Second Childhood
Part 4
They got the car seat and drove to the soccer field. Spencer had picked out two of Hotch’s old law books and Hotch had put them in a plastic bag. They were heavy enough that he needed both hands to carry the bag, and he was glad when he got to the field and he could lay it down. There were no bleachers, but some of the parents had brought their own folding chairs or coolers to sit on. Spencer found a place on the grass that wouldn’t be too close to any flying balls and had just taken out the first book when Hotch came over.
“Spencer, can you come sit a little bit closer, where I can keep an eye on you?” he asked.
“I’m not going to run away,” Spencer told him. “I’m just going to sit here and read.”
Hotch squatted down next to him and said quietly, “You’re far enough away that you could be a prime target for a pedophile, and if you’re reading, you won’t be paying attention to someone coming up behind you.”
Remembering how small and helpless he’d felt in Dr Sakenfeld’s grip, unable to escape, Spencer knew he was right. Now he had to get used to the idea that he was no longer an FBI agent with a profile and a gun, but instead infinitely more vulnerable. Spencer stuck his finger in the book to mark his place and got to his feet, then followed Hotch to the front line of parents, siblings, and assistant coaches. Hotch found him an empty spot next to a woman in a chair, asked her politely to keep an eye on his nephew, then went off to the team to start warm-ups.
“Move over,” somebody said to Spencer, and he glanced up in surprise. An older boy was glaring down at him. “I want to sit next to my mom.”
“There’s plenty of room on the other side, Jacob,” the mother said.
“But I want to sit on this side!”
Spencer shifted over, pulling his bag in front of him, and continued reading. After a few minutes, several blades of grass fell onto the page he was reading. He brushed them away, but after he’d turned the page and more fell, he glanced up in annoyance to see Jacob ripping out another handful, ready to toss.
Sighing, Spencer got up and went around behind the woman to sit on her other side. She was talking on her phone and not paying any attention to Jacob, who immediately whined, “Mom, I’m bored.”
“I know, Jacob,” she said in a tone of voice that indicated she’d heard it many times before. “I’ve got a book for you in my purse if you want to practice your reading.”
“I don’t want to read. I want my Gameboy,” Jacob complained.
“You know exactly why I took it away. And if you’re not going to read, then at least be quiet. I’m talking to Grandma.”
Jacob didn’t reply, but a moment later, the woman interrupted her conversation to say, “Jacob, don’t do that. Watch Hunter instead!”
“Hunter’s not doing anything, he’s just standing there.”
After a few moments, however, Spencer became aware of someone breathing down his neck, and looked up. Jacob was looming over him. “You’re not reading that, so why are you pretending?”
“I am reading it,” Spencer retorted.
“No, you’re not. I’ll bet you don’t even know how to read.”
“Jacob, just be quiet and let the boy read,” his mother said.
“Mom, he’s not reading, he’s just pretending! His book doesn’t even have any pictures!” Jacob exclaimed, coming around to stand in front of Spencer.
Still talking on her phone, the mother fumbled in her purse and pulled out a thin paperback, then gently nudged Jacob with it until he finally took it. Hoping that Jacob would get the hint, Spencer bent his head to start reading again, but Jacob jabbed the sharp corner of his book into Spencer’s arm.
“Can you read this?” he demanded.
Spencer looked down at the book, then reached out to bring it closer so he could see the title more clearly. “Lego Pirates, Brickbeard’s Treasure, by Hannah Dolan.”
He opened the book, found the first page, and started to read that, too, only to be interrupted by Jacob’s accusing tone. “You’re making that up.”
“You only think that because you can’t read well enough to see if it’s true,” Spencer said. “You’re trying to avoid reading because it’s difficult and frustrating for you. In fact, you probably have some kind of learning disability. You should—“
Jacob threw himself onto Spencer, knocking him backwards into the grass and hitting him in the face twice, hard enough to make him cry. Then there was a commotion of adults around them, and somebody pulled Jacob away. Sobbing, Spencer rolled onto his side, covering his head with his arms and curling up defensively in case he was attacked again.
“Spencer? Can I see?” Hotch was there, lifting Spencer into his arms and getting a close-up look at his face. “You’re not bleeding, you might get some bruises. Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“Huh unh,” Spencer grunted, snuggling into Hotch’s embrace.
Hotch addressed the surrounding adults. “What happened?”
There was a short silence, then one man spoke up. “It looked to me like this older boy just attacked him.”
“Your nephew must have said something to set Jacob off.” That was Jacob’s mother, having finally ended her phone call.
“He was saying bad words!” Jacob exclaimed.
“I was not!” Spencer shouted back, his words slightly ragged because he was still crying.
“Can I ask you to take Jacob and go sit down there?” Hotch asked, no doubt indicating the far end of the field. “And Spencer can sit over here for the rest of the game.”
