Derek was trembling slightly and his hands were shaking as he held his gun, pointing it at Robert Foster. Foster had his gun against the head of a brutalized sixteen year old, Sam Waterson. Sam was bound and gagged, laying naked on the floor of a basement of an old house just outside of Baltimore. He was breathing, but it didn't look good. He was badly beaten, there was a lot of blood on the floor.

Robert Foster zeroed in on the team and sneered at Derek, "You want to pull that trigger, don't you?"

Yes, Derek did. He could actually think of nothing he'd like better. But he also wanted to potentially bring closure to two families, possibly more, whose sons' bodies had yet to be found. The whole team had their guns pointed at Robert, who was a massive, burly man with curly, auburn hair. He was, by all accounts, a smart man, surprisingly quiet for a man his size, Robert's neighbors told the team. They'd never suspect him of something like this. He was wealthy, having inherited a huge trust when his mother died. The family had invested in real estate, both homes and office buildings, some in the seedier areas of town having fallen into disrepair, but they'd made a small fortune with the rest. They were in the basement of one of the vacant homes now.

Baltimore had called in the BAU on the Sunday after Serena's birthday party when they discovered the bodies of two teenage boys who had been repeatedly raped and tortured before their bodies couldn't take anymore and they died, both from internal bleeding. It appeared Foster kept the boys for a couple of days before it got to that point. The team tracked those boys to a rough area of Baltimore where young drug addicts lived and congregated. Though it was difficult to communicate with the young people they found on the streets, they ultimately discovered that two boys had gone missing a couple months previously, and there was another boy, Sam Waterson, who had gone missing just the day before, but that wasn't strange. People came and went all of the time, one of the more lucid girls told them.

Robert Foster plucked kids off the street who had no families, or had families who still cared but didn't know what to do - they'd tried to get their sons in rehab, some of them several times, they'd tried to get them off the streets, but they couldn't. They didn't know to report that their sons were missing because for them they were already gone.

The team was able to piece together a description of a large man with auburn hair who frequented the area, selling drugs for cheap. They dug further and realized that a man fitting that description owned the run-down building where the kids sometimes crashed. He created his own perfect hunting ground for his victims, all between the ages of sixteen and twenty, ethnicity didn't matter. They didn't know for certain how many victims he had in the past, but they were banking on at least the two that disappeared a couple of months ago, and Sam Waterson, who may still be alive.

And he was alive. Derek could see his chest rising and falling in that basement. It was when Sam Waterson looked at him with a tortured expression, one that spoke volumes, that Derek started trembling in rage towards Robert Foster; Sam Waterson would welcome death rather than try to recover from this.

When Foster refused to put down his weapon, Hotch shot him in the shoulder of his gun hand, and he dropped the weapon. Rossi and Reid quickly restrained and cuffed him. Goldstone, who'd now been with the BAU for over two years, ran to check on Sam. And JJ reached out to Derek. She put her hand on Derek's gun where it was still raised and slowly lowered his arms. She looked at him, concerned, noticing the trembling, but didn't say anything.

Sam Waterson died in the ambulance en route to the hospital.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Emily startled awake with a gasp when her phone rang a little after midnight. With Derek on the case in Baltimore, her heart frantically started thumping, thinking the worst. The caller ID said it was JJ.

As soon as Emily answered, JJ rushed out, "Derek's okay. He's on his way home now."

Emily sucked in a deep breath and JJ continued. "This case really got under his skin, Em. I haven't seen him like this in a long time." JJ told her the details of what had happened.

Emily and Derek had made a rule when she came back from London and stopped working with him: Let me know when you're leaving, check in when you can, call if you need me, and come home; the details could be discussed after if he wanted to talk about them.

When Derek got home about thirty minutes after JJ's call, she heard him walk upstairs, she heard him peek in on Serena, and then heard him walk to Caleb's room to check on him. Then he walked in their bedroom door and straight into the bathroom. She heard him turn on the shower. Emily debated whether or not to give him space or go to him, and decided on the latter. He'd broken a rule; he hadn't called her when this case got awful, which meant in her mind that he needed her more than he was willing to admit at the moment.

The bathroom door was cracked and she opened it enough to peek inside. She could see him through the glass shower doors, head tipped so his forehead rested on the cool tile under the shower head, water pounding on the back of his neck. His eyes were closed. He looked devastated.

