The Fathers of My Son

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds. I barely own my mental sanity.

A/N: Visit You Give Me Fever, A Rossi/Strauss Forum forum/You-Give-Me-Fever/120042/

Feel free to post your own story prompts/ideas at the forum.

Her son really belongs to him. Her girls to her husband. Well ex-husband, as she was divorced. Erin Strauss (being an independent woman she went by her maiden name) and David Rossi were together for 6 months. David got jealous of her ex and the woman who became Rossi's wife # 2 set him up in conjunction with Erin's ex husband. They schemed to make it look like Strauss was cheating on David with her ex-husband. Their reasons were obvious: Mary, wanted to marry Rossi and Richard Marksman wanted his ex-wife, Erin back.

Rossi broke Strauss' heart when he believed it. She went back to her ex-husband and remarried him three weeks later for her daughter's sake. Two weeks after she remarried, she realized she was carrying Rossi's child.

After losing Erin, Rossi tried hard to go back to his playboy ways and act like he wasn't affected at all. Most nights when he wasn't on a case, he drank himself into a stupor. During one of these nights, while he was highly inebriated, Mary talked him into flying to Vegas and a quicky wedding. It was a rebound marriage for Rossi. When he woke up hung over in the hotel the next morning, he couldn't believe what he had done. Rossi knew then and there that he had to change his behavior. He realized that he couldn't keep destroying himself over losing the woman he loved as seeing him self destruct, would crush her. He knew he had to go on and pretend to be happy, even if he wasn't, because he loved Erin Strauss enough to want to her to be happy, even if it wasn't with him.

Erin and David eventually forgave each other. He divorced wife # 2 when he found out what she had done. Mary never told Rossi about Richard Marksman's involvement in breaking Strauss and Rossi up, out of spite. She figured if she couldn't have David, she would make sure, he couldn't have Erin. Rossi's ex-wife Mary blackmailed Strauss' husband, with their shared secret for years.

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Strauss hid her pregnancy for the first few months, until she had decided how she was going to tell her husband and if she should tell Rossi. She knew right away what she was going to do when it came to Rossi. How she was going to deal with her husband took her a considerable amount of time and energy to work out. Strauss knew that what happened after she told Richard, would not only effect him and her but also their daughter. While it was true her daughter Kristina was still too young to understand what a divorce was, she did feel the tension between mommy and daddy before they divorced and she didn't understand why daddy didn't live with them anymore, when Erin and her husband were living apart. And then Erin and David started seeing each other. The little girl took to Rossi immediately. He spoiled her rotten when he was around and she knew, even at her age that she had him wrapped around her little fingers. While her father Richard loved her, and spent time with her, he was more reserved in nature than Rossi. He would hug her when she ran up to him when he came home from work but she had to wait until he changed out of his work clothes before he would even consider playing with her. Whereas Rossi would play with her no matter what he was wearing, be it casual clothes or a Tuxedo.

If they weren't playing horsey, they were playing helicopter. Rossi was great at spinning yarns and he would tell her amazing stories of adventure, knights and princesses. He would even help Erin read Kristina bedtime stories, after they said her prayers with the child. Rossi would do the different character voices and add his own spin on the events. This would usually lead to excited giggling and the tickle monster before Erin would have to remind the two of them that the purpose of a bedtime story was to relax enough so you can go to sleep, not get the child so keyed up that she would be awake past her bedtime. They would both say sorry and the story would be finished in a calmer manner as her daughter drifted off to sleep. Krissy loved David and the feeling was mutual on his part. Once or twice, Krissy had even convinced the big, bad profiler David Rossi to play tea party with her and her dolls. He'd sworn Erin to secrecy on that one. When Strauss and Rossi broke up, he missed Erin's daughter as much as he missed Erin as he had grown to love that little girl as if she was his own child. Kristina missed Rossi as much as he missed her. Erin hated the fact that this was the second time her daughter her inability to sustain a relationship had caused her daughter to lose someone she cared about. Remarrying her ex-husband was one way Strauss felt she could help make it up to her daughter. Little did she know that not long after she remarried, she would have a secret that was so big, it would one again threaten her daughter's happiness.

The thought of not having the baby never crossed Strauss' mind. There was no way on God's green earth, that she would ever get rid of David's child. Truth be told, there was no way she would get rid of any child of hers. While she firmly believed to each his own, it just wasn't in her to do something like that.

Lucky for her, Strauss had been promoted to Assistant Section chief the week before she remarried. Having a desk job allowed her to keep her pregnancy a secret a lot longer than she would have been able to if she had still been a field agent. She was almost three months along now and knew even if she didn't work as closely with Rossi as she had when she was a field agent, he was a great profiler and if she wasn't careful, he'd figure out she was pregnant before she told him and that would end any hope she had of getting him back-off and let her husband be a father to the child.

Erin convinced David they needed to talk one day after leaving work. The time had come to tell him about his child. They were both married at the time, him to Mary and her to Richard, so they had informed their spouses that they would be a little late coming home that night. Erin had informed her husband the previously, that it wasn't his child she was carrying, so when she called him to let him know she was going to be late, she informed him that she might need his support when she got home and she had a feeling the conversation she was going to have tonight after work telling Rossi about the child would be very unpleasant for her. She once again thanked her husband for being so loving and understanding. Strauss apologized to him for hurting him, as she knew it couldn't be easy on him to watch her have another man's baby, even if the child was conceived while they weren't together. Erin told Richard again, how sorry she was that she hadn't known that she was pregnant before she remarried him, because she never would have done that, had she known. He told her, the same thing he usually did, that he was glad she didn't find out until afterward as he was grateful she remarried him.

