The next day Liz trudged inside her house after completing a twelve-hour day at The Post Office. Her thoughts were unsettled and raced a mile a minute. She honestly didn't know why they kept her on the task force to find Red anymore, because she felt like she was contributing nothing to their efforts in doing so. The first month or two they had come to her with profiling questions and tried to include her in all of their discussions, but lately they stopped coming to her, stopped inviting her to meetings and even mostly stopped talking to her. Only Ressler and Meera continued to make somewhat of an effort, but they had been distant lately as well. She was grateful for their efforts, but yet often found herself thinking about how much she would like to quit profiling and do something else. She just didn't feel a passion for it like she used to. Yesterday she had been on a high from the discovery of Red's gift, but that high had long since been erased and she felt just as bad or worse than she had previously.

With those thoughts on her mind, she walked up the stairs and into her bedroom. Tom was out, again. She hadn't seen him for more than a few minutes in weeks now. She realized last week that he was most likely avoiding her. She didn't know why it took her that long to come to that conclusion, but when she did, it didn't hurt as much as it should have. She just didn't give much of a damn anymore.

It was nearing ten o'clock and she hadn't eaten much that day. Most of the time she didn't feel hungry, and as a result had lost ten or fifteen pounds, her clothes were looser and more baggy looking because of it.

Tonight she was hungry, but didn't feel like cooking anything. Not that she had any food in the house to cook anyway. She didn't feel like ordering out and waiting around for it to show up either. She sighed and mumbled to herself, "Tea it is." That she could make relatively easy, and it always made her sleepy so she could fall asleep without her troubled thoughts following her into her dreams.

She changed into some yoga pants and a loose-fitting long-sleeved shirt, then started walking down the stairs.

That's when she heard the doorbell. "What the hell?" Who would be coming around at this time of night? She quickly ran upstairs and grabbed her gun and put it in the waistband of her pants at the small of her back. The doorbell rang again and she ran back down the stairs and looked in the peephole to see who it was.

She was surprised. It was only a delivery person from her favorite Chinese restaurant, and one of the regular ones to boot. She unlocked the door and with a confused look on her face said, "Hey Gary, I didn't order anything."

He shrugged, "I just deliver where they tell me to go. The tag clearly says the food's to be delivered here", he handed her the large bag of food in his hand, "So there you go. Enjoy. Oh, and don't worry about a tip, they already left a big one." At that he smiled and walked quickly down the stairs, giving her a little wave as he got into his car.

She stood there for another minute, looking out into the darkness in hopes of seeing the one person she wanted to see at that moment, but of course she saw no one.

Sighing, she closed the door, walked into her living room and set the food on the coffee table. She walked into the kitchen and collected a plate and a fork, then snagged a bottled water from the fridge.

Liz plopped herself unceremoniously on the couch and opened the bag of steaming hot food. It smelled delicious and her mouth was already watering. She reached her hand inside the bag and felt a piece of paper at the top. Smiling, she pulled it out and opened it up, revealing right away what she had already suspected. Red's handwriting written once again in red ink.

"I've been told you've been losing weight. You need to eat Lizzy. I'll be back soon enough, but in the meantime you need to take better care of yourself. I don't want to worry about you more than I already have been. This food will last you three or four days and I expect you to eat all of it. No more skipping meals. I'm serious, Sweetheart."

She frowned at the nickname, rolling her eyes because he knew she hated it when he called her things like that. Tonight though, she found she didn't mind and smiled again. She could hear the way he would have said the words in his note to her in her mind, and it suddenly made her more hungry than she had been in weeks.

Liz quickly pulled all of her favorite entrees out of the bag, of course he would know them, and ate more than she had in a very long time.

After eating until she could barely move, she opened the note back up and re-read it a few times. Finding that she did actually like it when he called her those endearments. She wished he were here in person to call her them, but a hand-written note would have to do.

She stood up and put the leftovers in the fridge, then walked up to her room and put the note in the drawer next to her bed, beside the one she had received from him yesterday.

She quickly fell asleep and slept better than she had in days.

Author's Note: Thanks so much for the reviews/follows/favorites from the first chapter. I hope this one didn't disappoint. Please let me know what you think. Even suggestions on what you think he would give Liz as a gift. I might use them..haha. Have a fantastic Thursday.