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“I will be the answer at the line of the end of the line. I will be there for you while you take the time. In the burning of uncertainty I will be your solid ground. And I will hold the balance if you can’t look down.” -Sarah Mac, "Answer"
Emily sighed and stretched as she got out of the backseat of the SUV at the airport. She had never been fond of the drives to and from crime scenes but ones in which the whole team was crammed into the same car felt especially claustrophobic.
Morgan and Reid jumped out the back doors opposite her and practically sprinted to the terminal in an effort to find coffee, food, and entertainment in the 30 minutes before the Bureau jet would take off for home.
“Hey, guys, bring me a--” Emily yelled after them before deciding they were too far out of reach to hear her. “Nope, didn’t really want anything. Thanks for asking,” she muttered, rolling her eyes.
Rossi climbed out of the back seat, chuckling. “What can I get you, Emily? I’m going in, too, just at a more civilized pace.”
She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and rubbed a hand across the back of her aching neck. “Um, an iced tea and…” She shrugged helplessly, finding herself in that singularly annoying state of wanting something to eat but with no good idea of what she wanted. “I don’t know. Crackers, I guess. Or trail mix.” She rolled her head and gave a little groan of frustration. “I have no idea what I want. Just an iced tea.” She dug in her purse for some cash, which Rossi waved off.
“Hotch? JJ? Can I get you guys something?” he called, watching their unit chief solicitously help an injured and limping JJ out of the car and toward the Bureau jet.
“I’m fine, Rossi, thanks,” JJ called over her shoulder, giving them a small smile. “I just want to lie down and take a nap until we get back to Quantico.”
“You’ve more than earned it. Hotch? Anything?”
“A sandwich, if you don’t mind. Turkey and Swiss.”
“Got it.” Rossi cast a quick glance at Emily. “Want to walk with me?”
“No, thanks, I need the fresh air more than I need the stimulus of an airport terminal.”
Rossi nodded and set off for the terminal at a sedate pace, hands in his back pockets.
Emily watched him go, before turning her attention to Hotch and JJ, who were talking quietly to one another as they headed up the steps into the jet. JJ held onto the railing as she limped up the steps, slowed by the twisted knee she had earned trying to run down a suspect. Hotch remained one step below her, tense and alert, in case she stumbled or needed a hand going up the steps.
Emily very distinctly saw Hotch rest his hand on JJ’s back to steady her once they reached the top of the stairs, then bring his other hand up to brush back her hair. What’s more, she saw JJ lean into the caress and close her eyes, a faint smile on her lips. Certain she was making herself privy to a moment that neither of them would want noticed, Emily turned her gaze away, a little wistful that JJ hadn’t shared whatever was going on between her and the unit chief with her best friend.
Although she had wanted more than anything to come back to the team and had, of course, jumped at the chance when JJ and Hotch offered it, Emily found that she was still having a hard time adjusting to being back. It wasn’t the camaraderie or the case load … it was the “race the clock” mentality that came with time sensitive cases. It was harder than it had ever been to drag her mind out of that intense adrenaline-driven mode once they reached the end of a case and into a quieter, calmer frame of mind. She found herself needing, more and more, moments of absolute stillness in which she could be alone in the universe and simply breathe before that part of her brain could shut itself off … and those moments were increasingly difficult to find.
She leaned against the cool metal of the jet’s body and took deep breaths of the night air, trying to bring her mind back down to a more relaxed state. She needed to be able to sleep. She needed to be quiet. She needed to get her mind off of multiple murders.
Breathing wasn’t working tonight, though. All she felt instead was a deep and abiding sense of restlessness. She craned her neck to work at the knots in her shoulders and the back of her neck but groaned in frustration when her head continued to ache.
“It can’t possibly be that bad.” Rossi’s lilting voice came to her from nearby and she opened her eyes to see him standing within arm’s length of her. He handed her a bottle of her favorite iced tea and a package of peanut butter crackers. “There’re some of those cookies that you like in here, too,” he said, indicating the bag he was carrying. “And a sandwich. No one should live on crackers after the day we had.”
