Once again, just a little bit of Christmas fiction, wondering what each of the BAU members might be doing during the holidays. Thanks for reading and letting me hear your thoughts. I still don't own them! (Wouldn't that be fun, though?)

Christmas at Quantico

Chapter Two: Rossi

"God rest ye merry gentlemen,

let nothing you dismay

Remember Christ our Savior

was born on Christmas Day

to save us all from Satan's power

when we were gone astray

Oh, tidings of comfort and joy,

comfort and joy

Oh, tidings of comfort and joy…"

-"God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"

Supervisory Special Agent Dave Rossi stood in the midst of a crowded, bustling, noisy mass of people moving, eating, talking, calling out to each other, and shuffling through the line he was serving in at one of the DC area's many overwhelmed soup kitchens. And amid all the chaos and commotion, he found more of the Christmas spirit than he ever had within himself or with the meager scraps of family he had to call his own.

Three failed marriages had left him no immediate family, except for two bitter ex-wives who were completely entitled to the ill will they bore him, and his first wife, one saintly soul who was still simply a friend to him. He'd had dinner with she and her new husband as he often did at some point during the holiday season. Rossi had taken them an expensive bottle of brandy as a gift, the amber liquid inside the exact color of her eyes, though he had kept it to himself, he had always found her similarly intoxicating eyes her best feature. God knew they both deserved an expensive gift for putting up with him and giving him the one taste of a family holiday that he would get. He and Brenda had realized mutually – and before they'd grown to hate each other – that they were never meant to be. Simply put, he wasn't one to be home for supper each night and lavish attention on someone who'd been waiting all day to talk to him, and she wasn't built to love a man who was never fully there with her. Brenda had somehow managed – unlike his other two exes – to not completely blame him, and they had remained friends. Perhaps because they had known each other since their late teens and had always been friends, even at the end of their marriage. Once the sadness had faded, their friendship and connection had remained, despite the improbability of that happening.

Dave Rossi had been an only child, and his parents had been gone some five years now, which left him pretty much alone. Most of the time, he was glad of it. He worked better as a loner; he had never been one for making idle conversation, and wasn't dependent on having company or others near. He worked better without being tied down or having people to worry about failing or being put into danger for being close to him. It was why he had always felt like he was so good at his job – he wasn't carrying many liabilities that people could use to get to him, and there wasn't much keeping him grounded to his own comfort zone and from getting into an unsub's.

It was a good thing that he had never had children – that none of his unions had lasted long enough for that. It would have been both painful and irresponsible to drag a child through his second and third vicious divorces and he couldn't have been the sort of father he would have hoped to be. In fact, failure or success of the marriages aside, he wasn't sure he had ever had the desire to be a father; wasn't sure he had it in him. If he hadn't already thought about these things, seeing what Aaron was going through right now would have been enough to firm his convictions. Watching Aaron cycle through crippling guilt, helpless anger, and sadness over Haley's taking Jack with her and how few and far between the fleeting moments of joy when he did get to he his was, was gut-wrenching, even when someone managed to conceal as much of his emotions as Hotch did. Rossi knew he wouldn't risk putting himself through something like that.

Instead, he was glad to get out of the BAU for a few days and do something pleasant to help mankind and recharge for a few days. He knew that he and his team's work as profilers was important and beneficial, but it was also grim and never-ending. There would never stop being damaged, psychotic criminals coming up with new and despicable ways to harm and kill their fellow man. It was nice to forget that for a while and take the chance to do something simple, and of more immediate good.

On this note, he glanced up to see a middle-aged man in line next, his arm around the shoulders of a dark-haired woman with just a few thin veins of gray beginning to shoot through her curling, shoulder-length hair. With them was a little, dark headed girl with the woman's heart-shaped face and the man's thoughtful, sparkling brown eyes.

"Merry Christmas," Rossi spoke, a genuine half-smile touching his lips as he nodded to them and began to ladle the stew he was serving into their bowls. Though the man looked tired, worn, and older than his years, there was also a look of dignity and wisdom in his face that belied what was obviously a current run of bad luck and sad circumstances. His love and care for whom Rossi could only assume were his wife and child were clear as he ushered them ahead of himself to get food first. The soft 'thank you' he offered Rossi after getting his own serving expressed both a sense of shame that he could not better provide for his family and also the bearing and manners of one for whom things had not always been this way. There was a flinty determination there that made Rossi feel certain this man would pick himself up again and his family would not be here next year.

Continuing to serve those who came through his line, Dave Rossi offered simple holiday wishes and food. But he continued to watch the little family as well as he worked. They had settled themselves nearby and were now talking and laughing together happily, as if they couldn't be happier anywhere else, even if it were the finest mansion instead of a poor soup kitchen.

Watching them, he felt blessing warmth spreading inside, despite the dispassionate aloofness he usually maintained. The realization was just what he had needed this holiday season. There were still devoted families and decent people in the world, just as there was still kindness, charity, and good. As he watched these people before him, satisfied even in their struggles, he was encouraged. It was easier to face another year chasing the worst of humanity once he was able to see and remember the best of it…the good that they were fighting to preserve.