This story has been….well it's kind of been stuck in my head the past couple of weeks and I KNOWWWWW I'm not very good at keeping up with stories. School, work, and social life kind of cut into my writing time. So bear with me please! Also, I'm sick so if this gets radomly updated, it's cause I'm editting for mistakes.

Disclaimer: I don't own it! I just borrow it.

There's a musky smell filling the air as he comes to. Something dark, a color of familiarity, seems to block his view and it takes him a moment to realize that it's a wall. He blinks in momentary confusion. The dainty sound of broken glass fills his ears as his senses arouse themselves one by one; smell, sight, sound…touch. There's a pain in his side that hinders his ability to roll over effectively, and with a soft groan he is forced to acknowledge it, coming to rest on his back. He lays there for a second, accosted by a wave of dizziness and heavy breathing, until it hits him. The flashes of automatic weapons, the screams of various men and women, the shouts to stop, his own words forming as his gun rises, the gunmen turning towards him…

He remembers jumping through the window to his office as bullets flew by him, shattering the glass. Somewhere above him the blinds clanged uselessly and he was mildly surprised to see them still intact, if not a bit disheveled and bent. More alarming was the way a red light flashed in the area. The incessant strobe had no sound; just a silent beacon that they were under siege. In the damn building… It was then and only then that his stomach lurched with sudden fear. This new anxiety allowed him the strength to stumble to his feet, catching himself on the edge of his desk to gather his bearings. Silence filled the area of the bullpen, but that didn't mean it was safe. His gun hadn't been hard to find; in fact he'd nearly stepped on it in his haste to stand. With the reassurance of the heavy, cold weapon in his hand he quietly stumbled towards his door; leaning heavily against the wall before hesitantly peering out into the destroyed room of the BAU.

The glass doors were shattered, some of the desks overturned where people had tried in vain to establish some cover from the flying bullets. Various bodies lay strewn across the floor; some felled where they had been standing, others as they had tried to turn away. A sick sense of dread threatened to rise up inside his throat but he swallowed hard. They're not down there, you know they aren't. Reid and Prentiss were with Strauss, one of the most secure rooms in the building. Garcia…she could have been heading down the hallway when the shooting started, or they could have gotten her in her office thinking that she was an easy target…that she had all the security. She could be a hostage.

If they mean to take hostages. A doubtful voice inside his head had already counted off the various ways in which these kinds of people operated. There were two types of infiltrators: those who shocked the population, took hostages, and made demands…and the other one involved less hostages and more deaths as a means to get what they wanted. Other times… it doesn't matter who gets in their way. He cleared the stairs just in time to hide behind the large filing cabinet as two men ran down the hall yelling rampantly into their comm units, mini-Uzis in their hands. He poked his head around the corner, holding his breath, and hoping that the coast would be clear. The last thing he needed was to draw attention to himself with a load of gunfire. He made it into the hallway and looked down to his right where JJ's office used to be, clear, and then to the left where Garcia's lair was, clear. He decided to head towards Garcia's office, hoping beyond hope that what he found in there wasn't going to parallel the bullpen. As the hallway darkened, the still flashing of that red alarm the only source of illumination, he couldn't help the anxiety building up inside him and the unease that seemed to tenfold when he realized her office door was ajar.

Slowly creeping into the space, his gun leading the way, he found most of her computers tipped over, some sparking, papers scattered, and dolls askew. Her big screen was blaring an eerie green, but nothing was shot up, nothing looked incredibly damaged. Her main computers were still blinking, and the others were on standby. It wasn't until he noticed the slow tap…tap…tap behind him that he realized she was still in the room. He would have turned around, he would have told her to stop, but the stick of a broom hit him straight across the face, making him stumble away from her.

"Aw God…" He groaned in lieu of a curse word, holding his head with one hand as he caught himself on her chair.

"Rossi?"

"Ya." He managed.

"I'm so sorry!" She squeaked. Rushing to him, Garcia pulled him into a hug. He couldn't help the sigh that escaped his mouth as the relief of her being alive dawned on him.

"It's ok, you alright?" Rossi's voice was muffled as she squeezed him a little tighter before stepping back.

"No. I am not alright! Those people…they…they killed everyone!" She was on the verge of tears now, peering down at the broom she'd discarded on the floor.

"Not everyone." He gave her a small, reassuring smile. "Prentiss and Reid are in Strauss's office, Morgan, Seaver, and Hotch are in the field." He made to lean up against her desk, sitting in a slouched manner, his eyes squinting in the dark; completely content with resting for a moment or two. "Did they come in here?"

"Almost. I made the mess you see now."

"Smart." He glanced back towards her main computer. "Can you pull up the security feed for the building?"

Garcia's hand flew to her cover her forehead dramatically. "You wound me with your doubt, sir." In literally three seconds, she had their entire floor up on her screen.

"The bullpen." Rossi had moved to stand beside her, one hand on her desk, the other on the back of her chair. "Rewind until the shootings start." For a few minutes they watched nothing but a ruined bullpen until Ross came back up on the screen, his earlier movements all in reverse. It didn't take long after that for mayhem to appear on her computer. When everything seemed normal again, Garcia pressed play and promptly covered her eyes. Rossi watched as a familiar looking man glanced back at someone near the coffee machine, who nodded slowly and began to reach into his jacket for the automatic weapon hidden there. Everything moved quickly from there. Six other men assisted the two from before. It was chaos for a few seconds; he saw people trying to get away, he saw himself, saw the men shoot at him, saw them continue to shoot into his office. But when everything was said and done...He hit pause and ran a hand through his hair. Pull yourself together, Dave, he thought as he mentally willed his heart rate to slow down.

