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Spencer’s just begun getting used to a life without his father when he walks back into it. He’s fifteen, and the last piece of validation he got was from a professor who told him he’s going places in life (he’s heard it two dozen times, but he’s used to picking from the scraps of validation anyway), so of course his father walking back into his life throws him for a loop that he’s practically looking for anyway.
He misses things; cues, signs, tells that should warn him of the impending loss. The cigarettes that burn an imprint in the walls that don't leave until long after he does, and the spiteful anger, the feeling of eggshells under his feet when he steps into the kitchen and doesn’t realize his father is there.
His body tells him to run. He never does.
William leaves again when he is seventeen, and everything in him screams because he didn’t realize. His mother is noticeably different, and he assumes for many weeks that the reason is her ex-husband’s starkly shocking departure. It isn’t until she asks him to sit at the kitchen counter that he realizes.
“You’ll have a sibling,” Diana says quietly, and there’s something like regret in her voice. She stops taking her meds and she spends her days terrified, and Spencer spends his even more so. If anything is to go wrong now, he’ll be losing his mother, himself, and a baby who never had any say in the matter.
Against all odds, they make it through pregnancy, and Spencer holds his so small little sister before his mother even can. There’s no father on the birth certificate, and he calls social services from outside her hospital room.
Diana goes straight from that hospital to Bennington Sanitarium. It’s the hardest decision he’s ever made in his life.
His mother doesn’t agree to see him for eight weeks, and the only reason she finally does is to hold her daughter.
It sends her into an episode, and she loses any chance of custody rights. Six months later she doesn’t even know she had another child at all.
“Traumatic repression,” her doctor tells him quietly, not wanting to disturb the sleeping baby in his arms. “The trauma of the situation convinced her that it would be better to forget entirely than live with the pain. Sometimes that can be reversed, sometimes it can’t. Only time will tell.”
He doesn’t bring the little girl after that.
========
The first night Spencer spends alone with this tiny little girl (six weeks early, five pounds and ten ounces, 17 inches long, he recites to anyone who will listen) is the most terrifying night of his life.
It feels like they just detached her from all those machines and said, “Have fun!” She carries more weight now, and medically is the healthiest newborn he’s ever met (he’s never met a newborn), but every time he picks her up from the little bassinet he thinks he’s going to break her. He slides her arm through the sleeve of a onesie and she curls her fist around his finger, and he gets distracted by her tiny fingers and forgets to get her all the way into the onesie for another five minutes.
The first time he takes little Charlotte out of the house, it’s to get groceries. He’s surviving off the royalties he gets from papers he’s published and the amount he saved while preparing for this, but it still doesn’t feel like enough. He creates a very intentional, very cheap, grocery list, packs up their little family, and makes it in and out of the grocery store in one piece.
A woman at least a decade older than him says quietly, “Oh, your daughter is wonderful, ” with a little wave to the sleeping girl though she can’t see it.
Daughter. He doesn’t try to deny it. He doesn’t want to.
========
Childcare is expensive. He has to pick up extra hours to pay for the childcare costs alone, which burns a hole in his pocket, and he wonders how anyone is ever supposed to do this on their own.
He eats a little less, and walks instead of drives, and it keeps the costs down enough to spend every night with his daughter. He’s nineteen and she is one, and though he struggles to find a path that will support Charlotte, he puts her to bed every night and he knows that nothing in this world could keep him from giving her a life she deserves. A life outside him, outside her mother, his.
Every time he sees his mother he wants to tell her, Charlotte took her first steps, and she tripped, but if you laugh before she can panic, she doesn’t cry. She’s giggling, and she loves other babies, and she used to hate baths but now they’re her favorite thing in the world.
Instead he visits exactly once a month, and tells her plainly, “I just graduated, and I’m going to the FBI Academy in a few months. I’m going to be a profiler.”
She asks why he hasn’t visited more, and he tells her work and school keeps him busy. In reality he never finished his last PhD, he had to drop out to get a job at the same university to pay the bills. In reality he goes to sleep every night and wonders if he’ll get more than a four hour stretch that time. In reality he is nineteen, and he has a baby girl on his hip in the grocery store, and she is the best burden to bear, but he bears her nonetheless.
They pack up their Las Vegas apartment on a sweaty, dry Friday morning, and by Monday they’re sleeping in their smaller, but wonderful, Virginia apartment, and Spencer is calling Jason Gideon for a reference to get into the academy.
The twenty one weeks he spends at the FBI Academy are the worst of his life. Charlotte spends five months living with Uncle Ethan, and though Spencer gets to see her every weekend, it isn’t enough for either of them.