“I think maybe I should take Jacob and Hunter home,” the woman replied, both angry and irritated.
While she collected both boys and all but dragged them away, Hunter protesting loudly that the game wasn’t over yet, a man approached Hotch with a bundle of towel in his hand.
“Here’s some ice.”
“Thanks.” Hotch took it and applied it to Spencer’s face. “Can you hold that there?”
Spencer took over.the makeshift ice pack, shifting it to rest against Hotch’s shoulder and laying his cheek on it.
“Is Spencer hurt bad?” That was Jack.
“He’ll be okay in a minute. All right, everybody, back to the game,” Hotch said, addressing the children who’d come to crowd around the incident. Then, quietly, he asked Spencer, “Do you want me to put you down now?”
“Huh unh,” Spencer replied, holding on even tighter. And although he stopped crying soon enough, it was so comforting to be cuddled and held safe from bullies that he waited until the ice started to melt through the towel. “Okay, I can get down now, Hotch.”
Hotch set him on the ground, and ruffled his hair a little, then went off to continue coaching the game. Spencer watched him for a minute before reaching for his book again.
xxxxx
At home after lunch, Jack practised reading aloud in the living room, and Spencer sat at the kitchen table, trying to write a letter to his mother. It was harder to hold the pen and form the letters with his little fingers, and he soon realized he’d have to think up something to explain his very different handwriting. He thought for a long moment, then wrote something vague but basically truthful about his fine motor control having been affected by a chemical experiment that the Unsub had been performing when they’d arrived. He was careful to emphasize that he’d been checked over and should be back to normal soon.
Spencer stopped writing and stared into space for a long moment. How soon was soon? Jack had already mentioned his own birthday, which reminded Spencer that his was on the 28th, less than a month away. He usually phoned his mom on that date, not that she necessarily remembered to congratulate him, but it was still nice to talk. He couldn’t call her if he were still only four years old, though. She wouldn’t recognize his voice, would wonder why a small child was trying to convince her that he was her thirty-year-old son, and would start imagining all kinds of things, no doubt starting and ending with a government conspiracy theory. And after that, it would be three weeks until Thanksgiving, when he had hoped to fly out to Las Vegas to spend the holiday with her. Would he be able to do that in his current condition? Could he manage to convince her that it was really him?
“Spencer, why are you crying? Don’t you feel well?”
Spencer blinked, and another tear escaped as he looked at Jack, who was suddenly standing next to him.
Embarrased, Spencer quickly wiped his cheeks. It seemed like all he did lately was cry, for one reason or another. He’d probably cried more in the last four days than he had since he had been four the first time around, Emily’s “death” excluded.
Jack patted his arm consolingly, and Spencer finally said, “I just miss my mom.”
“Is she dead?” Jack asked.
“Jack, remember I told you that Spencer’s mom was very sick and couldn’t take care of him?” Hotch said gently.
“Oh, yeah,” Jack said.
“She’s in a special hospital far away,” Spencer said.
“Can you visit her?” Jack went on.
“No, it’s too far away, and, uh, I’m not allowed.” That was the easiest way to explain it. “But I’m writing her a letter that she can read.”
“My mom’s dead, but sometimes Dad lights a candle and I talk to it and Mom can hear me in heaven,” Jack said.
“That’s a good idea,” Spencer said.
Reminded of fathers, Jack went on, “Where’s your dad?”
“He’s – gone.“ Spencer decided it was time to change the subject. “So, um, you’re finished reading now?”
“Yes, and now we’re going to the store. Dad said I could pick out a special treat for dessert for to-morrow!”
“Okay,” Spencer said.
“And you can pick out the special treat for dessert for to-day!” Jack went on.
“Um—“
“Let’s get you a jacket, Spencer, I think it’s started raining,” Hotch said.
Spencer realized he wasn’t being given a choice about having to go with them, and put down his pen with a sigh.
xxxxx
That night, Spencer and Jack had a little fight over who got to sleep in the sleeping bag, and who had to take the bed. Hotch finally settled it with a coin toss, and when Jack saw that he’d correctly picked heads, he jumped triumphantly from the bed to the rolled up sleeping bag and landed right in the centre of it, not caring that he lost his balance and tumbled to the floor directly afterwards. He was so excited about the prospect that he also skipped into the bathroom, chanting, “I get the sleeping bag, I get the sleeping bag.”
Spencer gave Hotch a slightly embarrassed smile. “I was just trying to be nice by offering to swap with him. I didn’t think it would be a big deal.”
“It’s exciting because it’s different,” Hotch said. “Come on, you can brush your teeth, too.”
Jack also got to stay up half an hour later because he was a year older, and after Spencer got into bed, Hotch led his son into the living room to read him the bedtime stories that Spencer had politely declined.
