Author's Note: Hey y'all! So this weekend's chapter is going up a little early because I had to drive back home for my brother's football game. I really hope you guys like this chapter, but whether you do or don't still leave a review. Who knows, with more reviews I could be persuaded to write faster ;)

Chapter 11

Avery's POV:

I woke up with a start; something was buzzing inside my pocket. I groggily realized it was my new phone and smiled a little bit at the knowledge that I finally had my own phone. Then I frowned in confusion; who could possibly have my number? Wanting to let Spencer sleep, I carefully slid out from his arms (I noted, with extreme satisfaction, that they had ended up around my waist at some point during the movie). After heading to the kitchen I looked down at my now silent phone. It seems I'd missed the call, but I flipped it open to see who it was from anyways. I smiled at the name that came up on my screen; Garcia, P. Figures she would be the first one to call me on my new phone. Outside of Spencer, who didn't really count because I'd been the one to call him. Just as I contemplated calling her back, my phone began to buzz and light up; she was calling me again. Flipping open the phone I greeted her quietly,

"Hey Garcia, what's up?"

"Avery my dear sweet girl!" she practically shouted back. Okay maybe she wasn't shouting, but I was used to the relative quiet of the house right now and she was pretty darn loud. "We need to talk about that fantastic idea I had yesterday".

"Oh yeah, right. Well I talked to Arrow, and I guess I'm on board. As long as it doesn't turn into some whole big thing", I conceded in a hushed tone. It was the truth, I really had brought up the situation to Arrow during our chat last night. He'd basically told me the party situation was going to happen, despite my protest, for two major reasons. Firstly, it was going to happen because the team was his family, and by definition that made them my family too. And apparently he thought I'd really made an impression on them, particularly Garcia. Which brought him to his second point; Garcia liked me and she would make this happen, one way or another. I still wasn't 100% comfortable with the idea of getting handouts from people, but Arrow said it would just be a few presents.

"Oh I knew you would love the idea eventually! And how could you not", she gushed. "By the way, why are you whispering?"

Seeing an opportunity to mess with her a little, I smirked before answering,

"Cause Spencer's asleep in the next room, and I don't wanna wake him".

It was like the call had been dropped; Garcia had gone absolutely silent. I could picture her sweet face, mouth agape, trying to form a coherent sentence. Evidentially she found her voice, because after her brief silence she practically exploded.

"What do you mean in the next room? Where are you? Where was he? What did you-I knew you loved him! I saw yesterday. When you get married I am so going to be a bridesmaid, oooo or even a maid of honor. OH. Can we were blue dresses? Wait, no, tell me everything. Right now young lady!" Her voice was extremely high pitched, and she spoke so fast I thought she was going to pass out. Seriously, she never even took a breath. I just giggled and rolled my eyes.

"What do you mean Penelope? He's on the couch with the boys. We were all watching a movie and fell asleep. Why else would he have been sleeping here?" I questioned in my most innocent voice. I had to cover my laugh as I pictured her bewilderment.

"I just-uhm-well-I mean", she stammered nervously. I giggled at her for a moment.

"Relax Pen, I'm just screwing with you", I said quietly. "But for the record, I wouldn't let a guy I just met stay over. Even if it was Spencer. Who does not love me by the way".

"Oh I would have to call some serious shenanigans on that my dear. I've been Reid's friend for a long while, and I have never seen him so nervous and shy around a girl ever. The question is do you like him back? And I mean of course you do because I saw how you looked at him yesterday- wait, Pen? Aww did you just give me a nickname?" she gushed. I laughed again, she was just too cute.

"Sorry it's a bad habit of mine. I almost never call people by their full names. Is that okay?"

"Okay? Okay? It's just about the sweetest thing I've ever heard. But anyways, I'll let you get back to whatever it was you and Spencer were doing", she said flirtatiously. I rolled my eyes, but smiled in spite of myself. At least I know his friends would support us, in case something really did happen. Which I really, REALLY, hoped would. If only Spencer weren't so damn nervous about my family.

"BUT", Garcia continued, breaking my thoughts. "What are you doing the rest of this week?"

"Uhm working? Otherwise nothing. Working is about all I ever do, outside of taking care of my kids", I chuckled.

"Oh! Well when do you work? I want to take you out shopping or something; ya know so we can get to hang out and also talk about the party and stuff", she chattered excitedly. I agreed, it'd been a long while since I'd been out with a friend, and Penelope seemed very friendly. We quickly worked out a time that worked for the both of us, Wednesday night after my shift.

"Well lovely I'll pick you up, Wednesday at 6:30. I can't wait!" she squealed.

"Me neither!" I replied happily. "Bye Pen!"

"Until Wednesday love" she said before hanging up. I smiled as I flipped my phone shut; I truly was excited to go somewhere with a friend, and doubly excited that it was with Garcia. She seemed like she was a great person. I smiled and turned to go back to the living room, then jumped slightly at the sight of someone in the doorway. It was Spencer, who was rubbing his eyes tiredly with the back of his hands.