When he graduates, he takes his two year old daughter on his hip onto stage with him, because she’s spent a long twenty one weeks away from him and it’s the only thing he can imagine is important enough to walk a stage for.
She holds him around his neck, and mutters about all the things she did that week, even though the rest of the ceremony is happening in front of him. Charlotte’s talk of the pet lizard at daycare is all he cares to listen to despite barely recognizing most of the words.
He meets Gideon in the pews a few short minutes later. He raises an eyebrow, but the faint traces of a smile lay on his face. “Well, Reid, you did it,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets and relaxing his posture. His eyes settle on the girl still settled on his hip. Spencer has to change arms after his left one continues aching. A two year old is heavier than you’d think, but he doesn’t want her any farther away than tucked against his heart, where she belongs. Gideon asks, something tender in his voice, “Was it worth it?”
There’s no question when it comes to Charlotte’s future, nothing left of himself in his decisions, so of course, he replies, “Very.”
“I don’t think we’ve been introduced,” the man finally says, that hint of a smile forming again when he gives a short wave to Charlotte. “Who’s the little one?”
The girl has always been better at these things than Spencer himself is. It’s humbling, and strange, but at his quiet prompting, she says, “Charlotte.”
“Well Charlotte,” he says, “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Jason.”
It’s a small comfort to have Gideon at his side as he walks into the BAU; he’d rather have Charlotte. He shoves his hands into his pockets and reminds himself that he’s a grown man. In three weeks he’ll be twenty two, and if all goes to plan, he’ll be an FBI profiler making a salary. His sister, his daughter, his Charlotte, is the piece of himself that he feels is most genuine.
Still, he interviews once, gets called back for a second, and a few days later Doctor Spencer Reid becomes Agent Reid. He tells Charlotte everything he can about what his job is, and promises to let her see where he works someday. It doesn’t feel like a place for a child but he promises it anyway.
========
Spencer explains a couple different times that she calls him daddy because that’s who he is to her, but it looks a little different. He tells her about their mother, tries to keep the family line as straight as possible, but she ends the conversation very simply.
“But you’re still Dad. ”
And that’s it, isn’t it? He doesn’t try to argue it, nor does he care to.
“Yeah, squirrel,” he says, running a hand through her hair, “I’m still Dad. And you’re still Charlotte. And that’s what really matters, I think. Spencer and Charlotte.”
“ Spencer? ” she gawks.
It draws a short laugh from him. “That’s Daddy’s name.”
“Weird.”
He rolls his eyes, sliding out of her bed and shutting the light off, but never moving his hand from her head. “Whatever, I think my name is cool. ”
“‘S weird–cool,” she mutters, her eyes slipping shut against her will.
Spencer just chuckles, placing a kiss against her forehead and stroking through her unruly dark curls. He’d tried to braid her hair before bed, but had been unsuccessful at keeping her from tearing the hair tie out. Instead he’ll be dealing with a cranky toddler tomorrow as he combs out the frizz.
It’s okay. He’d do it a hundred times over.
========
He has at least two safeguards to make sure this would never happen. Spencer has her pre-school in contact with her babysitter, so that there would never be a situation like this, and yet, Spencer gets a phone call late that night stating, I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but our facilities had an unexpected plumbing issue, and we cannot provide services tomorrow. Fine, okay. That on its own would be okay, but ten minutes after asking her babysitter and getting a firm, I have finals tomorrow, he realizes with sudden clarity that he isn’t getting out of this.
Spencer shoots off a late text to Hotch that states the situation, and he doesn’t get a reply, because beyond the obvious reasons of having a life and a family, it’s nearly eleven PM. Spencer shuffles off to bed and prepares for the inevitable.
He hasn’t had to pack a bag like this in a while, so when the morning comes and he forces himself to wake up an extra half hour early, Spencer smiles because it reminds him of packing a diaper bag for his daughter so long ago.
Daughter. Daughter. His daughter, his baby girl. It haunts him, still. The thought of it. It never makes the title less real, but it grips him differently than it should.
“Come on, up and at-em,” he mutters, rolling Charlotte over in bed as she grumbles. “You’re coming with me today, Lottie, that’s pretty cool.”
She isn’t anywhere near comprehensible until she downs her breakfast (oatmeal, like every day), and drinks her juice. They’re almost out of apple juice and he doesn’t want to find out what havoc will be wrought if that happens, so he adds shopping to his mental to-do list. Spencer drinks his coffee and nibbles on toast as they make some semblance of conversation.
He has to admit, he’s never had quite as interesting conversations with anyone as he does with his four year old. Spencer finds himself asking, “Why wouldn’t you want a salamander to be an amphibian?”
She swallows her bite (only after he reminded her thrice throughout the morning not to talk with her mouth full) to answer, “They’re too cool.”
