Reid took his time unlocking the door. He could practically feel the anger pulsating off the woman behind him. At last, the skeleton key clicked and released the door. Reid opened it, allowing her inside first. She pushed past him without a second glance.
He didn't know what to say. Right now, her anger was dammed up, waiting to be released. As soon as it was, he would suffer the wrath of his bride, as he had many times before. But they couldn't begin to make up until she got it out of her system.
"Are you okay?" he asked again.
"I said I was fine," she replied, heading into the bedroom.
She tossed her purse on the bed, never looking back to him. Reid took a deep breath, "I know I should have talked to you."
"It's fine, Spencer," she replied, not wanting to look at him, pretending the contents of her suitcase where too fascinating. "If you wanted to just spend the first two weeks of our marriage working, you should have told me. We wasted an awful lot of money this way."
"Riley, please listen to me." Reid cried, joining her in the bedroom. "I didn't plan on this. All I wanted was to spend time alone with you. But… when we found out there was a murder… I couldn't stop thinking about it. I… I… I had to do something."
"Gee!" Riley cried, flashing her brown eyes at him, alive with rage, "Did you ever think, maybe, to talk to your wife about that? Who happens to be a licensed psychiatrist?"
"I didn't want to upset you." He admitted.
She let out a loud, annoyed sigh. "I am so tired of hearing that."
"It's true," Reid affirmed. He stepped closer to her, his hand brushing her arm, trying to get her to face him. She flinched away from his touch. "I know how much you want me to enjoy this trip… because I want it that much, too. For both of us. And I wanted desperately to just forget everything and have fun with you, but... I couldn't shut my brain off. You know… I'm not good at forgetting things."
"Right, you don't forget anything," she replied, gritting her crooked teeth. "Except me."
He was shocked she'd even say that, even if it were just to hurt him. "You know that's not true. You are the first person I think of, always. Anything that's going on in my life, I always consider how it will affect you. You have no idea how tormented I was that I couldn't just focus on you… on us. I'm sorry. I just… I felt like if I have the power to help, I should." He reached to brush aside some of her hair. "Look at it from my prospective. If you met someone here, mentally tormented, having no idea how to feel normal again… would you be able to walk away without helping him?"
She nodded. "Okay, you have a point. I will give you that. But I wouldn't have kept it from you. I would have talked about it with you first because I trust you and value your opinion. I know I'm not as clever as you, but I am smart, and I know how to listen. I do it for a living; it's how we met, remember?"
"I know," he grumbled, hating himself more. "I just… I wanted to get it out my head as soon as possible. I didn't know what else to do, so I… I spoke to the manager this morning while you were in the shower… and she gave me Bradbury's number. It's just a coincidence he's an old friend of Hotch's."
"I don't care who he is or who he knows, that's not the issue here." She stated. "It's not even the fact you went to him, it's that you didn't tell me. If that's what you needed to do, I would have understood. I'm your wife, I'm supposed to help you with your problems the same as you would with mine."
The anger had ebbed from her eyes, morphing into sadness. A few tears leaked out as he pulled her closer, resting his brow on hers. "You're right," he muttered. "I'm sorry… if it had been any other time, I would have talked to you, I would have handled this better. I just wanted to get this over with as soon as possible… I wanted this to just be about us again."
She shrugged. "Okay, fine. I forgive you."
"Really?" He could tell she wasn't sincere.
Riley nodded, trying to stop the slow tears continuing to fall out. Her voice choked a bit as she replied. "Yeah… I don't want to fight anymore, okay?"
She was unable to stop her gentle crying. With his thumb, Reid went to brush away the stream on her cheeks. Still unwilling to look at him, Reid leaned down to kiss her cheek.
His hands slid down to her hips, but Riley's arms remained stationary at her side, refusing to give into him. His lips ran along her jaw line down to the pulse point on her neck.
"No," Riley moaned, shoving him away. "No... Spencer, stop it."
Reid stood up, matching her eyes. "What's wrong?" he asked.
Her glare tearful and hateful, she took a long time to reply. "I'm not in the mood."
With that, she pulled away from him. Riley made a beeline for the bathroom, closing the door with a loud snap. Reid felt a twist of guilt in his stomach. He sat down on the bed, his face falling into his hands.
Over an hour later, Spencer was lying in bed. He wore the blue and white stripped pajamas Riley had bought him one birthday over a year ago. Maybe he thought it would go over well with her, were she ever to come out of the bathroom.
A little after midnight, the door opened. Reid sat up as Riley stepped out in a black baby doll nightgown, barely covering her to the top of her thighs. It was lacy with thin shoulder straps, extremely low cut with red lace over the hems. Her hair was down and brushed, hanging wildly around her. She made no mention of his hanging jaw this time as she approached the bed.
His voice cracked. "If you're wearing that just to punish me, then I can definitely say I've learned my lesson."
"I don't want to wear this." Riley explained, pulling back the covers. "I would just wear my usual pajamas or my jersey. But I didn't pack them. All I brought was lingerie. I didn't think I would need anything else… if even that." She fixed the pillows, punching them down a bit too forcefully.
Reid reached over and took her hand. His touch calmed her. "I'm sorry," he said again.
"I know you are," she said softly, meeting his eyes. This time, she sounded truthful. "And I forgive you."
"You do?" He asked, still skeptical.
