A/N: Thank you to everyone who has shown support for this story! I have taken years off from writing and your comments mean the world to me. To be honest, I took time away from this story because some of the feedback left me wondering if I was being too harsh in my writing re: the lives of the rest of the team since they last saw Spencer. So to address this: I don't have anything against any of the other members of the #squad! As someone who has had family incarcerated, I know how easy it is to lose time and inadvertently "leave them behind." I'm not trying to punish the rest of the team by making their lives harder, only showing that when people go through personal trials they are more likely to lose sight of other people's problems (and that's totally normal). I love everybody on the team and plan on writing more fics involving them in the future - this is just a Spencer-centric fic. Now onto the story!

Spencer's house was not what they had expected. His DC apartment was covered in dark wood, dark furniture, and books lining every wall. His house in Florida was brightly colored and had a garden in the front yard that looked meticulously maintained. The furniture was a mix of styles, clearly a lot of hand-me-downs and thrift store purchases, but it was homey and lived in. It made Jennifer feel a bit better about the situation knowing that he was living somewhere like this—somewhere full of love and promise.

Mandy wasn't home yet from her shift—covering for Ruby yet again—so Spencer had time to walk them through the past couple of years without her.

"This is Mandy's house," he said, motioning for the team to take a seat amongst the floral sofas and chairs. "Or rather, it was her great-grandmother's house, but she inherited it. So we've been making the most of it. It's small but it works for us."

"It's nice," Emily said. "Definitely a bit more…floral than I was expecting."

Spencer laughed. "Yeah, Mandy loves her flowers. She says you have to surround yourself with things that make you happy, so we've got a yard full of flowers and a house full of floral prints."

"I'm surprised you don't have stacks of books lying around," Rossi said. "Not that you would ever need a book on the intricacies of astrophysics, but you always kept that kind of stuff around before."

He shrugged. "There's not a lot of room for stuff like that in here. And besides, I don't need a bunch of stuff to make me happy anymore. I've got Mandy and Ace and that's good enough for me."

"Ace?" Jennifer asked quietly. Even though he had forgiven her, she was still cautious around him for fear of scaring him off or offending him. She wanted so badly to know everything there was to know about his life and his family, but she wanted to let him take it slow.

Spencer grabbed a framed photo from the side table and handed it to her. There was a little baby wrapped up in a blanket with pink and blue hospital stripes with his father's arms around him. Spencer was beaming in the photo, his smile bigger than she had seen in years.

"Ace is our son," he continued. "He's going on three months old now."

"Ace, that's a pretty rockin' name," Luke said with a laugh. The team had always expected that if he had kids Spencer would probably give them literary names or an old-fashioned name like Nathaniel or Thaddeus. Ace was a significant departure.

"He's named after a character from one of Mandy's favorite movies," Spencer said. "I think it's about some Nascar driver or something? All I know is she liked the name because it reminded her of her father, and if she was happy I was happy."

The team passed the photo around, giving the expected ooh's and aah's that one does when they see a photo of a cute baby. They all had questions about Mandy on their mind, questions they knew he might be less comfortable answering once she got home.

Naturally, Tara was the first one with the guts to say what everyone was thinking. "So how'd you meet Mandy? If Ace is almost three months old, then you must have gotten…close with her pretty soon after your release."

Spencer sighed and shifted in his seat. He didn't really want to get into it because it would mean he'd have to get into his relapse. It was a dark period of his life, but he was getting through it, getting passed it. The rest of the team—especially JJ—might have a harder time processing it.

"We met in a program," he explained. "NA—Narcotics Anonymous. A couple months after I was released. It just kind of snowballed from there."

JJ was afraid of the answer, but she had to ask, "You're still keeping up with the meetings after all these years? Or…?"

"I started using again in prison," Spencer clarified. "You can't really get pain medication like Dilaudid into prison walls, so it was heroin, mostly."

The words stung as they hit, especially for JJ and Emily. They had seen how he had fought addiction the first time and knew that it was hard for him then, even with a strong support system. So to be released and be going it alone was unimaginable.

"But I'm doing much better now," Spencer offered. "Sticking to the program, staying clean, and Mandy and Ace are helping a lot with that. They keep me…happy. So I don't have to use to escape anymore."

JJ wanted to hug him, she wanted to run up and wrap her arms around him so tight and squeeze him until it hurt. But she kept her distance because she was still unsure if they were at that point yet. It was such a strange feeling, like they were strangers who knew almost everything about each other.

"Well I'm glad to hear you're doing better, kid," Rossi said patting Spencer on the shoulder. "And speaking of kids, where's the little guy?"

"Mandy normally picks him up from his—" he was cut off by the front door swinging open with a crash. "And speak of the devil, look who just got here."

Mandy laughed as she tried to keep open the screen door long enough to get her purse through. "This dang door is always gettin' in my way."

Spencer helped her through, grabbing Ace out of her arms to lighten her load. He pulled the baby up close to his face and smiled at him, the baby cooing happily in his arms. JJ couldn't help but notice how much of a natural he was. He had been a father for all of three months and he looked more at peace than she had seen him in a long time. She had always expected that he would be a great father, but more in a, "You'll keep them happy and get them into good colleges" kind of way. She was happy to see that he was taking to it like a duck to water, even without her help.

Mandy rushed in like a bull in a china shop. She wasn't the most naturally graceful person in the world, but she had heaps of charisma. Even stumbling into a room in front of a strange audience she was endearing, even to Rossi who motioned a thumbs up to Spencer while she wasn't looking.

"I'm gonna go put this stuff away, I'll be back in a jiff," she said leaving the room.

Matt smiled at Spencer, "Look at you joining the dad pack. You look like a pro already." He smiled at the encouragement. It wasn't actually that easy for him to get used to being a father, but he was always a quick study. It was a warm feeling to know that his team not only liked his family, but thought he was doing a good job. He needed the encouragement sometimes.

A thought popped into his mind that he knew he needed to get out before Mandy returned. "So I never actually told Mandy about my past…"

JJ and Emily's eyes opened wide.

"No, not about the felony stuff, she knows that," he clarified. They both sighed in relief. "I never told her about the whole Dr. Spencer Reid with the Behavioral Analysis Unit, IQ of 187, three PhDs thing."

Emily looked at him quizzically, "Why not? You loved showing off how much of a genius you were back at Quantico.

"I just wanted a fresh start here. People hear that you're a genius and they get…weird around you. I just wanted people to know me for me, Spencer."

"Spencer the…" Matt continued.

"Spencer the mechanic, Spencer the husband, Spencer the father," he clarified. "Even Spencer the ex-con."

JJ bristled at the phrasing of that last bit.

"Spence, you're not just—"

"But I am," he corrected her. "And that's fine. I'm okay with that now. Mandy accepts me with all of it. I'm not asking you not to tell her, because I know she's going to find out at some point. Better now than any other time. But maybe go a little light on the genius talk."

Emily sighed, "Well that's a first."

"First time for everything, right?"