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Chapter Eight

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The calls had been going on for roughly three weeks before Dave worked up the courage to blurt out, "Can I ask you something?"

"Uh…sure," Reid said, sounding a little surprised the other man felt the need to ask permission.

"Did you think of Gideon as a father?"

There was silence on the other end and Dave was on the verging of quickly backtracking, afraid he'd over-stepped his bounds, when Spencer said, "I'm not sure. I suppose I did in some ways, but well, that description doesn't seem quite right."

"In what way?"

"This might sound a bit silly, but honestly, I thought him as being more similar to my mother."

"Your mother?"

"I don't mean I thought of him as being motherly, or in the role of my mother, or anything like that. It's simply more that they seemed to have certain personality traits in common, at least when interacting with me."

"For instance?" Dave prodded, genuinely curious.

"It's hard to put my finger on, but they both had the same attitude towards my intelligence. Most people… most people don't react that well."

It was surprising to Rossi how swiftly - and strongly - his parental instincts had kicked in in the mere six weeks since he'd been given his son back. How even just standing there in his kitchen, phone in one hand, spoon stirring a bowl full of tomato sauce for his cannelloni in the other, his body instantly became alert at the slightest shift in his son's tone of voice. Sure, he'd always been an observant and vigilant man - you don't survive a war and a career in the FBI, not to mention growing up in the neighbourhood he had, otherwise - and yes, he'd grown extremely protective of his team-mates, but these new alarm bells and sudden desires to take anyone who messed with his kid and tear them a new one, were something else.

"What do you mean?" he asked now, as normally as he could.

He could practically see Spencer's trying-to-be-nonchalant-everything's-okay shrug as the younger man attempted to explain. "People react… oddly. Some want to use you, but most sort of try to back away without looking like they're backing away. I guess it scares them."

Dave held the phone away from him for a second and took a deep breath. Him haring off into overprotective papa bear mode and shouting was not what the kid needed right now. And, if he thought about it objectively - something that was astoundingly difficult to do at the moment - he knew what Spencer was talking about. Super-intelligence frightened some people. They felt inferior, or were afraid of losing their jobs, or even just freaked that someone that smart was going to instantly know everything about them and use it to manipulate them in some way.

On the other hand, when it's suddenly your kid suffering at the hands of these ignorant, weak-minded pansy-asses…

"Is that the only way people react?" he forced himself to ask calmly.

"There's a variety of reactions in between those two extremes. Some are impressed until you say something, then they sort of gawk at you like you're a circus geek and start avoiding you after that. Others are more accepting, but it's sort of like they're tolerating you, putting up with a fault you can't help."

Putting up with a fault you can't help does he mean us? Does the team fall into that category? Dave worried. "But your Mom and Gideon?" he asked.

"I suppose the best way to describe their general attitude would be as a sort of matter-of-fact confidence. Sometimes they over-estimated me - what I could handle, what I understood - but they both seemed to naturally assume I could deal with things. And they just… I don't know, I was normal to them, you know? They appreciated my intelligence, were proud of it, but it didn't seem to faze them at all. It didn't make them insecure themselves.

"And they seemed to understand me better than other people," Spencer continued, his voice gathering a touch of speed the longer Dave went without shutting him up. "My Dad - uh, my other Dad - he didn't always know how to react to me. I mean, I understand more now what he was trying to do in forcing me to do normal "kid" things, but my mother was the one who knew that I sometimes I honestly needed more, whether it was mental stimulation, or more in-depth explanations, or even just someone who talked to me at the level I was capable of. I wasn't an adult obviously, but I also wasn't a normal four-year-old."

Dave paused in his stirring. For the first time, he asked himself how he and Carolyn would have handled their son's extraordinary abilities.

"Of course," Spencer said, "I don't usually tell people that because then they assume Mom was some kind of Tiger mother, depriving me of my childhood in order to quiz me with flashcards in my crib."

