Chapter 1
The Fisher King Pt. 2
We all knew this was coming. The Fisher King is striking us all. The ridles, the clues, the quests, and the rules; the only thing he values. Gideon gets a head and a baseball card, Elle a few days in questioning with only Morgan at her side, JJ a butterfly shadow box, and we all know the youngest holds the key. Kingsley's clue? A book, and book she read over and over again as a young girl. WILDWOOD DANCING it was called, most of it in Russian. It seemed only Reid knew the answers and with Elle suffering from the break in the rules, Reid discovered his mother may be the answer.
Reid sat alone stiring his coffee. He stared, his eyes down. His mother. He was scared, embarrassed, worried. What was going to happen?
"Hotchner!" she wailed and waltzed in. This was new, Reid thought. She had on her usual attire, an odd little cream frock with several peticoats underneath, her corset peeked out the top of her dress. The same little creamy ballet slippers on. She looked a little deseveled though, but one thing was off.
One of them held on tight to the hem of her dress, his head buried into her waist and all you could see was his dark brown ringletts, which bounced with every step. The other was very small, her legs whipped around Kingsley's waist. Her scrawny pale legs held white sneakers at the ends and at the top where pink shorts, and a white top decorated with strawberries and puffy sleeves. Her hair was thick thick and held a weird pattern, each hair mimicking the other exactly. It was a pretty blonde, a bright one that you get at salons, but not blinding or shiny but plain.
"Hotchner!" Kingsley screamed again, her face destorted with consern. She leaned in to whisper in the blonde girl's ear and in return the little girl stuck her head into Kingsley's neck. Kingsley kissed her head.
"What is it?" Hotchner asked appearing before her, then stopped dead. He stepped back to take in the children.
"If he knows who we are, he knows them. They are my life. and I want them safe. Understand?" she hissed. It was no question.
"They're welcome here, Caitlin, you know that."
"They better be. C'mon dears, we'll go get settled in."
"Can I take a nap? I'm tired," said the blonde girl, no bigger than five or so.
"Of course honey, I know your tired,"Kingsley replied, again kissing her head.
And Kingsley lead them up into the conferance room.
"Reid, can you keep an eye on them. She's flustered," Hotchner asked.
"You want me to watch all of them? Kingsley, too?"Reid asked.
"I don't know the whole story, Reid, find out. You were curious, remember?"
How many weeks had it been since Kingsley had came? Seven? Nine? He couldn't remember. An odd occurrence for him. He stalked up to the conference room and knocked awkwardly as only Reid could. Kingsley looked up from wrapping the blonde girl in the blanket and seating her on the black leather couch. She put a finger to her lips to indicate him to be quiet. Reid did and looked over saw that the brunette boy curled up in a rollie chair, already asleep.
Once the door to the conference room was closed, and they sat in the room conjoined to it, Kingsley only had eyes for the kids.
"Who are they?" Reid asked, crossing his legs on the couch in Hotchner's office. He gestured for her to sit next to him. She did and curled up next to him, laying her head on his shoulder. He stiffened, and she pulled away.
"My kids," she answered, not looking at him.
Reid stiffened and sucked in a deep breath and held it there. Kids? Kids?! The brunette one was questionable how old was he? 12 at the most? 8 at the youngest? She would have had to been 12 when she could have...ya know...birthed him. The blonde girl was definitely possible though....
"The father?" he asked. Reid was curious. Was Kingsley...married? Engaged? No...Reid remembered Adam.... She wouldn't do that to anyone she cared about. That girl was too caring.
Regardless, Kingsley stiffened and an odd look passed over her face, a wall had been put up. "Touchy subject-wait-" she stretched out the word,"You mean-you think. Oh!" and she laughed in her funny little way. "I didn't-didn't have them or anything. In the sense I mean. I...adopted them. More or less. And I DON'T want to go into it."
Reid took that as the signal to be silent and not to venture onto the subject.
"I haven't stopped looking, you know. On you," Reid said.
"I didn't think you did," then she looked at him in a funny way,"You have a certain...fire in you, Spencer Reid, ya know that? That's what I like about you. Along with other things."
"What other things do you like about me?" he asked smiling down at her. She smiled back.
"Well-"
"Mom?" Reid yelled down. Dianna Reid had just walked in, guards at her side. "It's okay guys, she's with me."
Reid walked briskly down the stairs to greet his mother.
