Authors Note: Please review. As I come to the conclusion of Winter Quarter, and my time before finals dwindles from two weeks away to less, I won't be able to write as much, but I will try my hardest, and I'll be sure to post an update during Spring break at the latest. And to all of you out there who are in the same boat as I am, my prayers are with you, and Godspeed. But please, please review. Your encouragement is so nice to have and it helps me to know if I'm doing things right or if I'm doing it wrong, or just whatever you guys feel about this story.

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 15: November 2008

"When your dream turns into a nightmare, rise to the challenge and slaughter the dragons"

― Bangambiki Habyarimana, The Great Pearl of Wisdom

The case in Las Vegas brought up dreams of dead little boys, and memories of a long time ago for Spencer. JJ was due to have her baby in the next month, and that too seemed to be adding to his dreams as well. By the time they closed their original case, Spencer was tired and stressed. He was calling Harley two times a day just to talk to her and talk through his dream with her. It was a reoccurring theme in his dreams that he'd been having since he himself was a little boy. And this case just seemed to make it flare up.

When he was at the funeral and realized he'd been at that graveyard before, and then Morgan came back with the Riley Jenkins case, Spencer spent a good hour talking to Harley who told him she'd see about getting the time off or finding a reason to be out there with him. As there case drew to a close and Spencer found Michael while the team thought the unsub had him out by the fire, a tightness in his chest gave way.

"I've got Michael. I've got Michael," Spencer radioed in, before picking up the small blond haired child. "Hi, Michael. I'm Spencer, and I work for the FBI. We're going to get you back to your mommy and daddy, okay?"

Michael nodded against his shoulder as Spencer walked with him out of the room. He walked into the living room of the house and sat down with Michael, putting him down next to him.

"So, we're going to sit here for a little bit until your parents can be brought out here to pick you up and take you home. Alright? So, do you prefer dinosaurs or dragons?"

Spencer watched as Michael was reunited with his parents and smiled a little. Morgan walked over to him, and started talking. "You know this is about a good a day as we're going to get on this job."

"I know."

"And yet, you're still thinking about a boy you're not even sure if you really knew."

"When I was four, my mother had a sense that I was in danger." And Spencer just had a feeling that this was more than just some newspaper article he remembered.

"Reid, your mother wasn't well." Thanks, like I don't already know that.

"I know facts about the case."

"Reid, you've got an eidetic memory. Odds are you saw the story. He was just a kid like you. And it caught your imagination," Morgan explained, reiterating facts that Spencer was already consciously aware of. He already knew that this case could just be some newspaper article that he'd caught a glimpse of as a child. But it seemed like more than that, and Spencer needed to know.

"I don't really think that you believe that."

"You want to know what I really believe? I believe that you could have done anything in this world with your life and you chose to do this job. Your man Carl Young says our unconscious is the key to our life's pursuits." Morgan sounded like a pastor giving a sermon as he said it and Spencer almost smiled at the similarity.

"Yeah… Yeah."

"So, for whatever reason, that case was stuck in your brain all these years, and it not only to this career choice but to this same city where your mother lives and for us to have the opportunity to save this child."

"Yeah."

"Like I said. It's about as good a day as we're going to get, man. Enjoy your moment."

Spencer nodded, watching as Hotch walked over to them.

"Hotch, do you think it'd be possible to wait until tomorrow to return home?" Spencer asked. Hotch turned his gaze to Morgan.

"Do you think you could find something to do in Vegas for the night?" Hotch asked. And that was the end of that conversation, with Morgan going off to go make plans for the night.

That night, Spencer ended up sleeping on the couch in his mother's room and the dream that had been plaguing him persisted, this time with an added new character in it.

His father.

_._._._._

Harley's flight arrived early in the morning, and Spencer went to meet her, already knowing that this would be another plane ride home that he'd miss. He then dropped Harley off at the coroner's office before going to the hotel the team had been staying at to meet up with them.

He walked in through the doors and spotted them in a sitting area just off the lobby. It wasn't the Montecito, so he knew he'd be packing and moving hotels for his stay. Harley had already gotten a room arranged with Danny.

