Alex could tell that there was something truly bothering Rossi, and caught a few snippets of the story from his conversation with Hotch. It had to have been a shock to discover that his former Marine commander had been found living rough, but Alex knew that it happened far too often to veterans, especially minorities, which was a sad commentary on the current state of affairs. It didn't surprise her that Rossi had wanted to spend a little more time investigating the ways that he could help out his former Sergeant without looking like he was trying to pity him.

Sighing a little, Alex rubbed the back of her neck as she tried to focus on what they knew so far about the case. She knew that she was working late into the night, but somehow, she felt keyed up, like she knew Erin was going to call, so she needed to stay up as late as she could. "Hey, I noticed that you hadn't come down to the dining area to eat with us. Is everything all right?"

Looking up, she saw that JJ had entered their room, holding a plate of food and a bottle of water awkwardly out to her. "You didn't have to go to all this trouble," she murmured as she set aside her case notes and took the plate from her hands, watching her set the bottle of water on the nightstand between their beds.

"I sort of wanted an excuse to escape up here, honestly. Hotch is focused on talking to Rossi about Sergeant Scott, and Reid and Morgan are in their own little worlds. It was getting a bit boring without you there."

"Thanks, I think. And I am okay, I was just working over what we know so far, since it feels like Rossi's heart really isn't in the case. Which I totally understand, but it's a bit frustrating to have him space out a little before Hotch is able to call him back to us."

JJ nodded as she plopped down on her bad, crossing her legs beneath her as she stared at Alex, as if she wanted to talk about something but didn't know how to broach the subject. "He can get like that, especially when the case is personal. Or he has a lot on his mind. I remember last year when his first wife showed back up in his life, and he was just…out of it for some time afterwards. It was only when she had passed that a lot of us found out about her ALS and what she had asked of him."

"Assisted suicide?"

JJ nodded. "In the end, she took the pills herself, made the decision herself, but made certain that Rossi was there with her for the end. I don't know how he could have sat by and just watched her leave this world without calling for help, though."

"Think about what you might do if it had been you and Will. Would you still find that you couldn't understand his decision to be there through the whole thing?" Alex thought about her Ethan, and how he might have asked for death, if he had been more mentally aware. But if his had had more of his faculties, she didn't think that she could have allowed him to make that choice.

"Maybe? I don't know, I've never had to make that choice."

"It is a difficult one to make." JJ nodded. "Now, what else can we talk about to take your mind off the fact that Rossi isn't all the way with us?"

"Can I talk about how much I'm missing Henry without boring you to death?"

"I will never turn down hearing stories about your son." Alex gave her a warm smile as she pulled her legs up beneath her and began to eat. "And thank you for grabbing my favorites."

"Hotch called the order in, so you'll have to thank him in the morning." JJ grinned. "He is really good at remembering the foods that we like and the things that make us happy. I think part of that is because he still feels like he failed to make Haley happy, and then it was too late to do so. But enough morbidity, let's talk about Henry."

Alex nodded as she chuckled a little, digging into her food as she listened to JJ talk about her son. She tried not to let her face show just how much she yearned inside to have had the experiences that the younger woman had with Henry. They were able to do so much together, he was able to talk to her and tell her the inner workings of his mind, whereas she had always had to guess at how Ethan was feeling, or what he was thinking. "He sounds like an amazing boy."

"He is. So, I'm going to shower now, because Will said that he'd try to call a little later for me, since he wants to have a little bit of adult time, but not the sexy adult times, if that makes sense? We have a few things that we need to talk about, and he wants to make certain that Henry is fast asleep before we go over them?"

"I totally understand." JJ gave her a winning smile as she bounced to her feet and rummaged around in her bag for nightwear and her toiletries before slipping into the bathroom. Once Alex heard the water turn on, she finished off her food and then threw the plate in the trash before hurriedly changing, deciding to take a shower in the morning, since she had a good feeling that Erin was most likely going to call that evening. Alex didn't know why she felt that way, but thought that if she was truly starting to fall back in love with Erin, then it made a weird sort of sense for them to be growing more and more in sync. It was something that had happened previously for them, after all.

Sighing, Alex plugged her phone onto the charger before crawling beneath the covers and making herself comfortable. If Erin was truly going to call at midnight her time, she wanted to get a few hours of shuteye in before that happened, so that she wouldn't be totally exhausted in the morning. She had just about fallen completely asleep by the time she heard JJ tumble into bed and then start talking to Will, and the smooth sounds of her voice eased her way fully into slumber.

