Scratch the Surface

"I've got some issues that nobody can see
And all of these emotions are pouring outta me
I bring them to the light for you
It's only right….
I try to think about myself as a sacrifice."

~Kid Cudi.

FBI Academy. Quantico, Virginia.

"I know this isn't part of the briefing, but how is Agent Jareau?" SSA Judith Eden's face was lined with a mixture of fear and concern. The BAU team hadn't even fully gotten into the briefing room yet—O'Donnell, Macaraeg, Cruz, and the rest of the Flying J's were already there, waiting to begin.

"Her doctor claims that she's stable again," Agent Hotchner offered, his face still impassive. Morgan remembered his earlier request and tamped down the immediate desire to add No thanks to you.

"Good," Jack Dawson gave a curt nod, and Judith Eden hummed in agreement. She was lightly clutching her forehead with the tips of her fingers, as if she had a headache.

"She's got a long road ahead of her, and our thoughts are with Agent Jareau's family as well," O'Donnell offered diplomatically, though not unkindly.

"What about the other two men who were in the elevator with her?" Mateo Cruz spoke up, slightly chagrined that he hadn't thought to ask sooner (JJ had been his only concern, and he knew how that looked, how emotionally compromised that made him).

O'Donnell gave a heavy sigh, "Frank Vicelli, a military police on loan to us, survived and is in stable condition. Few fractured ribs, broken wrist. The other man, SA Lloyd Winston, was dead upon impact."

"Upon impact?" Cruz's brow furrowed in slight confusion. "It was only like a thirty or forty foot drop."

Spencer Reid piped up, "Few people survive falls over fifty to sixty feet. It depends on velocity, angle—there are numerous factors to consider."

"It wasn't the fall that killed him, exactly," Scott O'Donnell admitted, grimacing slightly. "The crucifix he was wearing hit the ground first and he landed on it—it severed the jugular and he bled out before rescue workers could open the elevator."

"Further proof that religion kills," Judith pronounced, sotto voce. Rossi had noticed that during the description of Lloyd Winston's death, her hand had involuntarily shot to her neck, as if she'd been stabbed herself. Even now, she made a slight grimace as she swallowed. However, she assumed an air of nonchalance as she smiled brightly at the rest of the room, "Well, now that we've gotten the fun stuff out of the way, perhaps we can focus on the case?"

The look that Derek Morgan gave her could have killed a person. "This is the case, Agent Eden."

"I think Jude's referring to the parts that we can actually help with," Dawson returned gently, taking a quick look at his team member, who gave a small grateful smile. "No disrespect intended, but the sooner we catch this bastard, the sooner we can focus on the people who deserve our attention."

Kate Callahan glanced up at Morgan, her own expression one of angry confusion (what's this woman's problem?). Morgan merely looked away, giving a slight shake of his head. He had very little respect for Eden at the moment, due to her flippant behavior, but that was personal—and he'd promised Hotch to remain professional.

Judith Eden noticed the silent exchange, ducking her head as she wrapped her arms across her chest in a protective fashion and resituated herself to a stronger stance. On either side, she felt Keller and Vichie shifting closer to her, as if offering silent support. It was a small act, but one that meant more to her than she could express.

"Valid point," O'Donnell kept his voice calm, trying to dispel the tension in the room. "Let's get everybody up to speed on the hunt for our UNSUB."

The Washington Daily Editorial Offices. Washington, D.C.

Linnea Donovan Charles knew trouble was afoot the second she entered the bullpen. Everyone suddenly became unbelievably busy, so engrossed in their computers or phones or papers that they couldn't even look up or offer a requisite good morning greeting.

Everyone except Karl Miramontz. He swiveled his chair towards her, the look on his face not exactly confidence-inspiring. He opened his mouth to speak, but another voice interrupted.

"Charles! My office—now!"

Linnea kept her focus on Karl. He gave a slight shake of his head.

He knows.

Damn. Not a good way to start the day.

Karl suddenly swiveled his chair back around, turning his attention to his work with surprising vigor. Linnea took a deep breath, tucked her head and headed into the editor's office.