"Oh, here he comes right now. What'd you do? Sleep through your alarm?" Morgan asked jokingly.

"Sorry to keep you guys waiting," Spencer told them as he walked over to the group.

"Hotch is already at the airstrip. How fast can you pack?" JJ asked.

"Actually, I'm gonna… I'm gonna stay for a couple of days," Spencer told her. He'd already called and informed Hotch so their team leader already knew about his decision to stay.

"Is everything alright?" Rossi asked, looking concerned.

"Yeah, I just… I haven't seen my mom in a really long time so I'd like a few more days. And Harley caught a case out here and Agent Booth asked that I supervise her because he's working another case with Dr. Brennan." Spencer explained. Okay so it was all a well fabricated lie. The only case Harley had caught was the one he'd put her on.

"You sure?" Rossi asked for confirmation.

"Yeah." Spencer nodded.

"Okay, take a few days, do what you need to do." Rossi told him. The team started moving out of the lobby and Spencer was watching them go when JJ caught his arm.

"Hey, um, take care of yourself," JJ instructed him

"You too. Both of you," Spencer replied looking down at her belly. Part of him was concerned for the fact that she was still traveling with the team this far into her pregnancy. He was pretty sure he'd read something that said that was not recommended. And he wondered how she'd gotten her OB-GYN to sanction it.

He watched the team go before going up to the room and re-packing his go back to move it over to the Montecito. Harley had rented a car, and he'd already traded the SUV in. He'd be driving a Corvette for the rest of his time in Vegas.

_._._._._

Spencer and Harley were coming back from the police station and the coroner's office and had just entered the elevator to go to their room when Harley turned to Spencer. "You know while we're here, maybe we could go down to the pound and get that dog you promised me all those months ago?"

"Really?" Spencer frowned, shifting the evidence box in his hands.

"Yeah, and then when you're on a case, I could always have something from Vegas with me when your gone," Harley shrugged.

"Still, we could just get one when we get back to DC," Spencer told her.

"I think the months and months that we've been in DC and still not gotten a new dog prove that we never have time when we're in DC," Harley explained. "So we should do it while we've got time here."

"What would we even name a dog if we got one?" Spencer asked. "And why do I have to go with you to get the dog?"

"I want you to come with me because then it's our dog. Not just my dog, or just your dog. Ours. Something we both picked out and agreed on. Like our house. It'd signify something," Harley supplied as they stepped off the elevator and began walking down the hall to their room. "And you don't think of names for something you haven't even seen. You need to look at something and get to know something before you go and name it, Pen. Besides, there's a long list of names for these sorts of situations."

"DC superheroes, I'm sure," Spencer joked. "Just for future reference, when we have kids you don't plan on naming them after DC superheroes, right?"

"Not their superhero names," Harley shrugged walking up to the door to their room. "And maybe I'll change my MO and add some names of Marvel characters. But you do have to admit that you'd rather the name of a fictional superhero than the name of a seria..."

Spencer and Harley looked at the door to their room which was not closed, and from which sound was coming out from behind. Spencer nudged Harley behind him and pushed the door open, walking in first. He looked into the room where Rossi and Morgan where sitting on the couch in their hotel room watching a daytime soap opera with their feet on the coffee table.

"What are you guys doing here?" Spencer asked, looking between the two men and the TV,

"Hey. What's it look like we're doing?" Morgan asked him.

"Uh, breaking into my room and watching Days of Our Lives," Spencer answered, as Harley pushed in front of him and looked at the TV. He moved to put down the evidence box in the kitchenette.

"I think that's actually The Young and the Restless. They have a character on there that actually looks a lot like Derek," Harley stated getting a curious look from Spencer. He hadn't known Harley watched daytime television. Harley seemed to catch his look. "What, I had nothing better to do at 19 or 21."

Which was just a discrete way of referencing her long hospital visits.

"And you'd be right," Rossi told her, completely missing the underlying admission. "At least about the show."

"Aren't you supposed to be on a plane back to DC?" Spencer asked

"And you're supposed to be hanging out with your mom," Rossi shot back.

