Chapter Eleven

The future is no more uncertain than the present.

Walt Whitman

Dave leaned back in his chair and pinched his nose, willing the pounding between his eyes to fade. His desk was cluttered with paperwork that seemed to build like the pressure in his head. The clock on the wall slowly ticked past 8pm. It tortured him with each second that passed. In defeat, he lowered his pen and rubbed the ache from his shoulder. A sharp knock on the door thundered painfully through his head.

He took a deep breath and tried to calm his stomach. "Come in," he called, clearing his throat.

Hotch stepped inside. "Dave, what are you still doing here?" he admonished with genuine concern. Was Dave looking a little gray, he wondered. Looking again from a different angle, he surmised that it had to be the lighting in the room.

"I could ask you the same thing," Dave leveled. "It's a Friday night. What happened to pizza weekends with Jack? "

"I was waiting for you." Hotch peered over the desk at the neat stacks of reports, less than half were completed. Unconsciously, Dave and Reid raced to see who could get their reports in faster. Reid had turned his in hours ago. Hotch took a seat in the chair across from the desk. "A lot has changed, how are you holding up?"

"Do you want the reports or are you here to profile me?"

"Both." Hotch threw back, nonplussed by his friend's bad mood. "You're having trouble focusing." He glanced towards the reports. The stack was only a quarter less than what he had seen at noon.

"It's been a long week." Dave's hand scrubbed his brow. He felt a sudden chill rush over him.

Hotch didn't miss the way his friend broke out in a sweat."You look like you're catching something. Take a few days off."

"Is this an order?" Dave asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Does it have to be?"

Dave rolled over with a groan, wrestling his arm from under Mudgie. Blindly he tapped the phone and held it to his ear. Ending the blaring noise of the ringer.

"Are you kidding me?"

He recognized Erin's voice immediately, "Good morning to you, too."

'I come to work with morning sickness, but Agent Hotchner sends you home at the first sign of a cold!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Dave muttered, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"It says, and I quote: 'Agent Rossi displays lack of focus and a general feeling of unwell. I've ordered him to take some time off until these issues are resolved' end quote," Erin said, reading the report in front of her.

"Hotch thinks I'm unfit for the field?"

"Apparently. Are you sick?" she asked without care. She had better things to worry about than the status of his acid reflux.

Dave thought back to the episode with anchovies and the near constant ache in his arm that followed. Other than the headache the night before, he still felt about the same.

"No. Not rea-"

"Good," she interrupted. "Agent Donalds called in; his wife took a turn for the worst. Can you teach his class?"

"Today?"

"Yes, today. And until further notice."

"I'm in," he automatically replied, but his heart wasn't in it.

"Thank you."

"You sound stressed," Dave observed. Covering the mouth piece, he burped and found the pressure on his stomach had lessened.

"I'm at work-"

"And...?" he prompted.

"You should be, too." The line went dead in his ear.

He rolled out of bed and glanced towards the 70 pound dog sprawled across the mattress where his left arm should be. That explained a lot.

-
"What's with you?" Dave asked, taking a seat in front of Erin's desk.

"You have a class to teach, Agent Rossi," she said sternly without glancing up from her reports.

"In an hour," he countered, stretching his legs out in front of him. " Are there..." he weighed his words carefully, "...troubles at home?"

Her head snapped up. There was no mistaking the daggers in her eyes. "Excuse me?" she returned in the coldest tone he had ever heard.

"You canceled my meeting with Paige."

"So? I'm her mother, that was my right."

"Is she interviewing Stephen King instead?" The hint of envy in his voice was undeniable.

"Are you jealous?" She scoffed, returning her attention back on the reports.

"What if I am?" he challenged. What could he tell her? That many years ago Stephen had promised to write an intro to one of his books only to back out at the last minute 'citing a conflict of interest'?

"Why should you be?" She glanced up again. A shrug of her shoulders was her way of dismissing him. "He's rich and famous, you're rich and famous. I don't see the problem."

"He's got the chance of a lifetime, a chance to meet your kid! I want that!"

A pregnant pause invaded the office. Dave looked down at his hands on the desk, his feet were flat on the floor and Erin stood across from him. His declaration stunned them both into silence and brought them both to their feet.

"She knows, David. She found out about the baby and took off for her father's. Right now Mark is the lesser of two evils. She's made her choice and it doesn't involve me," her tone was pitiful, but Dave knew whiny when he heard it.

"So, that's it?"

"That's it. You have a class to teach," she said, softly.

For a full minute Dave bit his tongue and tried form a proper response that wouldn't have standing in front of the disciplinary board for insubordination. "And you need to remember that you are a parent and have a bratty teenager to talk to."

With that, he turned on his heel and marched out of the office.