Okay, so this is from Dr. James Covington, right after they've let the doctor continue with the transplant, and the surgery is over. Ressler is looking at Keen, concerned when he hears her talking about trade offs. I liked this scene, because it was a case of 'the pot calling the kettle black'. Couldn't Ressler see that he'd changed just as much as she had in this past year? So I added a little ending to that, (and reference the story "See You Tomorrow" from my Conversations 1 series.)

Ressler stopped and looked back at her, shaking his head a little. "The fact that you're even thinking about what trade-offs you'd make, what rules you'd ignore. The Agent Keen I met a year ago would have never done that." He looked at her and then turned away, leaving her standing there as his words hung in the air around her.

Walking down the hallway, his nerves were experiencing that oh-too-familiar feel of being stretched just a little too tightly. It had started during the last hour of the transplant while they'd waited outside the OR for Covington to get done. He needed to get out of here and find somewhere to… dope up… His hand reached to his right pocket, reassuring himself his drug of choice was still with him.

Damn. I hate this. His thoughts were interrupted as he heard Liz behind him.

"Hey, wait up." She jogged to catch up to him as he walked down the plastic lined hallway of the pseudo hospital. The children who were patients were being transported one by one to city hospitals. Innocent victims in Covington's plans, but they would be looked after.

Ressler stopped and waited for her, holding up the plastic drapes that they'd walked through a few hours ago when they'd entered this strangely surreal little underground hospital.

"Coffee break?" she asked him almost apologetically.

He looked around at the agents and ambulance medics milling around the place. The scene was being taken care of and their jobs were done here. And it would be the perfect place to have a moment to himself.Meeting her eyes again, he nodded. "Sure."

They made their way down the hallway, retracing their steps from where they'd entered the building. The wooden stairs led them back up to the street level, where they exited the building. Reaching down, she retrieved the crow bar from the ground.

"Don't forget your spare key." She said, and he smiled and took it from her, returning it to the back of their vehicle. They climbed in the Suburban together, and he started the engine. He hesitated before putting it in gear, looking sideways at her, as she put her seat belt on. Will I ever be able to tell you what I have to do every 12 hours? He squashed the thought, turned and looked in the side mirror and then pulled out into the street.

It wasn't long before they spotted a café and he parked in front of it. Entering together, he held the door open for her before they gravitated toward a booth at the rear. While Liz slid into the booth and picked up the menu, Ressler looked around for the bathrooms.

Time for my fix…

"Order my coffee. I'll be right back" he said before she could reply. He didn't have to tell her what he wanted. They'd had enough coffee house stops that she knew his standard order.

Striding down the hallway to the restrooms he quickly slipped in the door. His reflection looked back at him. Every time he did this, he was drawn to the mirror, searching his eyes, wondering who he was seeing. Leaning on his hands on the counter top, he sighed heavily and closed his eyes.

I need to stop this. I tried. I can't.

Shaken, still arguing with himself, he stepped into a stall. It wouldn't pay for an FBI agent to be seen popping pills in public. He stood there a moment, gathering his wits about him. With two pills in his mouth as he exited the stall he cupped a handful of cold water to his mouth, swallowing them down. His eyes rose to the mirror, drawn again to the person looking back at him. Not for the first time, he asked himself the age old question.

What the hell are you doing?

Slowly killing myself, I'm sure.

Quickly washing his face, he took a shuddering breath then left the bathroom and headed back to Liz. Their coffees were already on the table as he slid into the booth across from her, his stoic Agent Ressler façade already firmly in place again.

"I ordered us a couple of sandwiches." She told him, "I don't know about you, but I'm famished."

Eating was the last thing on his mind. But rather than draw attention to the fact he couldn't face food, he simply nodded and smiled. Reaching for his coffee, he took a sip. As it slid down his throat, he looked up at her.

"I'm sorry. It's my turn to apologize."

"For what?" she asked, taking a sip of her own coffee.

"I wanted the same thing you did today. To save that boys life. We were both wrong Liz. And both right. And yet I judged you for making the same decision I'd also made." He half smiled at her, looking down, then back up at her.

"Apology accepted. For what it's worth, I'd do it again in a heartbeat to save a child's life." She said, looking over her coffee cup at him.

"Yes, but that's not what I'm sorry about. Well, not all of it." He added, looking away, then back at her dubiously.

"Oh?" She knew what else he was sorry about - but was going to let him spell it out. Over the past year, she'd 'taught' him how to start expressing himself more by simply sitting back and letting him try and find the words. Encouraging him without saying a word. And he'd got pretty good at it, she thought.

"You may not be the same Agent Keen you were a year ago. But I'm not the same Agent Ressler either…" he said, then hesitated. You have NO idea… "I've changed too, in fact probably more than you…" Let's not go there. He got back on track. "So I was wrong to call you out on something I'm guilty of myself."

She leaned forward toward him. "I'm not making excuses… but do you think maybe we've been around Red so long, with his way of doing the wrong thing to achieve the right result that it's considered…normal to us now?" she asked him, looking up at him in question.

He dropped his gaze to the table, thinking about that. He knew what she was saying. Maybe… "But we're each responsible for what we choose to do Liz, regardless of what others do around us."

Like taking drugs when those around us aren't.

I'm so freakin' screwed up.