Spencer lay there in the dim glow of the nightlight, resuming his thoughts from earlier in the afternoon about his mother. No, she wasn’t able to take care of him now; in fact, she hadn’t ever really been able to take care of him. Remembering Jack’s question, Spencer also thought about his father, which he tried not to do too often. After a moment or two of the old pain, he turned his thoughts to Hotch and the rest of the team, which reminded him of the conversation Hotch had had with Rossi, about what to do about Reid …
And he awoke, sobbing, and somebody was sitting on the bed next to him.
“Spencer?” It was Hotch. “Did you have another nightmare?”
“Strau – Strauss,” he stuttered, reaching out to wrap himself around Hotch. Hotch pulled him into a hug, and carried him out of Jack’s bedroom and into his own, shutting the door.
“You had a nightmare about Strauss?” he prompted.
“Strauss sent me – sent me to my dad!” Spencer cried. “And he – and he walked out on me again! I was in his office – Mom wasn’t there – nobody was there – and he just left – just left me all alone!”
“I’ve got you, Spencer,” Hotch said, rubbing his back. “You’re not alone. It was a scary dream, but it was just a dream. It’s okay now.”
“He just left me!” Spencer repeated. “All alone in his – in his office with his dead cat –“
“His dead cat?” Hotch asked.
“He had – he had a sick cat – when we were there – remember? And he – he let it die – in his office – and he left me – he left me there to die, too!”
“Spencer, that didn’t happen. It was a dream,” Hotch said.
“I don’t want to go to my dad!” Spencer wailed. “I don’t want to go!”
“It’s okay, Spencer, it’s all right,” Hotch soothed.
“He said – he said he left because he didn’t know how to – how to take care of me,” Spencer tried to explain. He was crying even harder now and it was harder to speak. “And I was – I was eleven then. So that means he won’t – he won’t know how to take care of me now that I’m – now that I’m like this!”
“Oh, Spencer,” Hotch said, hugging him extra tight.
“I’m scared,” Spencer admitted. “I’m so scared, Hotch!”
“I know,” Hotch said, rubbing his back again. “I know. But I’ve got you. You’re safe now. You’re safe.”
xxxxx
Spencer closed the book and looked around Hotch’s home office. “Hotch?”
“Yeah?” Hotch looked up from his desk.
“Can we go to the library?” It was Wednesday afternoon and Spencer had now read every book that Hotch had in his apartment, including Jack’s, as short as they were.
“I’ll bet Jack would love to pick out a new book, too, so why don’t we wait until after we’ve picked him up?” Hotch suggested.
“Okay.” But Spencer sighed again. “I wish Strauss would call to talk about the results of the tests from SHIELD. I can’t understand what’s taking so long!”
“Neither can I,” Hotch admitted.
“I wish Rossi would call and consult us about the case. Actually, I wish we were out there with them!”
Hotch gave him a long, probing look, then said, “I think somebody needs to get the wiggles out.”
“What? I don’t have any wiggles!”
“You’ve been jiggling your leg since you opened that book, but aside from that, you’ve barely moved all day. Now you’re starting to sound irritable. Yesterday and Monday, we had enough errands to run to keep us busy, but now I think we should go outside.”
Spencer pouted. “Are you going to make me walk around the building again?”
“No, there’s a playground close to Jack’s school that we can go to.”
“Playground? Hotch, come on!”
“No, you come on, Spencer. Get your shoes and your jacket.”
They went to the playground. Spencer stood at the gate in the fence, looking unhappily at the equipment. Thankfully, there was only one other child playing there, a girl, with her a father on a nearby bench, so it didn’t look like he’d be bullied, but still.
“Spencer, go play.” When Spencer hesitated, Hotch became more specific. ”Go slide down the slide.”
Spencer walked reluctantly over to the big slide, climbed the ladder, and slid down. It was actually more fun than he remembered, so he went up a second time, and then a third. When he went around to the ladder again, the girl was just about to climb up, but she stopped to wave him back. “Go away. I’m here now, and I can’t slide down if you’re too close.”
So much for not being bullied. Spencer decided not to press the issue, but instead walked over to where Hotch had made himself comfortable on the bench. “Okay, Hotch, I’ve played. Can we –?”
The man on the bench glanced suddenly up from his phone. “Hotch? Agent Hotchner? Hi, I’m Agent Henriksen! Lars Henriksen, in the Cyber Crime Unit. Your son’s in the same school as my older daughter, we’ve seen each other there a time or two.“
“Oh, yeah. Hi.“ Hotch smiled and reached over to shake hands.
“Oh, my G-d, is it true what happened to Dr Reid?”
“Is what true?” Hotch asked coldly, his smile fading. Feeling his heart sink, Spencer backed automatically away to Hotch’s other side.
