Chapter Text
Disclaimer: I don’t own the Blacklist or any of the recognizable characters. If anyone wants to give them to me as a gift I might take them.
They’d been on the run for three weeks by the time the news of Cooper’s arrest reached them. Red told her that his arrest didn’t surprise him. The fact that she and Cooper had a close working relationship was making it easier to paint him as her accomplice. Cooper already lied to a judge once to keep her out of jail. It was a short leap to make it appear that Cooper arranged to meet with Connolly so Lizzie could kill him.
“Red we can’t let Cooper be convicted of something he didn’t do. He didn’t know that I was going to shoot Connolly. Hell, I didn’t even plan on shooting him until it happened. “ Lizzie said miserably.
She really didn’t plan on doing anything to Connolly until he threatened to have Red executed. She still hasn’t shared that fact with Red. He would just feel even strongly that he’d failed her. She wasn’t ready yet to admit the lengths she would go to protect him.
Red was certain that there was more to the story of her shooting Tommy Connolly, but she didn’t appear to be ready to share it with him . . . yet. He was sure he would get the full story out of her eventually. He suspected that she’d done it to protect someone she cared about. The list of people that might qualify was short. It had to be someone on the task force, Tom and possibly himself. The last depended on the day and her mood. When he described Lizzie to Sam all those months ago and called her volatile he’d been right on the mark. Normally that trait wasn’t something he found to be a positive. In her case it was interesting to see what would set her off next. Connolly found a way to not only set her off, but cause her to explode.
“We won’t let Harold pay for getting caught up in this war with the Cabal. I’m not sure I can get him reinstated with the FBI. I might be able to convince Reven Wright that he was unable to stop you. It’s my understanding that he was unarmed since he was suspended by Connolly. He tried to talk you down . . . unsuccessfully. How we approach her will need to be handled delicately.” Red told her trying to be as reassuring as possible. He didn’t feel the need to pull his punches when it came to what she did. The decision to kill Connolly was hers and hers alone. Despite the provocation she was now a murderer and she needed to come to terms with that fact. He knew it would be difficult for her to reconcile with her image of herself. He’d gone through the same struggle himself decades ago.
She was pleased that Red agreed to help Cooper. It was obvious to her that he’d been thinking about this for a while. She knew that Red wanted to know what caused her to pull Tom’s gun and threaten Connolly with it. The fact that she pulled the trigger to protect Red was the only thing keeping her from hiding away until she could accept what she’d become. She had called Red a monster more than once; when she’d seen or heard about him killing someone. He’d killed three people that she knew of to protect her. It was after the Stewmaker’s death that she’d called him a monster for the first time. Was she now a monster for killing Connolly to protect Red? Or was it a matter of the numbers involved. Did she have to kill more than one person to be a monster? She shoved the question into a dark corner of her mind. She would think about it all later. Right now she needed to concentrate on clearing Cooper. She promised herself she would follow Red’s lead. He would know the best way to deal with all of it.
“Do you have any idea how we can get her alone?” Lizzie finally asked him.
She watched his face as he sat silent in front of her. She felt that she was literally able to see him plotting, accepting and rejecting ideas, everything visibly playing out behind his eyes.
“I need to contact Mr. Kaplan to setup a surveillance team. Once we learn her routine we can decide the best time and place to intercept her. I’ll also have her contact Cooper discretely to let him know work is under way to try and clear his name. She’ll also make him aware of any funds needed to get him an attorney or living expenses will be available to him with only a phone call. The name of an attorney that I recommend highly will also find its way to him. If he’s as smart as I think Harold is, he’ll let Kaplan retain him. All of this will take time. I think we should only need a couple of weeks before we can meet with Reven.”
As much as she wanted to protest the time Red’s plan would take, she reminded herself that this was something he had extensive experience arranging. She could and would learn to be patient.
Immediately after Connolly’s murder they had been driven outside of DC to where they picked up a car that was waiting for them in a local Walmart parking lot. She learned that not only could Red drive, he enjoyed driving the back roads and country highways they were sticking to on their journey. The first night they stopped at a motel not far from the highway. The motel was nowhere near Red’s normal standards, but they accepted cash and asked no questions. Lizzie stayed in the room while he went out and bought food. In addition to the food he brought back dye for her hair. After they ate she discovered another hidden talent of Red’s. He cut her newly dyed blonde hair extremely short, but managed to keep it still feminine. Who knew he could cut hair so well, since he had almost none of his own. She barely recognized herself in the mirror and felt less nervous about being discovered the next morning when they hit the road again.
The next night found them staying at a deserted farmhouse somewhere in Missouri. After pulling the car behind a house so it wouldn’t be visible from the road she was surprised when he pulled two suitcases and what looked like a briefcase from the trunk. Once they were comfortable inside the house she gestured toward the bags still sitting near the door.
“What’s in the bags?”
“Go ahead and take a look. Yours is the blue bag,” he told her with a slight smile.
When she opened the bag she found it full of clothes in her size, but not her style. She was ready to tell him there was no way that she was going to wear such colorful and slightly revealing clothes. Then she realized that was the point. Liz Keen would never wear this stuff. Whoever she was becoming it would be someone who would wear these clothes with her bleached blonde hair.
“I’m guessing the other suitcase is yours, but I doubt it contains any three piece suits and fedoras. What’s in the other case?” she asked from where she was crouched next to the bags.
Red got up and picked up the briefcase. He placed it on the table in front of the couch and gestured for her to sit down next to him. Once she was seated he opened the case. Inside Lizzie saw stacks of hundred dollar bills and a smaller number of stacks of smaller bills. A gun, two burner phones and identity papers and credit cards for both of them with aliases. It was apparent to her that Red had been prepared should they ever need to disappear. What she didn’t see were passports. Did this mean they wouldn’t be leaving the country or that if they did it would be by private plane?
