Second Childhood
Part 9
11 October 2011
“Spencer, get up!”
Spencer started to turn over, but something wet landed on his face, rubbing his mouth, nose and cheeks, and he sat up with a squawk. “Hotch! What are you doing?”
“I’ve been trying to wake you up for half an hour.” Hotch lowered the wet washcloth. “But now you really have to get out of bed, or we’ll all be late. Get your pants and shoes on and let’s go.”
“Can’t I have breakfast first?” Spencer sat up and put his legs over the side of the bed, then slid into the pants that Hotch was holding out for him. He was still wearing his shirt and sweater from the day before.
“Get your shoes on, and you can eat in the car.”
“I’m starving, Hotch!” But Spencer got up and took the shoes that Hotch was thrusting at him.
“I’ll bet you are. You fell asleep on the way home yesterday and missed supper. Shoes on?”
“Almost!”
“Then get your jacket, and come on. Jack! Let’s go!”
“Hotch, I have to go to the bathroom!”
“Make it quick.”
As soon as Spencer came out of the bathroom, Hotch thrust his jacket at him, then practically pushed him and Jack to the door. Once Spencer was buckled into the car seat, Hotch put a shoebox on his lap. “Breakfast.”
Spencer looked down to see that the shoebox held a bowl of oatmeal with scrambled eggs on top, a spoon, and something else in a covered container. Once he figured out what it was, he asked, “Hotch, why is my orange juice in a Tupperware bowl?”
“Because it was the only thing that I could find that had a lid, so you wouldn’t spill in the car,” Hotch replied.
“How come I don’t get to eat breakfast in the car?” Jack whined.
“Because you got up early enough to eat at the table, and Spencer didn’t.” Hotch said.
“Can I have breakfast in the car to-morrow?”
“No.”
Spencer dug in. The egg and the oatmeal were cold, but he ate them anyway because he really was starving. He had to think back to remember the last time he’d been this hungry.
“It was my turn for the bed last night,” Jack said. “But Dad put you there anyway.”
“Sorry,” Spencer mumbled around a spoonful of oatmeal. Apparently the novelty of the sleeping bag was wearing off. “You can have the bed from now on. I don’t mind sleeping on the floor.”
“We can still share, but I should get it two nights in a row, because you had it two nights in a row,” Jack decided.
“Okay.” Spencer took the lid off the Tupperware for a drink of juice. Just as he raised it to his mouth, Hotch slammed on the brakes, and the juice went partly into the box and partly down the front of his jacket.
Hotch said something very intense, but too quietly for Spencer to make out. Whatever it was, Spencer was sure he agreed with it. Jack said, “Dad, Spencer spilled his juice!”
Hotch took a very deep breath and didn’t say anything.
When they had got Jack to school and were continuing on to the BAU, Hotch said, “Maybe a full day is too much for you, Spencer. Maybe we should cut it down a bit.”
“No! Eight hours isn’t long enough! I hardly got anything done,” Spencer protested. “It was probably all that going up and down the stairs that made me so tired.”
“Up and down the stairs? All six flights?”
“Only the first time. The other two times, I walked down, but only halfway up again. Ally let me take the elevator from the third floor.”
“I’ll tell Johnson that’s definitely too much, especially if you’re so exhausted you fall asleep before supper and can’t get up in time for breakfast.”
+++++
13 October 2011
On Thursday, just as Ally came over to Spencer’s desk to tell him it was break time, Hotch came out of his office and put his hands on the guard rail of the mezzanine. “Conference room, everybody.”
“Me, too, or do I have to take my break first?” Spencer asked.
“You, too. And you, Johnson.”
Spencer raced eagerly over to the conference room and scrambled into one of the chairs. They’d be going out on a case to-day, the only question was where. Much as he enjoyed paperwork, he also liked getting out of the office and seeing evidence firsthand. But as soon as Garcia had announced they would be flying to Kearney, Nebraska, and Hotch had said his usual “Wheels up in thirty,” Spencer suddenly remembered something.
“Hotch! My glasses! They’re supposed to be ready to-day.” He’d been looking forward to clear vision all week.
Hotch looked almost as stricken as though he’d forgotten Jack somewhere along the way, but then he said, “We’ll just have to get them when we come back, Spencer.”
“I guess I can wait a few more days.” He’d gotten used to having everything in the distance be fuzzy, and to bringing printed text close to his face so he could read it. He told himself it wouldn’t make that much difference if he got them this week or next.
