And that made everything worth it.
"So who ended up winning the poker game?" someone asked during a thin lull in conversation.
"I did!" got shouted from somewhere over at the kids table. And that started a whole thunderstorm of laughter.
"What is home? My favorite definition is "a safe place," a place where one is free from attack, a place where one experiences secure relationships and affirmation. It's a place where people share and understand each other. Its relationships are nurturing. The people in it do not need to be perfect; instead, they need to be honest, loving, supportive, recognizing a common humanity that makes all of us vulnerable."
― Gladys M. Hunt, Honey for a Child's Heart: The Imaginative Use of Books in Family Life
Part 4
"The future is never just one choice. It's a thousand. And they never stop. You will choose your future every day of your life. And should you wake up one day to find that you regret the choice you made the day before, then make a new one. Don't worry about whether you might be wrong someday. Worry about whether you're right now. Tomorrow can wait."
― Cora Carmack, All Played Out
After everyone was finished eating dinner, and the plates and dishes were taken from the table to the kitchen to be washed by the teens (or at least the ones who Spencer and Harley weren't helping do science homework), coffee was distributed and the deck of cards where pulled out for a game of 31. The team had begun to pack up and Spencer knew that they, and likely he as well, would be leaving soon. He was sitting on the floor in the living room with Harley resting back against him as they helped some of her teenage cousins with their science homework. Harley was helping identify bones on a skeleton chart, while Spencer was helping with some physics equations.
"I keep confusing the metacarpals with the metatarsals," Aunt Marie's son Franklin frowned.
Harley gave him a small smile. "You drive a car and you walk on tar. So when you think of your metacarpals and metatarsals, just remember the car and tar part and know that your metacarpals are in your hands, and your metatarsals are in your feet."
"So how do you remember the difference between mitosis and meiosis?" Angie, Harley's second cousin asked by her Uncle Vincent.
"Mitosis happens in your toes, and meiosis happens in your… sex organs," Harley laughed. "Mitosis is the part of the cell cycle in which a cell nuclei separates and becomes two identical cells. Meiosis is a type of cell division that divides the chromosomes in the parent cells by half, and that half is the half of your DNA that your parents passed on to you. Thus meiosis is the way in which eggs and sperm are produced, and mitosis is the way our bodies produce new cells to replace dead cells."
"Dude, you should be a science teacher," Will, Uncle Joe's grandson, laughed.
"Yeah, no. I think we can all agree that I am way overqualified to be a science teacher," Harley smiled.
"Did you get any job offers in the states?" Spencer asked quietly after a few more moments in which the teens in front of them scribbled out answers to their homework.
"Hawaii would like to have me back and Stanford made a pretty nice offer. I'll probably just end up waiting a few months until Zach's lapse in logic and subsequent incarceration isn't so fresh on everyone's mind and see about being the second anthropologist on Jeffersonian payroll. It'll give me a few months to finish writing that book that Murphy is going to hound me over and time to drop off the map for a few weeks," Harley sighed.
"Drop off the map?" Spencer asked skeptically. He knew what that meant in a general sense, seeing as Harley had done it before, so he wasn't worries, but clarification always helped.
"I'll probably end up visiting Callen for a few days and then go to England to help sober up my favorite English drug addict. And then… well a few days of surfing never hurt anyone," Harley shrugged. "I don't really know. I haven't exactly worked it all out just yet."
Spencer pulled her closer to him and kissed the top of her head. Harley wasn't the type to just plan out her future to the last detail. She might plan for general events to happen, such as moving into the house in Springfield sometime this summer, or to get married in the next couple years, but she wasn't one to plan ahead all the nitty gritty details about those events. So it wasn't a surprise that Harley had worked out things she wanted to do while still not deciding definitely what she would do. And besides, she'd probably only last a few weeks without work before she'd be incapable of remaining that way as long as she planned for. So the less she actually planned out, the less plans that where likely to end up canceled by the end of it.
Suddenly, Harley's phone made a sound and she checked it. "Shit."
"Harley?"
"Looks like your not the only one who will be leaving soon. NCIS needs me back at the Navy Yard. Something happened," Harley explained, moving to stand up and turning back to help Spencer to his feet once she'd done so.
"Need a ride down there?" Spencer asked, curious as to how she'd be getting from Trenton to DC.
"No need. Just need a ride to the airport. Abby's got me on a flight going out in an hour. Apparently they'd prefer for me to get back in two hours and thirty minutes rather than wait the extra hour a car ride would add."
Spencer raised his eyebrows secptically.
"I know, right? Something bad must be going on," Harley added. "I'll see you back in the capitol I guess."
"Your not going to let me drive you to the airport?"
