AN: Takes place post (but close to) Elephant's Memory

The cabin stood at the end of two miles of dirt track. The pot holes in the road were a clear indication that the owner wasn't particularly interested in visitors. This was a place you came to at your own risk; chances were you were going to have to retrace your journey and just leave again. It took a special sort of person to voluntarily move out here. Serial killers and home-grown terrorist bombers topped that list.

Which made it laughable that the current occupant used to make his living catching them.

David Rossi had only been here once before and that was many years ago. That was back when it was a fresh acquisition and a bunch of the guys had come up for a long weekend of drinking, hunting and shooting the breeze. It had been a good thing they'd brought supplies with them as the whole bunch of FBI trained marksmen had categorically proved that shooting dinner was a whole new ballgame.

This time Rossi was visiting uninvited, however he wasn't prepared to be chased off. He had three days, thank the Lord for holiday weekends, and it wouldn't take that long to break Jason down.

Knocking on the door elicited no response. Rossi was certain that this was where Jason would come to feel sorry for himself; indeed looking through the window indicated that someone was living there. This was Jason Gideon's secondary bolt hold, bought while still married as a place to get away from it all. The cabin in Maryland was a pale reflection of this, escape the wife, location.

He had time. He could wait. There was even a blanket on the swing to keep him warm while he kept his vigil.

Rossi was woken from his nap by the sound of another car pulling into the clearing. Blinking the sleep from his eyes he watched as the man he had come to visit made his way over. A bag of groceries in his arms, Jason Gideon stopped six feet from his car door and stared at the intruder.

The years hadn't been good to Gideon, even granting Rossi judicious use of hair dye. It was seven years since they'd last met and too many things had gone down, too many nightmare situations he would never recover from. Hotch had given Rossi some of the details, the bomber, his breakdown and even Frank. He should have been invalided out of the Bureau after his breakdown not pushed into lecturing and thus be available to be sucked back into the game. This job was hard and you could never really come back from a reaction like that.

A tilt of the head was all the welcome Rossi was going to get. Easing his way out of his car he followed the other man into the shack.

Neither man spoke as Gideon methodically stowed the bag's items away. The bottle pulled from one of the cupboards was slammed onto the table along with a couple of glasses.

Rossi poured the drinks while Gideon lent on the counter gathering his strength.

"Why are you here?" Gideon eventually broke the growing silence. Rossi cheered silently at his 'win'. "I made it clear that I had no interest in maintaining contact with anyone connected to the Bureau."

Rossi sipped the, tolerable, scotch. "You left them with questions."

"How would you know? You left years ago for a world of book tours and groupies." There was bitterness in the tone, though whether it could be attributed to the book deal or the better luck Rossi had always had attracting other people he didn't know. It did mean though that Gideon wasn't plugged into the grapevine. He was too busy burning his bridges to maintain those ties.

"I talked to Hotch." There, that was carefully non-specific. "He said that the way you left threw off the team dynamic. Not saying he missed you," Rossi drank the rest of the scotch in his glass. "Just that it was off balancing."

"I'm not going back. They'll just have to work through it themselves." Gideon slammed his drink back before taking up the bottle to refill both glasses.

"They have." The two words seemed to shock Gideon. "It's been six months, did you expect them to sit around moping? They are professionals - picked themselves up and moved on."

Rossi pushed the glass away. The road was bad enough to drive down without impairing his reaction times with alcohol. "I wanted to talk to you about one of them anyway. Doctor Reid." He watched Gideon carefully for any reaction to the name.

"There's nothing to tell. Pleasant enough boy who will never be a top notch profiler as he's too afraid of living." He laughed. "I set him up with a perfect date for his crush and he couldn't even pull that off. Boy will probably die a virgin."

Rossi had to force himself to remain seated. Some of Spencer's attitudes and behaviours were becoming explainable. Here was someone who was one of the best profilers in the world and he's so badly underestimated the man he was supposed to be a mentor for it was tantamount to abuse.

Spencer's reaction to the dismissal of their last un-sub, his connection to him became that little bit clearer. It didn't matter what Spencer did, how hard he tried or the insights he had, the person who was there to help ignored or dismissed him.

He could only hope that Reid's relationship with Gideon hadn't always been like that. Pray that, at least at the beginning there was more nurturing of his talent. And it was a talent, the kid was a natural with all the right instincts.

Pushing the chair back Rossi stood. He knew all he would learn now, all that was left was to deliver the parting shot.

"If you ever want to have any sort of relationship with the people you left behind I suggest you start soon. They've moved on. The team is full strength so there isn't a place being held for you."

Gideon, again, looked shocked at the news. As if he truly expected the world to wait.

"I took the senior profiler role. We've worked out most of the kinks at this point. The team works." Rossi paused to let this sink in. "Everyone is living their lives. We've gone through the good, JJ and Will, Penelope and Kevin; and the bad, Penelope was shot and Haley is divorcing Aaron. Don't leave it too late."

Rossi left Gideon in his kitchen to digest all he'd dumped into his lap. The drive back was going to take a good four hours and it would be late when he'd get in. It wasn't going to stop him calling Spencer, just to let him know what he'd done. That he'd let his fears about the relationship between the other two men drive him all the way out here and while he was happy that his concerns were ungrounded he didn't want the secret between them.

The fear he'd had about telling the team what he knew about Gideon's probable location was gone. The team didn't need Gideon although it did look like Gideon needed the team.

AN2: There may be other epilogues (there should be at least one - if I ever get past page 1) and this may end up moving forward or back. Hope you enjoyed.