happy father's day to palestinian fathers. happy father's to palestinian grandfathers. happy father's day to palestinian fathers who have lost children. happy father's day to palestinians who have lost their fathers. happy father's day to palestinian fathers older than israel itself. happy fathers day to palestinian fathers forgotten by the media. happy fathers day to fathers living in the gaza strip and west bank, and to fathers that have escaped palestine.
happy father's day to all palestinian fathers. you are not weak or any less of a man for struggling or showing emotion. you are some of the bravest men out there. 🇵🇸✊❤
this one just felt like it needed a lil mood board lol
the donor dilemma | main masterlist
pairing: spencer reid x reader
word count: 3.5k
summary: you try your best to make spencer's first father's day special, but he has other plans in mind
includes: fluff, fatherhood, new parenthood, infant care, mother-baby bonding, emotional overwhelm, happy crying, gift-giving, established relationship, domestic fluff, soft romance, Spencer Reid being extremely sentimental, surprise celebration, anxiety around perfection/meaningful gifts, father's day
based on a suggestion/request from @hiddentattooodyssey (wishing you love and happiness and hope you and yours are having a good day💕)
It’s Spencer’s first Father’s Day.
Which means you wake up already feeling vaguely behind.
Not because Spencer would ever expect anything. Quite the opposite, honestly. If you asked him what he wanted for Father’s Day, he’d probably blink at you in confusion and say something about statistical correlations between commercial holidays and consumer spending before kissing your forehead and insisting he didn't need anything.
Which is exactly why he deserves everything.
For Mother's Day, he'd gone completely overboard.
You'd woken up to breakfast in bed. Actual breakfast. Not toast and coffee hastily assembled from whatever happened to be in the kitchen. Spencer had somehow coordinated eggs, fruit, pancakes, coffee, and flowers without waking you. Flowers. You still weren't entirely sure how he'd managed that one.
And then there had been the locket.
Your fingers find it automatically now as you walk. The small gold heart hangs against your chest beneath your shirt, warm from your skin. Inside is the tiniest photograph of Rory, taken when she was only a few days old. Her eyes are closed in the picture. Her mouth is open in a little yawn.
You remember opening it. Remember Spencer sitting on the edge of the bed beside you, looking more nervous than he had when he'd proposed he be your donor. You remember crying. A lot.
You touch the locket now and smile. "He set the bar ridiculously high, kid."
From her stroller, Aurora offers an enthusiastic squeal around the teething ring she's currently trying to destroy.
You take that as agreement.
The morning had started with a simple plan: let Spencer sleep.
That was it. No alarms. No crying baby at six in the morning. No bottles. No diaper changes. Just one uninterrupted morning.
So you'd kissed his cheek before leaving and whispered, "Happy Father's Day."
Spencer had barely opened one eye. "Mmh."
"Sleep."
"Mmh."
Then he'd immediately rolled over and gone right back to sleep.
You and Rory had escaped before he could become conscious enough to protest.
Now it's early afternoon. You've already wandered through a farmer's market, spent nearly an hour at the park watching Rory become deeply fascinated by a duck, and completed three separate errands that somehow took twice as long because every elderly woman within a five-mile radius wanted to stop and admire the baby.
The gift is the problem.
Because nothing feels right.
A mug feels inadequate. A tie is absurd. Books are dangerous because Spencer already owns most of the ones he'd actually want.
You stop in front of a small antique shop mostly because Rory starts getting fussy and you need a few minutes somewhere quiet. The bell above the door chimes softly when you enter. The place smells faintly like old paper and polished wood.
You leave the stroller tucked out of the way near the door, opting to hold Rory to calm her while wandering aimlessly between shelves.
"Your dad deserves something perfect," you tell her.
Rory responds by attempting to eat your shoulder.
"Exactly."
Your fingers brush the locket again.
Spencer deserves so much.
More than just a card. More than a novelty gift. More than some last-minute Father's Day panic purchase.
He deserves every soft thing life forgot to give him earlier.
He deserves quiet mornings and happiness and people who stay. He deserves little girls who smile whenever they hear his voice. He deserves every Father's Day for the rest of his life.
Your throat tightens unexpectedly.
Because six months ago he became a father.
And somehow it still feels new.
Still feels miraculous.
You spend another fifteen minutes wandering through the shop. Maybe twenty. Long enough that Rory manages to chew on her teething ring, one sleeve of your shirt, and her own fist.