"Boss?" Garcia's questioning gaze started to roam his face and he gave her shoulder a slight squeeze. Feet pounding down the hallway in the distance made the techy jump, and when she turned around Rossi was checking the cartridge in his gun. "Grab your laptop, we need to keep moving."

They'd made it to the stairs, opening the door, and stepping onto their floor landing when Rossi stopped.

"You need to get rid of those heels."

"Oh, right." She was instantly slipping them off and bundling them up into her arms. Rossi turned to give her a look; one eyebrow raised. "What? These are the latest from Jessica Simpson; I'm not tossing them." He started to laugh when Garcia's bright smile faded into something akin to panic. Rossi turned, not needing to ask what was wrong. The gunman saw them around the same time Rossi pushed Garcia out of the way. The man brought the gun up, fully intending to shoot both of them but never got the chance when Rossi fired twice; causing the man to tumbled backwards. He rushed down the stairs, ignoring Garcia's panicked calling for him. He checked for a pulse, found none, and went to grab the discarded gun.

"Rossi! Behind you!" He wasn't ready for the arm that slithered its way around his neck and started to squeeze. When the man lifted Rossi to his feet, he shoved back, using the man's momentum against him and caused them to catapult into the opposite wall. Caught off guard, the man released Rossi just enough to give the older profiler a chance to throw the back of his head into the assailant's face. A satisfying crack made Rossi smirk at the telltale sound of a nose being broken. The gunman howled in rage and reached to cup his nose as blood started pouring from it. With the man momentarily stunned, Dave launched away from him and back towards the guns he'd dropped. What he didn't count on was how fast the man would recover until he felt a combat book strike his right side. That sharp pain from earlier exploded, causing him fall to the ground.

Gasping for air, he looked up to see the man hovering over him; a sick smile on his face. Dave, trying to catch his breath, lashed out with one foot, catching the man in the left knee which buckled and caused him to go down, putting his face back in the range of Rossi's other foot which crashed into the man's skull; sending him to the right and causing him to hit his head on the railing. Somehow finding the strength to climb to his feet, Rossi watched the man for movement before retrieving the guns and stumbling back up the stairs. Garcia, who'd started to walk down in order to help him, stopped when he ushered her back and away from the two downed men.

"Up." He grunted as he gently took hold of her arm and led her up the three flights they needed to climb in order to reach the floor that housed Strauss's office.

The stairs were harder to manage than he'd expected, and by the time they reached the landing to Strauss's floor, he was behind a rather shaken Garcia, who hesitated at the door.

"You seriously are a super-agent." Her voice was shaking as she tried to make light of the situation. "Because honestly, I didn't know you could fight like that!" The words seemed to die in her mouth a little, because when she turned around David Rossi was leaning his left shoulder against the wall at the top of the steps, his arm wrapped around his abdomen. The soft "oh my gosh" that sounded from the analyst was only the beginning of her fussing over him as she carefully pried his arm away from his side. The small wince that crossed his facial features sent her into a myriad of different apologies. He tried to push her away, a new determination in his tired eyes.

"I'm fine." But when he tried to straighten himself up, he stumbled again, this time steadied by Garcia instead of the wall. She could tell he wasn't fine; he wasn't fine at all. His face had a sheen of sweat over it, his eyes seemed to refocus every time he had to move, his breathing was heavy and shallow, and he'd gotten paler in the last few minutes. He was definitely not fine. "We need to get to Strauss's office. That's where Reid and Prentiss are." He bit out as she supported him, her hand just grazing the source of injury, making him hiss in pain. Some look of horror crossed Garcia's face as she pulled her hand away and saw that her fingertips were wet with a dark substance.

"You're bleeding!" She was definitely panicking, trying to get a look at the wound when he stopped her, his hands grabbing both of her forearms and making her face him. And she wondered briefly where he'd found the strength to do that.

"It's just a scratch. Say it, 'it's just a scratch'." She repeated it with him, keeping eye contact the entire time. "I need you to focus, Kitten. I need you to help me. Can you do that?" Rossi knew that Garcia was a being of romantics, sarcasm, and believing in the good in everyone. He couldn't allow her to freak out; he couldn't let her start crying until they got to safety. And she was so damn close to crying. Her lip trembled, her eyes were watering, and the petrified look on her face broke his heart. Rossi was in protection-mode and right now he felt like he was failing. He wanted to keep Garcia in her blissfully ignorant bubble, he wanted to make her smile or laugh or something other than cry but right now she was just another dangerous encounter closer to breaking down. So he hid the truth from her, concealing it forcefully in order to protect her from a truth that would panic her. The truth was Rossi was fighting to stay conscious; fighting to keep the pain from showing on his face. Have to get her to Strauss's office, have to get Garcia to safety. And then, maybe then, he could evaluate just how bad that 'scratch' was.

"Strauss's office, righteo Mon Capitan." There's the Garcia they all knew and loved…

Soooooo ya haha I'm already working on chapter 2 since I decided to write more than I wanted in chapter 1. So expect an update soon. I'm sick with the flu so if Garcia seems a bit stiff or out of character let me know and I'll edit it. And I know that this says Rossi/Prentiss as a fic, but that's cause it will eventually evolve into that ;D