Chapter 42: Brutal Brunch

Spencer and I cleaned up and are now slowly getting ready for the brunch Penelope is planning. I lay down on the bed, only partly covered by my towel. I ask Spencer "do we have to go to this thing?" He chuckles, toweling dry his hair, and says "unless you want Penelope Garcia banging on our door then I would say yes, Annie, we have to go." I groan and cover my face with a pillow. Spencer chuckles and walks over to sit on the bed next to me. He asks me "what can I do to make this easier for you, hmm?" He gently rubs my arm as he asks. I say after removing the pillow "Jurassic Park marathon when we get back?" Spencer closes his eyes and groans. He then says "1 movie." I counter "3 movies." He says "2 movies and playtime after." I narrow my eyes at him and say "what kind of play time?" He chuckles and says "that's for me to know and you to find out. Depends on your behavior today." I hum and bite my lip. Eventually I say "deal." Spencer leans forward, capturing my lips with his, and says "that's my girl. Now get ready so we can go be social and then come back for horrible movies followed by amazing sex." I giggle and nod, standing to get ready with a bit more pep in my step now that I have something to look forward to. I settle on a white sweater that has little pom poms on it with black leggings. The louboutins are too dressy for this so I put on a pair of white high heeled boots that match the sweater. I complete the look with the tourmaline necklace, my watch, and of course my engagement ring. My hair is still curly from last night and I just brush it out and clip half of it up. I put on some very basic makeup, just enough to not look so tired after sleeping on top of Spencer on the couch all night. Spencer is wearing black pants and a black button up that has the top few buttons unbuttoned. He also has on his trademarked mismatched socks and black converse. He looks adorable. He's fastening his watch on his wrist as he asks me "ready to go?" I smile and nod, grabbing my clutch from last night that also goes well with this outfit I've picked. I smile and nod as I run my fingers through his hair. He giggles and says "hey you're messing up my hair!" I giggle back and say "that's the point, babe, you look hot with your hair ruffled up a bit." He laughs and shakes his head. We get everything squared away at the apartment before heading out the door to the brunch that Penelope is throwing us.

•••••

Spencer and I walk into the restaurant, following the directions Penelope texted me to a private room the restaurant has for large parties. We walk in and the first thing I see is Penelope excitedly walking over to us in her insanely high heels. She squeals "I'm so happy you guys are here! Let me see the rock! Let me see, let me see, let me SEE!" I laugh and hold up my left hand for her to look at and inspect. She turns to Spencer and high fives him "you did a spectacular job picking it out, boy wonder!" Spencer blushes and thanks her. We walk further into the room to find our seats before a tall blonde woman I've never met in a white sweater dress walks over to us. I feel my blood start boiling and Spencer tenses up. Why on earth was she invited? She's been on the team for what a week? She smiles a big - fake - smile and says "wow Spencer she really is as beautiful as everyone says!" Spencer beams and I thank her for the compliment. She asks to see the ring and I hold it out for her. She gushes to Spencer, not to me, "ugh it's gorgeous. So jealous." I fucking bet you are, bitch. Spencer can feel the anger radiating off of me, I'm sure, and excuses us to take our seats. Thankfully, we are seated nowhere near her. As I go to take our seats I hear a small voice scream my name and the anger I previously had coursing through my veins melts away. I squeal back lightly and say "hi Jack! How's it going buddy!" I pick him up and he giggles. He says excitedly "daddy and LiLi told me you and uncle Spencer are getting married!" I smile and nod "yeah buddy we are! Are you excited?" He nods his head so fast I'm afraid he will give himself whiplash. Just then Killian walks up and hugs me saying "congratulations, sweetie! It was so hard to keep this secret from you!" I laugh and say "well thank you for making sure I was fully prepared." She laughs "of course, you would do the same for me!" Hotch walks in and congratulates us. I'm smiling big and forget I was ever even mad about the blonde bimbo at the other side of the room. We sit down finally, Jack sits next to me with Killian and Hotch on the other side of him and Spencer sits on the other side of me, Derek and Penelope on the other side of him. JJ couldn't make it because of something with her new work placement, but that's okay. We of all people understand. Rossi is sitting on the opposite side of the table with Emily and the bimbo. We order our brunch, Spencer orders for me as usual and I catch up with Jack and enjoy seeing him interact with Killian. Everybody asks about the details of the night and Spencer and I describe it together. It turns out the BAU girls had helped decorate the private room where we ate our dinner. Penelope also pulls a small projector out of her bag, of course she would have a small projector in her bag. She sets it up and points it to a small portion of the wall that's bare. She turns