Devil's Backbone

"Give me the burden, give me the blame
I'll shoulder the load, and I'll swallow the shame
Give me the burden, give me the blame
How many, how many Hail Marys is it gonna take?"

~The Civil Wars

November 1988. Washington, D.C.

There was something beautifully awe-inspiring about churches, particularly cathedrals, with their heavy stones and shimmering stained glass windows, still holding generations of hopes and prayers and pleas and breaths of those long past, their footsteps still whispering and echoing through the shadowed eaves with the quiet persistence legacy and continuation.

David Rossi took a moment to appreciate this fact as he stopped, quietly kneeling and crossing himself before entering the pew. Someone else was already in the confessional, so he waited, occupying himself by looking at the architecture and letting his thoughts wander.

For what seemed like the thousandth time, his mind went back to the strange night in New York that felt like a lifetime ago (had it really only been a week?).

He couldn't tell his wife. He should. He should be brave, should be honest, should be the kind of man who admitted his mistakes and begged for the forgiveness that he surely didn't deserve.

He'd known that it was a mistake long before he'd actually taken Erin Strauss to bed, but that hadn't stopped him—in fact, it hadn't even caused a moment's hesitation. The next morning, he'd expected to feel some kind of horrible guilt and angst, he'd expected to realize what a colossal mistake that it had all been, but he hadn't. He hadn't, and that scared him more than anything. What kind of person cheated on his spouse, with another married woman (with another married woman whom he couldn't even tolerate most of the time), without any remorse?

David Rossi did not want to be that kind of man. He'd never been that kind of man before—and until a week ago, he had thought that he wasn't even capable of infidelity. He'd sworn to be faithful and true to one woman (just as he'd done with Carolyn, but that was something beyond his control, for the loss of their son had created an irrevocable chasm between them), and he'd meant every word, every breath of that oath taken before God, had meant it with every fiber of his being, every ounce of his heart.

Erin Strauss had proven him wrong. Yet again. He was pretty sure that was something else to hate about her.

He silently amended that statement—he didn't hate her. He wasn't particularly fond of her, but he didn't hate her. That was what made this all so strange to David—he understood love, and he understood lust, but this thing between them bewildered him completely.

This was something far darker than anything he'd ever known before. Sure, he'd slept with women whom he didn't love (and sometimes even regretted it, later on), but he hadn't even considered himself attracted to Erin Strauss until that strange electric evening (how could you be attracted to someone whose very presence often grated your nerves like a wire brush?).

Yes, there had definitely been attraction. It had somehow retreated the next morning, and Erin had actually suggested that they simply pretend as if nothing ever happened (she had suggested it so easily, though he could see her shaking beneath her calm exterior, and he had wondered if she'd done this before, wondered if she'd given this speech to other men, other foreign encounters of hard edges and soft sighs and fiery touches). But some kind of spark had been there, even if only for the briefest of flashes.

Of course, when he'd first met her, he'd thought that she was good-looking, but her personality had tainted his view of her appearance. However, things were changing on that front, too. Only two days after that dark night, they were both at the airport, sitting in those horribly uncomfortable seats at their gate, closer than they'd been to one another in days (they'd studiously avoided each other, except to work together, and things had actually been smoother, though there still was the occasional spat or disagreement). The sun was setting, piercing through the huge glass windows of the airport, and Erin's face was turned to the horizon, her eyes closed as she simply waited. In that moment, with the sharp reds and yellows outlining her profile, the deeper purples framing her like the edges of a painting, her hair shining just as fiercely as the sun and her skin so smooth and untroubled, he'd actually found himself thinking that she was beautiful.

Beautiful was different from pretty or good-looking or even attractive. Beautiful was deeper. Beautiful was scarier.

And it was that scariness that had pushed David Rossi here, to this supposed haven, this sanctuary from all the dirt and glitter of the world. Unfortunately, she'd slipped into this refuge with the ease of water flowing beneath the crack at the bottom of a door, taking his mind with her riddles and uncertainties, with all the things that she stirred in him, with all the things he didn't understand, with all the things he didn't want to understand, for fear of what they might truly mean.

In a few minutes, he was going to sit in that well-worn booth and confess perhaps the worst crime he'd ever committed—far worse, far more deadly than killing a man (because he'd shot and killed men before, but it was different, it was in self-defense, it was justified and forgiven, but this, this was unprovoked and unwarranted, a sin against his vows and his wife, against the heart of the woman whom he'd sworn to protect above all others).