To Spencer’s surprise, Garcia joined them in the car on the way to the airstrip. She had a go-bag on wheels and three laptop cases strapped to it. When they arrived, Hotch took Spencer’s car seat out of the car and carried it up into the cabin as well, placing it on one of the backwards-facing plane seats. Then he went back down the steps for his and Spencer’s go-bags, and came back on board with Morgan, Rossi, JJ and Emily trailing behind.
“Wow, private jet,” Ally said, sitting down across from Spencer. “The arson unit always has to fly commercial, in the economy section. Even Agent Kalvesmaki, and he’s six foot six.”
“That’s no fun,” Spencer said. He’d flown commercial several times, too, and even though he was five inches shorter – at his usual adult height – than Agent Kalvismaki, it was still uncomfortable with his long legs and people in front of him who insisted on reclining their seats the entire way.
“When I get back there, I’m going to get everybody in my team together and we’re going to commandeer this jet for our next case.”
“You’d have to get through Hotch first.” Spencer smiled a little at the idea.
“Oh, I could take you hostage, then he’d surrender immediately,” Ally said.
“You could take any member of my team hostage and he’d surrender,” Spencer said. It was a good, warm thing to know. “But he’d try to get you to take him instead.”
“I wouldn’t take him. I might take Morgan.”
In the seat behind Ally, Garcia stood up and turned around, staring down at her. “Take my chocolate cupcake where?”
“Take him hostage when me and the arson unit try to commandeer this jet for our own use,” Ally said without a hint of teasing.
“You’d have to get through me first,” Garcia announced, and Spencer could imagine Morgan’s smirk at her gallantry. Then the captain came on the intercom and told them all to sit down and buckle up, and Garcia disappeared from view.
Ally glanced over to Spencer and mouthed “chocolate cupcake?”
Spencer just grinned. Back at the BAU, everybody but him and Emily were in their various offices most of the time, and he’d missed being in close quarters on the jet with the team.
But the team split up again when they landed at Kearney Regional Airport. Garcia got into the taxi with Spencer and Ally, and when they got to the hotel, she grabbed one of the rooms adjacent to theirs. “So, my little half-pint hero, I’ll have my travelling lair set up in here in a jiffy, and then we can get to work.”
“It’s way past Spencer’s lunchtime, and he hasn’t had his fresh air and activity for the day,” Ally said. “Spencer, we’ll wait in the lobby for the taxi.”
“Taxi?” Garcia asked. “Why do you need a taxi? There’s food right here in this hotel.”
“You might call it food,” Ally said, and shooed Spencer down the hall. They ended up in a café that offered vegetarian food, and Ally didn’t bother with the children’s part of the menu, or even asking Spencer what he wanted. She simply ordered six veggie wraps, asking that four of them be put in doggie bags.
“That’s not enough for the rest of the team,” Spencer commented.
“That’s because that will be our supper and breakfast,” Ally replied.
The café was nowhere near any parks, playgrounds, or even lawn, so after getting another taxi back to the hotel, Ally had Spencer march in place in their room, practice with the jump rope and alternate both with jumping on the bed. “Come on, higher, higher!”
When he was finished, Ally also suggested, “This hotel’s got a pool. After supper we could go swimming.”
“I don’t have a swimming suit,” Spencer said. He wondered if his smaller body would be able to swim or if it would be like skipping. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out – skipping didn’t carry the same risk of drowning that not being able to swim did.
“We can go out and buy one.”
“I’d better get some work done. They’re not going to let me go out in the field anymore if all I do is march to Pretoria and jump on the bed when I get there.”
Ally walked him to Garcia’s door and knocked. After a moment, Garcia answered, talking on her headset, and waved Spencer in. “Let’s put you to work, Junior Genius.”
+++++
They were still eating supper when Ally’s phone rang. She pulled it out and looked at it, her face turning from annoyance to surprise, then excused herself and went into the bathroom. After she’d spoken for a moment, too quietly for Spencer to make out words, he clearly heard her exclaim, “Well, that just sucks!”
Then her voice went quiet again. Spencer finished eating, then looked over at the things on the bed which Ally had set aside so they could use the table. There were a few books about learning Arabic, and a notebook where Ally had been practicing writing both English and Arabic with her left hand. The other thing was a board game called Agricola, which he’d never heard of, and after reading the back of the box, Spencer opened it up and pulled out the booklet of rules. He’d just read to the end of the last page when Ally came out again, falling unhappily into her chair again and leaning her head on her left hand for a moment.