"Of course," Dave agreed. Honestly though, he had wondered. He went back to his stirring. "So was that the only way Gideon was like your Mom?"

"Well, they also had the same quiet, interrogative approach whenever I had a problem. And Gideon and I shared similar tastes, to some degree anyway, and even though those tastes weren't the same as my mother's, the way that I could share something with him was. Gideon was the most likely to have read the same books I had, or would enjoy any books I might pass along, and vice versa. He liked classical music, chess, and puzzles. It made things nice to be able to share them with someone else and not be called 'stuffy' or told that I needed to 'broaden my horizons'."

Rossi raised an eyebrow, even though Spencer couldn't see it. "Is that a dig, Kid?" he joked.

"What? No. Though I do in fact find it quite perplexing when people tell me that. My tastes in books and music encompass centuries, not to mention dozens of different countries, whereas the person making the comment usually has never delved into anything made outside of the U.S. or created any earlier than the last forty years. Quite frankly, it seems to me that it's not necessarily my horizons that need broadening."

"I never thought of it like that. Personally, I work on the premise that good music stopped being made after 1965 and that everyone else has absolutely terrible taste for thinking any different."

Spencer chuckled. "I thought roughly the same thing after you all finally made me watch A Clockwork Orange."

Dave remembered that. The movie had just ended when the kid turned to stare at them. It was if he was re-examining them all under a new light.

"Well, what did you think, Spence?" J.J. had asked. "Spence?" she said again when he didn't answer.

"Oh, sorry, I was just revising a few things in my head."

"About Beethoven?" a smirking Morgan asked.

Reid had continued to stare. A beat. Then, "… yes, about Beethoven. I'm revising what I know about Beethoven," he stressed seriously. Perhaps too seriously. A corner of the genius's mouth had quirked up in an expression they couldn't quite read, but knew they probably wouldn't like the meaning of. (1)

"So you didn't enjoy the movie, then?" Dave said.

"On the contrary, it was a very liberating experience. Until then, I'd always felt bad thinking my tastes were weird, but it suddenly occurred to me that all of you might simply like utter garbage."

"Don't tell me you're a snob now."

"Intellectual snobbery goes both ways, I find. But apparently only one way is socially acceptable to express," Spencer said and Dave noticed the change in his voice.

"Did I insult you?"

"No, not really," Spencer said, sounding a bit sad. "I just get a little tired of people harping on my different likes and dislikes sometimes. It can be a bit isolating. And unfair. I've really got nothing against popular culture, but I do get a little sick of being constantly put down for having tastes that fall outside of it."

Dave considered that as he put his sauce aside and started stuffing pasta tubes with a filling of spinach and ground beef. He'd never considered it might bother Spencer to be constantly teased, but even friendly ribbing could still be oppressive if it went on long enough. And hadn't they been mostly serious when they called him things like 'stuffy' and 'dull'? How would that not get under someone's skin after awhile, especially considering the uproar that would take place if Reid ever turned around and suggested that their own tastes might be puerile or simplistic, for instance.

"You must have missed Gideon quite a bit when he left," Dave said.

"Yes. I still do at times. Not that I'm not glad you joined us," Reid was quick to add.

"It's all right, Kid." Well, mostly. "You must have been very hurt, though?"

"I was. I have to admit, it was very hard, especially the way it happened. But you know, everybody thinks he was too wrapped up in himself to see my suffering, but honestly, the exact same thing could have been said about me."

"You don't feel guilty, do you?"

"Not guilt, per se, but I do feel some regret. The truth is, I was struggling, so I didn't see what he was going through after his friend Sarah was killed. Add to that the fact that he'd gone through a major depressive episode not two years before, and the guilt I knew he felt over what happened to me, and over Hotch getting suspended…" Rossi heard Reid sigh. "I think I forgave him in the end because in some ways his leaving was as unavoidable as my mother's illness. I believe it's very likely he had another breakdown. I wish he'd stayed and let us help, but I don't think he could have. Hotch always said Gideon was damned by his profound knowledge of others, which was why he couldn't bring himself to share more than a tiny bit of himself. It just wasn't in him to be able to come to us and share so much."

