"You okay?" Reid asked later that evening. "You seem distracted."
It was getting late. Outside had turned rainy and dark. Reid and Riley were sitting in her apartment again, on the couch eating dinner. Take out again. Reid observed her, finding her more interesting than his plate. Riley had pulled her Penguins jersey on over her jeans. Her hair was still loose, fanning around her until it settled at her hips, wearing her third pair of glasses. She sat, cross-legged, playing with her macaroni and cheese.
"Alex didn't have a number," Riley stated, never taking her eyes from the yellow mess.
"He wasn't buried." Reid stated.
"Yeah, but he already left the note. Does that mean Alex wasn't worthy of a number? Was he changing his MO and not burying Alex? Did he suddenly renounce his faith in numerology or whatever screwed up delusions he had?"
"Riley, relax. We don't need to figure this out tonight." He explained.
She finally looked up, the sparkle in her brown eyes magnified slightly by the lenses. "How can you relax? That… maniac is out there, probably after another victim!"
Reid didn't know what to say. He was strangely calm at the moment. Maybe being shot had a soothing effect on him. Or maybe it was easier to be calm when the other person was hysterical, especially when that person was irresistibly cute when she was frantic.
She tossed her swirls of cheese and noodles aside and pushed her hair away from her. "I need a haircut." She said.
"No, you don't." He said, looking her over. Frazzled made her cute, that had to be it.
She smiled, crossing her arms. "Oh, really? Am I supposed to take hairstyling advice from you?"
"You think I need a haircut?" he asked, pretending to look hurt.
She didn't answer immediately, but then shook her head. "No." Her eyes locked with his a moment. Reid could tell she was holding something back. Her mouth opened, but closed quickly. She reached over for her coffee cup.
"What?" Reid asked.
"Nothing," she replied. "I… was going to ask something, but I'd better not."
"No, go ahead… ask." He was dying to know what was spinning in her head.
Riley wouldn't look at him at first. She took a long sip of her coffee and Reid knew she was stalling. Finally, setting the mug down, she sat back. "I heard you. You spoke to the unsub."
Reid had been hoping she hadn't heard. He would never have to bring it up. He had been intending on telling the team, but he wanted to keep it from Riley. "Yeah," was all he said.
Riley hesitated a minute. After a swallow, she said, "I have to know… I know it will be awful, but I have to know what he said."
Reid thought it over, quickly and carefully. Sighing deeply, as if it were the last breath he'd ever take, he answered, "I'm not going to tell you what he said."
"Why not?" She demanded to know.
"Because it'll just upset you." He informed.
Riley was offended. "Well… I didn't exactly predict his words would inspire or comfort me. The man is a killer, everything about his very existence upsets me…" she thought for a moment. "… however… you wouldn't admit that unless what he said would affect me…" He could almost hear the click connect in her head. "And that would only happen if he talked about me… What did he say?"
"I'm going to get another cup of coffee." He said, standing up.
"Not until you tell me what he said about me." She demanded, quickly standing up.
"Riley… have you ever heard the story of Pandora and the box?" He tried to make a break for the kitchen. "This is for your own good."
"Spencer," she cried, grabbing his arm. "Just tell me."
He stopped, afraid to look at her. Finally his hazel eyes turned and met hears, glowing with fear and intensity. He could spare the details of the conversation. Despite Reid's better judgment, he spoke, "Hotch was right. He's still after you."
The color drained from Riley's face. She tried not to look scared, but Reid wasn't fooled. Finally, she let out a high pitched nervous laugh. "Huh… do you think I give off some smell that only dogs and men with deranged personalities can sense?"
"It's going to be okay," Reid said, pulling her into his arms. She rested her head on his shoulder. Reid buried his nose into her hair, breathing in as deeply as he could.
"I know," she said, holding him tighter. A moment later, she pulled from him partly. Her arms remained around his neck. "I shouldn't… but I feel safe with you."
Reid stared at her lips as she spoke, wanting to feel them again. Just one more time. He imagined the familiar sensation on him, the soft and moist feel, familiar and exciting at the same time. Never failing to send electricity through each nerve in his body, and sparks firing into every synapse in his brain like fireworks on the Fourth of July.
Then he realized he wasn't imagining. No other woman in the world could affect his brain like her, especially when she was so close; when he could absorb her like this. Riley had leaned in and kissed him, cradling the back of his head.
As good as it felt, as badly as he wanted more of her, he took the responsibility and pushed her away.
"Riley," he said. "I know you're feeling vulnerable right now, but if we… I'd be taking advantage of you."
