"Rossi?" Emily said through the teeth of her plastered on smile.

It was a survival tactic. If she didn't put in the effort to keep that smile on her face then she might just kill someone. Or something. Like this damned goat in the petting zoo which kept trying to headbutt her. Five times, he had tried. Five times. Could he not just knock himself unconscious already?

"Hello 'Elephant Emily'," he said with far too big a smile on his face.

"Shut up."

"Now," he tutted. "Should you really be saying that in front of the children?"

She muttered something under her breath in Italian that she definitely shouldn't be saying in front of the children.

"What on earth are you doing here?" She asked once she got her frustration out of her system.

She couldn't help but be hopeful that he was here to say that she was done here and she could move on and actually investigate this case. Or, even better, that the case had been solved.

Absentmindedly, she redirected a small child who was sprinting dangerously close to the door. Honestly, just because she didn't want to be here did not mean that any of these tiny terrors were going to injure themselves on her watch. No matter how hard they seemed to be trying to. Seriosuly, what age did kids develop a healthy sense of fear?

Rossi watched this happen with far too much amusement. Could he not just watch her suffer from afar like the rest of the team?

"The team thought you could use some back up."

"And they sent you?" She asked incredulously. "Why not Hotch or JJ? You know, the two people on our team that are actually good with kids?"

"Hey, I'm good with kids," Rossi said, looking incredibly offended.

Emily raised an eyebrow. "Have you ever actually been around kids?"

No, seriously, she couldn't remember the last time he interacted with a child. JJ, Hotch and, hell, even Morgan did more of that.

"I have!"

"Hmm mmm."

He was awfully on the defensive here. But, no matter, he was here to help. Allegedly. And Emily definitely wasn't going to turn that down. Seriously, wasn't there a law or something against leaving one adult in charge of this many kids? What sort of thing was this zoo running? They were lucky that she hadn't left the kids in the enclosure with the penguins. They had seemed to like those, even walking like them since then. Which was amusing but made them go very, very slow.

"You need a nickname," she informed him.

He looked at her with actual horror on his face. "I do not need a nickname."

"Of course you do."

"Please don't."

"If I have to go around being called Elephant Emily then you have to have a nickname too."

"No."

But she completely ignored him, of course.

"The question is if you'll go by Rossi or David..."

"How about I go by nothing?"

Did he really think she was going to let this go? Because she wasn't. Obviously. If she was stuck with Elephant Emily then he was damn well going to get something as well.

"I mean, there's always Rabbit Rossi..." she mused without listening to him.

But apparently that wasn't an option.

"Rossis are not rabbits," he said in an extremely offended tone.

"But then again, I go by my first name so we need something that goes with Dave..."

"We need nothing."

"Oh!" She exclaimed, the thought suddenly coming to her. "Dog Dave!"

His mouth gaped open at that.

"What?"

She just gave Rossi a smirk and his face fell. Not that that was going to stop her from what she was going yo do right now.

"Okay, everyone," she said in a bright voice after a sharp whistle to get all of the kids' attention.

Surprisingly, they all actually stopped to turn and stare at her her. Huh. A whistle did that. Why hadn't she thought of that before?

"Who's your friend, Efalent Emily?" One of the lisping ones asked.

"I'm glad you asked," Emily said far too brightly, flashing a smirk at a throughly disgruntled Rossi. "This here is my friend, Dog Dave."

All the children now turned as one to look at him. He gave them a small wave.
Emily took a step back to watch the chaos that was unfolding right in front of her. With Rossi in the middle of it.

"I think Morgan would have been better."

Back in the conference room, Hotch leaned back in his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing heavily. Of course, he made sure his comms were turned off first.

"Do we have eyes on Prentiss and Rossi?" He asked.

He both wanted to and didn't want to see how things were going on. Surely it couldn't look any worse than it sounded?

"Do you want eyes on them?" JJ asked, giving him a look that implied she knew exactly what he was thinking.

"There are no cameras near where they are," Garcia added helpfully from the computer screen.

Hotch raised an eyebrow at her and she gave him a sheepish look. He just shook his head, he was really better off not knowing. For both whatever Garcia did and for whatever Rossi and Prentiss were currently trying doing. Plausible deniability and all that.

"I think Pretty Boy here might have actually been more successful," Morgan told him, looking far too amused at how this was all turning out.

Reid shuddered at the thought of being the agent out there. Hotch had to agree. Reid was definitely a poor choice with that many kids. Though was he really worse than the two who were currently out there?

JJ look over at Hotch, concerned about the whole thing.

"Should we go and extract then?"

Hotch sighed heavily. "I think we might have to. For everyone's safety."

Morgan snorted. "Why? This is way too fun."

All that got him was two sets of glares from the more responsible people in the room.

"Reid!" JJ scolded when she realised that he wasn't agreeing with her and Hotch.

"I don't want to go out there and get involved," Reid said defensively.