She nodded. He was right. "So either we both deserve a medal or both deserve to be suspended for what we did today." She said, not altogether joking as her eyes met his.

His internal berating of himself quiet now, he focused back on her and replied. "Something like that." He leaned back as the waitress brought the sandwiches. She placed them between them with two smaller plates beside them. At the mention of suspension, he was immediately recalling Dr Friedman's relentless pursuit of him this past couple of weeks. She always threatened suspension, yet so far…well, I'm still on the job.

As the waitress left, Liz took a sandwich and bit into it, letting out a satisfied moan.

"Would you and your sandwich like to be alone?" he asked dryly, and she rolled her eyes at him.

He smiled as he sipped his coffee, but made no move to eat anything himself.

The edge taken off her hunger, she wiped her hands on a napkin and faced him. "Would you be honest with me about something?" she asked, turning innocently to look into his eyes.

Oh, here we go.

His guard was immediately up. Feigning nonchalance, he shrugged at her. "If I can." He said, covering his bases.

Here comes the interrogation.

"Has Cooper ever called you 'Donald' or 'Don'?"

He was NOT expecting that. His mind had been expecting 'when are you ever going to see Dr Friedman?' or 'what's going on with you?' or even 'are you on drugs, because you have this whole drug addict vibe going'. So no, he wasn't expecting that from her.

"What? Why?" He then recalled the morning Audrey had died. His head dropped, and he looked to the side and she saw the cogs turning. He didn't even have to say it. Yes, Cooper had.

"Because he called me 'Elizabeth' earlier today. It was… " she searched for the word.

"Fatherly and filled with genuine concern." He finished for her, knowing exactly how Cooper would have said it. Their boss was a lot of things. Gruff, overbearing, unfair at times, fair at others, and yet somewhere deep inside he cared a great deal about the agents in his charge.

She nodded, remembering the conversation in Cooper's office. "Exactly. He's concerned I haven't grieved for Tom, or for our marriage…that I haven't taken time off for myself. Dr Friedman has expressed concerned about me, and that makes him worried, basically."

Ressler looked at her, and had to agree with Cooper. "He's right. You haven't grieved or taken time off."

"Says the man who was back at work as soon as he could be after his fiancé died." Her eyes widened and she inhaled. "I'm sorry. That was…"

He was already shaking his head to dismiss her concern. "The truth, I know that." He finished.

I'm always finishing her sentences…

"So he told me if I needed to talk to someone, his door was always open…" she finished, and looked up at her partner.

"You have people who care about what you're going through Liz. Don't be so surprised that he'd offer that." He told her, holding his coffee cup in both hands.

"Do you think I'm paranoid…?"

And here we go.

He didn't even have time to answer, before she spoke again. "Because I pretty much attacked an innocent guy walking with his gym bag this morning."

"Well, the fact you just said he was innocent should tell you all you need to know on that one, Liz." he told her evenly.

She looked at him, sighed and looked away. He was watching her, seeing almost for the first time how different she was. She looked different. Well, the hair was obviously different, but she dressed differently, and she was… tougher.

She's brown, instead of pink and blue.

"Yeah… I don't know, I still think something is going on…" she shrugged.

"If you have a guy following you with a gym bag again Liz, you call me. And I will be the one to come 'talk to him', okay?" he told her, leaning forward on the table.

"You mean you'd rough him up for me." She said, and at that, they both laughed. He leaned back in the booth, looking at his partner. Yeah, she was different, but underneath she was the same Liz Keen.

As her grin subsided, she looked at him seriously. "Thank you."

"Any time. I rescue cats from trees too." He told her, smiling into his coffee.

She reached for another sandwich. "Aren't you eating?"

"I'm not hungry." If he ate something, he was sure it would come right back up.

Which would SO not be a good look.

But now she was studying him, in that manner he recognized so well. "The look." The one that instantly took him from a competent (albeit drugged out) agent to shrinking violet.

"You didn't eat this morning either, when Jan brought the donuts in."

He decided on the humor approach. "Hey, I have to maintain this girlish figure." He grinned.

She wasn't buying it though, "And today, you sounded out of breath a couple of times. And seriously, I ran faster than you did when we chased down Cassell on the motor cycle."

My nerves were shot, okay? I needed more dope. Or less dope.

"Must be getting old, I guess." He said, keeping his features calm, but losing the humor now.

She scoffed at that. "You're not old. But you may be coming down with something."

Yeah, I'm coming down with a serious case of drug addiction. He shrugged non-committally, not trusting himself to sound normal.

"Maybe you can go see the doc and get some pills." She offered, and he about choked on his coffee at that. He couldn't bring himself to answer, not with a profiler for a partner, so instead he placed his cup back on the table and looked at his watch.

She saw him and knew they needed to get back to the office and start their reports. "Yeah, coffee break's over. Is it my turn to pay?"

He smiled and nodded to her, rising to his feet now. "I got the last two times, remember?" he said, having regained his composure.

She left the money on the table before they walked back to the car outside. Their small break over, he pulled out onto the street and headed back to the Post Office.

Ever since the first night they'd gone for coffee, after she had invited him to dinner and he'd declined, they had started this little coffee break once or twice a week.

It was something they shared.

It was something they looked forward to.

It was something they needed more than they would ever admit to themselves.