north//spencer reid

chapter four

warnings: talk of death of a mother

SPENCER

The elevator doors to the sixth-floor pop open and I almost can't stop the ear to ear grin on my face when I step out. Despite insisting that Amelia sleeps in this morning, she woke up early and sent me a text while I was waiting in line for my coffee.

go fight the bad guys!! and don't forget to text me lots because I like attention and I wanna see you (but only if you have the time to, don't let me distract you)

That simple text was enough to put a smile on my face that lasted all the way through my walk to the metro, my train ride, my walk through the office, and the elevator ride up. I was hoping that the pounding of my heart, the lightness in my head, and the fluttering in my stomach would lessen on my travels but as the elevator doors roll open and I'm still beaming, I realize that's it's going to be much harder to hide my post-Christmas, post-make-out, post-falling-deeper-in-love happiness.

I find Garcia approaching the bullpen doors with her arms full of Christmas decorations, so I rush forward to open a door for her. She grins at me, lifting one arm and tipping her imaginary hat, "Oh thank you, kind sir,"

"No problem, miss" I chuckle, following in after her.

"Oh, you seem to be in a good mood today," Penelope chirps, wiggling her shoulders at me as we arrive at my desk and she sets down her overflowing box of festive decorations. "Did you have a good Christmas?"

My smile returns tenfold as I shrug off my jacket and set it onto my desk chair. "Yeah, I did, actually,"

Penelope beams at my answer. "Good, Spencer, I'm glad,"

I quickly deflect the topic back to her holiday so she won't ask too many questions about mine. "And you had a good Christmas too, I presume? Do you need help with all these decorations? What are these for anyway? Christmas was yesterday," I lean over to look into the box of decorations, and when I'm not fully paying attention, Garcia plucks a strand of tinsel fro the box and wraps it around my neck like a scarf. She giggles, whipping her phone out of her pocket at lightning speed and taking a picture. "Thank you so much for that,"

"No problem, Genius Boy," Garcia laughs, tucking her phone away again. "I did have a great Christmas, thanks for asking. And I'm just getting rid all these and the bigger trash can is in here,"

I help Penelope get her decorations into the trash before she gives me a wave and heads back to her little cave outside of the bullpen. Once Garcia is gone, I take a seat at my desk and immerse myself in my work, doing what I can to distract myself and not let my mind wander off to how much I missed Amelia's presence this morning. The rest of the team starts to come in and shake off the cold, greeting each other and sharing pleasantries about yesterday's holiday.

"Morning, Kid," Morgan says as he passes me to get to his desk, patting my shoulder and making me momentarily draw scribbles on my case file.

"Good morning," I chirp a little too happily, easily erasing the pencil scribbles.

Morgan's head pops up at my tone, eyebrows raised. "Good Christmas?"

I try to suppress my millionth smile of the morning but it doesn't work very well. Amelia's face pops into my brain and she doesn't go away. And once her face comes to mind then so does the feeling of her lips on mine, and the way her laugh echoes off the walls, and the sight of her smile as she flutters her eyelashes. The memories make me want to reach for my phone and call her right away, but I just resort to recalling the beautiful memories from yesterday. "Yeah, it was good. How was yours?"