Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds.

"Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumblebee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Life your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams." – Ashley Smith

o o o o

7 May 2010

"Hello?"

The house was uncharacteristically silent as Dr. Spencer Reid opened the door from the garage to the rest of his house. The house was never this quiet, not even when everyone was asleep. No dog came running from wherever he'd been sleeping or chewing on something he shouldn't be chewing on to greet him at the door, no tiny redhead hollered out a greeting before emerging to kiss him, no music poured from the speakers around the house. Everything was just eerily quiet.

"Calliope?" Spencer dropped his tan messenger bag on the kitchen counter and peered around before glancing at the calendar. Nothing was written down in today's box and the garage was full. Maybe they'd walked the few miles to downtown Fredericksburg to go to The Hobbit Hole or just visit with people. Walking out of the kitchen and down the hallway towards Calliope's painting studio, he checked rooms only to find one after the other empty.

The painting studio was empty as well and Spencer took in the partially finished painting on the easel. The bright colours of the sunset played off the blonde hair of the girl on the swing set. Spencer smiled, but turned away and closed the door behind him. He looked out the windows to the backyard to see if maybe she and their dog Perses were enjoying the first warm day of the year, but the backyard was just as still and quiet as the rest of the house.

Grabbing his keys, he slipped his jacket back on and headed back through the door into the garage. He backed his rusty Volvo out of the garage and drove down the service road to Lee Drive. Spencer parked the car in a lot on Caroline Street a few minutes later and began the easy walk up the street.

He'd never once regretted moving from his apartment in Georgetown to live with Calliope in the much smaller town of Fredericksburg, Virginia thirty miles south of Quantico. Everyone here, excluding the college students who attended the University of Mary Washington, everyone here knew each other.

"Hey, Spencer!" Brianne, an employee at The Hobbit Hole and one of Calliope's friends, waved from across the street where she was holding her boyfriend's hand.

"Hey. How are you?" Spencer waved back.

"Pretty good. We're going to go see the new Alice in Wonderland." Dean coughed meaningfully and Brianne rolled her eyes before amending her statement. "Okay, I'm dragging him to go see the new Alice in Wonderland."

"My day off and I get dragged to go see a chick movie," Dean groaned. "I guess it could be worse. She could be making me watch another episode of that Black Butler cartoon."

"Hey!" Brianne protested and crossed her arms. "It's an anime, not a cartoon, and at least I don't trail grease all over the apartment."

"I'm a mechanic, Bri! What do you expect?"

"Sounds like you're having a good day," Spencer said awkwardly.

"Callie's up the street," Dean jerked his head as he looked down at a rather annoyed Brianne. "I'm sorry!"

"Thanks," Spencer waved again and left the two as Brianne continued to stare at Dean. He waved and said greeted people as he walked up the sidewalk. He was a block away from The Hobbit Hole when he heard Calliope's laughter. Checking the road, he crossed over and spotted her in front of Lee's Homemade Ice Cream Shoppe. Perses hung on every movement Calliope made incase she dropped the pistachio ice cream cone in her hand.

"Spencer!" Calliope spotted him and a huge smile broke out over her face. Perses started barking and looked torn between running to Spencer and waiting for the ice cream to drop. Spencer was Spencer, but Calliope had ice cream. In the end, the ice cream won out and Perses stayed but Calliope as she headed to met Spencer.

"Poppy!" Emeline jumped into Spencer's arms and he picked her up, snuggling her close and kissing her. "Maman got me ice cream, Poppy!"

"I can see that, Princess. What kind did you get?" Spencer smoothed away the crinkly brown corkscrews that escaped her glittery pink hair clips.

"Chocolate chip cookie dough. Want some, Poppy?" Emeline shoved the ice cream cone against his mouth before he could respond and Calliope giggled as she and Perses stopped next to them.

"Thank you, Eme," Spencer took one of the napkins Calliope offered and wiped the ice cream off of his face. "Wait until my mouth's open next time, Princess."

"Hey handsome," Calliope pushed up on her toes to kiss him, wrinkling her nose when some of Emeline's ice cream dripped into her hair. "I getting her a cup next time."

