Okay people! This is probably one of my longest ever chapters for this fic! I've got to say I'm proud of myself; I found it pretty difficult to try and change my chapter plan notes in an actual chapter... stupid notes, they're meant to make writing chapters EASIER!

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

"May you have the hindsight to know where you've been,

The foresight to know where you are going,

And the insight to know when you have gone too far."

Irish Blessings.

Rossi stared silently at Reid trying to ignore the tugging feeling in his heart as he observed the youngest member of them, like the youngest sibling, in such a heart-breaking state. He didn't really know what to say to Reid, it wasn't like he knew the kid as well as the others what with him being the newest member to the team, 'maybe that could work to my advantage?' Rossi thought. Since he didn't know Reid all that well then that would essentially mean that Reid would probably be able to handle his presence better than the others if he woke up; of course, Rossi was working on the basis that Reid would probably either be too delirious to even recognise him or would want someone to talk to who wouldn't automatically judge him, 'no that doesn't sound right...' he countered his thought, 'the others would never judge him for this... it wasn't his fault... it wasn't anyone's fault,' so why did he think he'd be the best one for Reid to see when he woke up?

"That's blind arrogance David," he muttered to himself softly as he shook his head and thought, 'what the hell, we'll cross that bridge if, when, we get there... right now I can help him by talking about something... anything... maybe something to show I trust him?'

"Hey Spencer," he said softly, calling him by his first name which he rarely did as he never wanted to get too close to the team; but just because he hadn't wanted to get close to any of them didn't mean that he hadn't. He considered them to be his family, and he was sure they considered him family to them, oh sure none of them were related with blood but the bond was definitely there and in his opinion he believed that the bond between them were stronger than most found between flesh-and-blood family members, "It's my turn to try and talk you into consciousness and I thought I might extend some trust to you and explain why I'm a bit reluctant to develop any long-term bonds with anyone; more specifically you really."

Inside his mind, where Reid could do nought but listen to Rossi, Reid wondered what Rossi actually meant and started to review every detail he knew of David Rossi; but he couldn't find much of a reason for why he would be more reluctant to form a family bond with him as opposed to the others.

Rossi took a long deep breath as he tried to steady his sudden bout of nerves that ran rampant through him and made his throat close-up in some sort of instinctual response to the stimulus of guilt and regret that was surging through his mind as he dredged up one of the most painful events in his entire life. He closed his eyes and tried to not have a panic-attack at the flashes of memories that were assaulting him; he needed to show trust in this kid, he needed to let go of the past and its crippling fears, and so he slowly opened his eyes and forced himself to begin to speak, "You know that I was part of the original team that started the BAU right?" he didn't expect an answer but he paused nonetheless as he imagined Reid's hyper-response, "Anyway, there were only four of us; me, Quinn, Carter and our team leader, Daniel O'Neill. We worked well, in our own little ways I suppose, we separately collected information and mulled over it before we would have a group discussion; it didn't always go smoothly but we did the best we could. We always were profiling each other so trust was pretty difficult to find in each other, but we were a family of sorts; granted a really dysfunctional one," Rossi smirked in remembrance of how much they had irritated each other, "but a family nonetheless."

Reid listened attentively as he thought about what Rossi was telling him, he knew that Rossi's team had had to deal with some pretty grizzly cases and he wondered how they'd felt knowing they were doing something that no-one else had ever done before in the line of police work. They were the first profilers, the first ones to dive headlong into the mind of a killer and they probably ended up with more than just their own set of personal demons.

Rossi closed his eyes again as he fought against the fresh wave of sorrow, guilt and regret that surfaced once again trying to stop him from talking about something that he considered one of his greatest personal demons. He opened his eyes and leant forward in the chair until he was hunched over and his forearms were resting on his thighs; his hands were clasped tightly to stop them from shaking as he continued, "About a year after we had formed the team there was a pretty horrid spate of murders, all including people of a certain... calibre... the victims all had IQs over 150 and were from the same sort of focus; computing and scientific research."