Emily smiled, touched by the sweet gesture. “Thanks, Dave.”
“Let me take this up to Hotch,” he said, turning for the stairs. “Then I’ll join you in stargazing until our resident jokers come back aboard.”
“I wouldn’t do that just now,” she said, stopping him. “He and JJ are having a moment.”
Rossi frowned a little and peered at her. “A moment?”
“Yeah, of the ‘do not disturb’ variety.” She laughed at Rossi’s look of confusion. “Are you telling me you haven’t noticed the two of them?”
“JJ and Hotch? What about them?”
Emily rolled her eyes. “Men. My god.” She ticked off items on her fingers as she listed them off. “One--they’re both spending a lot of time in her office, ‘talking about cases.’ Two--he’s been super-protective of her when we’re out in the field. You can’t tell me he would have run to my rescue the way he ran to JJ’s when she fell out there today. Three-- there have been some longer than normal looks across the sit room table …”
Rossi laughed and waved her quiet. “Okay, Gossiping Gabby, let’s turn down the volume for a second. One-- they DO have a lot of cases to talk about—our case load isn’t getting any smaller, in case you hadn’t noticed. Two—men can get a little overprotective of the women they care about and Hotch HAS been keeping her a little closer since she got body-checked by that unsub last month in Montana. But,” he said, noticing the look of triumph on Emily’s face, “that’s mainly because he’s worried about getting her home in one piece to Henry. But none of that means they’re romantically involved.”
Emily smirked. “Okay, you can believe whatever you want but I’m telling you, there is something going on with those two.”
He gave her a wolfish smile. “You seem to be reading pretty heavily into a relationship that isn’t yours. Feeling a little lonely there, Em?”
“I am not lonely,” Emily scoffed. “How does wondering about JJ and Hotch’s relationship translate into me being lonely?”
“You seem to have spent an awful lot of time thinking about it, that’s all.”
“I was just saying--” Emily broke off and rolled her eyes. “Fine, Rossi, if that’s what you want to read into it, go ahead. What else have you intuited about me, Relationship Guru?”
“You know, you can make fun all you want but I have been married three times,” Rossi said. “I think I have a pretty good handle on relationships.”
“THREE was the operative word in that statement. And if you have such a handle on relationships, how come not a single one of them got you to settle down?”
“One did,” Rossi said. “Carolyn did. She was as close to settled and secure as I ever got.”
“Oh yeah?” She made her tone as non-committal as possible. Discussing Carolyn was tricky territory because Rossi obviously still very much missed his ex-wife who had died several months before.
“Yeah. We had a house, a car, my cabin at the lake.” He met Emily’s eyes and said softly, “We had a child.”
Emily stared at him, shocked. “You never—I had no idea you had kids.” And then the use of the past tense dawned on her and she clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh my god. Dave, I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t mean to--”
“I know you didn’t.” Rossi came to lean beside her, setting the bag of food down on the tarmac next to them. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s … god, I am an idiot. I should never have brought up …”
“Hey.” Rossi turned to her, took her hands in his. “Stop. You aren’t an idiot. You had no idea. It’s not something I generally share. But I don’t mind telling you—if you don’t mind hearing it.”
“No, I—of course I don’t mind. But don’t feel like you have to—“
“Emily.” Rossi laid a finger on her lips, playfully. “Are you going to let me tell this or what?”
Emily nodded and was quiet.
“I was in love with Carolyn the way I never was with anyone else and that includes wives two and three. If it had been up to me, we would never have divorced. But it was up to her … I let it be up to her … so we did.” He met her eyes, then turned his face up to the stars and kept talking.
“We got married after I started work at the Bureau in 1977. It was before the BAU really started to take off, back when it was still called Behavioral Science and Jack Crawford was head profiler. It was much more a 9 to 5 job then, so Caro and I were able to have a fairly normal marriage. When she got pregnant I was bound and determined to take as much time off as I could so I could be a real father to my kid. So I pitched my idea for my first book to my agent and I set up a time table that would let me take a break from the Bureau to work on the book-- which conveniently coincided with Carolyn’s due date.”
