Here is an additional short piece on 2x12 "The Kenyon Family", specifically for VBF after she mentioned this scene. To be honest, I had almost written on it, but then stuck with Ressler after he was taken by the boys. But this scene, when Ressler and Liz storm into the church and find the massacre is SO touching in the way they look at each other. So here is my 'take' on this scene.

As the sun rose over the property, they ran through the morning light charging toward the stone building. The Church of the Shield lay before them now. Tall and imposing, the grey granite building was more a fortress than a church. It was the place where Justin Kenyon's followers worshipped and lived.

With silent signals Ressler, Liz and Sheriff Starkweather crouched in the minimal cover afforded by the bare trees. As the armed agents stormed forward, Ressler flew after them with Liz in tow. Running across the courtyard in the cold morning air, the building loomed over them.

But something wasn't right. It was far too quiet. Justin Kenyon had dropped off the radar three days ago, but where were his followers? Why was no one about? At the sight of a sickle pushed through the door handles, Ressler felt his stomach drop. Something was very, very wrong. He looked across at Liz on the opposite side of the entrance. Her weapon at the ready as she stood poised, breathing in the cold morning air, she met his gaze. She felt it too.

As the armed agents removed the sickle from the door handles, Ressler positioned himself behind the guy on his side, while Liz did the same on her side. They were ready, and with a nod to the men they pulled open the two heavy doors. Blinded momentarily in the bright morning light, Ressler followed them into the interior of the building, weapon at the ready. Liz was right behind him, and as they took a couple of steps inside, it took a moment for their eyes to adjust in the dimmer light.

It wasn't their eyes that realized what they had just stormed into though. The odor assailed them, overwhelming their senses. Death. Rotting corpses - and lots of them. Their ears followed, alerting them to the sound of buzzing flies. Even in the winter cold the flies had discovered a mammoth source of food.

And as their eyes adjusted, confirming what their noses and ears had already discovered, Ressler heard Liz gasp as she stood close behind him to his left. As he stood still, unable to take a further step into the room, their surroundings became clear. Horrendously so.

Oh my God.

Strewn across the floor like discarded cords of firewood, the bodies surrounded them. Unable to fathom exactly how many victims lay around them, Ressler holstered his weapon and slowly took in the scene. Broken chairs lay everywhere and as he focused more, it was evident that the broken chairs had become weapons. Broken chair legs lay impaled in bodies. Through stomachs, eyes, and mouths. This was no clean kill. This was butchery. Savage, inhumane brutality.

Women and men lay everywhere. The protruding stomach of a near term pregnant woman caught his eye. And once seen, he couldn't look anywhere else. The unborn child had died inside its mother, caught in a savage beating and torturous death. The most innocent of victims.

Dragging his eyes away from the pregnant woman and her dead infant, he sought out the one person in the room he needed at that moment. Turning slowly to his left he met her waiting eyes. She met his gaze, her own eyes wide with horror as she panted in sharp shallow breaths. She needed him just as much. Clinging to each other's eyes as he slowly turned to face her, they were unable to touch for the moment. Yet they searched for and found the solace they needed at that moment in their partner. They stood together amidst the death and massacred bodies around them - a safe island in the middle of a brutality that neither of them had ever witnessed first hand before.

Ressler was the first to move. Reaching up his hands he held her upper arms and gently turned her, facing her toward the entrance again. And when she didn't, or couldn't move, he gently placed his hand on her back and urged her forward, one hand on her back and one holding her right arm. He needed to get her out of there. Hell, HE needed to get out of there. Forget years on the job - NO amount of training was ever going to make a scene like this tolerable.

As they stepped out into the bright sunlight again, his arm was now around Liz's shoulders, leading her away from the building. Sheriff Starkweather approached to ask something but he simply stared at her and shook his head slowly, briefly holding up his hand to ward her off. In horror, she looked quickly toward the church, understanding that something unbearable lay within.

"My God…" Liz found her voice, whispering as he led her to a quiet corner of the building. "Have you ever seen-"

"No," he interrupted as his eyes darted wildly, attempting to find something else to rest on and obliterate the scene from his mind.

"Oh my God…" she repeated, swallowing hard as she leaned against the grey stone bricks. Ressler stood in front of her, looking at her now. Her eyes met his again as her hand briefly touched his chest in support.

"I know…there had to be thirty at least in there," he said, glancing back up toward the double entrance doors in time to see Sheriff Starkweather step inside. Exhaling heavily, he moved and leaned on the wall heavily beside Liz. So close that their arms were touching, they consciously leaned into each other.

"There was a pregnant woman…" she said hesitantly, the image starkly fresh in her mind.

"I saw her," he replied, leaning his head back on the wall and swallowing hard. And the thought he couldn't get out of his mind was how long had the baby survived in its dead mother until he or she succumbed.

"Shit." Suddenly unable to stand still a second longer as the scene invaded his memory, he launched himself off the wall. Walking down toward the line of trees they'd taken cover in before storming the building, she followed him, walking briskly two steps behind him. And under the bare trees again, they stood together and turned back toward the building as the Sheriff came outside hurriedly. She walked three more steps then leaned on the wall and threw up. Ressler didn't blame her one bit for that reaction.

Looking up at Ressler beside her, he met her eyes in the morning light.

"We have to go back in there," they both said in unison to the other, then nodded together. The fact they were so intune as to have voiced the same thought at the same time was lost on them in that moment. Their minds instead back in a blood filled massacre of death.

He took a deep, shuddering breath. "But not right now. They're not going anywhere and the scene is secure until the Coroner arrives."

As Liz stood looking at the large building, a thought occurred to her. And as she turned to him her eyes widened. "Ress!"

"What?" he asked her.

"There were no children in there. Where are the children?!"

His eyes darted to the building and together they sprinted over to it. As an armed agent came outside, Ressler yelled over to him.

"Search the building! The children are missing! Find them!"

And as they plowed inside the double doors again, this time they averted their eyes from the carnage before them and sprinted toward the interior rooms of the building. They had something new to focus on now, and while the horror of the massacre still lay dead and bloody inside the sanctuary, now their task was to focus on the living.

With a glance and nod to each other they drew their weapons and began their search of the building, focused once again on the job at hand, knowing their partner had their back.