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Chapter Twenty-One
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It had been decided several days before, that once Reid was out of the hospital, he would be moved into one of Morgan's finished properties - a bungalow, so that everything was on one floor, and Morgan had even put in safety bars in the bathroom - and tended to by a hired nurse, supplemented daily by the rest of the team on a rotation schedule. Reid himself, feeling in desperate need of both some solitude and independence, had been extremely grateful for the plan, especially in light of the emotional and practical problems he would have encountered in staying with any one specific team member.
When the actual time came, however, Reid found himself regretting that he wasn't going to Dave's. Confused and emotionally overwhelmed by stories of his mother, he didn't say a word as Rossi and Morgan, who had come by to help, loaded him into a wheelchair and escorted him out of the hospital.
"You okay there, Reid?" Morgan asked as he assisted Spencer into the SUV while Rossi went back inside to return the chair. "A man gets sprung after two weeks in the hospital, he's usually happy about it."
"I'm all right."
"You sure? Only you seem to be thinking so hard you're weighing down the air around you."
Reid's shoulders hunched in a little, in his emotional state taking an observation for criticism. "Sorry," he whispered.
"Geez, Reid, I didn't mean it like that. I'm just worried about you. You seem down."
He was on the verge of explaining about how Dave had been telling him stories about his mother, but at that moment Rossi returned and so Reid refrained, not wanting Dave to feel guilty over making him sad. Still, an hour later, when Dave and Morgan left after getting him settled and visiting with him for a bit, Reid was torn. On one hand, he wanted to hear more about his mother, despite the ache it was causing in his chest, but on the other, he wanted some time alone to absorb these new emotions and to try and figure out why the idea of Dave's departure was so suddenly upsetting.
As the weeks went on though, and Reid settled into the new routine, he appreciated the space afforded to him by this arrangement. It gave him time to think and to sort out his real feelings from the general vulnerability caused by pain, exhaustion and the trauma of the accident itself. Unbeknownst to him, that was exactly what Fran Morgan had told Dave.
Dave had been surprised, but strangely pleased, when Fran had called him after returning to Chicago to see how both he and Spencer were doing, and the two conversing had quickly become a habit. While J.J. and Aaron both had children, Jack and Henry were just that: children. Fran had much more of an idea of what it was like to be a parent to an adult.
"I don't know, I just thought we were connecting more while he was in the hospital. I felt like something had changed between us, and it gave me hope," Dave confided one night.
"Maybe it has," she reassured him calmly. "He probably realizes it too, so now he's backed off a bit because he needs time to digest it all."
That sounded so reasonable that Dave was heartened. "You think so?"
"I do. This could be a good thing. Give him some time to adjust to everything that's happened in the past couple of weeks and let him see the answer for himself. That way he'll feel more confident about the whole thing. Plus, he'll be thankful towards you for not putting the pressure on him and for letting him make his own decision. At the very least, maybe he'll grow to miss your presence. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, so they say."
"In other words, get him hooked and then withdraw, to make him see what he's missing," Dave joked. "Sounds a bit devious to me. Kind of like something my third ex-wife would have pulled."
Fran chuckled ruefully. "Or my mother with her course on 'How to Lay a Man-Trap' circa 1950. But no, I didn't mean it like that. Don't let him wonder about what's going on. Talk to him. Be honest and tell him why you're backing off. Say you'll still see him everyday, but unless he asks, you'll keep to roughly the same hours as the others."
Rossi did so, and Reid was eventually thankful. He felt respected by Dave's being honest with him, and, as he grew stronger, so did his ability to think about the situation more clearly.