'Oh God... is this case one of the reasons why he's hesitant around me? Because I remind him of these victims?' Reid thought in shock as he suddenly realised that Rossi was telling him about this for more than to just try and show trust; he was telling him this so he could see that his importance to others was paramount. Reid wasn't entirely sure how exactly he had come to that conclusion but the moment he thought it he felt that it was right; that it was so very right, and it scared him.

"Anyway, Carter was smart; he was scarily smart and he knew it," Rossi shook his head as he remembered how Carter used to terrify any of the new agents who thought they had what it took to get in the heads of the most messed up humans on the planet; he'd always found it entertaining to watch his friend tear them apart and replace their arrogance with a healthy respect and fear for him, "we had this case and we were running out of ideas; at best our profile was right on a few things, and I mean a few. We guessed he was smart but had been denied the opportunity to work on something that he felt his intelligence merited for him; we also guessed that he didn't have any close family, or at least not good relations with them. And we were also right that he wouldn't like a person speaking to him like he was an insubordinate.

"But this guy had been good, he'd known to hide the evidence, hide and even get rid of the body if he could, make sure he always had an alibi and never, never acted the way we guessed he would when we were around," Rossi sighed loudly as he thought back to those fateful days and to the ill-planed idea that had caused so much pain, "We were at the end of our tether and I suggested that we put someone undercover in the company that we found all of the victims had worked for at one point or another."

'And Carter was the one who went undercover...' Reid reasoned as he continued to listen to Rossi's recount, he wondered why Rossi felt so bad about this but he figured that something had gone wrong with the operation and that was why Rossi was reluctant to build-up any sort of personal relationship with him especially.

"Carter agreed to the plan immediately, he saw that it was our only way to catch the guy any time soon," Rossi forced himself to speak, his voice was becoming hoarse with raw emotion but he wouldn't stop now, maybe it was time that he told someone about this and maybe that someone had to be Reid. And so he continued to speak, regardless of how painful it was for him, "but there was one flaw in my plan; to get Carter in and make-sure he was of the right appeal to the unsub we had to confide the plan in the head of the company. We'd originally checked him out but we'd found that he had a decent alibi and didn't really fit our profile as well as some of the others did, so we took a leap of faith. And fell to our demise."

'The company head was the unsub...' Reid thought in faint shock, 'Oh God Rossi... you couldn't have known...' he suddenly had a really good idea as to where this story was leading and how it was going to end, and as much as he didn't want to hear it since it would give him a unique sort of insight into the mind of David Rossi he also realised that Rossi needed to tell him this; even though he wasn't physically awake and everyone thought he was unconscious still, Rossi needed him to know this so he could forgive him for his reticent behaviour towards him, 'he thinks he needs to make amends for his behaviour, but he doesn't have to... as far as I'm concerned there's nothing to make amends for...'

"We set everything up and Carter had gone undercover," Rossi said in a matter-of-fact kind of way, "he managed to filter our suspects pile down to half-a-dozen by the end of the month and we took our revised list to the company manager to see if he could help narrow it down further. If only we'd known it was him," he said bitterly as he ran a hand through his greying hair and thought about the discussion he'd had with the company manager, about the narrowing-down of the suspects list, over two-decades ago;

...

"Mr Tanner," Rossi called out as he rushed over to the company manager of carrying a small pile of files, "If you spare me a moment, I need your help in narrowing down our suspect list."

Samuel Tanner had been a relatively decent asset to them during this entire case; he'd willingly given them his personnel files, let him interview his staff and had even helped them when they'd originally narrowed down the suspects list. The only problem with all of the assistance had been the fact that they'd been overwhelmed with possible suspects; since almost every single person working that had both motive and opportunity for at least one murder alone.

"Of course Special Agent, I was just coming to talk to your unit chief actually," Tanner nodded as Rossi stopped in front of him and looked at him expectantly, "I was going to see if he'd let me put Special Agent Carter on a contract with the company; he's got an amazing mind."

Rossi chuckled as he shook his head, "I don't think Carter or O'Neill would go for it Mr Tanner; Carter's too important to the team and he loves his work," he looked down at the files in his hands and missed the slightly angered glare that Tanner sent him, "we've managed to narrow down the suspect list to these six but I was wondering if you could give us your input and help us narrow it down further?"