“Amphibians aren’t cool?”
“Lizards are cooler.”
He shrugs, accepting it as fact. “You know, I get it. We’ll have to write to the zoologists in charge.”
Their conversation continues throughout the morning as they both wake up, and sooner than he realizes, Spencer’s driving them both to his office. It’s unlikely they’ll get a case, but it’s sitting in the back of his mind anyway, trying to figure out who he’d send Charlotte with should it come up. Worst comes to worst, he knows Hotch would empathize and let him stay back, but it’s not the ideal outcome.
The anxiety settles in his gut, but soon he hears Charlotte’s chatter about turtles, and it calms him down minutely. His hands shake on the wheel and the only thing that stops him is getting Charlotte out of her carseat and holding her hand in his.
They pass through security with Charlotte’s hand or jacket hood always clutched firmly in his grasp, born out of an innate fear of losing her in a crowd, though she wears bright colors more often than not. They give her a visitor badge which she clips onto herself immediately. Her grin at feeling suddenly so important is worth every second of fear.
As eager as she might be, she catches onto his anxiety in one way or another, and starts curling in on herself almost as soon as they reach the elevator. Hand holding isn’t enough, and she tucks herself against his side.
Spencer takes a deep breath to try and settle his nerves, but the only thing to begin to ease things is asking, “Char, do you want a piggyback ride?”
Her face lights up and he knows he’s made the right decision. She’s a little small for her age, aiding him in being able to pick her up at all, but he still holds back a grunt when he hoists her up. Her arms wrap around his neck and mess up his shirt collar but he doesn’t care because she giggles in his ear when the elevator door opens.
“They’re not gonna know I’m here,” she whispers, ducking behind his head.
Spencer chuckles and replies, “You’re right, they’ll have no idea.”
The first person to see him is Hotch, having already been warned, but still raising an eyebrow with a short smile. “Now, who’s this?” he asks, his face melting into something Spencer knows is born of being a father. It’s tender and warm and mirrors everything Spencer feels on the daily, but never knows how to express. Maybe it’s as simple as the look he can’t keep off his face.
Charlotte’s giggle keeps him smiling, with the added joke of, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Well, I hate to break this to you, but I think you have a koala on your back.”
He feigns confusion: “A koala on my back—oh my goodness there’s a koala on my back!” He hoists her further up, tipping his head back to meet her eyes. “Hello miss, have you seen a koala around here?”
Charlotte fully laughs this time, her eyes squinting into the crow's feet he loves to see. “That’s me!”
“That’s you? ” He teases, lowering her to the ground. She takes the moment to hike her backpack further onto her shoulders. “Well, Hotch, let me introduce you to my koala, Charlotte. Char, this is Mister Hotchner, you remember me telling you about him, right?”
She nods and says, her scripted introduction serving her well, “Hi Mister Hotchner.”
The man smiles softly, fondly. “It’s very nice to meet you, Miss Charlotte.”
Spencer nods, smiling gratefully. With a hand back in hers, the anxiety not quite melted away, but certainly thawing, they trek onwards.
Morgan comes next. It makes Spencer’s breath hitch, not because he’s scared, but because he’s only recently come to trust the man, and now he’s asking himself to trust him with his girl. It’s worlds different to say, “Charlotte, this is Mister Morgan.”
“You have a dog!” she says with a toothy smile. It’s seemingly the only thing she cares to remember about him in the moment.
Morgan, though obviously shocked, takes it in stride. “Yeah, kid, I’ve got a dog. He’s about the size of you, you could probably ride him.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Charlotte, huh? What’s your last name, Charlotte?”
“Reid.”
“Charlotte Reid.” Morgan never takes his eyes off Spencer, but his gaze is sympathetic. “And who’s this guy?”
She tips her head like it’s obvious. “My dad.”
His smile turns, somehow, softer. “Got it, my bad.” He reaches out a hand to Spencer’s shoulder, squeezing it affectionately. It’s a silent promise that everything’s alright. Though he didn’t know, he understands.
JJ comes walking up, and she is far easier, because she knows full well who Charlotte is, having met in a grocery store briefly. They’ve had quiet conversations on the jet about kids, about the ones they want and the ones they never expected to want. She always spoke sympathetically with him about the topic, and it gave him the courage to admit to the whole story, as painful as it may have been. May still be.
He smiles and gives a short, “Hey, JJ.”
She smiles immediately upon seeing the girl. “Oh, hello Charlotte! You might not remember me, we met a couple weeks ago at the store, but I’m JJ.”
He can’t be quite sure yet, but if her reading abilities are anything to go by, she may have just been blessed (cursed?) with the same abilities Spencer has. She nods, gripping her backpack for comfort, but not out of anxiety, he thinks. “I remember,” she says.