The team… Reid had to admit that things were still difficult between himself and them. Apart from Dave, he was the most comfortable with visits from Blake and Garcia - his relationship with Alex had always been a comfortable one of equals, and yes, Garcia did baby him, but then she babied everyone - but things were still strained with each of them. However, he began to realize that that was just as much his fault as theirs, for he was reacting as much out of feeling confined and restless this last year as he was to anything they had done. As for how this new awkwardness affected his relationship with Dave, he began to think that maybe it didn't. Whether or not he would be diminished in the eyes of the others, knocked down to Jack and Henry's level as the child of a BAU agent rather than an agent himself, was irrelevant. If they didn't change, he could always say something -
"I could say something!" he abruptly exclaimed, startling Blake who was sitting in the lawn chair next to him in the back yard of the little bungalow as the two enjoyed the sunshine.
"Pardon me?" she asked, looking up from her crossword puzzle in confusion.
Reid blinked, still stunned by this sudden revelation. "I… it's nothing. Sorry, I just…"
Blake put down her crossword and gave him her full attention. "I think it is something. Something important."
He let out a shaky chuckle. "This is going to sound incredibly stupid perhaps, but I think I just realized that Dave isn't going anywhere."
"I'm afraid I don't understand."
He fidgeted, at a loss as to how to explain. "I think… I think I've always been subconsciously afraid to let the team know when they've hurt me. It got worse after Emily came back. Other than one blow-up at J.J., I didn't say anything. I went to the cooking lesson at Dave's and played nice, but I was still hurt. However, I never felt like I could say anything more. If I made a fuss, if I didn't suppress what I was feeling…"
"Then you believed the others would think it was your fault that the team couldn't heal and you'd lose your family," Alex guessed.
"But just now, all of a sudden, it felt like I could, because… because…."
Blake smiled, her eyes soft with understanding. "Because Dave isn't going to leave just because you get angry once in awhile."
"Yeah."
What Reid liked about Blake was that she didn't try to console him with platitudes or spout off some knee-jerk reactionary line about how the whole team was like that, or tell him how he should have known that about Rossi all along. All she did was reach over and place her hand on top of his and give it one quick squeeze. "That's definitely an important thing to think about," she said.
He did. And he kept thinking all the rest of that night, working painstakingly through each of his issues.
Yes, there was still that cold, tight feeling in his stomach when he thought about opening himself up or growing to depend - even emotionally - on someone else, but now he also wondered what he would lose if he didn't take the chance. Another obstacle was that he was still not quite convinced Dave's new affection wasn't a result of getting his baby back and not because he had any special feelings for Spencer himself. While his comparison with how immediately he had loved Henry had brought Reid a greater understanding of what Dave was going through, it still didn't change the essential situation: Dave might or might not see him as James any longer, but his new-found "love" might be more for the idea of having a son, than for the son he was really getting.
For that matter, couldn't his own feelings for Dave be the same thing? Was this new warmth for his older team-mate a result of an actual growing filial love for Dave, or the mere enjoyment of the idea of having a parent who was able to finally care for him after all these years?
Could they even get along? While Reid had no doubt Dave cared for him in some way, that didn't change the fact that, even after they'd known each other several years, the older agent hadn't been able to tolerate his company for any great length of time. Was that different now? Would Dave want him to move in with him? Go to football games? Go fishing? He literally had no idea of what any father/son relationship between them would look like.
And what about his moving to Asia? He mostly believed that getting the job with the Foundation wouldn't change anything, that Dave would let him go no matter what, but there was still a slight twitch of panic at the thought of being tied down just as he'd gotten excited by the idea of leaving.
Then Spencer remembered the inscription in the book Dave's father had given him. When he had returned it to the other man, he had asked about it.
"Pop didn't want me to go to Vietnam," Dave had explained. "Right up until the last moment before my train left, he refused to say goodbye to me. Then Ma took him aside. I don't know what she said to him, but suddenly he was telling me to wait there and he'd be back in a second. When he returned, he shoved this book in my hands. Turns out he'd wanted to give me something but hadn't brought anything with him, so he'd grabbed this at the bookstall at the station. They were calling my train, so I thrust it in my duffel bag and hugged them both goodbye. I didn't see what he'd written until I was reading that night in my berth as we crossed through Iowa or Idaho or somewhere, and I didn't get to call him until I was in San Francisco, the night before I had to board the troop ship.