"Good luck with that, Sweetheart," he laughed. "What did you and Maman do today, Princess?"

"Ballet class! I can twirl, Poppy. And I only falled over two times!" Emeline's brown eyes were wide and her toothy smile made her dad grin. Perses whined pathetically and kept looking between Emeline's ice cream and Calliope's. "Perses wants ice cream, Poppy."

"I bet," Spencer laughed, leaning down to scratch the dog behind his ear.

"Emeline?" A teenager in a blue apron came out of the ice cream shop holding a stuffed bear. "Emeline Reid?"

"Beary!" Emeline wiggled until Spencer put her down and the three year old toddled back towards the boy holding her bear. Calliope leaned against him and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, resting his cheek against her curly red hair.

"I love you," she whispered as Emeline came running back with the bear in tow. "Thanks, Brian!"

"No prob, Mrs. Reid," the teen waved before turning back into the ice cream parlor.

"Reid," Emeline called out as she came back to her parents. Spencer's brow furrowed in confusion and he stared at her.

"Reid? Reid? Earth to Reid?" Derek Morgan shook Spencer's shoulder and jerked the young genius back to reality. "Where were you, kid?"

"I… I'm sorry," Spencer blinked a few times and looked up at his partner who had concern written all over his face. Derek pulled over Emily Prentiss' empty computer chair and sat next to him.

"You okay?" Derek leaned forward and waited.

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"Then why the hell are you sitting in the BAU at seven o'clock on a Friday night when we don't have a case?"

"Why are you?"

"I'm behind on some paperwork, but I don't have a girlfriend at home waiting for me. You do. Cal's gonna be worried if you don't show up soon. Or at least call. She's been calling you, ya know. She just called me and asked if we'd gotten a case. That's how I knew you were still here."

"I didn't mean to make her worry."

"I know," Derek took the picture Spencer was holding and smiled down at the three people in the picture. Spencer and Calliope sat on either side of a smiley little girl with her arms around the neck of a gangly puppy. "She sure is beautiful. Both of them."

"They are," Spencer agreed.

"I'm sorry bringing her home didn't work out."

"Calliope wants to go back to Haiti and bring her home anyways, but I keep reminding her that's considered kidnapping not adoption," Spencer smiled a little and looked at the picture Derek held. The little girl looked more like she could be Derek's daughter than Spencer's.

"Cal's not much for patience, is she?" Derek laughed.

"She has stronger virtues."

"It must be hard not having Emeline home with you."

"I feel guilty for wanting her with us because, for that to happen, it would mean her grandmother would have to have died. That's got to make me a terrible person, huh?"

"Naw, Reid. A terrible person wouldn't want that little girl at all, much less feel guilty for wanting her even if it meant her grandma had to die. She's lucky to have two people who love her as much as you and Cal do." Derek handed the picture back to Spencer.

Spencer stared down at the picture before putting it back on his desk. He glanced at his watch and grimaced. "I'm going to be in so much trouble when I get home."

"Did you get to talk to Eme today?"

"Yes. She keeps asking why we can't come back and stay with her, but she seemed to be having a good day. Maria sent Calliope and I a few videos today. I got them when I was about to head home."

"Can I see?"

"Uh, sure," Spencer clicked on a folder on the laptop still open on his desk. Within seconds a video file popped up and Emeline's face filled the screen.

"Maman! Poppy! Look! Watch me ride my tricycle!" Emeline started pedaling down the sidewalk, a little wobbly, but she stayed on. "Poppy! Do you see me? Maman!"

Emeline hit a bump in the sidewalk and tumbled off the tricycle onto the cement. Her lips quivered a little and she held her scrapped up knee. The camera jumbled as the woman holding the camera hurried towards her, but Emeline pushed herself up and launched back herself back to the tricycle.

"I okay, Poppy! I don't need a kiss."

"It must be hell not being there to pick her up and brush her off," Derek watched Emeline get back on the purple tricycle and ride off again. Spencer didn't say anything, but thinned his lips and kept watching his daughter on the computer screen. He loved his life, had never dreamed he'd be so unbelievably lucky, but he hated living fifteen hundred miles away from the little girl who held his heart in her hands.

