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Chapter Eleven
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Spencer Reid woke up overly warm, sluggish and disorientated at finding himself in a strange place. As he sat up, scrubbed at his eyes with his hand and yawned, he remembered, "Oh, right, it's Dad's place."
Well, that answered one question. Overly warm and sluggish were just as quickly figured out when he saw that he'd been sleeping under a heavy quilt and that it was 5:12 on a very warm afternoon. Throwing off the quilt, he got up and took a glance around the spare bedroom of his father's bungalow. The furniture seemed right out of the sixties: a headboard with sliding door cabinets, bed coverings done in oranges and yellows and a cheap-looking teak dresser (likely with a pressboard backing) in faux Danish modern. There was even a tv on the dresser with a set of rabbit-ear antennas; he couldn't remember the last time he had seen one of those.
He found his father in a tiny but sunny kitchen near the back of the house. Two places were set at the silver-rimmed formica table (and were those jelly glasses?) and his father was busy at the stove.
"How are you feeling, Spencer?" the older man asked.
"All right."
"Did you have a good sleep?"
"Yes," he lied. His head still felt heavy and logy. "Uh… thank you."
His father nodded.
"You have a nice place," Spencer said, feeling incredibly awkward. "The décor is… interesting."
"If you're talking about the furniture, it came with the house." He shrugged when his son looked at him. "I've never cared much for decorating."
Spencer found that a more illustrative peek into his father's personality than perhaps the senior Reid intended - it spoke of a possible profound lack of interest in his surroundings, perhaps even mild depression - but said nothing. After all, he was hardly one to talk.
"Dinner's almost ready."
"Actually, I think I should be going. I still need to find a hotel."
"You could stay here."
"That's very kind, but…uh…"
"Spencer, don't worry. I won't press you. I realize things are still…" William Reid sighed. "Look, I didn't take what happened this afternoon as a sign of your forgiving me. I know I've hurt you far too deeply and far too often for a mere one-time gesture of comfort to make up for it all. But stay for dinner. I'd like to know you had a good meal. Afterwards, I'll help you find a hotel and drive you there."
Spencer nodded after a moment. "All right. Thank you."
"Now, I hope you like stir fry, because that's about the only proper meal I know how to cook. Well, perhaps other than omelettes, so if you'd prefer one of those - "
"Stir fry's fine. I like Asian food."
Their conversation during dinner was stilted and uncomfortable, especially after William asked if there was anyone special in his life and Spencer tersely explained about the loss of Maeve, leaving him further depressed and his father severely contrite and self-conscious. After that, the only other thing said between them was William's compliment on his son's skills with chopsticks. *
When dinner was finished, the senior Reid insisted on cleaning up by himself and told his son to relax in the living room. Spencer went after a token protest, and idly strolled around the room, gazing at the pictures on the wall. He stopped to look at a black and white shot of a middle-aged couple standing beside what looked like a '63 Chevy Bel Air.
His father's parents.
Spencer stared at the picture, all of a sudden feeling untethered and adrift in space.
"They're still your grandparents, you know," his father, coming into the room, said upon seeing his obsession with the photo.
"Are they? How? I never met them. They never knew about me to be able to love me. Before, I at least had blood connection, the thought that I carried traits of theirs - living parts of them - that would pass down through me to my own children and grandchildren, but that's not true anymore. They've been reduced now to random strangers who died before I was born." What he didn't say, and was only just realizing, was that even his connection to the man before him was tenuous and misty. His breakdown that afternoon had reminded him that, yes, his father and he did share a history, but how strong was it? A fleeting familiarity that provided a bit of comfort in a moment of extreme duress, but wasn't it all in the past? His mother had always been part of his life, but did a brief few years of being a family over two decades ago really give William Reid the solidity in his son's memories to stand up against a potential replacement? Reid reflected on the irony that he technically had four parents, but had never felt so orphaned and alone. He wondered how gain could feel so much like loss.
He turned to look at his father. "When you left, and Mom asked you to take me, how come you didn't?"
"Spencer…"
"I always told myself you left because of Mom's illness, that that could be the only really logical answer because, for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what I could have done as a ten-year-old boy to make you hate me. The thing was, though, I could never quite believe it. You didn't just leave us, you left me, specifically. And not just with my mother, but with a woman you had every reason to believe wouldn't be able to care for me. How could you do that?"
"It was the hardest thing I ever did in my life."
"Really? Because you stayed away twenty-two years, so you must have been pretty damn good at it!" Reid shouted.
"Spencer, I was an alcoholic."
Reid was taken aback.
