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Chapter Twenty-Six

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The start of the next five years

January 23, 2015

The day after Christmas, Dave had come up to Spencer while the younger man was cleaning up a lunch of holiday leftovers.

"Look, I just want to say a thing, a thing that I really need to say, and it's not to pressure you or make you feel guilty, but more to just, you know, check and make sure."

Spencer closed the fridge door and looked at him curiously.

"If leaving isn't what you really want, if it's about you and me, I can still leave the team. I can be a consultant - "

"Dave," Spencer interrupted him with a smile, "Uh… Dad, sorry. It's okay. I know we should have had this conversation before, but the fact is, I've wanted to leave the team for nearly a year now."

"Really?"

Spencer nodded. "I've been restless for awhile. When I thought about it at first, I wondered if it was merely a new symptom of grief for Maeve; when the initial rawness of her loss wore off a bit, I found I had less patience for things. I…" He shrugged and trailed off, helpless to explain exactly what he meant.

"I know what you mean. I felt the same thing after your mother and Erin. Daily life falls back into its routine, and you feel perfectly normal most of the time, but there's a paleness to everything and you get angry more quickly because when something goes wrong, without the completeness you had before, you don't have the same resilience to deal with it. Irritability and restlessness are natural in that situation."

Spencer's whole body seemed to lighten in his relief that Dave understood. "Anyway, that's why I waited so long. But those feelings of impatience and dissatisfaction didn't pass, and more and more the idea of a new start began to attract me. I mean, when you think about it, everyone on the team but me has had another job: you've been a soldier and a writer, Hotch was a lawyer, Morgan a cop, Blake a teacher and a linguist, Prentiss worked for Interpol, J.J. has been a press liaison and worked for the State Department, and even Garcia was a hacker - though I'm not sure if that technically counts as an occupation. But this is all I've ever done.

"I'm not saying it's been an easy decision," Spencer went on. "Leaving the only family I've ever really had in years is breaking my heart, not to mention the guilt of leaving the job…" Spencer sat down at the kitchen table and looked up at Dave pleadingly. "I mean, how can I say it's not enough anymore? How can trying to save people's lives and find justice for others not be enough? But it isn't. I don't know why, but it just isn't any longer."

Dave joined him at the table and placed a hand on top of Spencer's. "Okay, get that thought right out of your head. We can't torture ourselves by worrying about all the things that are going to happen after we leave. The fact is, we could die tomorrow and there would still be monsters out there. Our staying or going will never, ever change that. But just like there will always be monsters, there will always be people to fight them. You did your bit and now the best thing for you to do is let someone else have their shot. Someone who'll bring their own fresh energy to the job. There's no point in you going on out of nothing but guilt and burning yourself out while there's a hundred people out there more than eager to jump in."

"Thank you, Dave," Spencer said softly, then sheepishly corrected himself. "Uh, sorry, I mean Dad."

Dave laughed. "Don't worry about it, Kid. I didn't say anything that wasn't true. And don't worry about the 'Dave' either; this is weird for both of us and a few 'Daves' are bound to sneak in."

-x-

Reassured by his new father's understanding (and even just the opportunity to talk to a parent about such an issue, something that was a relative novelty for him), Spencer Reid had flown out to San Francisco for his training a few days before the New Year wistful over what he was leaving behind, but excited about what potentially lay ahead. Now, just under a month later, after sailing through the physical and the Foundation's three-month training course in the same number of weeks, he looked up to see his father coming towards him across the waiting area near his boarding gate at San Francisco International.

Spencer hugged his father (still an effort for him, but increasingly less of one), but chided, "You knew I wanted our goodbyes at home to be just that."

Dave overrode him. "Tough. Of course I'd come to the airport. It's a Rossi family tradition to see a son off when he goes halfway around the world."

"I'm just going to be gone until April to co-ordinate the planning stages before I come home to help with student selection."

"Doesn't matter," Dave said gruffly. "You don't argue with family tradition."

"I don't believe you can fall back on the 'it's tradition' defence when it only happened once before this."