"You know I hate flying!" she hissed under her chest, purse used as a shield, covering her whole body.
"I'm sorry, Mom," Reid whispered, not the first time he had said those words to her.
The two went up the stairs into the conference room.
"The table is round,"she whispered.
"...Just like I wrote...," Reid said.
"Whose she?" Dianna Reid whispered to Spencer, not so much that the object didn't hear. Caitlin Kingsley merely smiled her meek smile, her daughter wrapped around her like an accessory, rather than a child.
"That's agent Caitlin Kingsley-"
"She looks like you described,"she whispered.
"Hello," Kingsley whispered, still smiling.
"Reid!" Hotchner yelled.
"Sorry, Mom, I gotta go. Kingsley-"
"Yes," she whispered. Reid nodded his appreciation and left.
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Reid came strolling up the stairs, the team was regrouping in about 20 minutes, down the stairs. He was about to tell Kingsley, but he was to shocked to speak.
Caitlin Kingsley sat just across from Dianna Reid, she held a thick leather-bound book in her hand. Reading aloud, it appeared to be one of the Shakespearean Sonnets. Caitlin's favorites. Her little daughter was sitting on her lap, and the young girl was listening to the story with a whim and whimper in her little blue eyes. The little boy, around the age of 10, was sitting next to her on the floor, his head on his lap. The dark brown curls spewing across her lap. Then, the little girl, gestured for the book and pointed to Reid's mother.
"You want her to read?"Kingsley asked,"I am offended little miss, but since you insist, I think I would like to hear our lovely guest read as well," she tossed a wistful look Dianna's way. "I've heard the stories are very good."
Miss Reid smiled. She took the book between her hands and ran her fingers over the creased and stained pages. Over the leather binding and the silk red page mark, that always held the story to a frozen point. She smiled, then began to read.
Reid listened just outside the door, he didn't make his presence known, until his curiousness wanted to see his mother. He wasn't noted until she looked up at the two drowsy children to give them a genuine smile, the kind Reid received as a boy, and then she saw him.
"Spencer?" she asked. Kingsley's expression changed at his name. A look of innocence and...hope? He couldn't tell.
"They, ah, need us in the conference roo-"
"What's your name?" The little darling was wrapped around Kingsley and her wide blue eyes looked at Spencer with such openness and the love of optimism of the goodness of the world.
"I'm-ah-Dr. Spencer Reid, I work with your..."
"Mother,"supplied the girl.
"Yeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh," he stretched out the word slowly. The girl had to be as strange as her mother.
The girl turned to look at her mother, to whisper in her ear, but Reid heard it,"Oooo, momma, he's handsome!" Kingsley laughed.
Was laughing good?
He, for some reason, cared.
Chapter 2
She Won't Say She's In Love...
"He knows everything about us," Elle hissed, sleepily.
"What if we did something to throw him off his game?" Kingsley asked,"He thinks he knows us so well, if we do something completely out of character, he'll...be confused...disoriented...we'll get more time. It's what we need."
"So what's out of character for...Kingsley?" Hotchner asked.
"She's a friggin' workaholic," Penelope said, and Caitlin shoved her in a loving way. They both laughed.
"Anyone else?" Hotchner asked.
Morgan smirked,"Reid...."he drew it out, and Reid glared.
"He's good at everything,"Kingsley said, shoving him with her shoulder.
"...He's bad with women,"Morgan smiled. Reid was shocked, then mad.
"So..." Morgan said, beaming at Penelope, and she returned it.
"So we get the two together!" Garcia shrieked, throwing her hands up.
"No!" Kingsley and Reid chorused together.
Hotchner suppressed a wink of a smile,"...Yes, um, well, good...idea," he chuckled and Kingsley hissed, spewing venom.
"It'll be good for you," Gideon told Reid, patting his arm. Reid grimaced.
"So, what? We act like a couple?" Kingsley asked.
"Yes," Gideon said.
"Ugh," she hissed,"I hate love. Loathing," she growled.
And when she left.
Reid knew she was lying.
Maybe she just hated him.
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Reid and Kingsley strolled in front the the Catholic church. It was an old one, with a little steeple.
"So, the un-sub could be watching us right now," Reid ventured on with their conversation that was lacking.
She smiled...seductively? Yes...and whispered,"All the more reason," slipping her hands in his and getting in his face," to play the part." She smiled and her little white teeth, abnormally square, shimmered in the darkness provided by the awning.