The place is charming. Dusty sunlight spills through old windows, catching on glass display cases and brass fixtures. Shelves are crowded with things that feel like they belong to other people's lives. Antique clocks. Framed photographs of strangers. Vintage cameras. Old maps.
You look at everything. Nothing feels right.
A fountain pen catches your eye for a moment, but Spencer already owns several. A chess set makes you pause, but it feels too decorative. An old typewriter is beautiful, but entirely impractical.
You keep searching anyway.
Because this is Spencer.
This is his first Father's Day. His first Father's Day after six months of midnight feedings and diaper changes and falling asleep in rocking chairs with Rory tucked against his chest. His first Father's Day after spending years believing he'd never have this.
The gift should matter.
The problem is that every object you pick up feels strangely small compared to what you're trying to say.
Thank you.
I love you.
You're a wonderful father.
I'm so glad it's you.
How exactly are you supposed to fit all of that into a gift?
Eventually you circle back toward the front of the store empty-handed. You sigh, a little disappointed, a little defeated.
"Sorry, Rory," you tell her. "Your dad continues to be impossible to shop for."
You bend down beside the stroller and settle her carefully back into it. She grabs one of the straps and begins examining it with the seriousness of a scientist making a groundbreaking discovery.
You smile despite yourself.
Maybe you'll find something on the way home. Maybe a bookstore. Or a gift shop. Or maybe you'll end up making him a card with Rory's handprints and telling him the real gift is surviving six months of parenthood.
Honestly, he'd probably love that.
You reach for the stroller handle. Then stop. Something catches your eye.
It's tucked low on a shelf near the door, almost hidden behind a stack of old magazines and a wooden box. A book.
Thick. Worn around the edges. The faded navy cover is scuffed with age.
You step closer, curiosity tugging at you, and immediately feel your heart squeeze.
It's a children's astronomy book. Vintage. Probably decades old. The title is stamped across the front in faded silver lettering. The Illustrated Book of the Stars.
You pull it carefully from the shelf. The spine creaks softly. Inside, the pages are thick and yellowed with age. Hand-painted constellations stretch across entire spreads. Planets float in watercolor blues and golds. Diagrams of the moon sit beside simple explanations clearly written for children.
Your eyes drift across one page.
The night sky is a storybook. Every star has a tale to tell.
A laugh escapes you before you can stop it. Because of course. Of course the perfect gift for Spencer Reid would be hidden in a dusty antique store beside a box of old magazines.
You can already picture it. Spencer sitting on the couch with Rory curled against him, reading this to her. Stopping every few sentences to add twelve additional facts she definitely doesn't need. Turning a five-minute bedtime story into a forty-minute lecture about stellar evolution.
Your smile grows.
A small inscription is written inside the front cover in careful handwriting.
To Freddy. Keep looking up.
The date beneath it is nearly seventy years old. Something about that gets you.
The simplicity of it. The sweetness. Keep looking up.
You think about Spencer sitting in Aurora's nursery at two in the morning explaining gravitational time dilation to a baby. You think about the way he talks about stars. The way he talks to her. Like the universe is something beautiful and she deserves to know every piece of it.
Suddenly you don't just see a gift. You see a future.
Rory curled against Spencer while he reads. Questions about planets. Constellations pointed out from apartment balconies. Tiny hands reaching for pages while Spencer patiently explains why Pluto's classification remains controversial.
You stare at the book for another moment before smiling softly.
"There you are."
Rory looks up from her ongoing battle against the stroller strap.
You hold up the book. "I think we found it."
She tries to grab it with pudgy little drool-covered fingers.
You take that as agreement.
You buy the book without letting yourself think too hard about it, like if you examine the moment too closely it might dissolve.
The shopkeeper wraps it in simple brown paper and twists twine around it with slow, practiced hands, the kind of wrapping that feels like it’s meant for something important even if it isn’t labeled that way. You thank them softly and tuck the parcel carefully into the bottom of the stroller.
The bell above the door gives a gentle chime when you leave, and outside the air feels warmer now, heavier with late afternoon light that turns the sidewalks gold at the edges.
Rory falls asleep halfway home, her weight going soft and trusting in the stroller straps, one tiny fist still curled like she’s holding onto the day even in dreams, and you find yourself walking slower without meaning to, like you’re trying not to wake the peace you’ve accidentally built around you.
By the time you reach the house, your legs feel pleasantly tired and your thoughts are quieter than they were when you left. You’re halfway down the hall when you notice it, Spencer leaning casually in the doorway like he’s been waiting there for a while but trying very hard to pretend he hasn’t.