Milford Miles was the epitome of every old-school hard-ass editor from every stereotypical reporter story ever. He was a mountain of a man—going flabby but not particularly paunchy, still muscular, large ham-fists with broad shoulders and a few liver spots that testified to his days as a hard-hitting and harder-drinking journalist in his own right, hair that was still surprisingly dark despite his age, a high forehead with a slick comb-over that actually didn't look ridiculous or take away from his austerity in the least.

He was one of the only people Linnea knew who still wore suspenders and wasn't a lumbersexual hipster. It was early in the morning, yet his suit jacket was already discarded in an unceremonious heap in a nearby chair and his sleeves were rolled up. He looked like he was halfway through an apoplectic fit.

Still, despite his furious appearance, despite his glaring eyes and clenched jaw and the vein doing the riverdance on his forehead, he kept his voice perfectly calm, as if he were commenting on the weather.

"Charles. How are you this morning?"

"I'm well, sir," Linnea wasn't sure what the game was, but she'd play along.

"Good to hear it. Didja sleep well?"

"I—um, excuse me?"

"I mean, after you sold out your own damn story to every other damn reporter in this damn city—did you sleep like a damn baby?"

"You wanna try to fit the word damn into that sentence one more time, sir?" Linnea Charles gave an unimpressed arch of her brow, crossing her arms over her chest. Milford knew she was nearly trembling with fear, he could practically see it pouring off her in waves, and yet he had to admire her attempt at bravado.

"Stop being a smartass and answer the damn question."

"Sir, I didn't sell out the story—"

"Look, I get that you're used to the hustle and bustle of New York City, and maybe they play the game differently up there. But this is D.C. We don't share, and we don't play unless it's to win. We're the eighth most-read political publication in the city. Do you know how many dailies there are here?"

"Eight, sir—"

"Eight daily publications. Eight. And we're eighth. Dead last."

"Yes, sir."

"And you get the chance of a lifetime—the kind of story that puts newspapers in the running, that put reporters on the nomination list for goddamn Pulitzers! And what do you do—"

"I go after it," she punched in before he could throw out that accusation again. "I left. I went straight to the story, hoping to get there first. Because I am used to the hustle and bustle of New York City, as you put it, and I know what happens if you're the last on the scene. I didn't have time to alert anyone else—nor would I have! That's not how I play, either."

There was a quick, urgent knock on the door.

"Come in!" Milford bellowed, though his tone implied that he wanted the person on the other side to do the exact opposite.

"Sir," Karl Miramontz's face appeared, worried and energetic at the same time. "Sir, I think….I have the answer."

"Ya think or ya know?"

"Know, sir." Miramontz fully entered the room, closing the door behind him (not that it mattered—the windows to Milford's office was open, the walls were paper-thin, and he hadn't made any attempt to be quiet, so everyone in the suite had been able to witness the whole exchange). He hurried to Milford's desk, laptop in hand. Linnea got up and followed him around, so that she could see whatever he was about to show their editor.

"Look, sir—here's the accountability app check-ins. Lin put in her assignment, and her GPS shows her well out of the office by then. But if we go over here," Karl clicked on another program. "The email alerting everyone else, forwarding the original from the FBI, was sent after she left. Which got me to thinking—"

"Who would do such a thing?" Milford finished quietly. His anger had subsided, being overridden by confusion and curiosity (there was a story here, and he was nothing if not a hound for a good mystery).

"Well, I accessed our security footage—"

"I won't even ask how you got ahold of that," his boss informed him dryly.

"No, sir, it's probably best if you don't," Karl admitted easily, his focus still on his laptop. He switched to another program. "Well, there's not a clear shot of Linnea's desk, but you can see—here she goes, out the door. And…if we fast-forward about twenty-three minutes…here we go."

Someone else walked past the camera.

"Is that…Desi?" Linnea asked, almost unwilling to say the name aloud. Desiree Estes hadn't liked Linnea from the moment she'd arrived at the Washington Daily, though Linnea hadn't ever been able to figure out why.

"Yep," Milford said tiredly, already seeing how this was going to play out.

"Sir, Lin's desk in in the corner," Karl nodded in the general direction, as if reminding his boss. "There's nothing over there but her desk and Nate's."

"Would Estes have any reason to be over there?" Milford didn't seem too hopeful.

"No—at least not at my desk," Linnea shook her head. "I mean, we're not working on anything together—and Nate's been on medical leave for two weeks now with his knee. There shouldn't be anything on his desk that she needed, either."

