Chapter thirty-nine
Albain Towers
2957 Wisconsin Ave NW
Washington DC

Garcia

Today was good, Penelope thought as she settled in with a romance novel and some hot cocoa. Today was wonderful. Henry had a blast, JJ was getting a handle on her son being out in the world, and Susanna and Spencer were coming along nicely. They had all been so worried for him, after Maeve and all, but now that he had the kind of sweet, good natured girl he deserved, one who was actually meeting him face-to-face, everything was coming up roses again. She could relax and bask in the glow of all of her kittens happy in their lives tonight.

And then her phone rang. "Okay, why are you talking to me and not Susanna?" She asked.

"Because I screwed up somehow," Spencer replied. "I knew this was going to happen. I knew this was all going to end horribly."

Oh, god, drama. Thankfully her mug of cocoa was large and hot. "Okay stop, breathe and tell me what happened; every detail."

"I took her to see Kavi. He was sedated for a tooth replacement and while they were setting up she was able to get a good look at him."

"That's a good thing!" When Spencer told her what he was planning she'd been so excited. Getting to pet a real tiger, what girl wouldn't want to do something amazing like that? "Right?"

"I thought so but as she finished she…I don't know, I couldn't read her body language. But something shifted and then she just wanted to go home and get away from me. I could read that much, she didn't want anything to do with me anymore." He sighed. "I knew this was going to happen."

Penelope opened her mouth to answer but her line blipped. "And that's her now on my other line. Stay!" She clicked over. "Hey sweetie, I didn't expect your date over this soon. What's going on?"

"I…don't know." Susanna was breathing hard, her voice all fluttery. "I don't…I don't feel right."

"Do you feel sick?" Uh oh. Could people be allergic to tigers? "What are you feeling sweetie? If you need help Spencer's just around the corner."

"No! No, I don't…my heart keeps fluttering and I'm kind of light headed and every time I think about him it gets worse."

Wait. "Ohkaaay. Hold on, I have someone on my other line. Just lie down and let me get rid of them and then I want you to tell me how all of this started, okay?"

"Yeah."

"Great." Back to line one. "Okay, still trying to figure out what's going on, but my best guess is that she's not mad at you."

"She's not?"

"No, but I think I might be mad at those cult bastards."

"Did she have a flashback or something? Because that would explain…"

"I don't know yet. Hang up so I can find out." Penelope sighed. Back to line 2. "Feeling any better?"

"If I don't think of Spencer," Susanna replied, and then she groaned.

"Okay, start at the beginning."

"Spencer took me to see a tiger…"

"Which was or was not wonderful?"

"It was! Kavi is magnificent. You could just feel the strength in him, his paws are huge; he was just…amazing… I never thought I would ever get to do something like that."

"Okay, and you sound better already. So when did you start feeling weird."

"When I got to his tail and his back legs. He had these things under there, really soft and warm and kind of heavy. They felt like they would dangle away from his body."

Penelope started blinking. "You mean his…testicles?"

"Is that what they're called? I didn't know if it was just a tiger thing but then I thought that maybe it was because he's a male tiger…"

Okay, there was no way she could not know this. "Yeah that would be it. Or, two-thirds of it."

Susanna was quiet a moment. "Do all men have those?"

"Seriously? Okay you grew up on a farm, surely you had a look at…boy goats or something."

"Oh, Father never let us around the billy. The girls only looked after the nanny goats. Daniel looked after the billy."

This could not be happening. Except it was happening, you didn't need to be a profiler to hear the truth in her voice. "Okay, Susanna, do you or do you not know how babies get made?"

Susanna was quiet another long moment. "Not really." Penelope couldn't help the long breath she took in. "Mamma always said she'd explain it the night before any of us got married. She said we didn't need to know before then. And there was only so much on NPR…"

"Oh my gawd you are serious."

"Well, yeah." Susanna was quiet a long moment. "Anyway, when I thought that I started wondering if Spencer had…"

"Okay stop!" Penelope could go no further than this. "I cannot discuss what Spencer may or may not have, it's against company policy." And much more than she could handle.

"Oh. Sorry. And then I started feeling really strange and it got stronger the closer he came so I decided to just go home. I didn't know what else to do!"

"Okay, here is what you're going to do. You are going to go take a shower and scrub off that sunscreen and then you're going to eat something if you want to and then you're going to go to bed. And I am going to call your therapist and if it's all right with you I'm going to tell her what you just told me and she is going to meet you just as soon as she can and discuss all of this with you, all right? So you just sit tight and hang on and things will become wonderfully clear. All right?"

"All right," Susanna breathed a sigh of relief. "Do you think I'll ever be able to feel normal around Spencer again? I don't want to lose him."

"Talk with your therapist; she'll help you work everything out. For now get some sleep."

"Okay. Thank you. Good night."

"Good night sweetie." Penelope hung up the phone, sent a quick text to Marsha the therapist, grabbed her pillow and used it to smother the cackles for a time. Holy Hanna, that poor girl went beyond virgin. And she had to end up with the guy with the worst luck with women of all time. Speaking of. "Okay, she doesn't hate you."

"Then what was wrong?" Spencer asked.

"Something…kind of like a flashback, kind of like a realization of how screwy things were. Anyway, it provoked a very strong emotional response…"

"Emotional response? I didn't recognize it."

Of course not, Penelope thought, because poor Maeve died before you could see her go all pantsfire over you. "Trust me on this one. And it was the first time she ever had to process that so she kind of pulled away…"

"…to process. That makes sense." He breathed a little sigh of relief. "But I don't understand…"

"And I am not going to explain it further because it is her right and privilege to do so. I have already sent a text to her therapist to tell her that Susanna really needs to talk to her tomorrow and I know that Marsha will work it out with her."

"But if I can help…."

"No, genius, stop genius. I know you're a genius but that's not your job. Your job is to be loving, supportive boyfriend…"

"We're not…"

"Reid." The long silence followed by the sigh ended it. "Your job is to be loving, supportive boyfriend and right now that means giving her space to work it out with her therapist and then letting her bring it to you in her own time and her own way, okay? Right now you have the hard part, you have to be patient. So go read a few bookshelves and wait, she will get back to you."

"But what if she doesn't?"

"Sweetie, she wasn't worried about what all this might mean for her. The only thing she was worried about was not seeing you again. She really doesn't want to lose you."

"She won't." Spencer answered that quickly. "Whatever it is we'll work it out."

"I'm sure you will. And before you even go there tonight it's not rape or abuse or anything really bad like that, okay?"

That got her another sigh of relief. "Okay."

"Now I will see you in the morning. Good night."

"Thank you Garcia, for everything. Morgan is right, you really are a goddess."

Penelope grinned at that. "Yes, I know."

.

Note: Different kind of cliff hanger

I put an article referring to how old "the cult" thinks you should be before learning about sex in the reference portion of my profile, lest you think I made that part up.