“Tell Miss JJ what you told me about the box turtles, Lottie,” he encourages, turning back to Hotch to have a moment to talk to him. They meet eyes and he takes a step back. “Is it alright if I work in the conference room? It’s all paperwork, and she gets overwhelmed in loud spaces so I don’t want to push her—”
Already, Hotch is nodding. “That’s what I expected. If you need an extra set of hands at any point, don’t be afraid to ask.” He gives a rare, but honest, smile. Sure, at his kid, Spencer can believe, but at him?
Well, it’s comfortable. New, but comfortable. Spencer returns it. “Thank you.”
========
His work is interrupted by the weight of his daughter poking at him through his desk chair. “What's up, pumpkin?” he asks, moving away from his work for a moment.
She has something akin to fear in her eyes, but almost immediately he recognizes the overwhelm when she sniffles, her breath shaking. “‘S loud,” she whispers.
It's the best way to convey her overwhelm, and Spencer knows well what it's like to not have the words to explain. He knows even better what it's like not to get help when you need it.
Now, Spencer doesn't really want to sit on his office floor. The carpet is dirty and it's overall a little embarrassing, but he knows what will help Charlotte and that comes before any shame could, so he rolls back the conference room chair, sits on the floor, and stretches out his arms. Charlotte immediately climbs in his lap and together they rock, back and forth, back and forth, the little girl tucked so tightly into her dad's embrace that she barely seems to be there at all.
He doesn’t get anything done until she moves from his lap some half hour later, but he couldn’t care less.
========
“So, you had to be pretty young,” Morgan comments the next morning, sitting at his desk. The office is quiet, ready for questions. Spencer doesn’t know if he’s ready to answer them. “She’s, what, five?”
“Four. Five in August.” He sets his things down and sits plainly. He can rely on this routine to carry him for now. “I was eighteen.”
“Pretty Boy got game when he was eighteen— ”
“Beyond that being inappropriate,” Spencer bites back, “Charlotte is my biological sister. I’ve raised her as my daughter.”
The room goes silent. Elle’s gaze is firm on him, but he refuses to acknowledge it, not even as she says, “And you did it alone? Where was your mother?”
“She went from the hospital to the sanitarium. I wasn’t going to let her be a mother to that girl, not like she was to me. I love her, and care for her deeply, but I also had to recognize who I was protecting. It became Charlotte.”
It became Charlotte. So quickly, it became Charlotte.
The room accepts this easily, because more than anything Spencer could say, the picture Elle has of him sitting on the floor, his daughter in his lap, proves it. “So, no more nights out after work,” Morgan teases.
Elle chuckles. “No post-case drinks.”
“I didn’t go to those anyway.”
“Yeah, well now there’s no chance. Now we’re having family dinners.”
========
He loses Elle, but Spencer doesn’t know how to conceptualize this when Charlotte asks, “Dad, why’re you being weird?”
All he can do is swallow back the emotion. “One of my friends isn’t going to be around anymore,” he tries to explain. “I’ll miss her.”
“You should call her.”
It’s so plain, so simple coming from her. No cares and even less understanding of the situation, but still she says it, and still it makes Spencer nod. “Yeah, I should.”
She hugs him. It doesn’t look like it’s for any reason, and maybe it’s not, but it’s enough.
========
The days he spends in that cabin in Georgia are the worst days of his life for a number of reasons; among them is the idea that Charlotte never got the family she deserved in his team.
They’ll never know her. They’ll see her at my funeral and not know a thing. She won’t know me.
“Charlotte,” he says, his voice breaking, his hands shaking and his ribs aching. Hotch is practically holding him up. “Where’s Charlotte?”
Hotch’s arms tighten around him, not wanting to let go. “She’s safe,” he says, and Spencer has to believe it. There’s no reason to believe otherwise but all he knows is that he needs her.
A muffled voice in the back of his mind says, take it, and grabs at the dilaudid still hidden on Tobias’ person. It says that it’ll make things lighter. The hell he went through was only broken by the brief cloud the drug gave him, reminding him of the days when his mother wasn’t something else, making him think of a life where Charlotte would be his sister, truly, in the way that Morgan cares for his sisters. The way that they joke about their parents and commiserate. He would shuffle her off to the school bus in the morning, and joke, “Mom’s making casserole for dinner, again, don’t be late.”
Hotch convinces him to let an EMT look him over, even though all he wants is to call the live-in sitter and make her wake Charlotte up just so he can talk to her.
He’ll be on medical leave for a while. It’ll be nice to spend a day with Charlotte again. It feels like it’s been weeks.
