A/N: This story is written for the Chit Chat on Author's Corner Fanfic Challenge 2010 – Round 2.

Pairing: Rossi/Prentiss

Prompt: 28 Days Later (Movie Title)

The story is set shortly after the events in Demonology.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Criminal Minds. I'm just playing a little :)


Chapter 3 - 21 Days Later

The conference centre ballroom was ablaze with the lights from what seemed to be a hundred electric chandeliers. David Rossi circled the room slowly, stopping to chat with several people whom he knew. For every one of these however, five more strangers stopped him to talk about his career, or his latest book, or his speaking engagements. It had only been an hour, but it was shaping up to be a long night. Why his editor felt he needed to be here was beyond him.

Rossi's attention was caught by an imperious looking woman standing with a group of people a few feet away. It was when he realized he recognized her, and his every sense went on instant alert, that he understood exactly how long this night would prove to be. The woman holding court, in the silvery gray floor length gown, currently surrounded by several of the movers and shakers of D. C. politics was Ambassador Elizabeth Prentiss.

Her presence could only mean that sooner or later, he would come face to face with her daughter. In the very instant that he wondered whether he could leave immediately and so escape the pain fate had in store for him, he saw that it was too late. Emily Prentiss was making her way across the room, heading in the general direction of her mother.

She hadn't spotted him yet, and before she did, he took the opportunity to look his fill. A blood red off-the-shoulder dress clung to her like a second skin, making him remember exactly how that skin had felt under his hands. He shifted uncomfortably. He couldn't afford to be walking around with a hard-on, because his black dress slacks wouldn't be able to hide a thing. He bit the inside of his mouth hard as he tried to redirect his thoughts.

In the very next second, he no longer had the problem. That was because he had just noticed Emily's escort.

Damn, he thought. Twenty-one days later, and it seemed he still couldn't escape the reminders of that blasted night.

Emily Prentiss' escort was none other than John Cooley.

Rossi had to get out of the room. Now, before she saw him. He could hardly bear to think of her with another man, far less that man. Not when he knew what Cooley had done to her when she was just a teenager. Maybe Emily could forgive him, but Rossi sure as hell could not.

When she had told him that she couldn't accompany him tonight because she was expected at one of her mother's charity events, he could not possibly have connected it to the same dog-and-pony show his editor had wanted to parade him around. He hadn't even asked Emily about it, giving them no chance to realize that they were talking about the same event. It was so stupid. He could have been the one by her side. It was too damn much.

Rossi excused himself from the group of whose last ten minutes of chatter he had heard nothing. He prepared to walk past the Ambassador's group, which unfortunately was squarely between him and the nearest exit. As he debated taking the coward's way out by circling the room to find another exit, Emily chose that moment to look up from something her escort was saying to her. Immediately, her eyes locked with Rossi's, and they widened dramatically.

He could see she was about to come over to him, but he just couldn't bear it. There was no bad feeling between them from the night they had spent together, but Rossi just couldn't handle seeing her here, now, with another man at her side. He threw her an apologetic glance, and in that crazy, silent communication which seemed to exist between them, he saw understanding cross her face. She turned away and let him leave.

There was no one he had to tell he was leaving. He had come alone, wishing only for one woman to be with him. Retrieving his car from the valet, he drove out of the city, heading home, alone with his memories.

Now that he was alone, he could not stop thinking about last Friday night. Making love to Emily was the most perfect experience of his life. Rossi was no saint, and his legendary reputation was based for the most part in fact. He wasn't ashamed of it. He had always loved women – his Italian heritage, probably. He had prided himself on two things – he'd never left a woman unsatisfied, and he had never cheated on a woman. Whether or not she was his wife at the time.

For all his experience, however, Emily caught him totally off guard. She had said she wanted comfort, safety. It made him think that he would be gentle with her. It hadn't worked out that way.

Emily had watched him undo all the buttons of her shirt, tugging it out of her jeans to get at the last ones. When he was done and was pushing it off her shoulders, she had reached between them and popped open the front clasp of her bra. The creamy color had almost matched her skin tone and made the pressure in his jeans damn near unbearable. With the shirt hanging off her arms, and her bra undone but not off, she was the most stunning woman he had ever seen.

He had told her so, and was rewarded with her beautiful smile. He'd drawn her into his arms and their kisses quickly became consumed by passion. Sweeping her into his arms he'd taken her into his bedroom and laid her in the center of his bed. For the whole of that incredible night David Rossi made love with the woman who was without a doubt the last love of his life.

Knowing that the one night was all that she wanted made the experience bittersweet, but he would not have traded it for anything. When she had cried out his name at the height of her pleasure, the sound had triggered his own completion. Afterward, he had held her through the night as she slept, murmuring words of love into her hair.

When she left the next morning, in the cab she insisted he call for her, she had no way of knowing she was taking his heart with her.