to us and smiles "I took the liberty of hiring photographers to make sure we got the best pictures possible." I turn to Spencer, confused, and he says "I may have known about this. Our waitress was one of them." I look up to the wall and see wonderful photos of us projected on it. I have no idea how the other photographer got such great shots from outside the balcony, but they're absolutely beautiful. I don't know how our waitress snuck such beautiful pictures of us either, but I'm happy they did this because they are beautifully candid. I ask Penelope "are we going to get copies of this?" Penelope beams and nods "of course my sweet!" I thank her and say "they're absolutely beautiful. They couldn't have been better even if I was posing for them." Eventually we all return to talking with each other in multiple small conversations. Spencer is now on the other side of the room talking to Derek and Aaron and Dave. I'm sitting with Killian, Jack and Penelope. Emily is talking to Seaver, but I catch that they are heading this way. I think Killian can tell I tense up, but doesn't understand why. Emily and Penelope begin talking to each other and Killian is talking to Jack when Seaver sits in Spencer's old seat next to me. She holds out her hand and says "I'm Ashley Seaver. Sorry I didn't introduce myself earlier, you must think I'm incredibly rude." I just laugh nervously and say "oh it's okay there's a lot of excitement happening today." She asks me "so what is it you do? Are you in the bureau, too?" I shake my head and say "no I'm a speech language pathologist at the hospital in Quantico." I see her face turn into an almost delighted expression at the fact that I'm not part of the bureau. She says "oh so you fix stutters all day? Why would you need to be in the hospital for that?" I swallow before speaking to try to calm myself down. She's really trying to get under my skin and she's succeeding. I tell her "actually there's quite a bit more to speech language pathology than just fixing stutters. I help people who have had strokes or different kinds of traumatic accidents learn how to talk and eat again. That's actually how I met Spencer. He was my patient. He asked me out on a date while he was my patient but I told him he would have to be discharged from my care before I said yes. He tracked me down after he got discharged and asked me out to drinks and the rest is history." She nods and doesn't say anything for a minute. I lean forward and grab my mimosa and take a sip. Seaver gasps and says "should you be drinking that?" I raise an eyebrow and say with an awkward laugh "I am an adult, I'm pretty sure it's okay." She says "no I mean should be drinking that in" she lowers her voice to a whisper "your condition?" I know exactly what she's implying and I just say "and what condition would that be?" She says "well you two are engaged after only a few months and you're wearing a loose sweater to the engagement brunch. I just assumed you two were getting married because there's a bun in the oven." My jaw drops and I tell her "we've been together for almost a year and I'm wearing a sweater because it is January in Virginia. I am not pregnant and I don't appreciate what you're implying." She shrugs her shoulders and says "an honest mistake." I tell her "no, it's really not, excuse me." I stand up and grab my clutch and leave the room, looking to be anywhere else but there. I go into the ladies' restroom and thankfully there's a little sitting area in the bathroom of this fancy restaurant. I pace slightly and pick up a throw pillow and scream into it. I don't want to cause a scene and ruin the party for anybody else. I knew that girl was going to be trouble. She wants Spencer, I can tell. I feel my eyes filling up with angry tears. Just then Killian comes into the bathroom, looking for me. She says "Annie are you okay?" I ask her "No, did you hear?" Killian looks confused and shakes her head. She says "no but I saw you leave after talking to Ashley." I laugh humorlessly and say "she asked me if I should be drinking my mimosa in my 'condition'." Killian looks confused. She asks "what condition?" I tell her "she was implying that I'm pregnant because I look like it and she couldn't fathom any other reason that Spencer and I would get engaged after 'only a few months.'" Killian stands and says "what a fucking bitch! Why would she say that to you?" I shake my head "I think she likes Spencer. He and I have already had one fight about her because she picked up his phone one time when I FaceTimed him while they were on the way back from a case." Killian nods "well Aaron said that she won't be around much longer. I don't think she was meant to be invited today but Penelope didn't want her to feel left out." I nod, sounds like Penelope. Just then there's a knock on the bathroom door and Spencer slowly opens it, peeking his head in. Once he sees I've been crying he abandons all concern that he's now in the women's restroom. He looks at me with worry and says "Annie, what's wrong?" I just shake my head and say "I don't want to talk about it here. Can we go home now?" Spencer nods "of course, here take the keys and go to the car and I'll say our goodbyes to everybody." I nod "tell them I wasn't feeling well or something." He nods and kisses my forehead "of course, baby, I'll see you out there."