“Dave Rossi as a family man,” Emily mused softly. “That’s an interesting picture.”
“I wanted it,” he replied earnestly. “We both did. We were so deeply in love. We wanted to make a whole family for ourselves—and, of course, we had a lot of fun trying.” He winked at Emily and she grinned back at him.
“When she told me she was pregnant it was one of the best days of my life. I brought her home roses. We had dinner by the fire and made love about as passionately as we ever have. And I feel asleep thinking my entire world was going to just get better from that day forward.” He stopped for a moment, took a breath, got himself under control.
“You don’t have to—“
“I know. I want to. It may take me a minute though.” He took another breath, let it out, and turned his face up to the stars. His eyes were glistening.
“Rossi …” she said softly, hating that he was still so obviously hurting.
“It’s okay,” he whispered, laying a hand on her cheek. “Why don’t you tell me what’s got you so tense,” he suggested, trying for a more normal tone. “You looked upset when I came back out here.”
“Oh, it’s nothing.” She shrugged. “I’m okay.”
“Don’t bullshit a profiler.” His thumb stroked along her cheekbone. “What is it, Em?”
“It’s …” Emily heaved a sigh. “It’s getting harder and harder to turn off the work part of my mind. Like tonight … I can’t relax. My brain keeps moving at a hundred miles an hour and it won’t let me settle down.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“A couple of months. Since I got back. Long enough for me to realize that what I told Morgan once isn’t true anymore—I used to be really good at compartmentalizing. Now I’m not. My work is bleeding over into every part of my life.”
“That’s true for all of us, to a certain extent.”
“You’re right, it is. But …” Emily shrugged restlessly. “It’s also NOT true for all of us. Look at Garcia—she has a life outside of work. She has non-work friends and a boyfriend and she spends time volunteering. And Hotch and JJ—they find time to be with their own kids and, apparently, each other sometimes too. I don’t think I could do that right now.”
“Do you WANT to do that right now?” Rossi asked practically. “Is there someone you’re thinking of? Someone you want to build a life with?”
“Well …” Emily hedged then continued, “Not right NOW but who’s to say that isn’t going to change?”
“Oh, I think it will change. I certainly hope it will, at any rate.” She couldn’t tell from the look on his face whether he had meant it as the double entendre it sounded like, but she found her heart starting to beat harder.
Rossi turned her until she was looking at him. “For what it’s worth, I think you’d be a great mother, Emily. You’d be protective and nurturing, but sweet and silly, too. Your kids would adore you. You’d be just as likely to build a blanket fort in the living room as you would be to make them do their homework on time.” At Emily’s laugh, he squeezed her shoulders and leaned in closer. “And whoever ends up helping you start that family will be thankful every day that he managed to catch your eye. But that doesn’t have to be for today, or tomorrow, or even a year from tomorrow. Let it happen in its own time. And when that time comes for you, you’ll be able to slow down. You’ll be able to compartmentalize again.”
“You can’t know that.”
Rossi nodded. “I can know that. I felt the exact same way before I met Carolyn. When she told me she was pregnant it all suddenly took on a different perspective. Nothing else was even remotely as important to me as building that life with her, having that baby with her, not even the job I loved.”
“What happened?” Emily asked. “With Carolyn and the baby?”
Rossi took a deep breath, as if bracing himself. Emily touched his arm. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“I know. But I want to tell you. As hard as it is, I want you to know.” He looked back up at the sky. “Caro had a hard pregnancy … morning sickness all the way into her seventh month, horrible backaches. Some days she was so exhausted she couldn’t even get out of bed. But she fought—if Caro was anything, she was a fighter. And I did everything I could to help on my end, though I had knots in my stomach every day seeing her so miserable. It was nerve-wracking, trying to concentrate on my work and keep from worrying about Carolyn. I know there were times when I dropped the ball entirely but the other guys were good about picking up the slack—they had wives, too.”