In less than two minutes, Desi sashayed past the cameras again.

"This is exactly thirty seconds after the email was time-stamped as being sent," Karl informed them.

"Oh my god," Linnea's eyes went wide. "I was in such a rush—I didn't shut down my computer. Anyone could have stopped by and read the email—"

"And seeing an opportunity to sabotage a fellow reporter, forwarded it to everyone else," Milford slumped back into his chair. "Dammit. I'm sorry I doubted you, Charles."

"Understandable, sir," Linnea admitted quietly, her tone implying her forgiveness. "Especially given how implausible the alternative sounds."

"Tell me about it," he sighed again. He'd been up for a good row, for busting his reporter's ass for stupidity, but god, he hadn't been up for firing another reporter for being unable to get past petty jealousy. He pushed the thought aside for now, shifting his chair slightly to look up at Charles, "And where are you on the story itself?"

She gave a slight moue of dissatisfaction. "I've hit a speed bump."

"But you're handling it?"

"Yes, sir. I'm handling it."

Strauss House. Vienna, Virginia.

Jordan Strauss had been staring at the wall for a solid fifteen minutes now—when she allowed her gaze to focus again, she saw her own reflection in the glass covering her mother's college degrees.

Of all the rooms in her mother's old house, Erin's study was the one that hurt the least. It held so much of her mother—the books, the boxes of old photographs on the bottom shelves of the bookcase, the degrees and plaques with Erin's name on them, even the orchid in the windowsill—yet it was still detached enough to somehow remain objective, instead of feeling overrun with memories. Perhaps because before her mother's death, Jordan hadn't really been allowed in here, so there were no memories of the office, so to speak.

She turned back to her laptop, which was currently on her mother's desk.

Her mom had tracked down a fucking serial killer, a man who'd tried to hide behind smoke a mirrors—Jordan was simply looking for an ordinary journalist, someone who spent their time in the public eye. It had to be easier, right?

Of course, she hadn't been a crime analyst like her mother had, at the beginning of her Bureau career. She hadn't learned Erin's skills of mapping data, finding points of connection (one night, after Jordan was well into college and Erin felt she could handle it, Erin had tried to explain basic crime mapping to her daughter, and Jordan had understood, but she'd never had to apply that understanding).

Linnea. Journalist. D.C. That was all she had. Hopefully it was enough.

Opening her search engine, she simply typed Linnea, Washington D.C.

The first few results seemed unlikely, but then she found a link to The Washington Daily Post's website. She clicked it, crossing her fingers.

Linnea's face smiled back at her in a photograph that was obviously from several years ago—her face had aged and her hair was a completely different cut and style now, but she was still unmistakably Linnea.

Linnea Donovan Charles. Former correspondent for Times-Picayune, New York's Metroworld, and Life & Times in the City. As the most recent addition to our political team, Charles is thrilled to….

The biography went on, but Jordan's mind was already distracted. Something was nagging at the back of her mind.

So she went back to the original search, simply typing in Linnea Donovan Charles.

A plethora of articles, with Linnea on the byline. But that wasn't what Jordan wanted—she didn't want what Linnea had written, she wanted what had been written about Linnea.

She was through the third page of results (holy jeez, this woman wrote a lot) when her phone buzzed.

Hey, it's Linnea. I got your number from Marc, at group. I want to talk about last night. I'm sorry I upset you. Can we try coffee again?

Jordan pressed her lips into a thin line. After a beat, she replied.

Same place. What time?

FBI Academy. Quantico, Virginia.

David Rossi wasn't the kind of man who let a question remained unanswered. He'd seen Judith's reactions to the news of the injured and dead agents, and he'd also seen Morgan and Callahan's reactions to her flippant replies. He could sense a powder keg brewing, and like Hotch, he wanted to avoid an explosion at all costs.

He knew Hotch had already spoken to Morgan (honestly, that was probably the only reason that Morgan hadn't laid into the woman), so the only other option was to find Agent Eden.

As soon as the briefing dispersed, Judith had slipped out of the room, her long legs helping her disappear from sight (even with the limp, she'd been able to put considerable distance between herself and everyone else leaving the room).

He knew the general direction she'd taken, and so he simply walked the halls, peering out doors and windows, trying to catch a glimpse of her.

