Emily stood in the dinner with J.J. beside her, still in shock after seeing James walk past her. Watching him walk through the dinner and she saw him once exchange words with a man in the dinner named Steve before taking a seat at a table in the corner of the large room.

J.J. noticed the look Emily was giving James as she watched him walk through the dinner. The pupils in her eyes dilating as she watched him with her face trying to hold back a smile. She could tell just by that look on her face what James had once been to her. She could not have been entirely certain on what he means to Emil now, but it was definitely not meaningless. The same she could tell by the way James looked at Emily, the look on his face and eyes told a lot about him and his relationship with her.

Emily begins to look a little discouraged as she contemplates going over to speak with him. They had changed so much since she last saw him. When she told him how they just needed some time apart she regretted it the second he agreed with her, then she regretted it even more when she was never able to see him again until now.

J.J. was given her takeout food by one of the employees and then she turns to her friend and says "Ready to go Emily." Then Emily says "Uh, J.J. could you just go on without me, I'll head to my room in a minute."

"Are you sure?" J.J. asks, knowing all too well what her friend was considering doing. Then Emily replies with a slight small chuckle "Yes I'm sure." Appreciating her friends concern. Then J.J. finally agreed to leave for her apartment, promising to leave Emily's food in her room.

Emily took a moment to walk around the dinner for a second, searching her mind and heart for the right words to say. Then in a moment of pure annoyance at this shyness tells herself "Oh screw it." Before she begins to walk up to James table and he invites her to take a seat, she accepted the invitation without hesitation. A waitress then was given a beer by a waitress.

James took a moment of silence as Emily took a sip of her drink. He watched his lips as they touched the bottle and the alcohol went down into her throat. His face still showing that calm and reserved country boy look on his face.

"I got to say James, I was surprised to find out you were here, and so close to your older brother no less." Emily says wanting to strike up a conversation with him then James gives her a look of confusion before asking "You went to see my brother?"

"Yes, I was given some time off to go on vacation and I just started to reconnect with Amanda so she asked me if I wanted to come by for a while." Emily says as he takes in another drink.

James then finally says something he had been meaning to say for a long time "Well traveling to Parker, visiting my sister-in-law. You're very lively for a dead woman." Emily felt as if her hot stopped when he said those words as her face and body just seemed to freeze up on her. Then James clarifies his words, believing he gave her the wrong idea "I mean I saw your tomb stone a few months back. Last I checked that usually means that the person the name belongs to is dead."

Emily for some reason felt moved that he had learned of her supposed death. As Emily process her feeling on the matter James follows up saying "Don't get me wrong Raven, I'm glad you alive, I'm overjoyed by the fact of it."

"Thanks James, I just found myself in some trouble last year and I needed to stay low until it died down." Emily apologizes to her ex-fiancée before James starts to try and change the subject "When did you get to working in the FBI?"

"About 20 years now, why did you join the Navy Seals?" Emily replies with her own question and James gives a quick repost "Last time I saw you, you said we needed some time apart. I respected your wishes as usual and went back to Seattle to see my little brother graduate then spent the next few days and the following month trying to make up for lost time with Scott and Mom. I called a few times, but you never picked up and I decided to wait some more. Scott mentioned he was leaving to join the Marine Corps so I thought why not take a shot at one myself. Applied for the Navy and then after a year I went through hell week and before I knew it I was a Seal."

Emily watched James face the whole time he was explaining the events that led to him being a Navy Seal. Then she asks "How come you never came back or called me up again?"

"Emily I tried. I waited patiently for ten years hoping things would work out. I tried to find your phone number, I called a few times and they refused to let me speak with you, said you were over in Europe then finally I gave it one last try and instead found a tomb stone in the place of a person."

Emily was mortified by this news. She had always wondered why he never came back into her life. She always believed that James had just given up on their relationship or that it was just the world's way of saying it was not meant to be. She immediately felt an urge to say something, anything to make her feelings known "James I'm sorry, I never knew that."

James just shrugged his head with a half smile at Emily before saying "Don't worry about it; we're both alive and well."

Greaves then says in another attempt to strike up a conversation "I can probably get why people like the whole FBI thing, but why the BAU? Your basically psychologists only with badges."

Emily took a moment to examine her knowledge of James and she takes advantage of the opportunity to mess with him a little "What's wrong James, don't you want to know why you are the way you are?"

Then James replies before taking another sip of his beer before it goes empty "I already know what's wrong with me. I grew up in a broken family in a shitty town. a Father who was usually too busy working or pushing mom around when they hit a hard spot in their marriage, a Mother who always tried to help me while working two jobs while dad was buried in his work. My big brother was the only one who was there when I needed him, and then I screwed up when it was supposed to be my turn to do the same with Scott."

Emily then decides to tap on this one nerve of his and she says "I got to say James looking back when I was learning about the human mind I realized a few things about you and how your work."

"What's that?" James asks as he is brought another beer.

Emily then takes a drink of hers before saying "You were born in a normal Family, you loved them, you would have done anything for them, and your Father you were the closest with since you were a kid, your life from your prospective was perfect until the day you learned your parents were divorcing. Your life after that was spent in constant pain and misery. Even before your Father died you blamed your Mother for the whole thing because she asked for the divorce, believing he placed her own personnel needs before her Family. Then you just ran away. Young, angry and confused you had difficulty trusting people besides your brothers and friends back in Seattle. You also developed a special distrust of women, never believing you could fully trust them. I was probably the first real relationship you had. Then for most of your life you loathed and hated authority figures you never had to obey and listen to."