Then, of course, would come the real question: was he truly contrite?

His contrition, however perfect or imperfect, would require that he resist such temptation in the future, require him to acknowledge his folly and swear never to repeat it.

He couldn't promise that.

He wanted to. God, how he wanted to. But if David Rossi were truly, deeply, openly honest with himself, he would have to admit that if Erin Strauss walked down this aisle at this very moment, with the same burning eyes and unbelievably electric touch that she'd possessed on that tempestuous night just six days ago, then he would follow her out of this holy house and into whatever dark corner she led him. He'd follow her straight into hell, and that realization sent a bolt of white-hot, skin-prickling fear through David Rossi's being.

But we swore it was one night and one night only. It won't happen ever again. I can say I won't do it again and it wouldn't be a lie—Erin said she wouldn't let it happen, and she won't. She's too strong.

Erin was strong, strong in a strange way that made her backbone seem as if it were made of molten steel even when she thought she was tired and weak, in a way that allowed her to be the harshest and strictest with her own self, in a way that gave her the strength to deny herself, simply because she thought she should.

But did she consider swearing off David Rossi an act of denial? That question suddenly pricked his brain, and he sat back as he thought about it. She'd certainly enjoyed herself—even the greatest actress couldn't have faked a performance like that, and Erin Strauss wouldn't have lied to him, not about that, not when it meant giving David's ego a boost, because God knows, she hated conceding the slightest thing (if he said the sky was blue, she would argue against the color, just because she could, just because she was contrary and sniping and so very Erin in the most infuriating of ways).

He wondered if she was feeling the same oddly spiritless angst that he was. He shouldn't be wondering such things, shouldn't even be thinking of her at all, and yet...and yet.

He was so glad that the case had gone cold and they had been called back to their posts—she'd gone back to the D.C. office, and he'd been sent back to Quantico, and this case was their only point of connection, which meant that it may be months before they actually had to be in the same room again. Of course, something deep in his gut silently informed him that this probably wouldn't be the last time that they worked together, not by a long shot. He didn't know whether he anticipated or dreaded being around her again.

He couldn't confess this sin. He couldn't confess, because he couldn't repent (not truly, not in the way that he was supposed to, not in the way that really counted).

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I have sinned, and I have every intention of sinning again, should Heaven or Hell be so gracious to present such temptation a second time.

June 2013. Quantico, Virginia.

Jennifer Jareau staring unseeingly out the cabin window, her brow furrowed in a mixture of worry, regret, and exasperation as she held her cell phone to her ear. For once, her husband wasn't angry at the recent turn of events—they had been given a case in Arizona, and they were already on the plane, waiting for take-off, under the director's orders.

"It's OK, JJ," Will's voice was quiet, measured, weighted with fatigue and understanding. "Henry's safe with me, we've got enough agents around here to start our own field office—we're both gonna be just fine. Go do your job, warrior woman."

She smiled softly at the moniker, not feeling like much of a raging warrior at the moment, when her heart was breaking to be home with the two guys whom she loved more than life itself.

"Thank you," she simply said, and he knew everything those two words encompassed.

"I love you," he replied. Then there was a commotion in the background, and she could hear their son's voice.

"I love you, too, Mama!"

"I love you three," she quoted their familiar refrain, feeling the heartaching warmth of being on the inside of this beautiful little family unit.

"Be safe, honey," Will's voice returned, and JJ nodded, although he couldn't see her.

"I will. I've got to go—we're getting ready for take-off. I love you." After the Lady X Case, she always made sure that she said I love you, always made sure that he knew.

As the plane slowly began to taxi down the runway, Hotch moved into the seat next to hers, buckling himself in as he quietly spoke, his voice filled with a nonchalance that he surely didn't feel, "Henry and Will alright?"

"Safe and sound." She gave a sigh as she admitted, "I just wish...I wish things were different sometimes."

"Some days are longer and harder than others," he agreed. With a sigh of his own, he added, "This is definitely one of those days."

"Definitely."

And JJ simply couldn't stop herself—she reached over and took his hand, giving it a small, reassuring squeeze. Aaron looked up at her, giving her a soft smile of gratitude. Then he turned his dark eyes back to the file in front of him, announcing to the rest of the cabin, "Alright, we land in six hours—we need to have a working profile by then. As soon as we're in the air, we'll start coordinating with Garcia to get our information to the Tucson PD as soon as possible, so that we can merge into the current investigation as seamlessly as possible."

