Hope (S7E8) Part 1

A/N: I know it's been ages, 2020 kicked my arse, health-wise. Hoping 2021 will be better and I get back to publishing more regularly. This isn't as polished as I would like and it's likely I will need to edit later, but I needed to get it out. Thank you to everyone who messaged and left comments of encouragement. This one is for you.

Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden ― Phaedrus

Rossi stood at Pip's front door, heart beating so hard he wondered if Todd and Leon could hear it a floor below. The parrot-related damage had been rectified, Griffin had assured him, barely finished before Pip had moved back in. He eased the door open slowly.

At first glance it didn't look like much had changed, if one could forget the whole parrot incident. The bookshelves still covered every wall in sight, although some of the books were newer having been replaced, and a new sofa nestled under the eaves where its predecessor had lived. The TV still occupied the wall between kitchen and living room, with the cables to connect her games console still peeking out from behind.

At first smell, however, it was different. An experimental sniff found the familiar scent immediately. It was faint, like someone had made an effort to clean up, but her apartment definitely smelled of spilt scotch, with a minor chaser of lemon-scented cleaning product. After a brief inspection, he found the outline of the original puddle and two slivers of glass that had slipped between the floorboards. Rossi glanced up and sure enough, the bottle that they'd opened together before Carolyn popped up on their radar was gone. What had happened?

He sank down tiredly on the new sofa to think, or so he told himself. The new one didn't gather itself around you like her previous one had, and Rossi mourned its loss keenly.

It wasn't until he was startled from his doze by car backfiring that Rossi realised he'd fallen asleep. Sleep was a mixed blessing – the relief he felt from the guilt over his last real conversation with Pip was often short-lived and he still saw Carolyn in his dreams too. He sat up, running one hand down the arm of the sofa. Perhaps his first impression hadn't been entirely fair – if it was comfortable enough to fall asleep on without meaning to, it couldn't be that bad.

A quick rummage through her apartment turned up no additional information on Phoenix, Bode & Mayfair. Nothing, not even a letterhead. It was like they didn't exist beyond the rather generic website he'd already scoured for information. There were no contact details either online or on the card, so it looked like the only way he could speak to the mysterious Thalia, was in person.

He did find a folder with Duffy's immaculate copperplate gracing the label after a second exploration of her bookshelves. Rammed in between two books, he almost missed it. Inside was the letter from McGill he'd already seen, along with a second one she hadn't told him about. Before he could get annoyed by that however, the headlines of Duffy's investigation caught his eye. The letters hadn't come from McGill at all. The Warden at the prison had confirmed the postmark was correct, but that it was an old design, one they'd stopped using at the end of the previous spring. Additionally, the Warden had also pointed out that the date on the second letter indicated it had been sent while McGill was unconscious in the hospital wing after getting into a fight.

The chirping of his cell disturbed his musings before he could get a proper train of thought together and Rossi resigned himself to another case. A quick shirt change later so he didn't look like he'd slept in his clothes, and Rossi was back on the road to the Bureau, the card for Phoenix, Bode & Mayfair tucked securely in his wallet. The mysterious letters went back in their folder, hidden on the bookshelf.

As everyone gathering in the conference room, Rossi realised Garcia looked frail. That was the first thing he noticed, quickly followed by the lack of colour, make-up and the usual hyperactively sunny attitude that tended to grate on his nerves. It was disconcerting to see her so passive, so un-Garcia. More than a little worrying, actually.

The case she insisted they'd stumbled upon was confusing - a grieving mother from her support group had gone missing after finding a letter supposedly from her daughter. Rossi had to dig his fingernails into his palms to stop his voice shaking as he raised the possibility of suicide. He surreptitiously glanced at Hotch, only to find Hotch already looking his way. He wondered if Hotch knew Carolyn had killed herself. It wasn't in the medical report and the death certificate clearly noted cause of death as accidental overdose, but Rossi knew better. Pip had bullied the investigating officer, and presumably the coroner too, into recording Carolyn's death in a way that meant the Catholic church were content to bury her on consecrated ground.