"I'm so sorry Avery I really didn't mean to fall asleep", he said genuinely. I felt the smile return to my face as I answered.

"S'okay Spence, I fell asleep too before my phone woke me up", I reassured him. He was just too cute, leave it to Spencer to feel sorry for sleeping during naptime. "Garcia called to talk about that party she's planning, we're going out later this week to discuss things."

"Oh and she asked about you too", I added as an afterthought. His face turned an alarming shade of white.

"S-she did?" he stammered. "What did she s-say exactly?" I smiled, clearly he knew that Garcia was apparently already planning our wedding-even though we were sadly not together. Part of me wanted to reassure him that she hadn't said anything embarrassing, but another part wondered what sort of Spencer secrets Garcia knew, and how I could convince her to tell me. Another, seemingly dominant part of me wanted to see if I could make him blush.

"Oh she just asked if we'd gone off and eloped yet", I said innocently. It wasn't far from the truth actually.

"And w-what did you say?" he questioned nervously. I smirked.

"Oh obviously I told her that we had, and that I'd send her the pictures of it soon. Then she said something about beautiful genius babies and I kinda tuned her out", I said as seriously as i could manage. Just as I'd hoped, his face went from sheet white to bright red in no time. He started stammering nervously, until I giggled and cut him off.

"I'm only kidding Spence. Well, mostly kidding. She did actually ask if we were getting married, but she was kidding too. I think", I reassured him. As much as I enjoyed his pink face I wasn't going to be cruel or anything. He seemed visibly relieved, and he stopped stammering and managed a shy smile. I smiled back, just as warmly. Boy did I love this man's smiles.

"So I think we should use this rare instance where all the kids are snoozing to frost the cake and cupcakes, if that's okay with you", I said shyly. I really did want to take care of the baked goods, but I realized that this would be the first time Spencer and I were really truly going to be alone. Which was an extremely exciting idea, but also terrifying.

"Of course. Whatever you want is fine with me", he said softly. I felt my heart lift, he was so sweet. I handed him a can of frosting and pointed him to the cupcakes. After explaining to him how to frost a cupcake, ignoring how close I was when demonstrating, we quietly began working on our tasks. After a few minutes of companiable silence I frowned, and clicked on the radio. After turning the volume down, I twiddled the stations until I found a song I liked. Satisfied I returned to my work, quietly humming along. Eventually I finished my work on the cake and decided to throw a pizza in for the boys. No doubt they'd be starving when they woke up, in our baking adventure we'd somehow forgotten lunch. Not like that was anything new for me, but I never wanted my little people to turn out like me. In years past I'd really struggled with an eating disorder, and I still had trouble with it sometimes. Though I usually forced myself to eat, it was usually only because I knew that my kids needed me to be the best I could be. I still couldn't bring myself to eat around other people though, no matter how hungry I was. It just made me so self-conscious.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Spencer said, echoing my earlier words and snapping me out of my reverie.

"Just thinking about today and how much fun we had", I quietly fibbed. I hated lying, but there was no way I was going to explain what I'd been really been thinking about. I knew from experience that talking about my problem only made people uncomfortable; they never understood what I was feeling, and they always told me to 'just stop'. As if were that easy. No I wouldn't be telling any of my new family this part of my life anytime soon, especially not Spencer.

"I'm glad you had fun, I did too", Spencer said honestly. I smiled and moved to look at his cupcakes. I laughed and shook my head a little at the sight; they looked as if a child had made them, they were messy and lopsided. It was adorable.

"I did warn you that baking wasn't my forte", he said sheepishly. I smiled and waved him off, indicating it was no big deal. I stepped in next to him and began fixing some of the cupcakes. In an attempt to ignore how tingly my arm felt that was super close to mine, I started quietly singing along to the radio. Eventually it worked as I got lost in the song, almost forgetting that Spencer was anywhere near me.

'I might have to wait, I'll never give up

Guess its half timing, and the other half's luck

Wherever you are, whenever it's right

You'll come out of nowhere and into my life

And I know that we can be so amazing, and baby your love is gonna change me

And now I can see every single possibility.. .'

I sang along to the song that had constantly been playing on the radio lately. I usually didn't care for the Top 40 hits, but this one was different, it sounded almost like an oldies song. I totally loved it. It wasn't until I heard Spencer drop his frosting knife next to me that I even remembered he was there. When I looked up and saw the way that he looked at me, an unreadable expression in his beautiful hazel eyes, I realized what I'd been singing. I'd basically just sang an entire love song, while standing next to Spencer.

