Undercover Family

I would love to hear your opinions and look to working further on the story.

I do not own or have connection with the "Criminal Minds" program or its characters.

Chapter 16.

It was late the next morning when the agents finally started to wake up. The first to wake up was Aaron and he was hungry and needed to be changed. He stood up in his crib and saw everyone still sleeping soundly. He knew just what to do to wake them up and opened his mouth to scream, when he saw momma coming out of the bathroom.

"I don't think so Aaron."

"Oh, come on momma, let me wake them up." She walks over to the crib and looks at him in the eye and says, "They already see you as a baby, do you really want to seal that in cement." He laughs and she joins him while lifting him to change him. After which she fed him a bottle of milk.

The others start to wake up and get out of bed, momma orders some breakfast of cereal, milk and juice sent up from room service. For the first night since they were here, Spencer woke up with a wet pull-up, and he hates it when he wets himself, but wearing the pull-up at least keeps the bed dry. Remember, right now he sleeps between his big brothers. He is more careful getting out of bed today and didn't step on anyone. After all the kids are up and eating breakfast. Momma starts to talk.

"Today, we could do something like visit the aquarium or the zoo, or we could take a break and stay in the hotel and relax. We could go swimming or shopping or whatever. What would you like to do? Three female voices chime up with one word, "shopping."

Spencer says, "I don't know what I want to do. I don't really swim and I don't want to shop."

"But you've been taking swimming lessons."

"Yeah, I know and I thank you momma for that, but I don't feel safe enough in the water to go swimming."

Derek pipes up, "You never learned to swim before."

"No, I did other things, I didn't do sports things."

"Swimming isn't like other sports, everybody can do it. Babies can learn to swim."

"Well, I had never learned before this summer and although momma has me taking swimming lessons. I am still scared a little of going in the water to swim."

Momma says, "It is okay Spencer, I have water wings and a safety ring for you. So, a day at the hotel today; it is the fourth of July, so there will be a lot of people around and noise out there. If you girls do go shopping, I want to know what stores you want to go to and only go to those locations. What do you boys want to do?"

Derek and David simultaneously say, "Swimming." They both go to their suitcases to get out their suits.

"Hold on, the pool isn't open just yet, so why don't you play in the room for awhile. Girls, right outside the area is known as the Magnificent Mile and is a haven for stores, I want you to stay within a six block area of the hotel, if you go north, you will get to the Water Place shopping center and the American Girl Place. You could have lunch there. I want you to come back if any of you get too tired or by 3:00, I don't want you out all day. Understood."

Penelope says, "We understand and will be back by 3:00 or if someone gets too cranky." Momma gives her a credit card for any purchases they want to make and the girls leave the room to go shopping.

An hour later, momma and the boys are heading down to the swimming pool with blown up swimming rings and balls. Derek and David are wearing swimming trunks, Spencer has on a pair of swimming briefs and Aaron was wearing a swimming diaper, even momma had a swim suit on. She wasn't going to let the boys be the only ones having fun in the water. When they get to the big pool, momma walks down the steps carrying Aaron and then places him into a swim ring with a little mesh seat in for him to sit so that he could enjoy the water. There was a big dragon's head attached to it that he held on to. David goes to the other end of t he pool and goes up the diving board and dives in. Derek jumps in from the side of the pool. Spencer just stands at the side of the pool, wearing his water wings and he has a dragons head on the swim ring that he is wearing around his waist. Momma reaches out to him and he attaches himself to her, still scared of the water. Momma reaches around and makes sure Aaron is doing well with pushing his legs in the water and making his dragon go. Spencer watches him but doesn't let go of momma. The other two began to throw the water ball to each other and splash in the water at each other. Some other kids staying at the hotel join in and soon there is a big game of free for all going on. Spencer soon lets momma put him the water but won't leave her side, so she is having fun with her little ones who begin to splash at each other and actually have a slight dragon fight. That is until one finds himself tipping over and his head goes under. When he comes up, he begins to cry from being scared of going under. It was for less than 10 seconds but it seemed to be forever, Momma took her little one and held him to calm him down. Whispering soft little nothings and comforting her child, she continues to push the other one around, who kept apologizing for the act, even though it wasn't his fault. They were just having fun. Momma walks out the pool and puts her crying child on a deck chair and then went to get the other child out of the pool. After having both out, she just holds her scared little boy until he was cried out. The other child just sat down on the floor next to the chair and plays with some of the toys that momma brought down to keep the little ones occupied while the older boys played more in the water.

After about an hour or so, the others come out of the pool and say they were hungry. They ordered lunch sitting there by the pool.

