A/N~ I'm not going to lie, the next few chapters may be some of the hardest that I've ever written.

"Boy or girl?" Garcia asked, having finally woken up from where she had fallen asleep against Morgan.

Spencer smiled at them, his eyes twinkling. "Come and see." he offered, leading us through the hallways until he opened up a door that presumably led to his wife and newborn child.

8888

Rossi's P.O.V.

Katerina was the first one through, and we all followed the blue-haired woman through the door. I found myself anxiously waiting to get my first glimpse of Mrs. Reid. Even though what I had heard and seen so far had been far off from what I had expected - like Katerina, or the curses and threats that had come from the delivery room - I still expected Dr. Reid's wife to almost be a female version of the man himself.

The woman laying in the hospital bed was almost as far from what I had pictured as possible.

She looked exhausted and pale, but practically glowed with happiness - something that I expected, considering that she had just given birth. However, the dark makeup around her eyes that had been smudged by both sweat and tears was something that I didn't expect, and neither were the tattoos that covered her arms. Her hair was dark, almost black, and wavy. All in all, she was beautiful, and if I had been about ten years younger - and she wasn't married - I would've been putting on the old Italian charm.

"Hey guys." she said, smiling at everyone. Her eyes skimmed over the crowd that had gathered around her hospital bed, before landing on me where I stood over by the door, and her smile faded.

"You must be Agent Rossi." she said. "I'm Ariel, Spencer's wife. But why are you all the way over there?" she smirked then, and even with how exhausted she looked I could still see traces of her usual humor in her expression. "I won't bite you… that's saved for my husband."

I must've looked as shocked as I felt, because she started laughing even as said husband blushed. "Ariel!" he admonished.

"Oh please, killer." she said, shifting the baby in her arms as she attempted to get more comfortable. "The man's been married three times. I'm going to assume that he knows what married people do."

"Enough, you two." Katerina said. "I've been dying to know for the past ten months what the baby is, and so help me you'd better tell me now." she was glaring down at the other woman by the time she finished, and I would've thought it strange and more than a little rude if not for nearly everyone else in the room rolling their eyes at her antics.

8888

Spencer's P.O.V.

"Everyone, I'd like to introduce to you the newest member of our family." I announced proudly, as my wife handed our baby over to Kat. "Michael Gideon Reid."

There was plenty of gasping and cooing from the women, and some from the men as well as they all stared at the baby. There was a few minutes of pure happiness, before it was destroyed.

The door of the hospital room was pulled open, and a doctor stuck his head in. He was an older man with a head of graying hair and thick glasses on his face. "I'm looking for a…" he checked the clipboard that he was carrying before looking up again. "Mr. Reid?"

Ariel was the first one to answer. "No, but there is a Doctor Reid." she said snidely, and there was barely muffled laughter from one of the guys in the room. I had a feeling that it was Lee.

"It's alright, Ari-bear." I reassured her, kissing her forehead gently before getting up from where I had been sitting next to her.

Of course, though, things only went downhill from there, and quickly. "You're a doctor?" the man asked me incredulously. "How old are you?"

"I'm, um… twenty six." I said awkwardly, before trying to return to the original topic. That was harder than it should have been because of the medical doctor who kept staring at me in disbelief. "What was it you wanted to talk about?"

He paused to try and collect himself - or to get over the apparent shock - for a moment before speaking. "Why don't we talk outside?"

8888

I followed the doctor out the door, already nervous about what he was going to say. His body language read as being tense, but I had no idea what it was that could possibly be making him like that.

"What is it?" I asked him as soon as the door had shut behind me.

"There's something that you should know, about your son…" he began, and my heart started going overtime.

"What's happened? Is he okay?" I asked, just hoping that the man would hurry up and tell me what was wrong.

"Before I tell you, I have to ask… were there any complications in your wife's pregnancy?" he asked.