As he turned down another hallway, he saw her through the glass of the double-doors at the other end. This time, he'd remembered his coat, and he was grateful for that—the day had been cold and gray so far, an angry promise of more winter to come.

He opened the door, glancing around as he closed it quietly behind him. Judith Eden was just a few feet away, her deep breaths filling the cool February air with white clouds as she leaned against one of the walkway columns. She gave a quick look over her shoulder, smiling slightly when she saw who it was.

"You're not a smoker," she commented dryly. It wasn't a question, but a statement of fact.

"Neither are you," he returned easily.

"Yes, but I was out here first." Her dark eyes twinkled mischievously, following him as he walked over, leaning against a pole that was about ten feet away from her own. "Which means you followed me."

"Perhaps." He gave a light shrug.

"I guess you drew the short straw, then," her voice lost its playful edge as she turned her gaze back out at the wintry landscape.

"Short straw for what?"

She gave a dry smirk, "I think we both pride ourselves on being straight-shooters, Agent Rossi. So let's keep it that way—you came out here, because your whole team is wondering what the hell is wrong with me, and you're the one who got picked to ask the official question."

Rossi blinked in surprise—honestly, he couldn't deny most of that statement, but he felt the need to clarify, "Well, it's not like we had a meeting about it."

She laughed at this, ducking her head as her foot lazily kicked at the ground. She appreciated the honesty, and she liked that he'd tinged it with off-handed humor.

She looked up at him again, her eyes still bright with amusement, though they slowly muted into something more reserved, something still curious but equally hesitant as she quietly sized him up, as if she was considering answering his unspoken question. Finally, she asked, "In what way are you unsuited for this job, Agent Rossi?"

He looked at her in askance, unsure of her meaning.

"Oh, c'mon. Everyone always wonders how we are suited for this—but the truth is, there are parts of us that aren't. We aren't machines, built specifically for this line of work. It's true, we have certain…traits that allow us to do the work, and over time, we continue to develop those mental tools. But what about the rest? Which part of your personality is the hardest to reconcile with the work you do, the horrors you see?" She leaned towards him slightly, her tone taking on a lightly mocking air, "Which demon screeches the loudest in protest?"

"I don't know," he answered truthfully. "I guess I've never really thought about it—like you said, we tend to focus on how we are suited, not the ways we aren't."

She hummed in agreement. "Yes. Well, some of us have foibles that aren't so easy to ignore."

He simply waited, knowing that she was merely organizing her thoughts, looking for the best way to continue.

"In your line of work, you've heard of empaths, haven't you?" She quickly added, almost apologetically, "I don't mean to sound patronizing—it's just that until recently, not many people knew about them, so I'm always a bit unsure."

"I have," he assured her gently. "It's someone who has a high sensitivity to other people's moods and emotions."

"'Overly receptive to emotional stimuli'," her tone was slightly mocking, as if she found her own diagnosis ridiculous. "That's what the doctor called it, anyways. I was nine. My mother took me to a shrink—proper British lady that she was, she thought my general emotional response was highly unhealthy. At the time, I couldn't understand what was so unhealthy about it—wasn't that how everyone felt, all the time? That's the wonderful and heartbreaking thing about being a kid—you don't notice you're different until someone tells you."

She squinted, as if peering back into distant memories, "Even at a young age, I could enter and room and immediately tell the mood of every person in it. Sometimes their voice would lie, they'd force a smile and try to sound cheerful, but I could read everything else, and I knew. And then I would feel however they felt—scared, or angry, or…whatever. As I got older, sometimes it got scarier, being able to read people's true intentions."

She wrapped her arms around herself protectively, her eyes hazed with images of times and people past. David Rossi didn't want to know what she saw, in that moment, or the scary intentions she read in the faces of people long gone.

"You think it'd be a good trait to have, in a field like this," she snapped out of her reverie with a sardonic smile. "Nice trick, being able to just know when someone was having you on."

"You say it's nice, but I get the feeling that it's not." Rossi stated simply—and honestly, it wouldn't take even a junior-level behavioral analyst to figure that out. Everything, from her body language to her actual tone, screeched the opposite of her words.