Derek Morgan shook his head as he continued reading the ME reports of previous victims. "I hate running against the clock."

"We're always running against the clock," Hotch reminded him quietly.

Almost instantaneously, the entire time turned to look at the clock above the cockpit entrance. There was still over six hours left in this day, this day that seemed to last for all eternity. Six hours, which would be spent in the air, completely unattached from their major resources, completely helpless to do anything, should the Replicator choose to make his move.

Some days were longer and harder than others. Some days pushed you further than you wanted to go, tested your courage and your faith and your fortitude to levels you never wanted to know, showed you just how close to the edge you could go, took you down paths that you never wanted to take.

This was definitely one of those days, walking along the edge of the Devil's backbone, so close to hell and so far from safety.

Vienna, Virginia.

Erin glanced up at the clock again, her mind doing the quick mental math to figure out how much longer until David landed in Arizona. She was currently curled up on the couch, sandwiched between Christopher and Jordan as they made fun of some horrible campy television show, becoming their own version of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Everyone seemed to understand that until midnight, there would be no rest or peace in this house, so Erin's children had spent the day looking for ways to distract one another, though she often caught them glancing out the window or at the clocks on their phones.

Jordan was cackling at her brother's quips again, jolting Erin back to the present moment. She looked over at her son, who was smiling smugly at his own wit, looking so much like his father that it was almost unbearable. She wondered how none of them saw the resemblance, how none of them saw who David truly was. She was both relieved and saddened by their blindness as she reached over to lovingly ruffle her son's dark hair. Normally he would pull away, but today was an exception, so he dutifully accepted his mother's caresses, simply laying his head on her shoulder as she wrapped her arms around both of her children, pulling them into a hug.

"It's OK, Mom," Jordan whispered quietly, and Erin gave a curt nod in response.

"I know." Her mother answered simply, offering a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

Jordan's cell phone rang, and both Jordan and Chris went for it—however, Jordan was quicker, practically jumping to the coffee table and snatching it as she rolled off the edge of the couch. She landed with a thud and a new wave of laughter erupted among the three Strausses (this particular stunt wasn't that rare of an occurrence).

"Nice to see those thirteen years of ballet lessons weren't wasted, Grace," Erin quipped. From her current position on the floor, Jordan reached out and swatted her mother's leg playfully.

"Can't help that I got my mom's mad skillz, yo," she returned, before finally answering the phone. "Hey, Uncle Peter."

Erin sat up a little bit, wondering why her brother was calling, and Jordan's green eyes flickered up to meet her again as she sat up, rising to her feet and moving away, "Hang on a second…."

Her daughter disappeared into the dining room, and Erin turned to Chris with a confused look, "What was that all about?"

"Hell if I know," Chris shrugged nonchalantly, returning his attention to the television.

Oh, what good liars her children were. Unfortunately for them, she was their mother, and she saw past the charades as easily as breathing.

"Christopher Paul Strauss, what are you two up to?"

"Ooh, she's using my full name, I must be in big trouble—"

Erin lightly smacked her son's shoulder as she fought back an amused grin at his snark.

"You're not going to tell me, are you?"

"Not on my life," he answered somberly.

Erin simply shook her head, stretching out her legs, which were trying to go to sleep in her current position.

"When's David coming back?" Chris asked.

She gave a slight shrug, "Whenever the case is finished."

"But I thought that he said he would be back by Tuesday."

She looked up at her son, "When did he tell you that?"

"Oh, just…I don't know…." Chris was desperately trying to cover his tracks, and it obviously wasn't working. Finally, he shrugged, "I just know these things, Mother."

"I see."

"Yes."

Erin took a beat to look at her son down the full length of her nose, silently measuring him up with a rather severe expression as she waited for him to crack under pressure. He didn't, so she simply shrugged as well, turning back to the melodrama-soaked TV screen. An actress tumbled out of bed, perfect hair and makeup, and Erin wanted to laugh (gods, if only she looked like that every time she woke up).

"Wow. Her boobs are fake," Erin commented, agreeing with a previous statement made by her children.

"I told you," Jordan stated as she padded back into the living room, plopping back onto the couch with a light sigh.