Garcia was adamant that Monica wouldn't have killed herself but that was about the last Rossi heard of the conversation. The UnSub had used some sort of bait; whether that was Hope or some sort of promise of her, it mattered little.

It took some time, longer than Garcia would have liked, to narrow down their profile and fix on a name. Bill Rogers had been part of her counselling group, which bothered Garcia no end and she kept glancing at Rossi like there was something he was supposed to know. He didn't, which didn't help his mood any. It seemed like lately there were a lot of things he should have known and didn't.

Having cleared the house he, Hotch and Prentiss had been assigned, one of two registered in Bill Rogers' name, Rossi told Hotch he wanted to take a long weekend. Hotch had given him a look brimming with sympathy, probably assuming the case had touched a still-raw nerve, and agreed without hesitation. Rossi didn't correct him.

Dulles airport was heaving with people, even at six in the morning, and Rossi found himself having to shove his way through the crowds using his pointy elbows to make any headway. The trail of battered ribs and trodden-on toes behind him was testament to his impatience, but he eventually made it to the right desk. Twenty infuriating minutes later, he was on his way north towards Albany aboard an elderly twin-engine regional airliner.

It was a short flight, barely ninety minutes, and it took Rossi another half an hour to convince the clerk at the rental desk that he didn't need the insurance. Or the upgrade. Every delay, whether it was the clerk and their inexperienced hand with the computer or the queue to get out of the parking lot, infuriated him. Three days didn't feel like enough time to find out what had happened to Pip, where she was, and why she hadn't come back after completing her task in Columbia. Had she died out there?

Two hours later, Rossi was wondering if he should have taken the insurance after all. Cooperstown looked nice enough, but not exactly Pip's sort of place. It wasn't big enough, for a start – she was a self-confessed city girl. He'd realised on the drive to Dulles that the address on the card must be the house her grandparents had lived in. She'd mentioned it once or twice in passing, and a quick internet map search before he caught his flight showed a long driveway sheltered by trees, some way from the town along the eastern shore of Otsego Lake.

Although, as he bumped his way down it, Rossi decided it wasn't so much a driveway as a muddy track. He bounced along in his slightly musty rented sedan, praying the axle wouldn't give out and wishing he'd taken the SUV the clerk had tried to offer. In summer, the track was probably easily passable. In late fall, it was mostly made of boggy puddles, pine needles and thick mud, peppered with occasional boulders to ambush the unwary.

Finally, he turned onto a hard, gravelled surface in front of the house. It was a large place, at least five bedrooms, with a veranda running around the outside and a scatter of outbuildings. It wasn't immediately clear how many people lived there – Rossi could see three vehicles parked up, but there were several garages around the side of the house. Potted plants in varied states of health graced the veranda and steps up to the front door.

A man in his mid-forties opened the door when he knocked and spent a good few seconds looking Rossi up and down, assessing him. Rossi had the distinct impression that he'd failed to measure up in some fashion, an experience remarkably similar to when Pip had done the same thing.

"Help you?" grunted the man, who had a jaw like an icebreaker and an impressive facial scar collection. He looked like his face had a serious fight with a box of scissors at some point.

"I was told to ask for Thalia," said Rossi, hoping he'd got the right place.

The man grunted again and turned away. "One of yours!" he yelled back into the house, before stomping away.

A woman came to the door in response, her short ash-blonde hair damp from a shower. She wasn't pretty as such, the family resemblance to the man was too strong – it made her jaw too square and forehead too high to be considered conventionally beautiful, but she was striking nonetheless. Something about the way she stood reminded Rossi of Pip, like a relaxed predator - dangerous but harmless unless you were stupid. Or in her way. She also looked him up and down.

"Can I help you?" she asked coldly. There was a trace of Eastern Europe in her speech, barely noticeable.

"I was told to ask for Thalia," Rossi repeated.

The woman nodded. "You've found her."

He cleared his throat awkwardly. "I like pineapple."

The woman blinked, as if shocked. "Pineapple?" she asked, clearly confused. "Are you sure?"

Rossi's heart sank – she obviously had no idea what he was talking about. "Ah, yeah?" he offered uncertainly.

