Kid Doctor ~ Spencer Reid

Messy Families

William Reid. His father. Barely that, actually. He left when Spencer was only ten and left him with a mentally ill mother. That wasn't much of a fatherly thing to do. Adding lemon to the wound, he was ten minutes away. He didn't even leave the state. He didn't even leave the town.

"William?"
"You can call me dad, you know."
"You're not my father. I don't have a father."
"I am your father."
"Biologically, yes. Personally? No, not at all."

Reid was closed off, hands holding tight to his satchel. He knew probably everyone was in the room outside of his, watching them from the outside. He didn't care anymore.

"I still raised you for ten years, Spencer!"
"You did nothing to raise me. The best thing you did for me was getting sober enough to talk to me as a kid and tell me that my mother didn't forget who I was, she was just having a bad day. Do you not remember?"
"I knew she was having a bad time."
"Even if you did,  you would fight with mom about her not taking her meds, about her not seeking help, about her having problems. What would you have done if she went into a facility? What would you have done with me?"
"I would have raised you!"
"How? You obviously didn't care enough about me to care about my own well being, you didn't care enough about me to see that my mother wouldn't be able to raise me properly. All you are is selfish and someone who left your son, who you knew had problems, with a mother who could barely function on her own. You didn't even have the decency to leave the city, and you claim to care about me?"

Reid had tears in his eyes at this point, pacing the room furiously. His hands were moving everywhere, gesturing, to his bag strap, in his pockets, in his hair, everywhere. He wasn't sure if he was feeling desperate, annoyed, pissed, or just plain sad.

"I do care about you, Spencer."
"Since when?"
"Since I knew you were my son."
"Don't you dare even try and call me that. I would never call you my father, don't you call me your son."
"You are my son."
"Again, biologically. Biologically means nothing to me, though. I made my own family. I made my own life. Do you have any idea what happened to me throughout my life? Did you ever bother to see how my life was going besides reading my college essays?"
"Yes."
"Oh?"
"I do."
"Why didn't you do anything, then?"

His voice broke slightly, his hands now shaking.

"I was terrorized every day of my life for years and years and you knew and did nothing?"
"I couldn't."
"Couldn't?"

Spencer gave a bitter smile, running a hand through his hair.

"You couldn't stop your so called son from almost killing himself out of grief that he was in so much pain he could barely walk to school on time, but had to go every day anyways or else the child prodigy would become a nothing again? You couldn't stop your ex-wife from losing her mind in front of me, from putting me and herself in harms way due to the fact that she wouldn't take her medication? You couldn't stop us from going days without food because she couldn't hold a steady enough job to pay for everything on time? You couldn't stop me from growing up feeling unloved and unwanted, like I could disappear and not a single person would notice? You couldn't stop it? Bullshit."

Reid cut William off the next time he began to speak.

"Did you ever remarry?"

William went silent, and that was all the answer Spencer needed.

".. Did you have kids with her?"

There was more silence, and Spencer sat down.

"Did you have more kids?"
"Yes."

Quiet filled the room. Just pure quiet as Reid processed what he just heard.

"Do they know?"
"Know what?"
"What you did?"
"What did I do?"
"Do they know that you walked out?"
".. No."
"Do they even know you had a marriage and a kid beforehand?"
"... No."