Quite abruptly, she asked, “How did you get de-aged? Hotch said something about you falling into some kind of machine?”
“Yeah, some kind of machine, but I never got a good look at it, and I don’t know how it works. SHIELD wouldn’t let me examine it.”
“Where is it? Is it still functioning?”
“It’s in Ohio, but as for still functioning, I don’t know. You’d have to ask SHIELD; they might have taken it apart. But, Ally ... de-aging isn’t something you want to do. I’ve got the mind of a twenty-nine-year-old in a four-year-old body. I’ve got a birthday coming up soon and I don’t know if I should celebrate turning thirty, or turning five.”
Looking out of the window, Ally said, “My brother Gabriel has just been diagnosed with Stage 4 prostrate cancer.”
“Oh,” Spencer replied. “I’m sorry.”
“If I could get him to that machine, would he still have cancer once he was de-aged?”
“No,” Spencer replied firmly, remembering his missing scars. “But, uh, how old is he now?”
“He’s just turned thirty six,” Ally replied. “He’s got a wife, and three kids under the age of ten.”
“The machine was designed to de-age people twenty five years,” Spencer explained. “Your brother would come out as an eleven-year-old.”
“Oh, G-d!” Ally cried, and slammed her good fist into the table so hard that her dinner jumped. “Couldn’t they adjust it, make it turn him back just eight or ten years? He’d have time to watch his kids grow up! Even if they only turned him back five years, or even two, he’d have time to catch the cancer when it first starts!”
“I’m sorry,” Spencer said again, but his mind was whirring. Surely somebody at SHIELD had thought of the possibility of “curing” cancer, or at least having a second chance to diagnose it, or other medical disorders, earlier in patients. It must have been why they’d taken Dr Sakenfeld out of police custody and transported him back to the research facility. Maybe it was why Dr Sakenfeld had invented the machine in the first place. If SHIELD had any brains – and he was sure somebody there did, even if they weren’t at the top levels – they wouldn’t dismantle the machine at all, they’d continue to research it.
“You can try to get in touch with SHIELD,” he suggested. “Um, let me call Hotch, he’s got a contact number for SHIELD, as far as I know.”
Spencer dug his phone out of his pocket and dialled, and Hotch picked up almost immediately. “Spencer? Shouldn’t you be in bed already?”
“I’ve still got thirty five minutes,” Spencer protested. “Hotch, have you got a number for Dr Kapoor at SHIELD? Can you send it to me?”
“Are you all right?” Hotch suddenly sounded worried.
“No, I’m fine, everything is fine, Hotch. It’s for Ally. Her brother’s just been diagnosed with cancer, and she was asking about the de-aging machine.”
“Oh.” Hotch exhaled, then said, “Yeah. I’ll send the number to Johnson’s phone. Hey, Rossi’s coming over to give Johnson the evening off, he should be there soon. I’ll say good night now, Spencer.”
“Thanks, Hotch. Good night.”
When the number came, Ally dialed immediately, but from what Spencer could hear, it sounded like a recorded message. Frowning, she said, “I’ll try again to-morrow. And now, Sprout, it’s time to brush your teeth and get your pyjamas on.”
“I’ve still got half an hour.”
“Do it anyway, and then you can read before you go to sleep.”
“If you want a distraction, we could play Agricola. I’ve read the rules, I know how it works.”
Ally sighed deeply. “Not to-night, Sprout, not to-night. As soon as my replacement gets here, I’m going running.”
+++++
16-17 October 2011
The team solved the case and arrested the Unsub on Sunday, and Spencer and Ally came back from lunch to find it was all over. Spencer didn’t mind. He preferred finding the clues and fitting them in to solve the puzzle, he didn’t have to be the one to kick down doors and cuff the Unsub.
As they packed, he asked Ally if she’d been able to get in touch with the SHIELD doctor, because she hadn’t mentioned it since that first night, but she tersely said no, and went visibly back to compartmentalizing her worries. Spencer’s child-like emotions urged him to give her a hug to make her feel better, and after a moment, he gave in, wrapping his arms around her waist. She hugged back, but it obviously felt weird to both of them, because they both let go soon after.
The next morning, JJ called Hotch to ask if he had time to pick her up, because her car would not start and Will was already at work. Spencer gave her a civil hello when she got in the car, and she answered in the same tone of voice, then directed the rest of her conversation to Hotch. On the way back home, it was the same, until they pulled up outside her house and Spencer urgently realized something.
“JJ, um, can I use your bathroom quickly?”
“Yeah, come on in. Hotch?”