“That he’s been turned into a kid? Is that him?” Agent Henriksen craned his neck for a better look.
“Where did you hear about that?”
“It’s all over the BAU. Everybody’s talking about it.” Now the man addressed Spencer directly. “Are you really only three years old?”
Spencer stared at him, not sure how to respond. Whether he tried to confirm or deny the rumours, it would probably have the same effect of causing them to increase exponentially. He also wondered where the leak came from. Surely it couldn’t be Garcia? He hoped it wasn’t. Maybe somebody from SHIELD? They were the only other people who knew – and word had spread around the research facility pretty quickly.
“If you have to participate in rumours, then you can at least spread the truth,” Hotch said. “Dr Reid is four going on five, yes, he’s retained all his memories, and no, we don’t think he’s going to suddenly turn back into an adult.”
“Is it true it was aliens?” Agent Henriksen pressed, looking as excited, Spencer thought, as a fanboy at a Doctor Who convention.
“No, that is definitely not true,” Hotch said.
Agent Henriksen slumped in disappointment.
“And if I read one word about this in the National Enquirer, I will sue you,” Hotch went on in a quietly menacing tone, which changed the agent’s expression to outraged astonishment.
“Hey, I wasn’t going to talk to the press!” Agent Henriksen was interrupted by a cry of “Da-ad!” from his daughter, and he looked away to where she was standing at the top of the climbing tower.
“Um, Dr Reid, have you had chickenpox?” he suddenly asked.
“Yeah, when I was about seven,” Spencer replied without thinking. “Why?”
“Dad!”
“But you’re four going on five now.”
“Yes—“ and then Spencer realized why the man was asking. “Your daughter has chickenpox, doesn’t she?”
“DAD!”
“Yup. And, well, I don’t know if you want to stay away from her, or go get infected and get them over with … um … for this lifetime.” Agent Henriksen went over to see why his daughter was shrieking at him, and Spencer and Hotch looked at each other in horror.
“I think it’s time to pick up Jack,” Hotch said, and even though they ended up sitting in the car outside Jack’s school for a while, Spencer didn’t mind at all. It gave him time to take out his phone and make a call.
“Divine Goddess reigning over FBI agents young, old, and Hotch-aged, you have a clear line of communication, so state your petition.”
“Hi, Garcia, it’s Reid.”
“Reid? Dr Spencer Reid, the BAU’s own Dougie Houser? Four-year-old Robin to Hotch’s Batman? Baby Bucky to Captain America? Little Padawan Anakin to Obi-Wan Kenobi?”
“Ouch, Garcia, not Anakin!” Spencer protested, trying to sound insulted, and heard her laugh.
“Oh, Spencer, you sound just as adorable as you look in those pictures! What’s going on, sweetie pie?”
“Garcia, please promise me you didn’t talk to anybody outside our team about what happened to me?”
“No, Spencer, I wouldn’t! I didn’t!”
“Not even to Kevin?”
“So I take it you’ve somehow heard the rumours, then,” Garcia said. “Hey, Spencer, it wasn’t aliens, was it?”
“Not unless Ryan Sakenfeld is an alien. Garcia, please, I have to know, did you talk to Kevin about this or not?”
“No, I didn’t tell Kevin. However that information got out, Spencer, it was not because of me.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Spencer said. “I didn’t want to feel betrayed by anybody else on the team.”
“Nope,” she said. “Definitely not me. My lips were sealed with super glue and duct tape – not one word could escape, not even by climbing up and out through my nose!”
Spencer raised his eyebrows at the mental image. “Thank you.”
The doors to the school opened and waves of children began to flow out.
“So when are you going to come visit?” Garcia asked. “I want to see you in person!”
“I don’t know, but it was good talking to you. I have to go now. We’re picking up Jack and then we get to go to the library.”
“Okay, then, bye, Baby Bucky! Oooh, wait, that reminds me, did you see Captain America when you were at SHIELD?”
“Goodbye, Garcia.”
Spencer cut the connection and groaned at the nickname, not only because of the way it implied sidekick status, but also because it included the word “baby.” He wasn’t stuck in an infant body, for pete’s sake! He couldn’t even be classified as a toddler anymore, as he’d be turning five in just a few weeks. Or thirty. Or, actually, both thirty and five.
Hotch got out to help Jack into the car, and just as he settled back into the driver’s seat, listening to his son talk animatedly about his day, his phone buzzed and he checked it discreetly.
“Hang on a minute, Jack, this is important,” Hotch said. “Hotchner.”
There was a pause, and then he said, “Not this afternoon, I’ve just picked up Jack from school.” Pause. “To-morrow morning? Say, nine?” Pause. “Perfect. We’ll be there.” Pause. “Yes, Dr Reid is coming, too. We’ll see you to-morrow.”
