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DEREK had to remind himself to breathe. He didn't believe himself to be one who made a situation bigger than it needed to be, but he had this overwhelming feeling that he was failing. Or had failed.
Flashes of Rosalie ran through his head, more specifically, her running through the rain, without her shoes, his jacket she was wearing or borrowing at the time flapping in the wind, her bare feet slapping the pavement, her hair sticking to her cheeks like her clothes, clinging to her for life. What had gotten him were her tears.
He turned his head and glanced out the window, taking a breath as he rested his chin in his hand as Hotch drove, Spencer unusually quiet in the backseat. Eventually, it was Hotch who broke the silence other than the surrounding police sirens that cut into the air like a violent knife.
"Are you okay?"
Derek glanced over at the other man, before he nodded. "Yeah, I'm alright." He simply wanted to leave it at that. He knew he slipped up when he promised that to Rosalie, and he was sure she did as well considering their jobs lingered in similar territories. He reached down and touched the cross necklace he had been given by a victim's sister. It had been so long ago, some of the cases just had a habit of blending together.
Hotch nodded with hesitance and acceptance at the answer, not pushing it anymore before they stopped the car outside of a house three doors down from where they were getting ready to do a soft entrance in attempts that Matteo — would be safe. He swallowed hard, not wanting to think the worse of the very boy he had carried in his arms nearly two days prior, nor his aunt, whose brown eyes flashed behind his eyelids. Not having Marco safe would break her.
First her sister, then her nephew? Derek couldn't imagine the guilt she was pushing herself through: he knew she was doing it, just three days of being around her let him know that was the kind of person she was. Rough of herself, and blamed herself for any little mistake.
Meanwhile, back at the station, Rosalie was pacing in the meeting room, her foot dragging behind her in a slightly hop-limp, her brother watching her with worry in his eyes. "Rosie."
She turned her head and made a hm noise in response. There was a foreign softness in her features, in her eyes, in the way she held her jaw so loosely... it was a look Dominic didn't like on his younger sister. He knew she still blamed herself for the loss of Marina, their younger sister before Nehavah.
Rose had been away at Quantico — barely out of being a NAT (New Agent in Training), but so close to being an official agent. In fact, the very night they got the news, she was scheduled the next morning to walk across the stage, take her oath, her badge, her gun, and officially become an FBI agent. And yet, as soon as she heard about Marina's murder, she had came back home on the first flight she could get, and with Matteo in her arms, she never looked back to the academy.
