Chapter Text
Elizabeth almost forgot to shut off her car as she leaped out of it. She quickly did a double check on her gun and started running the two blocks to the empty brick factory, desperate to see his face, to swim in his eyes, to have his arms wrapped around her once again.
She was selfish.
She knew that. He was the one that was taken. He was the one in need of comfort. And Liz would gladly give him all the comfort and love possible.
But deep inside her gut, she needed him to hold her. To comfort her after the traumatic ordeal of losing him.
For a week he had been gone. It had taken forever to convince the team that they needed to track Red’s chip. That it wasn’t just an impromptu vacation. Lizzie knew better than that. They had been dating for 3 months. He wasn't just going to leave her and Dembe behind. Dembe could feel it too. That something was amiss. Red had disappeared from his apartment late one night, when Dembe had gone home to see Isabella in Dulles. Close to his Bethesda flat. She knew something was wrong. And after convincing Aram to go behind Cooper’s back to track his chip, her worst fears were confirmed. She had wasted no time, telling Ressler to update the team and follow her out to the abandoned building.
Her phone vibrated gently in her pocket, and she knew better than to pick it up. It was without a doubt Cooper telling her to wait for backup from the team and Reds men before storming in. But she couldn’t wait any longer. He couldn’t wait any longer.
Liz approached the building and gave it a once over, tying together the blueprint Aram sent her with seeing it in real life. She approached slower now, ducking below windows and staying out of the way of any view points.
She noticed no men were stationed, a red flag, but she waved it off. She had guessed the team was fifteen minutes behind her, so she had a choice. Go busting into the abandoned factory, quite possibly killing Red and Liz, or scope things out, and wait for the team. She chose the latter, telling herself that unless she was given reason to engage, such as Red was in immediate danger, she would stay put.
(In the back of her mind, she wasn’t sure that would work out so well. She was impatient.)
She looked around for security cameras, or any line of sight that could give her away, and accordingly chose the best spot to sit. Once she was confident she wouldn’t get shot from some unseen window with her back turned, she slowly rose up and peered up into the window above her, praying to see him, safe, unharmed. She scanned the room until she saw a figure about his height lying prone on the floor.
Raymond.
His back was to her window. He wasn’t moving. Her throat constricted and she gasped, fear making its way to her face. Was he-
She saw an arm move. She exhaled a breath she wasn’t aware was being held. It came out sharply, and relief washed over her. He was at the very least alive. But if she didn’t do something, he might not be for much longer.
He was lying in a pool of blood.
She watched as he rolled off of his side and onto his back, his beautiful emerald eyes looking up to the ceiling. He landed with a grimace of pain. She saw the handcuffs linked onto his wrists behind his back, and the corresponding pole they were attached to. He had a black eye, and dried blood streamed down his nose and face. One of his arms was twisted in a strange angle that made Liz feel nauseous.
He was still wearing his black framed reading glasses, the ones Lizzie adored. He had on a simple navy blue long sleeved sweater and some denim jeans. This was her Red. The Red was never seen by anyone but her when they watched Netflix together and cuddled. The Red that held her tight as she fell asleep in his safe arms while he read his favorite books.
Old man books as she liked to call them. An inside joke for his love of classic literature.
It had only been a week ago that the same sweater that was on him now, crusted with his blood, had been on the floor of her apartment, discarded thoughtlessly as he pinned her onto the bed.
She watched with horror as his pale face rolled to the side as he lost consciousness. She didn’t know what was wrong with him but she didn’t want to wait to find out.
She scanned the rest of what she could see of the building and saw no one. She couldn’t wait any longer for the task force. She crept slowly to the door and jiggled the handle. The door was unlocked, and it swung open. She ran to Red and knelt at his side.
“Raymond! Ray wake up! Please wake up,” She gasped, shaking his shoulders. She looked him over, grateful to see the source of all this blood isn’t a gunshot, but many superficial cuts. She took out her small pocket knife and started to flip him over so she could pick his handcuffs’ lock. His eyes opened groggily and as he focused in on her, his face contorted with horror.
“Elizabeth you need to leave.” He whispered through gritted teeth, urgency and fear more evident in his voice than she had ever heard. She was confounded.
“Raymond it's ok I’m here to-” She was cut off by the sound of a door locking behind her, and footsteps approaching rapidly.
Before she had time to turn around two large men grabbed her and drug her off Raymond. They took her gun and kicked it to the woman who had locked the door. She knelt down graciously and picked it up, examining it with rigor.