“I’ll wait out here, thanks.”
Spencer leaped out of the car and ran inside, then up the stairs to their bathroom. The toilet and sink area did not have an outside window, and was divided from the shower, which did. When the light suddenly went out, Spencer was plunged into absolute blackness. He screamed inarticulately at first, fumbling at his zipper, then found words. “Turn it back on!” But the light didn’t come back on. Starting to panic, he screamed again, banging into the sink as he fought to get out, to find the door, to get back into the light. When he finally did, he saw JJ’s son standing with his arm extended and his hand on the light switch.
“Henry!” Spencer yelled, and Henry turned instinctively and ran. Spencer ran after him, still suffering the after-effects of the terror, and angry now as well.
“What’s going on?” JJ called up the stairs, and Spencer reached out, meaning to grab Henry. But though his hand never made contact, Henry suddenly tumbled down the stairs anyway, and let out a high screech of pain before he’d even finished falling.
“Henry!” JJ shouted, picking him up. “Are you hurt?”
Spencer came down a few steps to see if Henry was all right, but the younger boy was curled over his arm and sobbing in agony.
“Henry?” Will came running in from the kitchen, too. “What happened? Did he fall down the stairs?”
“My arm, my arm!” Henry cried. JJ felt carefully along it, and he screamed even more.
“Oh, G-d, Will, I think it’s broken,” JJ said, but then she looked up at Spencer. “Why did you do that? Why did you push him? You could have broken his neck!”
“No!” Spencer shouted. Fear and shock and now the unjust accusations were making him cry as well. “I didn’t push him!”
“You had your hand out, Spencer!” JJ shouted back, enraged. “I saw you! He’s younger and smaller than you, and you deliberately pushed him down the stairs!”
“I didn’t – I didn’t push him!”
JJ gathered Henry up and in the coldest, most controlled voice that Spencer had ever heard, she said, “Will, take Spencer outside before I do something I regret.”
As she carried Henry away, Will looked up at Spencer. “Come on, kiddo.”
Slowly, reluctantly, Spencer made his way down the steps, sobbing quietly. Will didn’t say anything else, just opened the front door, and Spencer went out. When Spencer realized that Will was coming with him to talk to Hotch, he felt a sudden burst of panic that Hotch would believe the adult instead of him, especially if Will got there first. He ran to the gate and slipped through, then raced over to the car and pulled on the door handle.
“Hotch, I didn’t push him, I swear I didn’t!”
“What?” Hotch looked from him to Will, then got out of the car. “What happened?”
“Henry fell down the stairs and we think his arm is broken,” Will explained. ”I didn’t see it myself, but JJ says Spencer pushed Henry.”
“I didn’t!” Spencer wailed. He held out his arms to Hotch, and the man lifted him up into a hug. “I’d never hurt Henry! I reached out – but I didn’t push him!”
“Okay, buddy,” Hotch said.
“Will!” JJ called from the door. Will turned towards her, and Spencer hid his face in Hotch’s shoulder.
“We’re taking Henry to the emergency room,” Will explained.
“Keep me posted, and tell me if you need anything,” Hotch said. Will nodded, and went back towards his family. Hotch opened the passenger door and put Spencer in the car seat. “Let’s get you home, buddy.”
Spencer forced himself to stop crying on the way home, though he still felt heartsick, and finally he managed to say, “Hotch,” without his voice breaking.
“Yes?”
“I was in the bathroom and Henry turned the light out on me. I was so scared, I screamed, and when I got out, I screamed at him and he ran away. I wanted to grab him, to tell him not to turn the lights out on me like that, but he must have slipped, and that’s how he fell down the stairs. I didn’t push him, I swear!”
“I believe you, Spencer. Thank you for telling me what happened.”
“I feel so bad that he’s hurt. JJ thought I did it deliberately, and it was my fault, but it was an accident.”
“I know. It’s okay.”
Spencer was quiet for a moment, looking out of the window, feeling his chest ache so bad it encompassed his entire body. It began to rain, and he sadly watched the drops descend.
“Um, Hotch? I left my jacket at JJ’s.”
“Well, I’ll bet she’ll bring it with her to-morrow.”
What if she didn’t, Spencer wondered silently. What if she felt about him now the way he’d felt about her when he’d found out she had lied? Hurt, betrayed, no longer trusting him, not wanting to be anywhere near him, and so sick at heart she thought she might vomit from the ache …
He tried to call out to Hotch, but only managed a weak “haw” before throwing up all down his front.
