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Chapter Twenty-Two
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Ever since Reid had moved in with Rossi to finish his recuperation, the team had gotten into the habit of going over in pairs every second or third night with dinner. The night before Dave and Spencer were to leave for Commack to visit with Rossi's parents, it was Hotch and Garcia's turn. When Rossi opened the door for them, the first words out of his mouth were, "Aaron! Fantastic. You're a father - what do you do when your kid is freaking out?"
Hotch was about to wryly comment on Rossi's apparently non-existent manners, when Reid's voice interrupted, protesting in the background. "I am not freaking out. I am simply concerned that your parents might be upset that I'm not Catholic."
Rossi rolled his eyes as he ushered his guests in and took their coats. "Perhaps you'd relax more if you stopped calling them my parents and started referring to them as your grandparents."
"Maybe I will when they finally know who I am."
"You haven't told them yet?" Garcia asked Rossi. "Oh, my proud papa, why ever not?"
Rossi took the bags of take-out food from Garcia - giving her a peck on the cheek in thanks - and lead them to the dining room. "Because, while my folks are in reasonably good health for their age, neither can hear worth a damn, and this is not a conversation I want to spend an hour screaming over the phone."
"I hope you still think that way after we've given them a heart attack," Reid complained.
"Pay no attention to him," Rossi told them. "He's just nervous."
"Gee, I wonder why that is?" Reid asked. "The last two days he's been hounding me about everything under the sun. 'You need a new suit, you need a haircut, you need to learn to like Italian food. He's even given me 'Italian' lessons."
"Oooh! So what can you say in Italian, 187? Something romantic and sexy?"
"They weren't language lessons, Garcia," Reid explained, then he caught up to the second part of her comment. " 'Something romantic and sexy?' To say to my grandmother?"
"So what were these 'Italian' lessons then, Reid?" Hotch asked, hoping to forestall the conversation from turning down a path no one wanted to follow.
"I told him, 'Look, if you want to get in good with your Nonna, you have to remember a few things," Dave cleared up. "Namely - "
"That Italians are the best at everything," Reid filled in.
"So let's see if you remembered the lesson, Smart Guy," Dave said. "Who's the best opera singer who ever lived?"
"It's a tie between Enrico Caruso and Luciano Pavarotti," Reid replied as if reciting a lesson learned by rote.
"Who are the best popular singers?"
"Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Frankie Valli."
"Who was Joey Bishop?"
"A no-talent hack who rode on the generous coat-tails of Martin and Sinatra. What's your mother got against Joey Bishop anyway?" Reid asked.
"God only knows. Now, who was the best baseball player who ever lived?"
"Well, statistically - "
"Nuh nuh nuh," Rossi chided, waving a finger. Garcia bit her lip in a struggle to hold back a grin.
"Fine. Joe DiMaggio."
"Who should have been the first man on the moon?" Dave quizzed, continuing with the drill.
"Al Calavicci," Reid dutifully answered.*
"Right."
"But that doesn't make any sense!" Reid argued. "He was still a POW in Vietnam when the moon landing happened!"
"It doesn't matter. Calavicci was robbed of his God-given right to be the first man to step on another world thanks to the WASP NASA establishment," Dave corrected. "At least according to your Nonna, who, yes, actually might be a little insane. Also, you're going to have to fake a belief in astrology."
"What?!" Reid cried out.
Dave held up his hands. "I'm kidding! I'm kidding! Well, no. But don't worry, we'll work around it. Anyway, it doesn't matter! Look, they're going to love you no matter what. You're their blood."
Reid looked unsure. "Is blood that important?"
"Please! You're part of them! You're taking the family into the twenty-first century. You're carrying on the name. Now, are you still worried about the Catholic thing?"
"No, now I'm worried they're going to hate me for not taking their name!"
"Oh, my sweet Boo! Well, uh, at least your hair looks nice."
"Thanks, Garcia. Did you know that Rossi's barber makes house calls?"
"Only as a one-time favour because my son is on crutches," an exasperated Dave explained.
"That's right. His barber knows who I am, but not his parents. Oh, and his tailor too, because the suit had to be altered."
Dave sighed. "Please stop worrying, Spencer. They'd love you if showed up with hair down to your shoulder blades and wearing nothing but a potato sack."
"So what were the haircut and suit for?"
"For me. It's not every day a man gets to introduce his son to his parents. It should be an occasion," Rossi pronounced.
