"By looking at the questions children are asking, we learn the scope of what needs to be done."

- Buffy Sainte Marie -

When David Rossi leaves the BAU things are changing, Jason finally has the beginning of an army in a pair of green agents and a few who still feel like green agents even though they have been there for years. Max was hanging on fueled only by a single minded obsession, a tired relic in a world that very quickly was evolving him out of relevance.

As David has watched the beginnings of that evolution he wondered how long it would take for new agents to see him the same way. Two years, ten? He wasn't sure he wanted to know, he mentions it once to Gideon after a case that shakes the team's faith in what they do. Gideon just nods and states 'you always said you were gonna write a book', which is a thought he struggles to part with then after the Galen's case he decides to leave. He won't become Ryan obsessed with the one who got away and he lost his faith in the work. He doesn't disappear into the night though. He sends out a transcript for a book that has sat in his top left desk drawer for two years. Gets a publisher, stays on for his two weeks, then retreats back home still teaching, still doing custodials, and still consulting when the team needs a fresh pair of eyes. But no longer was he on active duty.

Three years after his departure from the unit finds him on book tours and signings and somehow he has a name. Not a household name but a name in the world of those who instead of escaping to fantasy worlds escape to the land of twisted minds. He is on the last stop of a book tour in Las Vegas signing books after his lecture at the local college.

The setting event itself is not anything abnormal. In fact it is often that parents or loved ones approach him begging for him to look at a case. His answer is always the same as the echo of what he told Jason a decade ago when Mary Ellen Barnett pressed the photo of Tara into his hands. They can't save them all.

So when his hand drops further than his muscle memory expects, and he pulls a photograph across the table and not a book he doesn't flinch. But he does look down taking eyes of a young boy taking in his thick rimmed glasses, behind which sit sad brown eyes swirling with defeat and a lack of hope, it was a gaze he was familiar with one that he saw on Max and on families of their most innocent of victims. And though it seemed at home on this young boys face the idea of a child witnessing enough pain to have those eyes made him shutter. He took in the rest of the photo noticeable bruising on the right side temple haphazardly covered by too long hair, bags under his eyes that seemed to be carrying the weight of the world, and a purple threadbare sweater covering a light blue collared shirt.

He pinched his inner arm slightly, wondering if at some point he had fallen asleep and waiting for the part of this dream where the photo turned into Connie Gallen whose own piercing gaze held more direct contempt than hopelessness.

But the pain from the pinch did not stir his brain into consciousness, nor the photo change. Instead he still sat at that pine wood professors desk his hands wrapped tightly around the small photo.

The picture is heart wrenching and different from the polished pictures he normally receives, and that in itself is what has him looking up rather than delivering his practiced line with eyes down while he tucks the photo away to discard later.

But when he looks up it is not a concerned parent or teacher staring back at him. Rather it is a pair of pleading brown eyes belonging to a young teen and more importantly the blue eyes of a child glistening with silent tears and a final shred of hope.

The older boy is well kept, dark hair brushed back a sweater and jeans that both look well taken care of.

The girl is a different story, her own hair laying thick and dirty against her scalp matted in a way that speaks to months of ill care. A scratch on her left eye that she does not try to hide behind her hair. There are old second degree burns on her fingers and the backs of her hands as she rests them on the table. She is draped in a too many layers all of which swallow her already waif like frame. From the purple sweater that he is certain is the same one the boy in the photo is wearing, to the woolen over throw that peeks out under a thick leather coat and is neatly folded around the bunched up arms of that leather coat to allow her hands movement

"Agent Rossi Sir, we need your help." The boy implores his voice soft eyes pleading.

"He says you and your team save people in your stories." She says but then his own security is moving them away stating that there were other customers. He looks up to tell them to stop, to return the photo and wash this victim from his conscience but when he does they are gone.

He tucks the photo in his pocket, forces a smile and finishes signing the books. When the event is over he takes a better look at the photo and turns it around but there is nothing there. He asks his publicist to go over the list of people who signed in looking for college credit. What he is looking for, he doesn't know and he doesn't find anything worth noting.