"Twice. Your grandfather went to Korea, remember? Though I do thank you for being the first of us not dumb enough to go over to Asia in the middle of a damn war. I'd be working hard right now not to shoot you in the foot if that was the case. Anyway, here," Dave said, handing over a very familiar gift bag.

"What's this?"

"Open it and find out."

Spencer eagerly thrust his hand into the bag and pulled out a book. He was stunned when he saw what it was. "Dave, I… but your father gave this to you!"

"And so now I'm giving it to you." It was the copy of James Michener's "Hawaii" inscribed by Federico Rossi and given to Dave before he'd left for Vietnam. "Look inside," Dave told Spencer.

Spencer opened the front cover. Under his grandfather's declaration of love to Dave was a new message:

Dear Spencer,

You are my son. Never, ever forget that you will always have someone who loves you waiting at home for you. So do well over there, but come back soon, will you? I'm going to miss you like crazy.

Love always,

Your father.

P.S. Try not to read the entire thing before take off - it's a hell of a long flight.

Tears pricked embarrassingly at Spencer's eyes and he could only nod his thanks, too overwhelmed by this unexpected farewell to trust his voice, and it only got worse when Dave hugged him roughly and he could see the emotion in the older man's face mirroring his own. Perhaps it was the fact that he was leaving, but not even the first edition copy of Dave's new book dedicated simply "To Ellery"(now a joke between them) that he had gotten for Christmas meant as much to him as this beat-up fifty-year-old paperback. Technically, William Reid had seen him off on his last flight home from Vegas all those months ago, but this was the first time having a family member there to bid him goodbye felt truly real, and, as the crowds bustled around them, Spencer Reid basked in the warmth of this new experience until his flight number was called for the final time.

"Go on now," Dave said as they pulled apart. "You're going to do great over there. And you're going to have the time of your life, trust me!"

"Thank you, Dad," he said and, with many waves and backward glances, he went through the gate and boarded his plane.

-x-

Dave had personally paid for a seat in first class for him. He had protested, but Dave had insisted, stating that it didn't matter if he had passed his physical, there was no point risking damage to his son's leg by having it shoved in and cramped behind the row in front of him for twenty hours.

Accepting that logic was a decision that would affect both his and Dave's life vastly for the better.

Settling gratefully into the spacious seat, he took his father's advice and waited until the plane was in the air and had levelled off before pulling out his book.

"What an excellent choice," a strangely familiar voice said.

Reid looked over and spotted someone sitting in the left-hand window seat across the plane from him. "Doctor Kimura?" he asked with wonder. "How nice to see you again!" And it was. Now that they were currently not in the middle of terrorist crisis, he realized she was much younger than he had assumed the first time they had met, though even then he had realized she was quite beautiful. Of course, he didn't process this until some time later - at the moment he only comprehended an immense sense of enjoyment from this unexpected meeting.

"It's so nice to see you again too, Doctor Reid. And please, call me Linda," she said, coming over to him and holding out a hand.

He shook it warmly. "Spencer," he told her, and then gestured at the empty matching aisle seat across from his. "And please sit down."

She did.

-x-

Two days later, when Spencer finally got around to calling Dave and told him why he hadn't had a chance to read the book at all yet, Dave was very intrigued to say the least. Remembering Spencer's exuberant tone as he described his and Linda's nearly day long conversation on the plane, and then all about their dinner together after landing, David Rossi couldn't help but smirk a little.

"Maybe grandchildren aren't so far over the horizon after all," he chuckled to himself.

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Sorry, the chapter is a little shorter than normal. This just felt like a good place to end it (the chapter, not the story), but I should warn you that - for various reasons - later chapters may be shorter in general as well. But cheer up, that just means there will be more of them!

Oh, and a note about Doctor Kimura: I'm making the character about ten years younger than the actress. I don't object to the age gap myself in terms of romance (and yes, that is where it's going), but well, I have practical reasons that you'll see later on. So the character is still older than Reid, but only by about five or six years.

P.S - I know I usually write a whole chapter in one POV (usually Dave's for reason even I don't know), but I didn't this time. I did, however, try to separate each POV shift, so hopefully it wasn't too confusing.