It doesn’t work. He looks suspicious in a way that is absolutely not subtle, and when your eyes narrow at him he just smiles faintly and gives a small, innocent shrug like he hasn’t just rewritten the laws of normal human behavior.
“Happy Father’s Day,” you say slowly as you pass him, still suspicious, still trying to read his expression like it’s a case file, and he hums something noncommittal in response, stepping aside to let you through without explanation, which somehow makes it worse.
You walk into the living room first. And you stop.
Because the living room isn't the way you left it this morning. It’s been gently transformed, like someone has taken the idea of a celebration and set it down carefully in the middle of your home without disturbing anything that matters.
There are soft banners strung along the wall in warm colors, not loud or glittering, just simple and sweet, and a cluster of balloons tied loosely near the couch that sway slightly whenever the air shifts. On the coffee table there’s a small cake, clearly homemade, uneven in the way that tells you it wasn’t about perfection but about effort and love. Next to it are framed photos of Aurora, one from the day she was born and others marking each passing month like someone has been quietly collecting time itself and laying it out where it can be seen. There’s a warmth in it that hits you slower than shock, the kind that sneaks up through your ribs and settles there like it has nowhere else to go.
Spencer is in the middle of it all.
He stands a little off to the side like he’s not sure whether he’s allowed to take up space in his own surprise, hands briefly brushing the back of his neck before falling again.
“Spence…” you start to tear up before you can stop it. “You did all this while we were gone?”
Spencer finally looks a little sheepish, like the weight of effort is only now catching up to him. “I thought… you should both come home to something,” he says, then pauses, as if searching for the right word that won’t sound like too much. “A celebration. For us.”
That does it. Something in your expression breaks open completely, soft and helpless in the best way, and you glance down at the stroller because looking directly at him suddenly feels like it might undo you.
“Today is supposed to be about you,” you say, wiping the escaped tears from your cheeks. “We're supposed to set up a celebration for you. We're supposed to get a gift for you.”
Spencer just smiles softly. It's soft and warm and full of so much love you nearly start crying harder. “You two are the perfect gift.”
He says it like something he already decided a long time ago and just never saw a reason to take back.
You pull him into a hug then, practically tackling him as you wrap your arms around him tightly. Spencer’s arms close around you immediately, like there isn’t even a decision to make about it, like you stepping into him is simply gravity finally behaving correctly.
Rory shifts between you both in her stroller, still asleep, blissfully unaware that her existence has just been declared the universe’s favorite argument. Spencer exhales into your hair, a soft, relieved sound, and one hand settles at the back of your head while the other keeps careful balance near the stroller like he’s holding the whole scene together in layers.
You stay there for a moment longer than necessary, just breathing him in, letting the reality of the room settle around you like warm light finally finding a place to rest.
“I love you,” you say quietly into his shoulder, voice thick in a way you don’t bother hiding anymore. It feels too true to smooth over.
Spencer’s hold tightens slightly at that, not possessive, just certain. “I love you too,” he answers simply, like it’s the most obvious fact in the room, like the cake and balloons are just commentary on something already fundamental.
When you finally pull back, it’s reluctant, like separating two magnets that would really prefer not to learn about distance. You swipe at your cheeks again, a little embarrassed by how easily everything is spilling out of you today, and Spencer watches you with that soft, attentive focus of his, like he’s cataloging every emotion so he can remember how to hold it properly later.
You clear your throat, trying to steady yourself, then lift your chin a little as if you’re about to present evidence in court instead of love in its most unguarded form.
“We got you something too,” you say, a little breathless, a little shy now that the words are out in the open. “Me and Rory.”
Spencer blinks. “You didn’t have to—”
“I know,” you cut in gently, because of course he’d say that, because of course he’d mean it.
You don’t let him finish the protest. Instead you bend down, carefully reach into the stroller, and retrieve the wrapped package. The brown paper is slightly crinkled from the ride home, twine still tied neatly around it like it’s trying its best to behave. You place it in his hands with a small, firm nod that says don’t argue with me about this.
Spencer looks down at it like it might be fragile in a way that has nothing to do with paper or glue. His fingers hover for a second before settling properly around it, slow and reverent, as if he’s afraid moving too fast might change its meaning. Then he looks up at you again, question already forming in his eyes, but you just shake your head once, a faint smile tugging at your mouth.
