Maeve's period was late. Late enough to start seriously thinking about taking a pregnancy test. She hadn't said anything to Spencer yet, but knowing him, he must have noticed. But then he'd gotten called in for some case in Texas, and the discussion could surely wait a few more days…

Except now Maeve was constantly distracted by wondering. She tried to put the topic out of her mind and focus on her work, and for two days she thought she was succeeding, but then Cameron pointed out a rather glaring error in her recent notes. Thank goodness she wasn't the kind of scientist who worked with explosive chemicals, because that could have been really bad.

By the time she got home, Maeve had made up her mind. No more waiting for Spencer; she was taking a pregnancy test tonight.

Once Maeve had finally taken the test, she had a new conundrum: should she call Spencer with the results right away, or should she wait until he got home? She didn't want to disturb him while he was on a case, but on the other hand, if the not-knowing was as distracting to him as it had been to her…

And his job was far more dangerous than hers, too. He really couldn't afford distractions.

But wouldn't the result be a potential distraction too?

Well, maybe she could just tell Spencer she had taken the test and then let him decide whether he wanted to hear the results now or later. Yes, that sounded like a good plan.

Maeve finally took out her phone and dialed. After what felt like an agonizingly long time, the call finally went to voicemail. Maeve suppressed a sigh and waited for the tone.

"Hi, Spencer. I just wanted to let you know that I've just taken a pregnancy test, and I wasn't sure if you wanted to hear the results now or when you get home. So…if it's the former, call me when you get this. Love you. Bye."

Fifteen minutes later, Maeve did receive a call—but not from Spencer. She stood frozen for nearly a minute after the call ended, desperately hoping that this was some kind of nightmare and she would wake up at any moment. But eventually, she accepted that this was reality. And she couldn't hide from it forever. She steeled herself and went to Jessica's room.

Jessica frowned as soon as she saw Maeve's expression. "Everything okay?"

Maeve shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes. "Spencer's been shot. It's bad."

"What?!" Jessica sprang to her feet.

"Apparently, the section chief has managed to pull strings to get another private jet so that he and Penelope can join the team in Texas. If we hurry, they'll wait for us."

"Okay," Jessica agreed, heart pounding. "Okay. Give me a few minutes."

"Didn't you hear me?" Maeve demanded, briefly forgetting that technically Jessica couldn't hear her at all. "We need to hurry!"

Jessica sighed. "Unfortunately, this isn't my first rodeo, which means I've learned first-hand what happens when you just rush off without packing. Trust me, you're going to want a change of clothes and some books, minimum. Also, we need to get someone to watch Bianca, because who knows how long we'll be gone?"

Maeve swallowed, realizing Jessica had a point. "Okay. I'll grab a suitcase. Any ideas who should watch Bianca?"

"I'll ask Will. I'm sure Henry would love to help cat-sit."

Maeve nodded. "Okay. You do that." She hurried back into her room and began packing. She packed clothing and books for herself, then grabbed a few books she knew Spencer had been meaning to read. Hopefully, he would get the chance to read them.

An hour later, the second jet finally took off for Texas. Maeve stared blankly out the window, reflecting on the past two days. What if Spencer had been just as distracted in his work as she had been in hers? What if that distraction had led to him getting shot? What if he died and Maeve could have prevented it if she'd just taken the test sooner?

Sitting opposite Maeve, Jessica thought the older woman looked like she could do with a distraction. Jessica waved for her attention. "You know, I was starting to think you were a good luck charm."

"Good luck charm?" Maeve repeated blankly.

"It's been over three years since we met you, and this is the first time since then that Spencer has gotten seriously hurt. Compared to the years I knew him before meeting you, that's a record."

Maeve stared at Jessica, faintly horrified. "Remind me how long you knew him before I met him?"

"Just shy of six years. In that time, he came very close to dying twice, got shot in the knee once, and got caught in an explosion once. And those are just the incidents I know about. Oh, and there was that time Hotch apparently had to beat him up…I never did get the full story on that one, just that it was somehow necessary for survival."

Maeve looked even more horrified. "How has your hair not gone completely gray?!"

"Trust me, I've asked myself the same question," Jessica signed with a grimace. "But on the bright side, he survived all of that, so…clearly he's good at surviving, even if he gives us all heart attacks in the process."

Maeve swallowed. "He'd better survive."

"Yeah, he'd better," Jessica agreed. She also swallowed, trying her best to block out the memory of seeing him dead on the floor of Hankel's shed. Spencer was not allowed to pull a repeat performance. Especially not a permanent one.

At long, long last, they reached the hospital. JJ and Blake were already sitting in the waiting room, holding a quiet conversation. Garcia, Maeve and Jessica entered the room just in time for the former two to catch the tail end of what JJ was saying. "Can you imagine Spence as a dad?"