Tanner looked at him for a moment and Rossi had the distinct feeling that Tanner was struggling with himself on how to answer Rossi, but Tanner answered with a nod and said, "Of course Special Agent. I want to help catch this guy; he's going after my staff afterall."

...

'I should have seen it then, he showed all the signs of a guy with homicidal tendencies,' Rossi thought angrily as he swallowed and cleared his throat before continuing, "Tanner, the company manager, was able to narrow it down to two possible guys; both of them held grudges against more than three of the five victims; had ample opportunity for at least two of the murders; and, when we questioned them initially, were hostile to me and DuPrentia when we undermined their intelligence. It was decided that Carter would provoke each of them separately over the space of a week and see which one of them reacted with the most violent and homicidal urges; after that we'd arrest them and look for any evidence that showed that they were to blame for the murders of the victims," Rossi smiled in bitter anger and disappointment, 'God we were so arrogant... we relied on the opinion of the unsub himself and didn't even realise it!'

"The first suspect was the one that cracked when Carter publically insulted his work and his intelligence, it was quite something to behold watching Carter gleefully tear the arrogant son-of-a-bitch apart piece by piece," Rossi grinned in amusement at the memory; man he'd enjoyed that moment and he was pretty sure Carter had too:

...

"I never would have guessed that this company would have such an incompetent fool working on some of the most advanced stuff this side of the century!" Carter shouted across the room, angling his comment directly at Michael Kings, the first suspect that he was meant to be pushing into a confrontation, "I mean come on Kings! You haven't even been able to finish the equations needed to actually test the device and you're already toying around with it; and I thought a gold-fish had less intelligence that you but it's obviously the other way around!"

Kings slowly turned around to look at Carter and it was clear for everyone to see that the middle-aged, five-foot-four, pudgy man was spearing Carter with one of the most deadly glares to mankind.

"Don't push him too much Den, we don't want to scoop you up with a dust-pan," Rossi murmured through the microphone that he had attached to his head-set. He was sitting inside the federal surveillance van waiting for the suspect to move. Though he knew that Carter couldn't respond to his comment he could imagine what he was thinking and it was something along the lines of but-the-stupid-arrogant-know-it-all-git-needs-to-be-put-in-his-place.

He knew that Carter had a low-tolerance for anyone who acted smarter than everyone else but were actually stupider than a plank of wood was thick; he'd never asked his friend why that was but he guessed it had something to do with the way he'd been treated by his peers when he'd been younger. He knew it wasn't easy to be the odd one out and the enemy of the very people who are meant to ensure your safety.

Carter was still insulting every aspect of Michael Kings that he could possibly think of when the middle-aged man finally snapped. With an almost inhuman snarl of absolute anger and hatred the man had launched himself at Carter, bowling him over and had begun to savagely hit him over-and-over again until Rossi and the others had sprang into the room and dragged him off of the now dishevelled looking Carter.

"Carter?" Rossi crouched down next to his friend who looked at him dazedly for a moment before grinning boyishly.

"Now that was something I didn't expect!" Carter laughed as Rossi shook his head in exasperation and helped him stand up.

"Only you would find getting attacked by the very person you're insulting exciting Carter," Rossi sighed as Carter grinned at him and Rossi couldn't help but be caught up in the infectious sense of thrill Carter was feeling.

"I didn't expect him to attack without a single word first, it was most unusual and I enjoyed the unpredictability he exhibited!" Carter explained as Rossi guided him over to the nearest EMT who was waiting to check him over.

"You enjoyed it then?" Rossi asked in amusement as the EMT forced Carter to sit down in the chair next to him and began to check the basics like his pupil-contraction and his heart-beat.

"Oh yeah!" Carter replied enthusiastically and Rossi had to laugh at his friend's strange interest in something that others wouldn't have enjoyed experiencing.

...

"We arrested Kings, the suspect, and had him in lock-down whilst we searched his apartment and storage unit. We found several items that had been taken from each victim as well as the murder weapons and also found out that Kings had hacked the computer servers of , where he worked, and had altered the records so that they showed him working when he wasn't," Rossi said as he brought his mind back to the present and tried to focus on the facts instead of the feelings, "we charged him, and he was handed over to the custody of the state police; we thought that was the end of it."

