A/N: This chapter takes place in the future. Reid and Prentiss are married with a teenage daughter, Erica.

As soon as Emily Reid-Prentiss walked in the door, the first thing she heard was, "Moooom! He did it again!"

Emily looked at her daughter, looked at her husband and tried with everything she had not to roll her eyes. "Whatever happened to 'Hi, Mom? How ways your day?' or maybe 'Hellow dear, I'm glad you'r home?' Maybe, the two of you could realize I had to meet with Chief Hotchner and Deputy Director Strauss and defend the budget, therefore wait until I took off my coat until I need to mediate a truce between you two."

"I'm sorry, dear." Spencer said, "But really she's overreacting. I didn't do anything. Honestly." Spencer looked innocent, but Emily knew better. She had a feeling what had happened, but she wasn't going to jump to conclusions. She looked over at her daughter.

Erica Prentiss-Reid was tall and lean, like her father but had Emily's dark brunette hair. While her mother still wore she hair long, Erica's just barely touched her shoulders. A few years ago, Emily would say that life was perfect. Hotch was the Section Chief, and both Morgan and Emily were leading separate teams. Reid had the office next to Emily's, and split time between working with the team and teaching at Quantico. Emily had learned to play enough politics to ensure minimal inteference on the team's operations, but still enjoy the job she loved.

Then Erica discovered boys. Well, she always knew they existed, but she decided they weren't icky. It was at moment when Spencer decided his job as a father was to scare boys away. Since Spencer was usually the one home when the boys came over, Emily would have to listen to how her father ruined it with the boy when she came home.

FBI politics were nothing compared to maintaining peace in the Reid-Prentiss home.

"What, exactly, did your father do?"

"Chris came over, and Dad was cleaning his gun in front of him!"

Emily looked at Spencer and arched an eyebrow.

"What?" He said. "It is important to properly take care of equipment. That is something we have talked about, and that I strive to be a good example of. Someday, when you have the good fortune to be a mother, I hope you will be the example and role models your mother and I try to be."

The corners of Emily's mouth twitched, trying to form a smile. She resisted it with everything she had. "Erica, did he do his usual questioning, or was it more like small talk."

"Id doesn't matter! He was cleaning his gun in front of gun, Mom! He could have read the ingredients off a cereal box when he did that, and Chris would have felt threatened!"

"Chris is afraid of what's in cereal?" Emily asked, feigning confusion.

"Mom!"

"I'm joking, relax. Did he threaten Chris in any way?"

"He didn't have to. Oh never mind. You two don't care. No one is going to ask me to go to the dance, and you don't care!" She stalked off to her room.

Emily looked at her husband. "We talked about this, Spencer."

"I didn't use any question from any of research projects or the VICAP questionare. Honestly."

"Did you ask his birthday so you could have Garcia run background on him?"

"I don't that anymore. I have interns run checks for me, and I make them do it with only the subjects names. You have to challenge people or else they don't grow."

Emily couldn't help but laugh. She sat next to her husband on the couch and snuggled close. "You know we have to do something. You can't be the father who scares everyone away."

"I maintain if it takes is me to scare them away, then they aren't worthy of her."

"I'm sure that'll make her feel better. Seriously, dear, we need to try something else."

Later that evening at dinner, Erica was quite purposely not talking to either parent. They let it go for a while, then Emily spoke up.

"Erica, your father and I have something we need to tell you."

Erica looked down at her food, refusing to make eye contact.

"Erica, dear, I need to see your eyes when I talk to you, please look at me."

She sighed and looked at her mother. Now what?

"Erica, I know we usually insist on anyone going out with you to meet you here, but not this weekend. The dance is on Friday, right?"

"Yeah?"

"We won't be here. We're going out that night. You can have some one pick you up here or we can drop you off. But there will be no scrutiny of your companions."

Erica's eyes grew wide with excitement. "Do you mean it? Promise."

"We both promise, sweetheart," Spencer said. "However, weekend curfew rules still apply. If you are even one minute late without calling, we will turn all of Virginia upside down looking for you, understood?"

"Sure, of course. Thank you." Her smile and enthusiasm reminded Spencer of Emily when she first joined the BAU.

Emily felt like peace had been established in her household, and theat was even more satisfying than her victory in the budget war she wasged earlier tonight with Deputy Director Strauss.

Erica Reid-Prentiss was having a good time. It had taken a while to convince Chris that he could pick her up without having to deal with her father. When she got exasperated with him she finally said,"Look Chris, do you want to tae me to the dance or not? I thought you liked me."

He told her he did and apologized. "But your Dad's an FBI agent. I mean, everyone talks about the things he's done. He blew up a cult compound in Colorado for Christ's sake."

The collective exploits of her parents had grown into a legend that had very little relationship with the truth. Ericas knew some of the details, but had long ago given up hope of setting the record straight. She just said, "That's not exactly what happened, and my Dad won't hurt anyone who doesn't try to kill people. Honest, he's just a Dad."

So, Firday night, Chris picked her up and drove her to the High School for the dance. Things were great, for the first hour. Then, during a slow dance, Chirst said,"Your parents..." Thjere was a mix of shock and fear in his voice."

"What about them?"

"They're here."

"No they're not."

"Yes, they they are. They're dancing over there."