“Strauss?” Spencer asked excitedly.
“Yes.” Hotch put his phone away as though nothing had happened, then turned back to his son. “Okay, Jack, tell me more about what happened at recess.”
Part 5
Part 3
Back to Criminal Minds page
“Spencer, can you come sit a little bit closer, where I can keep an eye on you?” he asked.
“I’m not going to run away,” Spencer told him. “I’m just going to sit here and read.”
Hotch squatted down next to him and said quietly, “You’re far enough away that you could be a prime target for a pedophile, and if you’re reading, you won’t be paying attention to someone coming up behind you.”
Remembering how small and helpless he’d felt in Dr Sakenfeld’s grip, unable to escape, Spencer knew he was right. Now he had to get used to the idea that he was no longer an FBI agent with a profile and a gun, but instead infinitely more vulnerable. Spencer stuck his finger in the book to mark his place and got to his feet, then followed Hotch to the front line of parents, siblings, and assistant coaches. Hotch found him an empty spot next to a woman in a chair, asked her politely to keep an eye on his nephew, then went off to the team to start warm-ups.
“Move over,” somebody said to Spencer, and he glanced up in surprise. An older boy was glaring down at him. “I want to sit next to my mom.”
“There’s plenty of room on the other side, Jacob,” the mother said.
“But I want to sit on this side!”
Spencer shifted over, pulling his bag in front of him, and continued reading. After a few minutes, several blades of grass fell onto the page he was reading. He brushed them away, but after he’d turned the page and more fell, he glanced up in annoyance to see Jacob ripping out another handful, ready to toss.
Sighing, Spencer got up and went around behind the woman to sit on her other side. She was talking on her phone and not paying any attention to Jacob, who immediately whined, “Mom, I’m bored.”
“I know, Jacob,” she said in a tone of voice that indicated she’d heard it many times before. “I’ve got a book for you in my purse if you want to practice your reading.”
“I don’t want to read. I want my Gameboy,” Jacob complained.
“You know exactly why I took it away. And if you’re not going to read, then at least be quiet. I’m talking to Grandma.”
Jacob didn’t reply, but a moment later, the woman interrupted her conversation to say, “Jacob, don’t do that. Watch Hunter instead!”
“Hunter’s not doing anything, he’s just standing there.”
After a few moments, however, Spencer became aware of someone breathing down his neck, and looked up. Jacob was looming over him. “You’re not reading that, so why are you pretending?”
“I am reading it,” Spencer retorted.
“No, you’re not. I’ll bet you don’t even know how to read.”
“Jacob, just be quiet and let the boy read,” his mother said.
“Mom, he’s not reading, he’s just pretending! His book doesn’t even have any pictures!” Jacob exclaimed, coming around to stand in front of Spencer.
Still talking on her phone, the mother fumbled in her purse and pulled out a thin paperback, then gently nudged Jacob with it until he finally took it. Hoping that Jacob would get the hint, Spencer bent his head to start reading again, but Jacob jabbed the sharp corner of his book into Spencer’s arm.
“Can you read this?” he demanded.
Spencer looked down at the book, then reached out to bring it closer so he could see the title more clearly. “Lego Pirates, Brickbeard’s Treasure, by Hannah Dolan.”
He opened the book, found the first page, and started to read that, too, only to be interrupted by Jacob’s accusing tone. “You’re making that up.”
“You only think that because you can’t read well enough to see if it’s true,” Spencer said. “You’re trying to avoid reading because it’s difficult and frustrating for you. In fact, you probably have some kind of learning disability. You should—“
Jacob threw himself onto Spencer, knocking him backwards into the grass and hitting him in the face twice, hard enough to make him cry. Then there was a commotion of adults around them, and somebody pulled Jacob away. Sobbing, Spencer rolled onto his side, covering his head with his arms and curling up defensively in case he was attacked again.
“Spencer? Can I see?” Hotch was there, lifting Spencer into his arms and getting a close-up look at his face. “You’re not bleeding, you might get some bruises. Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“Huh unh,” Spencer grunted, snuggling into Hotch’s embrace.
Hotch addressed the surrounding adults. “What happened?”
There was a short silence, then one man spoke up. “It looked to me like this older boy just attacked him.”
“Your nephew must have said something to set Jacob off.” That was Jacob’s mother, having finally ended her phone call.
“He was saying bad words!” Jacob exclaimed.
“I was not!” Spencer shouted back, his words slightly ragged because he was still crying.
“Can I ask you to take Jacob and go sit down there?” Hotch asked, no doubt indicating the far end of the field. “And Spencer can sit over here for the rest of the game.”
“I think maybe I should take Jacob and Hunter home,” the woman replied, both angry and irritated.
While she collected both boys and all but dragged them away, Hunter protesting loudly that the game wasn’t over yet, a man approached Hotch with a bundle of towel in his hand.