~ Spencer's POV ~

I hand Annie the keys and watch her leave. I turn to Killian "what happened?" She says "uhh well I'll let her tell you what happened but I'll just say watch your back with Ashley." I rub my face with my hands and ask "what did she do?" Killian says "I really should let Annie tell you." I shake my head "I want to handle this without involving her and without her being in the room. It'll just make her more uncomfortable." Killian nods and says "she tried to belittle Annie's and your relationship. She also implied that Annie is pregnant, saying that that's the only reason you two are engaged and implied that Annie is gaining weight. All because she took a sip of her mimosa." I'm livid and my head is pounding, it has been since this morning but it's slowly been getting worse. I rub my eyes hard and say "what the actual fuck?" I shake my head and say "I don't understand what she's trying to accomplish with all of this." Killian shakes her head "she may just be trying to cause chaos and cause rifts between people. I don't know what the best way to handle this is because getting angry with Ashley may be the reaction she's looking for. Maybe just tell Aaron about this and have it documented without her knowledge so that something is being done about it, but she's not getting what she wants." I nod and say "you're probably right. How do I get out of here without it looking like we left because of her?" Killian says "I'll just tell everybody you two left because Annie got called in to work. Nobody has to know the real reason." I nod and say "thank you. Can you and Hotch come by our place later and we will talk to him?" Killian says "I'm sure I can convince him. Now go take care of my best friend!" I thank her and nod as I leave to slip out of the restaurant undetected. As soon as I walk outside and into the sunlight I close my eyes as I feel searing pain in my eyes and in my head. I stop and brace myself on the railing. I shield my eyes from the sun and walk down the steps carefully before trying to make my way to the car as quickly as possible. I hope Annie isn't paying attention but I'm quickly disappointed as she finds me and she says "Spencer? Baby, are you okay?" I try to say yes but then I nearly fall over, tripping over something. She says "you're a long way from the car, let me help." I reluctantly let her help me, knowing I look like a drunk idiot. She helps me to the car and says "I'm going to drive, okay?" I don't have the energy to protest and just nod. We get in the car and she asks me "Spencer, what's happening?" I have been having these headaches for a while but usually they aren't this bad. I choose my words carefully and just say "I think it's a migraine. I get them from time to time." She hums but I can tell she knows I'm holding something back. As she's driving home I tell her "Killian told me what Seaver said. Hotch is going to come over and we are going to go on record in case they try to make her a long term member of the team. There's not much we can do at this point for her just saying some rude things, but if things get worse we will have documentation leading up to it." She sighs in exasperation and says "Spencer I'm used to mean girls. I just don't want her invited to anything else. I know you don't like her and you have to work with her I don't. As long as she doesn't get invited to anything else wedding related I'll be happy. I'll tell the rest of the team myself. If I'm seen as a jealous territorial bitch then so be it." I huff and say "I'm pretty sure the rest of the team knows how she is. Morgan warned me about her on the first day. I think Penelope was just trying to be nice by inviting her." Annie hums but doesn't say anything, she just continues driving. After a small amount of silence she says "Spencer we've been together almost a year and I've never seen you have a migraine so bad you couldn't walk straight. I also know you aren't drunk because you only had one alcoholic drink at brunch that you didn't even finish. What's really going on?" I sigh in exasperation. I knew this was coming. I say "I don't know what's going on. They're new and mainly happen in response to light and brightness." I hear Annie hum in understanding, she reaches into her purse and hands me her sunglasses. I thank her and happily put them on. She continues "have you been to a doctor about it?" I shake my head as I say "no, not yet. I think I have to now. I can't catch killers if I can't see or walk straight outside." Annie tells me "I'll go with you to the doctor if you want." I reach out and feel around for her hand, still having my eyes closed. She finds mine, takes it in hers, and squeezes. I say "even if I didn't want you to come with me I would probably need you to drive me anyway at this point." She chuckles and says "well I will happily chauffeur you around until your migraines go away. Why don't we just have a chill day when we get home? I won't force you to watch Jurassic Park with me...not tonight anyway." I chuckle and tell her "that sounds good, thank you for not adding to my torture." She laughs in response. Soon after, I feel her park the car. She comes around the other side and helps me out of the car and into the building. I hate that I require this much help, but I know I would do the same for her if the situation were reversed. We get into the apartment and she leads me back to our bedroom. She shuts the doors and makes sure the blackout curtains are fully drawn. The only light is the crack of light peeking through the bathroom door. I smile at her and thank her. She gives me a soft smile back "of course, baby, I will nurse you back to health as many times as you need," and she punctuates the statement with a kiss. She then says "I'm going to take Ryder for a quick walk, I'll be back in a bit. Get some rest."