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David was there with Erin when their son was born. Her husband was at work. Rossi's name was listed as the father on the Birth Certificate. Erin named their son after David, but she used Rossi's middle name for the baby's first name as she hoped it would be less of a reminder to her husband that he wasn't the child's biological dad, even though she knew that was a losing battle as her son, heavily favored Rossi. Although he agreed to let her husband raise his son as his own, David insisted on being a part of the child's life. In deference to his promise to not seek joint custody as long as his son was treated well as when he was old enough to understand the truth, his son be told that he was his biological father, the Marksmans, made Rossi the child's Godfather. In his official role of Godfather, David held his son in his arms during his baptism and promised to look after the child's wellbeing physically and spiritually, as Anthony David Rossi was dedicated to the church.

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Rossi knew Strauss and her husband had been trying to work things out as she had told him her spouse was a good man and she couldn't just leave him. Erin also admitted to David that she didn't love her husband with the all consuming passion she felt for him but she did love him and couldn't break the commitment she made to him and their family.

Not wanting to admit how much her words hurt him, Rossi tells her he is retiring. He says it is the job - that he needs to do other things. She tells him there have never been lies between them, despite what he thinks she did all those months ago. David tells her he knows as he takes her in his arms and holds her like he will never let go. Rossi apologizes to Strauss for all the things he said and did and for stupidly throwing away all they had. He tells her he wishes he had used his head back then, instead of speaking from his broken, damaged heart. If he had, he would have known she would never have done that to him- to them. He confides in her how much he wishes he had never thrown away the best thing that had ever happened to him. David looks Erin in the eye and says to her, the truth is that no matter how much she loves him, that fact that she stayed with her husband and honored the vows and commitment she made to her husband when she remarried him shows her true heart and that she could have never done what he thought she had done to him, not even with her ex-husband.

David kissed Erin on the forehead and pulled back slightly to look her in the eyes as he wanted to make sure she understands what he is about to tell her. He also her to be able to look into his eyes and know that what he is about to say is not designed to hurt her, even though he knows it will. He needs with everything deep within his soul for her to know that he is not trying to be malicious or vengeful nor is he speaking from wounded pride, but that he is emotionally going under the murky depths of a turbulent sea of heartache. His mind has finally gotten over the initial shock enough to realize the only way for him to survive is to start to swim towards the distant shore. The only way he can do that is if he forces himself to no longer dwell on how he got there but to move each slow, agonizing inch from where he is now, not stopping or looking back until he has reached firm ground again. Then and only then he will be able to stand still in one place without the fear of being pulled under and swept away forever.

The tears are freely flowing down Erin's cheeks. They are silent tears but each drop shatters what is left of her storm tossed heart, just a touch more. Strauss hates that Rossi is seeing her cry, almost as much as Rossi hates the fact that he is the one ,once again, putting tears in he eyes. David's heart shatters completely at that moment and brings him to his knees. The momentum brings Erin with him. She knows the look of torment on his face is something she will never forget, even if she lives to be two hundred years old. Her former lovers look of pure devastation, will forever be scorched in her mind and there is no way she will be able to ever erase it. She can't hold back the tears any longer. Seeing the face of the strong, fiercely loyal, independent man she loves more than her own life broken like this, is more than she can bare and the first gut wrenching, heart rending, sob escapes from her throat. Rossi holds her a little tighter. Time seems to cease as they hold on to each other. The anguish of their soon to be parting, wraps them in a cloud of desperation and despair. Neither of them knew how long they stayed that way. Somehow, they ended up lying on the floor wrapped up in each others arms - so emotionally wrung out that they next thing they knew is that they were waking up still holding on to each other as if one of them loosened their grip, the other would disappear into thin air.

Finally David took a deep breath, kissed Erin on the forehead one last time, stood up and extended a hand to help her up. He gently squeezed the hand he held and brought it slowly to his chest. Rossi placed Strauss' hand over his heart and held it there. He tried to be strong for her, but his voice still cracked slightly as he said, "You will always have my heart". David slowly let go over Erin's hand. Next he took a deep breath and forced his body to take a step back. He then turned and began to walk away from her. An audible gasp escaped Erin's throat before she could stop it. Rossi's step faltered for just a second but then he continued moving towards the door and out of her life. Erin almost cried out to stop him. There was nothing she wanted more in her life than to beg him to stay. Strauss was a person who never begged anyone for anything, but in that moment, she would have done it unashamedly. Erin knew with just one word, she didn't even have to add the don't leave me, all she would have had to do was utter "please" and he would have stayed - no matter how miserable it made him.

In those few agonizing seconds, Strauss was almost willing to tell him that she would sacrifice all that she believed in, break her vows and leave her husband as long as he didn't walk out of that door and her life forever. But deep in her heart, she knew that would ultimately destroy Rossi, as he was too honorable a man to be able to live with himself knowing he had made her go against her morals by disregarding the tenets of her faith, she held so dear. Even though she meant the words with every fiber of her being when she spoke her marriage vows, she knew that as much as she loved David Rossi, she would turn break those same vows in a heartbeat, God forgive her, if not for the fact that it would ultimately destroy him and she loved him too much for that. So even though she was dying inside, Erin kept silent. She shakily brought the same hand David had placed over his heart, to her mouth and bit down on her knuckle to keep from speaking the words her heart desperately wanted to cry out, as she watched the man she loved walk out of her life.

End of Part One

CMGUYSGIRL