“Here’s some ice.”
“Thanks.” Hotch took it and applied it to Spencer’s face. “Can you hold that there?”
Spencer took over.the makeshift ice pack, shifting it to rest against Hotch’s shoulder and laying his cheek on it.
“Is Spencer hurt bad?” That was Jack.
“He’ll be okay in a minute. All right, everybody, back to the game,” Hotch said, addressing the children who’d come to crowd around the incident. Then, quietly, he asked Spencer, “Do you want me to put you down now?”
“Huh unh,” Spencer replied, holding on even tighter. And although he stopped crying soon enough, it was so comforting to be cuddled and held safe from bullies that he waited until the ice started to melt through the towel. “Okay, I can get down now, Hotch.”
Hotch set him on the ground, and ruffled his hair a little, then went off to continue coaching the game. Spencer watched him for a minute before reaching for his book again.
xxxxx
At home after lunch, Jack practised reading aloud in the living room, and Spencer sat at the kitchen table, trying to write a letter to his mother. It was harder to hold the pen and form the letters with his little fingers, and he soon realized he’d have to think up something to explain his very different handwriting. He thought for a long moment, then wrote something vague but basically truthful about his fine motor control having been affected by a chemical experiment that the Unsub had been performing when they’d arrived. He was careful to emphasize that he’d been checked over and should be back to normal soon.
Spencer stopped writing and stared into space for a long moment. How soon was soon? Jack had already mentioned his own birthday, which reminded Spencer that his was on the 28th, less than a month away. He usually phoned his mom on that date, not that she necessarily remembered to congratulate him, but it was still nice to talk. He couldn’t call her if he were still only four years old, though. She wouldn’t recognize his voice, would wonder why a small child was trying to convince her that he was her thirty-year-old son, and would start imagining all kinds of things, no doubt starting and ending with a government conspiracy theory. And after that, it would be three weeks until Thanksgiving, when he had hoped to fly out to Las Vegas to spend the holiday with her. Would he be able to do that in his current condition? Could he manage to convince her that it was really him?
“Spencer, why are you crying? Don’t you feel well?”
Spencer blinked, and another tear escaped as he looked at Jack, who was suddenly standing next to him.
Embarrased, Spencer quickly wiped his cheeks. It seemed like all he did lately was cry, for one reason or another. He’d probably cried more in the last four days than he had since he had been four the first time around, Emily’s “death” excluded.
Jack patted his arm consolingly, and Spencer finally said, “I just miss my mom.”
“Is she dead?” Jack asked.
“Jack, remember I told you that Spencer’s mom was very sick and couldn’t take care of him?” Hotch said gently.
“Oh, yeah,” Jack said.
“She’s in a special hospital far away,” Spencer said.
“Can you visit her?” Jack went on.
“No, it’s too far away, and, uh, I’m not allowed.” That was the easiest way to explain it. “But I’m writing her a letter that she can read.”
“My mom’s dead, but sometimes Dad lights a candle and I talk to it and Mom can hear me in heaven,” Jack said.
“That’s a good idea,” Spencer said.
Reminded of fathers, Jack went on, “Where’s your dad?”
“He’s – gone.“ Spencer decided it was time to change the subject. “So, um, you’re finished reading now?”
“Yes, and now we’re going to the store. Dad said I could pick out a special treat for dessert for to-morrow!”
“Okay,” Spencer said.
“And you can pick out the special treat for dessert for to-day!” Jack went on.
“Um—“
“Let’s get you a jacket, Spencer, I think it’s started raining,” Hotch said.
Spencer realized he wasn’t being given a choice about having to go with them, and put down his pen with a sigh.
xxxxx
That night, Spencer and Jack had a little fight over who got to sleep in the sleeping bag, and who had to take the bed. Hotch finally settled it with a coin toss, and when Jack saw that he’d correctly picked heads, he jumped triumphantly from the bed to the rolled up sleeping bag and landed right in the centre of it, not caring that he lost his balance and tumbled to the floor directly afterwards. He was so excited about the prospect that he also skipped into the bathroom, chanting, “I get the sleeping bag, I get the sleeping bag.”
Spencer gave Hotch a slightly embarrassed smile. “I was just trying to be nice by offering to swap with him. I didn’t think it would be a big deal.”
“It’s exciting because it’s different,” Hotch said. “Come on, you can brush your teeth, too.”
Jack also got to stay up half an hour later because he was a year older, and after Spencer got into bed, Hotch led his son into the living room to read him the bedtime stories that Spencer had politely declined.