"You're more understanding than I would have been, Kid. I always thought he was a good enough man, I suppose, but I still found him to be an arrogant S.O.B."

"I'm not saying he couldn't be at times, but he wasn't usually like that with me. At first, I worried that it was because he didn't see me as strong, that he was coddling me or being more careful of my feelings because he saw me as inherently more fragile. Other times, I found it slightly condescending; I considered that maybe he didn't see me as a threat. But as time went on, I realized he just seemed to be more comfortable with me. For all his arrogance - or maybe that was a symptom - he wasn't always completely at ease with other people. Maybe he felt more relaxed around me because he thought school boy awe would keep me from presuming to examine or question him too closely, but I like to think we simply understood each other. It's sort of ironic: our difficulties in bonding with others are what we bonded over."

Dave supposed it was another one of those parental things bursting out of him, but he felt an unexpected pride not only for his son's capacity for forgiveness, but for his insight and the way he showed Dave a whole new way of looking at someone he had thought he had known.

Well, what else did you expect? his inner voice asked. You already know the kid is an excellent profiler. Why are you so surprised?

"Dave, why did you ask about Gideon?" Spencer asked, pulling him back out of his reverie.

Rossi breathed out heavily. "I don't really know. You and he were close. And it's a part of your life I don't know much about."

"But you wanted to know if I thought of him as a father."

"Maybe I wanted to know how you relate to…" Dave paused, unsure of how to phrase it. "Other older men in your life? Role models? Maybe even just people in general."

"Does it bother you that Jason and I were friends? That I looked up to him?"

"It doesn't bother me, but I do feel a little envious of him."

"You don't have to be. He's been gone a long time. And even if he hadn't, our relationship is completely different. You aren't some sort of second class replacement. I'm not sitting here wishing he had turned out to be my father instead. Besides, like I said, I didn't really think of him as a father even then. And even if I had, I probably would have stopped after he made a point of telling Elle not to call him 'Dad'."

"He really did that?"

"Yeah, but he might have been joking around. It could be hard to tell with him."

"You got that right."

"Dave?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think of Hotch as your son?"

Dave stopped what he was doing and considered the question seriously. "I don't know. Perhaps. He's a younger man that I'm very close to, and sometimes I give him advice, but I think it's more brotherly then father and son. When I think of the relationship between Aaron and myself, I think it's the kind of thing I would have liked to have had with Frank."

"Oh, okay."

"So you're not a second-class replacement either."

"Okay."

"Something's still bothering you. Tell me what's on your mind, Kid."

"Over the years though, you must have fantasized about what your son would be like."

"And so now you're worried that I'm disappointed?"

"It's more than that."

"But partly that."

"Look, maybe we should call it a night."

Dave strode away from the counter and out of the kitchen, as if changing his location lent more seriousness to his words. "Don't shut me out, Kid. You can talk to me about anything." What's going on? How the hell did this suddenly start going downhill so fast?

"No, I can't. Not about everything."

"Yes. About everything."

"What if it's something you don't want to hear?"

"There's nothing I don't want to hear. If you've got a problem with any part of this, then I want to know so I can either fix it or accept it and not sit here twiddling my thumbs, wondering what the hell I got wrong. Now, are you upset I asked about Gideon?"

"No."

"Are you upset that I asked a question in the first place? After all, I told you that you were calling the shots."

"No."

"Then can you tell me what it is?"

No answer was immediately forthcoming and the seconds dragged on in much the same never-ending, watch-the-clock way as when Dave was a boy and forced to sit in his Sunday best and visit with elderly relatives. "Kiddo, you still there?"

"Why do you call me that so often now?"

"What? Kiddo?"

"Or Kid."