Maeve choked on a silent sob.

"Ha!" Blake said tearily. "That'd be the luckiest kid in the world."

"Don't," Maeve rasped out harshly, composure crumbling. Everyone turned to look at her.

"Wait a minute…" JJ said, eyes widening. "Are you…?"

"Please, I can't handle this right now. Just…don't."

Jessica hadn't quite caught what was so upsetting to Maeve, so she elected to focus on Spencer. "How is he?"

Blake sighed. "Still in surgery."

At that moment, an orderly came up and announced that Morgan was ready for visitors. Garcia and JJ both followed the orderly while Blake elected to remain in the waiting room.

"What's going on?" Jessica asked, lost again.

"Morgan was shot too," Blake explained wearily. "Not as badly as Spencer, though—most of it caught his vest, and I think he took one to the arm."

"So he's going to be all right?"

"I think so."

Jessica swallowed. "Anybody else?"

"The local sheriff was killed, but you wouldn't know him. No one else on the team was hurt."

Jessica heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness for that. Well, not so fortunate for the sheriff, I suppose, but I don't really have the mental energy to care about a total stranger right now."

Maeve shuddered. "Please, no more talk of dying. I have to believe that Spencer will survive."

"We all do," Blake agreed.

Blake had begun pacing the room by the time a doctor came out with news. Jessica did her best to read his lips, but she was too stressed to fully focus. She was pretty sure she caught the phrases 'incredibly lucky' and 'stopped the bleeding', so she took that to mean that Spencer would be okay. She silently trailed along as the doctor led them down a hallway.

Sure enough, he took them to Spencer, lying in a hospital bed with a massive bandage around his neck. He was unconscious, but Jessica could see that he was breathing. She collapsed into a chair with an enormous sigh of relief.

A short while later, Garcia joined them and began setting out various Doctor Who action figures for Reid. "It'll be so great if he wakes up, and this is the first thing he sees," she stated.

"The good Doctor will always make him smile," Blake agreed wistfully.

Maeve reached out to grip her husband's hand. "Come on, Spencer," she said softly. "Come back to us. Come back to me."

"…okay, it'll be really weird if he wakes up and we're all just staring at him," Garcia decided. "So I'm just gonna stand over here…" She walked away and tried to look out the window, but found her eyes soon drawn back to Reid.

"I was picturing him shot in the chest," Jessica commented. "I almost wish he was…that bandage looks like it could easily choke him."

Maeve squeezed Reid's hand even tighter.

Garcia turned to Jessica. "Isn't it your finals week?"

"Yes, but luckily, my last final was today," Jessica replied. She snorted humorlessly. "It would be just like Spencer to wait until I finish exams before getting shot…he's so considerate like that."

"It should have been me," Blake commented.

"Hey, don't talk like that," Garcia objected.

Blake shook her head. "He pushed me out of the way…it should have been me."

"And how do you think he'd feel if he saw you saying that?" Jessica challenged. "As much as I hate it, I've come to recognize that it's in Spencer's nature to do things like that. He wouldn't want you to trade places with him."

Maeve silently thought that she wouldn't mind Blake trading places with Spencer, but she had the decency not to say so out loud. "You can stop with the heroics now, Spencer," she murmured instead. Then, she leaned over to whisper in his ear. "I can't raise our kid alone."

Spencer's hand squeezed back.

"Spencer?" Maeve asked hopefully.

"You won't have to," he murmured hoarsely. He broke off in a coughing fit. "Can I…can I get some water?"

"Of course you can!" Garcia swiftly assured. "Fear not, sweet cheeks, I will be your waitress for this evening!" And she was gone before anyone else had a chance to react.

Spencer finally opened his eyes properly and looked around. "Am I back in Washington?" he asked, faintly confused.

"No, we came to Texas," Jessica replied, leaning forward to be more visible.

"Thanks," Spencer replied, still too out of it to think of signing. He blinked a few more times, then his brain finally started to catch up to him. "Our kid?"

Maeve choked out a laugh. "Yes, Spencer, our kid. Which is why you damn well better not leave me now!"

"Congratulations," Blake said softly.

"I need to start a new menagerie of stuffed animals," Jessica concluded.

"You can't spare any of your own?" Spencer teased.

"I'll ask them for volunteers," Jessica joked back.

At that moment, Garcia returned with water. She set it up on Spencer's tray table, making sure the straw was in easy reach for him, then looked around the room. "What did I miss?"

The room's other occupants all shared a look. Knowing Garcia's (in)ability to keep things to herself, there was an instant silent agreement not to share the news just yet. Spencer turned back to her. "Nothing. I'm just kind of hungry too. Would you mind getting me some food?"

