north//spencer reid

chapter eleven

"I will, I always am."

"That scar on your neck says otherwise." I roll my eyes at her. "Head out, my favorite crimefighter."

"I think you're spending too much time with Garcia," I quip, leaning over the bed yet again to give her a kiss. "Go back to bed, Lia."

"How can I when you're right in front of me and you look so good?" Amelia smirks, although she is far too tired to even keep her smile up for too long.

"Don't try and seduce me. Go to sleep. I love you."

"I love you too, Doctor."

I give Amelia a final kiss and grab my go-bag, leaving as quickly as I can so I don't give myself the option to run back to bed and scoop Amelia up and kiss her all over. We spent all night last night in bed and I would love to recreate those events this morning, but the serial killers of America have apparently decided that they choose now to split us up. Just wonderful. Exactly what I needed, actually. I make it to one year with the love of my life and we can't even spend it together.

Amelia will be stuck at home or she'll be stressing over her exhibit and I'll be off in some random state, chasing another killer and comforting another victim. And then, of course, there's her exhibit. She has been working on these pieces for longer than we've been together and I know she is proud of what she created. When Amelia invited me to the gallery, she was so excited and overjoyed for me to come and see her work, albeit a little bit nervous too. But she has had this on her calendar for as long as I've known her and has texted me reminders and sneak peeks of pieces and talked my ear off at dinners and cafe dates and phone calls. No matter how many times she smiles at me, I know she is upset that there's a chance I can't make the opening night.

"Kid? What's going on in there?" Morgan presses his finger into my temple, bringing me out of my blonde-haired, blue-eyed reverie and alerting everyone on the jet of my current state of mind. I swat Morgan's hand away and try to return to the open book in my lap.

"Oh, come on," Rossi encourages Morgan's incredibly annoying behavior. "We can all see that there's something going on in your head. Case related?"

"No," I flip the page despite not having read anything on that page.

"So," JJ joins in, "is it about your home life? Amelia, perhaps?"

When I stay silent, everybody gets their answer.

"Oh, no, trouble on the home front?" Kate pouts in a way that feels like she's mocking me. "I'm sure we'd be happy to help you nurse the situation back to happiness."

"Yeah, what was it?" Morgan sits down in the seat beside me and throws his arm over my shoulder. "Was she upset you had to leave in the morning before she could get some loving?"

"Chris hates that," Kate groans and JJ nods along. I open my mouth to respond, to deny that claim, but I get spoken over. "I usually have to do a little bit of extra work to make it up to him."

"Like," JJ chokes down a laugh, "being on top extra work?"

"Exactly. Men just wanna lay back, get off without having to work for it, and see women's boobs. That's it." JJ nods along with Kate's words, and even Morgan is nodding, but that's not a surprise. My eyes dart behind JJ's chair and I see Hotch nodding too.

"That's clearly not it," Rossi finally ends the conversation, waving his hands to get them to stop talking. "What's the issue, Reid?"

"I've got another guess," Morgan pulls back his arms and I think his hands are going to return to his side, but he just snatches the book out of my hand and tosses it aside. "She caught you looking at another girl and now you're in the doghouse."