Playing Games by JuliaBC
A/N: This is a tag to S11E03: 'Til Death Do Us Part.
"Thank you very much," Rossi said, his voice perfectly Elvis, and everyone around him burst out laughing.
"So, you definitely seem to be the expert on what not to do in a relationship," Tara giggled. "Okay, everyone. Give me your secrets to a happy relationship."
"Don't look at me," Reid said when her laser eyes turned to him.
"Okay, I'll start," Derek said, laughing still. "Let me think. I've had a lot of relationships over the years and never had a lasting one until I met my sweet Savannah. The first thing to note is that...I think it should be easy, at first. Let me clarify this: it should be be easy to be with them. You should be happy when you're with them. At least in the beginning. And after that..." He looked into his mug of coffee. "It's about making time. It's about making every second count, packing it with wonderful moments. It's about turning simple times into outings. Savannah and I have a house now, outside of the city. We go there and just chill every time I'm in town. We make it special, even when it isn't."
He turned to Hotch. "Okay, now give us yours."
"Am I really the person to ask?" Hotch wondered, but his lips were twitching. "I don't know. I really don't know."
"Aaron, Aaron," Rossi said, shaking his head. "It's not that hard a question. Just think, as I am right now, what should you have done better?" He shrugged.
"Oh, you're going to go, too?" Tara asked, turning to him.
"Well, if I know what to do wrong, I'd be the stupidest person alive if I didn't know what to do right by now," Rossi said sarcastically. "Besides, I got three women to say yes. That has to count for something."
"Considering the third, I'm not sure," Derek said, his eyes glittering, and Rossi nudged his foot underneath the table.
"Aaron, we're still waiting," Rossi urged.
"Um, I guess it's...making time," Hotch said. "Trying as hard as you can to make time so they can at least see that you're trying. And, like Morgan said, making the most out of the time you have. Dave?"
"Love them," Rossi said, accentuating the words. "Love them and show it. Bring them flowers, yes, Tara, women can give flowers too. Show them, any way you can, that they mean something to you, that you adore them and wouldn't trade them for anything. But also remember, one woman might want a diamond bracelet and one might try to sell it and donate the proceeds to charity, all the while scolding you for buying it. Know what makes your partner happy, be it reading a book together or going out to eat a lot."
"I think it's Reid's turn," Hotch said, turning to the younger man.
Reid was just sitting there, not having joined in the conversation for a while now, and he blinked in surprise when Hotch called on him. "I think you know just how many relationships I've been in," he stated. "And how they ended."
"You all know mine, too," Hotch countered.
"Besides, in that genius brain of yours, don't you have the secrets to a happy relationship stored away somewhere? Surely you at least know what works on paper."
Reid frowned, and continued to blink as if he couldn't concentrate. Then, before their eyes, he went into full genius mode.
"The couples with the longest lasting marriages all say the same thing," he said, his voice rapid but clear. "Communication. Let the person know when something bothers you and be open to when they want to say something too. Let them know what you're feeling at all times. If you're in a bad mood, tell them and that can avoid hurt feelings if you fight. Be honest about old flames; warn them when you might come across your high school sweetheart. Let them know that you are still the person that they chose to be with and that there was a reason for that. Do things that both of you enjoy; take time to find out what both of you enjoy. Don't feel pressured to entertain just because everyone else does it. Find your rhythm, let your relationship be written by you, not to you." He finished in a rush, frowning.
"But what is most important to you, Reid?" Tara asked gently. "Besides the experts advice."
"Be quick to forgive," Reid said instantly. "Always say that you're sorry first, even what you don't want to. That's what I've seen destroy relationships more than anything else."
"I've been thinking a lot about marriage recently," Reid announced to Kate when he came by to pick up Poe after a case involving florists (at least, that was all she'd been able to gather from Garcia in one slightly frenzied phone call.)
"Do you have anyone in mind?" Kae asked, curiosity in her voice.
"No, it's strictly abstract," he said, sitting at her kitchen table with a mug of tea. Pod had long since curled up by his feet. "Also, Kate, I can't believe you got me to drink tea."
"I'm not giving you caffeine at this hour, no matter how much you say you can handle it," Kate said.
Reid watched her with a fond look on his face. "What's your secret to a happy marriage, Kate? We got to talking about it on the way home."
"How'd that come up?"
"With the subject of how Rossi married his third wife," Reid said. "It was officiated by an Elvis impersonator. I think you can guess how the story goes from there."
Kate grimaced. "I actually already knew how he met and married his third wife," she said, remembering. "We talked about it once. During that case with the guy who wanted to act out that book?"
"Ah," Reid said.
