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Chapter Twenty-Three

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"It's only natural," Dave said as he pulled into his driveway.

Spencer didn't respond, or even look at him. Crutches and all, he was out the car before Dave had barely stopped and hobbled frantically towards the front door.

"Look, I understand," Dave called out after him, as he got out quickly, locked the car and followed Spencer up the path. "That interviewer ambushed you. But who cares? That asshole's nothing but a poor man's Geraldo, well past his prime yet still desperately clawing his way towards anything that will be his 'big break," on a show that can't decide if it wants to be a tabloid or a morning show, and whose hard news pretensions don't fit with either. It'll be off the air in three months and completely forgotten by Christmas!"

"Why won't this stupid key work!" Spencer cried as he roughly tried jamming it in for a third time. Bathed in the sickly gleam of the light over the door, Dave could see the furious glitter behind Spencer's eyes and realized just how close his son was to losing control. He reached out a hand and covered Spencer's with his own. "Let me get it."

"I can do it!"

"Hey, it's four-thirty in the morning, dark out, and you're exhausted and upset - "

"Don't tell me what I am!" Spencer snapped. "And I can open a damn door!" he ended in nearly a shout, only to cry out with rage when the key still didn't fit.

Dave gently pulled the younger man's hands away. "Come on, you're probably scratching the hell out of my lock."

Defeated, Spencer moved out of the way and let Dave open the door.

Once inside, Dave tried again. "I do understand, you know."

Spencer turned away. "No. No, you don't."

"You think it came off like you're relieved that Diana isn't your biological mother. That you're going to look like the world's worst son. But that's what these guys do; they know how to phrase a question to make things look as scandalous as possible - "

"That's not it at all," Spencer said sadly as, without looking back, he headed off to his room.

-x-

Dave rubbed his eyes as J.J. made her way down the aisle of the jet and handed him a very welcome cup of coffee.

"So how's Spence this morning?" she asked as she sat down beside him.

"You saw the piece?" He and Spencer had suffered through some five-minute spots for the local evening news programs - bits of fluff to be used at the end of the hour - but this fiasco had been the first lengthy segment: twenty minutes on a morning show, squeezed in badly between a piece on a six-car pileup downtown and some bearded guy's review of the latest summer blockbuster.

The team nodded, most of them with a grimace. "Henry too," J.J. added. "He got up especially to see Uncle Spence on t.v."

"Did he… you know…?" Dave asked.

"Spot something was wrong?" J.J. guessed. "Not entirely, but he said that Uncle Spence 'seemed sad'. I don't know how much else he picked up on though. Spence did a good job maintaining his composure."

"Yeah, the Kid really held it together after that one-two punch about Carolyn's suicide and Diana's illness," Morgan put in. "Those were low blows."

"That they definitely were," Dave agreed.

"And poorly phrased," Blake added. "I hope every mental health organization and support group in the country gives the station hell for talking like that about anyone who has gone through either."

"Did he feel any better after getting a little sleep?" Hotch asked, drawing them back to the original question.

Dave frowned. "I don't know. He was still sleeping when I left. Or at least he hadn't come down yet."

"Must have been hard to leave him knowing he was still so upset," Blake said. Dave looked at her, slightly surprised. Aaron and J.J. he could fathom understanding, but Alex's tone… The sympathy he got, but where was that instant comprehension coming from?

J.J. nodded. "Yeah, it's always hard to leave them when you know something's bothering them. Especially the first time. You feel like you're running out on them just when they need you the most."

"Thanks, J.J." Dave said dryly.

"I'm so sorry, Rossi! But hey, at least your folks are there."

"I don't know if that's going to make it better or worse. Ma was adamant this morning that I call the t.v. station and get the program pulled. And this was after it aired. Because you know, not only do I have the power to censor the news, but apparently I can also travel in time."

There couldn't help but be a few subtle snickers at that. "But at least they're there to console Reid," Blake said, trying to look on the bright side.

"If by 'console' you mean 'enable', then yes. Ma's going to keep it going by being more mad for Spencer's sake than he is himself, and yet watch, she'll likely end up insulting both Carolyn and Diana."

"She still isn't angry with Carolyn, is she?" Hotch asked. "The poor woman's been dead for two and a half years."

"She keeps quiet about it, but any wife of mine who wasn't her friend Eugenia Barber's daughter was the interloper."

"She still wants you to marry Floria? But she's your sister-in-law," Hotch said.

"Doesn't matter. Six months after Frank died, she was at me again, saying Floria and the girls needed someone to take care of them, and she hasn't let up since."