Reid waited for Rossi to start to speak again but he realised that his colleague... his friend, was probably getting lost in another memory and so Reid waited in silence for Rossi to come back to the present and carry on; although he didn't want to really know what happened since he had a sinking feeling that he could guess but he wasn't going to ignore what his friend was saying if it would help Rossi try to come to terms with what happened. It was the least he could do afterall and in his current condition it wasn't like he could tell him that he didn't want to hear anymore or walk away.

When Rossi's attention finally returned to the present he realised that he'd been back in his memories for the last twenty or so minutes, 'sorry Reid... I shouldn't have phased out like that...' he cleared his throat and tried to finish his story, "We returned to the place we called an office; it was more of a decorated shoe-box really, and went our separate ways for the weekend. Carter mentioned how he was going to visit family out-west and that no-one should disturb him unless we had a majorly important case; maybe if we'd tried to call him when we got the case on Sunday we might have found him..." Rossi hung his head in guilt and shame, he remembered that moment with amazing clarity; it had been the moment that Rossi had inadvertently signed Carter's death-warrant:

...

"We've got another case," O'Neill said sadly as he walked into the room and saw only two of his team, "Where's Carter?"

"He's away visiting family," Rossi answered quickly before adding, "I don't think we'll need him on this case sir, and I personally think he needs a rest after the last case; I think it hit him hard."

O'Neill stared at the most experience agent on his team after himself and Carter for a long moment before nodding in agreement and saying, "You're right David but if this turns nasty we might need to call him regardless."

"Yes sir," Rossi understood the hidden meaning in the words, his boss was saying that he was doing this as a favour to both he and Carter but he wouldn't leave Carter out of it if it became one of their more... politically-motivated cases. Afterall, even they had to bow under the pressure placed upon them by politics; if they didn't work on certain cases when they came to them they wouldn't have much of a job for long since they weren't exactly liked for doing what they do by many of the people in power. But that was one of the costs they were willing to sacrifice; anyway, for the most-part they were allowed to choose their own cases and as long as the local police agreed they were free to take as long as they liked on a case.

...

"The case wasn't that important and we managed to close it within three days; we were pretty thrilled that we would be able to work on another case, of our own choosing, but we needed to get Carter back first; he had this thing about arguing for whatever case we didn't choose and arguing against whatever case we did choose. It was his thing and a tradition so we didn't want to break it," Rossi croaked as his emotions finally got the better of him. He closed his mouth and stifled a quiet sob as he shoulders shook from the combination of grief, pain, sadness, guilt and regret that roared through him. He leaned over to the bedside cabinet and, with shaking hands, poured himself a glass of water.

Drinking it slowly he managed to get himself under control enough so that he could continue on with what he needed Reid to hear, even if he wasn't awake and telling him it wasn't his fault, 'It was my fault... my plan... my insistence that we shouldn't call him... my fault he's gone...' When he finished the water he placed the glass back on the cabinet and took a deep, shuddering breath before continuing, "I tried calling Carter to tell him that we were going to choose another case but he never picked up, he couldn't pick up actually. I figured that he wasn't at his house and I didn't know the names of his family out-west so all I could really do was wait for him to call me back.

"Three days later, we were all getting worried that he hadn't called in once, and when the phone rang we held our breaths wondering if it was Carter. I remember that O'Neill answered the phone and spent a few minutes listening before he said 'you're positive?' and whatever the response was on the other side it seemed to cause something in him to break. He'd ended the call with a depressed-sounding 'thanks' before turning to us and saying that... saying that C-Carter was dead...

"We had to formally identify his body and were informed by the local PD that they'd found him along with another body in the rubbish dump on the out-skirts of town, I asked to see the other body and I was shocked to see it was Samuel Tanner," Rossi whispered as he felt a tear come loose from his eye and roll down his cheek, he didn't bother to wipe it away as he continued to speak to a silent Reid, "I asked to look at his apartment and found evidence that he had been the one who had killed those victims from the case we'd worked on with Carter undercover. I couldn't really believe it... our profile had essentially vindicated Tanner from our suspect list when it turned out that he was the unsub the whole time... I really couldn't believe it...

