Chapter Text
After she’d left Reddington, his cards, his lies and his cognac in the house that wasn’t his, Lizzie found herself drifting aimlessly through the city. Her thoughts were all over the place, her feelings a mess. Several times, she lost track of time and space and came to herself parked on the corner of a street she had no memory of turning into.
Now there truly is no one left. I really am all alone. My husband is a murderer and a spy. My father consorted with the world’s most notorious criminal and kept things from me that caused said criminal to kill him when he considered owning up to me. And that criminal…Red… “I wanted to trust you,” she whispered. “I needed you to be honest to me…I needed you to be someone I could count on.”
Her stomach ached with betrayal. Almost a month of suspicions and uncertainties had suddenly slammed home, and she’d been wrong about thinking her life was ruined when Tom turned out to be…whatever it was he was. She’d still had Reddington, then, as a last hope for truth. But now even that was gone. How could she even listen to a man who tried to fob off the murder of her father as some sort of…what did he call it? Euthanasia? How could he think she wouldn’t find out—how did he think he could ever explain it?
At some moment she drove back to her apartment, but seeing it, windows dark, lifeless, made her feel so desperately lonely she broke off her parking routine and swerved out onto the road again.
“So where do I go now?” she asked herself, and hated the thin, wavering quality of her own voice. “Where on earth can I go now?”
Then it hit her, and at first she balked at it, but she remembered: a friendly mask, the promise that he’d have her back if she ever needed him. A promise made with the memory of sex and far too much booze still fresh in their minds. Still. It was all she had left, wasn’t it?
*
Ressler was sitting on the couch with the combination Book and Beer, with the TV on mute in preparation for football when the ball rang, making him sigh in annoyance. He wasn’t expecting anyone and he was tired after filling in what felt like 300 pages of paperwork. Many people seemed to think an FBI agent’s job consisted of mind-blowing action and exciting arrests, but the bitter truth was that he spent 90% of his time typing reports and doing research so tedious it made all archaeologists seem like Indiana Jones.
But when he opened the door and found Lizzie Keen huddled on the doorstep saying “I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” his irritation melted away, and he welcomed her in with a gesture with his bottle.
Poor thing. This whole Tom business is really taking its toll on her. Or maybe it’s Reddington. Again.
She followed him in, coat still on until he plucked it from her shoulders and hung it over the back of a chair, and sat down on one end of the couch.
“Do you want a beer?” She nodded, and he got her one. She took a perfunctory swallow and lowered it, holding it in both hands in her lap. Ressler had to keep himself from taking it from her and putting it on the table with an ‘It’ll get warm.’ And then he didn’t know what to do, she was so obviously ripped.
She took another bottleneck-licking sip and her dull gaze fell on the book he’d placed open, pages down, on the table. “What are you reading?”
“Chandler.”
“Oh.”
He grimaced. She was usually too voluble to his liking, but this was getting scary. He cleared his throat and gingerly sat down next to her. “So, you…did you find out…anything new? Or were you just…huh?”
She nodded. “Aram pulled the internal report of my father’s death, and…” Her face began to crumple. She moistened her lower lip, tried to continue in a normal tone of voice, “and Reddington was there…he was there…when my father died, and…” She stopped, and then she produced the most terrible sound he had ever heard, some kind of horrid, high, breathless keening. Her hands came up to shield her face as her mouth opened wide, not to scream, but to express a loss so profound it went beyond crying. She gasped for air, choked on it, then made that sound again, something barely human and so awful it froze Ressler in his seat. “He killed him,” she wept, her grief stretching and jumbling her words to an almost senseless mass. “He was there and he killed him because he wasn’t supposed to tell me something and he killed him…and I asked him why and he said hewantedto die but hewasmydadandItrustedhimandI…” Another desperate gasp for breath; she sobbed out more words, but she was almost incomprehensible. All he could make out were ‘loved him’ and ‘trusted him!’ and ‘all alone’ and ‘left me’. And then she started keening again, curling in on herself like something sick and broken, and he didn’t know what else to do but pick her up, pull her into his lap and fold himself around her to keep her together.
At first, she was too engrossed in her own grief to notice. She huddled on his thighs in a stiff ball, not responding to any shoulder-patting, back-rubbing or the shushing noises he made to calm her, but after another minute—one of the longest minutes in a life, and that included all the time he’d spent in the glass box with Reddington and his trip through the mountains in Mexico—she stopped wailing and began to cry—which was still horrible but a lot better than that sound.
“Why doeseverybodyleave me?” she sobbed. “Am I such a terrible person, that…why is everything connected to him? Am I only a m-means to get to him? Or is he the one who…?”
“Ssshhhh,” Ressler said, holding her a little more tightly. In response, she clawed her fingers into his shirt.