The next day he is supposed to pack and be ready for his flight back home at noon. The last day in a city is one that normally has him sleeping in then slowly packing. It is a time he has to enjoy the restful nature of retirement not having to rush to the next city, the next dump site, the next precinct and witness the next in a long line of the horrible things that humans do to each other.

Instead of following his normal routine, that morning he wakes early and decides to do one more thing before allowing himself to add the picture on his night stand to the pile of victims he abandoned. The local elementary school is practically buzzing with people when he arrives that morning. He walks up to the front desk where he meets a stern looking woman. He shows her the picture looking for a spark of recognition, "do you know who this is?" He asks though he is not hopeful with the way she squints at it. Her hand reaches out to take the picture and get a better look but he pulls back taking the photo out of her reach and back into his chest.

"Maybe," the woman shrugs "looks like all the kids who go here" she states and he deflates. He shows it to three other workers in the front office who all give him the same answer. With more than 150 elementary schools in the county he finds that tracks. The kids who handed him the photo yesterday probably don't even live in the area. He thanks the women for their help then leaves telling himself that without a name there is nothing else he can do. He is opening the car door when he hears it. The clack of heals the rub of a woolen suit and a call out for him to stop. He steps away from the rental and walks over to the lengthy woman who chased him down.

"Sir, sorry I am Mrs. Baker the school counselor, and I was wondering if I could see that photo." She asks standing up and straightening her clothes, a manicured hand then flying up to tuck a wayward chunk of hair behind her ear. He nods and pulls the photo out of his breast pocket. Watching as recognition blooms on her face before her features fall into one of grief.

"Do you know this boy?" He asks though her face gives him the answer he needs.

"Spencer Reid." She says her hand covering her mouth as her eyes drink in the photo like a woman who is parched.

"Do you know where he is?" Is the next question but the woman is too hysterical to answer.

"Ma'am, Yesterday two children, a boy about fourteen years of age and a girl about five years of age handed me this photo and stated the boy was in danger. Do you know where he is?" He says, not sure how to not sound a bit crazy trying to inform this woman why he is asking about a kid he has no connection to other than a photograph.

"He's dead."

"Dead?"

"He stopped showing up for school, His mother, his mother never, when the cops went for truancy they found his blood..." the woman chokes unable to speak, "his mother was sick. Very sick. She doesn't even remember that she has children. And when they tried to question her she attacked." The woman chokes and David grabs her arm directing her to the nearest bench and sitting down across from her. The fact local PD determined the boy was killed by his mother went unsaid but it was louder than anything else in the area.

"The poor babies." The woman sobbed. Dave pulled out his handkerchief and handed it to her. It took a good ten minutes for her to calm down and in that time Dave did little more than rub her back. The weight of the knowledge that this kid wasn't able to be saved weighed heavily on him. But he couldn't determine why. In each city he would be handed at least one child or loved one and each he discarded. 'Can't keep that you know' he told Gideon a cautious word back when it had only been the two of them trying to do enough leg work to make behavioral analysis a possible tool for finding the worst killers.

In a dozen years since that one photo sat in Gideon's wallet Dave had thrown away hundreds. His hand reached into his pocket and grasped at the thin golden chain.

It had taken a decade and a brutal home murder for Rossi to understand why Gideon kept that photo and why Max vacationed in Philly. He had explained it to Kate and Aaron after a case went south and they saw their leaders stumble, 'sometimes you need hope to remind you of all the good in the world,' he had said 'but other times you need pain to remind you that the world is not all good and that evil is all part of human behavior'. And that is what it was a token to remind them that despite all the good they did the evil they fought would never be defeated. This was not a war that they could win. That is why Gideon kept Tara, Max those letters, and Rossi the Galen Children.

And that is why he could not keep Spencer Reid.

But the thought of abandoning him in a trash can hurt. From the little he gathered from Mrs. Baker's emotional exploit the boy's life he had not been a kind one, he could not disgrace his memory as well. Which meant he had to return the photo to its owner.

"The kids, they deserve to have this back. Do you have any idea who they may be?" He asks his words coming out fast in the hope that maybe this woman may be able to connect him with those children again.