"And you're not," Morgan added. Then indicating to the box Spencer had just put down. "Riley Jenkins."

"No, that's not. That's not actually why I'm here," Spencer tried to tell them as they stood up from their seats. "It's one of Harley's cases."

"Don't use me to lie to them," Harley glared, moving to take one of the newly vacated spots.

"Reid," Morgan said, giving Spencer a look. "Come on man, who do you think you're talking to? I know what this has been doing to you."

"Maybe together we can find out who killed him," Rossi added.

"I think I might already know," Spencer told them, spotting Harley rolling her eyes from behind Rossi.

"Then tell us about the suspect," Rossi responded.

"The truth is, I don't really know anything about him. It's my father." To which he got an exasperated huff from Harley, whom he'd already told his theory to. Harley disagreed which lead to a minor argument, but she would continue to go along with Spencer's little witch hunt, if only because she loved Spencer enough to want to be there to see the look on his face when he was proven wrong. Okay, so maybe it wasn't out of love that she wanted to see that.

Later, after Spencer had spread out all the case files on the hotel bed, with Rossi and Morgan standing at the foot of the bed, and Harley looking over the backside of the chair she was sitting in, Spencer turned to face the three people who had chosen to stay and help him solve this case.

"Before we go down this road, you need to be sure," Rossi told him.

"He's right. Some rock don't need looking under," Morgan added as if he didn't already know. He knew, and this was just one of those rocks he needed to look under, for better or for worse.

He noticed Harley was remaining silent, although he could spot the worry in her eyes.

"My mind is sending me signals. I—I… I can't ignore them anymore," Spencer explained.

"Mixed signals. That's what the subconscious is all about. You know that," Rossi told him. Again, he knew that, and that's why this was all the more important. If he was wrong, fine. But if he was right…

"Reid, your dad left you. You take it to the extreme, you could say he killed your childhood," Morgan frowned at him. He could here Harley's annoyed huff and wanted to smile.

"Could explain the dream in which you see him as a murderer," Rossi added, at which point he noticed Harley had stopped watching them entirely and had turned back to the now dark television.

"I've come this far. I'm not going back," Spencer told them, something he knew Harley already knew and understood. He heard Harley's phone chime and her whispered "Shit." And suddenly he knew that Harley would be busy with something that wasn't proving weather or not his father was a murdered.

"Sorry Spence. Seems yesterday Jersey's favorite trouble-magnate flew out to Vegas and now Batman wants me to babysit for him because his guy couldn't bother to wash the explosive residue off of his boots before trying to fallow her though the airport," Harley sighed, standing up and going through her bag until she found an outfit for this excursion. "Call me if you need something run through CODIS."

Spencer smiled, watching her walk into the bathroom to change before leaving with Morgan and Rossi to go and interview his father.

_._._._._

Harley's use of the name Batman refers to a friend of hers from Jersey who runs a multi-million dollar security company, and who was the likely person she'd been with those three month in the summer that Spencer didn't have an account for. The man was an ex-Army Ranger who only wore black, drove expensive black cars, lived somewhere that wasn't listed on his ID, and always seemed to be up for rescuing damsels in distress. He's tall, dark, Cuban-American, handsome, and possessed a silent stoicism that was similar to Hotch's. Oh, and most people just knew him as Ranger.

He wasn't one of Harley's friends that Spencer ever worried about, if only because his attention seemed to be completely on the trouble-magnate that Harley had been asked to baby sit. And Spencer figured worrying about that one trouble-magnate was about as time consuming as a full time job. The only thing Spencer worried about was that said trouble-magnate seemed to get in over her head and attract any nearby car bomber. That made Spencer worry. It always would. But he had to put that worry onto the back burner at the moment and try and solve this case.

A soon as Spencer had read through the file on Gary Michaels, he'd called Harley to have her run him through CODIS, already knowing that this man was likely Riley Jenkin's murdered. But he had to know, to prove without a reasonable doubt that his father either was or wasn't a murderer.