Part 10
Part 8
Return to Criminal Minds Page
“Spencer, get up!”
Spencer started to turn over, but something wet landed on his face, rubbing his mouth, nose and cheeks, and he sat up with a squawk. “Hotch! What are you doing?”
“I’ve been trying to wake you up for half an hour.” Hotch lowered the wet washcloth. “But now you really have to get out of bed, or we’ll all be late. Get your pants and shoes on and let’s go.”
“Can’t I have breakfast first?” Spencer sat up and put his legs over the side of the bed, then slid into the pants that Hotch was holding out for him. He was still wearing his shirt and sweater from the day before.
“Get your shoes on, and you can eat in the car.”
“I’m starving, Hotch!” But Spencer got up and took the shoes that Hotch was thrusting at him.
“I’ll bet you are. You fell asleep on the way home yesterday and missed supper. Shoes on?”
“Almost!”
“Then get your jacket, and come on. Jack! Let’s go!”
“Hotch, I have to go to the bathroom!”
“Make it quick.”
As soon as Spencer came out of the bathroom, Hotch thrust his jacket at him, then practically pushed him and Jack to the door. Once Spencer was buckled into the car seat, Hotch put a shoebox on his lap. “Breakfast.”
Spencer looked down to see that the shoebox held a bowl of oatmeal with scrambled eggs on top, a spoon, and something else in a covered container. Once he figured out what it was, he asked, “Hotch, why is my orange juice in a Tupperware bowl?”
“Because it was the only thing that I could find that had a lid, so you wouldn’t spill in the car,” Hotch replied.
“How come I don’t get to eat breakfast in the car?” Jack whined.
“Because you got up early enough to eat at the table, and Spencer didn’t.” Hotch said.
“Can I have breakfast in the car to-morrow?”
“No.”
Spencer dug in. The egg and the oatmeal were cold, but he ate them anyway because he really was starving. He had to think back to remember the last time he’d been this hungry.
“It was my turn for the bed last night,” Jack said. “But Dad put you there anyway.”
“Sorry,” Spencer mumbled around a spoonful of oatmeal. Apparently the novelty of the sleeping bag was wearing off. “You can have the bed from now on. I don’t mind sleeping on the floor.”
“We can still share, but I should get it two nights in a row, because you had it two nights in a row,” Jack decided.
“Okay.” Spencer took the lid off the Tupperware for a drink of juice. Just as he raised it to his mouth, Hotch slammed on the brakes, and the juice went partly into the box and partly down the front of his jacket.
Hotch said something very intense, but too quietly for Spencer to make out. Whatever it was, Spencer was sure he agreed with it. Jack said, “Dad, Spencer spilled his juice!”
Hotch took a very deep breath and didn’t say anything.
When they had got Jack to school and were continuing on to the BAU, Hotch said, “Maybe a full day is too much for you, Spencer. Maybe we should cut it down a bit.”
“No! Eight hours isn’t long enough! I hardly got anything done,” Spencer protested. “It was probably all that going up and down the stairs that made me so tired.”
“Up and down the stairs? All six flights?”
“Only the first time. The other two times, I walked down, but only halfway up again. Ally let me take the elevator from the third floor.”
“I’ll tell Johnson that’s definitely too much, especially if you’re so exhausted you fall asleep before supper and can’t get up in time for breakfast.”
+++++
13 October 2011
On Thursday, just as Ally came over to Spencer’s desk to tell him it was break time, Hotch came out of his office and put his hands on the guard rail of the mezzanine. “Conference room, everybody.”
“Me, too, or do I have to take my break first?” Spencer asked.
“You, too. And you, Johnson.”
Spencer raced eagerly over to the conference room and scrambled into one of the chairs. They’d be going out on a case to-day, the only question was where. Much as he enjoyed paperwork, he also liked getting out of the office and seeing evidence firsthand. But as soon as Garcia had announced they would be flying to Kearney, Nebraska, and Hotch had said his usual “Wheels up in thirty,” Spencer suddenly remembered something.
“Hotch! My glasses! They’re supposed to be ready to-day.” He’d been looking forward to clear vision all week.
Hotch looked almost as stricken as though he’d forgotten Jack somewhere along the way, but then he said, “We’ll just have to get them when we come back, Spencer.”
“I guess I can wait a few more days.” He’d gotten used to having everything in the distance be fuzzy, and to bringing printed text close to his face so he could read it. He told himself it wouldn’t make that much difference if he got them this week or next.
