Chapter 48

Before Reid shut the door of the hotel room behind him, Scarlett turned back to him again.

"Do you understand that I love you, Spencer Reid?" she asked him.

"Yes..."

"I don't think you do... You hear me say it, maybe you even think I believe it, but you don't... you don't understand it and sometimes I think you don't believe it..." she told him.

"I think when your insecurity starts playing around in your pretty head," she smiled slightly at his blush, "I think you start to doubt it..."

"I am not anything special, Scarlett..." he said softly. "You deserve better." He saw her face flush with anger at his words.

"Really? I deserve better than a good man- a sweet, loving, gentle, brave and strong man? Because I'm so perfect?" she scoffed. "And there's that freaking pedestal, god-dammit..." she threw her hands in the air and turned away from him.

"I'm not... I'm not strong or brave or half of any of those things..." he said, shoving his hands into his pockets and staring at the rug.

"And I'm not going to spend the rest of my life stroking your ego and trying to get you to see you from my perspective," she shook her head.

"Stroking my ego?" his eyes widened and he looked over to her. "What?!"

"Maybe, you are right," she turned back. "Maybe in some convoluted way, you are right, not that I deserve better," she clarified, "but that I don't deserve you... Maybe I think that you should have some nice, normal, sweet little housewife-y type girl who doesn't constantly turn your life into turmoil," she told him.

"That's not what I said at all, Scarlett and you know it... and I don't want..." he countered.

She shook her head. "I don't get it Reid. Why are you so resistant in accepting that I just love you, because you are you? You are looking at me like an expression that doesn't work out to fit into your equation. I'm not some frigging anomaly," she shouted.

"Yes, you are..." he raised his voice slightly. "We are an anomaly, because this shouldn't be... and when I see another man – someone who does fit and who loves you – telling me that I'm lucky, it scares the shit out of me! Because it doesn't make sense! And one day, you are going to see that, and you're going to realize it and you'll leave me..." he blurted out.

As soon as the words came out, he shut his mouth tightly and crossed his arms over his chest defensively.

"And there's the rub," Scarlett said watching him closely. "You see us as an anomaly... something that shouldn't be. I see us as alchemy. A paradox, yet, we managed to come together without any rational explanation. You can't deal with something being irrational. You can't handle that I'm irrational... You don't think I fit into your little pigeon holed, closed minded, narrow idea of who you think I should be with- some 'type' of personality that would mesh with your idea of normalcy, so you talk yourself into thinking that I need something different, that I'm the one who can't possibly love you..." she stomped through the sitting room and into the bed room.

He stood there a moment longer, staring after her. He moved over to the doorway, watching her unstrap her heels. "Did you call me closed minded?" he asked incredulously.

Scarlett looked up at him. "Yes, Dr. Reid. I did. And I will add stubborn and pig-headed to the mix, because I feel like it," she snapped, cursing when the buckle broke on her shoe. She yanked the heel off and flung it across the room, hitting the wall.

"Move it, Reid..." she shoved past him, grabbing one of her bags from the credenza behind him.

He watched in shock as she pushed past him again, moved into the bathroom and slammed the door. It flew back open in a few moments, when she exited half-dressed shoving some of her belongings into her larger bag.

"Scarlett..."

"Don't 'Scarlett' me..." she told him, grabbing the broken shoe from the floor and adding that to the bag.

"I can't say anything?" he asked.

"No... I'm too mad to hear anything right now," she stopped and looked at him. "You don't even see it. I can tell by the look on your face that you don't understand anything I'm saying..." she shook her head.

When she grabbed another bag from the floor, Spencer felt panicked. "Where are you going?" he grabbed her arm when she tried to pass him.

"Don't worry, Reid. I'm not going to run back to Coop's tonight. Maybe I'll drop that bomb on him tomorrow, you know, since you're gifting me to him and all..." she yanked her arm out of his grip.

"That's not what I SAID!" he yelled at her and shoved her back into the bedroom. "Stop putting words in my mouth! And STOP walking away when I'm trying to talk to you!" he slammed the door to the bedroom and stood in front of it.

"You, my dear, did say that!" she threw back at him. "Your words! I quote... 'when I see another man – someone who does fit and who loves you' … Deny it, Reid- go ahead!" she stood before him, arms crossed over her chest, anger flickering in her eyes.

Spencer open his mouth and closed it quickly. She watched him focus on a point over her head, instead of looking directly at her, before he stepped away from the door and opened it.

"You're right," he told her. "I said it. Some part of me believes it. I don't see myself the way you do, Scarlett- or the way you think you do, anyway," he shrugged, looking defeated.

"Some part of me knows you're going to wake up one day and regret this choice, regret being with me- because I'm not all of those things you think that I am... I don't know where you even got those ideas," he huffed out a breath. "So, you're right. Maybe Cooper's the better man, maybe it's someone else, I don't know- but I don't fit, Scarlett. Being here, seeing you with your family, your friends... I don't have those things, I never did. I wake up and see you sleeping next to me and think, maybe today's the day you're going to figure it out- that I'm not the right guy for you and you'll decide to move on. I saw you tonight Scarlett, so full of life and fun and... and I'm on the outside looking in..." he said softly, repeating Remy's words from earlier.

"Spence..." she watched him as he left the bedroom and through the sitting area out to the balcony. She sighed and moved her bags over by the door.

Standing in the moonlight, he looked over the skyline and listened as he heard her step up behind him.

"I'm sorry that you don't think you 'fit' into my life, Spencer. Whether you want to believe it or not, I think you do. And I do love you. But I can't have your low self-esteem discounting that as my delusion, I can't ever do or say anything that would convince you otherwise, and until you accept that I just love you..." she stopped, holding back a sob that reached her throat, "Until you can just believe that for what it is, there's nothing I can do to make you trust it," she shook her head as he remained quiet, not turning around. She brushed angrily at the tears that ran down her cheeks.

"I'll be damned though, Spencer, before I spend my life with you convincing yourself that any other man is better for me. I won't take that, not from you, not about you. You don't need to push me off on someone else, I'll just go and figure it out for myself," she told him.

He stayed there, unmoving, until he heard her walk back into the room and the door opened and closed.