Chapter Text
Alex turned to Spencer, who was sat in the backseat with his blankie – sorry, blanket – and smiled at him encouragingly.
“Hey bug, we’re here. Are you sure you’re okay being here alone? I’m sure that Hotch or I could stay.”
“I’ll be okay, Birdy. You and Bubba won’t be far away, the library is only a block away from here. And while I’d quite like to see the library here, I will enjoy spending time with Nell and Finn without having to worry about being squished in the playground.”
Hotch winced at the recollection of Spencer’s broken wrist a few months prior, glad it had finally healed and in no rush to repeat the ordeal, “Yeah, and it’ll be nice for you to have lunch with them, I believe dino nuggets are on the menu?”
Spencer grinned, wriggling free from his booster seat, “I don’t know why but nuggets taste much better in dinosaur form… Birdy, is it okay for me to take my blanket, in case I get nervous?”
Alex, having got out of the car to open the (child locked) backdoor, nodded before stroking his hair, “Of course it is, Bug. Put it in your backpack, you should have space in there. If you like I can quietly tell the twins mum so she knows where it is if you need it.”
“Thank you.”
Spencer shoved his blanket into his backpack, climbed out of the car, and slipped his hand into Alex’s. As they walked down the driveway to the twin’s house, Spencer kept pausing to look at the chalk drawings that covered the stone path, “Bubba, can we get some chalk? The path outside the playground at school would be perfect for chalk!”
Hotch nodded, smiling at the uncharacteristic childishness of his request, “We can probably get some from the dollar store or target. Or Emily could order some, I bet she would like to do chalk drawings with you.”
“Especially if it means not doing homework,” Alex muttered.
She knocked on the front door, squeezing spencer’s hand as she did so. From within the house, clattering was heard before the door swung open, revealing Nell and Finn and one of Lina’s shoes, suggesting that at least one leg of their other friend had arrived.
“Spencer, come in!” Nell yelled, grabbing his arm as her mother appeared with a stern, “Finn, Nell! How many times do I need to tell you not to open the door by yourself?”
Spencer shrank back into Alex’s leg, recoiling at the tone. A moment later, though, after the twins had mumbled apologies, their mum turned to him, “I’m sorry about that, Spencer. I don’t want them getting hurt. But I am delighted to see you, please, make yourself at home. Lina is here somewhere…”
As she spoke, Lina arrived, pink cheeked, “Umm, Nell-and-Finn’s-mum, my shoe might be stuck on the basketball hoop in the back garden…” She said, grinning slightly, “Oh, hi Spencer! I didn’t hear you arrive! You might be able to get my shoe, your good at that fizzy science stuff.”
“Physics, and I probably could! Let me look!”
As he followed the barefoot Lina through the house followed by the twins, Alex let out a small laugh.
“Well, that distracted him from his nerves. His blankie is in his backpack, sometimes he needs it when he gets overstimulated.”
The twins mum smiled, “No worries, Finn has his little elephant that comes everywhere, though don’t tell him I told you that. He can be a little sensitive about it.”
“Can we go say goodbye to him, he’ll panic if we leave without saying bye,” Hotch asked.
As they walked through to the back garden, they both grinned at the sight of the playroom (which had to be walked through to reach the garden) where a thriving Lego metropolis covered most of the floor with small puppy and kitten figurines making themselves at home. A playmobil campsite sat next to a castle with a dragon blowing flames onto the campfire.
“I’m so sorry about the mess. I tried to convince them to clean a little before y’all arrived but they insisted that it would completely ruin everything if even a single piece moved.”
Hotch laughed, “You should see some of the dorms and common rooms at school. At least your guys have logic to their chaos.”
In the garden, Spencer had his left shoe off and was quietly muttering about trajectory as he looked up at the shoe.
“Spencer Reid, don’t throw that shoe!” Alex called, “You do not have that kind of coordination, darling.”
Hotch reached up and dislodged the shoe, passing it to Lina.
“Bug, we are going now, will you be okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” Spencer said, before pouting, “but I could have got that shoe down. The physics were all there.”
“But the coordination was not. We’ll see you at 4, text if you need us though, we are just down the road.”
Spencer nodded before hugging them both, “See you later! Take photos of the library for me!”
Five minutes later, with all shoes safely placed by the front door, the four children flopped on beanbags in the playroom to decide what they should do.
“Not basketball!” Nell said as Lina opened her mouth, “If you lose another shoe it’ll be there ‘til Spencer’s brother gets him at 4!”
“We could play pirates?” Spencer suggested.
“We can’t, our swords got conf… cons… consifated after Finn hit mum with it and broke two vases last week.”
“Confiscated… and I see why they were taken. We could just pretend to have swords?”
“It’s not the same…”
“Oooo,” Lina squealed, sitting up straight, “it’s mothers day next weekend, we could make cards!”
The twins immediately voiced their agreement but Spencer shrank into his beanbag, not knowing how to respond. His mother hadn’t replied to any of his letters, no matter how neatly he wrote the address, checked the stamps, perfected everything, his letters still came back tagged, “Return to sender”
“What do you think, Spence?” Nell asked.
“Umm, I don’t really see my mum at all.” He mumbled, furiously blinking back the tears that he vowed would never fall in front of his friends.
“I thought Alex was your momma?” Finn said, “If she isn’t, who is? Why don’t you see her?”
“Finn!” Nell exclaimed, “That’s such a rude thing to ask.”
Spencer quietly wiped his eyes before muttering, “It’s okay.”
“No it’s not. Finn wasn’t kind. But anyway, my teacher at school was talking about mothers day on Thursday. There’s this boy in my class who is in foster care and he was upset. My teacher said that we don’t need to do mothers day cards for our tummy mommy, it could be for someone who does ‘mommy things’ for us. Like cuddles you if you’re hurt of scared, or cooks your dinner, or who makes you feel safe. My teacher is really smart, she’s a doctor, so she must be right!”
Spencer sat up a little at that, “I think cards are a really good idea.”
“Yesssss! I’ll get your glitter!” Lina called, running to a green cupboard spencer hadn’t noticed before.
Nell went to join Lina gathering supplies while directing the boys to set up the table. Together, Spencer and Finn dragged the table into the middle of the room and draped the plastic cover over it. Nell and Lina arrived moments later with stacks of card, paint, glitter and sequins. A box of felt tips and a box of crayons were produced from yet another shelf. Spencer’s eyes went wide as he looked at all of the craft supplies that were just there, available to be used. For a brief moment he wondered what it would be like to be just a normal kid.
Shaking himself, he reached for a piece of card, “I think I’ll make two. I have two people who do mom things for me.”
“Awesome!” Lina said as she grabbed a glue stick.
With immense concentration, card creation began. Spencer insisted on using a ruler to create perfect folds for his cards, drafting designs on a piece of scrap paper until he was 100% happy then meticulously copying them onto the cards.
Nell had a similar level of concentration, creating a mosaic love heart out of various craft supplies, pompoms and glitter overlapping with sequins and magazine cuttings. Finn carefully coated his cards with lots of mini doodles and Lina made hers look like a present.
“we don’t have any envelopes!” Finn exclaimed, “Spencer, what should we do?”
Biting his lip, Spencer smiled slightly, “I need that ruler back and glue.”