A/N - rewrite of chapter five please read. Beginning is the same new content starts at the bold word.

"Sometimes the curiosity can kill the soul

but leave the pain."

-Lewis Carroll-


David Rossi does not sleep that night. His conversation with Ethan running though his head on repeat. Answering questions he had but leaving him with more.

David Rossi does not sleep that night. But he does lie down and tries to sleep, his eyes open half an hour later and sleep does not come. The first time he decides to abandon his bed he ends up at a casino. After he is out a few hundred and has had enough drinks to feel presently buzzed and warm he returns to the hotel room for his second try.

He closes his eyes once again, but a half hour later he startles into consciousness without any idea of what dream he had been having. He goes down to the pool and swims laps until his muscles scream in protest. He makes his way back to his bed after a quick shower lays down and closes his eyes. Thirty minutes later his eyes open and he slams his fists against the bed before sitting up and running a hand through unruly hair he had not cared to dry before laying down.

So he goes down to the local 24 hour store and buys shitty ingredients to make some shitty Cacio e Pepe and some equally shitty wine. He finds a radio station that plays something akin to classical music and he makes his meal, he eats his meal, he cleans up his dishes, then lays back down. Thirty minutes later he is awake.

With out supplies to deep clean the hotel room he decides that he will not be getting any sleep and glares at the ceiling as if it is to blame for this plight. He lays there till the front desk calls with his 8 am wake up. He then showers, prepares, and dresses for the day. He even shaves as he had not the day before and he had been in need of one.

He goes back to the newspaper office. There are no inklings of cases that could be connected for two full years. And an outside perpetrator for this case would not be able to exist in a vacuum.

He went back to the precinct. Back to the files by this time he signed them out. Took them to the hotel and made an evidence board. The case was as peacemailed as he remembered but William Reid had an alibi.

Now he could do what he would have done fifteen years ago and start back at the beginning but this boy and this case seems to be a perpetual hamster wheel. So he goes to the strip, looses some more money, finds some female company, and drinks until his insides are warm. Then he goes to his room and falls asleep. This time when his brain snaps back to consciousness thirty minutes later. He decides to let the case go. He uses the hotel phone and dials the familiar number for the BAU.

It is practically 1 am in Vegas which means that it is almost 4 am in Quantico and so he is pretty sure that Jason will still be at home asleep.

He is halfway through dialing the number when there is a knock on the door. He stands slowly and approaches cautiously. Through the peep hole he sees Rodriguez standing outside holding a file dressed in civilian clothes.

1 am his brain is not liking the justifications his brain is giving him for the visit so he cautiously opens the door. Then steps back when the man asks for entry. The man's eyes track the evidence board David made with something akin to guilt.

The part of David that has always been a bit too close to the monsters he caught in his youth has a sick thought to make the man to look closer at the child he failed. But he tempers himself and offers coffee. Rodriguez nods. As he starts the god awful hotel coffee he takes note of the man. He is nervous, shifting feet unfocused eyes shifting around the evidence board. Hands tightening and loosing around the file as if scared of what it holds. His knees rhythmically hyperextending as if he is preparing to run away with out ever moving his feet.

It takes five minutes to make the coffee and Rodriquez does not speak in any of them. After the coffee is made Rossi offers him a seat on the room's lone chair and the detective speaks.

"Actually, it is best if you sit." The man says Rossi moves to sit on the bed fingers itching to grab the discarded cell phone.

"Why don't we both." He counters and the man nods. Then he shifts the file and Rossi's heart jumps into his throat. A coroner's report.

He reaches a hand out for the file barely registering the detective's words as he apologizes. He weighs the file in his hand. It's thin and he can't help feeling that the case ending should hold more weight than this.

The first page is the pictures of the post mortem body. Rossi has to bite back bile as he looks down. At this point, six months decomposed, the remains are skeletal with leathery skin stretched across sharp features. Some of the darkening blonde hair is attached but it is thin and frail looking. Their is what looks to be a good sized indent on the skull, most likely from the blunt force trauma that occurred. The body is covered which is a blessing.

"You are sure?" He asks as he turns to the next page to see the amount of injuries. The body sustained.

"We have a positive ID." Rodriguez states and Rossi nods flipping to read the report. He gets through maybe a single paragraph before he puts it down.

"Has the family and friends been informed?" He asks hoping that Rodriquez isn't here to ask him to make those contacts.

"I spoke to the Reid's." He states and Rossi nods closing the file and setting it onto the bed.

"When was the body found?"

"About a week ago someone came across it on a hunting trip. Says he got turned around on the trail and was following some old tracks when he saw some buzzards and later the boy."

"Spencer."

"Excuse me."

"His name isn't boy it's Spencer. You owe him that courtesy." Rossi barks.

"Of course." The detective deflects.

"It is late, and I am exhausted. Please leave." He states and the man nods walking out of the room without grabbing the report. Rossi places it at the bottom of the box and then takes down his evidence board.

Rodriquez's visit totaled 30 minutes but it exhausted him so he cancelled his unmade call to Jason and turned around to fall asleep.

The next morning he goes to the precinct to drop off the files and sees Harris. The man looks like Rossi feels. Red eyes and grief overtaking his face. He asks to see the report but Rossi tightens his grip on the evidence box. His old memories of dealing with grieving families bringing him back, he says that Harris doesn't really want to see. That he should remember Spencer as he was.

He shifts the evidence box to one hip and reaches into his pocket his hand finding the photo that sent him on this journey.

He fishes it out and hands it to Harris.

"This is Spencer, the one you knew and cared for. Remember him like this." He said pressing the photo into the other man's hands. Finally finding a place that he can lay it to rest.

The man nods and looks at the photo like he is drinking the first bit of water he has had in weeks.

There is a scream somewhere deeper in the precinct. A scream that he can place and that makes David Rossi into a coward.

"Thank you for what your doing?. For Julian."

"I am just researching."

"No, you are giving her hope."

Hope. That is what Ethan had said that Rossi's investigation gave Julian. Now it gives her a grave. Before this morning he would have said having closure for the kids was enough.

He would say that finding answers and providing them was all he wanted.

He would unknowingly be lying to himself.

Because as he stands in the foyer of the Las Vegas Police Department and listens to the two children scream in emotional agony he can't help but think this town would be a whole lot better if he had ripped up that photo and caught his initial flight.


A/N - don't shoot there are still six more chapters please at least read the next one before you prepare the pitchforks.