"Nah, the neighbor next door is a police officer who owes me a favor. I figure I can get a ride out of him, and then raise you back to DC," Harley smiled. He'd already figured she wouldn't have one of her family members miss the end of the night game of 31, but he hadn't anticipated her finding another ride so quickly. "Come on, lets go say goodbye to everybody."
Saying goodbye in the Benivieni family includes much the same thing as saying hello, except the entire exchange lasts more than twice as long. Each goodbye includes a strong hug and a kiss on the cheek. And that goes for everyone, no matter their age or gender. The only deviation in this ritual is with the children who may, depending on the family member, get their cheeks pinched. Spencer wasn't accustomed to this sort of exchange, only really having to partake in it a few times a year, so it all still felt extremely awkward. Then again, it really worked to affirm his belief that they considered him a member of the family.
He could feel the teams eyes on him as he exchanged farewells with the large group that had come to gather around him when they herd he was leaving, and he suddenly wasn't feeling too happy about the ride back to DC. The team was sure to ask questions, Rossi even more than the rest of them. And when all the goodbyes where given and the team pilled back into the two SUVs they'd come in, Spencer watched the crowd of family wave them off with a sad smile.
He watched Harley climb into the truck belonging to that police officer neighbor her grandparents shared as the SUVs pulled away from the curb and started on down the street.
"Man, you never told me how long your relationship has that been going on?" Morgan asked.
"Harley and I were pen pals since we were 13. We started dating on and off once we were 18. And we became exclusively involved at 21. So seeing as we're both 26 now, I'd say—"
"Alright, I get it. But seriously, why didn't you tell any of us? Did Gideon know?"
"I don't think Gideon knew. Hotch already knew about Harley before any of you. And I joined the team at 22, Morgan. Do you think any of you would have taken my relationship with Harley seriously back then? I was just the kid on the team. If I'd added a girlfriend to that, you guys wouldn't have taken me seriously. Trust me. Seeing how Agent Booth at the Hover Building treats their 22 year old psychologist has completely reaffirmed my belief that I did the right thing. Lance Sweets has two PhDs, and Agent Booth still treats him like he's twelve. Hell, before Sweets there was Zack, and Booth didn't even talk to Zack for the first year he knew him, and Zack was older than Sweets is when they meet."
Rossi chuckled from the front seat, while Morgan looked at him from the rearview mirror. Garcia just smiled at him. Hotch, Prentis, and JJ where in the SUV in front of them.
"So you two have been fully dating for five years now," Garcia smiled taking a jump in conversation. "Any plans to pot the question?"
Spencer rolled his eyes and looked out the window. "Harley and I have talked about it. Her family has pestered us about it enough for us to do that much. And even my mom got in on that game. We'll probably get married in a couple years, but that's all I'm saying about that. Harley grew up with a lot of girls who got married right out of high school, or right out of college. And we still have like three weddings to go to this year alone for some people Harley knows and is friends with. It's just not something either of us feel needs to happen right at the moment."
"Aw, how sweet," Garcia gushed. "You guys have talked about getting married!"
Reid shot her a stern look, inwardly begging her to drop the subject.
"So do you think Harley's really going to leave the country after her time with NCIS is over? Because that really cuts into the time I have to get to know this illusive girlfriend of yours."
Spencer rolled his eyes. Of course Garcia had to ask that.
"She'll probably spend a few weeks in England. She hasn't been out to see her friends there in a while and I'm sure whatever her friend is offering her is good. It's funny, really. The two friends she has there that she'll be spending time with, they're both my and Harley's level of genius. But their mom, who was this big time professor before she had kids, makes all four of us looks stupid in comparison," Spencer offered. "I think she's more likely to go spend some time in LA with her old foster brother, and just surf her heart out. But she won't be gone long. Harley doesn't do well with excess down time, especially when there's no one really spend that down time with."
Spencer could feel Rossi's eyes on him through the rearview, but he chose to ignore it. If David Rossi wanted to ask him a question, he could ask it. It's not like Spencer was required to answer.
"Does Harley know, you know about…?"
"No. She doesn't. I don't think she's really mentally ready to know yet. She's… Last year there was a compartment that was unearth with the bodies of two little boys, twins, in it. And apparently one of the boys effectively killed himself to attempt to prolong his brother's life. Harley was one of the people who was trying to discover what had happened to them, abet from Hawaii. And finding that out broke her. Right now, that's where she's at. With horrible facts placed in front of her, and more facts to find. And she just needs time right now to deal with all of it. She'll go looking for the rest of the answers once she's really dealt with the original trauma."
Rossi nodded his head in front of him, thoughtful.
Later, once they were only a half hour outside of DC, Spencer's phone beeped with an incoming text.
Director Shepard is dead.
"It's a funny thing, how much time we spend planning our lives. We so convince ourselves of what we want to do, that sometimes we don't see what we're meant to do."
― Susan Gregg Gilmore, Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen