Work Text:
There were four absolute truths about you;
1- You had a very close relationship with your mother.
2- You’d been in the hospital only once in your life prior to getting shot in the field. (You fell from a tree and broke your arm, the details of the event were not revealed.)
3- You’d become a profiler after reading a certain saga and obsessing over the detective that protagonist it. (The rest of the team had an ongoing bet about if it was whether Sherlock Holmes or Nancy Drew who did the job, Spencer was the only one who knew the real anwer.)
4- You’d been a Spelling Bee champion in your school years.
And that was it, the only four things your chosen family knew about your past. Of course, they knew the present you, even as reserved as you were, they paid attention to every little thing you revealed to them about your personality.
Partially as a joke and partially because Penelope had insisted on it, everytime new information about you came to light, always being shared by you because digging into who you were was not a line she was going to cross, the rest of the team texted each other to fill everyone in on the news.
If you casually revealed what your favorite donut was, then the answer would be on the screen of everyone’s phone in a matter of minutes. Everyone but Spencer’s, that was. He’d refused to be added to the group dedicated exclusively to sharing details about you. He’d claimed that it was childish and weird, almost an invasion of your privacy. And as true as it was, it was also because he didn’t need to, you’d forced yourself to lower your walls when you were around him, willing to answer almost anything he wanted to know about you.
It wasn’t a matter of trust, you trusted everyone on the team with your life and then some more. You were just a private person and saw no problem in not sharing every single detail about your past with them. It’s not like who you were before meeting them mattered anyway, who you’d become since joining the BAU was the only version of yourself you wanted them to know.
It was because of your secretive nature that your friends tended not to ask you any questions, being used to them being dodged or you shooting them a question back as a way of keeping the attention off of you. Perhaps that was why when you started wearing turtlenecks to cover the hickeys you’d previously tried to hide with makeup, they didn’t say anything. It was also why they kept quiet when you started rejecting alcohol during the team’s famous nights out, sticking to water for the first time in your career. You were more than aware that they had noticed the lump in your stomach growing wider and wider as the weeks passed.
Deep down, you supposed you should be grateful about their approach to the situation, they probably wanted you to tell them about it on your terms. They even pretended to be surprised once you announced your pregnancy, as if the best team of profilers in the country wouldn’t have noticed the many mornings you ran to the bathroom to dispose of all of the contents in your stomach.
26 weeks after your baby had been conceived, none of them had mentioned a thing besides occasionally helping you carry heavy things or wondering how your baby was doing only when you announced you had updates from the doctor first.
The situation was truly ridiculous. When J.J had gotten pregnant, she got bombarded with questions all day long, everyone wanted to know if she had thought about baby names and about how Will had taken the news and about her plans once she gave birth and blah blah. It wasn’t jealousy what you felt, it was curiosity and sadness.
Did your friends really feel like they couldn’t ask you about your baby? Along the years you’d known them, you knew you’d mostly kept to yourself, dodging a couple of questions here and there, but you hadn’t realized how bad it had gotten. You wanted them to feel comfortable asking you non-work-related questions, especially because you were well aware there was an unresolved query they were dying for you to reveal. How was it that they'd gone seven months without asking you about the father?
—-
“Pen, can we talk?” You approached your friend, already scheming a plan to fix the situation.
“Oh, but of course my dearest pumpkin. Spill whatever is in your mind.” She replied, motioning for you to sit on the small couch in the corner of her office.
“I was thinking…” You closed your eyes and took a deep breath, already feeling the uncomfortableness that came with asking people for favors, “you are a great party planner. I mean, the Halloween get-together at your place two years ago is still one of my favorite nights ever.”
“I am flattered, it is always nice when people acknowledge all your good qualities. I presume the compliment comes with a favor you need to ask?” The woman smiled at you, letting you know that she was more than willing to help you with whatever you needed from her.
“The baby is coming in two months, and I thought that throwing a babyshower would be a good idea, nothing big, just the team, and my mom, of course. I know this might be a lot to ask because I know how busy you are and you can totally say no, I will not hold it against you or anything. And I am not asking you to handle it all on your own, I just-”
“Pumpkin,” Penelope interrupted you. “You are rambling, seems like you’ve been around Reid too much lately.” She stood up, walking over to a file cabinet before pulling out a big portfolio with several colorful pages and magazine cutouts coming out of it. She laid it on your lap, nodding your way, prompting you to look through it before sitting back at her chair.
“What’s this?” You questioned, going through the pages. It was full of ideas for decorations, foods, games and several other things for a babyshower. You also found a couple other things pertaining to your pregnancy, such as baby names and a list of the best rated nurseries in the area.
“Well, it’s your baby encyclopedia. I made one for J.J when she had Henry, too. I’ve been planning your babyshower for months now, I was dying for you to ask me to plan it. I already have the perfect place in mind, how does Sunday sound? Are you free?”
“T-this Sunday?” You managed to choke out. A lump was already growing in your throat and you felt the tears forming in your eyes. You could blame it on the pregnancy hormones, but you knew it was more than that. Your friend had for months done research on everything she thought could eventually make your life a little easier, you felt like crying was justified.
“Yes, I already know everyone’s free, so it’d be the perfect day.”
“Pen, isn’t it too soon? I wouldn’t want you to overload yourself with this. You’ve already done so much.”
“Oh, don’t you worry your pretty little head. I already have pretty much everything figured out, it’s mainly just calling a few numbers and ta-da.” She made jazz hands as she stood up, walking over you so she could wipe off some of the tears that had managed to break free.
“I love you so much, and it’s not just because you made me a baby encyclopedia. My kid is so lucky that he gets to have you as an aunt.” You said as you wrapped your arms around her neck.
“Aw, I love you as well, and the little muffin you’re baking inside of you, too.” You chuckled at the way she’d referred to your son, feeling like the luckiest person alive. This encounter had made it more than clear that it wasn’t that your friends weren’t interested in your pregnancy, they were just waiting for you to let them in on it.
—-
-“Men’s bathroom, stall 3 from left to right.”-
Spencer caught sight of the post-it note as soon as he got back from getting some coffee. He’d gotten some for you too. Decaf, obviously. It was one of the few fights you’d had since you’d known each other. He wanted you to quit caffeine during your pregnancy, rambling about constructed blood vessels and placentas, your counter offer had been throwing a pillow at him if he didn’t leave you alone. You hadn’t touched a single drop of alcohol ever since you saw the two stripes on the pregnancy test, let alone smoked a cigarette or eaten raw food, but coffee is where you drew the line. He knew you would notice the lack of caffeine in the drink he’d bought you, but that’s the agreement you’d made. He wouldn’t bother you anymore when he caught you drinking coffee, but he wouldn’t condone it either, refusing to buy regular coffee for you.
Putting the two drinks down, figuring that bringing them with him to the men’s bathroom wasn’t the smartest plan, he made his way to meet you.
Once he was inside the room, he cautiously checked that there was no one else besides you inside. When he made sure the coast was clear, he entered the third stall, pecking you on the lips before closing the door behind the both of you.
The space was very limited, your gigantic belly not helping the situation, so Spencer resorted to wrapping his arms around you, guiding your head to rest at the crook of his neck.
“Are you okay? You’ve been crying.” He whispered into your ear.
“I’m fine, Penelope made me a baby encyclopedia.” You replied, as if that made things clearer for him.
“Should I know what that is?” You could tell that he was furrowing his brow and scrunching his nose. Typical confused Reid face.
“I’ll show you later,” you chuckled. “Did you know that she’s been planning a babyshower for our baby for months? It’s actually this Sunday, she’s already got everything picked out.”
“Sounds like a Garcia thing to do. I told you that they weren’t uninterested in the pregnancy, they just don’t want to overstep your boundaries.” Spencer began tracing letters on your back, he liked writing out the alphabet on you. Sometimes he traced out pi, too. It was one of the many quirks that had gotten you to fall in love with him.
“I know, but I’m done keeping secrets. I feel awful about it, I mean, isn’t it weird that they haven’t asked about you, not even once?” You lifted your head, looking up at him.
Cupping your cheek, he replied, “Well, to be fair, they don’t even know you’re dating someone. Perhaps they think you’ve decided to raise the baby on your own and don’t want to upset you by sticking their noses in your business.”
“But it isn’t just my business, I want it to be their business too. I want them to know things about me, I want to tell them about us.” You urged, burying your head in his neck once again.
“I thought you didn’t want them to know I was the father until after Edgar was born.”
“First of all, I’ve repeatedly told you not to refer to our son as Edgar. That will not be his name and that’s final, especially because we already have a cat named Poe.” You looked him in the eye, trying to maintain a stoic expression but failing once you saw the smile on your boyfriend’s face.
“And second of all?” He prompted you to continue.
“That was the me from the past. The stupid me who thought keeping things from my family was okay. We should've told them about us the second we started dating. What was I thinking? What, was I supposed to not tell them anything until the day of our wedding? Put a cloth over your head until after exchanging rings? Seriously, why do you even love me? I’m clearly clinically ill, here, I’ll call the doctors so they can lock me up forever.” You spat out as you took your phone out of your pocket to further prove your point.
“Nobody is getting locked up. Look, do I think this whole thing is a little crazy? Yes, yes I do. I’ve wanted to shout to the world that I get to be with you ever since you agreed to go on a date with me. But I also understand that there are some things you prefer to keep private and I wanted you to be ready to tell the others. If you think now is the moment, so be it.” Spencer took your phone from you, putting it away in your pocket before grabbing both of your hands and interlocking them with his.
“Let’s tell them at the babyshower.” You said, resting your forehead against your boyfriend’s before opening the door and guiding him out of the bathroom.
For so long, you’d kept so many things to yourself. It was exhausting, these people were everything to you and you wanted them to know that you trusted them, blindly. It was time to put an end to all the secrecy. It was time for them to know who the father of your son was.