"It's a term of endearment."

"Dave, why do you want me in your life?"

"Because you're my son and I love you."

"Do you? Just like that?"

"What the hell are you going on about?"

"Dave… Look, I like to think I have my good points, but I'm a drug addict and I'm awkward and I don't like sports and I freak people out all the time with my rambling and statistics, and those things haven't magically disappeared simply because I'm now connected in your mind to the child you lost thirty-two years ago."

"That's not why I care!"

"Are you sure? You can't even seem to use my real name anymore."

"I - "

"Dave," Reid stated calmly, "I'm happy I don't have to compete with Hotch, but I also can't compete against your dreams of your son."

"Who said you were?"

"I'm not accusing you of anything, but I don't want to lead you on either. You seem so… When I said I wasn't comparing you to Gideon, it's because you're two different people. But when you said I wasn't a second class replacement for Hotch, you made it sound like it was because you loved me so much more. But I don't know if I can match that feeling yet, if ever. I hope that you'll always be in my life, but I still don't know if it'll be as father or friend. And I'm also not sure if I trust your sudden affection for me. It's completely understandable you've been dreaming of James all these years, but perhaps it's clouding your vision of me. And I don't want that. Dave, I may be your son biologically, but I can't be the grown-up version of James. For better or worse, William and Diana Reid have shaped me into who I am now and I am just as much a Reid as a Rossi. So if you want to go on, you have to be my father, not baby James's."

"Kid…Spencer," Dave automatically started to protest, but then changed his mind. "No, you're right," he admitted. "I have dreamt of James for years, and I am having some trouble disentangling you from that picture. That's unavoidable. But I'll work on it. Just don't give up on this. Yes, it's going to take time. But don't push me away just yet, all right?"

"I just don't want to hurt you," Spencer said hesitantly. "And I don't want to be hurt either."

"I get that. And I understand where you're coming from with all this. But that's why it's good that we're talking like this. We're each getting to know who the other really is."

"I suppose…"

That night Spencer hemmed and hawed and Dave cajoled, but as the next couple of weeks went by and Dave didn't get a single phone call from the younger man, he wasn't quite surprised. Sad, confused and discouraged, but not surprised, especially when Spencer started to avoid even looking at him at work.

It was towards the end of May and they were on a case in Seattle before Dave got a few answers.

It had been a long, hard case - two Unsubs, brothers, one a predator whose preferential urges ran to toddlers and the other an arsonist obsessed with using fire to cleanse the world around him. And, on top of everything, they'd lost the bastards. The pair had made a run for the coast, actually making it to about half a mile out to sea when an explosion had blown their boat sky high. "Here's hoping the animals were blown to bits and that the fish are chewing on them right now," Rossi toasted bitterly to his empty hotel room with a ridiculously tiny and over-priced bottle of scotch from the mini-bar. But that's all it was: hope. They had to hope the Unsubs hadn't gotten away somehow, that they weren't escaping to wreak havoc on some other poor town at this very minute. And after the pitiful luck they'd had for the past two weeks, that was a damn hard hope to hold onto.

A knock sounded at the door and Rossi got up, expecting his room service order. Instead, Reid was standing there.

"If it wasn't for Chief Strauss, I wouldn't still be on the team," Reid said.

Dave just stood there in his sock feet. His vision suddenly went a bit watery and he had to swallow harshly before he could answer. "So you remembered."

Reid nodded.

"Jeez, Kid… uh, Spencer… you're soaking wet!" The man's hair was plastered to his skull in bedraggled, dripping strands and he was making a small puddle on the carpet in the corridor.

"It's still raining." The storm was what had kept the team stranded the city.

"Come in and get dried off," Dave ordered. "You didn't want to stay at the bar with the others and have Morgan's offer of a drink or five?" he asked as Reid came in and walked towards the bathroom.

"No, not really."