He knew…

He knew Michaels was likely Riley's murderer and that he'd been killed and buried across state lines in California. And he knew that the fingerprint on Michaels glasses was from Riley's father. Harley had gotten him those results faster than Garcia had been able to. But he didn't and wouldn't be telling Garcia that. Plus, Harley had had a head start.

But he also knew his father was involved. He had to be.

He knew….

But the moment the door to the interrogation room opened and his mother stood there next to his father and behind the detective with Harley behind her, he almost seemed to deflate. The wind was stripped out of his sails, and he suddenly realized that his father had likely had next to nothing to do with this case at all. That he'd been looking at the wrong parent this whole time. And wasn't that just swell.

He ended up sitting in the detective's office with his mom in front of him, his dad leaning up against the desk between them, and Harley leaning up against the doorframe. He wanted to know why she wasn't babysitting for Ranger anymore, but that was likely a question better left for another time. There were more important questions to ask at the moment, and none of them would be lodged her way.

"I'd seen him around, at your ball games. At the park. You used to play chess there, do you remember?" his mother asked. "You played with him once."

"Michaels?"

"I didn't know that was his name back then, but it wasn't unusual for you to play with adults. And you'd win too," she told him with pride.

"Did he do something with me?" Spencer asked quietly, needing to know.

"Oh no. God no. but when I saw the way he looked at you, I knew what he was. I could just tell," she told him with Harley nodding her head in understanding behind her.

"A mother knows," Spencer smiled, catching Harley's eye and remembering the times he'd heard Alma say the exact same thing.

"Yes."

"So you called Riley's dad," Spencer stated.

She nodded her head. "Two nights later, Lou called the house. He was agitated. He said he needed me to meet him."

His mother plunged into detail explaining what had happened the night of Gary Michaels' murder.

"I sat there, I couldn't move. It was like a dream. That paralysis in the face of something terrible."

"What happened after that?"

"It's okay, Diana. Go on," his father encouraged her.

"At some point if found myself walking towards the house," his mother told him, starting again on the story. "And the rest… uh, it's all dark after that."

"You came home," his father told her. "She couldn't talk at first, but eventually I came to understand what had happened. And I knew that nobody could ever know."

"So you never told anyone?" Spencer asked.

"No, she could be implicated. And I had to protect her," his father told him, causing Spencer to flash back to watching his father burn clothing in the back yard.

"You were burning her bloody cloths," Spencer concluded.

"But the knowing, you can't burn that away," his father explained. "It changed everything."

"Is that why you left?" Spencer asked, with Harley silently slipping out of the room to allow him time alone with his parents. Plus, he's pretty sure she wanted to punch his father in the face for leaving a 10 year old in the care of a paranoid schizophrenic. Mush as he loved his mom, he knew that wasn't the right chose by him.

"I tried to keep us together, Spencer. I swear to you. But the weight of that knowledge was… it was too much," William Reid explained

"You could have come back. You could have started over," Spencer told him, already knowing that after 17 years it was nearly too late to even try and start over

"I didn't know how to take care of you anymore. When I lost that confidence, there was no going back," his father to him.

"What's done is done," his mother reminded him. "At least know you know the truth."

"I was wrong about everything. I'm sorry," Spencer appologised.

"I am too Spencer," his father stated, coming to sit down next to him.

"But what isn't done is you and Harley. I expected to see a ring on her finger by now. It's been years, Spencer," his mother complained causing him to laugh and his father to look at him in shock.

"You have a girlfriend?"

"Yeah, the girl who was just in here actually. We've been together for almost seven years now," Spencer told him, smiling at the thought, and fingering the small box in his pocket that he'd bought just days ago.

Out in the hall, Harley walked up to Rossi and sat down next to him. "If you want to get to know me and be my father and all of that, you need to promise me that you aren't just going to walk away or check out when the going gets tough. Because things happen, and life is hard, and there are going to be bumps in the road. And I already have a dad, a good dad. But I have room enough for one more, I guess. But I need you to promise that you aren't just going to walk way, because I've seen what that's done to Spencer, with his dad and with Gideon. And I don't want that. I couldn't haddle that. So I need you to promise me you won't just up and leave."

Rossi smiled sadly and put an arm around her shoulder, drawing her into his side where she seemed to relax. "Alright, I promise."

