Chapter Text
~~
There was a pain growing just over Donald Ressler's heart, and he was pretty sure it was yet more evidence that the universe hated him. There was no other way to explain it – to explain this amazingly bad timing.
It was about a week since the flashes of pain on the skin over his heart had began to happen, every now and then. And it had been exactly a week since the task force that he was now in charge of had lost track of Elizabeth Keen. Former Special Agent Keen, formerly partner to Donald Ressler, and, he was now all but certain, his Soulmate.
Like he needed the physical pain of the Mark forming over his heart, on top of the heartache he was already dealing with. And once the Mark fully appeared, it wouldn't be long before he had to deal with even more unpleasantness. The universe had to hate him. And it had to hate her, too, he supposed – but he didn't like to think about what all this was doing to her. He tried not to imagine it, in fact.
Don got out of bed that morning with a grimace. The skin over his heart hurt almost constantly now. The words of his Mark had to be just about visible – or they would be by the end of the day. He'd thought maybe he would be one of the relatively rare people who went through life without a Soulmate. After all, he and Audrey had been happy together before her death, and they'd complemented each other well. And he and Liz had been partners for years with no sign of this thing developing. But that was how it often worked. You could be friends with your Soulmate for a number of years before the bond made itself known.
With a mixture of dread and curiosity, Don shuffled into his bathroom and turned on the light over the mirror. He slipped off his T-shirt. Yes, there was something visible over his heart now. It wasn't clear yet, but it looked like it might end up being two words. He wondered what they would be. Off the top of his head, he couldn't think of two words from Liz that were that deeply significant to him, to them. But then, no one had ever accused him of being overly sentimental.
Sentimental or not, though, he couldn't help wondering what words or word of his would appear over Liz's heart, wherever she was. Sighing, Ressler turned away from the mirror and made himself focus on getting ready for work.
During another day of fruitless searching through tips and rumors, Ressler managed to ignore the constant ache of the Mark, like the skin was burnt. He did his best not to be distracted, too, when he felt brief flashes of emotions that weren't his own. That only happened a couple of times, thankfully. Once, it was a wave of irritation that wasn't warranted by the concise, accurate report from the agents who had gone to follow up another lead that hadn't panned out. The other time, it was amusement. At least that made him smile for a few seconds before he figured out what was going on. He didn't know what he was going to do when he started getting windows into what Liz was feeling all the time. If he felt when she was scared – or hell, if she got hurt... He swallowed. That would incapacitate him. And it worked both ways. So now he had added motivation not to do anything too reckless.
When he got back to his apartment at the end of the day and looked in the mirror, the words had in fact resolved into visibility. He took a sharp breath, as he was suddenly back in their shared office, after the Scimitar had attacked, used, and tried to kill them both. He could hear himself trying to lighten Liz's mood when she told him she'd thought they were going to lose him, quipping, “The prospect of having to live without me must have been terrifying.”
She didn't smile. Her voice was totally sincere as she said, “It was.”
The memory faded, and now he was leaning his hands on the counter, looking at those two words in her handwriting over his heart. He stood up straight and traced the letters with the fingers of his right hand. The skin didn't feel any different to the touch. But those words – that whole exchange – they were even more meaningful now. Now that either of them living without the other was a practical impossibility in the long term.
Ressler slept very poorly that night – worse than he had slept for the past week. His brief, interrupted snatches of sleep were full of dreams of Liz. Some of them were memories, some were nightmares, and some were just mundane scenes of them together. But none of it was restful. And when he got out of bed half an hour before his alarm the next morning, it was with a heavy, sinking feeling that things were only going to get worse.
After all, he reflected blearily, as he headed for the shower, now it was confirmed beyond any doubt that he was hunting his Soulmate. She was well out of reach – he knew that deep in his bones now, too – and, worst of all, she needed to stay that way. If he found her, that would mean her arrest, at best, and her imprisonment in some unnamed facility at worst. Continued separation, in either case. If the Cabal decided his life wasn't important (which was likely), they could even kill her, and that would almost be preferable for them both. He doubted those people would conform to the normal visitation rules for Soulmate pairs when one was in prison.
Really, though, he had to keep the identity of his Soulmate secret for as long as possible. These people, inhumane as they obviously were, would definitely not hesitate to use him to get to her as soon as they knew. But no matter how strong he was, eventually the Soul Sickness would make it obvious he was one side of a separated pair. There was no way around it that he knew of.
His best hope, Don thought, with an almost-smile at the irony, was probably Reddington. When the man saw what was happening to Liz and figured out who she was pining for, he'd have to do something to save her. The fact that it would also save her Soulmate would be a nice side effect. Don would have to try to come up with some way to aid this effort – hopefully before he became too Soul Sick to be of use to anyone. At least they should still have some time before that point.