"But you were still married to Carolyn at the time."

"Aaron, you've met my mother," Dave said, as if that explained everything. "However, I think something happened during our visit there last month. Ma had Floria over for dinner one night, and when Pop and I came out of the storage room after looking for the table leaf, Ma was shooing Floria out the door and Spencer hardly spoke for the rest of the evening."

"But you don't know what was said?" Morgan asked.

"No, but I can make a good guess. Floria's never made any pretence at hiding the fact that, even if I don't marry her, that I'll leave my money to her daughters as my only nieces."

"Wait, doesn't Carolyn's brother Eric have two daughters?" Hotch asked.

"That's very conveniently forgotten by her, as well as my having three nephews. Thankfully Lisa and Tracy don't feel the same way; truthfully, I think they're embarrassed and maybe even a little pissed off at their mother's machinations. Still, Floria always expected that my money would go to them, and suddenly I've got a son showing up out of the blue. A son, by the way, who won't talk about what happened, but who's refused to even let me buy him a cup of coffee ever since that night."

He was about to say more when his cell phone rang. "Speak of the devil," he said when his home number came up. "How are you… What?" Dave rubbed his head wearily. "Why? Oh Hell, never mind. Put your Nonna on the phone."

"What is it?" J.J. whispered.

"Ma, you've got to let Ms. Apaza into the house!"

"Who's Ms. Apaza?" Blake asked Hotch, who could only shrug in answer.

"Ma, don't be crazy! No. No, not that either. Well, of course she puts on a bathing suit!" Several eyebrows shot up at that declaration, but the team remained silent, eager to hear more. "No. Ma, they use the pool for his physical therapy! No, and the word is cougar, not puma. COUGAR. And she's not a cougar. Ma! MA! Listen to me! Ma, I swear to God she's not making a play for him! No. She's fifty- six. No, FIFTY-SIX!" Dave repeated. "What? No, don't go watch them! He doesn't like that. I SAID HE DOESN'T LIKE THAT!"

"Everything all right, Dave?" Hotch asked.

Rossi momentarily held the phone to his chest. "If this conversation causes me to die of a brain haemorrhage, give me your word you'll go rescue the Kid."

The others, shaking with suppressed laughter, all nodded dutifully. Dave put the phone back to his ear. There was a pause. "What now? Fine. FINE. Oh God, just put Pop on the phone. Pop? Ma wants you to put your pants back on. No, your pants."

"I have just got to meet these two," Morgan stated.

"What I've got to see is Spence in a bathing suit," J.J. said.

"NO, PANTS. PANTS!" Rossi continued to shout over the phone.

"I'm just glad he got this phone call before we were standing in the middle of the Atlanta field office," Hotch said.

"PANNNNTTTS!"

The team didn't recover from that one until they landed.

-x-

Despite the comedic - and occasionally surreal - distractions of his parents, Dave couldn't help but worry about the increasing number of "growing pains" cropping up in his and Spencer's relationship.

Some were straightforward practical matters, like Mudgie. While the "Reid Effect" (a term Dave learned Spencer disliked quite forcefully) seemed to have lessened over the years, the younger man was still not comfortable with the dog. However, when Dave offered to find a new home for the old mutt, Spencer had balked.

"I don't want you to have to do that," he said.

"But I want you to feel comfortable here."

"Dave, this is your house and he's your dog. I'd feel guilty if you got rid of him for my sake. I can live with him. It's not a problem. Besides, I'm only going to be here a few more months. It hardly seems convenient for you to get rid of him permanently just to accommodate me."

"Well, I could look into boarding him at a kennel."

"No, it's fine," Spencer said. "There's no point to going to that kind of expense."

After that, Spencer made more of an effort to relax around Mudgie. It didn't help that Mudgie turned out to be one of those dogs who could immediately sense who liked him the least and then devoted himself to never leaving said person's side, but Spencer would gamely pet Mudgie on the head in spite of his obvious distaste for touching the dog, and even took over feeding him in the mornings as a way of helping out around the house. One night he even peeked in on Spencer only to see, to his great shock, Mudgie curled up against the other man's back. At first he thought Mudgie had snuck in, but when he went to shoo the dog off the bed, he noticed that there was a towel spread out underneath him.

"Well, I'll be damned," Dave said to himself. Spencer must have grown to like, or at least accept, the old dog's strange affection for him enough to plan for Mudge getting on the bed at any rate.

Dave pulled out his phone to snap a picture of the heart-warming sight, then hesitated. The entire team had become sensitive to their pictures being taken without their awareness over the years (and especially since the Replicator), but Spencer had always had a fierce dislike of it.