"Maybe, he has a sister Julian Reid, she's in class now." The woman nods.

"Can you give this to her?" He asks, pressing the photo into the woman's hand.

"Yes" she said but as her fingers curl around the image Rossi pulls back. His breath hitches startled at his own reaction, but his brain is berating him. Telling him that he can't leave until he returns this boy to his family, and he can't leave that job to a middle man.

"Actually It might be better if I did."

"I don't know if that is for the best. Julian is not a normal child, she is different, and she is young still and not fully grasping her own grief. She keeps speaking about Spencer as if he will return any day now." The woman said.

"Ma'am I worked with a team for many years that specialized in talking with victims' families. I would not do anything to upset the child. I just want to make sure that this photo ends up back where it belongs." and the woman nods then stands leading him back inside. This time he gets a visitor's pass and follows the still shocked woman through the brightly colored halls.

They stop at a room that reads Room 2B and she turns to him asking him to wait in the hall a few moments later the door opens and the woman holds the shoulders of the girl who looks a whole lot smaller in the daylight than she did behind the small card table that had been set up for autographs. And the state of her dirty blonde matted hair, blue eyes that were filled with a damning about of awareness, and the signs of physical abuse that were visible in her ripped jeans, three layers of over throws, and duct taped shoes were more pronounced.

"Julie," The woman speaks as she kneels down twisting the girl so that they are facing each other. "I would like you to meet my friend.." she says motioning to Dave who by this point has taken a knee as well looking at the waif of a girl.

"Hello Agent Rossi sir. It is nice to see you again. Have you saved him already?" The child says her voice low but her eyes are full of hope. She has stepped away from the woman and toward Dave, her small burned hand reaching up to grab his.

"Julie darling we talked about this darling. Spencer is safe in heaven and one day…"

"Heaven isn't real. It's a non-place and Spencer isn't there." The girl explains quite calmly looking at the still weeping woman as if she were the child that one needed to calm in this situation.

"The man took him when he came to the house." She reported this time looking up at Rossi.

"You have to save him Mr Rossi please. So he can come back and get Mama out of that hospital and we can go home." The girl says and Dave's hand stutters on his way to get the photo. The story he heard outside coming back to his mind, and the holes he would have otherwise been happy to ignore light up in his head making him groan.

"You saw the man who took your brother?" He asks tucking the photo back into his pocket and bending down to meet her gaze head on.

"Yes. He was mama sized, bigger than Mrs. Baker but smaller than you. He had a big red beard and red hair and a black hat he wore. There was a cross on his knuckle, here," the girl said manipulating Rossi's hand to point to his ring finger.

"He wore a dark coat with a zipper all the way up and his hood over his cap. He had jeans and boots, big boots. He had a van, white, that was dented in the front like he hit someone." The child said her voice calm her cadence even Rossi looked up at the school officer who now had a hand on the girl and was trying to pull her back. He rose his own hand as a motion for her to step away.

"How?"

"That is what you need to know right Mr. Rossi, that is the identi-viable information you need to find Spencer, right." she said stumbling for the first time her eyes rolling back as if trying to recall the word.

"Has she ever..." He looked up at the woman whose face of grief and morphed into one of anger. Now instead of trying to coax the girl from Rossi she grabbed both her shoulders tight and pulled her back stepping in front of him as if Rossi were the greatest threat to this girls safety.

"I think it is best if you leave now." The woman said and Rossi just nodded, his head still spinning.

"NO!" the girl yelled her composure finally cracking.

"No, Mrs Baker let me took him, he took him away, you have to find him, you save people, you" The girl is hysterical at this point fighting against Mrs. Baker and Dave looks up at Mrs. Baker knowing that he has outstayed his already tentative welcome.

So Dave goes but his plans to leave are dashed. He sits in his car and pens down the description on the back of the photo.

Spencer Reid

Male, White, Under the age of 30, between 5'4 and 6'0

Slim build, under six feet, red hair and beard,

white van dented front bumper.

He calls his agent and states he will be staying in Vegas, then drives his car to the nearest precinct.