"I still think we shouldn't just spring this on them," Reid mumbled.
Dave got up. "Does anyone want anything else to drink?"
"I wouldn't mind a bit more of this wine," Garcia said.
When Rossi went to fetch some more wine and another beer for himself from the kitchen, Hotch followed while Penelope kept Spencer entertained. "So how's it been having Reid staying here?" he asked Dave.
"Truthfully? A little awkward."
"What's the problem?"
"I just can't get the kid to relax around me. It's like he's still a house-guest who feels he's overstayed his welcome. He refuses to watch any of his own television programs with me. If I ask him if he wants to put any music on, he says no or puts on Dean Martin because that's what he thinks I want to listen to. He barely makes a sound while I'm home in the evenings. He pestered Morgan for days to take him to the mall so that he could buy a disposable cell phone because he refuses to make any long distance calls on mine. I don't know, I just thought that once he decided he wanted to try and be father and son, that it would be different. I want him to be able to feel at home here, and not like he's got to walk on eggshells around me all the time."
"It'll take awhile, Dave. I know mentally and emotionally he understands that you care for him, but it's not something he's used to. His whole life was about tiptoeing around Diana, keeping her calm so as not to agitate and upset her. Not to mention, the self-blame he went through for years after his father ran off. In his mind, if you're too much of a burden, people leave. He knows it's different with you, but it will still take him time to adjust and get past the habits ingrained in him for the last twenty years."
Rossi sighed windily. "Yeah, okay."
"And if there's anything I can do to help…"
"Well, you could get Morgan to stop whistling The Odd Couple theme every time I come into the office."
Hotch chuckled. "I'll have a word with him."
"Oh, and you might have to talk to Cruz."
"Why?"
"The TV station is going to run with the story early after all. The deal to keep the Bureau out of it as much as possible is still on, but I thought Matt could use a head's up anyway."
"When was this decided?"
"This morning after I talked to Amanda. I realized it pretty much had to if I was going to honour the agreement. An hour after Ma and Pop find out, half of Long Island is going to know, and it'll have spread to most of the Five Boroughs and a good part of Italy by the next morning."
"What does Reid think about it?"
"He understands, but he's not happy about it. I mean, he's a private person to begin with, and now he's being asked to share the story with the public while he's still trying to adjust to the whole thing himself. Plus, he's desperately worried about Diana. From what he said, she did not react well when he and his Dad tried to tell her. As far as Spencer's concerned, nothing good is going to come of this."
"He's probably not thrilled about his mother's condition coming out on television in the first place. That's a hard thing to have to talk about."
Dave nodded grimly. "I think that stress is part of the problem tonight, and not just anxiety about meeting my folks. I wish I'd held off telling him; I was hoping nothing would spoil this trip."
Hotch placed a hand on his old friend's back. "It'll be fine, Dave. You'll see."
"Turning psychic on me, are you?"
"Hey, I was right about Reid accepting you, wasn't I?"
Dave smiled as the two men re-joined their friends. "Yeah, I guess you were at that."
-x-
Six days later, the team, after a short but gruelling case in Wichita, trudged into the office while groaning inwardly at the thought of sitting down to their paper work, only to be surprised when Garcia met them at the entrance to the bullpen and asked them to gather in the Round Table room.
"Please, Sweetness, not another case," Morgan pleaded.
"Not to worry, my scrumptious beauties, you're all going to like this," Garcia promised.
Hotch, J.J, Blake and Morgan shot puzzled glances at one another as they fell in behind their bubbly tech analyst. Once they sat down at the table, where an abundance of pastries and hot, fragrant coffee greeted them, Garcia turned around a large lap top so that it was facing them. On the screen was Rossi.
"Dave! Good to see you," Hotch said.
"I thought we should check in with our beaming new father and his bundle of joy and see how their visit with the clan Rossi was going," Garcia said.
"So how is it going, Dave?" Blake asked while at the same time daintily trying to eat a raspberry Danish.
"Let's just say that I hope you're not too attached to the kid, because I don't think I'll be able to get him away from them."
"I take it they love him, then?" Hotch asked, the ghost of a smirk on his face.
"Are you kidding? As far as Federico and Elisabetta Rossi are concerned, other people no longer exist," Dave explained. "There's Spencer," he said, holding up a hand, then dropped it down several levels, "And then there's nothing but a world of dumb baciagaloops stupidly not treating him like the golden prince that he is."