“Open it,” you whisper.
Spencer doesn’t rush it. Of course he doesn’t. He sits down on the edge of the couch like the moment deserves somewhere steady to land, like even joy might need a surface with good support. His fingers work slowly at the twine, loosening it with careful patience until it slips free and coils softly into his palm. The brown paper comes away in gentle folds, not torn, not hurried, just eased open like he’s unwrapping something that might explode if it's not handled carefully.
When the book is finally revealed, he still doesn’t speak.
His hand pauses midair for a second, hovering over the cover as if he’s checking whether it’s real. Then his fingertips land lightly on the worn navy surface, tracing the faded silver lettering with a kind of disbelief that looks almost like reverence. The Illustrated Book of the Stars. His thumb drifts over the scuffed edge, over the soft wear of age, like he can read the history of it through touch alone.
For a moment, he just stares at the book, like it has quietly rearranged something inside him and he’s trying to understand how.
You watch his expression shift in small, almost imperceptible ways, the scientist in him recognizing the artifact, the child in him recognizing wonder, the man in him trying very hard not to fall apart in the middle of a living room full of balloons and cake and sleeping baby. His breath comes a little slower, a little more uneven, like he’s forgotten for a second that he’s supposed to be anything other than overwhelmed.
“It’s…” he starts, then stops, like language has temporarily lost access to him.
He opens it carefully, spine creaking softly as the pages part. The yellowed paper catches the light, constellations spilling across the spread like someone once tried to teach the night sky how to sit still. His eyes move across it, slower now, almost disbelieving, and when he exhales it’s soft enough that it barely makes a sound.
“This is…” he tries again, and still nothing follows, because whatever he’s reaching for is too large to fit into a sentence.
His fingers trail down the page, stopping at a painted cluster of stars, and his voice drops into something quieter, almost fragile in its awe.
“It’s beautiful.” A pause. Another breath, like he’s steadying himself against it. “I’ve never heard of this one,” he admits, and there’s a faint laugh in it, but it breaks halfway through into something gentler. His eyes flick up briefly toward you, glistening in a way he doesn’t seem to notice. “Where did you even find it?”
The question hangs there softly, like he’s not actually expecting an answer so much as trying to understand how something like this was allowed to find him.
You give a small, helpless smile, still a little misty around the edges yourself, and tilt your head toward Rory like she deserves half the credit for cosmic discovery. “Antique shop,” you say simply. “She insisted on it. Very persuasive baby.”
That gets a quiet huff of laughter out of him, fragile but real, like it slips through the tightness in his chest before he can stop it. He looks back down at the book again, thumb brushing slowly over the page like he’s afraid it might disappear if he lets go of it too fully. “This is one of the nicest things anyone has ever given me.”
It’s so understated that it almost breaks you.
Because he doesn’t say it like a grand declaration. He says it like a fact he’s still trying to process, like it belongs in the same category as gravity or sunrise, something quietly certain and slightly overwhelming.
Rory stirs faintly in her stroller, making a tiny sleepy noise, and Spencer’s attention flicks to her immediately, instinctively, like even awe doesn’t outrank her presence in his world. His hand leaves the book just long enough to adjust the blanket around her, smoothing it with that same careful precision he brings to everything involving her.
Then he looks up at you properly again, and there’s something so open in his face it makes your chest ache all over again. Not just gratitude, not just love, but recognition. Like he sees the life you built together sitting right there in the room with balloons and cake and a sleeping baby and a book about stars older than memory.
Spencer closes the book carefully, but doesn’t let go of it. Instead he presses it lightly against his chest for a second, like he needs to feel its weight there in order to believe it.
Then he stands and crosses the space between you.
When he reaches you, he just pulls you in again, quieter this time, less urgent and more certain. One arm wraps around you while the other still holds the book against his side like he can’t quite bring himself to set it down yet.
He kisses you then, soft yet deep—a kiss full of love and appreciation. His forehead rests briefly against yours, and his voice drops into something meant only for you, soft enough that it feels like it belongs under skin instead of in air.
“Thank you,” he says. Not just for the gift. For all of it.
For showing him this life and somehow making it feel like it was never an accident.
You breathe out slowly, fingers curling lightly into the fabric of his shirt. “Happy Father’s Day, Spence.”
He smiles then, small and real and a little overwhelmed at the edges.
And somewhere behind you, Rory makes a faint, content little sound in her sleep, like she’s approving the entire arrangement from a dream.