"Well, truthfully, I am an alcoholic," William Reid went on. "You're never cured." He pulled something out of his pocket, something his son was very familiar with. "This is my ten year chip."
"I…I know what it is…" Spencer said in a whisper.
"Spencer, if you believe nothing else, I want you to believe this: I did not leave because you were a bad son. I did not leave because I hated you or thought you were worthless. I left because I was a bad parent and a weak man."
"You were going to give me away…"
"No, Spencer! God, no. Yes, I left to try and track down your real parents, but I wasn't going to just give you up! Not like that! You know what I was really hoping for?" William asked.
"What was that?"
"I prayed every night that your real parents were dead. I know that sounds horrible, but I thought, 'If they were just dead, or violent, abusive criminals…' Then I would have turned and ran right home to you and your mother and never looked back, because then we could have kept you without a moment's guilt. Other times, I hoped they were saints, not because I wanted to lose you, but because I thought you deserved so much better than an ill mother and a drunken father. But even if they had turned out to be good people, I would have fought for you. I would have done all in my power to keep you, or, at the very least, obtained visitation rights. I can't ask you to believe me, but I wouldn't have just handed you over and abandoned you with a glad goodbye."
"That all sounds very well and good, but it is a little hard to believe considering the very salient fact that you didn't find them and yet you still never came home."
William Reid sank down upon his couch and looked up at his son, bleak and exhausted. "I never pictured that it would take so long," he said, his voice breaking. "A day became a week and then a year and then five… By the time I gave up searching the first time, I wasn't in any shape to be a father anymore. I was drinking and just barely hanging onto my job; I even lived out of my car for awhile.
"I'm embarrassed to say I didn't get sober until I found out you had had your mother committed. When I thought of how I had left that for you to deal with, how that must have destroyed you, I don't think I'd ever felt more ashamed in my life. So I started going to AA meetings. It didn't go well at first. It took about three or four years of stops and starts before I got to the point where it seemed to stick.
"By then though, you were in the FBI, and… I don't know, it felt wrong to get in touch with you then. I told myself that I'd write you when I'd been sober a year, but then I always kept finding a reason to keep putting it off. I told myself that it was wrong, or sleazy somehow, to claim you then, after you'd done so well for yourself, when I'd never been there when you needed me most. Really, though, I think I was simply being a coward again. You were so strong, taking care of your mother and getting all those degrees, and then, to get into the FBI! Honestly, what I was truly afraid of was that you'd look at me with nothing but contempt, and I was too weak to handle that and stay on the wagon."
Reid reached into his own pocket. He passed over a very similar looking chip to his father. "I wouldn't have. Not if you'd come at the right time."
William Reid stared up at his son, tears starting at his eyes. "Oh… oh, God."
-x-
Any talk of a hotel room was forgotten as the two men talked for hours. William Reid went on to tell of how he hadn't answered Spencer's letters after the Riley Jenkins case because he'd been shaken by the other's anger and pain. "I'd convinced myself that you were happy, but then all of a sudden you were there, looking both so old and so young, and you needed answers so, so badly - after that, I felt I had to make sure I had some before I came into your life again."
"I was happy. I am happy, mostly," Spencer told him, "But your staying away was not the right answer, Dad."
They talked further and Spencer told his father some of the things he went through after the other man had left. About how he and Diana had lived on a diet of Pop Tarts for awhile because he was afraid to use the stove, thinking that if something caught on fire he might not be able to convince his mother to follow him out and he'd been too small to physically force her. Or about how he couldn't have anyone come to the house for fear of them finding out what was going on, and that meant strangers and friends alike. What few playmates he'd had (not schoolmates, but neighbourhood children) after awhile began to throw eggs at their front window, saying it was a 'witch's house' and he'd found himself even more of an outcast than before. He talked about how hard it was to care for Diana, the chores, the endless begging and pleading with her to get out of bed or eat or take her medication, the futile attempts to calm her down during her episodes; how his life had steadily grown smaller as it started to revolve more and more around her, and even more lonely as he realized that, in many ways, she wasn't there either.
"On her bad days, and even some of her not-so-bad days, she lived in a fantasy world that I couldn't quite enter. I could talk to her sometimes, but I was still standing on the outside of whatever events were playing out in her head. And she didn't really live in my world either: the day I graduated high school, she asked me where I'd been that day."
"I'm sorry, Spencer."
"You know, if you'd been there, there would've been at least someone to celebrate with me that day. Maybe even to come to the ceremony. At least, there would have been someone to tell, 'Hey, I graduated today.' "
Later, in the wee hours just before dawn, they talked about David Rossi. Spencer confided his belief that Rossi possibly cared for him as a friend, but as a parent was only interested in the grown-up version of baby Jimmy.