To Spencer’s surprise, Garcia joined them in the car on the way to the airstrip. She had a go-bag on wheels and three laptop cases strapped to it. When they arrived, Hotch took Spencer’s car seat out of the car and carried it up into the cabin as well, placing it on one of the backwards-facing plane seats. Then he went back down the steps for his and Spencer’s go-bags, and came back on board with Morgan, Rossi, JJ and Emily trailing behind.
“Wow, private jet,” Ally said, sitting down across from Spencer. “The arson unit always has to fly commercial, in the economy section. Even Agent Kalvesmaki, and he’s six foot six.”
“That’s no fun,” Spencer said. He’d flown commercial several times, too, and even though he was five inches shorter – at his usual adult height – than Agent Kalvismaki, it was still uncomfortable with his long legs and people in front of him who insisted on reclining their seats the entire way.
“When I get back there, I’m going to get everybody in my team together and we’re going to commandeer this jet for our next case.”
“You’d have to get through Hotch first.” Spencer smiled a little at the idea.
“Oh, I could take you hostage, then he’d surrender immediately,” Ally said.
“You could take any member of my team hostage and he’d surrender,” Spencer said. It was a good, warm thing to know. “But he’d try to get you to take him instead.”
“I wouldn’t take him. I might take Morgan.”
In the seat behind Ally, Garcia stood up and turned around, staring down at her. “Take my chocolate cupcake where?”
“Take him hostage when me and the arson unit try to commandeer this jet for our own use,” Ally said without a hint of teasing.
“You’d have to get through me first,” Garcia announced, and Spencer could imagine Morgan’s smirk at her gallantry. Then the captain came on the intercom and told them all to sit down and buckle up, and Garcia disappeared from view.
Ally glanced over to Spencer and mouthed “chocolate cupcake?”
Spencer just grinned. Back at the BAU, everybody but him and Emily were in their various offices most of the time, and he’d missed being in close quarters on the jet with the team.
But the team split up again when they landed at Kearney Regional Airport. Garcia got into the taxi with Spencer and Ally, and when they got to the hotel, she grabbed one of the rooms adjacent to theirs. “So, my little half-pint hero, I’ll have my travelling lair set up in here in a jiffy, and then we can get to work.”
“It’s way past Spencer’s lunchtime, and he hasn’t had his fresh air and activity for the day,” Ally said. “Spencer, we’ll wait in the lobby for the taxi.”
“Taxi?” Garcia asked. “Why do you need a taxi? There’s food right here in this hotel.”
“You might call it food,” Ally said, and shooed Spencer down the hall. They ended up in a café that offered vegetarian food, and Ally didn’t bother with the children’s part of the menu, or even asking Spencer what he wanted. She simply ordered six veggie wraps, asking that four of them be put in doggie bags.
“That’s not enough for the rest of the team,” Spencer commented.
“That’s because that will be our supper and breakfast,” Ally replied.
The café was nowhere near any parks, playgrounds, or even lawn, so after getting another taxi back to the hotel, Ally had Spencer march in place in their room, practice with the jump rope and alternate both with jumping on the bed. “Come on, higher, higher!”
When he was finished, Ally also suggested, “This hotel’s got a pool. After supper we could go swimming.”
“I don’t have a swimming suit,” Spencer said. He wondered if his smaller body would be able to swim or if it would be like skipping. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out – skipping didn’t carry the same risk of drowning that not being able to swim did.
“We can go out and buy one.”
“I’d better get some work done. They’re not going to let me go out in the field anymore if all I do is march to Pretoria and jump on the bed when I get there.”
Ally walked him to Garcia’s door and knocked. After a moment, Garcia answered, talking on her headset, and waved Spencer in. “Let’s put you to work, Junior Genius.”
+++++
They were still eating supper when Ally’s phone rang. She pulled it out and looked at it, her face turning from annoyance to surprise, then excused herself and went into the bathroom. After she’d spoken for a moment, too quietly for Spencer to make out words, he clearly heard her exclaim, “Well, that just sucks!”
Then her voice went quiet again. Spencer finished eating, then looked over at the things on the bed which Ally had set aside so they could use the table. There were a few books about learning Arabic, and a notebook where Ally had been practicing writing both English and Arabic with her left hand. The other thing was a board game called Agricola, which he’d never heard of, and after reading the back of the box, Spencer opened it up and pulled out the booklet of rules. He’d just read to the end of the last page when Ally came out again, falling unhappily into her chair again and leaning her head on her left hand for a moment.
Quite abruptly, she asked, “How did you get de-aged? Hotch said something about you falling into some kind of machine?”
