A sequel, if you will, to Unrequited.

Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. Criminal Minds is the intellectual property of Jeff Davis. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction.

Passion is a positive obsession; obsession is a negative passion. - Paul Carvel.

The BAU Jet, Runway of San Antonio International Airport

"Come on," a man, sitting back in a reclined aisle seat of a private jet griped as he hit the side of his cell phone with an open palm. "We aren't even in the air yet, how do I have no signal?"

An auburn-haired woman smirked at him as she shimmied into her seat beside him. "Maybe because you dropped your phone down a storm drain last night?" She chuckled as she took the device out of his hands and flipped open a tiny panel on the side. She carefully used her fingernails to pull out a memory card and a SIM card.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked her, his eyes narrowing.

She scoffed and handed the now-useless shell of a phone to him as she reached into a paper shopping bag and pulled out a white box. She lifted the top off, slowly prying a new cell phone out of its molded plastic packaging, and she slipped the two cards into their slots. She hit the power button and then leaned over again, this time fishing the charging cable out of the bag at her feet. She connected one end to the phone and plugged it into an outlet on the side of the plane, to her left. Raising an eyebrow, she handed him the phone and said, "You're welcome."

He smirked at her and shook his head. "Thanks," he laughed, moving in for a kiss. His left hand ran through her hair, his ring catching in a curl and tugging free, as he moaned her name softly into her mouth. His right hand, holding his new phone, slid into her lap. He chuckled again when he felt her hands drop over his. "I love you," he whispered.

"Yeah, I know you do," she said, grinning as her eyes shut and her head rubbed softly against his. "I love you, too." She kissed the end of his nose and was about to move her lips back where they belonged, against his, when a throat cleared. Her eyes shot toward another man, standing in between the rows of seats.

"We're taking off in a few minutes," the man said, looking around at the attentive faces of his team. "Normally, we wouldn't dive into another case this soon, but JJ gave each of you all the files, and I don't think I need to tell you that time is critical, so as soon as we land..."

"We got it, Hotch," a dark-skinned, suave-seeming man said, eyeing him curiously. "You think we're new at this?"

"No, Morgan, I just..." Aaron Hotchner, supervising agent of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, ran a hand down his face, grimacing at the feel of stubble even though he'd shaved before leaving the hotel that morning. "This is going to be draining on all of us, for a lot of reasons," he paused and looked to his right, shooting pointed looks at the two newest members of his unit. "Some of us might take this personally." He turned fully toward the pair, ignoring their tangled hands and worried expressions. "Stabler, I need to know that you can put things..."

"I can separate my personal life from my job!" Stabler almost growled. "I thought that was fucking obvious by now."

"El," the woman to his left squeezed his hand and leaned into him. "Stop it. He knows. This is just...he knows we have..."

Elliot nodded and kissed her forehead. "I know, Liv," he said. He took another deep breath and as he let it out, he looked over at Hotchner. "We'll be fine."

Hotchner nodded and then slipped into an empty seat, in a row by itself, and buried himself in a stack of files and reports.

Across from Olivia and Elliot, a younger man with his nose in a book said, "He knows you can do your jobs. He has to act like he's worried about everyone else to prevent people from seeing how unsure of himself he is." He looked up, catching Elliot's eyes. "He has a son, too. Same age as the last two victims." He turned his head only slightly. "Trust me, Olivia, he wasn't making any sort of judgement about you, or how capable you are."

Olivia nodded and smiled slightly. "I know, Reid." She blinked slowly. "But thanks."

"JJ has kids, too." The gawky man said as he tilted his head. "Morgan has younger siblings and nieces and nephews. I have Godchildren. We all know how to compartmentalize, and Hotch knows it." He gave her a small, flat smile, nodded again at Elliot, and then went back to reading.

Elliot watched, stunned, as the pages turned rapidly, knowing that if it had been him, he'd still be on the first paragraph of the damn thing. "That is fucking amazing," he muttered, leaning into Olivia. "No matter how many books I watch him whizz through, it's...I mean, no one can possibly read that fast."

"Oh, it's entirely possible, Stabler," Reid said, letting out a slightly arrogant laugh as he turned another page. "I'm living proof."

"I'm convinced you're part robot," Elliot declared, shaking his head. He turned fully to Olivia, then, and lowered his voice. "I need you to keep me in check, here," he confessed with partially closed eyes and flaring nostrils. "More than usual. These...they're just little..."

"I know," she interrupted, again squeezing his hand in hers. She looked into his eyes and lifted one of her hands to smooth back over his short brown hair. Her smile widened and softened as her fingertips played at the nape of his neck, and she watched his blue eyes sparkle and shine as the opened wider and stared back at her.

He moved his right hand, letting his new phone drop into the small space between them with a plop, and trailed it upward, over her hip, her side, the very edge of the curve of her left breast, up her neck, finally resting it against her cheek. He tried not to blink as he held her gaze, seeing the warmth radiate from her smile and the pride and love glimmer in her brown eyes. The longer he looked at her, the more vibrant the memories played back in his mind. Moments he'd thought were lost and forgotten bubbled to the forefront in vivid detail, and he let them roll through him as he swiped the pad of his thumb under her eye.

"What?" she asked, barely breathing. She always got nervous when he looked at her like this. Even after so many years, it gave her butterflies and palpitations. "What's the matter?"