~ Annie's POV ~

As I'm walking Ryder I think back on what a whirlwind the last 24 hours have been. I mean I'm engaged! I decide while walking Ryder I should FaceTime my mom and tell her the news. She answers on the second ring, Spencer must've tipped her off about last night. She says immediately upon answering "let me see it!" I just giggle and shake my head as I hold up my left hand for her. She squeals with excitement. Then she says "do you like your dress?" My eyebrows shoot up in recognition. I say "oh my gosh did y'all pay for that dress? I thought it was Spencer who was the anonymous donor." My mom laughs and my dad says in the background "nope that was us. Congratulations, sweetie! We hope you two will be very happy together." I giggle like a schoolgirl before saying "well he's at home right now with a pretty bad migraine while I walk Ryder. I have him squared away I just figure he wanted some time of silence to himself after all the hustle and bustle of the last 24 hours." My parents murmur in agreement. My mom then says "you should get him some excedrine migraine." I hum and say "Spencer is iffy with medications. He has a doctorate in chemistry so he's picky about what he puts in his body, especially drugs." My mom laughs "that's good to hear. Good to know my daughter isn't engaged to a drug addict." I nod and say "uh huh instead he could be a drug dealer with all his knowledge." My mom laughs and I mentally sigh with relief that she didn't catch one of my tells. What she doesn't know about Spencer's past won't hurt her. I know she would still love him just the same but I don't feel like telling her the whole spiel, especially without Spencer's permission. We finish up our walk and I finish up the FaceTime call with my mom as I make my way back into the apartment. Immediately after I get Ryder off the leash and start walking back towards the bedroom I hear Spencer retching in the bathroom. I run back to him and say "oh my gosh, Spencer!" He continues retching and I get a wash cloth and wet it with cold water and hold it to his forehead. This is when I would usually hold a girls hair but Spencer's hair is pretty short right now, so he doesn't need that. He just says "it hurts so bad," before retching again. I ask him "your head hurts so bad?" He nods. I ask "does anything else hurt besides your head and your stomach, baby?" He shakes his head. When he's done throwing up he leans back against the wall by the toilet. He asks "can you please turn off the lights?" I nod and turn off the lights in the bathroom, just my salt lamp in the corner giving off light so I can see his face. He holds the damp wash cloth to his forehead and folds himself into the fetal position sitting up against the wall. It breaks my heart. I ask him "do you have any migraine medicine that you take?" He shakes his head "I'm afraid I will relapse if I take any kind of heavy pain relieving medication so I usually don't take anything." I nod in understanding. I ask him "has it ever been this bad?" He says "I've had vertigo and nausea before but not so bad I couldn't walk by myself or that I threw up this much." I nod and tell him "baby, you've got to go to the doctor. This could be something much more serious than just the occasional migraine. It could be a warning sign for something more serious." He sniffles and I can just barely tell he's starting to cry. I ask him "what's wrong, bubs, why are you crying?" He says through tears "what if it's schizophrenia. It's hereditary and men my age can start showing symptoms early." That's a valid concern and I don't know what to say. He says through increasingly distraught tears "I don't want to lose you, Annie." I shush him, grabbing his hands, and say "Spencer, you will never ever lose me. A diagnosis will never mean I will leave you. I will always be here. We will do it together. We don't even know if it's schizophrenia, it could just be a reaction to something. Maybe you need a new prescription in your glasses and contacts. It might not be anything serious." He sniffles and nods. I lean forward and try to hold him, but his stiff position makes it difficult. He says through sniffles "thank you." I hum and say "this ring you gave me last night means I am going to love you forever in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, til death do us part. I don't know about you, but I've kinda been living like that this whole time." Spencer gives me a half smile and says "I know, me too. It's just hard to recognize that I'm no longer alone after being alone for most of my life. Part of me is convinced that you will find a reason to leave me and then I will never see you again." I shake my head and say "Spencer, til death do us part. I will always be here. I will always be one call away. Okay?" Spencer gives me another half smile and nods. I ask him "do you want to move back to the bed now? Do you think you're going to get sick anymore?" He shakes his head and says "all I have left is bile." I hum and give him a nod, helping him up. I get him back in bed and tucked in, then I grab a bucket from the bathroom just in case he gets sick