It's linkage I'm talking about, and harmonies and structures, and all the various things that lock our wrists to the past.

Charles Wright

It was over. They had found Andrew Kessler and stopped him before he could abduct any more children. Little Tara McLean was resting peacefully at home, thanks to some really good medication. Her body would recover quickly from the scrapes and bruises, but no one could guess how long it would take her mind to recover from the rest of her ordeal.

Lisa knew that she couldn't let herself dwell on Tara for long. There were other children out there that needed help and every second she focused on the girl that had already been saved was taking away from those who had not been. With a sigh, she picked up her glass of scotch and took a long drink, draining the glass.

"Want another one, Lisa?" the bartender asked.

"Yeah, Dina, I do," she responded with a nod, watching as the older redhead took her glass and refilled it.

"Tough case?"

"It ended much better than I'd thought," Lisa shrugged. "Sometimes, it's just hard to shrug it off and get on to the next one, you know?"

Dina smiled, having gotten to know and like the younger redhead. They bonded instantly over their hair color, but over time, discovered that they had a lot more in common. "I keep telling you, I don't know how you deal with that shit day after day. I'd lose my mind."

"I'm not so sure I haven't," Lisa laughed.

"Oooh, don't look now, but there's a handsome older guy walking in…haven't seen him before, either." Dina said, standing a bit straighter, hoping to make herself look at least 15 pounds thinner with that small action. "You should check this one out, Lisa."

"I am not interested," she snorted. "Men suck."

"All of us, or just me?" Rossi's voice began from Lisa's right.

"All of you," Lisa returned, looking up at Dina, "Dina, this is David Rossi. Dave, this is Dina Tsirakoglou, the best bartender in the world."

"Hello, Dina," Rossi smiled, sitting down.

"Hello, Dave, what can I get you?" Dina asked, knowing instantly that there was a history between the two of them and deciding that this one was not one that she would even try to flirt with.

"Whatever she's drinking," he nodded at Lisa's glass.

"Glenfidich," Dina nodded, "Rocks?"

Rossi shook his head, "Neat, please."

"You got it," she smiled, walking away.

"So, you came to see if I've managed to drink myself into oblivion yet?" Lisa dryly asked.

"I came to see if you'd dropped that chip from your shoulder, but quite obviously, it's just gotten bigger," he countered, studying her carefully.

"Stop," she said, not even looking up at him. "There's a moratorium on profiling other profilers, remember?"

"But you're not in the BAU any longer," Rossi gently reminded.

She jerked her head up and eyed him with a sharp glare, "I will always be a profiler. I can't turn it off any more than you can."

"Lisa," he said, his tone soft. "Let me take you home. You need to get some rest."

"And you know what I need now?"

"One look at you tells me you haven't slept well in days. So, you're going to sit here and drink until you pass out? That won't help you. You'll wake up in the morning and you'll still be exhausted, but you'll have a hangover on top of it. I know, I've been there."

"So have I," she snorted, taking another sip.

"Here you go, Dave," Dina said, setting the glass down in front of him.

He handed her a twenty, "Thanks, Dina."

With a wink, Dina took the twenty and walked to the cash register. Rossi watched her go. If it were a different night, he might have chatted up the good looking redhead behind the bar. He figured her for about his age, she wore no ring, so she was most likely single, and something about the sparkle in her eyes told him that she probably knew how to have a good time.

But it wasn't a different night. He had another redhead to attend to and this one was not about to provide him with anything close to a good time, at least not tonight.

"She thinks you're handsome," Lisa advised, once Dina was out of earshot. "You could probably sway her with those dark, Italian charms of yours. I know you have a thing for redheads."

He decided that honesty would be the safest route, "There's only one redhead I'm concerned with right now."

"Yeah, but this redhead's not going to fall for those charms again," she lied, deciding that if he would just ask, she would.

"That's not why I'm here," he continued, placing his hand on her arm.

"Then why are you here?"

"Because," he quietly said, "I don't want to see you drink yourself unconscious, it's not going to make it go away."

"And you will?"

"I can help."

