((Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds or its characters)

Uh oh... new story.

Just a few things to get clear, the story is a Rossi/Hotch, I don't think it dominates but it's present. (I just love Dave and Aaron being father figures to Spencer.) It's AU of course since Spencer will be four.

I've also been working on this for a while and have nearly 10 chapters written, waiting for proofing! Wooo!

I will be updating my other stories but they were boring me a little so I've been doing this instead. As for 'Collide,' If any of you follow that one, it is undergoing a bit of a renovation. You'll see soon enough.

I think that's it. Thanks for checking this out and enjoy.

Rossi smiled smugly at the round of applause he received in response to his concluding speech. He'd worked on that final line for an hour at least, drafting and redrafting and twisting the rest of the seminar to lead nicely into his finale. There was an art to these sort of things and David Rossi was proud to say he was pretty good at it.

Rossi basked for another lingering moment in the impressed smiles and the claps descending in volume. He nodded his head to the students and went behind the desk set up for him on the stage. No longer of the same organised importance as they had been, Dave forwent the dividing folders and shuffled the photos, paper, and pocket-sized prompts into a pile and slipped them into his briefcase. One of the technicians disconnected his laptop from the projector and put it in the carry case for Rossi.

Dave looked up and watched the students ebb away, half heartedly counting and wondering if it was the biggest seminar he'd been a guest to.

A few of the older students and lecturers who had sat in on the seminar came up to him to impress upon him their own knowledge or just to thank him. Dave would rather they all just left rather than gloat to him or attempt to correct him.

"Mr. Rossi, sir?"

Dave shook the hand of a larger man who had consumed a minute of his time rigoursly divulging his knowledge of Charles Mason.

"Thanks," Dave said as the man walked away with a smug smile on his face, despite the fact that half of what he said was on the first page of Dave's book.

Dave shook another hand and started back to the desk to get his things when the same squeaky voice called his name. He glanced back and smiled at two students putting their copies of his book away. He looked around again but saw no sign of the voice only the heads of departing men and women, none of whom were looking at him. He frowned and was about to take his things and go when he felt something tug on his pant leg.

"Mr. Rossi! Ahem... sir?"

Dave frowned and looked down at where the voice had come from. His frown deepened to one he thought his partner would be proud of when he saw a little boy, perhaps four, stood before him. The boy was holding his pant leg in his two hands and he let go quickly when Dave looked at him, his arms going behind his back and a sheepish smile falling across his face.

The kid had a pale stripy green top on which was haphazardly tucked into a pair of brown, knee-high shorts. He could also see the kid's socks which oddly didn't match. They poked out over his lace-up shoes which were scuffed and coming slightly away from the soles.

"Hey, kid," Dave said, glancing up to see the hall was nearly empty. There seemed to be no-one waiting for the child.

"Where's your parents?" Dave asked. The boy's smile slipped and he looked down dolefully. Dave noticed then how astray the boy's hair was. There were curls and waves tucked into the fringe which seemed longer than the rest of the hair, the back was shorter but Dave could tell the wayward strands were just as messy when grown. He shook his head, focusing back on the boy's lack of supervision which should have been at the forefront of his mind.

"I came alone, sir."

"Alone?" Dave echoed. To a presentation on profiling the typical narcissistic serial killer? A kid? Dave shook his head as the boy nodded, his autumnal brown eyes peeking up at him.

"Yes sir, I wanted to ask you a question," the boy said. He reached behind him and yanked a scabby old notebook from his back pocket. Dave wondered how the shorts held the book since they too seemed to be coming apart at the seams, a wavy strand of thread hanging down past the kid's knees.

Dave watched the boy thumb through the pages for a moment. He glanced around at the then empty hall and then back at the disheveled little boy. He could spare a few minutes.

"Uh..." Dave scratched the back of his head. He knelt down slowly and looked at the curious boy. "What's your name, kiddo?"

"Oh... I'm... Spencer." The boy nodded slowly as if cautious about sharing the information.

"Spencer?"

"Reid... I'm... it's Spencer Reid, sir."

"Well, it's good to meet you Spencer Reid."

Specer was smiling from ear-to-ear as he hurried around the back of his house. He tucked his notebook back into his pocket, careful of the pesky hole on the left side that had lost him a fossil hed found in the yard. He hopped up onto the plant pot he'd strategically placed outside the bathroom window, wobbling for a moment on the uneven surface. He glanced around to make sure no neighbours saw before squirrelling through the open window, wiggling his backside to get his hips through. Once in, the boy tumbled onto the closed toilet seat and after straightening himself he sat there for a moment, panting and willing the pain of the window-squeeze away.

When the throb in his ribs subsided, Spencer squirmed off the seat, his feet a good way off the ground. His father didn't have a stool for him to use to get up. It didn't really matter because his father hadn't taught him to use it. He did have the decency to buy him pull-ups but Spencer was the one who had to change out of them.

Spencer stopped at the door and glanced sadly back at the toilet, a sigh escaping him. Ashley had gotten him to go for real on the big toilet once. It took an hour since Spencer didn't know how to control it but Ashley had sat with him patiently and cleaned him up, buttoning his pants back up over the pull-up and high-fiving him.

He took his notebook out again and gave it a squeeze. Ashley had promised she'd teach him properly the next time she visited.

Spencer walked into the kitchen and paused. He looked down the hall and then through another door into the front room. No-one was home.

"Daddy?" he called a little apprehensively, praying his father wasn't back.

He didn't get and answer so he hurried down the hall toward the stairs where he'd hide his notebook inside his teddy bear. His daddy had torn Gary nearly in two after he got angry. Spencer had found some safety pins to keep the bear together, through much of his stuffing had been lost. Spencer kept his notebook inside Gary. Just in case.

As he tore down the hall, his eyes flicked past the door to the basement. He shut his eyes running straight past. He always closed his eyes when passing that door.

He didn't want to see it. He didn't want to go down there.

Dave climbed into bed next to his husband, pulling his book with him as he raised the covers up. He opened the book and looked down briefly at the words before sighing. He forgot about the book, letting it fall in his lap as he looked at the opposite wall, deep in thought.

"What?"

Dave glanced to his right. Aaron had shut his case-files and was looking sternly at the older man.

"Hmm?"

"You've barely talked about your seminar. But I already know you did great so there's something else wrong," Aaron said. He folded his arms and his brows drew closer sternly.

Dave let out another sigh. "There was a kid there today," he said in a small voice.

Aaron frowned. "A kid? What, a student?"

Dave shook his head and looked over at his husband. "A kid, younger than Jack. He had to be four at least."

"What's a kid doing in a lecture like that?" Aaron asked, his gaze becoming less threatening.

Dave shrugged and dropped his book on the bedside table. "He had some interesting questions though. The first thing he asked was about the Scarsdale Skinner. He said, and I quote, 'psycholinguistics is an incredibly dynamic field and the fact your profile of his reading habits ultimately led to his capture...' I think he mentioned that he thought I was amazing but that's beside the point."

Dave stared at Aaron expectantly as his husband made an impressed face before grinning. "I'm impressed you managed to remember that," he said with a chuckle and Dave gave him a playful nudge.

"I must remind you the kid was four."

"Quite some kid then," Aaron said and Dave nodded.

"Quite some kid..."

Ah, I bet you're wondering where this one is going. Unfortunately, from here it gets less rainbows and kittens and more... well... let's pretend the story is a car on its way home and suddenly it rolls off a cliff... prepare for that my friends.

Anyway, please review, I'd love to know what you think now, good or bad and I'll see you next time.