"Pineapple?" she muttered to herself. "We stopped using fruit ages ago." She sighed. "Oh well, I guess you'd better come in, Agent…" she left it hanging, making Rossi realise he hadn't introduced himself.

"Rossi." He looked down at his casual clothes. "How could you tell?"

Thalia laughed. "All Feds smell like Feds."

She led him through to the living room, where a large silver-blue tabby cat was sharing a couch with a wiry-haired mongrel and a profusion of art supplies. As soon as the dog spotted Rossi, it launched itself at him, barking furiously. The hardwood floor provided limited purchase however, and when Rossi side-stepped, the dog simply careered into the wall with a yelp.

"Meet Fuckwit," commented the woman dryly. "He's a rescue. Smart as a sack of river stones."

Rossi spluttered. "You called your dog Fuckwit?"

Thalia rolled her eyes as she watched Fuckwit right himself and slink off down the hallway nonchalantly, as if that was what he'd intended all along.

"He chased a butterfly up onto the outdoor grill, just as I was about to put the burgers on. Badly burnt his paws trying to steal one, then broke his leg when he fell off. He earned his name." She waved a hand gesturing for him to sit and disappeared into the kitchen.

Rossi was still chuckling to himself when Thalia returned with a pot of coffee. She'd herded the cat to one side and piled up the artwork covering the sofa to make space, but in true cat fashion, the cat had spread out again as soon as possible.

"Move, Schrödinger," she said sternly, tickling the cat on the side. She rolled her eyes when it ignored her. "More than thirty muscles in each ear, all tuned specifically to ignore you." She gave it an encouraging nudge. With a disgusted backward look, Schrödinger reluctantly relinquished his spot to her and sauntered away to sprawl in a handy sunbeam.

Rossi picked up the two drawings that slithered off the pile with the cat's departure. The uppermost was an impressive cityscape panorama from an elevated position on the western side of Central Park. "This is really good," he commented honestly, putting them to one side. "Your work?"

"Gods, no," laughed Thalia as she took her seat. "Best I can manage is stick-people." She didn't offer any clue to the identity of the artist, and Rossi decided he didn't need to know.

"Dare I ask why your cat is called Schrödinger?" he asked, trying to get an opening to ask the questions he really wanted answering.

Instead of replying, Thalia searched the scattered drawings and then handed one to him.

The image was of a backstreet, presumably somewhere other than Cooperstown, which didn't look big enough to have backstreets. Among the dumpsters and scattered detritus was a cardboard box with a familiar striped tail sticking out the side. In the picture, a young boy pointed to box, the speech bubble showing a happy cat playing with him. Thalia was shaking her head, her speech bubble showing a coffin with a cat-shape on the lid. What caught Rossi's eye was that Pip was there; her speech bubble came in two parts, the first echoing the images of the others, the second with a magnifying glass.

Rossi chuckled, wondering who the boy was. "Fair enough."

"Now we've got the pleasantries out of the way, I want to see your invite," said Thalia, holding out her hand.

"My invite?" for a moment, Rossi was utterly bewildered. "Oh, you mean this?" he asked, proffering the business card Pip had left for him.

Thalia didn't speak, but tilted the card in the light and nodding to herself before handing it back. "Had to make sure."

Rossi took back the card, examining it to see if he could see what Thalia had been looking for. "Make sure of what? Who are you?" Rossi asked. "And what is this place?" he added when she didn't respond. "Some sort of safe house? What about the legal firm registered here?"

"That your invite was genuine, I am Thalia, this is my house, held in the name of Phoenix, Bode & Mayfair." She snorted. "They are most certainly not a law firm. That answers all four of your slightly stupid questions. Now, before we get to why you're here, why are you so late? I expected you a long time ago. So long I had to look up pineapple to make sure it was still valid."

"I only found the directions a week ago," admitted Rossi, still trying to work out what pineapple had to do with anything.

"So much for compulsive neatness and insatiable curiosity," grumbled Thalia. "What kind of federal agent are you?"