I didn't even have to think about it. "Yeah, there was, ah, there was a car accident that she was involved in… the doctors, they, um, they put her in a coma for about a month." I answered quickly. "Why?" I felt like I was about to pass out, I was so scared about what might be wrong with our baby.

"That explains it." he mused, flipping through the charts that were on his clipboard.

I was about ready to start shouting at the man if he didn't give me some answers. "Explains what?"

"Your son was born with deafness in both ears." the doctor said quietly. "Almost completely deaf in the left ear, and only partially deaf in the right. Meaning -"

"He might never be able to hear anything." I murmured, cutting him off. "How…?"

"It could be anything, from a genetic cause to something that happened in the accident." the man replied, not sounding all that interested in what he had just told me. For a doctor, his bedside manner was one of the worst that I had had the misfortune of seeing so far.

"Is there anything that can be done?" I asked. I wanted to make sure that I had every last scrap of information possible before I went in and…

My heart dropped into my stomach when I realized what was about to happen. I was going to have to go in there and let my wife and our entire family know that our son… our son was deaf.

"It's possible that he may be able to be fitted for hearing aids at some point in his life." the doctor said slowly. "But that's a pretty big maybe."

But at that point, I didn't care how desperate the odds were. There was a chance that we could help our son to deal with his disability, and that was all that I really needed to know that things were going to be okay in the end.

8888

Ariel's P.O.V.

Everyone was taking turns to hold Michael after Spencer left. There were hugs and congratulations all around, and I made Hotch promise to bring Haley and Jack by at some point to meet the baby. I knew that no one else on the team knew about their separation, and I also knew that he preferred to keep it that way.

There were a few quiet moments where the ladies were all cooing over how tiny he was, when I decided to take the chance to talk with Agent Rossi. So I waved him over to the bed.

"Shouldn't you be resting?" he asked, once he was close enough. I just shrugged off his concerns.

"I'm sure I'll have time later." I told him. "Right now, I want to get to know the newest member of the team a little better." I motioned to the large group of people that filled the room. "How are you taking all this, anyway?"

Rossi looked confused. "All of what?"

"Well, it's kind of obvious that you're a loner at this point, Rossi. How many marriages have you had now - five?"

"Three, actually." he corrected me.

"But no family." I added, then caught the look on his face. "I'm not saying that to be rude or anything, I'm just stating the truth. It can be hard to go from being a loner to being part of a family. Because whether you've realized it or not, that's exactly what happened when you joined the team, Agent Rossi. You joined a family." He was still looking at me oddly.

"You seem to be oddly accepting of my presence in your family." he commented.

I just shrugged. "When you're married to a skinny little thing - and I call him that with as much love as I possibly can - who has an IQ of 187, and instead of doing the safe thing and taking a job teaching somewhere…" I stopped my rant then, blushing slightly when I saw the amused look on his face. "I love my husband, Agent Rossi. But let's just say that he and I don't always see eye-to-eye on everything."

He nodded, and that was when I remembered exactly why I had wanted to talk to him in the first place - there had been a reason other than just introducing myself. I blamed the epidural and the other pain meds that the doctors had given me for not remembering sooner. "I do have t warn you though… you've got big shoes to fill, Agent Rossi. Spencer already looks up to you. Please don't do anything to hurt him… because you seem like a decent person, and I'd hate to be mad at you."

He looked like he thought I was joking for a second, before he realized that I wasn't. It looked like he was about to say something, but then the door opened, and Spencer came back in.

I looked over to my husband, but my smile faded when I saw the look of pain on his face.

"Spencer?" I asked, getting everyone else's attention. "What's the matter?"

A/N~ Not the best place to cut it off, I know. Sorry about that… not really. I figured that having one of them find out was enough heartbreak for this chapter. Please don't kill me.

I'm slightly surprised at how many people wanted a girl, though. Sorry, not this time!

Thank you to ahowell1993, ripon, TwilightNewMoonEclipseMidnight, vampire and inuyasha lover 13, gossamermouse101, tannerose5, tlcroft, Momochan77, Matthew, and Guest for their reviews!