What Happens Next

VII. Cookie Dough

Reid awoke to the sound of kids playing, and people talking. He sat up slowly and looked around, gathering the blanket that was spread over him in the night. He folded it nicely and set it on top of his pillow before stretching his arms out behind his head and groaning with his movement.

"You sound like a dad," a small female voice chirped from behind him.

"Well, I am a dad," he said with a smile, spinning around on the couch to face the small child behind him. His awkwardly skinny long legs were crossed in front of him, and his messy hair imprinted a lasting impression on the girl, but she didn't shy away from the scraggly-looking man.

She stood in the grand cutout in the wall, which framed entryway to the living room. Her pale yellow dress hung down by her ankles, and beneath it was a pair of what seemed to be rainbow printed tights. Her hair light blonde hair was tied back in two clean french braids, which contrary to the appearance of her clothing, seemed to have been chosen by an adult. Her light blue eyes matched those of her father, but her round chubby cheeks were unique to her.

"Henry said mommy had to go get you last night. Why?" she asked, not wasting any time on small talk. 

"Well. I didn't have a car, and I needed a place to go, so your mommy picked me up and brought me here to help me," Reid rose from his seated position on their couch and approached the girl. He squatted in front of her and held out his hand for her to shake, "I'm Spencer, by the way."

"I'm Grace and I'm six!" she exclaimed, high-fiving his hand instead of shaking it. She darted away down the hall screaming: "mommy, I met your friend!"

Reid smiled at the interaction, but the sight of that child made him miss his own children, and he pulled his phone from his pants pocket to see if his wife had attempted to make contact. She hadn't. He absorbed the fact that it was already ten in the morning, and that he had slept later than he had in years while staring at the collage of photos that was his background. It was a baby picture of each of his four beautiful children, mashed up with a family photo from the week before Addie was born. He had the most current photos that he possessed of each child also thrown into the image. It made him smile, but his heart broke at the same time.

JJ appeared next from behind the wall. She was wearing a white tight-fitting v-neck, and a pair of black sweatpants. Her long blonde hair was tied up in some form of messy bun-ponytail combination. He noticed he wore her sisters locket around her neck again, and he looked up at her quizzically. 

"The locket-"

"I know," she mumbled capturing the silver heart between her fingers. She played with the charm in shame as she stared at the floor. 

"When Will left-" she breathed, "I ripped the locket he had given me from my neck. I told him that if he did't care about the family we made together than I shouldn't care about what he gave me to commemorate it. I walked around for years with nothing around my neck, but I missed Ros every day, and eventually I came to terms with the fact that she allowed me to wear the necklace out of kindness, and the desire to protect me. His evil has nothing to do with it."

"That's beautiful, JJ."

Reid stepped toward the woman in front of him and he couldn't help but remember the words she said to him wearing a similar white shirt. 

I have always loved you.

He shook the words out of his head and focused on the rest of the sentence, reminding himself that she was wearing a gray blazer and that things were far more complicated than they were that day.

"H-how's your mom this morning?" he stuttered, returning himself to reality.

JJ shook her head solemnly. "She's okay, I guess. I don't know. I think she's giving up."

Reid hugged the woman in front of him gently, and pulled away within seconds, "It's gonna be okay."

"Yeah," She agreed bleakly.

"So," Reid prompted, "I've met Henry, and Michael, and now I've met Grace. Where is this Emily Rose I've heard so much about?"

"She's in here," JJ said, face lighting up at the mention of her children. 

Reid followed her into the kitchen, which had clearly become a makeshift living area, as he had slept on their couch. The already messy Island was covered in flour, as the brunette child he knew to be Emily seemed to be making chocolate chip cookies. The dough had come together in the mixer, but not before a decent amount of ingredients escaped the bowl. At the dark brown table in the corner of the kitchen adjacent to him, which Reid had failed to noice the night before, sat the rest of the kids. Grace with a destroyed princess coloring book and a mass of assorted crayons, and henry with a smooth sheet of white paper and a delicate pencil sketch of the vase in the center of the table. Michael sat beside his older brother. His phone was plugged into the wall and he seemed absorbed in either a game or text conversation. Nobody looked up when the adults entered the room.

"It's anarchy in here Spence," JJ rose her voice to speak over the sound of the stand mixer increasing speed. Emily looked up in horror as she dumped the last of the chocolate chips in the mixer. She had clearly been caught red handed, doing something she was obviously not supposed to do. She weighed her options in her head and settled on saying: "sorry mom, I just wanted to make a good impression on Spencer."

The young girl smirked, and nodded at me. Her hair matched that of her father's but her eyes were all her mother's. Like Grace, she had rounder cheeks but they resembled her weight more so than Grace's. Emily was not overweight, but her figure did not match the rest of those in her family. While their fast metabolisms kept them from gaining anything, Emily struggled slightly with impulse control and was not gifted in the same way as her siblings. She kept her fathers hair in a bun, but it was clear that it was leaning far closer to the curly side than her siblings as well. 

"Too bad I'm allergic to chocolate," Reid joked, causing the eight year old's face to drop. Her red cheeks sagged beside her bright red lips, and she tried repeatedly to close her mouth and form words before Reid finally admitted to his lie. The room erupted with laughter, and JJ locked eyes with him, smiling softly. 

"But seriously, who bakes cookies at ten in the morning?"

"If I make them now, mom will let me eat them for lunch!"

"Ohhhh, I see how it is," JJ chimed in. Her cheeks had begun to turn pink as well, and she walked over to hug her daughter from behind. With one arm, she restrained the girl, pinning her arms to her sides, and with the other she reached past Emily's shoulder and dipped her finger into the bowl, extracting some of the dough. Emily struggled against her mother the whole time, and pleaded for her not to mess with her dough, but ultimately emerged unsuccessful.