Spencer lay there in the dim glow of the nightlight, resuming his thoughts from earlier in the afternoon about his mother. No, she wasn’t able to take care of him now; in fact, she hadn’t ever really been able to take care of him. Remembering Jack’s question, Spencer also thought about his father, which he tried not to do too often. After a moment or two of the old pain, he turned his thoughts to Hotch and the rest of the team, which reminded him of the conversation Hotch had had with Rossi, about what to do about Reid …
And he awoke, sobbing, and somebody was sitting on the bed next to him.
“Spencer?” It was Hotch. “Did you have another nightmare?”
“Strau – Strauss,” he stuttered, reaching out to wrap himself around Hotch. Hotch pulled him into a hug, and carried him out of Jack’s bedroom and into his own, shutting the door.
“You had a nightmare about Strauss?” he prompted.
“Strauss sent me – sent me to my dad!” Spencer cried. “And he – and he walked out on me again! I was in his office – Mom wasn’t there – nobody was there – and he just left – just left me all alone!”
“I’ve got you, Spencer,” Hotch said, rubbing his back. “You’re not alone. It was a scary dream, but it was just a dream. It’s okay now.”
“He just left me!” Spencer repeated. “All alone in his – in his office with his dead cat –“
“His dead cat?” Hotch asked.
“He had – he had a sick cat – when we were there – remember? And he – he let it die – in his office – and he left me – he left me there to die, too!”
“Spencer, that didn’t happen. It was a dream,” Hotch said.
“I don’t want to go to my dad!” Spencer wailed. “I don’t want to go!”
“It’s okay, Spencer, it’s all right,” Hotch soothed.
“He said – he said he left because he didn’t know how to – how to take care of me,” Spencer tried to explain. He was crying even harder now and it was harder to speak. “And I was – I was eleven then. So that means he won’t – he won’t know how to take care of me now that I’m – now that I’m like this!”
“Oh, Spencer,” Hotch said, hugging him extra tight.
“I’m scared,” Spencer admitted. “I’m so scared, Hotch!”
“I know,” Hotch said, rubbing his back again. “I know. But I’ve got you. You’re safe now. You’re safe.”
xxxxx
Spencer closed the book and looked around Hotch’s home office. “Hotch?”
“Yeah?” Hotch looked up from his desk.
“Can we go to the library?” It was Wednesday afternoon and Spencer had now read every book that Hotch had in his apartment, including Jack’s, as short as they were.
“I’ll bet Jack would love to pick out a new book, too, so why don’t we wait until after we’ve picked him up?” Hotch suggested.
“Okay.” But Spencer sighed again. “I wish Strauss would call to talk about the results of the tests from SHIELD. I can’t understand what’s taking so long!”
“Neither can I,” Hotch admitted.
“I wish Rossi would call and consult us about the case. Actually, I wish we were out there with them!”
Hotch gave him a long, probing look, then said, “I think somebody needs to get the wiggles out.”
“What? I don’t have any wiggles!”
“You’ve been jiggling your leg since you opened that book, but aside from that, you’ve barely moved all day. Now you’re starting to sound irritable. Yesterday and Monday, we had enough errands to run to keep us busy, but now I think we should go outside.”
Spencer pouted. “Are you going to make me walk around the building again?”
“No, there’s a playground close to Jack’s school that we can go to.”
“Playground? Hotch, come on!”
“No, you come on, Spencer. Get your shoes and your jacket.”
They went to the playground. Spencer stood at the gate in the fence, looking unhappily at the equipment. Thankfully, there was only one other child playing there, a girl, with her a father on a nearby bench, so it didn’t look like he’d be bullied, but still.
“Spencer, go play.” When Spencer hesitated, Hotch became more specific. ”Go slide down the slide.”
Spencer walked reluctantly over to the big slide, climbed the ladder, and slid down. It was actually more fun than he remembered, so he went up a second time, and then a third. When he went around to the ladder again, the girl was just about to climb up, but she stopped to wave him back. “Go away. I’m here now, and I can’t slide down if you’re too close.”
So much for not being bullied. Spencer decided not to press the issue, but instead walked over to where Hotch had made himself comfortable on the bench. “Okay, Hotch, I’ve played. Can we –?”
The man on the bench glanced suddenly up from his phone. “Hotch? Agent Hotchner? Hi, I’m Agent Henriksen! Lars Henriksen, in the Cyber Crime Unit. Your son’s in the same school as my older daughter, we’ve seen each other there a time or two.“
“Oh, yeah. Hi.“ Hotch smiled and reached over to shake hands.
“Oh, my G-d, is it true what happened to Dr Reid?”
“Is what true?” Hotch asked coldly, his smile fading. Feeling his heart sink, Spencer backed automatically away to Hotch’s other side.
“That he’s been turned into a kid? Is that him?” Agent Henriksen craned his neck for a better look.
“Where did you hear about that?”
“It’s all over the BAU. Everybody’s talking about it.” Now the man addressed Spencer directly. “Are you really only three years old?”
