Two High IQ's Make One Great Romance

"You ok? Are you still um... upset?" Derek asked as he sat down next to me in the tech room. It was just the two of us, and we hadn't been alone together in a week.

"Not about what happened... well I guess kind of... but it has more to do with Spencer." I sighed and closed my eyes.

"What's wrong? You can talk to me."

"Well... I don't really know how to explain it." I shrugged. Derek leaned forward in his seat.

"Give it your best shot."

"He picked me up from teaching dance on Saturday... we went out to dinner. At first everything was great, we were getting along fine, but then he got upset because I told my boss how he wasn't my boyfriend, which he isn't, so he shouldn't even have been mad. And I completely understand why he took some personal time so I'm not blaming him at all for that, but he's acting like it's my fault that we're not together. If it was up to me we would have been together already, but now I'm not sure that that's what I want. I'm afraid he's going to leave again. I don't know, I'm feeling so many different things that I'm just stressed." I took a deep breath and looked down at my hands.

"That's a lot to take in. I can't say I understand."

"And it doesn't help that I feel like I'm hiding something from him. Considering what happened last weekend."

Derek was quiet again. "I though we weren't going to talk about that."

"You told me to talk to you, so here I am explaining my discomfort."

"Easy girl." He rubbed my shoulder. "I wasn't trying to be rude. But listen, you're young. Way too young to be worrying about all this. Why don't you just take things easy? See where everything goes? I was worried that this might happen. It seemed like you and Reid were going quickly before his... incident. Maybe if you had taken things more slowly..."

"I don't need to be reprimanded right now, Derek."

"Right, sorry. I didn't mean it the way it sounded." Derek's hands rubbed my shoulders and I leaned into him, hugging him. It was the most contact we'd had in a week. It felt nice to be protected in his arms again. I shook the thoughts of that out of my mind before they could progress any further.

"Everything ok in here?" Spencer said from the doorway. We both shot up and looked at him like deers caught in headlights.

"Yeah, fine. I was just about to leave." Derek rose and walked away without another word.

"You can't just come to me with your problems?" Spencer said with a hint of jealousy in his voice. He took Derek's seat.

"It wasn't important."

"It didn't look unimportant." He crossed his arms. I had never seen him this upset with me.

"Are you angry with me?" I asked. Spencer's eyebrows raised and lowered as he narrowed his vision.

"Not intentionally. I've just had so much time to think about what happened between us and how I ruined any chance of us being more than... more than what we are now. I'm angry because it seems like your closer to Derek than you are to me. I guess I'm jealous."

I rubbed my eyes and sighed. There was so much I wanted to discuss with Spencer, but it felt like all I had been doing lately was explaining myself and talking about so much emotional drama that it was draining.

"Derek and I are close, that's true, but you and I have a completely different relationship than we do. But really, I suppose the best thing for us is to just be friends. Don't you think?"

"Yes. Friends." Spencer held out his hand for me to shake. I laughed before grabbing his hand and pulling him into a hug. His arms were tense at first, but he finally sighed and wrapped them around me closely. I giggled at him and burrowed into his chest.

"Friends are allowed to hug." I said. He pulled back.

"Yeah, I know."

"It's better this way. So much less drama." I said as Spencer took a few steps towards the door.

"Yeah." Was all he said. I could tell he was obviously still uncomfortable with the situation.

"Listen, Spencer, you're one of my best friends. I don't want that to change."
His face softened. His eyes sparkled and a little blush appeared on his cheeks.

"It won't."

The team left for another case that week. It seemed as though they had been leaving more frequently lately, but when I asked Penelope why she told me it was because murderers never stop, and they needed someone to stop them. She didn't really explain why they left so often, but I tried not to pry.

I had free time, so I called Brianne.

"Hi sweetness." She answered.

"Hi." Was all I said. She could hear the awkwardness in my voice.

"What's wrong?"

"It's... Spencer. He came home this week and we were great at first, we even danced a little... but now he's obsessing over how we're not together anymore and we finally decided to just be friends. I feel... I feel confused."

"I would imagine you'd feel confused because you love him."

My mouth was open, but no words came out.
"You do love him, you know."

"What? I don't love him...." I shook my head.

"Yeah, you do." She laughed. "You might not know it yet, but I know you better than you know yourself. And maybe being friends is good for you, but I'm going to start taking bets on just how long that will last." She laughed at me again.

"Alright, let's changes topics. I don't like this." I laughed with her. My face was burning because of the blush I had. I knew I was alone and that no one could see me, but I was still embarrassed.

"Fine, fine. Just know that when you finally admit your love for Spencer, I'm going to say I told you so."

"Sorry, but I've got to go, I'm getting a call from Hotch. Talk to you later."

"Tell Spencer I said-" I hung up before she could finish whatever witty statement she had.
I tossed my phone onto the floor, sending it away with all of Brianne's honesty. She didn't know what she was talking about, I concluded. There was no way I loved Spencer, we hadn't been through enough together. I didn't know enough about love. The only love I knew was for my family and friends.

Then again... it was the sound of his voice that often got me through the day. Thoughts of him always brought me back to reality, and once they were in my mind, they stayed there. My dreams were often occupied by fantasies of him and I. Even the slightly movement he made, I reacted to. We could read each other like books. But... those things don't add up to love. There had to be more than that. Or did there?

God, I hated my brain. I hated that I had to over-complicate everything.
I saw my phone blinking on the floor, and I reluctantly picked it up.

"Have you ever hated your brain?" I asked him. He laughed.

"Yeah, quite a lot actually. But it has it's positives." He paused. "But hey, I need the addresses of these recently released convicts..." He listed off names of several men, all of which I found the addresses for and sent them to his phone immediately.

"Shouldn't Penelope have been able to get that for you?" I asked after giving him all of the information that he needed.

"She's busy with other things right now. Plus, I wanted to say hi. So why's your brain bothering you all of a sudden?"

"Shouldn't you be focusing on the case?" I laughed.

"Oh yeah, I guess your right." He lingered on the last word. I could tell he was multi-tasking between speaking with me and doing some sort of profiling.

"Get back to work, call me when you have free time."

"Bye Piper."

"See ya sweetie."

It was moments like that, the simple ones, that made my mind go crazy. How Spencer and I could have argued only a few hours ago, and now he was laughing and joking with me like always. I sighed and rolled backwards in my chair, hitting the wall. I picked up one of Penelope's troll dolls and braided its hair before the phone rang again.

"Girl you have got to stop distracting Reid, we need a hundred percent of his brain while he's working." Derek's voice chirped. I rolled my eyes. Flashes of our drunk encounter ran through my brain, but thank god I could force them out.

"It's not my fault, he called me."

"Well whatever the case, he's distracted, which is not what we need right now."

"Sorry." I said with a bit of an attitude. I could practically hear Derek crack his signature half smile.

"No problem. Now please tell me you can get me the last phone calls to and from Amber Lingly's phone."

"Let's see here... Two from her father, three from and one to a man named Brady Kingston, and then after that it seems like a lot of catalog ordering."

"Thanks doll." He hung up.

Then next few hours were quiet. I was able to help the case, but only slightly. Penelope was there to take most of the work. Hotch seemed to have a strange tone of voice when he was speaking with me, and I had a suspicion that it had to do with Spencer. He had given me plenty of warnings about tons of things, most of them for my benefit. But I had a feeling that his next would be pertaining to someone else.