again and get an ice pack shaped like a face mask from the kitchen for his head. I get him all settled into bed, his eyes covered. I ask him "I know you have an eidetic memory and all that but do you want me to turn on a podcast or something and give you something to listen to? I could turn on the tv but I don't want the brightness to bother you." He waves his hand "no, I'm okay, Annie. Thank you for taking care of me." I happily tell him "any time, baby. Do you want me to stay here or go in the other room?" He says "don't take this the wrong way but silence would be best right now." I nod, then remember he can't see me, and say "no baby I understand. Call for me if you need me. And if I hear you throwing up again I'm coming back." He just barely nods and Ryder and I make our way out of the room, leaving the door barely cracked so I can hear Spencer calling out if he needs me. I make myself busy catching up on dishes and laundry - I also thoroughly clean the couch. After about 45 mins I check on Spencer. As far as I can tell he's fast asleep in a comfortable position with even breathing. I walk over and feel that his ice pack on his head is still pretty cold but he will probably need a new one soon. I gently grab his wrist and feel for his heart rate. I count 76 beats per minute as well as 14 breaths per minute. I can't check the rest of his vitals without waking him up. He seems okay for now, but I'm just worried about what this might mean or be indicating. I mentally start preparing to take him to the doctor on Monday and get him looked at. Just then there's a knock at the door. I slip out of our room and shut the door, quietly making my way to the front door. I check through the peep hole and see Hotch and Killian. I open the door and tell them quietly "Spencer is asleep. He has a pretty bad migraine. I'm sorry I completely forgot y'all were coming over. Also where's Jack?" Hotch says "it's fine we can be quiet this shouldn't take long. Jack is spending some time with Jessica today because she didn't see him as much over the holidays as she usually does since I was home and had Killian's help." I nod and lead them over to the island. I would feel guilty having them sit on the couch not 24 hours after Spencer and I celebrated our engagement on it. I ask them "can I get y'all anything to drink?" They both decline. Hotch asks "so I heard from Killian what happened with agent Seaver but I need your story." I gulp and nod "Um well I do want to preface this saying Spencer and I have already had one argument about her. Apparently she keeps trying to make moves on him while y'all are on cases or in the office. But um yeah so anyway today she mainly talked to Spencer and didn't pay much attention to me until she got me alone. When she realized I didn't work for the bureau and that I'm a speech therapist she said I just fix stutters all day and was belittling my career. Then when I took a drink of my mimosa she asked me if I should be drinking it in my condition and told me she thought I had a 'bun in the oven' because of how soon we got engaged and she thought I was wearing a sweater to hide my stomach." Hotch nods "that behavior is unacceptable. I'm sorry she said those things." I sigh and say "Hotch, honestly I'm used to mean girls like her. Don't make a big fuss about it at work. Spencer still has to work with her." Hotch nods "only for a couple more months until her training is finished. I will make sure she is monitored more closely and ensure she and Spencer won't do anything alone on cases. Is it okay if I inform the rest of the team?" I open my mouth without speaking for a second, hesitating, eventually I say "yes, but please be discrete about it. As long as she isn't invited to any more wedding festivities, I'll be fine. Just don't let her make Spencer uncomfortable. He will try to avoid the confrontation as long as possible I think." Hotch nods "I understand. I'll be discrete. We will just try to be more observant of agent Seaver's behavior. Once we have enough documented evidence to get her training placement changed we will do that. However, I have a feeling she's smart enough to not be easily caught. She underestimates you because you aren't an agent, but I've seen you get in and out of some pretty tight spots." I give Hotch a small smile and thank him for the compliment. I also tell him "I think Spencer needs to go to the doctor tomorrow because of this migraine problem. He said he's been having them for a while and they are just getting worse." Hotch nods and says "of course, let him know that he can miss work and go tomorrow. If we end up on a case we can just have him participate virtually or over the phone. If he's too sick to help we understand." I thank him and we all talk for a minute about other things before saying our goodbyes. I see them out and go back to see if any of the noise woke Spencer. I find that my suspicions were correct and he's taken the ice pack off and is rubbing his eyes harshly. I tell him "Spencer, stop rubbing so hard, you're going to hurt yourself." He groans and continues for a couple seconds before pulling them off his