She nodded. "I've thought about it for awhile, and… I know you pretty well, Spencer, so I do understand why you did it. A genius yes, but sometimes you don't think things through… so let's just forget about it, alright?"
"You're not mad anymore?" He wanted to be sure.
With a shake of her head, "No… irritated and tired, but not mad. I just want to go to sleep. I'll feel better in the morning. I don't want to talk about this anymore because it's just going to upset me, so let's just go to bed, okay?"
Feeling horrible, he agreed. "Okay,"
With that, Riley climbed into bed. She slipped off her rings and set them on the table before reaching over and switching off the light. The room was bathed in darkness. There was a dim glow from the street lamp outside. A soft white, like the security lights on the football field when Reid proposed. He watched as Riley slid under the sheets and pulled the covers around her, her back to her husband. Reid loved the way her curls spread around her, like a second blanket. He longed to touch her, but knew she needed space. Looking away, he stared at the ceiling.
"I want you to go to Scotland Yard in the morning," she said. "If they can use your help, you should be there."
Reid replied, "They can handle it. I shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place."
"No, you shouldn't have," Riley agreed, "But they want your help, Baby, you have to go."
"The inspectors at Scotland Yard are perfectly capable of solving murders, Riley." Reid stated with certainty.
"I'm sure they are," Riley replied, "I'm not denying that. But they don't have a profiler with your qualifications, including an IQ higher than Einstein. It's not like your assistance would be redundant."
Reid wanted to help. He could feel his mind running over his ideas on the case even as they spoke. "You're more important to me than that. This is our honeymoon."
"Yeah… and it was the McClarens' honeymoon, too." Riley added. "Theirs turned out worse than ours, didn't it?"
He hadn't considered that. "You won't be mad if I go?" He asked.
"No, I want you to go," She said. He could tell she was completely truthful, which was such a surprise when she added, "In fact, I'm going with you."
"What?" Reid asked, "No, you can't."
"Why can't I?" She asked, rolling over slightly to look at him, "We're in England, I have just as much authority over here as you do. I'm pretty good at this stuff, and you liked it when I filled in for JJ. I was more your assistant than a liaison."
"But just because I ruined our vacation doesn't mean you can't have fun," Reid explained. "See the sights, go shopping, enjoy the city. You said you've wanted to come here since you were thirteen."
"Yeah, but we came here together. I won't have any fun without you. I would rather spend the whole day in a police squad room with you then seeing the most beautiful places in the city alone. I'm going with you Spencer, end of discussion."
Her voice was fierce and determined, but she held a small smile. She could tell this was important to him and wanted to help. Reid matched her smile and nodded.
Riley rolled over, her back to him again. "You know I am sorry,"
"Oh, I know," She confessed, "I was mostly just… hurt. I love you, Sweetheart, but sometimes you treat me like a baby."
"What do mean?" Reid asked.
She hesitated, "You always try to keep unpleasant things from me." She replied. It was easier to say this while she was facing away from him. "I realize I brought it on myself… but I thought we were passed the fear of being driven away. You got me, I married you, I'm not going anywhere."
Reid smiled, "You're right, I'm sorry. I wanted to talk to you, but you were already nervous something was going to go wrong on this trip, me focusing on it would just… confirm it, I guess."
Thinking about it, Riley knew that was logical. But that gut feeling had yet to go away. Finding out about the murder in the hotel had only reinforced it. Her husband wanting to do his day to day job was not out of the ordinary. That had nothing to do with this awful premonition.
But maybe this was all that would go wrong. "It could be worse," Riley admitted. "We've been through worse."
"More than once," Reid agreed.
"So… you'll call Inspector Bradbury in the morning and tell him we'll be there?" Riley asked.
"First thing, as soon as I wake up," Reid assured.
"Good," Riley replied. "Hopefully, we'll only waste a few days on this."
"I doubt it will take that long." He sounded more confident than he felt. "There's only so much we can do."
"Very true," She nodded. "Well, we'd better get some sleep. It's already after midnight."
This evening was supposed to be wonderful and romantic. Instead they were going to sleep… and going to work in the morning. Some honeymoon. He could only imagine the ridicule he'd get when the team found out about this. Reid was not a very good liar when it came to them. That was the problem when your closest friends were profilers.
"Goodnight, Spencer," Riley said. She had such little feeling in her voice.
"Goodnight, Riley," he replied, sadly.
The room fell silent. Reid doubted he'd get any rest tonight. He stared at the dark ceiling. A few hours ago, Reid was completely at ease with the world. In that tiny window, he was a blissful newlywed with a wonderful wife whose only concern was her husband's pleasure. And he ruined it. Even if they did their duty with the police within a day or so, he doubted they could get that back. Not on this trip. Riley just might stay distant and cold until they got back to Quantico.
"Spencer…" Riley called in the darkness. "I have a question."
"What's that?" He asked.
"How long are you going to lie over there before you roll over and hold me?"
Maybe she wouldn't. With a smile, Reid immediately moved to her side of the bed. He pulled her warm, soft body as close as he could, wrapping himself around her curves. She sighed contently, clutching at his protective arms enclosing her like a cocoon.
"I am sorry," he said again in a whisper.
Her hand stroked his arms, sending a warm tingle through his skin. "I know you are. And I forgive you. I love you too much not to forgive you."
"I promise I will make this up to you." He reached over and pressed a kiss on her cheek.
She entwined his long fingers with hers. "You better," she grumbled with a smile.