April 1, 2013

Quantico, Virginia

"Come in." Leah Prentiss-Reid called out in answer to the knock on the door of her office.

Sailor poked her head in and the rest of her soon followed. The teenager shut the door behind her.

"Can I ask you a kinds personal question?"Sailor asked in Russian, her first language.

The question caught Leah off guard, but Sailor was usually very specific in who she came to, except for with Declan. He heard about almost everything that went on in the girl's head. Sailor had a reason to come to Leah specifically.

"I guess so."

"Ha-Have you ever, um, yelled? At Emily? Argued or snapped or something?"

Leah paused before clarifying, "Argued with Mom?"

Sailor nodded, looking undeniably guilty.

"Honey, come here." Leah motioned for her to approach the desk, instead of lingering at the door. She did and Leah asked carefully, "What's really going on inside that pretty head of yours?"

"I – I – I might have blown up at Dad."

"Why?" Leah wasn't going to judge the girl. She obviously trusted Leah to give her the direction she needed.

"I was – I don't know. Why them, I guess."

"Why who?" Leah came around her desk and sat on the top, knowing most people had all ready left for the day.

"Fay, I guess. And Rich isn't even his, but it's like he is. And for you it's Ray. What did they do to get parents where we didn't? It's not fair."

Leah took a deep breath and let it out, nodding slowly. "Okay. Okay. I can understand that. I considered that a lot myself. When I saw Mom with Jack. Her stepson, well, sort of. Not quite yet. It's like your dad and Rich. He is his stepson. Anyway, I thought about it for a while, and here's the conclusion I came up with." She took a deep breath and kept on, slowly, considering every phrase, hoping she could make Sailor understand. "If my mother had kept me when I was born, I would've grown up in the political circles, right?" She waited for Sailor to nod before continuing. "I would most likely have become a society darling or something. Point being, I would've known how to make friends. Sooo… when I went to Yale, that ability would have been with me. Which, by the way I see it, means that the faculty would never have called Spencer. Which means I never would have met him."

"Until your mom started working at the BAU." Sailor pointed out.

"Ah, but consider. If she had had to take care of a child from such a young age, she probably would have taken the first job that came to her. One of those could have been politics, in which she would have been perpetually miserable. Another is the usual, fast food and such. An entirely different choice is marriage. No way would she have went through FBI training in any of those scenarios, which means no BAU. Which also means no Spencer."

"That may be true for you, but how does that apply to me?" Sailor asked.

"Well, let's think here for a second. How did you meet Declan?"

Fifteen minutes later, they had it all worked out and Sailor was looking much happier. "So…" she said slowly. "If I hadn't gone to the boarding school…I wouldn't have gotten close to Declan."

Leah smiled the sort of smile of a big sister trying to get the scoop out of her little sister as they gathered up their things. "And if you hadn't met Declan, plans would never have been made for anything."

"Plans never have been made for anything." Sailor objected.

"Oh, don't even try to give me that. I was fourteen once to, kid."

"I thought you were a loner during high school." Sailor said, opening the door to Leah's office.

Leah held it open for her and as she passed, Leah pointed out. "At fourteen, I was sophomore in Yale."

Sailor burst out laughing. "Of course you were."

"I was."

"Yeah, but I bet you were one of the good girls who studied all the time."

"Nope. I read through the textbooks, at 20, 000 words per minute, and my eidetic memory did the rest. I barely took any time for studying."

"Ugh, you are so lucky!"

Leah knocked her companion's shoulder with her elbow to get her attention as they walked through the darkened FBI building. "We both are. It all comes out in the end, fair and square."

I hope this story and concept makes sense. Please review! Thank you, guys! Now that this story is complete, I'm going to be concentrating on my H2O: Just Add Water story, "Second Generation Tails".:)