Erica looked to discover he was right, her parents were dancing along with the students. "I'm going to kill them," she growled. She marched right up to them and said,"What do you think you're doing?"

"Hey Erica," her mom said. "Are you having a good time?"

"Is this you're idea of leaving me alone?"

"Actually," her dad said,"we never said we would leave you alone. Just that we wouldn't scrutinize your companion. And you're the one who came over here, young lady."

"The school asked parents to help champerone the dance tonight," Emily said. "We got together with the other parentsm and we're working in shifts so we all get a chance to enjoy ourselves, make it a real data night. You knnow, you're father never got to enjoy dances when he was in high school."

"Do you thinki I'm enjoying this dance right now?"

"Well, you seemed to be until you left Chris standing over there," Spencer said.

"Do you two see it as your job to torment me?"

"Hey, no one is tormenting anybody," her mother said. "But, if we were, I would point out I was in labor for 12-pain filled hours with you. And that's not counting the three-months before of you punching and kicking me pretty much non-stop."

While Erica and her parents were having their confrontation, Christopher slipped outside. He wasn't the only one either, a few other boys were outside. One of them, his friend Jordan, asked him,"So how's it going with Eirca?"

"Her parents are here chaperoning."

"Hey, I told you to be careful. I mean she's pretty and everything, but there is no one worth dealing with the doctor. I mean, the way he looks at you, like he know what you're thinking." Jordan shuddered. "Like I said, no girl is worth facing that everytime you go over there."

"Which is why you're not dating her, I guess."

The boys all turned around to see Dr. Reid-Prentiss standing there, a slight smile on his face. "You know, since you all came for the dance, maybe you should be inside, enjoying the music, maybe your dates?" Pretty soon the only people out there were Spencer and Christopher. "Needed some air, huh? I can understand. I never really like dances when I was in school. Then again, I was 12 when I was in high school."

"Twelve?"

"What can I say? I was always the outsider, the one who was different from anyone else. Really, the only person who made feel like I was normal was Emily. Now, you can stand out here if you want to, or you can spend time with the girl you came with. Your choice." Spencer turned to go back inside.

"You don't like me, do you Dr. Reid?"

"I haven't made my up yet. And it's Reid-Prentiss. My wife made the choice for both of us to have each others names. It was important to us."

"What about Erica. No one want to date her, and that's all because of you. Everyone's afraid of you."

"Then I guess it would take a pretty special guy to date her, wouldn't it? Some you had the courage to deal with the scary father? You know, my wife told me a story once. About a young man who wanted to impress a girl, so he tried to catch a falling star. I told her that didn't make sense. You can't catch a falling star, it burns up in the atmosphere. The problem is I kept thinking of literally. The metaphoric interpretation, though is doing something extraordinary so the girl knows your special. Everyone is afraid of me. Are you the one who is willing to deal with me to date her? And if you like her, why are standing out here, hmmm? I'm goinjg back in. You do you want."

He went back inside.

Christopher stood there for a few minutes, thinking. He went back inside. Once back inside he found Erica. "Hey."

"I thought you left."

"I just needed some air I guess. So is everyone really scared of your dad?"

"Are you?"

"More than a little bit."

"I'm sorry. He just ..."

"Let's dance some more."

"What about my parents?"

"I don't want to dance with them, just you."

During a slow song, Emily saw her daughter dance with Christopher. "Where did you go Spencer?"

"I had something I had to do."

"Spencer Reid, if you got in htat boys head, so help me God..."

"Actually, I gave him a pep talk. I even told him about the Star Puzzle."

"Did you tell it right?"

"I told it my way, does that count?"

"Why did you tell it at all."

"Well, I saw him leave while we were having our family chat. It struck me he looked a lot like me when I was in high school."

"Like he was 12?"

"Like he felt out of his depth. I felt like that a lot in school, when I wasn't in class. So, I thought I'd give him a little encouragement and see what happens."

She kissed him lightly on the cheek. "That was nice. So, you've changed your mind about him?'

"I haven't made my mind up about him. She likes him. He walked back in, and seems to like her. I'm still going do a back ground check."

"I already did."

"And you yell at me?"

"I do it things more discreetly than you do. She looks happy."

"She should, she had you for a mother."

Emily light smacked him. "Nice try. Did you ever think this would be our life? When you first asked me out?"

"No. I didn't think about anything but would you say yes. I'm glad you did. I'm glad about everything that happened."

Emily smiled. Every so often, someone would ask what it was like to be married to Spencer. She told them it was sometimes challenging, but always rewarding and never dull.

Spencer gave out a quick laugh.

"What?"

"I just remembered the day Hotch threatened to suspend us if he caught us having sex in the jet."

"You think he knows that's how we celebrated my promotion?"

"I don't know. I'm always tempted to tell him."

"Naughty boy."

A/N: This is the end. I want to thank everyone who reviewed, subscribed to this story, and selected it as a favorite. I have no plans for a sequel at this point. Then again, I never intended this to be more than a 1-shot. Maybe if enough people express interest I will. However, the next month or so I will not be writing any fanfics. In the month of April I will be participating in ScriptFrenzy, which is a writing challenge to write a 100 page screen play in 1 month. So, I will be focused on that.

Again, thanks for all the encouragement as I played with thes characters.