UNCONVENTIONAL AMERICAN FAMILY

--

JJ arched her back with a cry of pleasure, her entire body going taught. Spencer stilled above her, groaning deep in his chest before collapsing on top of her. JJ grinned as she tried to catch her breath. It had been date night for the Reid household and she'd barely let him get through the door before she was stripping of his clothes and her own.

It had been years since she and Spencer had last debated ending anything that had to do with a romantic relationship between them and a lot had changed. It had taken her some time and some support, but JJ had learned not to run away. She had learned that Spencer was ready to sit and listen to the things that bothered her with an open mind and though it had taken them a few times before they could honestly talk without it turning into a yelling match, things had shifted.

They had started with dating. JJ had moved out of Spencer's apartment and they'd spent about a year reacquainting themselves with the dating process and building the trust in their relationship. At first, it had felt odd. After all, they were still legally married. But it was something they tried to forget about for the time being. She'd moved back in with him after that year and numerous conversations around the topic.

That wasn't to say things were perfect. Both of them still avoided many topics, including any conversation about children. It had never come up again, it had never had reason to come up again. JJ groaned as he rolled off of her, a groan that turned into a gasp as she realized something epically important. A few months prior she'd been feeling off and her doctor had promised to get her a new prescription for birth control. However, between the craziness of cases and Aunty Jenny duties, she hadn't been able to fill it at all. Which meant she hadn't been on birth control since her last doctor's appointment.

"Spence?" She knew her voice was shaking. Children was a taboo topic between them, no matter how many times they'd babysat their nieces and nephews. Even if he admitted that children weren't always scared of him – evidenced by the way the BAU family children absolutely adored their Uncle Spencer – JJ was well aware schizophrenia was still at the forefront of his mind. He tested himself every day in every way he could to ensure that he was the same as he had been the day before. So far, he'd been able to pass his own tests with flying colours.

"Mmhmm?" Spencer hummed into her neck, pulling her over his body.

She settled herself in, resting her ear over his heart, trying to prepare herself for the topic she was about to bring up. "I'm not on birth control."

His body tensed beneath her. "What?"

She sighed, pushing herself up and climbing out of bed. She slid on his button up shirt and sat on the edge of the mattress again. "My doctor changed my prescription because I wasn't feeling well a few months back?"

She knew he remembered by the way his eyes widened. "And you don't have one?"

"I haven't had a chance to fill it. It's been a while since I've had thirty seconds, let alone enough time to get to the pharmacy and back. And we've been using condoms so I didn't think much of it."

She saw the moment he understood as if it was happening in slow motion. He shot up from his reclining position, his hands coming to his knees as they curled towards him. "We didn't use a condom."

JJ shook her head slowly, dread rising within her. So she broke into the one terrible habit she had picked up from him. "I promise I didn't mean for it to happen, I wasn't even thinking about it, really. I mean, we'd been flirting all night and when we got home there was nothing else I could think of so I didn't even stop to really think about the ramifications of what we were doing and didn't even think about a condom because it had never been a problem before and we've always remembered, but you have to believe that I didn't do this on purpose. I wouldn't do it on purpose, I couldn't do it on purpose-"

"Jenn." His hand came up to cover her mouth and she snapped it shut, almost biting his palm in the process. "You wouldn't forget on purpose."

She blew out a breath. Her belief in his trust in her was still fragile to say the least, even after six years. They'd been through too much for her to simply take it for granted, but it was certainly a relief to know that he didn't see this as an attempt to get pregnant on her part. "I doubt this is going to have any sort of consequences," she whispered quietly.

"What if it does?"

She'd given him an out, a way to simply end the conversation they were having and move on. She wasn't sure how to feel about him choosing to have the conversation. "I don't know," she replied whispering. "You know how I feel about kids. I know how you feel about kids. We've agreed to disagree."

"Hand me my boxers?"

She handed them to him slowly, avoiding looking at him as he slid them on. Then he stood, holding out his hands. "Come on, Jenn. This isn't a conversation we should have in bed."