She then continued by saying "You're a grown man, having spent his life trying to prove to yourself that you've changed, that you're not that same scared kid who watched as his Family was destroyed, but still deep down your that scared angry kid holding onto the past and refusing to let go."

James didn't make a reply that time. He just sat there with his beer in his hand as he looked down it in shame. He would not even try to brush it off or deny it. He knew it was true, he knew it the day he first left home and Seattle behind him when he was a kid that he would never be able to have the life he wanted.

Emily then finally hears James speak up, the tone in his voice and the character having changed "Like I've said, I know what's wrong with me and I've got no problem with admitting it. It's not like I'm the only one here with their share of Family problems."

Emily soon found herself on the defensive herself realizing that even though she knew everything there was to know about James, but James also knew everything there was to know about her. She expected him to turn the table on her, but he didn't he just said after he finished his second beer "Well Emily this has been fun, but I think I'll be heading home now."

James put the beer down as Emily asked one last question "Hey James you remember when the police brought you into the station today, they said a witness ID'd you?"

"What about it Emily?" James asks pulling out the money to pay for the drinks.

"The man she ID'd looked a little like you, but he had one difference there was a tattoo on one of his hands." Emily says, hoping to hear him say something that convince her more that he was not the killer.

James then replies with a half smile on his face "We both know that you know where all my Tattoo's are, and what they all look like." He then pulls up both his hands and says "And we both know I don't have any tattoo's on my hands."

Emily kind of half smiles herself, knowing full well what he meant. She missed those days sometimes when they were together. Her face showing a little red as she tried to suppress the memories before saying "Funny thing is this Tattoo looks like three wolves biting their tales forming a circle like the Uroboros. The same kind you have on your chest, the same one you said was one the men in your Family have been using for generations."

James face was frozen stone cold as she described the tattoo. His face seemed almost fearful at the thought of the tattoo. He knew it though; she could tell by the way he reacted. James just barely manages to get a question out of his mouth "You're sure that's what the tattoo looks like, you're absolutely positive?"

"Yes I'm sure James. That's how the victim described it." Emily replies.

James lays back in his seat contemplating his words carefully, unsure if he would be able to explain. Finally after a couple of seconds that felt like hours, upon days upon years upon centuries he finally says "There was this story my dad and Grandpa used to tell me when I was a kid, I never gave it much belief in it until I heard the story about the Bender Family in Kansas. Sometime after the civil war member of this one family with a tattoo that resembled wolves. The only difference was that they were like a pack of wolves, hunting people on the road and the frontier and then cooked and then they would eat them like food, before leaving the bones and leftover meat to be found. The authorities eventually caught up with them after one of the victims managed to get away but when they finally found the shack they had been using it was empty. The only thing remaining was the blood soaked rags and tools used to cook up and serve the bodies. Months later all the deputies, the sheriff and the witness all disappeared."

Emily could see why James was scared to tell her this story, its plot matching how all the dead victims had ended up. Her mind could only imagine how he dealt with this story growing up, and how it must have deeply disturbed him growing up.

"How come you and Nolan never told me and Amanda about this?" Emily asks before James replies "Well first of all Nolan has always been able to take in even the worse of news, absorb, process it then move on with his life. Second I was a kid when I was told this, my dad and Grandpa told me a lot of stories, sometimes folklore and other part of Native Mythology. As I grew older and began to develop my emotions and thoughts I just assumed it was a story, a Wendigo fable."

Emily quickly follows up with her own question again "Do you think this story could have any possible connection to these murders that are happening?"

James then begins to stand up and says "I don't know but I do know one thing, the wilderness for the trees and grass where me and the others hunt at, it's like the forest of sleepy hallow. Even the bravest man would not go that far in there. Some of the forest near Parker hasn't been explored for years. Who knows what's really out there in those woods."

James leaves his money to pay for the drinks her and Emily had shared and says "I'll be seeing you are Raven."

"Are you going somewhere?" Emily asks then he replies "I'll be going on a hunting trip, probably wait till all this blows over." Then he left leaving Emily very confused as to his state of mind and perplexed by the story he had told her.

Back at home

James finally returned home, feeling exhausted. He locked the door behind him before walking into his bathroom turning on his shower. He steps in front of the mirror as he waits for the water to mix perfectly between hot and cold.

He pulls of his shirt, his body aching as he moved around in his age. As he looks into his mirror he examines the tattoo on his body, the three wolves biting on their tales tattoo on the upper right side of his chest and the tattoo of an Ace of Spades on his left arm were the only ones visible at the moment. He pauses for a moment as he saw the three wolves. He wondered about the story his grandfather had told him as a boy and what Emily had told him about the surviving victim seeing her would-be killer having a similar tattoo just like his on the killers had. It caused him to wonder if he should have put more stock into the story he was told.

James then shakes of the thought and the memory before getting into the shower, wanting to wash away some of the bad memories from the day. He was glad that Emily was here and in Parker though. Then his eyes close as he feels the water come down on his head and back.

One thought did return to him on this murder investigation though, was this as bad as it could possibly get for him, or was there more to come?