“What are you doing under there? Are you hiding from Mommy?” Spencer knelt down a few feet from the end table, chuckling. Once tucked underneath, she giggled up at her mother. At a year and a half, Michaela no longer breastfed (the weaning process had saddened Reid as he’d realized he’d be losing a special time he shared with his baby) so the rocker was mostly used in her bedtime routine now. Michaela shrieked again and giggled before wiggling underneath the end table beside the rocker. “Michaela,” Spencer sing-songed, reaching his hands out to his daughter though he didn’t extend them far enough to actually catch her.
The shriek of a toddler’s laughter pierced the air followed by rapid footfalls of tiny feet on hardwood and softer, slower steps of a larger set of feet. (See the end of the work for more notes.)
Hopefully this story came out alright with this approach… It would be so much like watching the episode so I cut it out. To me, Derek is too calm as he works it out with Prentiss to be worrying about Michaela the way Spencer is in the scene with JJ before that. For example, the scene with Morgan and Prentiss in the park just after the one with Reid and Dr. And any scenes they were in that are left out are because they wouldn’t contribute to this story in regards to this case in relation to having a daughter.
Also, I purposely left out scenes that didn’t contain Reid or Morgan because the MG series is in their POVs. I relied heavily on episode dialogue and obviously claim none of it as my own. When Morgan runs after Reid and Reid locks him out and says “I’m sorry,” a light bulb just hit me and I was like “-Gasp!- This happens after where I set Michaela’s birth in the series and- Oooooh!” and so I went and wrote this.
I got this idea rewatching “Amplification.” Specifically, the part where Reid and Morgan are supposed to be looking at Nichols’s house and Morgan stops to answer his cell and Reid keeps going.