She woke with a start a few hours later, sitting up and grabbing her phone and answering quickly. "Hello, Louise."

Erin sniffled on the other end of the line, and that small sound told Alex that she was truly upset, as she didn't readily cry in front of others. "Can, can I be Erin tonight? Please? I know that you've explained how you want to keep things separated between us, but I truly don't feel like I have the emotional strength to keep up that pretense for the entire call. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, Erin. If this is what you need, we can drop the ruse for one call. And then negotiate the others as they happen." Alex knew that she was revealing a little too much about herself and her current state of mind by saying that, but she found that she didn't care, her need for comforting Erin outweighing any other concern. "You sound tired."

"That is a kind lie, and you know it. You know that I've been crying."

"Yes. I could always hear that in your voice," she replied softly as she looked over at JJ, seeing that the woman was still sprawled out on the bed, one leg sticking out from the covers. Smiling a little, Alex climbed out of bed and picked up the comforter, padding over to the chair by the window and curling up in it as she made herself comfortable. "All right, I have to be quiet this time, because we once more don't have a balcony for me to sit in, and I want to keep my voice down so as not to disturb JJ."

"I understand, Alex. I'm just so exhausted. I was on the phone with David for two hours just now, and I don't know why I'm so drained, but I feel like I couldn't get a word in edgewise. He wouldn't even listen when I tried to tell him that I had been struggling with cravings all day, and I couldn't get ahold of my sponsor, and I've never been this close to breaking my sobriety since I graduated from rehab. I hate being this weak, and when I needed him to listen to me for just five minutes, he was all too consumed by his own troubles, which aren't really his, since it's his Sergeant from Vietnam, and I felt like a bitch for thinking that, because I know Sergeant Scott is in a worse place than I am right now, but I just needed those five minutes to touch base with him before we focused on his troubles."

"Oh, darling," she murmured before she realized what she had called Erin. Unable to call the word back, she pressed on, wanting to let Erin know that she was there to listen to her. "How are you feeling now?"

"Still a bit shaky. I wanted to go find a liquor store after I got off the phone with David, but since it was so close to midnight, I decided to call you a few minutes early, hoping that you wouldn't mind. I hate feeling like this, Lexie."

"Because you love being in control, and cravings are something that are so difficult to control. I wish that I had better words for you, but I haven't wrestled with that particular demon."

"Thank God. I would never wish this demon on my worst enemy, let alone the woman that I still care for so much." There was a small pause before Erin spoke once more. "When I have my cravings, my tongue tends to get a little loose. I apologise for my forwardness."

"There's nothing to apologise for, Erin. We've both been dancing around this feeling of something shifting between us, and while I am not ready to talk about that, I want you to know that I am feeling something similar to you." She took a sharp breath before barreling on ahead. "All right, how about we turn the focus of this call away from something so sad for you, and make it a better night for you to fall asleep to?"

"I think that I'd like that, Alex. But what should we talk about?"

"How about your college days?" JJ let out a groan as she flipped over in the bed, the covers slipping off her body as she curled into a ball. "One second, I'm going to cover JJ back up and then slip into bed myself. Maybe if I burrow beneath the covers, my voice won't be so loud."

"All right."

Alex untangled herself from the comforter and brought it back to the bed, tossing it there before adjusting the covers over JJ and then spreading the comforter out on her bed and plugging the phone in before crawling beneath the covers, pulling them fully over her head as she brought the phone back to her ear. "All right, since you never really talked about your undergrad days, why don't you start there? I know that you went to quite a prestigious university."

"Only because my father pulled strings and got me in there. I wish that I had gotten in there on my own merits, but I think that was why I made certain to qualify for the honors college and overachieve. I was driven."

"No, you?" she teased, feeling a little more at ease with doing so, and was rewarded with hearing Erin choke out a giggle. "So, since you were so driven, you must have been in extra-curriculars, too."

"I may have been president of the debate club."

"That does not surprise me at all."

"What about you? Where did your fascination with language come from?"

Alex sucked in a low breath. "My mother."

"Oh, I, I won't press for more tonight, then, not when we're trying to keep things light." Alex smiled at the consideration for her feelings, and then let out a long breath. "What?"

"I think that I can tell you a few happy memories about my childhood spent learning to love words and language at my mother's knee. Not all memories have to be sad, after all. So, words came easily to me when I was young, since my parents and grandparents played Scrabble together every Sunday. I would sit on my mother's lap and look at the tiles and try to make words. So I went into kindergarten already able to read and make words, though writing took a little longer…"