Still, Dave wanted the shot. Spencer's showing the team the picture of him in his cousin's tutu had all been in good fun, but it had brought home the sad fact that his son had more baby pictures of him than he had of his son.

All those yearsDave thought as he stared at his slumbering son. Christ, I never even knew if your eyes had changed colour or stayed the blue-grey you were born with. So many damn things to wonder about, so many 'what ifs', I can't even tell you.

He wavered back and forth for some time, but in the end Dave put the phone away. What the hell - I'll just have to remember it.

Other things, however, weren't so easily sorted out.

One day, when the two were hanging a picture, Dave reached a hand back and unthinkingly asked, "James, pass me the hammer, would you?" He didn't even realize his mistake until he felt the man behind him freeze. Turning in a panic, he saw Spencer's expression shift from shock to wariness, but - to his great surprise - not anger. "I'm sorry, Spencer. It just… I don't know," Dave helplessly tried to explain, "It just kind of slipped out!"

"It's okay, Dave," Spencer said. The older man noticed that it took him a moment to look him in the eye, though.

"You sure?"

Spencer attempted to shrug it off. "Things like this are bound to happen sometimes. Everything's… well, confused right now."

Dave looked at his son. He sensed this was about more than one slip-up. "You're feeling it too, aren't you?"

He'd thought once Spencer had accepted him and agreed to try and make a go of this whole father and son thing, that everything would be smooth sailing, but of course that wasn't the case. It wasn't necessarily a clash of personalities, but more the very understandable fact that things like this took time. It rankled of course - they'd lost so much time already - but growing closer simply took building a new relationship by going through the days and weeks and months together. Some days, he revelled in the new cosiness of his house suddenly being a home by the sheer act of his child living under his roof, while other days he'd wake up and - just for a second - wonder why the hell Reid was sitting at his breakfast table, as if he'd decided to adopt his colleague while on a drunken bender the night before and now couldn't quite remember why.

Just the other day, in fact, he'd gotten home from work to find Spencer napping on the sofa after his physical therapy session and, seeing him shiver and stir uneasily, with his face furrowed in distress, Dave had automatically reached out and started running his hand through his son's shorn curls. Standing there, enjoying the moment at first, Dave's mind had idly travelled from comparing Spencer's new short cut to one the kid had had a few years ago, and then BOOM! Spencer was suddenly "Reid" again and Dave had swiftly pulled his hand away, struck by a feeling of extreme weirdness as he realized he'd been trying to soothe one of his co-worker's out of a nightmare by stroking his hair.

But what his son actually said now alarmed him. "There are times when I don't know who I am anymore," Spencer confessed.

"What?"

"Last week I nearly asked you if you wanted to call me James because I thought it would maybe help us both," Spencer went on in a rush, "but then I felt almost sick because it was like I was stealing something from a dead child." He looked bleakly up at Dave. "I'm not James Rossi. Sometimes I want to be, but I'm not. But I don't feel like Spencer Reid anymore either. Sometimes, it only feels like I know who I'm not, and not who I am."

In spite of a real worry he was about to make things worse, Dave stepped forward and grabbed Spencer in a rough bear hug. To his immense relief, Spencer accepted it, even going so far as to lean his head down and rest his chin on Dave's shoulder. Dave raised a hand to cup the back of the younger man's head. "Sarai sempre mio figlio," Dave whispered hoarsely in his son's ear. "Whoever you turn out to be, Spencer, you'll always - always! - be my son."

And he would. It no longer mattered to Dave how much time it took, he determined then, at that moment, that Spencer would always know that he had a father who loved him for himself.

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Sorry about the wait! For the last seven weeks I've been going through training at work and, after having things like tax codes and legal procedures and computer instructions READ TO ME for eight hours a day, I'd end the day so stupefied it was lucky I was able to find my way home at night. (Seriously, I wasn't even allowed to read them myself, they were READ TO ME. That's death to someone who learns almost entirely visually.)

And I also couldn't figure out how to approach this chapter. One problem was information overload - I literally have seventeen pages of notes. For just this one chapter! So first off was the problem whether to write ten more chapters, or wrap the story up in a couple of more and do the rest as DVD bonus extras. I still haven't decided. Then it was what to start with. And how to start. I'm not sure I've made the most effective choices for all the things I wanted to get at, but I think the chapter's okay. Hope you agree.

Also, I'm sorry if it's shorter than usual, but I just had to write and get something up today. When you let something go for too long, you start to lose the feel for it, so it was either write something now, or potentially abandoning the story, and I most certainly didn't want to do that!