"Eh-heh heh," Reid laughed nervously, eyes wide and alarmed. She put herself in his arms, and leaned her left side against the wall. She put her head in his neck and hummed something and hissed-again temptingly-"Stop making that face, Spencer." Her nose traced his cheek and Reid was becoming very uncomfortable.
"Ah-Kin-Caitlin,...honey?"
"Hmmm?" she asked.
Reid had reminded himself to act, but when she pulled back and her blue eyes where glowing his heart skipped a beat and his breath caught in his throat. Kingsley smiled innocently at him, biting her lower lip. She looked like a little school girl, caught in love's every whip and whim.
"You said you liked things about me. What things?" He whispered.
Kingsley never noticed Spencer was taller than her. She never thought about it. But she thought about his honey colored hair and those light brown eyes, specked with black. She looked at him and she hadn't ever looked at him that way. She let it show on her face. This was fake, a show.
Kingsley was good at shows.
"I like...when you have you head stuck in the clouds. You just sit and stare and it's very..." sexy was so not the right word," amusing. I-I love it when you go on those little rants and insane statistics just fly out of your mouth left and right and-and I love putting them in my head. Keeping them in my head and using them later," she allowed herself a tinkling laugh. "I love...when you read. Your eye browns are pushed together and your eyes are squinting and your biting your lower lip and I'm dying to know what's going on upstairs. I love most everything about you, Spencer Reid. I think...I think I always have," she smiled and she was very aware of his hands fumbling at her waist, and the warmth coming from them. She looked up at the old little church and it's old cobblestone walls,"I'd like to get married in a place like this. It's very quaint. I can just imagine walking down the isle in it. A big puffy gown. And Prince Charming standing at the end of the isle. Smiling...and stunned. I know, I know, egotisic not to meantion masocistic but-"No scream came when Spencer Reid pressed his warm lips on hers. His strong hand under chin never seemed so...capable and he never so...willing. She was on tip-toe just to reach him and her hands where twined in his hair, her palms on his neck.
When they parted, she placed her head on his neck,"So, our first kiss," she said," in front of a church."
"I think God will forgive us," Reid said, stroking her long hair. They entered her little red car, from the 80's no less, and as Reid took the passenger seat he said,"You are one hell of an actress," he said. She laughed, but
They both knew what was up
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After the killer was found, and Elle out of surgerey, everyone was in so much...pain. The joy of finding Bryant was masked by the pain that Elle was feeling. That the team was feeling. Things where happening that the profilers of Quantico couldn't define. It heated them under the collar.
Reid whistled as he walked in to greet his mother, up in the profiling room. He was only down stairs.
"Where's Kingsley?" he asked. She had given him many a taunt after they found Bryant about how his butt caught on fire. It was a little funny.
Morgan only pointed. Up in the profiling room, Reid stared. His mother sat clapping on every second beat, which he now registered down here. The little girl was right in front of her, dancing. The boy, Gustave was his name, was claping, sitting by Dianna Reid. A smile lit up her face. Kingsley was in the middle of the room, dancing the wildest. Her skirt was a yellow shawl wrapped around her waist. A black corset served as a top, with a rose in between her breasts. She held to clam shells in her hand and clinked them together on the beat. She hopped up and down and spun in a circle. Reid noticed, for the first time, her feet were void of the little cream ballet slippers, and were bare, wearing nothing but her pale skin.
Reid joined them, only to evoke Dianna Reid's smile larger. He spun Kingsley around and around. She laughed and laughed and so did he. He was having fun. And it wasn't from chess or a good book or a new episode of Star Trek. It was from people. He enjoyed taking Kingsley up in his gangly arms, her smiling all the while.
Eventually, the all packed up and left for Las Vegas. A car ride, Kingsley had convinced them, would be good for all of them. They took turns reading, different stories to accomidate the different tastes. Dianna Reid was sad when the journey had ended and they had to part. She grabbed Spencer Reid by the arm, as he was trying to leave the building and with Kingsley well in ear shot, she said to him,"Don't let that girl go," Kingsley smiled and took Reid's hand. On the way home, Reid was pleasant to the children as she was, but to each other the two were realtively quiet. The time for hopeless flirting was done. And that was that.
Once back at Quantico, Reid caught Kingsley in the conference room. She put down her large book to look at him, no question in her eyes. Reid layed the file down on the table and she just stared at it.
"I knew you would find out,"
