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"Talk?" Reid said. "I thought you were at lunch with the others.

"I was; I changed my mind. This is how it's going to be." Rossi motioned for Reid to take the chair across from him. "You sit and eat, and I talk." Rossi sat in the chair. "When I'm done, you can have your say. Got it?"

Reid nodded, sat and began removing the cardboard lid from the tin foil dish which held wonderful smelling chicken fettuccini Alfredo. He picked up a fork and dug in.

Rossi likewise removed the lid from his food before he began. "I don't know what happened between you and JJ and it's totally up to you if you want to tell me. She was very upset when she got to the restaurant. She tried to hide it but you didn't need to be a profiler to see she was near tears. I'm assuming you had something to do with it since she said you decided not to join us for lunch." He twirled some noodles around his fork and brought it to his mouth, savoring the taste of the pasta and chicken covered in the creamy sauce before going on. "What is wrong with you?"

"What is wrong with me?" Reid asked his mouth falling open and his eyes widening. "I'm not the one who went about pulling off this elaborate 'Emily is dead' hoax."

"No you didn't," Rossi agreed after he swallowed, "but put in either Hotch or JJ's position, I have no doubt that you would. Don't sit there and look so innocent. You're willing to lie when it suits you. You didn't hesitate to lie to Hotch in West Bune did you? You knew Owen wasn't going to his mother's grave but you let us all believe that he was. Look at the anthrax attack. Emily wanted to tell the public but you said no, he might run and destroy his samples."

"Both those times, I was trying to save lives," Reid replied his voice rising.

"So were Hotch and JJ. If they'd not done this and Emily was alive and walking around, Doyle would have been back. He was killing families and we were Emily's family and how better to get at us than through our families. Were you willing to sacrifice yours?"

The men ate quietly for a few minutes and then Rossi spoke again. "If Doyle knew Emily was alive, how would you have protected your mother at Bennington? How many other patients or staff would have been injured or killed there until they got to her? They wouldn't care. Instead of these unsubs," Rossi flipped his thumb toward the white board, "it might have been Doyle's men attacking your father and they wouldn't have failed. Hotch has already lost Haley to an unsub. Would you like to see him lose Jack too? Would you like to have lost your godson to Doyle?"

"No of course not." Reid said quietly.

"Then get your head out of your ass and get over it. This is not all about you. It was about protecting you and the rest of the team and the people most important to us all. Was I pissed when I first heard about it? Yeah, I thought a guy I've known for a lot of years could have trusted me with that, but now I understand the less people who knew, the better and safer it was for everyone. Now, what did you say to JJ to get her so upset?"

Reid looked around the room not answering for a few moments until Rossi prodded, "Reid."

"I told her I didn't want her to call me Spence anymore." He said at last.

"What?" Rossi said as if it didn't sound like such a big deal. There must be more to it than he was getting.

"JJ's the only person in the whole world who calls me Spence. I've always loved it. It was sort of like being a term of endearment without anyone actually knowing, not like with Garcia."

"Okay so why don't you want her to call you Spence?"

"I told her she was a liar now and betrayed the people around her and the woman that called me Spence wasn't like that. She was a sweet and loving person, not cold like the new JJ. I don't know what they did to her at the DOD."

Rossi got up and poured Reid and himself a cup of coffee, putting a liberal amount of sugar in Reid's before bringing them to the table and setting one in front of him while sitting himself down and taking a sip of his own. "I don't suppose you've ever looked in the mirror."

"What?" Reid squinted at him as he reached for the cup like it was a lifeline.

"Look in the mirror. I bet the man who looks back is not the same kid who started in the BAU all those years ago. This job, that place, all the people you've met there have changed you. If they hadn't there'd be something terribly wrong with you. JJ saw different things at the DOD, rubbed shoulders with a different kind of people and learned to play politics a bit. That's never a bad thing. She was able to use the people she met and the resources at her disposal to make things a lot easier for Emily and the rest of us…" he raised his hand to stop Reid when he looked about to speak, "in the long run. Yes, it was painful at first when we thought she'd died and almost as painful when we found out we'd been lied to, but in the end Doyle is dead, we're all safe and back together as a team. JJ always knew this could happen, that you could find out and take it badly, but she was willing to take that risk. She risked alienating you; risked you hating her for the rest of your life to keep you safe, that's not cold, that's love at its deepest."

"How do we ever trust them again? I mean, how do I go out into the field with three people I know willingly lied to me and expect them to have my back? Reid asked.

"You don't think that all they went through to keep you safe isn't proof that they have your back… always. Have you forgotten the secret they've kept to themselves about you?"

"I don't…" Reid began.

Rossi stood again and closed the door. "You know exactly what I'm talking about, your little, or perhaps not so little, shall we say, problem." Rossi held up his hand when Reid was about to speak. "And no they didn't tell me. When you live in this group for a while you get to know things."

"Like what?" Reid questioned.

"Like the fact that you are so adamant when you're injured that you not receive narcotics." Rossi told him and saw Reid hang his head. "Then there's your intimate knowledge of the twelve step program. That's a pretty closed society. Nobody talks. People who haven't been through those doors don't get that kind of knowledge. I don't know what happened but I'm assuming it happened on the job. Hotch wouldn't tolerate it otherwise and he and the rest of the team wouldn't have kept this whopper of a secret, in effect lying to the bureau, which could end their careers if found out, if they didn't care so much about you." He pointed his finger at Reid.

"It's just that…"

"Look at it this way. They know how angry you are with them and that you're afraid to trust them, yet they're not worried about you having their back. They know that they have to earn your trust back and they're all willing to do that, but you have to meet them half way and give them that chance."

"Okay, I'll tr… What is this?" Reid asked lifting some papers he'd noticed from the tabletop.

"The Dinsdale's phone records, why?" Rossi replied.

"This name, Alex Menendez, he came to see my dad this morning. He said he was a lawyer friend and that he was surprised my dad had police protection and I said he didn't and explained who I was."

The two men stared at each other. "I don't think that's a coincidence." Rossi said.

"Do you think someone's going to try and get at my dad?"

"Well, they don't know yet that we've put the cases together so I'm pretty sure they wouldn't want your dad to wake up."

"I'm going back to the hospital. I'll call and tell the team," Reid said as he ran for the door. He pushed speed dial as he ran through the building and then the lot to his car.

"What?" JJ said sharply as she answered when her cell displayed his number.

"Hi JJ, it's Spence."