✓ | sick of losing soulmates [SPENCER REID]

7.1

He shakes his head, eyes falling to the ground. "Your personal life is your personal life," he says. "And you were right. I wouldn't have said the same thing if it was Prentiss, or JJ, or Garcia. It was wrong of me to make an assumption." He smiles, reaching out to pat Iris on the shoulder, and she's startled by the kindness in his actions. "I'll let you make your coffee. Have a good day, Remy."

And he moves past her, back to his office, leaving her stunned.

She only moves again when Spencer's face appears in front of her — or, rather, it's his collar bones, considering their height difference. She blinks and peers up into his confused, frowning face that asks, "What was that about?"

She doesn't look away from Spencer as she says, "I don't know."

There's something there that wasn't before. It's like, now that Hotch has spoken to her about it, that weekend feels much more real than it had only a moment ago. Her feelings about Gina liking Spencer, and the happiness she'd felt during their one good night together had been like a dream, but now it was real.

An assumption, Hotch had called it. An assumption that Iris' relationship with Spencer wasn't platonic . . . And Hotch isn't the sort to make illogical assumptions.

Iris jumps when Spencer taps her shoulder and heads to their desks. She feels completely zoned out, away from her life and in a reality that isn't her own, too busy wondering what everyone's seeing that she isn't, to notice what's going on around her.

☆ ★ ☆

It is exactly a month later when Iris finally gets the answer to that question. And, as it happens, it occurs on the same night she finally sees Spencer lose control.

In years to come, Iris will look back on the months following the Benjamin Cyrus case and struggle to remember the details of her life. Like the old saying, time passes quickly when you're having fun, and Iris is enjoying her new job (even if it's a bit of a struggle sometimes); August of 2008 speeds past, and September disappears along with it, and she finds her life is only shown to be passing when certain dates arrive: the first being JJ's baby shower.

(Although, according to JJ, it's not a baby-shower. Just a get-together of friends and her and Will's families, with drinking — not for JJ — and dancing and laughter and no talking about cases for at least one night. That last rule is mostly for Hotch, but Iris has a feeling he's looking forward to a night off work just as much as the rest of the team, even if he doesn't show it.)

That's the night Spencer loses it just a little.

Not in an angry way, of course, because Spencer isn't exactly an aggressive individual — but his constantly over-working brain finally loses it at JJ's baby shower, and Iris can finally see him in the state he saw her back in LA: Spencer Reid gets drunk.

The night in late October starts at eight with Garcia and Emily picking Iris up from her apartment to take her to JJ's. In all honesty, she's quite surprised she's even going to the party, considering she and JJ aren't too close compared to their relationships with the others — which is shown in how she has no idea what the address even is — but the rest of the team, even Rossi, are invited, so Iris gets to tag along too.

She slides into the backseat of Emily's car, Garcia and Prentiss up front and smiling at her through the mirrors. Iris blinks as she looks between them, a hand rising to her face, wondering if she's got jam around her mouth from the toast she'd just eaten (because toast isn't just a breakfast food!), and mutters, "What?"