He flushed a little at her assessment of him. He should have found that letter shortly after Pip had been recalled, but too caught up in a mis-placed sense of betrayal, he'd stopped taking much notice of anything beyond the next case in front of him.

Schrödinger apparently decided he didn't like not being the focus of attention and leapt up onto Rossi's lap, directly onto his testicles. Rossi yelped, dropped the card and tried to shift him, but Schrödinger dug his claws in and refused to move. With the cat draped immovably across his lap, Rossi threw a pleading look at Thalia through watering eyes.

"Schro!" giggled Thalia and moved to sit next to Rossi, ushering the cat off Rossi's lap and onto her own. He oozed into place, proof positive that cats were actually a liquid. "You ok?"

Rossi did a discrete equipment check, just to make sure no real damage had been done, and nodded. He'd never been so glad that he dressed to the right or those pinprick claw wounds wouldn't just be on his thigh. He should be glad he hadn't thrown coffee all down his pants as well, he supposed. He ignored Thalia's barely stifled laughter.

"So, how can you tell my invite was the real thing?" grumbled Rossi, retrieving the card from where it had fallen.

Thalia gripped his hand and moved it so the sunlight fell on the card. "The upright of the "d" in Bode has a thin reflective outline…"

"In the shape of a rifle," finished Rossi, running his thumb over it. It was barely noticeable unless you knew to look for it.

She nodded. "That's how I knew it was from her. If it had been one of mine, the "o" in Phoenix would have faint crosshatching that looks like a satellite dish. My brother's would have an eye in the dot above the "i" in Mayfair."

"And if it hadn't been genuine?" he asked, although he was pretty sure of the answer.

"That would depend. Safe to say, you would leave…one way or another. We have an extensive security team watching the house at all times."

Rossi nodded. As he expected. "I didn't see any security on my way in," he commented.

She smiled. It was a cold, predatory smile. "That's kinda the point, don't you think?"

Fair enough. "Why am I here?" he asked, and was graced with a look straight out of Pip's manual of intimidating expressions in response.

"To learn, obviously," she snapped, then sighed. "Sorry, this…this is…I didn't think you were coming. I'm a bit...on edge."

Rossi wanted to ask her how he felt, but refrained, knowing he'd just get another glare for his trouble. It seemed his job, for the time being, was to shut up and listen. He was happy to do so because as a profiler, the woman sat next to him was a complete enigma. Thalia poured another cup of coffee from the pot before speaking.

"Back in the depths of time, when I was young and idealistic, my twin brother and I were investigating an incident in the Middle East, something that could have been a war crime, if we'd been at war at the time. We had all the evidence we needed, but hadn't reckoned on the desire to keep it quiet. There was an air strike, called in on expertly fabricated intel gathered by a CIA operator, who thought it was genuine."

Rossi drew in a deep breath, recognising the tale. "The terrorist training camp that wasn't," he murmured, catching Thalia's nod from the corner of his eye.

"That's the one. We'd taken refuge in the village with our witnesses – the pregnant women who'd been raped and their little kids. She found us there, having realised the evidence she'd uncovered was a little too perfect to be real. She risked her life to save ours, for no other reason than she thought she should; that it was the right thing to do, even though we'd done nothing but make her life a misery."

That explained much, about Pip and her trust issues, and her anger at being sent back there by the same people who'd betrayed her in the first place. Only to be betrayed once more.

"It broke her trust in the system, in her superiors," added Thalia sadly. "She tendered her resignation from the CIA before we even landed Stateside. Her trust in everyone died the day the bombs fell. You're the first she's trusted enough to be briefed on this aspect of her life, I hope you realise what that means, not just..."

"I broke her trust in me, too," blurted Rossi, interrupting. "I…I said some things, and then she…" he swallowed heavily. "She gave me back the jewellery I'd given her."

Thalia's eyes narrowed. "When was this?"

"Just before she went to Columbia." He looked up, noting the lack of surprise on her face. "You knew she'd gone to Columbia." It wasn't a question.

Thalia shrugged. "Well, yeah. We sent her."

Rossi blinked in shock. That wasn't the answer he'd expected.