"Because it's not." Her face became drawn with sadness as she looked away, once again seeing things that weren't there. After a beat, she asked, "What do you see, when you look at a crime scene photograph? When they send you a picture, and it's the body of a little boy, face-down in some godforsaken wood, dirty and bloody and beaten?"

He took a deep breath, contemplating the question. "I see a light that's gone before it's time. I see tragedy. And then I see red. I see myself catching the sick bastard who did it."

She gave a hum of approval. Then, shifting almost uncomfortably, she quietly admitted, "I just see the boy. I see his little fingers, the dirt underneath his nails. I feel the dirt under my own."

He noticed how her fingers reflexively fluttered, as if reacting to the sensations she'd described. She continued, her voice aching with a weary sadness, "I see the cuts on his knees and his hands, and my knees and my hands begin to ache. I see his wide-open eyes—one green, one blue—and my own heart pounds with the fear and adrenaline that his must have felt. And then I can't see anything else, because my eyes are full of tears and my entire being is focused on this poor boy's last moments."

Rossi felt a pang of sympathy—these details she'd given, down to the rare coloring of the boy's eyes, were too specific to be some hypothetical situation. "Who was he?"

"Tyler Harrison," she answered without hesitation, the heavy sorrow pushing her brows downward, making her eyes seem even darker and larger, like some mournful ghost. "He's just one of many—the latest, but not the last."

She shook her head gently, as if releasing the thought from her mind. "When I was a child, my best friend broke her arm. For weeks, my arm hurt as well. I'd wake up in the middle of the night, crying with pain—but nothing was wrong. My mum just told me that they were sympathy pains. She said it was because we were so close, my friend and me. But I started to realize that I felt them for everyone, for people I barely even knew."

Dave didn't respond. He understood that she was simply removing herself from the previous narrative of Tyler Harrison's murder.

Judith Eden turned to look at him again, her face etched with sadness as her voice tiredly continued, "Now imagine going through that, with every victim you encounter, with every crime scene photo you see. Imagine having your dreams influenced by those feelings, those horrid scenes. Imagine walking into a room and knowing exactly which one of your colleagues hates you, or which one thinks you're an idiot, or which one sees you as little more than the next dish on their list. Imagine hearing your partner say I'm fine, and knowing it's a lie, but being too afraid to pursue the truth. Imagine knowing when someone's lying, and wishing you didn't know. Imagine being able to mark the second that someone's mood changes, and then spending hours wondering why it changed at that exact moment, and what you did to cause it. Imagine knowing that someone is lying, and being unable to physically prove it, and wondering if it's all just in your head, if you're really just the batty little girl that your mother always thought you were. Imagine thinking that every single word has a different weight to it, that days of the weeks have feeling attached to them, that going to the super market or a baseball game can be a trial because you find yourself bombarded with everyone else's emotions and sensations. Imagine taking your nephew to the park and fighting down the urge to step up and keep children from being mean to one another, because the sheer injustice of it makes your skin crawl. Imagine that even though you work in a job that brings some of the most horrifying images into your world, you still can't watch a stupid show on the telly if it's too emotionally draining. Imagine all of that bouncing around your brain, every second of every day. It's maddening. Absolutely maddening."

Now David Rossi could never claim to be a man who focused entirely on other people's emotions. Yes, he could read human behavior and body language, but it was a skill—he could turn it off, almost at will, and there were times when it wasn't enough. There were times when he couldn't tell if someone was lying or what their true emotions were. The investigator in him said that it would be a gift, being able to tell what someone was thinking or when they were lying. However, the human in him said sometimes it was best not to know. And as for all the little things—things as simple as going grocery shopping or watching a television show—they were something he'd never consider as emotional landmines, yet they were a pressing part of Eden's reality, more taxing and confusing in a way that most people would never truly understand.

"It's not nearly as sod-all dramatic as I'm making it sound," Judith straightened her posture, giving a light shake of her head, as if she were slipping into her usual devil-may-care persona. "I've learned how to protect myself, over the years, but there's always a moment when you're caught unawares. If I hadn't built up certain defenses, I'd either be dead or insane."

"Like having a cheeky sense of humor," Rossi suddenly understood.

She gave a small, quiet nod, "Like having a cheeky sense of humor. It's my way of isolating myself, in a way. If I didn't make jokes about it, then I'd have to look at the situation—really, really look at it—in a way that's completely overwhelming. I would cease to function."

