Disclaimer: I didn't do it - it's Dick Wolf's fault!

Timeframe: Before Season 8

A/N: This started out as one thing and ended up another. I hope it still makes sense. It also started off as a one-shot; it didn't stay that way.

He rubbed the back of his neck as he stood in front of the library stack. He came to the University Library because it was close to 1PP, it was open late, and because both copies of the extremely heavy psychology tome by Bruener were kept on the top shelf, above his own extremely high eye level; sometimes he thought he was the only person who had bothered to remove either one of them in the four years he'd been coming here to use it as a personal and professional reference.

Obviously, this wasn't the case, as neither copy was on the shelf now. He banged the shelf in disgust as he strode to a computer workstation, pecking his way through the screens until he discovered that one copy had been checked out, but the other was listed as "on the shelf".

"If it were on the shelf, I wouldn't be standing here, you stupid machine," he grumbled. He cast his eyes across the room, looking for the book at empty desks, on return shelves; there was no-one else on the floor, yet the book was not in its place. Snapping his fingers, he began to move toward the study rooms lining the back wall. He could see lights off in three of the five rooms; the fourth was occupied by a young man with blue hair who looked entirely too young to be in high school, much less college; and in the fifth was a woman, sleeping with her head and arms down on the table, the Bruener in a stack of books on the nearest corner.

He ran a hand over his face as he contemplated his next step. He could try to find the Bruener tomorrow at his local library, but it was highly unlikely such a scholarly work would be available there. He could come back to the University tomorrow and see if one was still available - but if this woman checked out the last remaining copy who knows how long it would be before he could copy the chapter he wanted to review for his case? He seemed to be down to two options: he could wake the woman and ask to borrow the book momentarily; or he could remove the Bruener, copy the chapter he wanted to review, and return the book to the study room with the sleeping student none the wiser. At his side, he rubbed the fingers of his left hand against his left thumb as his magician's heart envisaged how the disappearing act might play out.

An announcement came over the loudspeakers; the library would be closing in 15 minutes. If he wanted the chapter, he had to make a move now. He used every bit of the stealth he had learned as a child to massage the door open without a sound, and took a step into the room, hand extended to reach the title he wanted. As he did so, he noticed several things. First, the desk was covered in photographs, much the same way he put up crime scene photos on the board in the squad-room. Second, all of the photographs were of the same family group; a father, a mother, a young girl, and a younger boy. The woman was stroking the set of photos closest to her right hand; the fingers of her left were fiddling with a solid gold band. An iPod sat on the desk, playing a video of the father in the photos strumming a 12-string Rickenbacker; there was an earbud running to one ear, with the other sitting on the table next to the device. The table underneath her face was wet with tears. She hadn't been sleeping. She'd been communing with the dead.

"Get out," she stated flatly.

He tilted his head, flipping through his options. Hand still outstretched, he mumbled, "Do you mind if I borrow the...?"

Her left hand dropped the ring, shot out and pushed all the books to the floor. "Take all of them, I don't care. Just get out."

He moved to one knee to retrieve the scattered volumes; he could feel her red-rimmed gaze like a sharp stick poking the side of his face. His jaw clenched as he meticulously avoided looking at her; he was working hard to not feel his own pain, he certainly didn't want to consider hers. The tension radiating off her was like a horrible caress; he felt he couldn't move while under its thumb. God, was this how Eames had been feeling around him lately? No wonder she'd been so... snippy. He stood, placing every book but the Bruener neatly back on the desk. He couldn't think of one socially appropriate thing to say to extricate himself from this situation gracefully; in fact the one thing he wanted to know was bound to draw him in more.

"How long has he been dead?"

Her head still on the table, she moved her gaze to his face. "Do you play guitar?" she rasped.

He flinched at the sudden shift in topic; then shook his head, placed the hand not holding the book in his pocket.

"A year," she replied to his earlier question. "And not one of these damn books tells you what to do when your youngest barely remembers and your oldest can't forget."

He turned to face her, and she closed her eyes, effectively ending the conversation. He moved toward the door, opened it.

"I'll bring this right back," he offered, as he left the room.

As he fumbled around, conducting the book in and out of the copy machine as he fed quarters into the coin accepter, he tried to dismiss the part of his brain that focused on the woman in the study room. He didn't like that he could see his own pain reflected in her eyes, hear it in her speech. It came uncomfortably close to feeling. If he could just distract himself, concentrate on something else, everything would be fine.

By the time he decided what else he could turn his attention to, he had finished his copying. He set the book down, tore a piece of notebook paper out of his portfolio, and wrote out three volumes that specifically dealt with children and grief. He crumpled the paper and threw it in the trash. Then he heard his mother's voice from long ago, telling him to be a gentleman; before she was so sick, and the conversations turned predominantly nasty. He rarely thought of the time before she was so sick anymore. He fished the paper out of the trash, smoothed it out with his hands, picked the book up off the copier, took a deep breath, and returned to the study room. This time, he tapped softly on the door before pressing it open.

She had cleared out in the short time he'd been gone.