"Going good, is it?" Morgan laughed.
"There was a bit of a rough start - "
Garcia rushed in. "Rough start? What happened to my baby?"
Dave grimaced. "Nothing too serious, Kitten, don't worry. Spencer just had a bit of a rough trip up," he said, skimming over the truth. The trip had been fine, but Dave had learned the hard way that if you have someone who suffers overwhelming flashbacks induced by the smell of fish, taking them to visit old-school Catholics on a Friday night possibly wasn't the best idea. It also hadn't helped that he initially missed the signs because he was distracted by his mother's comment that, "I know you've had some unsuccessful marriages, Davy, but this isn't the answer…" Wearily covering his face with his hand and moaning, "Oh, God!" it was only after he'd come out of his shock that he'd noticed his son had gone very pale. Sniffing the air, he instinctively put two and two together and immediately dragged Spencer to the bathroom so that he could splash some cold water on his face. Then he waited to make sure Spencer had recovered a bit before going out again and hauling his parents off to one side for a hasty explanation.
Despite this, the meeting between his son and his parents was all Dave could have hoped for. When Spencer had finally staggered out of the bathroom, it was to come face to face with two matching expressions of stunned awe. Then Betty Rossi let out a cry and made a beeline right for her newly resurrected grandson, running as fast as possible for an eighty-one year old woman. Ramming her face into Spencer's chest, Elisabetta Rossi had started wailing and hysterically gibbering in Italian and stroking Reid's face like only someone supremely and helplessly grateful could. When she finally pulled away, a speechless Fred Rossi stumbled zombie-like into Spencer for his own embrace, kissed his grandson on both cheeks, and refused to move even when his wife tried to push him away so that she could resume her sobbing.
As Dave tried his best to relate the moment (prudently leaving out the part about the flashback), all three of his female team-mates positively melted and let out a collective, "Awwwww!"
"Yeah, that was good, but since then they've been driving me crazy! They're so in awe of the kid, they can't seem to bring themselves to actually speak to him!"
"What?" Morgan asked. "Seriously?"
"I'm not kidding! All week it's been, 'Davy, go find out what Spencer likes to eat,' and 'Davy, ask Spencer if he'd like me to wash his clothes for him,' and 'Davy, do you think Spencer would like eggs for breakfast?' God, and you should have seen them watching him read! They were mesmerized! When he closed the book I swear I thought they were going to burst into applause!"
"Oh my God!" J.J. chortled. "What did Spence think of that?"
" 'What are your mother and father doing?' he whispered to me. 'Watching you read,' I told him. And he gives me this worried look. 'Is that something they're going to be doing a lot of?' he asks. Unfortunately, I had to tell him 'Yeah, probably.'
"And the bragging!" Dave went on. "I heard Ma talking to Mrs. Di Massimo next door the other day, 'Three doctorates! Three!" he imitated by waving three fingers. "That means he's three times better than a regular doctor!"
"I bet their neighbours are getting sick of hearing about that by now," Morgan said.
"Half of them are, the other half are trying to match him up with their unmarried granddaughters."
The entire team at Quantico burst out laughing. "Oh, poor Reid," Blake commiserated with a chuckle.
"Oh, poor Reid, my aunt Fanny!" Rossi groused. "Do you know what it's been like for me this past week?"
"Let me guess," J.J. said, "You've been bumped down a level, from favoured child to a faceless servant who's basically there to fetch things for the grandson?"
"You nailed that one! Ever since I broke the news to them, it's 'Davy, go to the store and get some berries and syrup for Spencer's pancakes. David, put on your coat and start the car - Spencer and I want to go to the movies. Don't touch that, Davy! That's Spencer's cake! David, help your mother with the laundry - Spencer and I are going to the rec room to play pool."
"Pool? Your father is teaching Reid to play pool?" J.J. asked.
"Teach? Are you kidding?" Dave pointed behind him with his thumb. "If that job in Asia falls through, Vegas Slim back there has got one hell of a career ahead of him as a pool hustler!"
"You're kidding!" Morgan said.
"Not at all. I asked him where he learned to play, and he said that's how kids in Vegas are taught geometry. Then the smartass pointed out that he does have a doctorate in Mathematics. Anyway, Pop thinks the kid is the cat's ass. Took him over to his old pool hall to show him off to all of his friends. I think Pop's more proud of Spencer's pool playing then he is of the kid being a former F.B.I agent!"