(The crook of his arm itches. He wants the dilaudid. It’s not a clear enough thought to be combated by anything.)
========
His foot aches. He has bruised ribs and a number of injuries he doesn’t want to think about, and withdrawal is hell, but Spencer keeps his sights set on getting home. Morgan tries to stop him, asks if he’ll stay with him while he’s recovering, not wanting him to be alone. Spencer shakes his head, doesn’t say a word more, and takes a cab home.
The poor sitter, Betty, has a valid amount of concern in her expression. “What happened to you?” she asks, stepping aside to let him in. She has the TV on passively in the background, the late night shopping program on quietly behind them.
“The case didn’t go as planned,” he says simply, checking his watch. “Is Char asleep?”
She nods. “A couple hours ago. She went down pretty easily.”
“Thank you,” he says honestly, mentally finding his checkbook as he walks. “You didn’t have to stay up.”
“There’s a thing my friend’s throwing, I thought I’d wait up in case you got back in time,” she says, grabbing her coat and bag. Spencer stands right outside Charlotte’s door, watching Betty with something akin to gratefulness he’s never comprehended quite like this. It took a long time to find her, someone able to cater to his schedule, and trustworthy beyond compare, but she’s only exceeded his expectations of her.
“Be careful,” he tells her in regards to going out this late, writing out her check for a few extra dollars, not knowing why but knowing he needs to. He takes another second to see her off, but as soon as the door is shut, Spencer is slipping into Charlotte’s room.
She sleeps with the door cracked, not wanting a night light but unable to sleep in the dark. Spencer always tells her though, that he can’t either. She doesn’t see the years that brought him to this place, only that her dad’s like her. That’s what matters to her, so Spencer convinces himself that’s all that matters to him too.
He slips inside and feels his muscles relax at the sight of Charlotte sleeping peacefully, with her cheek smooshed against her forearm, and her knees tucked up to her chest, making her look impossibly small. It’s with a shuddering breath that he sits at the space where her feet should be in her bed, leaning against the wall. It’s the first time he feels the ache in his muscles, and the limp he’ll most certainly have in his foot, and he has to keep his breathing even so he doesn’t let the panic of the day— days —consume him.
Spencer, with shaking hands, strokes Charlotte’s hair. He doesn’t want to wake her, he just wants… something. He wants her. He just wants her, wants to know she’s breathing.
He falls asleep there, and in the morning he tells her he’ll be home for a while, and she’s excited. His smile isn’t fake, because her excitement is worth almost anything, but he knows that this was the last way he should be spending time with his girl.
Still, he smiles.
========
The withdrawals have him questioning if any of this is worth it. For the first time since he was seventeen he has the thought, it would be easier to die, which he combats immediately with a call to Morgan.
It’s almost ten pm; he shouldn’t be doing this. Still the phone rings.
“Reid,” Morgan answers, and surely the bite to his voice is panic but the part of him that aches is convinced it’s shame. He has no idea why it would be.
Spencer has to consciously swallow back his fear. “I can’t be alone tonight,” he says quietly.
Silence on the other line is proceeded immediately by the clink of keys. “I’ll be there in twenty.”
“Thank you,” he says quietly, rubbing a hand across his face. It’s so quiet, and even with the sounds of Morgan’s departure on the other line, he can’t keep the deafening silence from ringing in his ears. If no one sees, no one looks, Spencer can convince himself that he’s melting into a black hole. It takes and takes, eating everything around it while Spencer looks on, unable to control it. It tries to consume him, but all it manages to grab is his insides, leaving an empty outer shell of a person gasping for air.
Morgan doesn’t knock, and instead lets himself in with the key Spencer copied for him last time he went out of town. In one hand is his keyring, the other has his coat thrown over one arm. He’s wearing sweatpants and Spencer knows he must have been about to sleep. He has to swallow back an apology and just nods towards the couch. He can’t lift his hands or he knows they’ll shake.
“Tobias gave me Dilaudid,” he says as soon as Derek is sitting. “More than once. It was to—to help with it all. Some sort of pity.” He picks at the skin around his fingers, and it bleeds but doesn’t help. It’s the story of his life. “I almost took it off him when he died.” When I killed him. “I didn’t. But I thought about it.”
Derek lets out a shaky breath, leaning forward in his seat. They can’t meet eyes, either of them. “It’s the nature of addiction.”
“I’m not an addict.” Please, please I can’t be.
“I think you got pretty close. But you didn’t.”
“Why?” It says silently, I wanted to. I could have. I came so close.
Derek nods towards the hall where his sleeping child stays. “Her. Us. You’ve got a lot of good reasons not to be, kid. You picked well.”
“What if I fail?”
“You won’t.”
