Chapter Text
There was a girl sitting in the bullpen of the office.
That was the first thing Penelope Garcia registered, as she sat in her little office late one afternoon. This wasn't an unusual occurrence, of course. There were always people, working or pleading their cases or waiting for family. In fact, the office nearly always contained someone, except in the little gap of time between Gideon leaving and Hotch turning up. Really, she had no reason to notice the girl on the spinning chair. No reason at all, except for the obvious.
JJ, who had decided to give her some company, watched her watch the girl, with an expression of mild curiosity on her face. She tapped Penelope on her shoulder. "Hey. Penny for your thoughts? Oh, hey, Penny!" She laughed at her own joke, but from the look of undiluted concentration on her co-worker's face, she hadn't really gotten through. Just as she was about to speak again, Penelope whipped around, making her jump a little.
"Do you think that girl looks like Spencer?"
"What?" JJ leaned to the side so she could see around the half-open door, and she too registered the kid in the bullpen, and her uncanny resemblance she bared towards Spencer Reid, "Oh yeah, I see what you mean. She's got the eyes. And the jawline. Oh wow, they really look alike."
"Do you think she is his?"
"What do you mean? Like she's his child or something? There's no way. We'd know if Spence had a kid, right? Right?"
"Yeah, I suppose you're right. Besides, she's gotta be, what? Eight? Spencer's only twenty seven. She's too old to be his kid."
"Yeah. Creepy though, huh? Maybe she's a cousin of sorts."
Penelope didn't respond, and when JJ glanced over, she was looking back at the kid again, with a strange look in her eyes. JJ shifted in her seat.
"You've got a look about you, Penny G. What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking," She said, as she climbed out of her chair, "That we should go and find out exactly who she is."
JJ paused for a moment, but she had been bored for hours and it was worth curing her curiosity anyway, so she followed Penelope down into the bullpen.
✦
The child in the bullpen, it turned out, was not far off from their guesses. She was sitting criss-cross-apple-sauce when she was approached, reading the back of a disinfectant canister in front of her, in the way bored people do. In fact, she was so dedicatedly immersed that she barely noticed the two women sitting in front of her until they blocked her view. She startled, staring up at her accosters. They stared back, with equal interest.
The girl had on black starry shorts, a white tank top, strange clumpy boots, and a bomber jacket that came down to her knees. In her short dark hair, she wore silver moon hairclips, and her eyes, dark and vaguely enquiring, were exactly the same as Spencer's. She looked half like she'd crawled out of a Wes Anderson and Tim Burton cross-over, and half like a strange fairy creature.
But mostly, she looked like Spencer.
They had the same slightly confused crinkle between their eyebrows, the same long, thin fingers, the same sharp, straight jaw, and ever so slightly up-turned nose. They had the same anxiously confused smile, and in that smile were the same straight white teeth, although this girl had slightly pointed canines, in a vampire-esque way.
This girl, whoever she was, was now completely, undeniably and irrevocably, Spencer's.
But Penelope and JJ asked anyway.
"Hello! You don't know us, and this is awfully against the whole 'don't talk to strangers' thing, but are you related to a certain Dr Spencer Reid in any way, shape or form?" Penelope asked, talking very quickly. The girl paused a moment, then extended a hand, like she came from Victorian times. JJ shook it.
"Yeah. I'm Evie. Hi."
"Oh! Hello!" Penelope's face split into a wide smile, "We thought you probably were a Reid, but we didn't want to over-assume. We work with Spencer. I'm Penelope, and this is Jennifer, but people usually call her-."
"JJ." The girl finished. "Spencer told me. I'm his sister." She gave a little wave, and then hurriedly tucked her hands into her lap. "I'm waiting for him, actually. He's supposed to take me to the library. But he's busy in a meeting with an angry looking man."
"That was probably Hotch." JJ smiled, keeping her voice gentle. She didn't want to scare Evie, because she seemed very anxious, but she was desperate to ask questions. Spencer had a sister? Did she live with him? How old was she? Where did she go when Spencer was on cases?
Instead, she shook her head, as if to clear it of thoughts, and the stood up slowly. "I can get Spencer for you, if you want?"
Evie nodded a little, and then looked towards her shoes. JJ could see Penelope practically melt, and she felt safe leaving them alone together, as Penelope knack of talking the people's ear off could probably combat the kid's shyness.
She waved goodbye, and then wandered down the corridor.
✦
Spencer, it turned out, was not in an important meeting. More, Gideon was simultaneously playing chess with him, while talking to Hotch. JJ felt a little indignant on the behalf ofEvie. She was waiting patiently on her brother, and he was just playing board games.
She coughed pointedly, and the men looked up. She gave an awkward smile.
"Spence, your sister's here. She wants to go to the library. Are you coming?"
Spencer took a moment to process what was going on, and then he jumped to his feet. "I forgot about that." He said sheepishly, smoothing his hair down. He picked up his bag. "Is she okay?"
"Oh yeah, definitely. I left her with Penelope, and I gotta warn you, I think has already become attached to her. Like a cute dog, or something."
"Yeah, that sounds likely."
He and JJ walked down the steps towards the bullpen, Spencer not saying a word, and JJ couldn't bear it. She grabbed his arm.
"Spencer, I have known you for three years. That's over a thousand days. And I had no idea you had a sister. Did you choose not to tell us, or is she a recent discovery?"
Spencer sighed, and fidgeted with the hem of his jumper. "Evie isn't recent. To be honest, I just never wanted her around any FBI stuff, because the more she is, the higher the chances are she could be a target for a personal attack. She's lived with me since I was twenty, for obvious reasons. Our mom can't take care of her, and our dads are different, but I don't know where he is."
"How come I've never seen her, if she's lived with you for that long?" JJ folded her arms.
"No one ever really comes to my apartment. She has a nanny for when I go away properly, and most of the time when you do drop by, she's asleep, or at school, or in her bedroom. She's a shy kid. She doesn't like many people. I just want to keep her away from it all."
JJ sighed, and bit her lip. Sure, Spencer's reasons were incredibly valid, but she felt a little hurt that he hadn't told her, even so. However, it wasn't really her business, so she unfolded her arms and waved an arm towards Evie, who was now being fed lollipops and cat pictures by Penelope.
"It's all cool Spence. Have a nice day. I hope I get to see more of Evie; she seems super sweet."
Spencer gave her a relieved smile. "Thank you, JJ."
And he wandered off towards his sister.