Dave passed Reid a of hangar from the closet. "Take off your jacket and hang it on the shower curtain. Take your shoes and socks off too. I'll put them on the heating vent to dry. Actually, you should take off everything; I'll give you a robe you can wear." It occurred to him later that he could have suggested Reid go to his own room to shower and change, but he wanted so badly for the other man to stay it never came to mind at the time.

"Do you want something from room service?" Rossi asked as he passed in said robe. "I've already got a meal coming up."

"No, that's not necessary."

"I insist."

"A coffee, then," Reid asked as he shyly came out of the bathroom, clearly a little embarrassed at the fuss Rossi was making.

"A meal, Kid…uh, Spencer."

"No, I'm not hungry."

"All right." Dave went to the phone and called to add a pot of coffee to his order. Then he turned to Reid. "So, can I ask you meant you meant? About Erin?"

Reid sat on the bed. His long fingers twitched and Rossi could tell he was hesitant. "It was just after Senator Cramer's hearing. After Emily came back," Reid said finally.

"You were actually considering leaving?" It wasn't much of a surprise, but Rossi still didn't like to hear it.

Reid nodded. "Chief Strauss asked Emily if she was coming back and Emily said yes, and then we all went home. But then Chief Strauss - "

Rossi sat down next to Reid on the bed. "You can call her Erin, you know," Dave told him.

"I prefer Chief Strauss. It doesn't feel… respectful… the other way. She deserves 'Chief Strauss'."

If any of the others had said that, Dave reflected, it would have been meant an entirely different way. But when Reid called Erin by her title, Rossi realized it was out of politeness, even friendship, and he found himself touched at this old-fashioned, rather endearing courtesy.

"In any case," Reid continued. "Chief Strauss saw me walking to the Metro and asked me if I would like a lift. I didn't, I wanted to be alone, but she said she'd realized something after we'd all left: that Emily had accepted a place back on the team, but that I hadn't asked for mine back yet.

"Needless to say, I didn't want to have that conversation on the street, so I got in and she drove me home. On the way, I explained that I had had another offer and that I was very tempted."

"Really? What other offer?"

"Do you remember those three and a half months between J.J.'s return and Emily's coming back?"

"You weren't on sabbatical then, I take it?" (2)

"No. I was on assignment. I can't tell you what, or even where, but it was…"

"Tempting."

"Yes."

Neither man said anything for a few moments. "So Erin talked you out of it?" Dave asked after some time.

"Not so much talked me out of it… She just, well, she was very understanding. And she gave me some very good advice."

"What did she say?"

"She asked me to wait three months. She said it was for my sake, not anyone else's. She told me that if I left then, in anger, I'd grow to feel like I'd run away from something. However, she said, if I waited and tried to make a go of it for three months and then still decided to leave, it would be merely moving on and not running."

"So you decided to give it the three months?"

"Yeah. I admit, I nearly gave up when the days went on and J. J. never said sorry, or when Emily's apparent go-to answer after months of emotional manipulation was more emotional manipulation, but I stuck it out and - eventually - was glad that I had decided to stay." (3)

Dave pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to squeeze back the tears that were threatening to escape from his eyes. Erin there are no words. You kept my son in my life long enough for me to find him. I can never thank you enough.

"Dave? Are you all right?"

Dave sniffled and nodded. "Yeah, kid, I'm all right."

"Dave, I know what it's like," Reid said softly.

"I know you do, Spencer. And I am so very, very sorry for that."

Reid looked away. "I'm sorry for you and Chief Strauss. I wish she could be here with you." Then Reid turned to him and smiled. "Even if it would have been extremely strange to have my superior as my step-mother."

Dave couldn't help it, a laugh erupted from him. "I hadn't even considered that! God, now I'm wondering how the Hell I would have broken it to her that her new step-son was one of her own subordinates."

"So she was going to become the fourth Mrs. Rossi?" Reid asked.

"It was moving in that direction," Dave admitted.