She prepared herself for their first epic fight in a while as they crossed the short distance between the bedroom and the living room. He led her to the couch and she followed him down on it, her hands still wrapped in his.

"Do you trust me?"

She nodded. That was an easy question.

"Do you trust that I trust you?"

"More or less," she replied, terrifyingly honest. It was probably the biggest promise she'd ever made to him. She would no longer hide, no longer run. Honesty was the name of the game and she hadn't lied to him during a serious conversation. She was surprised when he took a deep breath.

"Kids will always be a scary topic for me," he began, his thumbs stroking across the back of her hands. "I'll never be comfortable with them, even if evidence says they're not all afraid of me."

"Your child won't be afraid of you," she said softly. "Your child will love, adore and idol you."

He smiled, but didn't reply, just continued on his path. "There's so much at stake with me in bringing a child into the world. And I know it has everything to do with my parents, and everything to do with our history. And I know that we've spent six years trying to forget, bury or deal with that history, but it doesn't always go away."

"I would never ever leave a child behind, Spence. If you don't believe anything else I say, believe that," she said quietly, eyes honest. Leaving a child behind was like the most ultimate sin in her life. She hated Spencer's father for walking out on his twelve-year-old son and leaving him to deal with his schizophrenic mother. A parent just didn't do that to their own child.

"Most of me believes you," he promised. "But would you take a child away from a schizophrenic?"

She'd prepared herself for this conversation and this particular subtopic for years and yet her gut was telling her that there was nothing she could say that would change the way he felt about the disease. "I couldn't walk out on you when you needed me the most."

--

That much he truly believed. Henkle had bound them tighter than blood and it had been JJ that had gone against his request when his mother had passed away. In fact, she'd applied for leave for both of them far beyond what he'd originally taken so they could bury his mother and deal with her things at the Sanitarium. She'd held him tight when the nightmares plagued him after her death, stuck close to his side when things felt like they were getting bleak again. Since running out of that Washington hospital six years ago, she had been by his side through every rough patch he'd been through. And he'd done his best to do it for her.

He squeezed her hands. "I'm scared, Jenn."

She cocked her head to the side. "Of what?"

"Our own child. I'm afraid of my own mind and I'm afraid of what kind of damage I could inflict on our child without knowing it," he whispered.

He knew she had already gathered that, but admitting it was a completely different step. She pulled her hands out of his to cup his face. "Our child will never be alone, Spencer," she began quietly. "Even if I'm wrapped up with you because you miraculously had that schizophrenic gene that kicked in, our child will never ever be alone. We will never be alone."

He had to admit he'd never considered that. She was completely right, however. There was no way the team would ever let them battle something out in the confines of their own little immediate family. On the contrary, they'd poke their nose in whenever they could, and already had over the years. He wasn't sure what he'd do without Penelope Garcia-Morgan and he knew JJ would be hard-pressed to say she'd be sane without Emily. Their family was just like that.

"I'm willing to talk about it," he said finally, his hands coming up to grasp her wrists, pressing a kiss in her palm. "If you'd like."

JJ shifted closer to him. "I don't want you to do this because you think it's what I want, Spence," she replied, eyes searching his. "I want you to make sure this is what you want."

"We'll do research," he told her. "Check with doctors, therapists, whoever we need to. I'll see if there's a test I can do to see if I have the schizophrenic gene and see if there's a chance I could pass it on to a child. I think our relationship is strong enough to start talking about our own kid."

Her smile lit up her entire face in that way he absolutely adored. There was nothing he loved more than that smile. "You're completely positive?"

He took a deep breath. "I wouldn't say it if I wasn't sure."

Something settled in his stomach then, something he hadn't even realized he was uncomfortable with. He'd never considered that children was something that stood between him and JJ. But it didn't really matter now. They had time and they had a plan. Talking about it, researching it, double and triple checking to make sure that everything was going to be okay with their baby.... He could do that. And he trusted now, more than ever, that no matter what happened, they'd always have a family. Their son or daughter would never be alone and for the first time since his father had walked out on him, Spencer found that he was sure he would never be alone either.