David says, "How you doing Spencer? I saw you go under."

"It was scary, I know I wasn't under very long, but it felt like forever. I don't ever want to do that again."

"You can't stop going in the water just because of one bad experience."

"Watch me."

"After lunch, I'll take you in and we'll do some things together until momma wants to put you down for your nap. You don't want to be scared of the water for the rest of your life."

"Why not?" They all laugh at that remark.

After lunch, David and Spencer go into the water, without any blow ups and play together, Derek joins them and they have fun. Momma takes Aaron to the baby pool and he splashes around with some of the other babies in the pool. After awhile, he comes over to the side of the pool and starts to lean on momma, a sure sign that its nap time.

Momma gets up and begins to pack up the blow ups and toys, goes to the side of the pool and calls to David to bring in Spencer.

"Well, I guess its nap time for you little man." He carries Spencer up the steps to momma. Derek follows him up.

"Good, you both came, could you help me gather this stuff together and take it to the room. Aaron was already sleeping on her shoulder and she took Spencer from him to put on her other shoulder. The boys pick up everything there and follow her to the room. It was interesting at the looks they got when they walked by, until one man came forward and offered to help by taking one of the boys off her shoulders.

"Thank you for the offer, but they are not heavy." The man nodded his at that, he did get the elevator for her and got barely civil looks from the other boys.

"Four boys, that's quite a handful that you have there."

"Yes and my three girls are shopping."

"Seven children!"

"Yes, I wouldn't give any of them up. They are my salvation and my strength, even during their bad times."

"They look alike; I assume they have the same father."

"Yes, but he died less than a year ago."

"I'm sorry; it must be hard then to be raising seven children alone, especially with one still in diapers."

"Yeah, but the children are very protective of each other and I know they will always love each other. They will always miss their father but they have each other for support."

"And you."

"Excuse me?"

"They are protective of you too. These two continue to glare at me like they think that I am going to ravish you and steal you away." She looks at David and Derek and it does look that when she sees their faces.

Laughing, she says, "Boys, don't be so discourteous." They look a little less glaring but still aren't very friendly looking. "This is our room, thank you for your kindness; it is nice to have an adult male to talk with once in a while."

"Well, maybe we could talk some more at a later time?"

"Thank you, but no, the loss of my husband is still too fresh and I'm just not ready to date. We had been together twenty years; it is just too soon and if you think these two are bad. You haven't even experienced the clinginess of the two in my arms and the girls would definitely not like the idea of my going out with a man who was not their father. Thank you for making me feel wanted by a man."

"You're welcome, good bye." The door opens and momma and the go in and close the door behind them. A slew of giggles and laughs came from all of them. Momma sets Spencer down and puts in Aaron in his crib.

Derek says, "I can't believe he asked you out, you told him you had seven children and he still asked you out."

David continues, "I didn't like the look of the guy, a man who would ask out a woman surrounded by four boys, two of them in her arms and then is told that there are three other children is somebody I would question the motives of. He might have been asking the woman out, but I think he might have been more interested in the children."

"You think he might have been a pedophile."

"He might have been."

Spencer comments that he loved the way the momma answered him and kept up the family role up. I am glad though that she's not going out with him. We don't need a step-father." They all laugh at that. Spencer pulls off his wet swim briefs and puts on a pair of pull-ups before getting into bed to take a nap, he is exhausted. Swimming took a lot out of this little guy.

"Yeah, it would be interesting to try to explain to him about your children who aren't really children. You know this would be an interesting ruse to be able to catch pedophiles. The agency could use this device to make agents as children in order to catch pedophiles."

Momma says, "That is one of the applications that the director is hoping to use it for. That's one of the reasons for this undercover assignment and for using a BAU team, rather than just a regular team. They want to know how it can be used to analyze the behavior of those people. That was a good pick up by you David." She is currently changing Aaron's diaper while he sleeps. She wants him out of the swim diaper and in a dry one. She covers him up and lets him sleep with his arm around his puppy dog.

Spencer cries out for Spunky. Where is Spunky?

Momma tells David to go find Spunky; he might be in the bed or under it, but probably somewhere around it. He and Derek search for that little imp. Finally, Derek sees that it had gotten tossed under the crib and he grabbed it and brought it to Spencer, who grabbed it and squeezed before lying back down to sleep. Spunky is the frog that Spencer made at the navy pier.

While the little boys slept, David and Derek went back down to the pool and played for another hour or so, before coming back up and changing from their wet clothes. They each took a shower to clean off the chlorine and dressed in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. They were quiet and played cards in the room until the girls came back.