Just then Dave's mother came up to him. "Davy, what's Spencer's favourite dessert?" Blinking at the sudden sound of laughter, she peered at the computer screen.
"Ma, this is the rest of my team." Dave introduced them one by one, but it didn't erase the slightly suspicious look on Betty Rossi's face. She said a polite hello, but quickly turned back to her son and repeated her question.
"Ma, you do know that you can talk to him directly, right? I mean, he's right there in the den, watching television with Pop."
"No, no, no!" Betty Rossi fluttered her hands wildly at the idea. "I don't want to interrupt Spencer's time with your father."
"Fine, Ma. Jello. He likes Jello."
"Don't be silly, Davy. Jello comes out of a box!"
"Seriously, how is my fault the kid has a thing for coloured sugar?"
"Well, genetics," Garcia supplied. Both Rossis turned to glare at her.
"If that's true, then he gets it from his mother," Dave told her before turning back to his mother. "I don't know, Ma. Something with coffee in it. As long as he's got coffee and sugar, he's fine. But again, just go in there and ask him. I mean, Pop's watching soccer in his shorts, for Pete's sake! It's not like you're going to be interrupting important affairs of state!"
"Mio Dio, he's what?" Betty Rossi thrust open the door behind Dave and screeched at her husband in shock. "Federico! Jesus, Mary and Joseph, put your pants on! Do you want your three-times-a-doctor grandson to think we're animals!"
This just about slayed the exhausted and frayed-at-the-edges BAU team. Even Hotch was weeping tears from his eyes.
Mrs. Rossi strode in and a minute later Spencer came out, wisely retreating from the fracas. "Hi, Reid!" Garcia called out. Reid was startled for a moment and then spotted his team on the computer. "Hi, guys!" he greeted and then told Dave, "Can you tell your mother - "
"Oh Hell, not you too!" Dave moaned. "And it's Nonna. She wants you to call her Nonna."
"What? Oh, yes. Can you tell Nonna that I don't mind if Pops watches television in his underwear."
Dave looked at him with surprise. "You don't?"
"Well, I do find it a little odd," Reid conceded, "But this is their house."
"So tell her you're okay with it."
"I did, but I don't think she hears me as well as she hears you. She never seems to answer me when I talk to her."
"Yeah, I'll explain it later. For now, you sit down and talk to the team while I try and sort this out."
"Okay."
"So what do you think of your grandparents, Kid?" Morgan called out once Spencer was seated and Dave had gone into the den.
"I like them a lot, but they're kind of wearing me out."
Blake and J.J. couldn't help but giggle. "Usually, it's the other way around," J.J. pointed out.
"I guess."
"You okay, Tall, Dark and Cerebral?" Garcia asked.
"Sure. It's just… I'm not sure what my grandparents think of me. When I told my grandfather I couldn't go to his favourite casino in Atlantic City with him because I'd been banned, my grandmother started talking about getting me help for my gambling addiction!"
To Reid's perplexed annoyance, the team howled in laughter at that, going on for nearly a minute until Garcia said in a sing-song voice, "You know, Boy Wonder, I saw a very cute picture of you the night Bossman and I came over for dinner."
"Oh, the baby picture, I take it."
Garcia picked up on Reid's suddenly inscrutable expression. "You don't mind, do you?" she asked in a more serious tone.
Reid shook his head. "I might have at the time," he said, and then he grinned. "But now I have revenge!"
"Oh, tell me, tell me, tell me!" Garcia cried and sat up straighter with excitement. "You don't have the mother-load? Actual baby pictures of our patriarch?"
Reid nodded. "It seems our supposed expert on human nature hasn't gleaned a very pertinent fact about grandparents: That they apparently loooovvvve to show their grandchildren pictures of their parents when they were little."
"Oh, my God!" Garcia squealed, fanning herself. "It's the Holy Grail! Show us!"
All the team leaned forward in their seats as, on the other side of the screen, Reid pulled some photographs out of his shirt pocket and held them up. "Let's see, this one here is Dave when he's five, wearing his uncle's aviator glasses. You'll notice, I'm sure, that that is all he's wearing. Oh, and here's one when he's thirteen, convening his first meeting as President of the Ginger Grant fan club."