"Yup," Chris concurred. Then he grinned, "How do you have so much experience with other women's breasts, Dannie?"

His sister didn't rise to the bait. She merely shrugged, "Well, you know, we all had that experimentation phase in college."

Her brother hummed in agreement, casually adding, "And some of us never left that phase."

Jordan didn't respond, and Erin thought back to the strained exchange between Carrington and her daughter earlier that day. Was there something there?

And though Christopher enjoyed teasing his sister, he wasn't a cruel boy, so he easily dropped the subject, motioning to another lead actor on the TV, "Can someone say tanorexic? He's as orange as…"

"As an orange?" Jordan supplied with a quirk of her eyebrow. There was a beat before they started laughing again.

Erin laughed with them, glad for the moment of joy among the odd feelings and tensions of the day.

"What's so hysterical?" Anna appeared in the hallway, slipping her cell phone into the back pocket of her jeans.

"This show," Erin supplied.

Anna turned her attention to the TV, then she gave a look of mock horror, "What? I love this show! Entertainment at its finest, right here. I'm surprised Meryl Streep hasn't guest starred."

"It's that good," Chris agreed with dry somberness.

Then Anna broke into a grin, moving to the other side of the couch and shoving Jordan closer to their mother so that she could wedge onto the furniture as well. Jordan made a slight noise of protest, but she still shifted to allow her little sister some space.

"Three more hours," Anna announced, rather unnecessarily, since everyone was very well aware of the time.

"Yep," Chris said easily.

"Yep," Jordan agreed with a shaky intake of breath.

Erin put her arms around her children again, pulling them as close as she possibly could, "Yep."

There was a moment of silence as they simply held on to each other, watching the clock to continue its ponderous journey.

Tucson, Arizona.

David turned back his watch, adjusting for the time difference. Bad weather had put them behind schedule, and he knew that it was already after midnight in Virginia. Still, Erin wouldn't sleep until she knew that they'd safely landed. As he followed Alex down the airstair, he slipped his cell from his pocket and dialed Erin's number.

She answered on the first ring, her voice filled with an odd mix of apprehension and relief, "David?"

"It's me, bella." The endearment slipped out, without thought, and Alex turned around to grin at her colleague, quirking her eyebrow, and David simply shook his head (don't even go there).

"I was so worried—it seemed like it was taking too long, and I thought...I was afraid..." His lover couldn't even finish the thought, and David felt a small measure of comfort (because it meant that his inability to imagine the worst when it came to her was justified, justified by love and concern and all those redeeming qualities between them).

"We hit a storm. It slowed us down, but we're finally here," he moved away from the rest of the team, just enough to afford some privacy. "How is everyone?"

"We're fine," she replied gently. "The kids decided on a late night swim, to celebrate. It's...it's after midnight, so...so we're safe, right?"

"Yes, bella," he breathed a heavy sigh of relief, though it was tinged with the fear of the unknown. He glanced across the tarmac—he could see that Hotch and JJ were on their phones as well, and he knew that they were checking in with their families. "I think we're safe, for now."

"We survived," her voice was soft, warm, smiling, so full of fatigue and relief, and David wished that he was beside her, feeling the heat of her body radiating onto his own skin, holding the tired lines of her shoulders and taking in the scent of her hair. He missed her quiet stillness so deeply in that moment, missed her ability to smooth away the rough edges of the day, and he surprised himself with how deeply the longing hit him, like the physical force of a tidal wave. After all the years that he'd spent on the road, he'd never missed a woman the way that he missed the voice on the other end of the line.

"I wish I was there," he admitted softly.

"I know," was her simple reply. "I wish you were, too."

Then he felt her shift, heard her clear her throat as she continued, "Don't worry about us. We're fine. Just focus on your case. They need you at your best, David."

"Aye, Chief."

Somehow, he knew that she was grinning, "I love you. Be safe."

"I will, bella. Love you, too."

David rejoined his team, who were all loading their bags into the standard black SUVs, everyone visibly jetlagged but still relieved that there had been no news on the Replicator front.

"Maybe it really was a deflection," Morgan commented, gallantly taking JJ's bag and tossing it into the back of the SUV.

"That can't be our focus right now," Hotch reminded him. "This UNSUB only holds his victims for 48 hours, and we're already at hour twenty-six. The boys are safe—"

"For now," JJ pointed out, folding her arms across her chest. "At least until the director pulls the plug on our protective details."