"Absolutely. I will be right back," Garcia promised. She bundled back out of the room.

Blake cleared her throat. "You know what? I could do with a trip to the bathroom."

"Me too," Jessica agreed. She and Blake also left, giving Spencer and Maeve some privacy to process their impending parenthood.

Maeve swallowed. "Had you noticed?"

"Noticed what?" Spencer asked blankly.

"That my period was late."

"Oh. Yes. I had wondered about it, but I figured it could wait until after the case."

Maeve swallowed again. "I thought that too, but…it was driving me nuts. The distraction was interfering with my work, and mine doesn't involve flying bullets. When I heard that you'd been shot, I couldn't help but wonder…"

"Hey," Spencer cut her off, putting a hand on hers. "I had given it some thought during downtime, but during the shootout, I was completely focused on handling the immediate threat. I was hit because I pushed Blake out of the line of fire. Your missed period is not the reason I'm in this bed."

Maeve choked out a short, humorless laugh. "So, you hadn't gotten my call?"

"I did, but I couldn't really afford to take any non-work-related calls at that moment, so I silenced it. I meant to call you back once I had the chance. Sorry."

"It's okay. I forgive you for not getting around to it this time."

"Thanks." Spencer yawned. "I think I'm going to go back to sleep now."

Blake ultimately rejoined the team to resume working on the case, but Jessica and Garcia returned to Spencer's room and more or less settled in. Garcia took out her laptop so she could help with the case, and Jessica pulled out one of the books she'd packed. Maeve simply sat next to Spencer, holding her husband's hand and drinking in the fact that he was alive.

Eventually, Garcia got up to grab some coffee. When she returned, she was on the phone, and she looked completely freaked out. "Okay. I did that. Now what?"

"Everything okay?" Maeve asked worriedly.

Garcia ignored her, still on the phone. "Yes. Yes, I can do that. Yes." Garcia finally looked at the other two women in the room. "We need to get Reid into that wheelchair, like now."

"What's going on?" Maeve demanded while Jessica grabbed the wheelchair. Garcia still did not respond, using her shoulder to hold her phone against her ear so that she could help Maeve move Reid into the chair. Reid let out a quiet grumble, still mostly asleep.

"Okay. Okay, I'll do that. Okay." Garcia finally hung up the phone. "We need to get Reid out of here. And if you see a fire alarm, pull it!"

"Okay," Maeve agreed, definitely worried now. She opened the door and Jessica pushed Reid through it. Garcia spotted a fire alarm conveniently located right outside the room, and she pulled it. Patients and staff alike began filing out of various rooms, crowding the hallways in a mass exodus.

Once they came to a stop outside, Maeve turned back to Garcia. "Okay, seriously, what is going on?"

Garcia cast a nervous look around, and replied exclusively in ASL. "The police here are corrupt. The deputy who we think is the ringleader was asking around at the nurse's desk. Morgan told me to pull the fire alarm so he couldn't get at Reid."

"You mean he came back to finish Spencer off?!" Maeve demanded, horrified.

"Probably? I don't see him now, though."

Jessica scanned the crowd. "I don't see anyone in a police uniform."

"Okay, so maybe he's gone," Garcia signed hopefully.

"Where's Spencer's gun?" Maeve wondered.

"Any chance it's in that big bag of 'patient belongings'?" Jessica suggested. "Or would guns be kept separate from that sort of thing?"

"Well, we are in Texas," Garcia mused.

"Why am I outside?" Reid asked, roused by the cool night air.

"There's a bad man. We're on it. Hush," Garcia responded.

"Apparently, some dirty cop was looking for you," Maeve elaborated. "But we don't see him now."

"Oh." Reid grimaced, flashing back to the man who'd walked by while he was bleeding out at the diner. He probably should have told someone about that. Oh, well, it sounded like the team knew about it? He was too tired to care very much.

Eventually, the patients were allowed back in the building. Garcia got on the phone with Morgan, who assured them he was on his way to act as protection detail. Then, Jessica and Garcia helped Reid get back into bed, while Maeve checked the bag of patient belongings and confirmed that it did indeed contain his gun.

Jessica startled badly when a nurse walked up beside her. She took a step away from him and turned so that she could see into the hallway, coincidentally backing up against Reid's IV. She kept watch for approaching cops, not really paying attention to the nurse until he tried to push her away from the IV. Reid reached out and grabbed Jessica's arm, not able to exert any real force but still emphatically conveying that he did not want her to move. Jessica confusedly pushed back against the nurse, then there was a blur of movement and a bright flash from the other side of the bed, and suddenly the nurse had let go of Jessica and collapsed. Jessica looked for the source of the flash and saw Maeve holding Reid's still-smoking gun.