“How long have you had all of this ready?” she asked him quietly.
“Since Tom was exposed and Berlin became a more immediate threat. If the only way to protect you from either of them or both had been to run I wanted to be ready.”
From the farmhouse they kept making their way west. They didn’t take the most direct route to California, but that is where they finally stopped, in a little town on the coast. In a house overlooking the ocean they waited for Kaplan’s surveillance team to report their findings.
Early on the morning of the fifteenth day since they’d left DC Red’s burner phone began to ring.
“Yes,” Red answered bypassing the normal polite method of answering.
“It’s me dearie. Are you both alright?” Kaplan answered refusing to dispense with the pleasantries.
Red sighed and barely kept from grinding his teeth. He was getting antsy at staying in one place so long. The only thing making it bearable was the chance to really get to know Lizzie. He now knew what she looked like first thing in the morning with her adorable bed head. She was nearly catatonic in the morning before her first cup of coffee. Every day he learned something new about her.
“We are fine. A bit of cabin fever now and then, but nothing that we can’t handle. Do you have the intel we need on the target?” Red asked her and once again appreciated the fact that he couldn’t intimidate her no matter how nasty he was to her.
“We do. The target is very set in her daily routines. She lives alone with only a small dog that she walks every morning at seven. She’s back at the house at seven-thirty and leaves for the office at eight-thirty. She divides her time between her office in the Hoover building and the offsite location which you are intimately familiar. She is at the offsite location on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I suspect that she could be lured there on another day if something of interest was discovered by the team at the offsite location. After work she returns to her home. She’s home between seven-thirty and eight. Her weekends are not as structured. For the most part she’s home in the morning after walking the dog. She goes out in the afternoon, but never goes to the same places or meets with the same people. We’ve tapped her home and cell phones. She has never called anyone associated with the known members of the Cabal. If she’s spoken with any of them from her office phone we will never know. If I was a betting woman I’d lay good money on the fact that she’s clean.” Kaplan said finishing her report.
Lizzie had joined Red where he was sitting at the dining room table. He had the phone on speaker so she could hear Kaplan’s report for herself.
“Do you know if she’s had any contact with Cooper?” she asked Kaplan.
“If she has it would have had to be on her office phone. We’ve had Cooper under surveillance as well as his family. He hasn’t gone anywhere near the offsite location or the Hoover building,” was Kaplan’s immediate reply.
“I’m sure she has some type of security system setup in her home. Have our people been able to solve the problem of getting into her house undetected?” Red was sure Kaplan knew the last was really a statement and not a question no matter how he’d phrased it.
“Her security system is top of the line and monitored by the FBI. It’s not something like ADT that we could simply trip and give a simple pass phrase to keep the police from being summoned. If this one is tripped she need to provide visual confirmation that the police don’t need to be called. My suggestion would be to grab her when she’s out of the house on the weekend.”
Red sat nodding to himself as she listed the details of her security system. The suggestion to grab her on the weekend was a good one. Her weekends were less structured and it would take longer for anyone to realize she’s missing.
“Here is what I want done. I want Aram to hack into her calendar, both work and personal to make sure her calendar for this weekend is clear. When we are assured it’s clear I want my plane sent to pick us up. You know what one to send. Get Baz to put together his best men and have them pick her up during her morning walk with her dog. I want to make sure neither of them are harmed. We will go over his plan once we are back in Baltimore.” Red instructed her.
“I’ll make sure it’s all arranged. What day do you want the plane to pick you up?”
“Thursday night, I want to arrive in the early morning hours on Friday. Tell Baz I want him to meet us at the safe house to go over his plan.” Red paused then and glanced at Lizzie for a moment. She’d shown remarkable restraint by not interrupting while their plans were formulated. It was time to ask for the information that Red knew she was truly interested in hearing.
“Did you make contact with Cooper like I asked?” Red asked while he watched the tension start to leave Lizzie’s face and shoulders.
“I did. He was concerned about a certain person and was happy to hear that said person was safe. He has already made contact with the recommended attorney and accepted the generous offer the attorney made to work pro-bono. The other funds that were raised to assist him and his family were graciously received. The funds are being held in trust until needed.” Kaplan said tap dancing around where the funds were coming from to pay the attorney.
Red had kept his eyes on Lizzie during Kaplan’s response and was happy to see relief reflected in her eyes. Her silently mouthed “thank you” brought a brief smile to his face.
“Thank you Kate. I’ll expect the plan in a couple of days. I’ll see you once we land,” with that he ended the call.
They silently gazed at each other for a few minutes. Red’s thoughts were centered on the fact that their time alone in their house overlooking the Pacific ocean was almost over. In this house where they’d come to the realization that their lives had changed forever. She would never be an FBI agent again and he no longer had even the slightest chance at immunity for his many and varied crimes.
Her thoughts were about Red and how far he was willing to go to make her happy. She knew if he felt going back to the DC area put her in any danger he would leave her behind. She still needed to convince him that she wasn’t helpless, needing his help to keep her safe all the time. She also knew and was just starting to accept that his concern was borne out of his love for her, not just his need for the Fulcrum and the security it held for him.
“Red I’m sorry you got caught up in my admittedly impulsive act. You’ve given up any chance to live a free life by helping me. After you had completed your list the government might have come through with your immunity.” Lizzie told him in a voice that held little confidence in what she was saying.
“You know I never expected to receive immunity. I involved the FBI in my business for two reasons. You worked for them and this allowed me an entrance into your life without a lot of questions. It also allowed me to use government resources to help me hunt down those responsible for making me leave my family all those years ago to protect them. Let’s not speak of it again, alright.” Red told her gently with a smile.
“Agreed,” she said with an answering smile.