A.N. Post-ep for 10X04, with minimal spoilers for the episode.

Bent

"Congratulations, Rossi….nice move with the unsub." Morgan had heard the details from the others.

"Ooh, yes! I heard you were very Reid-like." Garcia's voice sounded through Morgan's phone. Since they were only on speaker, she couldn't see Rossi's brows go up.

"Reid-like? Penelope, what, exactly, does that mean?" Rossi looked at the equally puzzled young genius as he spoke.

"You know…...you worked with him. You didn't hurt him, you just figured out how to connect with him. How to help him."

Rossi opened his mouth to counter her, but closed it again without saying anything. It hit him, all of a sudden, and saddened him. Because Penelope Garcia was right. He'd just done something that had eluded him for a very long time. He'd treated an unsub with compassion.

Has it really come to this? That it's a remarkable event for me to forgive the frailty in another human being?

He'd been aware of it. Who wouldn't be? They regularly dealt with the most disturbed in society, and they all knew the people they captured….or killed…..were usually ill. That didn't make what they did to others any less evil. But, Rossi knew, they were mostly the instruments of that evil, and not the origin of it.

I know where it comes from. I've known since I was a little kid. The good Fathers and Sisters drilled it into me. I know whose face I should see when I'm looking at these sick bastards. But I don't know what that face looks like. The only faces I can see are theirs.

It stayed with him. All through the wrapping up with local law enforcement, all through the ride back to the airport, and long after he'd settled himself into his seat on the plane. It stayed with him.

As was his habit, he'd sat across from Hotch, and the two made a brief review of the case. When the conversation started to move on to more personal things, Hotch apparently noticed something about his old friend.

"You all right?"

"Me? Sure. Why?" Trying very hard not to fidget in his seat. He knew it was his 'tell', and he knew that Hotch knew it as well.

"It ended well, Dave."

Apparently he hadn't been as successful as he'd hoped. But Rossi still tried to deflect. He knew something was going on inside him. He could feel it. But there was a lot of internal conversation that would have to take place before he was ready to discuss it with his good friend.

"I know that. The guy was sick. He needed help. Now, maybe, he'll get it."

"Exactly." Hotch had spoken only the one word, but his heavy-browed stare remained on Rossi for a long time. Finally, he spoke again, demonstrating exactly how skilled a profiler he was.

"Would you have shot him?"

"If it hadn't worked?" Rossi took only a few seconds to consider. "Yes. I think I would have."

"Because it would have saved someone else. An innocent."

Rossi stroked his goatee as he stared out the window, lost in thought. "One life for the many. Even if he was something of an innocent himself."

"A lot of them are, Dave. But we have a job to do."

Rossi turned his gaze back to Hotch. "I know that. Hell, I wrote the job description. It's just…..I don't know. I…maybe I got back in touch with something I thought I'd outgrown."

As if that part of me was childlike. Immature. I'd forgotten it was also innocent.

Rossi found his eyes settling on a seatback at the other end of the plane, and the head that rested on it. He rose, drawn to it.

"I'll be back."

Hotch turned to follow the direction of Rossi's gaze, and realized what was drawing the man. He smiled slightly to himself, as the same time that he uttered a silent prayer.

Maybe it will be good for both of them. So…please…

The younger man's head was down-turned, his fingers sliding along a page of his open book. Reid caught sight of Rossi in his peripheral vision and smiled as his senior colleague took the seat across from him.

"Hi."

"Hi."

Reid remembered the last time Rossi had purposefully sought him out on the plane. It was when he'd been lost in grief over Maeve, and fearful that the grief had become pathologic. Fearful that he would never emerge from it. Rossi had seen it, and reached out, and comforted him, and encouraged him. Reid would be forever grateful that some part of him had been wise enough to follow Rossi's advice. And he'd begun a journey to healing.

He didn't talk about it anymore, and he did his best to hide it from the others. But Reid knew he was still very much on that journey. It's funny, he'd often thought, it takes only an instant for a life to fall apart. But putting it back together seems to take….well…..a lifetime.