Spencer's POV:

Avery's voice was breathtaking. I wouldn't expect anything less from her, the girl was completely amazing in every capacity. But her voice. It was so deep and pure, hypnotic even. I found myself calmly listening to her sing for a while when she was fixing my cupcake mess, but froze when I realized what she was singing about. She was singing a love song.

'And someday I know it'll all turn out

I'll work to work it out

Promise you kid, I'll give more than I get'

Not just a love song, she was singing about waiting, about making things work. What did she mean by this? Did she mean anything? Either way the sound of her voice, those words, were enough to make me drop my knife and have it clatter to the counter noisily. When I did, she stopped singing and looked up at me. Once again, we just stood there staring at each other, not saying a word. I couldn't help thinking how much I liked her, how strangely I didn't feel scared by how little we knew about each other when I was looking in her eyes. My thoughts consumed me, until finally heard myself speak up.

"God you're beautiful", I whispered. She shook her head sadly.

"I'm really nothing special", she replied, equally as quietly. I frowned. The devastating part was, she sounded sincere. She truly believed that she wasn't as amazingly beautiful as I knew her to be.

"Avery, you have to believe me when I say that you're the most beautiful woman I've ever had the fortune to lay eyes on", I said softly. I watched as her face tinged pink, eyes never leaving mine before pleading, "Even if you don't believe in your eyes, trust mine. You. Are. Beautiful".

I saw as her eyes became wet, though no tears fell onto her rosy cheeks. She turned away from me, blocking anymore of her face from my vision before speaking.

"I, uhm, better g-get Amelia", her voice cracked out. "She s-should be up by now". She quickly headed upstairs, under the pretense of grabbing Amelia, but I was fairly certain she'd been crying when she'd left. The question was, why? I didn't have time to ponder why for long, because just as her form disappeared from the kitchen I heard a small voice from the doorway to the living room.

"Spencer? Why is Avery sad?" I turned to see a very sleepy Jack Hotchner ask, leaning on the doorframe. I frowned and turned back to where Avery had been just moments before, saying quietly,

"I don't know buddy. I really don't".

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Shortly after Jack awoke, Henry did as well. Both groggy, they'd told me they were 'starving', and I'd given them some of the frozen pizza that Avery had cooked for them. They seemed happy with that, excitedly chatting about their favorite games and other things. They really were quite amusing to listen to; they just said whatever was on their minds, no matter how ridiculous.

Eventually Avery came down the stairs with Amelia, looking and acting as if she'd never been sad for a moment. I wondered what had made her so emotional so suddenly, and also how she'd managed to completely bounce back in the time it took her to change Amelia. I wondered all the way to the BAU, where I took them to deliver our baked goods to their respective owners. Had I offended her? Did I step too far for someone she'd just met? I longed to ask her, if only to ease my troubled conscience-I didn't like that I'd seemingly caused her pain, no matter how unconsciously. However with the rush to feed Amelia and the boys, wrap the cakes, and make it to the office before Hotch and Rossi left I couldn't find a second alone with her. I decided to try and get her alone after everyone was preoccupied with the cakes and apologize.

First, we walked into Rossi's office to bring his cake and then headed over to Hotch's office to deliver his cupcakes. Avery and Amelia stayed behind to talk to Rossi more privately for a moment, but waved the boys and I over to Hotch's office, saying she'd meet us there.

When I stepped into Hotch's office I wasn't prepared for the boys' noisy greetings.

"DADDY!" Jack yelled at the same time as Henry screamed "ARROW!" I jumped a little at their sudden enthusiasm, as did Hotch and JJ, who were near his desk discussing something. Hotch's face broke out into a smile before he hugged his son and nephew who excitedly began explaining all about their day. He patiently listened for a while before he turned to me for clarity.

"In the spirit of making Rossi a cake, the boys and Avery also made you some cupcakes", I explained, holding up the plate. He nodded curtly at me before returning his attention back to the boys. I furrowed my brow a bit before I set the plate down on his desk. Hotch wasn't usually this tense, which was saying something because Hotch was always tense. Just not this bad, and usually not at me.

"That sounds great boys. Hey JJ, do you think the boys would like to see where the break room is? You guys can bring the cupcakes in there, and maybe JJ will be nice enough to let you have one", Hotch said to the now ecstatic boys. JJ just smiled and ushered them out of the room, and I turned to follow them.

"Reid. Can you come in here a minute? And close the door", Hotch said from behind me. I frowned, but did what he asked. After closing the door, I turned to him with a questioning look, placing my hands in my pockets.

"Spencer I need to speak with you", he started. He looked oddly nervous. He still had a serious face, but then when he didn't. I really couldn't imagine what he needed to say to me, so I nodded, hoping he would continue.

"I need to speak with you about Avery", he said finally. I felt the color drain from my face as my stomach dropped. This certainly wasn't what I was expecting.

Authors Note: Oooooh what will Hotch say to Reid? Good news, bad news? What do y'all think? Let me know, leave a review!