face reluctantly. I ask him "is it both eyes or one eye that's bothering you?" He says "both" with anguish painted on his face. I gently run my fingers through his hair and ask him "is it a particular part of your head that's hurting?" He says "around my eyes mainly. Sometimes it's so bad it feels like it's my whole head." I nod and try to gently run my fingers through his hair. I ask him "do my hands in your hair make it worse?" He says "no, it feels good." I ask "are you aching at all?" He says "besides my head? No not really." I tell him "let me take your temperature. You may be having a really bad flu or something." He hums a response that I can only interpret as agreement. I go to the bathroom and pull the thermometer out of one of the drawers. I can't remember when it was used last so I err on the side of caution and clean it with some rubbing alcohol and then rinse the rubbing alcohol off. I come back and say "okay I cleaned it with rubbing alcohol. I know how much you hate germs. Open your mouth please." I press the button on it and place the thermometer under his tongue. He starts to open his mouth to talk and I tell him "uh uh keep your mouth closed so we can get an accurate reading." He gives me apologetic eyes and nods. My eyes soften and I tell him "I hate that you feel so bad, baby. I wish I could just take all of this pain you're feeling away. I don't even know what to do besides ice packs and thermometers and darkness." He gives me sad but understanding eyes back. About thirty seconds later the thermometer beeps and I check it. I tell him "99.1, not necessarily a fever but it is just barely high." He nods and I continue "your respirations and heart rate were normal earlier." He raises an eyebrow and asks "were you watching me sleep?" I nod, completely unashamed, "I was worried, honey, the best way to calm myself down was to check your vitals. If they were really high I was going to wake you up and we would be going to the hospital. The only things I haven't checked are your O2 saturation and your blood pressure." He asks "when did you learn all of this?" I tell him "when I was younger I wanted to be a nurse so in high school and early college I took courses on this stuff. Figured out really quick I didn't like it as much as I thought. Then I found speech and I'm so happy nursing didn't work out." Spencer hums "it's funny how not getting the things we want leads us to something better sometimes." I nod. I tell him "I know you're not really religious or anything, but I think it's God's plan." Spencer nods "I can respect that there may be a higher power we don't know about, but I trust science over a magic man in the sky." I giggle "I get that. I've had a lot of doubts in my lifetime. There are just a lot of amazing things I don't think can be explained away with only science. I believe God and science coexist." Spencer hums, contemplating. He says "I don't think a lot of people pick both like that." I just shrug "well I do. And so does most of my family. Hell, my grandmother thinks God is an alien." Spencer laughs out loud at that and quickly clutches his head in pain. I giggle and cover my mouth. I tell him "I'm sorry I didn't mean to hurt you." He chuckles lightly "it's fine. I needed something to make me forget all of this." After a minute of silence I ask Spencer "can I ask you something?" Spencer rubs my hand "of course, Annie." I tell him "I know we've been together for a while, but we've never really discussed religion, not seriously anyway. I don't want you to feel like I'm forcing you to believe one thing or another. I was just wondering, what's your opinion when we have kids on taking them to church?" I continue to ramble "I know we don't go to church now. I haven't really looked for one here because it's kind of daunting. Anyway, I was raised in church and loved it, but it was always my choice. I mean when I was a child it wasn't a choice because you go with your parents or stay home with a sitter so I went to church. But anyway when I grew up and went to youth groups and trips and stuff that was all my choice." Spencer gives me a soft smile and says "have you been wanting to talk to me about this, but you've been too nervous?" I look down and say "yes, I have, but I didn't know how to bring it up. I also didn't want to make you feel like uncomfortable or anything. I guess now that you put a ring on it there's another sense of security in our relationship." Spencer chuckles and says "well, you know I don't believe all the same things you do, I'm more agnostic than atheist really I think we can one day raise our future kids in religion and science. I think we can make it work." I smile and nod "I was hoping you would think so. I also want them educated on all religions. I want our kids well rounded and accepting, not just tolerant." Spencer smiles "I couldn't agree with you more on that." I ask him "do you think you would be comfortable going with me to church one day?" Spencer says "I am not going to tell you I will change my personal set of beliefs because that might not happen. I want you to understand that first and foremost. However, I