Now, with Rossi settling into the seat across from him, Reid took mental inventory of everything that had happened in the past few days. Any ways in which he'd allowed his grief to escape the confines of his heart, any tell-tale looks, or lapses in concentration. Nothing showed itself to him. He had no clue about what might have prompted this visit. He would have to follow Rossi's lead.

The founder of the BAU struggled to find his opener. He was accustomed to being the dispenser of advice, not the seeker. His new role threw him, and it took him a few moments to gather himself.

"So, what are you reading?"

"Aquinas. It's for my philosophy degree."

"I thought you were already finished with that."

"I finished the BA. This is for my PhD."

Forgetting, for a moment, why he'd come, Rossi was intrigued. "You're getting another PhD? Three wasn't enough?"

"It's not the degree. Well, maybe it is, a little. I'm hoping my dad will see it on google." Reid waited for Rossi's smile, knowing it would come. He wasn't disappointed. "It's more about….about knowing, I guess."

Rossi gave a slow nod. "Knowing. That's very appropriate. For Aquinas, that is."

Now Reid was intrigued. "You know Thomas Aquinas?"

"I was practically raised by nuns….well, in school, anyway. When I was a kid, I had all the rules of the Church drilled into me. But then, one day in high school, I found out about Aquinas….and Augustine, and a bunch of the others. And I found out that they all thought the 'rules' were arguable."

That made Reid smile, picturing a young Dave Rossi, forerunner of the current version. "And you started to argue about them?"

Rossi laughed, remembering. "Did I ever! Sister Mary Claude thought I was headed for the seminary, but then she decided I'd gone to the other side."

Reid chuckled. "The other side?"

"In those days, one didn't argue with Mother Church. Or Father Church….I never could get it straight. Anyway, all you were expected to do was to go to Mass every week, and genuflect when you were supposed to, and stand up and sit down when you were told to. Oh, and confess your sins every week. Even if you had to make some up."

Reid didn't know if that was supposed to be a joke. "You can make up sins?"

"And then add one to confession. The old reliable, "I lied, just now." It's what we all did."

Reid shook his head. "Wow. So, you started to argue, and…..what, they dumped you?"

"They didn't get the chance. I enlisted. Went off to Vietnam. Forgot anything I ever knew or thought about innocence and guilt. All I knew was live or die. And, to live, it was necessary to kill."

None of his IQ points seemed to be helping Reid in this conversation. He felt like he was in over his head, unsure why they were speaking, unsure what Rossi wanted of him, unsure of his response. So he fell back on his old friend, silence.

Rossi sat in that silence for a few moments before continuing. "Killing became synonymous with life, if you can believe that. It was either them or us. After a while, I was grateful for each time we'd get a new recruit, because they would still be naïve enough to ask the questions, to tell which was the friend and which the enemy."

The senior profiler's gaze was directed into the ether, but the visions in his mind came from long ago.

"As far as I know, I never killed an innocent in Vietnam. But it was only through the grace of God….through those new recruits He kept sending."

To Reid, it felt like a sacred exchange. He barely moved, barely breathed, as he waited for Rossi to continue.

"I was too young then, too stupid, to realize. But, one day after I got back, while I was waiting to hear back from the Academy…..it hit me. What I might have done. What I might have become. I hadn't been to church in years by then…but I went that night. And I thanked God for saving me…..and all those innocents….from myself."

Reid had to swallow before he could reply. "You were young. You didn't know."

Unexpectedly, Rossi turned a riveting gaze to his younger colleague.

"You're young. You know. Why is that? Why is it that you remember what I'd forgotten until today?"

It felt like an accusation, and Reid recoiled. But then he saw the pleading in his senior's eyes.

Softly, almost in a whisper, Reid asked, "What happened today?"

Rossi dropped his eyes to the hands that were folded…..fisted…..in his lap. "I saw it today."

"Saw it?" Whispered again.