“Yeah, some kind of machine, but I never got a good look at it, and I don’t know how it works. SHIELD wouldn’t let me examine it.”
“Where is it? Is it still functioning?”
“It’s in Ohio, but as for still functioning, I don’t know. You’d have to ask SHIELD; they might have taken it apart. But, Ally ... de-aging isn’t something you want to do. I’ve got the mind of a twenty-nine-year-old in a four-year-old body. I’ve got a birthday coming up soon and I don’t know if I should celebrate turning thirty, or turning five.”
Looking out of the window, Ally said, “My brother Gabriel has just been diagnosed with Stage 4 prostrate cancer.”
“Oh,” Spencer replied. “I’m sorry.”
“If I could get him to that machine, would he still have cancer once he was de-aged?”
“No,” Spencer replied firmly, remembering his missing scars. “But, uh, how old is he now?”
“He’s just turned thirty six,” Ally replied. “He’s got a wife, and three kids under the age of ten.”
“The machine was designed to de-age people twenty five years,” Spencer explained. “Your brother would come out as an eleven-year-old.”
“Oh, G-d!” Ally cried, and slammed her good fist into the table so hard that her dinner jumped. “Couldn’t they adjust it, make it turn him back just eight or ten years? He’d have time to watch his kids grow up! Even if they only turned him back five years, or even two, he’d have time to catch the cancer when it first starts!”
“I’m sorry,” Spencer said again, but his mind was whirring. Surely somebody at SHIELD had thought of the possibility of “curing” cancer, or at least having a second chance to diagnose it, or other medical disorders, earlier in patients. It must have been why they’d taken Dr Sakenfeld out of police custody and transported him back to the research facility. Maybe it was why Dr Sakenfeld had invented the machine in the first place. If SHIELD had any brains – and he was sure somebody there did, even if they weren’t at the top levels – they wouldn’t dismantle the machine at all, they’d continue to research it.
“You can try to get in touch with SHIELD,” he suggested. “Um, let me call Hotch, he’s got a contact number for SHIELD, as far as I know.”
Spencer dug his phone out of his pocket and dialled, and Hotch picked up almost immediately. “Spencer? Shouldn’t you be in bed already?”
“I’ve still got thirty five minutes,” Spencer protested. “Hotch, have you got a number for Dr Kapoor at SHIELD? Can you send it to me?”
“Are you all right?” Hotch suddenly sounded worried.
“No, I’m fine, everything is fine, Hotch. It’s for Ally. Her brother’s just been diagnosed with cancer, and she was asking about the de-aging machine.”
“Oh.” Hotch exhaled, then said, “Yeah. I’ll send the number to Johnson’s phone. Hey, Rossi’s coming over to give Johnson the evening off, he should be there soon. I’ll say good night now, Spencer.”
“Thanks, Hotch. Good night.”
When the number came, Ally dialed immediately, but from what Spencer could hear, it sounded like a recorded message. Frowning, she said, “I’ll try again to-morrow. And now, Sprout, it’s time to brush your teeth and get your pyjamas on.”
“I’ve still got half an hour.”
“Do it anyway, and then you can read before you go to sleep.”
“If you want a distraction, we could play Agricola. I’ve read the rules, I know how it works.”
Ally sighed deeply. “Not to-night, Sprout, not to-night. As soon as my replacement gets here, I’m going running.”
+++++
16-17 October 2011
The team solved the case and arrested the Unsub on Sunday, and Spencer and Ally came back from lunch to find it was all over. Spencer didn’t mind. He preferred finding the clues and fitting them in to solve the puzzle, he didn’t have to be the one to kick down doors and cuff the Unsub.
As they packed, he asked Ally if she’d been able to get in touch with the SHIELD doctor, because she hadn’t mentioned it since that first night, but she tersely said no, and went visibly back to compartmentalizing her worries. Spencer’s child-like emotions urged him to give her a hug to make her feel better, and after a moment, he gave in, wrapping his arms around her waist. She hugged back, but it obviously felt weird to both of them, because they both let go soon after.
The next morning, JJ called Hotch to ask if he had time to pick her up, because her car would not start and Will was already at work. Spencer gave her a civil hello when she got in the car, and she answered in the same tone of voice, then directed the rest of her conversation to Hotch. On the way back home, it was the same, until they pulled up outside her house and Spencer urgently realized something.
“JJ, um, can I use your bathroom quickly?”
“Yeah, come on in. Hotch?”