"Actually, I think I'm the one taking advantage of you." She said, leaning in to kiss him again.
Reid moved his head so she wouldn't make contact. "Why is that?" he asked. "Explain the logic to me."
Riley looked at him as if it were obvious. "Because… because… you know, because…"
"Because I'm still in love with you?" He asked.
"Well… yes," she replied.
Reid nodded, pulling from the warmth of her arms. "Well, excuse me for denying your advances, but I'm not interested in having sex with someone who doesn't care about me."
She was stunned. "That's really unfair." Riley said. "How can you say I don't care about you?"
"Should we make a list?" He asked with sarcasm.
"You know, I could accuse you of the same thing." She said. "You milk a broken heart for seven months, yet in that entire time, you don't want me in your life."
"How can you put the blame entirely on me? I wasn't the one who left, how was I supposed to know you'd still want me around? Even platonically?" He demanded to know.
"Because I knew this would happen!" Riley yelled. "You'd make me feel guilty for leaving you. I feel guilty enough."
"You know, I might say feeling guilt is your subconscious way of saying you made the wrong decision." Reid pointed out.
"Lucky you're not a psychiatrist." Riley quipped, folding her arms over her chest. "I didn't make the wrong the decision. I have moved on; I'm sorry if you feel like I've abandoned you."
"Well, I'm used to it. Believe it or not, Riley, you're not the first person to abandon me." Reid answered, "You took off just like Gideon and my father."
"I did it to protect you. They left because of their own problems; I left because I love you!" Riley screamed.
The gears in Reid's head came to a screeching halt. "You still love me?"
"No." She uttered, looking away. Riley felt horrified, unbelieving she'd let that out.
Reid smiled. "Yes you do, you still love me."
"Spencer, please, no. We can't do this, we can't be together!" She urged, stepping away from him.
"Oh, really, and what's your excuse this time?" He asked; the smile had faded.
"What?"
"Well, the first time you had the perfect excuse; the system was in the way."
"You were my patient!" She uttered through gritted teeth.
"Yeah, and when you almost died, the world changed for you. You saw everything differently… for a few months. Just like everyone else who almost loses their life. Some people don't know how to handle it and fall into despair, like I did. Some people wake up and try to find what makes them happy, like you did. But time passed and you got scared and took the first opportunity to run."
"I seem to remember you saying it was my decision. You would support anything that I chose, and I chose to leave. You didn't object, not even once."
"Would you have stayed if I had?" he asked.
Silence. Riley seemed to have stopped breathing. "That's what I thought." He moved past her towards the door. "Well, you got what you wanted."
She had found her voice. "Okay, Profiler, I guess you're an expert on what I want."
"You want to be miserable," Reid explained turning back around. "It's what you're used to. Anyone else in your life you let yourself care about hurt you. They let you down, and that's normal for you. You were just waiting for me to do the same thing. You want me to not love you anymore so you can keep on being alone in your despair."
With that he whipped open the front door. Reid rushed through it, not bothering to grab his coat, and slammed it behind her. It made an ear splitting, satisfying sound.
But Riley wasn't done. She wrenched the door open running into the hall, screaming at him, not worrying about the other tenants. Her tears remaining dammed in her eyes no longer. "Why the hell would I want to be miserable?"
He turned back to her. Reid hated to make her cry. These words, however, needed to be said and she needed to hear them.
"Because it's easier. It hurts to be alone, it hurts to be lonely, but it hurts a lot worse being betrayed by someone you thought loved you. I know that better than you do. I was ready to spend the rest of my life with you. We would have been… so happy-"
"Don't!" she yelled. "For someone who's supposed to be so abnormally smart, you should know better than to believe in happily ever after. We don't get a fairy tale ending just because we want it badly enough! I'm not about to wreck both our lives to try and fail. It's just not worth it!"
It was less painful being shot. Once again, Reid conceded to Riley's words. He had had enough. "I can't believe I thought I ever loved you." He said softly. "How could I have been stupid enough to fall in love with someone like you? You are a cold, soulless, narcissistic shell of a woman. You have no friends, no one who cares about you, and you are making it easier to hate you every day."
He didn't rush. Reid turned and, slowly and casually, walked down the hall. Riley stood frozen, catatonic and silent as he slipped away from her. Everything inside of Riley was screaming for her to go after him. Tell him to stay, beg him to forgive her, confess how much she loved him. But Spencer Reid meant more to her than anything in the known universe, his life was more important than her own. Letting him go had hurt worse than anything she could imagine… and she had to do it again.