"You're afraid to trust him. That's my fault."
"Don't flatter yourself unduly," Reid said bitterly, a touch angry at how his father assumed everything was about him. "I've had a lot of people give me reasons to mistrust the average person."
"Still, a lot of this is me. It's hard to believe you'll be loved when one of the people who are automatically supposed to love you takes off."
"I know I disappointed you."
"Spencer, I told you, that wasn't the reason I left."
"I meant before, when I was young. I didn't want to play on your ball team. I wasn't a… regular child."
"You didn't disappoint me. Yes, I dreamed I'd have a whole bunch of kids and they'd all play ball and I'd coach their teams, and it was hard to let go of that. But that's what parents are supposed to do: adjust to who their child really is. If I made you feel bad for that, then that was my failure, not yours.
"But I also know it takes time. David Rossi isn't going to manage it over night. Even if you had grown up with him, there'd still be the difference between who you are and what he'd dream you'd be. Every parent has to reconcile between the fact and fantasy of our adult children, but most do it gradually as the child grows.
However, while they made a start, things were not solved between the two men that night; there was too much anger and recrimination on Reid's side and too much sorrow and regret on his father's. There were entire episodes that Reid didn't even get to, simply because they were too big and there was a limit to how much he could deal with in one day. Things like the football team tying him to the goalpost and him being there till midnight because there was no one to even notice he was gone, let alone worry about him, or the years he'd lived in fear of developing schizophrenia because his parents hadn't told him he was adopted, or the pain of knowing he'd never get to meet his real mother because his father had given up looking for his biological parents for a number of years before the Riley Jenkins case and so the answers came too late. But as Spencer finally spoke of Tobias Hankel and what he'd gone through with his own addiction, he found there was a touch more understanding in his heart now. Reid wasn't sure if he and his father would ever be close, or even if he could get past his adolescence to completely forgive the man, but when William dropped him off at the airport the next day, he found himself saying, "I won't write you, not after the last time when you didn't answer any of my letters. But if you want to write to me, I might consider answering."
William Reid didn't say anything, but he nodded with a small, grateful smile.
There was no hug, or handshake, or even a wave, but Spencer was sincere when he said, "Goodbye, Dad. I hope… I hope I hear from you soon."
"Goodbye, Spencer. I won't promise anything, because I'm determined not to break another, but I'll really try."
-x-
Reid made it back home only a day later than his team-mates, but feeling like a hundred years had passed.
Despite his working out several things with his father, as he paid the taxi driver and walked up the stairs of his building to his apartment, he realized he felt deeply dissatisfied and unsettled. The plane ride back had been used for catching up on his sleep, but now his mind was brooding on his current situation once more. Round and round it went as emptied his go-bag into the laundry hamper and packed new things to be ready for work tomorrow. (Hotch had thankfully taken his side-arm from him before he went to Vegas and took it home on the jet with the team, so that had been one less thing to worry about having to fly commercial.)
The team is the problem, Reid thought as he put on a pot of coffee. Because he realized something very important:
He didn't want to be Rossi's son.
It wasn't that he necessarily wanted to be William Reid's son, or that he believed he had to make a choice, he was just… tired. Tired of the pain and guilt and endless drama.
So take a break for awhile, but don't give up. Exhaustion is not the best place to be making a long-term decision from, his conscience told him.
So what? Just for once, can't I make a gut decision? Can't I just take the easy path this one goddamn time?
So you're going to cheat yourself just because of the pain your mother caused you?
Reid's mind tried to dance away from the thought, but he couldn't stop a tiny part of him from understanding that that was the crux of the matter. He wanted to back away because of the supreme hurt his mother had inflicted on him. She was the one person I always thought loved me for myself, but apparently it was always Christopher she wanted. His father's words in the car came back to him, but they now seemed weak and ineffectual.
To hell with it! To hell with being strong and making the wise choice or the choice that's good for everyone. This one damn time, life can back off for a bit, he thought.
But that lead to a new problem: if he didn't agree to try and be want Rossi wanted, he wasn't sure the two of them could remain friends. You can't deny a man a relationship with his son and then not expect him to resent it eventually, that damn conscience spoke up again.
"I suppose there's only one thing to do then," he said to no one.
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*A little shout-out to my first Criminal Minds fic, "Nimble-fingers".
Thank you to everyone who read/reviewed/favourited my last chapter. (I hope no one misses this one, thinking I'm just re-posting the last one or something!) And yes, we will get back to Rossi soon. There is more drama ahead!