“Derek,” he says, his voice closer to a whisper than he’d care to admit. “I could. ”
“You aren’t going to. ” He says it just firmly enough that Spencer might begin to believe it. “I’ve never seen you put yourself above your girl, and I don’t see you starting now. The team, maybe. Your mom, I don’t know. But Charlotte? Spencer, if you have any common sense left, you know you’d never let yourself put that kid in danger.”
“Addicts rationalize, they—they find reasons to believe it’s not so bad, that others are worse. What if I don’t have that common sense?”
“You call me. You did it once, and I expect you to do it every time after that, got it?”
It can’t drill itself into his head yet, too filled with worry and disbelief, but it’s a very small spark among wet wood; he can only hope it’ll cement itself well enough to burn.
“Got it,” he replies, even though he isn’t sure. He isn’t sure at all… But he wants to be.
He never has to call Morgan for the same reason again.
========
Public pools are disgusting, grimy, hot, and loud. Still Spencer finds himself sitting beside one while Charlotte jumps in.
He’s fidgeting with the cuff of his sleeve. A tense smile sets itself on his face, because he has to look a little normal to the rest of the parents. He’s never fit in with the elementary school parents a single time in his life, and he can’t exactly start now, but still he tries.
Come on, he’s wearing shorts. He hasn’t worn shorts since high school. He’s making an attempt.
“Which one’s yours?” a woman asks, young and skinny and dressed like she’s going on a date, not to a kid’s birthday party. “Ella has so many friends, it’s hard to keep track.”
It feels like a dig but he isn’t sure how. “Charlotte,” he says, giving her that same tense smile.
The woman nods. Ella, the birthday girl, is off in the distance with a gaggle of girls trailing behind her as they play some version of a party game run by one of the other parents. Charlotte is off to the side just slightly. She doesn’t pay attention to the game, rather the greenery just past the pool that houses what Spencer thinks is probably a frog, judging by the habitat, season, and feeding patterns— “Oh, Charlotte is a sweetheart,” the woman comments. “So curious. When’s her birthday, will she be having a party?”
“Uh… August,” Spencer replies. “August thirteenth. I’m going to take her to an aquarium, and I’m going to ask her if she wants to bring a few friends along, but otherwise it’s just a Daddy-Daughter-Date.”
“Mom didn’t want to come?”
Something quiet in her voice says she was looking for a way to ask. “No,” he says simply. “Char’s mom isn’t around.”
The smile the woman gives is soft, understanding. “I thought that might be the case, but I was a little intimidated to ask, if I’m being honest.”
He shrugs. “It’s a complicated situation.”
“I can imagine. Sorry for bringing it up.”
This time, Spencer’s soft smile is still small, but far more genuine. “I never said it wasn’t good.”
It takes a long time to get Charlotte out of the pool, toweled off, and back in the car. By the time he does, he’s spent a long few minutes talking to Jesse, as she introduces herself. “I don’t know if I’ll see you again, Spencer, but it was very nice meeting you.”
He shrugs, “I’m sure we’ll have a few playdates here and there.”
“Oh! I’m Ella’s aunt,” she replies, “I live in the city, I’m not usually around this part of town.”
He chuckles good naturedly, and though it’s unnatural, it’s still real. “Well, we do too. Maybe it’s more likely than we’d thought.”
She relaxes, her smile shifts. It’s so perfect, and this is the first form of attraction Spencer thinks he’s found in someone in years. “Maybe,” she replies. “See you soon, Spencer, and I’m so glad you could come, Charlotte.”
The two wave, and Spencer drags them to the car, sunburnt, damp, and a little worse for wear, but so content in every way possible.
========
It’s nearly an afterthought to visit his mother (and he hates that, but it doesn’t make it less true) while they’re in Nevada. The rest of the team stays behind at the hotel, and Spencer convinces himself that the granola bar he had is enough of a dinner, and he steps inside half asleep.
Still, his mother greets him warmly.
They have a long conversation about Greek literature, and for the first time in a long time, Spencer is reminded of who his mother used to be; who she always tried to be for him, though she never could. It’s a good feeling that sinks in his chest, leaves him vulnerable to his exhaustion as he receives a text from Betty.
“Everything alright?” Diana asks, seeing his pinched brow as he reads the text.
Spencer nods, and before he has any thought behind it, says, “Charlotte’s babysitter says she’s coming down with something.”
She cocks her head, and it takes a full two seconds more to realize what he’s done. Six years of hiding, brought out in one swift mistake, driven by his exhaustion and care. “Charlotte?” she asks quietly. Not even Diana believes her own question. “Is… is that one of your friend’s daughters?”
