Knowing Scarlett

Chapter 1

The next few months passed quickly into summer. Spencer was rushing into work after being uncharacteristically late. He'd waited until the last minute to leave Scarlett since she had her final evaluation today with Dr. Cannon, and Reid was nervous ever since Penelope had told him today was the anniversary of John's death. Garcia was worried about her friend and had informed Spencer of the significance of today's date, in case Scarlett had failed to mention it. Which she had, and that pissed him off somewhat. After them being together for almost five months, he'd hoped she wouldn't be keeping such things from him…

Reid shook off the thought as he entered the bullpen. Throwing his messenger bag across his chair, he looked around and found Morgan and Garcia over by the coffee maker. He headed over to join them.

"Late night, pretty boy?" Morgan teased and pulled Reid's hair forward over his eyes.

Spencer laughed and pushed his hair back.

"Late morning," he joked back. He became serious, quickly looked around and confided in his friends. "I went with Scarlett to Dr. Cannon's office. She's got her last meeting with her today."

Morgan scowled. "I wonder if they picked today on purpose…"

"Did she seem alright?" Garcia asked at the same time.

Spencer shrugged and dumped sugar into his mug. "She seemed fine. No nightmares last night and I stayed up most of the night waiting for it," he said. "But she didn't even say anything. I wouldn't even have known if you hadn't told me," he said to Penelope.

Garcia scowled. "Maybe she didn't want you to know. She gets all itchy when people treat her differently… Maybe I shouldn't have said anything," she chewed on the stirrer in her hand nervously.

"Baby girl, you didn't do anything wrong. Scarlett knows we know, so she knows Reid knows. She's just trying to work her way through it her own way. As usual…" he added.

"But now we always go out on Fridays, as long as we are all here and I haven't heard anything about a new case in the immediate future, so I don't know if I should cancel out tonight or if we should just go as planned…" Garcia rambled out the sentence in a flurry of concern.

Reid caught her worried gaze. "I think Scarlett will want to keep everything as normal as possible. That's how it seemed to me this morning anyway. I'll mention it to her when I see her later and we'll go from there."

Penelope nodded. "Okay, okay. But if she does decide to go out and we have a repeat of last year, someone is going to have to be a designated driver," she said. "We both got trashed last year but we were camped out at her apartment," she stopped and considered something.

"Which is fine too, if that's what she wants to do- we can just have a girls night sleepover…." Garcia saw a look come across Reid's face. "Sorry, kiddo, but sometimes you just want to pour your heart out with the girls… no offense."

Spencer shifted slightly and shrugged. He really hoped she'd want to be with him if she was upset about anything. "I can mention it is an option," he told Penelope. "Whatever she wants, its fine with me…"

"Uh huh, sure. I know you'd much rather lock her up in a tower somewhere so nothing can ever touch her or hurt her ever again, sweetie. But nice try," she teased.

"I'll work on the delivery," Spencer smiled. "It really is up to her."

With that decided they each headed back to their respective areas to hit the paperwork that always was awaiting any downtime.

Spencer removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes after reading through his stack of files. It was a blessing to be able to go through the paperwork so quickly, but the downside was that he saw his friends were still swamped. He went around to each desk taking another stack from their piles and started again.

Next hour into the files, he felt something touch the back of his neck and he jumped.

"Jesus, Spence… sorry, I didn't realize you were so engrossed," he heard Scarlett's voice and turned. "I didn't mean to scare you, hon." She shifted back slightly.

"I need to get you a bell," he stood up and stretched. "You are as quiet as a cat," he teased. He looked around quickly to see if anyone was watching and dropped a quick kiss to her cheek.

"I was talking to you… I asked if you were ready for a break," she laughed. "You didn't even hear me speaking so I don't think a bell would help at all," she leaned forward and breathed in his scent. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

"How'd your meeting go?" he asked her quietly.

"Fine," she said noncommittally. "Just the usual crap," she shrugged. She pointed to the stack of files on the desk. "You on a mission?" she joked, changing the subject.

"I guess. I didn't have you here to distract me so I decided to get some work done," he teased and tugged her braid.

"Mmm-hmm. Well I think you need a distraction… let's take a walk, okay?" she asked, looking up at him.

Spencer felt his throat tighten at the look in her eyes. He could see the pain there now. He nodded, grabbed up his sweater and followed her outside.

"So," he began, taking up her hand and intertwining their fingers. "How'd it really go, beautiful?" he asked again once they were outside.

Reid stopped walking and tucked his sweater around her shoulders against the breeze. She looked swallowed up in the length and it occurred to him how small and fragile she looked. Penelope was right when she'd mentioned earlier about him wanting to keep her away from any hurt or pain. He'd do anything to protect her. He felt her sigh and put a finger under her chin so she had to look up and meet his eyes.

"I thought I could get through today without any problem," she admitted softly. "I felt like if I could just ignore it, I could get through without it touching me…" she watched the concern in his eyes.

"I knew you'd know. Someone had to have told you. And when everything just seemed so 'normal' I just thought, if I could just pretend, then I'd be alright…"

"Something happened with Dr. Cannon?" Spencer asked gently.

Scarlett nodded. "It wasn't a flashback," she clarified. "I just started talking and all this stuff came out that I didn't know I was even thinking- I just hate opening up like that to a stranger. I wish you were there," she told him, moving into his embrace.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you," he said hugging her tightly.

"No, don't be, I didn't mean it like that. You couldn't be. But I realized I have to talk more when things are bothering me instead of just sticking my head in the sand. I want to learn how to let things out."

"You can talk to me about anything, Katy. I'm always here for you, you have to know that. Even if I don't have the answers, I can listen…"

She smiled. "I know. I'm sorry for not telling you myself about today. I'm sorry I didn't talk about it with you. I promise I won't ever shut you out, farm boy. I just didn't realize that's what I was doing…" she stood on her tiptoes and kissed his neck. "Forgive me?"

Spencer thought of his earlier irritation about her not mentioning anything to him. "There's nothing to forgive Scarlett," he told her and kissed her lips firmly. "I knew when you were ready, you'd talk."

She leaned her head against his chest. "Do you have any idea how much I love you, Spencer?"

He wrapped his arms around her holding her close. "I have a clue…" he said. "Probably somewhere around how much I love you," he smiled and kissed her hair.