"You know… I'm here if you ever need to talk," Derek said when the video ended.

"No offense, Morgan, but you aren't exactly well versed in commitment or being a dad," Spencer closed his computer and started to tuck it into his messenger bag without properly turning it off.

"No, I'm… I'm not a dad," Derek said quietly a few moments later, but Spencer heard him all the way from across the bullpen by the doors Spencer was about to push open. "And, no, I don't have a girlfriend. But I know a helluva lot about losing people you love. You know, you're living a dream for someone in our job. Just because you've found it doesn't mean we're all that lucky."

"Morgan… I didn't…"

"It's cool, Kid. Forget it. Go home. Kiss your girlfriend," Derek started walking out of the bullpen towards his office down the hall.

"Morgan, wait. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."

"I know," he stopped for a second and gave Spencer a sad smile. "We're cool, Reid. Don't worry about it. Go home. Cal's waiting for you."

Spencer looked skeptical for a moment before pushing the glass doors open and heading for the stairs. Derek nodded and continued walking towards his office. He closed the door behind him and leaned against his, tilting his head back to look at the cheap tile ceiling. The kid would never realize quite how lucky he was. Not fully.

Derek walked over to his desk and bent over, opening the drawer to the left of his chair. He moved a few overstuffed files out of the way before he found the picture frame hidden beneath them. He pulled the picture out and closed the drawer again.

"I miss you guys," he whispered, looking longingly at the photograph of himself when he was almost a decade younger. His arms were around the shoulders of a smiling blonde young woman and a handsome teenage boy with mud in his brown hair. All three of them were covered in mud, actually, not just the boy; his olive skin just happened to be coated most liberally and his goalie glove clad hands held an equally muddy soccer ball while they smiled at the camera. It had been taken on his twenty-fourth birthday a lifetime ago, but it was a lifetime he'd give anything to go back to. Putting the picture down, he pulled his Blackberry off of what his friends joking called 'The Bat Belt,' hit the third speed dial and waited for the other person to pick up.

"Hey James. Yeah, it's me. I know. Sorry I didn't pick up when you called, but we were on a case. Of course I'm coming. I've already got my plane ticket and everything. No, not even a case will keep me away. It's not every day my favourite kid represents the U.S. in the World Cup. Besides I wouldn't miss that good luck party for anything. The food alone is worth a weekend trip to Chicago!" Derek smiled in a way he rarely smiled for anyone on the team as he listened to the other person talk and he looked at the picture again.

"Ha. Oh please. Like I care if you're benching it the entire time you're in South Africa. I will still tape every single game. The bench could be fifty goalies deep before it got to you and I would still tape every game. Please. Four years from this summer, you'll be the starting keeper, James Murdoch. Give it up, kid. This is one argument you will not win. Sometimes I think I have more faith in your talent than you do. Yeah. I miss you too, James. How is everybody?"

A/N:

Howdy, yall! Oh man! It's the first cool day today! 62 degrees! In TEXAS! WHOOP! It feels so nice outside. I love it. MMkay. This is a one-shot that's based in what I call my Mystery Muse universe. All my Criminal Minds stories are based within this little universe. Mystery Muse is my Spencer story, so to read more of him (and the rest of the team of course) go there. Also within my little Mystery Muse universe is Cracked Concrete, my Derek story and that's set back when he's still a cop in Chicago, so that's where you can find out what and who made Derek into the man we all love to drool over while he kicks down doors every Wednesday night. Mystery Muse is the fan favourite because it's the adorable romance that everyone loves to read about, but my personal favourite is Cracked Concrete which is definitely a drama. I love them both, of course, but ya know. We all have our favourites. Haha OKAY I've have way too much caffeine today. Actually, I haven't had enough because I've only had one can and it's 1pm. Yeah. I need more soda.

BYYYYYYY THE WAY! This little one-shot is a BIRTHDAY PRESENT! To my beautiful friend, Brandi, who's birthday was yesterday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRANDI!

Okay. I have class in 10, so I better head out. I hope you liked the story and feel the urge to go check out the world this little fic comes from! Thanks for reading and, please, tell me what you think! Good or bad!

Love, Thalia