"To get back on topic..." Kate laughed. "My secret to a happy relationship... I guess it would be not remembering that you 'chose' this life because that can become a very self punishing way of thinking, but remembering to keep choosing this life. To keep intentionally choosing your partner and the life you've built with them, in good times and bad." She looked wistfully toward the refridgerator , which displayed a picture of Kate, Chris, Meg and Jamie after Jamie's birth. "Hopefully there won't be any truly bad times, just hard ones. Did you ever come close, Reid?"
"I'd like to think that if Maeve had lived, we would have married," Reid said slowly. "I'm only now beginning to realize that it might not have been that easy."
Kate looked at Reid. "You know, I have a game for this occasion," she announced, standing up and walking to the front room. "Just give me a second."
She came back with a game titled Mystery Date. The box was old and tattered at this point. "This was my mom's," Kate explained. "A true vintage game."
She opened the box, spreading before Reid with eagerness. "It's a very old-fashioned game," she said. "You play as a girl trying to collect items so that she can go on a date with one of these handsome hunks." She lifted a door in the middle of the game board. "You collect items specific to each guy, see?"
"I get it," Reid said.
"But if you get the geek, you don't go on the date," Kate said. "Yes, it's sexist and silly, but just don't take it too seriously."
Reid was looking over the guys in the door, trying to figure out which he was going to aim for. "Can we just change one rule?" He asked innocently. "I want to get the geek."
"But you can't collect items for him," Kate said.
"I'll collect the items for the jock," Reid said. "Even if it doesn't make sense. How about the jock takes the geek's bad place?"
Kate looked at Reid with amusement. "You know, that's actually pretty perfect," she said. "I didn't have a good high school experience either so yes, it's pretty hilarious to think that the jock is the one to avoid."
They picked out their playing pieces, choosing between four girls dressed in stylish overcoats: green, blue, red and purple. Reid took green and Kate took red.
They played quickly, rolling the dice and playing according to the square they landed on.
"I'm surprised to hear that you didn't have a good high school experience," Reid said.
"Well, it's probably not as bad as yours was," Kate agreed.
"Whose could match that of a genius?" Reid shrugged.
"But I was a geek," Kate said. "Or a freak. Not quite a geek, admittedly. I wasn't quite that smart and I didn't belong to any clubs. I was just the odd woman out. I didn't get invites to parties and even so, I'd rather stay home and play Monopoly with my parents. I wasn't that enamored with kids my age. And then after I...developed, I started attracting some nasty guys' attention." She sighed. "Some bad experiences with them turned me off high school forever. But college..." A wistful smile appeared on her face. "That was fun."
"College was still rough for me," Reid said. "But at least I was with people who actually wanted to learn."
They continued to go around the board, Reid growing frustrated when he couldn't collect all of his items, and even more when Kate showed, by her actions, that she had collected all of them.
Still, he thought, you had to land on the 'open door' space and open the door to the correct guy to win.
He continued to play, concentrating hard, but it was just two turns later that Kate rolled correctly, opened the door and got the guy she needed. She winked at Reid, who threw down his cards.
"Come on, don't be a sore loser," she said.
"It's not that," Reid said. "I just really wanted the geek. I was going to take him to a Doctor Who convention."
They both burst out laughing and Reid good-naturedly helped to pick up the game. "Thanks for this anyway," he said, leaning down to wake up Poe. "Hey, you ready to go home?" He asked his puppy, and the dog barked in return.
"I saw Ashley Seaver last week," Kate said. "Just a random run-in."
"Really?" Reid asked, sounding delighted. "How is Ashley doing?"
"I don't know," Kate said. "Reading between the lines, not so great, but I tried calling her and she shut me down immediately so I gave up."
"Interesting," Reid said. "I guess I'll give her space."
"That's the indication she gave, tell anyone I'm having trouble and I'll never speak to you again, was the vibe she had going," Kate said, rolling her eyes. "Sometimes she got like that, so what can you do?"
She placed a gentle hand on Reid's back as he left. "Have a good night," she called after him, folding her arms around her against the wind outside.
"You too," he called back and disappeared into the night.
A/N: I think many people were frustrated that Reid forgave JJ and Prentiss so easily in 7x02: Proof.
I always saw it as a proof of how wise Reid is. He saw how and why his parents' relationship was destroyed; it was because his father could not get over what his mother had done. He knows that to keep relationships, you have to forgive people. You have to say you're sorry even when you think the other person is in the wrong.
So that's why I think it was a quintessential 'Reid' moment when he came to the dinner in Proof. But I'm not saying that JJ and Prentiss were in the right then either. Just that Reid is smart enough to forgive rather than risk losing those relationships most precious to him.
Quick note: for Mystery Date, I changed it up a bit. In the original game, it is NOT geek, it is the 'Dud', and shows a gross looking, greasy...dud.
And I'm going to keep this on here. Ignore it if you've seen it.
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