"And you need to tell me when something happens on a case with Spencer. Because it's my job to be there for him, and it'd help if I knew ahead of time what was going on."

Rossi just laughed.

_._._._._

Spencer and Harley took a quick stop at the Nevada SPCA before their flight back to DC. Spencer wasn't expecting to find anything, choosing to stand back as Harley went up to each and every cage and smiled at every one of the dogs. She only truly stopped at one cage and when she looked back at Spencer, he knew that it was his time to agree or disagree to take the dog home with them.

Spencer walked over and looked at the tan and white American Bulldog puppy that had caught Harley's eye. It was… large, even for a puppy, with floppy ears and much too large paws. It also laid in its bed at the far end of the cage looking bored. It didn't react to Harley's fingers into the cage through the wires of the cage, and it didn't react when Harley started talking to it. "Hey, Pretty Girls. Do you want to come home with Spencer and I?"

The dog didn't respond until Spencer crouched down next to Harley and wrapped his own fingers around the wire of the cage. Then the dog was up and moving across the cage to come and sniff at their fingers.

Harley smiled. "Oh, so that's how it's going to be? You prefer Spencer. I see how it is."

Spencer smiled at the dog. "You want to come home with us?"

The dog barked as if it understood what he'd asked, and Spencer laughed along with Harley.

"What are we going to name you?" Harley smiled at the dog.

Spencer thought about names in the DC Comics universe as he looked at the dog in front of him before a name came to his mind and he smiled. "Lyssa."

Harley turned to stare at him for a minute before turning back to the dog with a wide smile on her face. Lyssa Drak was the name he'd chosen. The keeper of the book or Parallax. She'd made her first appearance in the DC world in 2007 in an issue of Green Lantern that Spencer had just barely flipped through in the comic book store he'd stopped at during a case to pick up a comic book for Harley because that's what he'd taken to bringing her back from cases in recent years. Comic books she didn't own. He wasn't sure that she read all of them, but he did know she held onto them. There was an entire bookcase in their new library in their new house.

Lyssa Drak wasn't a really big or important character, but Spencer figured it was the thought that counted. And the fact he picked a character from DC Comics at all was more than enough for Harley.

"Hi, Lyssa. You want to see DC?" Harley asked the dog with a wide grin and a sparkle in her eye. And Spencer knew that he'd just meet the third dog in their household. It was a good thing that they owned enough land to have four dogs on, legally.

When they returned to DC, Harley took Lyssa home to meet the other dogs while Spencer went to the hospital to see JJ and her new baby. He was named as godfather to Henry LaMontange, and he smiled at the thought. But looking down at little baby Henry made Spencer think of his future with Harley and their potential children. It made him think of Harley's own goddaughter and cousin, Aurora, up in Trenton. And it made him think of little Jack Hotchner. Babies are peculiar that way. They make you think of other children.

When Spencer returned home, he found Harley and all three of the dogs curled up on the couch asleep in front of an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Schrodinger was watching from a shelf above the TV until he noticed Spencer looking at him, and scampered off to another dark corner of the house. It would be a normal sight to return to from now on when he returned from cases, and Spencer would smiled. Just happy that his was his life. His reality.

Later, Harley would laugh when Spencer told her about giving a hooker $2000 dollars after a conversation about how to quit smoking. And Spencer would ask about how she got out of babysitting three grown adult women. But for now, he put down his messenger back, pulled off his tie, and laid down next to Harley on the couch, cuddling into her back as the dogs move to cover him as well. It felt like home.

And nothing and no one was going to take that away from him.

Now he just had to do something with the little box in his messenger bag. The little box with the shiny little ring that he'd picked out from a shop in Las Vegas when Harley told him she would come out and help him solve Riley Jenkins case. A ring he really should have bought a long time ago, but had been putting it off until Harley came when he called, and stayed even after she decided he was wrong. She'd proven that the one thing he'd always worried about (that she'd walk out, like his father had, like Gideon had) wasn't going to happen.

Now, he just needed to find the right moment to ask the question.

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."

― Marilyn Monroe

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