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Spencer Reid strode back into the hospital room trying to act more confident than he actually felt; both of his hands were holding disposable coffee cups that sent a comforting warmth throughout him. He placed both cups onto the table before picking up the chair he had been sitting on just before he went to the cafeteria and placing it into the liminal position it had been in then too.
In her head, Margo had labelled it Spencer's chair.
He smiled at the woman as he sat down, his chest moving less erratically, visibly calmer than he had been before. That decreased some of the guilt that Margo felt for the attitude she gave him the last time he had been in her room.
"I got you some coffee. I put in milk and brought some sugar sachets, I didn't know your preference."
Octaves from his soothing voice seemed to seep into her skin and travel through her body. It made her want to smile and she began to think that maybe she could just talk to him -- as long as it wasn't about that night.
"Two sugars." Her voice was hoarse after her lack of speech.
At the sound of the sweet voice, Spencer's eyes widened and his jaw was about to drop but he stopped it just before it was visible. He had not thought that she would speak to him. The shock on his face made Margo's lips twitch upwards just slightly.
"Two sugars." He repeated pouring the sugar into her cup and stirring it for her. "I have a lot of sugar."
She revelled in the warmth that radiated from the cup and she pulled it closer to her as he passed it over. The doctor took a large sip of coffee, he wanted her to innitiate conversation so that he was not pushing her too much at once.
"Do you drink a lot of coffee?"
"I drink it avidly." He nodded. "My mum thinks that's why I'm so skinny."
"You are very skinny." She agreed. "And tall. Quite tree like really." His small smile at her funny answer made a rush go through her body.
"Not all trees."
"I might steal your trick."
"You don't need to be skinnier." He flattered her gently because to him her beauty seemed obvious, even with the cuts and scrapes that littered her body. She didn't even feel like her was making a pass at her, he just stated something.
"Thank you." She noticed that he was focusing on the ground and not her. "You're shocked." She stated obviously.
"I didn't expect you to speak to me." He admitted insecurely.
"Why?" Margo asked. "You're an FBI agent, don't you have special skills?"
"Not really."
"You're super smart though, right?" He looked up at the girl with two raised eyebrows.
"How do you know that?"
As he asked her that question, memories of the other Ross child flashed through her mind: her brother's precision about everything he did, his need for things to be done in a certain way and the way he would get nervous around people he didn't know or doing thing that he had never done before.
"You're a bit like my little brother." She said slowly. "The way you act."
"I have an eidetic memory." Spencer told her.
"Remembering loads of stuff easily." Margo translated the words into her own language.
"Yes."
"So, exactly how smart are you?" She wanted to know as much about him as possible, as if she was a scientist and he was her experiment.
"My IQ is one hundred and eighty seven." Larry Ross' IQ had been around one hundred and fifty. "And I can read twenty thousand words per minute."
"How many do average people read per minute?" She guessed that he would know facts and statistics.
"Two hundred."
"Woah." She awed at him. "Maybe you can teach me some stuff."
He smiled at her suggestion. "Like what?"
"Quantum physics." She chuckled before shaking her head lightly. "I like history or maybe some stuff that I could win a pub quiz with."
"I've never been to a pub quiz."
"I'll take you to one after you make me smart."
They both let out quiet laughs and moved forwards to shake the others hands -- confirming their deal. The awful plague of sadness that had been trapping Margo Ross seemed to be fading as she spoke to Spencer Reid.
"Do you want to leave?" He asked curiously. "This hospital I mean."
"Hospitals don't feel nice to be in."
Hospitals were assosciated with illnes, badness and death -- everybody knew that. Margo remembered visiting sick grandparents and relatives or going for emergency visits when her brother had freaked out majorly about something. She hated hospitals.
"I hate them." Spencer agreed. "The lights are too bright."
"You're like a Gremlin."
"Actually, I don't really like the dark." He confessed to the girl he barely knew.
"Are you scared of it?"
"The inherent absence of light freaks me out."
"I'll take that as a yes."
The plain and clinical room eased into a comfortable silence with two lovely humans drinking the last of their coffee from the red, cardboard cups. They both felt as if they were in some sort of other world as they spoke to each other.
Spencer liked his life but he didn't feel the burning happiness that he had always wanted to.
Margo had not experienced real happiness since the death of her mother and brother.
They had both felt those things for a while but they seemed to lessen when they sat in that uncomfortable room with each other, speaking about random things and chuckling together. Their heart both beat to a different rhythm when their eyes met and they both liked it. Margo was personally living for the random thoughts that were escaping from their lips. It was crazy.
Spencer reached his hand out to take the coffee cup from her -- as his hand moved towards her body, Margo froze. Time stretched out as he slowly got closer to her until he stopped between them.
"Refill?"
"Refill."
Margo agreed. Spencer took both of the cups and walked out of the room with a wide grin on his face and a biting of his lip that Margo could not see.