“But why? Why me? What am I to him, then, if everything, everything was a lie? Who am I…who am I to him…I don’ wanna be important,” she cried, and Ressler winced at the wetness soaking his shirt. “I’m just me, I’m nobody, I’m just me and I just want my life back…”
It was at this point that Ressler realised two things, both of which were rather unfortunate. The first was, that, as she stopped keening, Lizzie had started to cry large amounts of tears and the one box of paper tissues he had was situated under his bed. The second was that even though she was a total mess and it really, really shouldn’t affect him like that, having a woman in his lap had made him painfully hard, and there was no question that, as she was winding down, she would notice this at some point. The whole situation made him acutely uncomfortable.
She wasn’t supposed to break down like this. He could deal with her naivety, her impulsiveness, her edginess and her paranoia—you could say things would be alright if you thought they actually would be. But things had obviously escalated to beyond salvable, and there was only so much soothing nonsense you could murmur into the ear of someone whose entire life had crashed around them before you began to feel vastly inadequate.
So Reddington really did kill her father. Well, that’d make anyone flip. He couldn’t help thinking that there was more, a lot more, to Lizzie Keen’s life.
Thankfully, the open-mouthed sobbing had stopped, now; she was still sniffling and messing up his shirt, but at least she was a little more quiet, and actually responded as he rubbed her back and kissed the top of her head. The response was a boneless, exhausted sprawl, shaken, every once in a while, by a hiccup.
Ressler held her, still hard, still uncomfortable, very much relieved she’d stopped bawling but beginning to get seriously pissed off at Reddington. He didn’t know what the bastard had been thinking, but he better have a really good reason.
Something moved in front of him; looking up, he noticed that the football had started on TV. So much for a quiet night in, he thought with wry regret. The remote was on the table, out of his reach. He leaned his chin on Lizzie’s head, pulling her even closer as he felt her move.
“Sshh. Just stay like that. It’ll be alright.”
She gave a huge snort. “I need a tissue.”
Ah. Yes. “You can use my shirt,” he said magnanimously. “It’s soaked through, now, anyway.”
She managed a reedy laugh, and he felt her body tense as she tried to keep from crying more tears. Who was it Audrey had once quoted? ‘A woman’s grief is like fertile land: sow tears and reap torrents.’ Her shoulders shook when she failed, and he stroked her hair.
“It’s ok, Lizzie. Just relax.”
“I really need do blow my nose,” she sniffed, and with a sigh he crawled out from underneath her and went to fetch his tissue box from the bedroom, where he took off his tear and snot-stained shirt and threw it into the laundry bin, shrugging into a clean shirt on his way back to the living room. Lizzie noticed his change from red-chequered to plain blue and produced another thin laugh before grabbing a handful of tissues and burying her face in them.
Ressler squatted down in front of her and placed his hands on her knees.
“Are you ok?” he asked, looking up at her.
It was probably a pretty dumb question, but she nodded. “Yeah. Sorry.” She wouldn’t look at him and stiffened as her stomach gave an enormous rumble.
Ressler smiled. “That’s ok.” He squeezed her legs. “Have you eaten anything this evening?”
She shook her head. “No. I couldn’t…” she sniffed. “Couldn’t force…anything down my throat.”
“Are you hungry? I’ll make you eggs on toast.”
She surfaced, eyes wet, nose red and gleaming, lips swollen and quivering, from the tissues and presented him with a trembling smile. “That…would actually be really nice.”
“Good.” He gave her knee a pat and plucked the remote from the table. “Here. Tell me who’s winning.”
Scrambled eggs were fast and easy enough; he had a two slices of toast and three eggs done in roughly five minutes. Five minutes were enough for Lizzie to regain her composure. It wasn’t enough to make her face any less blotchy, but the flood had stopped and she pretended to be interested in the players on the screen.
Ressler gave her the plate. She regarded it with the queasy helplessness of someone who had lost their appetite so long ago food no longer was welcomed but feared. Ressler knew the sensation. He nudged her. “Take a bite, you’ll feel better in a bit. Come one.” He noticed with detached interest that her eyes were completely devoid of make-up. Either she was really good at cleaning up without a mirror, or she’d simply cried everything off. He felt another protective stab of anger directed at Reddington. Knowing Reddington, he must have a reason, a very good reason, for killing Lizzie’s dad. After all, why else risk being seen? Knowing Lizzie, she hadn’t given him the opportunity to explain. But how do you explain that? he wondered. Jonica had had nothing to do with Audrey’s death, not directly, really, and Ressler had still wanted to kill him. And while it hadn’t diminished his grief for her death, he had to admit to feeling a savage joy at the sight of Tanida’s severed head.
The memory of that particular present was all that kept him from paying Reddington a little visit and beating some answers out of him on behalf of the small woman nibbling on her toast next to him.
That, and the fact that Lizzie might not actually thank him for going out and getting killed by Dembe or Reddington himself; the man knew how to handle a gun. What with everybody leaving her, and all that.
So, for the moment, he remained seated on the couch, pretending to watch TV and casting surreptitious glances to the side. He’d been right, he noticed, satisfied; once she’d started on the toast, she wouldn’t put the plate aside until she’d wolfed everything down.
“Want some more?”