"It took me most of the day to piece it all together, I didn't want to stop working on it because I didn't want to think about Carter... and I realised that Tanner had taken C-Carter the day we got our knew case and I didn't want us to call him... if only I'd called... if only..." Rossi hung his head in broken-defeat and let some of the tears fall from their precarious positions on the ends of his eye-lashes; he didn't care that he was crying, he didn't care if Reid woke up at that very moment and saw him crying. He just didn't care about anything at the very moment in time.

'Oh Rossi... you're not to blame... you couldn't have known...' on the inside Reid was crying to as he heard the sounds of Rossi's obvious heart-wrenching distress and felt a sudden rush of anger towards himself over the fact that he couldn't offer any words of comfort to his friend when he so obviously needed to hear them.

Reid himself remembered back when he'd first had his mother institutionalised how much guilt he'd felt over it, he knew it wasn't the same thing as what Rossi had described to him, but he understood how much it hurt to not know whether you could have changed something and saved someone you care about... and it wasn't easy to live with yourself after the fact either.

Reid himself had been pretty lucky if he was honest, no-one he really cared about had ever died directly because of his action or inaction, but it wasn't like he couldn't deny the fact that some people had been hurt and killed because of him; the memory of Tobias Hankel when in the persona of Raphael telling him to choose between two people who he didn't know purely because he wanted to make Reid suffer with the knowledge that he was going to kill someone that he'd chosen, came to mind as he felt the guilt that he always harboured for what had happened then, 'I'll be damned if I don't help someone else get over something like this!' Reid thought fiercely, he owed it to Rossi to help him with the guilt he felt and maybe, just maybe, Reid would be able to help himself too.

When Rossi's tears finally began to waver and die away he looked up slowly and stared at Reid as he thought about Carter and how alike to Reid he was, "You know, when I first met Carter, he was a lot like you Spencer; he was nervous and wary of others like you are, but over the years that we worked together he opened up and became an entirely different person to the one I met on my first day in the BAU.

"You'd have probably liked Carter Spencer, he had this way about him where regardless of how smart you thought you were he could shoot you down a pile of flames with a single word or look, you do that too sometimes you know? You've done it with unsubs, Morgan, me and Hotch even.

"I suppose I'd best let whoever's on the next shift come in but I might tell them to come see you in an hour or two; if you're really conscious but unable to communicate with us then I guess you're probably tired and need to rest," Rossi said softly as he stood up and placed a reassuring hand on Spencer's arm, "You need to get better soon Spencer; the team needs you."

And with that David Rossi left Reid to his thoughts as he exited the room and said to Emily, who was waiting patiently outside, "Emily; I think we should give Reid some time to rest properly before we start beating him up with more stories about our pasts?"

Emily looked at Rossi and took in the man's tired and emotionally raw appearance, 'what the hell has he been talking about in there? Well, whatever it is it's obviously painful for him to talk about... and maybe he's right... maybe Reid could do with a breather from us constantly telling him to wake up...' she smiled slightly and nodded as the pair of them moved down the corridor and to the lift at the end; they'd go back to the hotel they were all staying in and maybe open a bottle of wine with the whole team, 'most of the team... Reid's not going to be drinking wine for quite a while...' she corrected herself as the lift doors closed.

Back in his private room Spencer Reid felt thankful that Rossi had given him the chance to rest, though he knew his team wanted to be with him in his time of need he also knew that he needed to rest; being conscious but unable to talk to anyone because you're in a coma isn't exactly the most relaxing thing a person can do and so it had tired him out because of the stress and the fact that he'd been desperately trying to talk to his teammates, his friends all day, 'maybe a few hours rest before I listen to anymore stories might be a good thing...' he thought as he let himself let go of his consciousness and drift away into a gentle and serene slumber.

TBC...

Wow... this is the longest chapter I have ever written, you people best be proud of me! :P

Anyway, I don't know when I'll do the next chapter; it depends on if I can make the chapter notes do my bidding but I hope you guys will enjoy reading this... I have sort of enjoyed writing this if I'm honest but it's really hard to write something like this, even with notes, when you're ill (in the middle of summer too!) and have hay-fever... grr!

KaseyKC