He swallows back the truth, because at this point, he has an instinct to protect Charlotte. He doesn’t know when his mother became a threat; she did. Spencer nods. “Yeah, uh… One of my coworkers.”
“You’re lying to me,” she whispers, looking him in the eye. “Oh, God, Spencer, why are you lying to me?”
It’s the most terrifying conversation of his life. He doesn’t know how else he’s supposed to say it at all: “Charlotte is your daughter. I’ve raised her.”
“Spencer you don’t mean that,” she says suddenly, a tip to her head. “That’s not true. I don’t have a daughter.”
“Yes, you do,” he adds quietly.
“I wouldn’t forget my daughter.”
“Your doctor said it was a… a trauma response. From not being able to raise her.” He tangles his hands in front of him, feeling far smaller than he remembers feeling in years. “She’s, uh… she’s six. She knows about you, I always made sure she did, because she deserves that much—”
“Stop.” It’s so quiet; so desperate. And Spencer knows it’s dangerously teetering on the edge of panic.
“I’m sorry, mom—”
“Go.” Just as quietly, she says this. Her eyes are screwed shut. She’s physically holding herself together, and all Spencer wants is to hold his mother like she’s held him, and he knows he can’t.
He stands. He steps out, and leaves, and has to live with the knowledge that he ruined the last good thing his mother had: her peace.
He continues writing letters to her. Weeks upon weeks of finally being able to tell her about Charlotte’s adventures, and loves, and interests, and a picture of them at the aquarium on her birthday, and though it takes a long, long, time, Diana replies some months later: “Can I meet her the next time you come visit?”
It’s the greatest fear, and the greatest joy, Spencer’s ever had. It’s worth every second of fear.
========
He packs up Charlotte on a chilly Saturday morning, the February snow melting into March’s muddy mess. He puts her in a pink winter coat too big for her, and braids her hair into two pleats along the back of her head. A few stray curls poke out, and he knows the number of them will only grow over the day, but it’s endearing and he doesn’t care.
It’s a forty minute drive to the airport, and though Charlotte walks with her bright green lizard-themed backpack, Spencer shrugs their too-large carry-on over his shoulder. She’d been excited to meet her mom—grandma, maybe, but she hadn’t cared about the title. She’d been confused, and Spencer had assured her, “You can call her whatever feels best. Mom, or grandma, or even Diana.”
Charlotte shrugged. She’s always been so carefree, and Spencer can only hope she’ll hold onto that.
The plane ride is quiet, at least, as quiet as it can be, so he talks to his girl in hushed tones. “Diana,” he says, because he has no idea what she wants to use, nor what his mother wants, and has resolved to meet in neutrality, “Is sick. She’s been sick for a long time, and that’s why you live with me and not her.”
“Okay,” she says, continuing to scribble across the coloring book she’d brought in her backpack.
“Because she’s sick,” Spencer continues to explain, “She might not be ready to see us when we get there. And she might get angry, or think something’s true that isn’t.”
“Why?”
“It’s called schizophrenia. It makes people perceive things differently.”
“Perceive?”
“It means to see.” She nods. “And sometimes those things change really fast. So if at first she’s happy and ready to meet you, she might get scared, or angry, or confused without any warning. I just want you to know that might happen.”
She takes it in stride, and though the apprehension about this whole situation keeps Spencer worked up, he knows Charlotte isn’t unprepared. In fact, she’s probably better about this whole situation than he is. He’d call it ignorance, but he knows she’s smarter than maybe she lets on. She understands everything he’s told her. And she’s more ready than Spencer ever could be.
“Do you think she’ll wanna talk about Antarctica and the bears?” she asks.
Chuckling softly and leaning back in his seat, Spencer tells her, “Yeah, I think she’ll love to hear about it.”
They land, settle into their hotel for the afternoon, and Spencer takes a moment to call Bennington. “I’m checking on Diana Reid,” he tells the receptionist, “I’m bringing my daughter in today and I want to know how… lucid she is.”
The woman puts him on hold to get in contact with Diana’s doctor, and a moment later states, “Diana has had a good, slow day, and her doctor has told me she would likely be up for visitors. Would you like me to tell her you’re coming?”
“No, uh… I’d rather surprise her,” he says, mostly for his own sanity, his own fear. He’s learned to cater to a lot of things, but catering to himself is a strange feeling. “Thank you.”
Charlotte carries her green lizard backpack on both her shoulders and keeps her orange headphones on while they walk from the bus station. It makes for a very brightly colored sight, but he wouldn’t change it for a thing. Spencer holds onto the hood of her light jacket because she hates having her hand held most of the time, so he keeps a close eye on her every step they take.
They step into the sanitarium, and the woman at the front desk greets them kindly. “Here to see Diana?” she asks, leaning forward to see the girl.
