Nervous. Jittery. Weirder than usual.
Those words came to his teammates' minds sporadically throughout the flight back. The entire case the kid seemed to be off in another world but almost impatient for the case to be solved. Morgan was confused that Reid only gave one or two statistics for the entire week they were gone. JJ and Morgan both brought up concerns to Gideon who as usual brushed off any concerns when it came to Spencer Reid. Hotch only filed it in his head in case it affected the next case.
Gideon was pretty sure of the reason behind Spencer's strange behavior despite neither bringing it up. Spencer stared out the window, the chessboard between them almost forgotten. Five months. Gone so quickly. Five months. The amount of time it took Elle and Spencer to become almost a unit. Five months. And he was afraid of the changes that were sure to happen.
Ellie's texts were not as frequent as they had been leading up to this last case. She was exhausted in her third trimester and most movement seemed to be out of the question whenever Spencer went to her apartment. He had even taken it upon himself to get her groceries or getting her mail. Most of the time, she protested until he pointed out that just going from her couch to the bathroom left her short of breath.
It often confused her that Spencer was so proactive, reading what to expect during pregnancy, running to the store at midnight because she cried at running out of peanut butter, to even reading how to safely deliver twins in case he was there and couldn't get to the hospital in time. At the same time, he was all she had. No family, no other friends, she barely knew the other neighbors since old Mrs. Cavanaugh on the other side of Reid's apartment screamed at her for being a "amoral little tramp" when Elena said the father didn't want to be involved.
Spencer breathed a sigh of relief when the jet landed in Quantico and rushed off so fast, nobody realized he had already left until they turned around. Gideon just told everyone to go home and worry about paperwork tomorrow.
The cab barely stopped in front of the apartment when Spencer overpaid and rushed out. For someone that wasn't very athletic, he could remember the last time he ran up the stairs to the second floor. He knocked on Ellie's door and waited for the breathless "Come in." Walking in on various states of undress taught Spencer that lesson quickly or face her wrath. For someone so tiny, Elena was scarier than some things he witnessed on the job.
He walked in to her trying to button her black cardigan over the nursing tank she was currently wearing. Black yoga pants were the only things worth wearing these days and the wet hair indicated a shower.
" I don't even know why I showered when I'm about to be disgusting within 24 hours." She grumbled as the one button just wouldn't fucking button. Spencer smiled at her "Because I told you warm water helps with contractions." His face turned white when she fixed a mom glare right at him.
"Spence respectfully fuck up."
He held his hands up before grabbing the black and white hospital bags at the front door. " have you been able to time your contractions?"
"15 minutes, hopefully, it'll be closer together by the time we get there." She looked for her uggs because any other shoe was out of the damn question. "I can just call you once they're out. You will so bored in the waiting room."
"Why would I be in the waiting room?" Even though they never talked much about the delivery, Spencer was afraid to ask where she wanted him to be.
Ellie hunched over as a contraction hit her particularly hard and blew her breath out her mouth before looking at Spencer in confusion "What do you mean?"
"You can't be in the delivery room by yourself. You'll have no one to yell at other than nurses and the people who stick you with needles are not the people you want to make angry. Plus every book highly stresses a support system for the mother."