She shed her pajamas quickly and quietly and walked to the shower door. He turned his head slightly when she opened it, but didn't move from his position. Emily stepped up behind him until her body touched his. She gently placed her arms around him and pressed a kiss on his shoulder. "JJ called me," she said quietly.

Derek turned in her arms and wrapped her in a hug. He buried his head in her neck and started crying and Emily gently ran her hands up and down his back.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she whispered.

He shook his head against her and replied, "Not tonight. Tomorrow. Hotch told me to take a day."

Tomorrow was Wednesday, a day she normally worked at the BAU for five hours. She'd already told JJ to let Hotch know she wouldn't be in. Emily bent her head to kiss the skin between his neck and shoulder, the place she could reach clasped this tightly in his arms, and said, "I know. I'm taking one, too."

They slept naked that night, his body wrapped tightly around hers as if the skin contact could heal him. And Emily knew from over ten years of being with him that it did help them both. But she didn't sleep much that night. Derek almost never talked about what happened to him as a teenager with Carl Buford, but occasionally a case would come along that shook him like this and he'd give her small bits of insight to that part of him, the part he'd let go of long ago, for the most part. But she was worried. After spending the past several years mostly doing cognitive interviews and learning to pick up on the vibrations and nuances of a person's body rather than just their words, this one felt different with Derek. Even in his sleep she felt the hum of something deeper swirling in his mind.

The next morning she awoke early and dressed in comfortable clothes while Derek continued to sleep. She went downstairs and started breakfast and Serena and Caleb woke up shortly after. Serena noticed their closed bedroom door before walking with Caleb down the stairs hand-in-hand. "Is Daddy home?" she whispered quietly to Emily so Caleb wouldn't hear.

"Yes, but he's tired, sweet girl. Let's let him sleep and you can talk to him when you get home from school. He's not going to work today so he'll be here."

Serena nodded happily, glad he was home safely. Emily took Serena to school with Caleb in the car, so they could both tell her goodbye for the day, and then returned home, dropping Caleb across the street with his regular babysitter, Judy. "I'm home today if you need anything," Emily told Judy. "Derek had a rough case so I'm sticking around."

Judy didn't question statements like that. She was a lovely, kind woman whom Caleb adored. She was a good friend. She understood Derek's job, and Emily's. She cared for Caleb like one of her own and never asked questions, but willingly listened when Emily offered anything up.

Emily was surprised when she walked across the street and into their house and found Derek waiting for her, dressed for a run. "Want to come with me?" he asked.

She quickly changed and walked out the front door with him. He pushed her hard on that run for six fast-paced miles. She kept up in silence, sensing this was some part of his processing and he wanted her there. He slowed down in the park a few blocks from their house and settled into a walk. They caught their breath and when they were both breathing evenly again, he reached out and linked his fingers with hers.

She glanced up at him and broke the silence, "I'm sorry you couldn't save Sam Waterson."

He stopped walking and turned to her. She turned her body so she was facing his and he linked his other hand with hers, whispering, "I've come to accept that we lose people often in this job. while trying to make sure more people aren't lost. It wasn't that we couldn't save him; it was that he didn't want to be saved. He had a look in his eyes that I remember seeing in myself when I was a teenager, where death would be a welcome escape. The only reason I didn't do it was because my mom had already lost my dad and I couldn't do that to her. I learned to push through. But I remember the feeling and when Sam Waterson looked at me like that, I felt like I was looking in the mirror at a younger version of myself that I forgot existed." One tear slowly made a path down his cheek as he finished talking.

Emily swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. He released one hand from Derek's and reached up to gently brush his tear away, keeping her hand on his cheek. She searched for words, finally settling on, "It's so hard to remember things like that, but it's important, too. It keeps us grounded and reminds us where we came from, so that we can celebrate who we are now even more. We've both traveled long, hard roads, Derek, and we came out shining on the other side. When things like last night happen, I think it's important to let ourselves feel those feelings because it keeps us real. It should show you just how strong you are that you told me this. And I love you for who you are now, and for who you were, even that part of you you want to forget, because it makes us whole. Even the bad parts make us whole, Derek. Remember and feel, but at the end of the day, hang on to our present, my sweet love."