Spencer nods, trying to keep his reaction neutral. “Yes, is she still having a good day, do you know?”
“Last I heard, she just came back from a thrilling game of poker,” she replies with a reassuring smile. “She’s in the common area.”
“Thank you.”
He keeps his grip on Charlotte’s hand this time, though she usually doesn't like it, today she lets him. It’s a small mercy but one he takes willingly. “We can leave whenever you want,” he tells her again, “No matter what. You don’t even need a reason.”
“Okay.” She seems bored with it, and asks, “Can we go in?”
In response he steps forward. He meets his mother’s eyes almost immediately, and her demeanor switches quickly between shocked, relieved, and then nervous. “Hi mom,” he says softly, hugging her quickly. “This is Charlotte.”
Charlotte, to her credit, doesn't seem at all phased. “Dad said you’d wanna talk about Antarctica,” she says simply.
Diana laughs softly, and though Spencer thinks he sees tears in her eyes, they never fall. “I’d love to.”
They sit on the couch and spend nearly an hour talking about Antarctica, lizards, American pilgrims, and precipitation. Diana never falters. Charlotte addresses her as Diana and she doesn’t flinch.
It’s sickening how well it goes. Like any second it’ll all be torn away and he’ll be back in that cabin, or he’ll watch Diana treat his baby exactly like she treated him, and suddenly he’ll be powerless to stop any of it. It never happens and they leave when Charlotte says she’s hungry. They visit the next day before they step back onto the plane, and Diana looks like she’s barely holding it together.
Spencer is far from the strongest person he knows, but he lifts his first grader onto his back because she’s tired from the jet lag, and because he doesn’t want her anywhere near his mother.
“Hey mom,” he says, looking at her shaking hands. “We were just heading out. We’ll see you soon, okay?”
She nods. Her hands tangle in front of her. “It was, uh… nice meeting you, Charlotte,” she says quietly. “And seeing you, hon.”
While Spencer nods along, he needs to get them out. A second later he’s out the door and taking long strides down the hallway. He hears his mother call out and he doesn’t turn around. She yells and he walks faster, fast enough to get to the end of the hall and into the staircase as he hears a man’s voice trying to calm her down.
He sets Charlotte down and she sleepily mumbles about her dream last night. She has no thought or care towards his mother, and he doesn’t want her to.
========
It’s June, and the sun barely makes a dent in the achingly long spring weather they’re just coming out of. Despite her protests, Spencer manages to get Charlotte into leggings underneath her dress (green, sparkly, and a size too big so she doesn’t pick at the seams the entire time). She reminds him for the tenth time that morning that she doesn’t have to bring a backpack, and he says again, “I know, it’s very cool.”
Across the parking lot of her elementary school, Charlotte spots them before Spencer does: “Aunt Penny!” she yells, struggling to escape her dad’s grasp so she can wriggle out of the car seat and across the parking lot. He only lets her go when Penelope gets close enough that he doesn’t have to worry about them getting hit by a passing car, and even then he follows right behind her.
“Oh, my munchkin!” she replies, hoisting her up in her arms for a brief moment, followed by, “Nope, too big, make Derek pick you up,” as she grunts and sets the giggling girl back on the pavement.
Low and behold, behind her is Derek, who says, “You’ve got the whole team coming for you, Lottie. You ready to be a graduate?”
She nods enthusiastically as Spencer questions, a soft smile on his lips, “Who’s coming?”
“Hotch is gonna try and be here,” Penelope fills in, “JJ is coming, Emily said she was on her way. And Gideon already had that conference planned, but there might be a gift in my back seat from him.”
He chuckles, maybe because it’s a hard time to realize that he is cared for—that his daughter is loved—but he lets it be joyful anyway. If he only allowed joy when he felt a good reason, he’d have lost hope for joy a long time ago. Charlotte returns to his side and he guides them all inside, one hand shoved in his pocket, the other hovering behind her, ready to guide.
Her glasses tip, he readjusts them before she walks the stage. She’s behind Michaela Powers and in front of Hunter Shaw, thirteenth in the lineup of her seventeen classmates. They wait and wait, watching the teachers scurry them along is as close to a line as they all can manage, and when the principle calls, “Charlotte Diane Reid,” a gaggle of agents get the joy of whooping and clapping, Spencer taking as many pictures as he can as she skips across the stage.
Their mother isn’t there, and Spencer still doesn’t know how to pay for private school, but far above anything that hinders him is a little girl wearing a sparkly green dress, purple glasses she only got a week ago, and a smile that he would pay anything to see.
Spencer loves his daughter, and he knows he isn’t the only one. Yes, he thinks, this is all he ever really wanted. It’s certainly all he needs.