Disclaimer: I love Rossi, I love Strauss and therefore I love Rossi and Strauss. I don't own the characters or anything dealing with Criminal Minds, except this story. I don't like the way they killed off Erin, so I change it to suit my own twisted mind. I like writing Erin's kids into my stories, so they will be in a lot of them. I don't own them or anything associated with Criminal Minds.

Battling Demons.

Erin Strauss-Rossi entered the house through the garage, sat her purse and briefcase on the chair as always. Looking around she wondered why it was so quiet. She knew David had left Quantico a couple hours ago and Jessie and Katie would be home tonight. Making her way into the family room she found her youngest daughter pounding away on the keyboard of her laptop and her husband sleeping soundly on the sofa.

Hearing her mother enter, Jessica Strauss turned her head and put her finger to her lips indicating for her mother to be quiet. Doing as her daughter wished Erin went upstairs showered and got into more comfortable clothes, before heading back down to find her daughter and husband as she had left them. Something about this scene was very familiar but also very different. Jessica was sitting against the sofa.

Erin motioned for her daughter to follow her to the hall. "Jessica, what are you doing?"

"I'm writing a term paper." She answered never taking her eyes off the sleeping profiler in the other room.

"I get that, but why are you sitting up against the sofa."

Sighing, she was hoping her mom would just think she was doing school work. She should have known being the agent she was she would notice that Jess was sitting way to close to Dave instead of having the laptop on the coffee table. "I came home from school a little while ago. Dave told me he was going to lay on the couch until you got home. He fell asleep."

"That doesn't explain why you're not do your work on the table or in your room as normal." Erin told her.

Jessica sighed again, "Not long after he fell asleep, he began mumbling and tossing and turning. I woke him up and he told he must have been dreaming. I asked him what about and he said the demons of the world. So, I didn't think anymore of it. I went back to writing and he dozed back off." The teenager stopped there to look again at the man sleeping on the couch.

"Go on!" Erin told her daughter.

"Well, it wasn't long before he started mumbling again. I know he returned today from a horrific case and I figured those were the demons he's fighting in his sleep. I know he doesn't sleep well and needs to rest when he can. I took his hand and softly told him he was safe: he was home and to rest. I told him I'd stay with him while he slept and I'd battle the demons for a while. He seemed to calm and has slept peacefully." Looking to her mom and then to the living room, "I need to get back in there." She didn't wait for an answer just went and sat on the floor in from of the couch to resume her paper. Neither lady was aware Dave was awake and heard it all.

Erin stood and marveled at the love this child had for her husband. Before she went into the kitchen to make dinner, she saw David lean over say something to Jess. The teen smiled and mouthed something she couldn't see and both went back to what they had been doing.

A while later Katie came in to find the same scene her mother found an hour before only now Erin was in the chair across from them. Looking at her mother, then to her sister who sat protectively over their bonus father. "Jessie, what are you doing?" she asked her sister.

Looking at her mother, then the sleeping man on the couch, she simply answered "I'm battling demons!"