“If the pregnancy was bad, the birth was worse. It was a hard labor for her. She was determined to do it naturally, no drugs, but the pain was intense and it just battered her down. By the time we were eight hours in, her doctors started realizing something was wrong because Caro was exhausted and the baby wasn’t moving.”
Rossi’s voice broke. Emily reached for his hand, took it between hers and held it.
“His head … had gotten stuck behind her pelvic arch. And he’d … moved around until the cord was wrapped around his neck. The doctors were finally able to move his head and help Caro along, but they were too late to save him. He’d been stuck for so long with not enough oxygen. My son James David Rossi was still-born into my hands on April 26th and my wife cried herself sick for the next 48 hours.”
Emily squeezed Rossi’s hand as he stopped speaking and murmured, “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m so sorry.”
He took a shuddering breath and squeezed her fingers in return. “I don’t think any marriage can survive the loss of a child. We tried, god knows, but her heart wasn’t in it. She was grieving in her way and I was grieving in mine and they just … weren’t compatible ways to grieve. I threw myself into writing the book and she went back to work as soon as she was able—probably too soon. Soon we were just ships passing in the night. She asked for the divorce a year later… she didn’t want to stay with the reminder of everything we’d lost. And I wasn’t going to make her stay.”
He met Emily’s eyes and said, softly, “Before she died … before she fell asleep in my arms and didn’t wake up again … she asked me if I thought …” His voice shook with emotion. “She asked me if I thought he was there waiting for her.” Tears ran down his cheeks. “I told her I knew he was.”
Emily hugged him fiercely, pulling him so close she could feel the heat of his body as he wept for his wife and son. She murmured his name over and over, rubbed his back in slow circles as his tears slid down the side of her neck and dampened her collar.
When he finally pulled away, his cheeks were wet and his eyes were red. He pulled a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and mopped at his face. Emily caught at his free hand and held on, wanting—needing-- a connection between the two of them in the face of so visceral an emotional response.
“I don’t think hearing that is going to help you sleep,” he finally said, laughing shakily. “I’m sorry, Emily.”
“I’m not.” She stepped closer, raised his hand and kissed the center of his palm. “You were lucky to have her … and she was amazingly lucky to have you.”
“Em …” He laid a hand against her cheek, thumb stroking across her cheekbone. “The feeling is mutual.” He gave her a gentle smile and lightly brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “Putting aside all the big questions—compartmentalizing, relationships, all of that … do you know what you really need to do right now?”
“God, I wish I did!” She blew out a long, shaky breath and leaned back against the jet.
“Stay right here with me, look up at the stars, and just breathe. No thinking. No fretting. Just looking.”
“That’s the answer, huh?” Emily shot him a glance, not sure whether he was being serious or sanguine.
“No, it’s not THE answer but it is an answer, the best one I can offer you.” He gave her a crooked smile. “Especially if you insist on asking the really big questions to the man who has never been good at coming up with the right answers.” His hand found hers and their fingers twined together.
“Maybe there are no right answers,” Emily mused, turning her face up to the sky. “Maybe there are just paths to take, each one just as valid as all the others.”
She could hear the smile in Rossi’s voice. “That’s a pretty deep insight for someone who’s only supposed to be looking up at the stars.”
“I told you I’m no good at turning off my brain,” Emily replied, half amused and half annoyed.
“I only have one other answer for that but it might not be one you want.”
“If it’s a partial lobotomy with that Army knife you keep in your pocket then I’ll definitely pass.”
“A little more pleasant than that.” He tipped her chin up, raising her face to his. “You’ve got about ten seconds to tell me if you don’t want me to kiss you.”
“You’ve got less than that to put your mouth on mine,” she murmured brashly, wrapping a hand around the back of his neck and pulling him to her.
They kissed in the moonlight silvering the jet, hands and mouths moving in perfect synchronicity as if they all ready knew one another’s bodies. They kissed each other long and hard until each could feel the other’s heartbeat against their ribcage.
They kissed as if that were the answer to everything … and for both of them, at that moment, it was.
END.