David Rossi; 2017
Both the paper calendar on Rossi’s wall and the virtual one on his laptop signified that it was late March, but if he was being honest with himself, the days all seemed to flow together now in a tired haze of work. Not that he minded, he was here voluntarily.
Despite the fact that it was a Saturday, and they all (rather miraculously) had the day off, he was holed up in his office, pouring over old case files and reports. Most were digital, some still on paper, and all thoroughly depressing. None contained the answers he wanted, the answers he needed.
Every case file he had in front of him contained a report on a false imprisonment; the circumstances leading up to it and the aftermath. It happened far more often than one would imagine, and Rossi was desperate for any and all information that might help him. That might help Reid.
Reid.
Rossi had been to visit the young doctor in prison a few days ago and had to resist the urge to curse violently the second he laid eyes on the kid. Yellow bruises littered his face, framing two wide eyes that seem to lose a little bit of light, a little bit of life each time Rossi looked into them. There was a terrible fear present in them; a fear that Rossi had become well acquainted with during his time in Vietnam. It pained him to see the echoes of his near 50 year old trauma in Reid’s youthful eyes.
There was an awful preconception in the world that PTSD is a soldier’s ailment. Rossi has known plenty of soldiers, and plenty of civilians. He knew the truth; pain is universal, and it does not spare the innocent.
Because that’s what Spencer is. Innocent.
There’s not a single doubt in his mind over that fact. Spencer Reid, Halloween and magic enthusiast, who wears odd socks and rambles about Star Trek, is not a killer. Rossi has spent the better part of forty years looking into killer’s eyes and souls; he knew what guilt looked like, and it did not look like the BAU’s resident genius, even two long months into an undefined prison term.
He hopes he’s alright. He also knows that that hope is impossibly naïve.
The bruises that adorn his skin never seem to heal before more are added, and it hurts. The thought of some hardened criminals, bigger and crueller pinning Spencer to a wall, and assaulting him. With their words, with their fists. With hands that could start at his face and trail down to his torso and his arms, further down, to his-
No.
Rossi blinked furiously and took a swig of his (now stone-cold) coffee. He can’t think of him like that. It had been years since Rossi had surrendered to the BAU’s more familial tendencies, but to his shame, he’d taken it all for granted.
As a proud Italian, Rossi’s very nature revolves around family. He sees his biological one less than he would like, but no matter. He found a new one, right in the heart of the very FBI department he founded all those years ago. Although he called them his family, he never paid much attention to any specific feelings or sentiments. They loved each other, and that was enough.
But then he found out about Joy, and everything changed.
Suddenly Rossi had an actual biological daughter, and a grandson, and certain feelings started clicking into place.
Son was a strong word to assign to Spencer. From what he heard of the BAU while retired, Jason seemed to fill the parental role that the kid so desperately needed. Jason, of course, ever dramatic, left with nothing but a mere note and the ghost of a hand on a shoulder. Maybe Aaron would have been more inclined to take on the moniker. Rossi knew that before he left, Hotch saw Jack in JJ and Penelope and Spencer at different times and in a million different ways. Youth was oftentimes a curse in this job and was so often stripped away all too soon.
Rossi thought to his own family, his own childhood, back in Long Island. He thought of the many uncles and aunts that helped to raise him and decided that uncle was a suitable word.
Yes, Spencer’s like a favourite nephew, for all the good it does him now. Locked away and fracturing at the seams.
He’ll survive, they’ll damn well make sure of it.
Rossi knows this, because despite the fact that it’s nearing midday on Saturday, Prentiss is in the main office next door, chatting over legal strategies with Reid’s lawyer on the phone. He doubts she left at all last night, and he can’t judge her, neither did he. Since becoming Unit Chief Prentiss has been faced with challenge after challenge and has reacted with a grace and determination that Rossi doubted he would have possessed at her age, at any age, for that matter.
Looking out his office window, Rossi spots Agents Alvez and Walker hunched over reams of documents, highlighting sections and adding comments in the margins. Tara joins them soon, large legal book in hand, motioning to a section that she’s also highlighted. Then the three of them are once again sat down, reading through Spencer’s statements, desperately searching for grounds for exoneration.
Luke, newer than Tara but not quite as new as Stephen, has truly been thrown into the deep end with the Mr Scratch case. However, like Prentiss, shying away from trials isn’t in his nature. Rossi has a lot of respect for the ‘newbie’, as Garcia has christened him, and he can tell that, like all of them, he too misses Reid, despite the relatively short amount of time he’d known the man. It was a testament, Rossi mused, to Reid’s weird, quirky charm. It was positively endearing, and when missing left a dark cloud hovering over them all.
Rossi was interrupted from his thoughts with a soft knock on his door from one Dr Lewis.
“Doesn’t anyone in this building actually go home?”
Tara shook her head, gentle amusement gracing her features. “Right back at you, Mr Hypocrite. Just dropped by to give you the updated statements from the prosecution.” Her mouth twisted in dissatisfaction. “It’s not… good, exactly. But it could be a hell of a lot worse.”
“If that isn’t the story of the poor kid’s life.”
A hand came to rest on his shoulder. He looked up to see Tara staring down at him levelly. “You’re not going to get any more work done today, let us sort through your files. You should head down to where you’re needed.”
He furrowed his brow in confusion, but Tara just nodded sagely at him, and mimicked typing on a keyboard. Of course.
The usually quick walk down to Penelope’s office seemed to stretch on for ages, which Rossi was secretly thankful for; it allowed him to prepare for whatever scene he was greeted with.
It’s almost childlike in its innocence.
JJ and Penelope are sat cross legged on two cushions, pink and fluffy and so very obviously belonging to their tech genius. Between them sits an obnoxiously large box of doughnuts, all of them chocolate coated and covered in sprinkles. Rossi would have been a terrible profiler and an even worse friend not to recognise them as Spencer’s favourite.
“Those part of your five-a-day?”
JJ rolled her eyes. “Rossi, you had three-day old risotto for breakfast, lunch and dinner yesterday. Let us have this.”
Chuckling, he lowered himself down into one of Garcia’s office chairs, accepting the doughnut that was being offered to him.
“These are good. No wonder the kid is obsessed with them.”
Penelope smiled. “I’m just glad I found out that he loved them. Sometimes he can go through entire days without eating, but he can never refuse these. I-“
She looked ready to say something else, but obviously thought better of it.
“Garcia?”
She closed her eyes sadly. “I wonder if he’s eating better in… there. You know? A couple square meals a day is probably more than he was getting here. I remember staying over at his apartment once, it was nearly barren.”
Rossi could see why she was reluctant to voice that thought. No one liked thinking of him locked away, and the small silver lining of regular meals did little to ease anyone’s worries.
He decided to placate her anyways. “He looked healthy enough when I went to see him yesterday.”
“Except for the bruising” JJ shot back, tears rising in her already red-rimmed eyes.
Rossi held her gaze. “Bruises heal.”
That’s what he had to believe. After getting shot at in a jungle, losing his son, three divorces, and all of the inane occurrences their job exposed him too, he had to hold on to that fact. Bruises heal, and so do track marks, and so does heartache. Spencer would come back to them, as he evidently had before. And they would be here to catch him when he falls and heal him if he cracks.
JJ’s voice shook slightly but didn’t break. “Bruises heal.” She repeated, willing herself to believe it, no doubt thinking back to the electrical burns on her side and the heat of the middle eastern desert.
“Bruises heal.” Garcia echoed softly. “Over time, and with love.”