"I was pretty broken up as he told me what it meant. He'd been in Korea, so he knew the things war could do - the injuries, the nightmares and depression of returning G.I.s, the way veterans got treated if the war wasn't popular. He told me he didn't care what I was going through, or how badly I was injured - if I pulled any of that martyr "I don't want to be a burden" horseshit and refused to come home, he'd find me and drag me back by the ear. But of course what he was really doing was telling me that I would always have a home where people loved me.
"And it was the first time I ever heard him cry."
Thinking of it now, those words stuck in Spencer's mind as he was hit by an undefined longing: I would always have a home where people loved me.
Sleep didn't come easily that night.
-x-
After all their trials and tribulations, all the blow-ups and explosions, in the end the universe shifted and new orbits came about all due to a children's game.
The day Reid had the cast on his arm removed, Morgan was showing the house to some potential buyers, so instead of going home after the doctor's, Hotch took him back to his place for lunch.
When they arrived, Reid noticed five children playing in Hotch's front yard. Jack and Henry he recognized, but the others were strangers to him. What puzzled him more, however, was what they were doing. Each child was spinning in circles while simultaneously walking in a larger circle around a soccer ball. As Reid watched, they would occasionally bump into each other, then either grab hold of one another, growing into a collective clump and laughing uproariously as they stumbled around, or burst apart like they were pieces of shrapnel exploding out from the center.
"What are they doing?" Reid asked his Unit Chief.
"I honestly have no idea," Hotch admitted. "Jack, what you are all doing?" he called out to his son.
"Playing 'Planets'! We learned it in school and now we're teaching Henry," Jack explained. "See? That's the sun," the boy said, pointing to the soccer ball, "and we're chunks of rock going round, and then we collide with other chunks of rock. Sometimes we break apart, but sometimes we glom together and form a bigger chunk, and then that forms a planet!"
"Sounds like a fun game," Hotch said with a chuckle, then started to head towards the house before he noticed Reid was still staring at the children. "Reid?"
There was something about the children that Spencer couldn't take his eyes off of. A vision danced through his head: planetesimals - baby worlds - whizzed by him, spinning in their rotations, being struck again and again by circumstellar material as they orbited around a young sun. Sometimes bits broke off, but over time, frictional forces fused bits of material into larger and larger objects, eventually forming planets.
Reid jerked as Hotch's hand on his shoulder startled him. "Reid, are you all right?" he heard the older man ask again.
"Hotch, can you help me with something?"
-x-
"Are you sure now?" Hotch asked.
Reid nodded nervously. On his lap was a gift bag. Hotch didn't know what was in the bag, only that it had come out of the box Reid had had him get down for him from a shelf in his storage unit.
"Do you need me to help you to the door?"
"No, that's all right. I can manage." Truthfully, he was becoming exasperated with the delays; if he didn't do this now, he was going to lose his courage.
"Okay, but you just had that cast taken off. Don't over-strain your arm using those crutches."
"I won't."
"Fine, but sit there till I get around the other side and at least help you out of the car. And I'm not leaving until I see Dave is home to stay with you."
"Oh, all right!" Reid agreed, knowing that he sounded childishly petulant in his eagerness, but he was too anxious to argue. He let Hotch help him up and then felt the man's eyes on him the whole way up Dave's walk. Breathing heavily, he finally made it to Rossi's door. His finger hovered over the door bell.
Was he sure?
He pressed the button. When Dave answered the door, Reid just stood there on his crutches, biting his lip.
"Spencer? What are you doing there?"
He held out the gift bag. "These are for you."
"Uh, okay," Rossi said. "Would you like to come in?"
Say no, the cowardly part of Reid's brain screamed. Turn. Go. Go now. Pass the gifts off as a simple thank you. Just leave.