Elizabeth had seen this woman before.
The day before Red had disappeared. Her picture was in the files Red had gone through with Liz after finishing up a case. She remembered Red briefly explaining that the picture belonged to Isabella Trenton. She was the husband of their newest Blacklister. Jeremey Trenton. A mob boss weapons dealer that had flipped on Red after selling him weapons for 7 years. And all just for the prospect of more money from one of Red’s competitors. So Red had the FBI track him down. Red got Jeremeys head in a bag, and the FBI got a huge cache of weapons, and a list of new criminals to chase and where to find them.
Everything made sense now.
This was revenge.
A horrifying thought came to Liz, the ease of finding Red’s tracking chip, the lack of guards outside, the unlocked door, the horror on Ray’s face, Liz was the revenge.
Isabella Trentons love had been killed, so now Raymond Reddington's love would be given the same treatment. They knew.
Maybe they had bought into the rumors that circulated when Red had gone on the run with Liz, that they were the next Bonnie and Clyde. When they were actually on the run, the rumors had been false. But now, 7 months later, after she left Tom for good and he had driven off on his boat to who cares where, they were right. But Liz had doubted that all of this was just based off of a hunch or some year old rumor. She didn’t think that Isabella would base such an intricate plan off of speculation alone.
No, Isabella must have had seen Liz and Red together when they thought they were alone. Liz looked up horrified to just see Raymond lying there, helpless. She knows the likelihood that he is the one that is going to be the one to get killed is low, at least for the moment, but she is worried about the cuts all over him, and him losing consciousness again.
“Isabella!” Red's voice boomed in the room. Instantaneously commanding it.
“Do not touch her! You kill her and I will kill you! Do you understand me?!? Do not touch her!” It was a command. Raymond was roaring now, bellowing, and yanking against his chains, fighting with all his strength. He was more angry than she had ever seen him. He was usually cold and calculating, not bothering to stoop to such an idiotic emotion as anger.
But she could see the hatred in his eyes. A green fire of passion and determination she rarely saw. It was much darker now, and hoter, than she had previously seen. She hadn’t ever seen anyone get this angry, let alone her calm, cool, and collected Red. But she had a feeling that he was hating more than Isabella Trenton.
Was he blaming himself for all this?
They had been so careful, he had made sure no one had known the status of who she was to him. Not even anyone at the post office knew. Surely he knew this wasn’t his fault, but she knew him better than that.
One of Raymonds only well disguised weaknesses, was how much he hated and blamed himself. She had tried to talk sense into him, but he was seemingly desperate to find something to use to hate himself. He felt he deserved the worst, and still had a hard time understanding that Lizzie loved him. He had said at least once a week how she deserves better than him. An old man who only brought her pain and misery. It wasn’t true.
She had spent the last few months ingraining it into him that not everything was his fault, and that he deserved Liz’s love more than he could ever know.
It seemed like a strangely perfect match. A psychologist with a damaged man. As he had started to take down his walls for Liz, she had learned the Christmas Eve story, and how much guilt he carried for the killing of his wife and daughter. And how it had caused him to seemingly snap, from the up and coming Naval Informant, to the FBI’s most wanted man.
Elizabeth was yanked out of her thoughts as she was hoisted up, and strapped to a chain link fence. She felt a poke at the kink in her arm, and was surprised to see a translucent fluid was being injected into her.
She looked over at Raymond across the room, curled slightly on his side staring up at her with a wild expression she had only seen before on a caged animal. His eye was twitching like it always did when he was upset, and he looked so distraught and torn apart, Elizabeth physically ached.
She noticed something curious however. Amongst the wreck of anxiety and fear that was his body, his gorgeous eyes were calm. Locked with hers, never looking away.
He was reassuring her. Telling her that everything would be fine. She didn’t see how that was possible.
Until she noticed his hands working quickly and smoothly behind him. Her pocket knife. He had hid her pocket knife. And now he was using it to break out of his handcuffs.
He saw her eyes light with understanding and gave a small and calming smile. As if he was saying,
“It will be fine Lizzie. You will be fine.”
And she felt relief. They would walk out fine as they always did, and make up for lost time tonight. Even as she felt the drugs seeping into her system she felt relief.
How ironic that would be, when she would remember that moment later, and it would make her sob uncontrollably, curled into a ball, clutching one of his dress shirts and gasping in his scent desperately. Crying out his name. The complete opposite of relief. A hell, that was just on the other side of this day.