Another shy smile. Of course, now she was embarrassed. Women. They soaked you with bodily fluids and made you cook, and then they acted all flustered. “No, thanks. Thank you.”
He reached for her beer on the table, put his arm around her shoulder and drew her against him. “That’s ok. Drink your beer.”
“Yes, Don.” She obediently took a sip.
They both watched the game for a couple of minutes. Ressler was very much aware of the warmth and the slight weight of her, leaning against him. He wondered if he should offer to talk, or listen, but he really didn’t want to. Talking wasn’t his forte; he was more the strong, silent type. Also, he never knew what to say to distraught women, and he was scared to death she’d start crying again. So they just sat, and gradually she relaxed against him, her head leaning on his shoulder. A few times, she cleared her throat, as if preparing to speak, but in the end she kept silent until the break.
Ressler dreaded the commercials, because they meant he had no excuse to watch the screen anymore, and had to strike up conversation. He tried to keep his tone light. “Do you want anything else to drink? Or eat?” She’d finished her bottle some time ago.
“Nah.” She blinked up at him. Her nose still held a tinge of redness, and she looked strangely vulnerable without make-up, but he didn’t think he needed to be afraid of any new outbursts. “I’m good. I…I’m sorry. For turning up like this. I don’t normally…I…” she huffed out a laugh. “I’m sorry for doing what you did to me, last time.”
Ressler raised his eyebrows. “My memory may be a bit hazy, but I don’t recall crying all over your nice and comfy shirt,” he teased.
Thankfully, she was up to teasing. He rather belatedly realised that he might have set her off big time if she hadn’t been. She snorted. “You cried all over the bar.”
“I did not.”
“Yes, you did. You almost dripped into your vodka.”
“Vodka. Nasty stuff. I rest my case.”
“Ressler…”
“Do you want to stay over? We…I have a spare bedroom. I keep my skis there, and my sports gear, and you’ll lie amidst laundry, but at least it’ll be clean laundry.”
She shot him a smile that was much more like her normal smile. “I’d like that.” He wondered if he should kiss her, then wondered if he wanted to, then wondered if she’d want him to. What exactly was the etiquette when presented by sadly bereaved and unhappy women that effortlessly managed to render one half-hard while appealing to all of one’s protective instincts at the same time?
The moment passed, and he fled to the kitchen to get two more bottles of beer and saltine crackers.
“Who are playing, anyway?” Lizzie asked, as they sat through a commercial promoting toothpaste that apparently turned your teeth into snow white plastic. She absentmindedly munched a cracker.
“You don’t know?”
“I was preoccupied. And I haven’t kept up to date with football.”
“It’s the Ravens.”
“Baltimore?”
“What else? And the Minnesota Vikings.”
“Ah. And who’s winning?”
“The Ravens.”
“Huh.” She took a swallow from the bottle. He wondered if he should have given her a glass. “Is it true you used to play football? Professionally?”
“Professionally? No. I was pretty serious as a kid, but you know how it goes: you get injured at a crucial point in your career, and before you know it you’re an FBI agent and only watch it on TV.”
“Poor you. Must’ve been hard.”
“How so?”
“Because you don’t do giving up easily.”
He shrugged. “I get to shoot people, now. That’s cool, too.”
She laughed, an honest, spontaneous laugh. “You’re such a child!” But then she sat up on her knees and shook her head. “No. I take that back. You’re not a child. I’m sorry.” She kissed him on the cheek. Only he turned his head exactly at that moment, and she ended kissing him on the mouth instead.
Well, then, Ressler thought. So much about etiquette. He kissed her back, not giving in to the desire to rip her clothes off and do her before the break was over. You didn’t pounce on a married woman in distress. It was only that she was sending out some mightily conflicting signals. No, it was all very controlled, very proper. Kissing for comfort, the equivalent of a hug. Only he had to call a stop to this controlled, proper kissing soon, or the rest of the evening would be spent in blue-balled discomfort.
However, it was Lizzie who pulled back first, panting slightly, her hands balled into the flannel of his shirt. “I…” she started, looking away. “Sorry. It’s late.”
Yes, I also regularly find myself necking people when the clock approaches eleven, Ressler thought. But he said it was fine and told her that if she wanted to go to sleep, that was fine as well, the spare bed was made up and ready if she didn’t mind shifting his towels to the floor.
“Ok. I think I’ll…I think I’ll go to bed then.” She took a final sip of beer and got up, not meeting his eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’m just…really tired.”
He smiled at her, heartfelt but wryly. You’re a damn tease, Keen. It may not be your fault or even your intention, but…damn it. “Do you need a toothbrush? I probably have a new one in the cabinet in the bathroom. And take a shower, by all means.”
Lizzie thanked him again and disappeared. He heard the shower turn on a couple of minutes later, turned up the volume and sat back when the players ran back onto the field.
It really wouldn’t do picturing her in the shower.
Ressler groaned and rubbed his hand over his face. Fuck my life, I need an outdoor hobby.