He shook his head and moved, kissing her once, but making it last a little too long to be considered "appropriate." When he pulled away, he took a shaky breath, let his hand fall back onto her knee, and looked at Reid. "Sorry, Doc," he said with a soft chuckle.

"No, you're not," Reid replied, not breaking eye contact with the book in his hands, but there was a smile on his face that betrayed his amusement. Doctor Spencer Reid, certified genius and Golden Child of the BAU, was constantly in a state of hyper-awareness and perpetual observation. Since Elliot joined his team, a few months after Olivia, he's had more than enough to watch and analyze. On the rare occasion he didn't have a book with him, decrypting their actions and defining their expressions was his favorite past-time. No one else in the unit had ever given him as much to work with, and to see a pair of partners with so much subtext and intense physical, emotional, and intellectual chemistry made him excited, proud, and, if he was to be perfectly honest, a tinge jealous. "Buckle up," he said, trying to hide the fact that he'd just figured out something that he wasn't even sure they knew about themselves.

Elliot cleared his throat and sat back, looping the seat belt around his lap and clicking it before shifting his weight a bit to help Olivia with hers. "These things are so fucking uncomfortable."

She laughed and cupped his face in her hands as he finished locking her into the seat. "They're adjustable," she said, kissing his lips once. "And you can unbuckle it as soon as we reach..."

"I know, I know," he said, rolling his eyes. "I'm still not used to this. Remind me again why I agreed to take this job?"

Without missing a beat, Reid spoke, but he didn't lift his head from reading. "Because you're magnetically drawn to your partner, and the distance between the two of you, the length of time between cases, started to piss you off enough to merit compromising your integrity, neglecting your separate jobs rather than each other. It seemed easier to take the available opportunity as it was offered to you to not only save your relationship, but give you the chance to expand your brood, something you've been trying to do with the little time you had together, and, of course, the gift of becoming partners again, something both of you missed and longed for, though you'd never admit it out loud to anyone but each other." He continued turning pages, as though he hadn't just completely flabbergasted the couple of agents across from him.

"That was..." Elliot shook his head and licked his lips. "It was a rhetorical question." He shook his head in utter disbelief and linked his fingers with Olivia's. "I know why I'm here."

Olivia smiled and squeezed his hand a bit, and then looked across the aisle at Agents David Rossi and Derek Morgan. "How long?" she asked.

Rossi was the one to answer. "Four hours," he said, "So make yourselves comfortable." He watched with a small smirk as Derek, to his right, stuck a pair of earbuds into his ears, closed his eyes, and started nodding his head to a beat only he could hear. After a good chuckle, he turned to someone else. "Hey, Hotch?"

Hotchner looked up at his colleague, without any trace of happiness on his face. "What?"

"We went over all the details before we boarded," Rossi said, "Twice. You don't need to torture yourself over this because of your..."

"I'm not," Hotchner interrupted. "I want to make sure we aren't missing something. Anything. Seven children in four days. This unsub needs to be stopped, and the sooner we get into his head, the faster we can stop him."

"Or her," Reid said, shutting his book. He finally looked up, turning to look back at Hotchner. "Nothing we have learned so far is indicative of gender other than the amount of rage apparent in the killings. A woman could absolutely have the capacity to do this, if the stressor and criminology fit. These children are...well...children. Strength wouldn't come into question, so a woman would be physically capable."

Hotchner tightened his jaw and stiffened, sitting up a bit straighter. "I don't see a woman, regardless of any questionable constitution, being able to do this. Not...not to children."

"Like I said," Reid said with a pointed look at his supervisor, "It depends on the stressor." He turned his head, catching the impressed expression on Elliot's face. "Go ahead. Say it."

"What planet are you from?" Elliot asked, shaking his head again.

Olivia laughed, wrapping her arm around his. She settled against him and dropped her head to his shoulder, training her eyes to look out the plane's window. She took a breath and let it out slowly, wondering how Reid could possibly think a woman could torture, dismember, and kill such young children. Her mind drifted to the kids she and Elliot left back home, her frown twisting into a loving smile. She let her eyes close, and as she felt Elliot's lips press to her head, she sighed.

"You okay?" he whispered.

She nodded. "I miss the kids," she said, looking up at him. "We usually get a few days between, and this time, I just..."

"I know," he said, cutting her off. "Me, too." He kissed her again and let his head drop to hers. "We'll be home, soon." He blinked. "I know what you're thinking, and, baby don't."

She bit her bottom lip and lowered her gaze a bit. "We see more of this, now, than we did back in New York, at SVU. Only it's...so much..."

"Worse." He nodded, agreeing, and shoved his hand between them to grab his phone. "You want me to call the kids? I know that look, you need to talk to them, huh?"

She nodded and watched as he dialed. It would be a few days until they saw those kids again, and God help her, when they did, she and Elliot would promise them, as they did every day of their lives, that nothing would ever happen to them. "I love you," she whispered to Elliot.

He smiled, bringing the phone up to his ear. He bent his head and said, "I love you, too, baby. We're gonna nail this son of a bitch, you know we are."

She nodded and curled around him a bit tighter. No matter how quickly they closed this case, it was going to take too damn long.

Reviews are welcome.

Peace and Love

Jo