They both were silent for awhile, contemplating marriages and lost potential step-mothers and daughters-in-law. Rossi dwelled sadly on the idea that if Spencer had gotten to marry Maeve, he himself might have had grandchildren just around the corner to look forward to.

"Spencer?"

"Yes?"

"How come you never ask about your mother?"

Reid stood suddenly. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Please? It's… it's very important to me."

"I can't."

Dave knew he might have just made a mistake, but he had to keep going. "You know, Carolyn was a very understanding woman. Even if she were alive, she wouldn't have expected to replace Diana."

"It's not that," Reid explained as he started to pace.

"Then what?"

Reid halted. "I'll never meet her! Never. Do you know what that means? For God's sake, I've got an eidetic memory! Every damn book I've read since I was seven is locked up in here," he shouted, tapping a finger on his temple. "So how can it possibly be fair that out of all the millions of images and bits of information I've got in my head, not one single one of them will EVER be of her?"

Rossi laid a hand on his son's forearm. "Spencer…"

"No!" Reid demanded, ripping his arm away. "No! It's not fair! I lost Maeve after barely even getting a glimpse of her! Now people are being ripped away from me without even that much? NO!" He began to gather up his clothes and shoes.

"Spencer, wait. You don't have to leave!"

"Please, Rossi, I need to go," Reid pleaded.

Dave backed off. "All right."

Reid opened the door, his things bundled in his arms, and stalked off. Rossi followed him as far as the corridor, only to spot a shocked Morgan staring at him.

"What's up with Pretty Boy? He looked upset."

"He came to talk to me about Erin. It's the anniversary of her death."

"Rossi, man, I'm sorry. I forgot all about it."

"It's all right. But Reid and I were talking and Erin's death lead to Maeve's…"

Morgan peered at him closely and Rossi could tell the man didn't quite buy his story. "Why was he in nothing but a robe?"

"He got wet from the storm."

"He seemed angry too, not just sad."

Dave shrugged. "What can I tell you?"

"Is there something going on between the two of you?" Morgan demanded.

"What do you mean?"

"You two having some kind of problem?"

"No, nothing like that."

"Uh huh."

"Good night, Morgan."

Morgan nodded back, but something told Rossi the other man wasn't going to let this go.

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Author's notes:

1) This is a tag to a specific scene in "The Performer".

2) From 7x01 "It Takes A Village":

Senator Cramer: And how long have you been back with the Bureau?

J.J. : Three and a half months, sir.

Senator Cramer: A lot has happened since then - sabbaticals, transfers, reassignments. Four of you remained in the Unit?

J. J. : Agents Morgan, Rossi and I were there with our Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia.

Those four were there, Hotch was in Afghanistan and Emily was 'dead'. So where the hell was Reid? Come on, J.J, I know that case wasn't your finest moment (I have so many problems with that episode), but were you really so caught up that you forgot you had a seventh team member?

And you, the show's writers, you couldn't have done something with that mystery in all this time? What a lost opportunity!

Hmm… I might have to rectify that.

3) Re-watching "It Takes A Village" recently, I noticed a few things. For instance, Hotch immediately took the blame for what had happened and practically the first words out of Emily's mouth were, "I'm sorry" - in other words, both took responsibility for their deception and expressed remorse. But did J.J? It's been a long time since I've seen "Proof", but I don't remember her saying a single thing about what she had done until Reid said grief had nearly driven him to take Dilaudid again.

As for Reid thinking about leaving (and very likely this is nothing new to any of you), Senator Cramer said something about Reid being the only one who hadn't asked for his suspension to be lifted. At that time, I think he was protecting the team from being prosecuted over his decision to trade Doyle for Declan, but the timing also ties in nicely with the conversation he had with Emily in "True Genius". I very much doubt it was just his birthday that had him reconsidering his career.

Anyway, a happy Easter to all those who celebrate it, and for the rest I hope you're having a beautiful Sunday. Thanks again to all of you for reading!