With another wry smile, she added, "In other words, I picked the world's worst profession for someone of my temperament."

"I think we all have a little masochist inside of us," he informed her. "Otherwise we'd have all left this job a long time ago."

She glanced over at him again, amusement dancing at the corners of her eyes as she viewed him with a new sense of appreciation. "I suppose so."

"You said it wasn't all bad," Rossi reminded her, his curiosity getting the better of him. "In what ways is it good?"

"Christ, you sound like my shrink," she scoffed, rolling her eyes playfully. Then she became more subdued as she answered, "Well, like all things, there's a give and take. For example, if I can experience someone's pain, then I can equally experience their joy. It's wonderful, going to a party and meeting someone who's very passionate about a particular subject—it's absolutely invigorating, just listening to them talk about whatever it is that fascinates them."

With a sly look, she added, "Reading trashy romance novels is a pretty wonderful pastime, too."

Rossi laughed at this—now she was speaking his language.

She glanced away, as if she wasn't sure about sharing the next part, "And…and there's the added bonus of almost always knowing what someone's really thinking—or at least sensing what they're really feeling. It can stop a lot of misunderstandings before they can even really happen. It took me a long time to figure it out, but if I can be influenced by a person's mood, then I also know how to influence someone else's. It's…intuitive, almost. I know what to say or how to change my body language in a way that affects their reaction—oftentimes in ways that they don't even realize. A lot of us can do that with people we know deeply or intimately—think about a time when you wanted to start a row with your lover. You knew exactly what to say to set them off, right? The only difference is that I can generally do it with people whom I don't know very well at all."

She leaned forward conspiratorially again, "A power I try to use only for good, I promise."

"Must make you one hell of an interrogator," Rossi admitted with a small smile of appreciation.

Her grin deepened. "I did a good job of making you feel at-home the first time I interviewed you, didn't I?"

He couldn't deny that—Judith Eden had come across as a natural interviewer, making him feel as if they were simply two similar personalities who just clicked upon meeting one another.

"It's a pretty good skill to have, isn't it?" Her smile informed him that she already knew the answer. With a light shake of her head, she turned away, "If only the rest of the feelings didn't come with it."

Rossi contemplated her highly sensitive world—if someone had offered him the innate profiling skills that she obviously possessed, he'd jump at the chance. But if they had also stipulated that in addition to read people as easily as breathing, he'd have to experience not only the victim's pain, but also the pain of every person he ever encountered, he wasn't sure that he would agree to such a deal.

We all have our crosses to bear, his mother's voice echoed in his head. In the beginning of his career as a behavioral analyst, there had often been times when he'd loathed his ability to get inside the mind of these monsters, hating how easily he could connect to their impulses and their motivations. It was as if he had that same monster living in his head, and perhaps one day it would decide to break free and take control of the rest of him. But his mother had insisted that it was a gift, a weapon in the fight against evil. She'd told him that the horrible feelings was the price he paid for such a gift, and that as long as he continued to use it for good, his conscience would remain troubled but free of soul-crushing guilt. If he ever turned away from his gift, if he ever simply stopped using it, then guilt would follow him all the days of his life, and he'd never have a moment's peace.

He'd once told Aaron that he'd become addicted to the chase. In truth, he kept going because he feared whatever might be chasing him—some vengeful fury, determined to take its pound of flesh in return for his unused gift.

Being a highly sensitive person in a world that required a certain amount of desensitization was Judith Eden's cross. She bore it, and used her curse as a blessing, at least when she could. There was no shame in that, only respect.

So he did the only thing that he could do. He offered a line of hope.

"What can I do to make it easier for you?" He asked quietly. Her big brown eyes snapped to his, surprised and almost-fearful of this question. He reassured her, "I'm serious. What can I do to make it a little less overwhelming?"

"Well…I…I don't know," she was flustered by the whole prospect. "I—I didn't tell you this just to gain sympathy or as some kind of plea for help—"

"You just wanted me to understand why you do what you do," he summarized. "And now that I know why, I want to know how I can help."

She took a long beat to simply stare at him, sizing him up again with a new sense of critical appreciation.

