It was tough going, but soon enough, the reporters began to disappear, the agents held firm, and the rumours were rectified. Alaric's face was removed from the newsrooms – not the internet, mind, but newsrooms were as good as it was going to get – and it was known of the brave step she had made to bring her parents to light.

There were no tears to be had when they heard of the result. It was all so simple to them. Harry and Lewis Truman, while not the perpetrators, had been involved with the parent's malevolent deeds and in some ways, the cause of them. Their deaths were unfortunate by-products of a grand, gory conclusion.

Alaric would only be tended to by Spencer and Derek, who so far had been too busy to do so. Garcia tried her hand, but she either found the girl unresponsive, uncooperative, or eager to get away. Her face was a bone white; her eyes were dull, robbed of their purpose; her mouth was a constant hard frown that could be shifted by no means; even her hair, which had been so ignored by them as something paltry she cared for behind the scenes, seemed to have lost its vibrancy.

As each teammate caught sight of her at different times in the night, and the sight never changed, they realised that she had slipped into a quiet world of mourning.

"Where's JJ?" Derek asked at the conference room, both sides of him flanked by short stacks of paperwork. Spencer and Emily were with him, their own work having been a pressing issue, and each one took up opposing seats, as though they were sat to resemble a triad.

"With the parents," Prentiss replied; "I don't envy her that."

Spencer shook his head; "It's rare that we don't save at least one would-be victim. We were too late this time."

"Too late? We behaved rashly."

Three heads rose, the lights above giving them sight, and saw that Rossi had entered the room. He was an older gentleman, but as Derek noticed the deep frown lines on his face, the hair that seemed a little greyer than it had that morning and the heavy sigh in his tone, he fancied he'd aged in the night.

"Rashly?" Emily asked, to which he nodded.

"Lewis didn't have his finger on that trigger. I didn't see it before, but I noticed it afterwards. Harry, we couldn't have saved, but Lewis?" he shook his head, apparently tired of the thought, as if it had gone through his mind a dozen times before he brought it to them; "He died for no reason."

There was silence for a moment. With the lights, the conference room gave the illusion of it being day; sunlight was more natural, of course, and easier on the eyes than the bulbs, but it kept their brains fooled well enough not to feel tired.

With a quiet voice, Reid questioned; "Have you seen Alaric?"

Rossi was still for another moment. Lost was he in his regret. But soon enough, tapping into experience, he regained composure and spoke.

"I have. She's still where you left her."

"Doesn't have the heart to leave," Prentiss muttered darkly; "Where would she go?"

"She wants to know who she'll be adopted by." Derek mentioned.

"Have you told her we have no idea?" Rossi asked, and when the agent shook his head, sighed; "That's more news to break to her. Still, I'm sure the family will have some sort of heads-up about what's happened. If they didn't see the news before it went off air, that is."

Spencer stiffened. He went back to his paperwork, but there was a melancholy about his air that refused to go, and even when Rossi left – accompanied by Prentiss, for she needed 'more coffee to keep her heart pumping' – he was silent.

They sat in the quiet for a long time. Eventually, Derek spoke.

"Don't want her to go either?"

Spencer looked up. He blinked owlishly, having not expected Derek to care enough to read into his body language, but that was an error of judgement. Morgan was a kind man. He was compassionate about his teammates, as he was about most he met.

Derek set his paperwork to the side; "What can we do? Protocol says she has to go through the care system and be placed in a home."

"She'll be lost in the system. Or the family she gets won't understand, and she'll be sent away again. There are so many things that can go wrong, how can we just forget about her?" he asked.

"We don't forget. We can keep in contact, provided it's under the radar."

"And if we lose contact? If we get caught?"

"It's risky. It's also the only chance we've got to make sure she's happy."

The snort Spencer gave was short, so utterly unlike him that it unnerved Derek to hear. He looked at the younger agent, seeing how his eyes were dull and pained, and how he glanced every few seconds to the door as though the answer would appear.

Alaric was busying herself with wandering around the bullpen. She was still in her dim reverie, but her legs itched to explore, her mind content with its macabre idolisations.

She passed first a handful of agents thinking up excuses for the media. Next, it was another handful completing paperwork. A few feet later, and she had come to the walkway that bordered the pen, which she climbed and began to roam along as if in a trance. Somewhere, she was aware of Derek and Spencer. They were aware of her, too, for as she approached one of the doors she heard footsteps, before the genius appeared with a forced smile on his face.

"There you are," he said; "Where are you going?"

She said nothing.

"Go back to the bullpen. We'll be with you in a moment."

"I want to see Heidi's parents," was her response. It was enough to make Spencer freeze, looking back over his shoulder to where Derek appeared.

"I don't think that's possible, Alaric," Morgan tried to explain; "They're experiencing a lot of grief right now."

"They lost their daughter to my parents. I lost my brothers to them. We're experiencing the same grief."

"They might not see it that way. Come on, come here," he moved past Spencer to lift her into his arms, and she had no energy to break free of him; "What do you want to do instead?"

She thought for a moment, then, with a face deep in regret and weariness, she murmured; "Arrange their funerals."

Spencer felt the need to speak, leaning as he was against the doorframe; "Harry and Lewis-"

"Not just them," she insisted; "My parents, too. We have no relatives. That means I have to help give them the funeral they'd want."

The agents spared each other a glance. So determined was Alaric that they dare not risk defiance, and instead took her into the conference room, where she was put closest to Spencer and given a sheet of paper, complete with his pen.

"Write down what you think they would want, and we'll pass it over to JJ to give to the right people."

"If you want to stop at any point," Derek reminded her, "you can. After what your parents did to you, no one's going to pass judgement."

She gave a harsh snort; "We're all the same people in death."