"He-he's moving…" Garcia murmured dazedly, staring at the nurse. Maeve nearly fired again, but Reid reached out a hand and placed it on his wife's.

"He's down. Could you please stop pointing that so close to Jessica?" Reid urged.

Morgan arrived at that moment and immediately knelt down to check on the nurse. Several other medical staff joined him and began tending the man's wound.

"You can put down the gun now," Reid continued. "Preferably without pointing it at anyone."

"Right." Maeve slowly set the gun down, making sure to point it towards the window.

"I didn't realize how loud that would be…" Garcia continued, still dazed.

"Are you okay?" Reid asked Jessica.

"I think so," Jessica replied, still totally bewildered. "What just happened?"

"He was trying to give me a medication that I'm allergic to," Reid explained.

"And he had a gun," Maeve added.

"Thanks, to both of you," Reid continued. "You saved my life."

"I am not losing you," Maeve growled. She put a protective hand on her stomach.

"Are anybody else's ears still ringing?" Garcia asked.

"…no?" Jessica replied.

Reid turned to Maeve. "Are you okay?"

"Are you?" she responded.

"I'm fine," Reid assured. "Thanks to you."

"Good." Husband and wife embraced. Garcia decided to grab Jessica for a hug too. Morgan surveyed the whole scene with a sigh of relief.

Shortly afterward, the team sent word that the local police had been dealt with. They decided to spend one more day in Texas, both to start mopping up the mess and to give Reid more recovery time. Reid and Maeve finally shared their news with the rest of the team, much to everyone's delight. Maeve and Jessica eventually agreed to go to the team's hotel to get some proper sleep, gradually followed by most of the team. At some point in the morning, Reid finally found himself alone with the one person he really wanted to talk to: Morgan.

"Two millimeters," Reid murmured.

"What was that?" Morgan asked.

"Two millimeters to the right, and my kid would have grown up without a father."

"Hey." Morgan gently put a hand on Reid's shoulder. "It didn't happen."

"Two millimeters, Derek!" Reid swallowed. "Do you ever hate your father, for letting his job take him away from you?"

Morgan sighed. "I did at first. He died for a total stranger, while he still had three kids who needed him. But, after working this job myself, I've come to see his point of view. He couldn't just stand by and let someone die."

"But he's still gone."

"Yeah, he is," Morgan agreed heavily. "And there's a part of me that will probably always be bitter about that."

Reid sighed. "I don't want to do that to my kid. I know what it's like to grow up fatherless."

Morgan nodded. "It sucks. And I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But you do know that if anything happens to you, there are a hell of a lot of people who are going to make sure your kid is taken care of?"

Reid met Morgan's eyes. "It wouldn't be the same."

"No. It wouldn't," Morgan agreed.

That night, the hospital reluctantly released Reid and they all flew back in the rather crowded jet. Once they landed, Blake insisted on accompanying Reid, Maeve and Jessica back to their apartment. Maeve went into the bedroom to begin unpacking and generally make sure Spencer would have everything he needed.

About five minutes later, Spencer joined her, looking downcast. Maeve looked up in concern. "Everything okay?"

"Blake's leaving," Spencer said quietly.

Maeve frowned. "Well, I wasn't expecting her to stay the night…oh. You mean leaving."

"Yes," Spencer confirmed somberly. "And I think I might leave too."

"What?" Maeve said in surprise.

Spencer sank heavily onto the bed. "This was too close, Maeve. My father left me; I won't do that to our kid."

"It's not exactly the same thing," Maeve pointed out. "You didn't choose to get shot. If worst came to worst, I'd have made sure our kid knew that."

"It was my choice to put myself in harm's way."

Maeve sat down next to him, considering her next words very carefully. "Last night, that incident with the nurse…for a few moments, I felt what it was like to live in your shoes. To take tangible action and know that I'd saved a life. And you've done that more times than anyone but you could possibly count. You're a hero, Spencer. Don't let our kid be the reason you stop."

"You think I should stay with the BAU?" Spencer asked, surprised.

Maeve made an expression that was somewhere between a smile and a grimace. "Well, obviously I'm not giving you permission to get killed in the line of duty. But quitting wouldn't be a guarantee of safety, anyway. Remember that woman who went completely nuts on me just because I rejected her thesis? I wound up in harm's way because I was a teacher, and I know that's exactly the job you're thinking of pursuing instead. There are always going to be dangerous people out there, Spencer. And the entire world is a safer place with you in the BAU."

"Well, not the entire world…" Spencer trailed off, realizing he was being too literal. "There are other profilers."

"True. But despite the dangers, you love your job. If you quit purely for the sake of our kid, can you honestly say there wouldn't be at least a tiny part of you that resented them for it? If you're going to quit, do it for your sake, no one else's."

Spencer considered this, then sighed. "I'll think about it."