Lisa laughed, and it was a dry hard sound, even to her own ears. "Oh, let me guess, you're going to take me home and screw me until I forget about it"

Rossi turned back to the bar, picked up his drink and downed half of it in one mouthful and set the glass back on the bar. "Can you cut me just a little slack?"

With a tired sigh, she looked at her drink. "I'm sorry. You're trying to help and I'm being a bitch." She looked up at him, a lock of dark red hair falling across her face. "You got Kessler to surrender alive. Instead of being obnoxious to you, I should be thanking you."

Resisting the urge to tuck the lock of hair behind her ear, he shrugged. "You don't need to thank me, just stop fighting me."

"Yeah, I know. The past is the past, right?" she shook her head. "I have to admit, and this just may be the alcohol talking, that there were times, when we were working together, that first day, that I almost forgot about everything. It felt good to work with you again. I guess I remembered what I used to love about the job."

"Used to love?"

"Yeah, it's funny," she went on, wondering why she couldn't just shut her mouth. "The crew in the BAU is great. Top notch, nice folks, great to work with…"

"But?" he prompted.

"But, it's not the same. Come on, you felt it…"

"Yeah, but that's just me."

She shook her head, "No, I really miss that fly by the seat of your pants stuff. The MacGyver jobs we used to do to figure stuff out."

"Is that why you jumped ship to CASMIRC?"

She nodded, "Guess I like to make stuff up as I go, huh?"

Rossi shook his head and she swore she saw a look of admiration on his face. "Damn, I really did teach you well."

"Yeah, well," she shrugged again. "I'm happy where I am now. It was a good move."

"You've done well for yourself, Lisa," he said, a trace of pride in his voice. "Of course, I always knew you would. You and Hotch…"

"What the hell did Max used to call us? The Minor League?"

"Yeah, well, you've both graduated to the Majors, and done one hell of a good job of it."

"And watched as Max was killed, Gideon lost his mind, and you? You got rich."

He wasn't sure if her last comment was intended as a jab and his facial expression showed it.

"I didn't mean anything by that," she said, reading him quickly. "You probably were the most….enterprising one?"

"What did you call me? A schemer?" he laughed.

"Yeah, well, you thought ahead, always had your eyes on the future. Jason thought about the case, only the case, and nothing but the case. Max? Ah hell, I still don't know what he was thinking about half the time. But you…" she studied him, watching as he sipped his drink, his hand, with its ever present signet ring holding the glass. She could remember holding that hand, in secret moments, of course, wishing that she could hold it in public. But public displays of affection were not possible when your whole affair was as clandestine as a CIA operation.

"Me?" he asked, amused smile on his face.

"Yeah, you, you always thought that it could be something bigger, something better. It didn't surprise me in the least when your first book came out and when it hit the Times Best Sellers List. Gideon was suitably impressed, even Hotch showed a bit of excitement over it."

"But not you?"

"I knew it would happen," she shrugged. "I told you that a long time ago."

"You did," he allowed, "And I believe that I told you something similar."

"You did," she said, allowing a small smile.

"Do me a favor?"

"What?"

"Let me take you home," he offered.

"I don't want to go home," she admitted. "I don't want to go home and spend another night wandering around my condo…"

"Then let me take you to my house," he went on, sensing her protest, he explained, "We don't have to go into the office tomorrow, it's Saturday. We closed this case, nothing's open. Come out with me. You can sleep in the spare bedroom. You'd love the view from my back deck…"

She knew he'd moved out to a place on Little Creek Reservoir. From what she'd heard, he'd bought the lot and had the place built to his specifications, shortly after his first book went best seller.

"Come on," he said, standing up and holding out his hand.

"Go with him," Dina coaxed, standing behind the bar. "I'll cut you off if you don't."

"Okay," Lisa laughed, taking his hand and standing. "Let's go."

XXXXXXXXX

She'd dozed off on the ride out to Little Creek. It was a chilly night and he'd turned on the heat in the car, making it comfortably warm. As they approached Toano, Virginia, on Route 60, he stopped at a light, gently touching her arm, he spoke quietly.

"Lisa, we're almost there."