“I’ll wait out here, thanks.”
Spencer leaped out of the car and ran inside, then up the stairs to their bathroom. The toilet and sink area did not have an outside window, and was divided from the shower, which did. When the light suddenly went out, Spencer was plunged into absolute blackness. He screamed inarticulately at first, fumbling at his zipper, then found words. “Turn it back on!” But the light didn’t come back on. Starting to panic, he screamed again, banging into the sink as he fought to get out, to find the door, to get back into the light. When he finally did, he saw JJ’s son standing with his arm extended and his hand on the light switch.
“Henry!” Spencer yelled, and Henry turned instinctively and ran. Spencer ran after him, still suffering the after-effects of the terror, and angry now as well.
“What’s going on?” JJ called up the stairs, and Spencer reached out, meaning to grab Henry. But though his hand never made contact, Henry suddenly tumbled down the stairs anyway, and let out a high screech of pain before he’d even finished falling.
“Henry!” JJ shouted, picking him up. “Are you hurt?”
Spencer came down a few steps to see if Henry was all right, but the younger boy was curled over his arm and sobbing in agony.
“Henry?” Will came running in from the kitchen, too. “What happened? Did he fall down the stairs?”
“My arm, my arm!” Henry cried. JJ felt carefully along it, and he screamed even more.
“Oh, G-d, Will, I think it’s broken,” JJ said, but then she looked up at Spencer. “Why did you do that? Why did you push him? You could have broken his neck!”
“No!” Spencer shouted. Fear and shock and now the unjust accusations were making him cry as well. “I didn’t push him!”
“You had your hand out, Spencer!” JJ shouted back, enraged. “I saw you! He’s younger and smaller than you, and you deliberately pushed him down the stairs!”
“I didn’t – I didn’t push him!”
JJ gathered Henry up and in the coldest, most controlled voice that Spencer had ever heard, she said, “Will, take Spencer outside before I do something I regret.”
As she carried Henry away, Will looked up at Spencer. “Come on, kiddo.”
Slowly, reluctantly, Spencer made his way down the steps, sobbing quietly. Will didn’t say anything else, just opened the front door, and Spencer went out. When Spencer realized that Will was coming with him to talk to Hotch, he felt a sudden burst of panic that Hotch would believe the adult instead of him, especially if Will got there first. He ran to the gate and slipped through, then raced over to the car and pulled on the door handle.
“Hotch, I didn’t push him, I swear I didn’t!”
“What?” Hotch looked from him to Will, then got out of the car. “What happened?”
“Henry fell down the stairs and we think his arm is broken,” Will explained. ”I didn’t see it myself, but JJ says Spencer pushed Henry.”
“I didn’t!” Spencer wailed. He held out his arms to Hotch, and the man lifted him up into a hug. “I’d never hurt Henry! I reached out – but I didn’t push him!”
“Okay, buddy,” Hotch said.
“Will!” JJ called from the door. Will turned towards her, and Spencer hid his face in Hotch’s shoulder.
“We’re taking Henry to the emergency room,” Will explained.
“Keep me posted, and tell me if you need anything,” Hotch said. Will nodded, and went back towards his family. Hotch opened the passenger door and put Spencer in the car seat. “Let’s get you home, buddy.”
Spencer forced himself to stop crying on the way home, though he still felt heartsick, and finally he managed to say, “Hotch,” without his voice breaking.
“Yes?”
“I was in the bathroom and Henry turned the light out on me. I was so scared, I screamed, and when I got out, I screamed at him and he ran away. I wanted to grab him, to tell him not to turn the lights out on me like that, but he must have slipped, and that’s how he fell down the stairs. I didn’t push him, I swear!”
“I believe you, Spencer. Thank you for telling me what happened.”
“I feel so bad that he’s hurt. JJ thought I did it deliberately, and it was my fault, but it was an accident.”
“I know. It’s okay.”
Spencer was quiet for a moment, looking out of the window, feeling his chest ache so bad it encompassed his entire body. It began to rain, and he sadly watched the drops descend.
“Um, Hotch? I left my jacket at JJ’s.”
“Well, I’ll bet she’ll bring it with her to-morrow.”
What if she didn’t, Spencer wondered silently. What if she felt about him now the way he’d felt about her when he’d found out she had lied? Hurt, betrayed, no longer trusting him, not wanting to be anywhere near him, and so sick at heart she thought she might vomit from the ache …
He tried to call out to Hotch, but only managed a weak “haw” before throwing up all down his front.
Part 10
Part 8
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