can see how much this means to you and if going with you to church sometimes will make you happy then I am happy to go with you." I smile at him and ask "really?" He gives me a nod and says "I do reserve the right to veto specific churches." I giggle "yes some churches absolutely suck, I get that." I look at him and say "you know if this ever gets to be too much you can change your mind. I just want to teach our kids about Jesus and the other religions. Honestly I wonder if we all just worship multiple forms of the same religion." Spencer nods "that's one of the theories of world religion, yes." I tell him "the last thing I want to be is a hypocrite or judgmental. I want our kids to know love, not hate." Spencer gives me a soft smile "I actually really love how much you've thought about this. You already love our future kids so much." I giggle and nod "more than anything, my whole life I've wanted to be a mom and have babies, but I got a career first and hoped everything else would fall into place." Spencer smiles "hopefully it has now." I smile "I think every piece is falling into place how and when it should be." Spencer then says "I do have one condition about raising our future kids in church." I nod and raise an eyebrow "okay what is that?" He says "our kids do not need to get the 'abstinence only' talk about sex education." I nod quickly "I couldn't agree with you more." Spencer looks surprised and asks "really? Miss 'I waited until I was 25 to have sex' doesn't believe in raising kids under the abstinence only form of contraception?" I start laughing and have to compose myself. Eventually I tell him "Spence, I was abstinent because I didn't want to get hurt, or pregnant for that matter. I guarded my heart more so than my body. My mom told me when I was younger that sex is a really emotional thing. When I was younger in high school and did things with my ex, if you can even call him that, and then he broke up with me one day and then had a new girlfriend the next I fully understood what she meant. I didn't even have sex with him and I was ready to commit a felony because of how much that hurt. There was a bit of purity culture in that, but I was mainly trying not to get hurt. Reading smutty books to get off didn't risk me getting hurt, but it satisfied me enough to help me wait for the right person." Spencer nods and says "that makes sense." I tell him "now I do want our kids to be fully educated on the anatomy and physiology of BOTH reproductive systems. I mean I didn't know what the clitoris was or where it was until I was 16." Spencer starts laughing again and I tell him "stop laughing! I got the emotional sex talk and not the physical one, okay?" He just continues laughing, apparently not even caring about the pain his head at this point. I tell him through my own laughter "I'm going to quit telling you embarrassing things from my childhood if you act like this when I confide in you." Spencer's laughter starts to die down and he just says "I'm sorry. I agree our kids need to know the anatomy. My son will know how to please a woman and my daughters will know what they deserve." I laugh and say "I have some notes on that but we will cross that bridge when we get there. When our kids have problems though I want them to come to us. I don't want my kids to think 'mom and dad are going to kill me' I want them to think 'I need to call my mom and dad.'" Spencer nods "I want that, too. Not having a fully dependable parental figure growing up was really hard for me. I want my kids to know they can call me for help or for any reason any time." I smile and say "I want that, too. You're going to be an amazing dad, Spence." He smiles warmly at me and says "and you're going to be an amazing mom." I giggle and say "God, our future kids are so lucky." He laughs and says "I sure hope so." I lean forward and feel the ice pack on his head and tell him "I'm going to go get you a new ice pack and then you should probably try to get some more rest. I'll get some stuff done so you can sleep in silence." Spencer just chuckles "if you want to nap, too you're more than welcome to join me." I look back at him from the doorway "I might just take you up on that," and wink before continuing on to the kitchen replace his ice pack.

Embarrassingly long AN: can we all tell I am in serious need of dopamine rn lol if you're reading this in real time I have 2 finals done, 3 to go! Also I want y'all to know I don't hate Seaver's character on the show or anything I just kinda liked this plot line when I thought of it. Also idk if Reid would be agnostic or atheistic, religion is just important in a relationship (at least to me). I don't think he's Christian, but he's into philosophy and all that so I think he could be agnostic especially after his near death experience in season 2. If anybody really cares, I am a Christian but definitely a liberal one, especially pro choice. Feel free to comment suggestions or criticisms. Honestly if there's anything you think I should include more of in any capacity let me know and I'll do my best to include it. Hope y'all are enjoying the story! 🥰