She stirred, opening her eyes with a start. "What?" she asked, forcing herself awake.

"Come on, Sleeping Beauty," he said with a chuckle, "Get your bearings. We're in my car, heading out to Little Creek."

"Damn," she said, running her hands through her hair, "How long was I asleep?"

"You dozed off about ten minutes into the ride," he fondly said.

"Some company I am," she sniffed. "I'm sorry. You could have woken me up."

He shook his head, "You needed to sleep. I hated to wake you up at all, but the days of me carrying you into the house are long gone."

It was her turn to chuckle, "Feeling your age, are you?"

"I've passed all of the Bureau's physical tests and am in the best shape I've been in years," he playfully boasted, then, with a wry smile, "But I'm not taking any unnecessary chances."

"Besides, I want to see this place."

"You won't see much in the dark, but if you want, I'll take you for a walk around the woods tomorrow when you wake up. It's supposed to be a nice day."

"Good thing I packed jeans in my ready bag, huh?" she sniffed, looking back to the small suitcase in the back seat. "Hotch teases me for still carrying one, but I've proved, it does come in handy from time to time."

"Here we are," Rossi announced, pulling into a gravel drive way. As he did, the motion sensitive lights on the outside of the house went on, revealing a fairly large wood and stone house.

"Wow, nice…"

"Wait til you see the inside," he promised, "And the back deck…it overlooks the water."

"Nice, very nice," she nodded, as he parked the car.

"Come on, let's go in," he offered, turning off the engine.

XXXXX

"This place is amazing," Lisa decided, allowing herself to sink into the soft leather sofa. Mudgie, in all of his black lab splendor, had taken up residence at her feet. "And that's one hell of a fire."

"I've gotten pretty good at this," he agreed, closing the screen on the fire place. He took a moment to admire the blaze he'd created, then walked to the sofa and sat next to her. Since her arrival, she'd visibly relaxed and the massive chip on her shoulder was shrinking with each passing moment.

"You're staring at me again," she said, with a smile,

"Was I? I'm sorry," he mirrored her smile.

"It's okay, you can stare," she ventured. "Although, there's nothing here you haven't seen before."

"I don't know about that," he mused. "There's this whole confidence thing that I don't quite remember."

"Oh, that," she nodded. "Yeah, that came in after you left. Remember? I had to prove to myself that I could do the job without your support."

"You didn't need me…"

"I thought I did," she shrugged. "And so did a few others. I'm pretty damn sure that Hotch, Max, and Gideon were the only ones who could confirm the full depths of our relationship, but there were some who definitely thought you had me under your wing and they questioned my ability to perform without your presence."

"You proved them wrong," he said, a trace of pride in his voice.

"And then some," she agreed, with a sad smile. "But, you know what? It wasn't the same with out you."

"You know why I left…."

"I do, and you had good reason. Hell, you're the only one of the Old Guard who's still around to talk about it. Max is gone, Gideon? Well, from what Hotch tells me, he refuses to talk about anything related to the BAU." She shook her head, sadly, "There is so much he could teach…"

"That's what you and Hotch are for, to teach what we learned to those who come after," he said, then gave a dry laugh. "Damn, I sound like some ancient Navajo shaman or something."

Lisa laughed with him, "I was waiting for you to call me Grasshopper."

"That was Kung Fu," he dismissed, falling into his best serene voice, "You still have much to learn, Grasshopper."

Still laughing, she rolled her eyes, "That didn't work when you tried it 20 years ago."

"You're asking for serene," he dismissed. "I don't do serene very well."

"No kidding," she sniffed, then, softly. "Why is it that I feel so comfortable here?"

"I'm glad you do," was his sincere reply. "Wait til you see this place in the day light."

"So, you really designed it?"

He shrugged, "I told the guy what I wanted, he put it all on paper and I agreed to it."

"Well, you did a good job."

"Thank you," he said with a nod. "Feel free to stay as long as you want. I've got no plans and there's more than enough food in the house."

"I don't think Mudgie's going to let me leave," she laughed, looking down at the dog, who had lay down across her feet.

"Good, then you'll stay."

"I'll stay."