"Strauss won't let that happen," Morgan informed her (and everyone was slightly surprised by the conviction in his voice). Noticing his colleagues' expressions, he shrugged, "What? She's got fire. She's already stood up to the director—and won—several times on this case. And she's got extra incentive this time. Never come between a mama bear and her cub."

Even Hotch had to grin at the comparison—of course, then he immediately went back into command mode, "Blake and Reid, head to the latest victim's house; Morgan and Rossi, join the forensic team at the abduction site; JJ and I will go to the police station."

With curt nods, everyone dispersed. Alex pushed her long legs to move even faster, catching up to Spencer's quick pace, "Hey, you've been awfully quiet today. I mean, I understand why, but do you want to talk about it?"

"I don't like missing things," he answered as they got into the vehicle. He shut his door with a definitive slam that punctuated his statement. "Everyone has a place, a piece of the puzzle that they fit into and fill out to make the whole team. I'm supposed to be the one who sees the things that others can't see."

"And?"

"And I can't see anything," he frowned, keeping his eyes fixed ahead as Alex punched in the address on the SUV's GPS device.

"Maybe there's nothing to see," Alex replied quietly.

Spencer didn't respond, but he obviously disagreed. With a quiet shake of her head, Alex put the SUV in gear as the navigation system began instructing her.

After a long silence, Spencer spoke again, his face still turned out to the dark night. "What if I miss something on this case, too? What if I just start missing things on a regular basis?"

In those questions, Alex heard the fears that had been a part of Spencer's life since he was a little boy, as well as the fears that had joined them over the years—the fear of losing his mind, of losing the intellect that shielded him from the rest of the world, the fear of finally succumbing to the disease that had taken his mother, the fear of a slow descent into mental decline, the fear of being completely helpless as well as completely useless, the fear of losing the home and the family that he'd built for himself within the BAU, the only place where his skills were not only useful but vital.

She didn't know what to say (there was nothing to say, no words could calm the storm raging in Spencer's heart and mind, no words could guarantee that his fears would never come true), so she simply remained silent.

"It's like standing on the edge of a cliff, blindfolded," he spoke softly, his voice sounding oddly distant and uncertain. "You can feel the wind, you know you're on the edge, but you don't know how far the fall is—it could be four feet, it could be four hundred. All you know is that there's a fall up ahead, and you're just praying that it's one that you can survive. But praying doesn't stop the fall."

Every compassionate instinct in Alex Blake screamed for her to stop the car, to simply reach over and wrap her arms around the sad and lost little boy sitting beside her, to tell him that all was not lost, that they would make it through, but she didn't. Yes, he was sad. But he wasn't a little boy—he was a successful, renowned doctor and a behavioral analyst of the highest caliber, a man who'd suffered and survived so many ills and tragedies of life. And he wasn't lost. No matter how lost he might feel, he truly was where he belonged, where he was meant to be.

And as much as she wanted to tell him these things, she didn't, because she knew that he wasn't ready to hear them. Spencer Reid was taking his own long journey into the valley of doubt, a place he'd traveled many times before and would travel many more times again, and she had every faith that he would make it to the other side. He was right—there was a fall ahead (there always was), and if the fall seemed too long or seemed to spiral out of control, then she would swoop in to catch him and bring him back, but until that moment, she would simply let him be.

Alex Blake was always honest with Spencer. That's what he liked about her. She didn't try to placate him or offer empty promises, she simply listened and nodded in understanding (and perhaps agreement). She gave him space to move through his own emotions and fears and failings, without question or any other attempt to hem him in.

He gazed up at the quiet heavens, dark and beautiful as the stars and planets beamed back at him with the same unwavering devotion that they'd had when he was a little boy. He remembered all the Native American tales he'd read on those celestial bodies, on wolves and moons and seasons and the earth, and he found comfort in those stories, in knowing them, in knowing their history and their purpose, in the joy he'd felt in learning them, in the fantastical pictures they'd painted in the caves of his mind.

And even on a night as beautiful as this, even with the friendship of Alex Blake and the comfort of childhood stories, the insidious whisperings of Spencer Reid's mind continued, telling him things that he never wanted to hear, adding fuel to the fire of his fears, and the shimmering stars above only served to remind him how truly small and insignificant he was, surrounded by the chaos and blindly logical cruelty of the universe.