Chapter Text
Victoria sighed in exhaustion as she finished getting breakfast ready for herself and her fourteen-year-old sister; this had been going on for half a year, since their mother’s death. Their father had walked out the front door when Claudia was two and Victoria was seven, never to be seen again. Some kind of fallout between their parents that Victoria never really understood. That was one of the many reasons that the girls had their mother's surname.
She had just gotten off the night shift at the local McDonalds so she was running on fumes, but none of that mattered; she still had to get her sister off to school.
She caught herself reaching for her mother’s medication organizer, then stopped abruptly.
"Claudia, come on, you're going to be late!" She called out to the bedroom of the small one-bedroom apartment, which was all she could afford to maintain.
Claudia had found it difficult to cope with her older sister, now the only authority figure in the house, having spent some time rebelling before realizing that wasn't going to benefit her. Her bucking her sister's authority wasn't going to bring their mother back or convince their absentee father to come back home to them and be a parent.
Claudia came out of the room they shared, finishing her ponytail as she came out. She stopped and took in her older sister’s disheveled appearance.
"Have we heard anything from dad?"
"No, apparently the message never got to him." Victoria sighed, trying to hide her frustration from her younger sister and failing miserably.
"Tori, I know you don't like this, but we need to let him know what happened to Mom." Claudia reasoned.
"Sabes qué… If he cared about mom, or us, he'd still be here." Victoria shot back. It had been years, but she seemed not to have forgiven her father for walking out of their lives. "You don't remember him or how he left, but I do."
"Victoria, have you ever thought that maybe it was time to forgive him?" Claudia asked.
Victoria sighed. On some level, she knew Claudia was right, but she just couldn't do it.
Suddenly, the phone rang.
"Hello," Victoria answered.
"Is this Victoria Martinez?"
"Yes, who is this?" she demanded, terror clinching at her gut and exaustion forgotten for the immediate fear that she and her sister could be in danger.
"I knew your father, William Reid, before you were born, and he had a wife and child before he met your mom." the man said, clearly disguising his voice, but why was a mystery to her.
"What? How do we know this is true?"
"The woman's name was Diana, and the boy Spencer, who was born in early October and he would have been close to 5 when you were born."
"What?" Victoria demanded hiding her terror behind the rage at the fact that this man had the audacity to do this to them, "How do I know you aren't lying to me? I don't even know your name."
"Your brother's last name is Reid, and he is a supervisory special agent with the FBI and holds multiple doctorates."
"Who is this?"
The line went dead.
"Tori, what was that about?"
"I don't know; it was someone claiming we have an older brother." she explained trying to hide her shaking hands.
"But mom only had us."
"He has a different mom, a woman named Diana."
"Do you believe him?"
"I don't know what to believe, Claudia. I'll look into it while you're at school." Victoria sighed “Go finish getting ready the bus should be here soon.”
Claudia left, and Victoria took several moments looking at her phone before pulling out her laptop to start the search.
Spencer stood silently as the elevator doors opened for what promised to be another ordinary day in the office. He adjusted his strap and walked to the door pushing it open and entering.
"Do nothing secretly; for Time sees and hears all things, and discloses all." — Sophocles
"J.J, is something going on?" Spencer asked as he took in the visible tension in the room.
"We aren't sure exactly what this is about, but someone has taken an interest in you; they've been searching your name online. All of our names have special flags online so Penelope knows when someone searches for us." she explained giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze in that maternal way he had come to expect from JJ. “Don’t worry Spence, we’ll figure this out.”
Penelope entered the room.
"I found our searcher, she really didn't hide her tracks at all… It's as if she didn't care if she was found out." Penelope said, "Her name is Victoria Martinez, she's twenty-two years old and lives in Henderson, Nevada, with her younger sister Claudia, 14. Their mother passed away from ovarian cancer last summer."
"Where is their father?" Jenifer "J.J." Jareau asked.
"Apparently, he hasn't been in the picture for years. That is where things get crazy, Spencer… I have to advise you sit for this one."
"What is it, Penelope?" Spencer asked, taking a seat at his desk.
"Yeah, baby girl, what makes this so strange?"
"According to records, their father is…" Penelope hesitated, "William Reid."