Spencer stared at him, not sure how to respond. Whether he tried to confirm or deny the rumours, it would probably have the same effect of causing them to increase exponentially. He also wondered where the leak came from. Surely it couldn’t be Garcia? He hoped it wasn’t. Maybe somebody from SHIELD? They were the only other people who knew – and word had spread around the research facility pretty quickly.
“If you have to participate in rumours, then you can at least spread the truth,” Hotch said. “Dr Reid is four going on five, yes, he’s retained all his memories, and no, we don’t think he’s going to suddenly turn back into an adult.”
“Is it true it was aliens?” Agent Henriksen pressed, looking as excited, Spencer thought, as a fanboy at a Doctor Who convention.
“No, that is definitely not true,” Hotch said.
Agent Henriksen slumped in disappointment.
“And if I read one word about this in the National Enquirer, I will sue you,” Hotch went on in a quietly menacing tone, which changed the agent’s expression to outraged astonishment.
“Hey, I wasn’t going to talk to the press!” Agent Henriksen was interrupted by a cry of “Da-ad!” from his daughter, and he looked away to where she was standing at the top of the climbing tower.
“Um, Dr Reid, have you had chickenpox?” he suddenly asked.
“Yeah, when I was about seven,” Spencer replied without thinking. “Why?”
“Dad!”
“But you’re four going on five now.”
“Yes—“ and then Spencer realized why the man was asking. “Your daughter has chickenpox, doesn’t she?”
“DAD!”
“Yup. And, well, I don’t know if you want to stay away from her, or go get infected and get them over with … um … for this lifetime.” Agent Henriksen went over to see why his daughter was shrieking at him, and Spencer and Hotch looked at each other in horror.
“I think it’s time to pick up Jack,” Hotch said, and even though they ended up sitting in the car outside Jack’s school for a while, Spencer didn’t mind at all. It gave him time to take out his phone and make a call.
“Divine Goddess reigning over FBI agents young, old, and Hotch-aged, you have a clear line of communication, so state your petition.”
“Hi, Garcia, it’s Reid.”
“Reid? Dr Spencer Reid, the BAU’s own Dougie Houser? Four-year-old Robin to Hotch’s Batman? Baby Bucky to Captain America? Little Padawan Anakin to Obi-Wan Kenobi?”
“Ouch, Garcia, not Anakin!” Spencer protested, trying to sound insulted, and heard her laugh.
“Oh, Spencer, you sound just as adorable as you look in those pictures! What’s going on, sweetie pie?”
“Garcia, please promise me you didn’t talk to anybody outside our team about what happened to me?”
“No, Spencer, I wouldn’t! I didn’t!”
“Not even to Kevin?”
“So I take it you’ve somehow heard the rumours, then,” Garcia said. “Hey, Spencer, it wasn’t aliens, was it?”
“Not unless Ryan Sakenfeld is an alien. Garcia, please, I have to know, did you talk to Kevin about this or not?”
“No, I didn’t tell Kevin. However that information got out, Spencer, it was not because of me.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Spencer said. “I didn’t want to feel betrayed by anybody else on the team.”
“Nope,” she said. “Definitely not me. My lips were sealed with super glue and duct tape – not one word could escape, not even by climbing up and out through my nose!”
Spencer raised his eyebrows at the mental image. “Thank you.”
The doors to the school opened and waves of children began to flow out.
“So when are you going to come visit?” Garcia asked. “I want to see you in person!”
“I don’t know, but it was good talking to you. I have to go now. We’re picking up Jack and then we get to go to the library.”
“Okay, then, bye, Baby Bucky! Oooh, wait, that reminds me, did you see Captain America when you were at SHIELD?”
“Goodbye, Garcia.”
Spencer cut the connection and groaned at the nickname, not only because of the way it implied sidekick status, but also because it included the word “baby.” He wasn’t stuck in an infant body, for pete’s sake! He couldn’t even be classified as a toddler anymore, as he’d be turning five in just a few weeks. Or thirty. Or, actually, both thirty and five.
Hotch got out to help Jack into the car, and just as he settled back into the driver’s seat, listening to his son talk animatedly about his day, his phone buzzed and he checked it discreetly.
“Hang on a minute, Jack, this is important,” Hotch said. “Hotchner.”
There was a pause, and then he said, “Not this afternoon, I’ve just picked up Jack from school.” Pause. “To-morrow morning? Say, nine?” Pause. “Perfect. We’ll be there.” Pause. “Yes, Dr Reid is coming, too. We’ll see you to-morrow.”
“Strauss?” Spencer asked excitedly.
“Yes.” Hotch put his phone away as though nothing had happened, then turned back to his son. “Okay, Jack, tell me more about what happened at recess.”
Part 5
Part 3
Back to Criminal Minds page