"My ribs! My ribs are hurting!" Morgan moaned, breathless with laughter as the rest of them. "Stop it, Kid! You're killing me!"
"This one is my favourite," Reid proclaimed, showing a third picture. "It was Christmas of '55. Nonna and her sister Cosima got a little tipsy and put Dave in his cousin Theresa's ballerina tutu."
The ladies shrieked with another burst of laughter. "God, no more, Spence," J.J. begged. "I think I'm going to pee my pants!"
Suddenly, the voice of God sounded. "You didn't show them that picture!" Dave Rossi bellowed.
-x-
On the way home from New York, Dave and Spencer stopped into to see Carolyn's brother Russell. Dave had wanted his parents to be the first of Spencer's new family to know, but once they had been told, Dave had called Russell and told him the story.
"Carrie's son?"
Dave was sympathetic, understanding the man's disbelief perfectly. "Yes, Russ."
"Carrie's son… is alive. Your and Carrie's James…"
"Yes."
"I… Oh, my God!"
"I know. It hit me like a brick wall too."
"Was this what you wanted the picture of Dad for?" Russell Matheson asked.
"Yeah."
"It's not… Holy God, it's… James… he's not that young colleague of yours, is he? The doctor you introduced me too?"
"Yeah. Turns out there was a good reason for him to look so much like your father."
Russell started to laugh, then let out a whoop. "Carrie's got a son! Hell, I've got to call Eric! He'll be over the moon! Him and Carolyn were always so close. And the boys! They've got a cousin! Look, you've got to bring James - "
"Spencer," Dave corrected.
"That's a good name. I like it. I mean, I'd prefer James, because that was Dad's name, but… Hell, I'm babbling aren't I? Anyway, you've to bring him to meet everyone. Or tell me a good time and I'll bring everyone to your place."
"I'm in Commack right now, introducing him to my folks, but I thought maybe we could drop by on the 12th or so - "
" 'Could we drop by?' Are you kidding? Of course you can drop by! God, Dave… Dave, you're bringing my sister's son to meet me."
The visit was a huge success. Not only Russell and his sons Mark and Dean were there, but Carolyn's younger brother Eric, who'd lived most of his life in England, had flown over with two of his three kids - Nicola, who had just graduated from Cambridge with a degree in Anthropology and Simon, who was just about to start at the same prestigious institution and was planning on studying psychology. Only Eric's oldest daughter Caitlin couldn't make it, but she a reporter was on assignment in Eastern Europe and was covering the crisis in the Ukraine. Spencer immediately felt at home with his mother's side of the family, talking for hours with Nicola and Simon especially.
In fact, it was almost too much of a success.
"You've been very quiet," Spencer said after an hour of silence and staring out at the dark during the car ride home. "Is everything all right?"
"Sure. Don't worry about it."
But Spencer Reid had spent ten years as a profiler and was able to quickly guess the answer. "It bothers you that things went so easy with Carolyn's family."
"It's just… Spencer, let me ask you: what do we have in common?"
Gazing at cosily lit up houses outside his window, each a small little world of domestic tranquility within themselves (or appearing to be, at least), Spencer pondered his answer. "Sammy Sparks," he said finally.
"What?"
"Sammy Sparks. Samantha Malcolm. George Foyet. The case in Canada. The Prince of Darkness. Maeve and Chief Strauss."
"What are you talking about?"
"We may not have much in common as people - though I think there is more than you believe - but we know each other in a way most people, even fathers and sons, never will, because of all the things we've been through together. I can't say if it's comparable to combat or not, but we've relied on each other for our very lives, even our souls. We've endured the worst, and occasionally the best, of humanity together and we know what it's like to win out against evil. We can empathize and guess what each other feels in the worst situations imaginable, and we have seven years of memories shared between us. The team even sort of speaks its own language, and because of that we can often tell what the others are going to do in any given moment in a way that's almost psychic. And that gives us a bond very few people could ever replicate."
There was a lump in Dave's throat. "You know, you're one hell of a smart man," he finally said. "So let's go home."
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* All the singers mentioned are real people, as is Joe DiMaggio of course, but Al Calavicci was a character on "Quantum Leap". I included him for my own amusement, and because there is a vague crossover plot bunny nibbling carrots in my head. However, I'm not making any promises.
So there you go: fluffiness and good feelings as promised. Hope you liked it!