"I saw the man. Not the evil. Not the crimes he'd committed. I saw the man, and his weakness. I saw his humanity."

"He was sick."

Rossi shook his head. "Most of them are, Reid. But I don't see the illness. I just see the evil that they do, without seeing what makes them do it. Until today."

Reid got it now. He understood why Rossi was talking to him. He knew the others were often concerned about the risks he took by trying to connect with those they were trying to apprehend. He knew they questioned his wisdom. But he also knew they never questioned his heart.

"What was different about today?"

Rossi's head moved back and forth slowly, in a signal of unknowing.

"I'm not sure. Maybe it was what I learned at the CDC about what he was going through. Maybe it was because I knew there might be a way to help him."

Reid knew he might be treading on dangerous ground, but it was necessary. He owed it to Rossi.

"Or maybe because you saw him as something more than a killer. You saw him as a person."

Rossi's gaze became intense once again. "Is that what happens with you? You see them differently?"

Reid shifted in his seat as he tried to gather his thoughts. "I see them as people. And I try to think about whether there would be any circumstance, or any belief, that might make me do what they do."

"And that works for you?"

Reluctantly, Reid nodded.

Rossi's brows raised. "That's a scary place to go, young Spencer."

"Tell me about it."

Rossi's eyes went back to the window, as he thought it over. "Tell me what motivates you to do it. For me, it's the Catholic guilt. Once I left that behind…..sort of…." He chuckled to himself, "…it became harder to worry about the person in front of me. I just focused on their guilt, and took care of it. I imposed judgment." He looked back to Reid now. "You don't believe in God, right? So what motivates you?"

It was Reid's turn to spend a few moments in thought. Rossi was respectful enough of the process to wait him out. Finally, the young genius was ready to attempt his response.

"I don't know if I believe in God or not. So I guess that makes me an agnostic. But I guess I do believe in people. I believe there's something basic, something good, in all of us. Aquinas would call it the soul. You can call it whatever you like. I'm just convinced that it's there."

He looked at Rossi for a response, and was rewarded with a 'go ahead' nod.

"So, it's like….there's something the same about all of us. We're all born with our own gifts and weaknesses, but there's something inherent in what makes us human, and it's in all of us. So, I try to tap into that. I try to find that thing inside me that connects me with everyone else, and I try to see how it can be bent by things that happen to us. If I can find the place where it's bent, maybe I can help to straighten it."

Rossi spent a beat in meditation, then reflected, "Bent, but not broken."

"Exactly. Although, sometimes I think it breaks. Sometimes, I don't think there's anything left to relate with."

"The thing that makes them human has broken?"

Reid nodded. "I don't know if it's right, but it's how I look at it."

Rossi let his head fall back on the headrest. "They've lost their souls."

"Maybe. That's what Aquinas would say, anyway."

Rossi nodded, ever so slightly. "I think it's what David Rossi would say as well."

As he continued speaking, his volume dropped, as though he was speaking only to himself. Reid leaned forward to listen, despite feeling like he was intruding on a personal moment. It felt important, and crucial….and spiritual.

"I'd forgotten about the soul. Here, I've been going to church all these years, hoping to assure my eternity…and I'd forgotten about the thing that unites all of us. The piece of God that makes us all who we are. But, today, even though I didn't recognize it….I found it again."

He looked up from his reverie to see his younger colleague staring at him intently.

"Thank you, Spencer."

"Me? Why are you thanking me?"

"Because I wouldn't have done what I did today if I hadn't seen it modeled for me, over and over again, by a young man I very much respect. And because, even having done it, I didn't understand it, and I needed to. And because, even if you're not certain you believe in God, I think He believes in you. My vision had become clouded, and you helped me clear it. You helped me find something that was right in front of me all along, but too big for me to understand its shape or identity."

"And you think God played a role in that?"

Rossi smiled now. "I think Spencer Reid played a role in that. And if the One Who invented him wants to take credit...well, I'll thank Him too."