"Never lie to me," she decided. "Really, lying to me is rather pointless and it only puts me on edge. And you don't have to laugh at my jokes, but let me laugh at them without feeling guilty for doing so. It's my one slim hold on sanity, so please don't make me feel shameful for engaging my only defense system."

"Fair enough," he pushed away from the pole he'd been leaning against, heading back to the door.

"And one last thing," her voice stopped him, causing him to turn back around.

"Yeah?"

She stood tall and calm, a collected fortress against the biting wind, her face set into the most serious of expressions. She looked like some piece of religious iconography, unmoving and perfectly aligned between the two metal poles, the breeze wisping strands of dark hair around her pale face, her cheeks stained red by the cold.

"Don't ever coddle me. Ever. I am not the sort of woman to be patronized."

He couldn't help but smile in agreement, "No, ma'am. You certainly are not."

She smiled—a tender, timid thing that softened the harsh line of her lips but never reached the dark depths of her eyes.

"You never answered the question," she stated.

"What question?"

"I asked you how you were unsuited for this job. You never answered."

He took a moment to consider. "I have too much faith—in justice, divine and man-made. And too much righteous indignation to let things go, especially if I feel justice hasn't been served."

"A just man in an unjust world," she mused, the playful light returning to her eyes. He realized that she'd connected too deeply with his unspoken feelings of helplessness at the aforementioned injustices of the world, and now she was deflecting that pang of empathy with a quip.

So he played along. "Makes a hard day's work for a vigilante, but hey, we all gotta do something to pass the time."

She was grinning again. "Yes. Yes, we do."

"Don't stay out here too long. You'll freeze."

"Ah, thank you. Being from England, I have no concept of how to survive in miserably cold weather."

"Just doin' my job, ma'am."

"You know, I would threaten you the way I threatened the young marine outside my interview room, but I think you'd actually enjoy it."

"What's the threat?" He was suddenly curious.

Her eyes were singing wickedly now. "Another conversation for another time."

"I will ask again," he pointed his finger at her, his brows furrowing in playful determination.

She laughed. "Of that I have no doubt, Agent Rossi. Of that I have no doubt."

She turned away and he went back inside. However, he did turn back to watch her through the glass window in the door for a moment. Her arms were wrapped around herself again, he could see her fingers digging into her upper arms, as if she were trying to hold herself together with every ounce of strength she had left.

They all had crosses to bear—and no amount of emotional unburdening would ever fully relieve them of the burden itself. But he had to admit, his suddenly felt a little lighter.

There were always worse fates.

As he headed back down the hall, SSA Keller rounded the corner. She stopped short, her blonde head whipping from Rossi to Eden and back to Rossi again—the look in her eyes was hard to read, but David got the distinct feeling of protectiveness that he'd seen in Judith's gaze whenever she'd seen him watching Jess (don't you dare mess with her—what do you want?).

"I was looking for Jude—we need her back in the briefing room," Keller announced, completely unnecessarily.

Rossi grandly motioned back towards the doorway, where Jude was still stationed against the pillar—well here she is.

Keller gave a curt, awkward nod, charging down the hall once more. Today she looked less austere—yesterday's skirt and heels had been replaced with drainpipe jeans and low-heeled boots that looked like they could kick some doors down (and probably had). Still, she walked with the same self-important air that screamed bureaucrat in the making.

He gave a light huff of laughter. People were funny little things.

However, his amusement dissipated when he glanced back down the hall again. Keller was at the door, swinging it open—Judith turned, surprised, her dark eyes holding the briefest flicker of sorrow before muting quickly into her standard sunny smile.

Yes, they all had their burdens, their demons screeching in protest, as Eden had said. It was the price they paid for the work they did—a price they paid, whether they truly wanted to or not. He knew this, had learned it many times in many painful ways over the years. You thought you'd given enough, thought there was no more left to give, and yet it always found a way to exact payment from you, always proved that you had more to lose.

With a light shake of his head, David Rossi continued down the hallway. Like Eden, he couldn't allow himself to focus on the depressing side of things—he had to focus on what he could change, what good he could still do.

Judith Eden would be just fine. And so would he—they all would. And they'd get there a lot quicker once they found the son of a bitch responsible for the latest tragedy in their lives.

"But do not ask the price I pay
I must live with my quiet rage
Tame the ghosts in my head
That run wild and wish me dead."

~Mumford & Sons.