"Yes. I'd like that," he said.
After Rossi had waved to Hotch, he supported Reid (who was, in fact, already tiring) as he trudged his way carefully to the living room. After he'd been settled on the couch, and Dave had brought them both a cup of coffee, Rossi finally looked inside the gift bag and pulled out two wrapped packages.
"What are these for?" Rossi asked him.
Reid shrugged and looked away shyly. When he had planned this out, he had meant to say they were late birthday gifts. It wasn't unusual; Rossi's birthday gifts were always given to him late since he refused - quite understandably - to celebrate anything on the day he had to visit Tommy Yates and learn yet another victim's name.* Since then, the tradition was to have the party two weeks later, in order to hopefully cheer Rossi up after his ordeal of talking to the latest family to lose someone. But nearly two months had gone by now, and besides, these weren't just birthday gifts.
"Shall I open them?"
Reid nodded.
"All right." Dave said and pulled one out.
"No, not that one. The other one first," Reid instructed.
"Okay."
Dave picked at a corner and started to pull away the paper. Reid watched, every moment excruciating. Just as he was about to ask Rossi if he was going this slowly on purpose, the older man ripped the last of the wrapping away.
It was a book. " 'The Greek Coffin Mystery' by Ellery Queen," Dave read out, obviously puzzled. "Well, thank you, Spencer. It's very nice."
"My grandfather gave it to me as a child. It's a first edition, but that's not why I gave it to you," Reid said. "Most people are only familiar with the name Ellery Queen from the mystery magazine, but he was originally both a pseudonym for writing partners Frederic Danny and Manfred Lee, and the name of their main character. Anyway, the mysteries are sort of old-fashioned - the classic "fair play" whodunit, full of esoteric clues to the reader, etc. - but I liked them because, well, Ellery solved crimes with his father."
He looked up at Dave, who seemed to be holding his breath.
"So obviously, there are parallels…" Reid went on, only to trail off when Rossi continued to remain as silent as a statue.
"Are you… are you trying to say…?" Dave whispered hoarsely.
"I'm trying to say that I would really like us to try and be father and son."
"Seriously?"
Reid smiled. "Seriously."
Dave rose. While the action was expected, Reid couldn't help but feel a tinge of worry and alarm at the power of Rossi's emotions as the older man embraced him, repeating, "Thank you," again and again in a watery voice. Or at least he did until the full force of the moment hit him as well, and tears came unashamedly to his own eyes.
-x-
They talked for hours after that. About their worries and fears, about the team, about their respective families and the one they shared with the team. Dave couldn't help but laugh when he learned what had finally changed Spencer's mind.
"Planets?"
"Yeah," Reid conceded, a touch sheepishly. "Other families are organic, like plants growing new off-shots. But you and I are like planets forming. We were two separate entities, each in our own orbit, and then we were slammed together in a massive collision, with all the chaos and damage and explosions that entails. So it came down to whether we were going to fly apart, each of us losing bits of ourselves in the process, or whether we were going to fuse together to create something bigger. I went with bigger."
"I like it," Dave said.
"You know, you still haven't opened your second gift," Reid pointed out.
"Hey, that's right. Give it here!" Dave ripped the paper off and then gasped. "Oh! Oh, geez Kid…"
"Don't you like it?"
Dave nodded, unable to speak. It was a picture of a baby, roughly six or seven months old, in a light blue knit cap that buttoned under the chin and a matching cardigan, hazel eyes staring intently at the camera.
Even as an infant, his son's gaze was unmistakable.
"So that's what you looked like," he whispered.
"Apparently. Dave?"
"Yeah?"
"What's next?"
"I don't know. What would you like to do?"
The answer came immediately to Reid's mind. "I think I'd like to meet my grandparents."
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* Season 7, episode 22 "Profiling 101"
This wasn't the longest chapter of the story, but it's still the big one. I'll be waiting with bated breath to see what you think.