~~
Tokyo
That same day (plus thirteen hours)
She wasn't going to be able to keep hiding this from Red for much longer. The ache above her heart was constant now, and strong enough that she was sure she wasn't going to sleep at all tonight. Plus, there was the suspense of wondering what words would be appearing on her skin there next morning.
They were in the elevator, on their way back to the suite they were sharing, when Liz finally couldn't keep herself from wincing. She didn't move other than that, but Red still saw. “What is it, Lizzie? You've been quiet all day, and now you seem like you're in pain.”
“It's-- not a big deal,” she tried, with a smile and a shrug. “Just a headache.”
He was obviously not convinced. “All right,” he said, looking at her closely. “Let me know if it develops into anything worse.”
“I will.”
They said goodnight as they went to their respective rooms. As soon as her door was closed, Liz sank onto her bed with a sigh. She would have to tell him soon. This was something that would affect them both, after all – not to mention Ressler.
As if the thought of him had triggered it, Liz got a flash of frustrated anger that she knew had to be from her Soulmate. She looked at the bedside clock. He was probably at work right now. At work, where his job was to track her down. And her current goal was to stay ahead of him and anyone else trying to find her and Red. She huffed out a breath and sat up to take off her shoes. She was exhausted, so she might as well try to sleep, even if she was pretty sure it wouldn't work.
The night passed about as miserably as she'd thought it would. It probably didn't help that she was thirteen hours ahead of her Soulmate; they wouldn't even be trying to sleep at the same time. She had short bursts of sleep as she tossed and turned, but those moments were full of nightmares about Ressler in danger, or just painful dreams of times when they were together.
When she got up at a little after six, she decided she might as well take a look and see what her Mark said. It had to be there by now. The light in the bathroom revealed writing over her heart. As soon as she saw the single word itself, she gasped.
She was on her knees in front of the Box. Garrick's gun was pointed at her head, and Reddington had just hurriedly, brutally brought Ressler back to consciousness. She hadn't known until moments ago just how badly injured Ressler was, but now she couldn't look away from his terribly pale face, and all the blood on the floor around him. His blood.
Reddington was demanding the code to open the Box. She heard her partner ask Red if he was going to kill him now. It was even clearer now than it had been in the moment, somehow, that although Ressler believed Reddington's words, it wasn't the threat of his own death that finally made him speak. It was the threat of hers. “Agent Keen will die,” Reddington said, as he held Ressler up so that he could see her.
“Romeo,” he said at last. “The access code is Romeo.”
Liz came back to the present with a jolt, staggering and grabbing onto the counter. There it was, as if written by his hand, on her heart. She smiled sadly. It looked like a stereotypical romantic reference, but it was anything but stereotypical. And now, of course, it was even more true that either of the two of them would do anything to keep the other safe.
Liz took a quick shower and got dressed before she went out to the main room of the suite. Red would already be there, she knew, and she would need to tell him. She just wasn't totally sure how.
“Good morning, Lizzie,” he said, looking up from the dining room table. “How did you sleep?”
“Not very well,” she answered. She was wearing a tank top that was fairly low-cut, in the hopes that he would see the part of her Mark that was visible. That, she hoped, would mean she had to speak less. If she had to tell him all of it, she was sure she would end up in tears.
And when she sat down across from him, she did in fact hear him take a sharp breath. “Lizzie. Forgive me for seeming improper, but I believe that writing there-” he pointed for a moment, “is new, isn't it?”
Nodding, Liz stared at the table. “Just since this morning.”
“I see. And what does it say?” His voice was soft.
Despite her efforts, her voice came out choked. “Romeo.”
“Oh, Lizzie,” he said, standing up and going around to her side of the table. He would know what that referenced immediately, of course. Her control was crumbling, and she allowed him to pull her into his arms. “I'm sorry,” he told her, again and again as she cried. When she finally got herself back under control, he sighed and held her for a moment longer. “Well. This is certainly not what we'd call good timing, is it?”
Liz scoffed, grabbing a napkin to wipe her face. “No, it really isn't.”
They both sat back down. Silently, Red poured a cup of coffee from the carafe on the table, and offered it to her. She nodded, and he pushed it closer.
After she had drunk most of the cup, he spoke again. “This is going to require a great deal of thought and planning, Lizzie. When this becomes more widely known, which it very likely will, our enemies won't hesitate to use it against you, and against Donald.”
“I know,” she said, and shivered. She had read enough horror stories, in her college classes and elsewhere, of what enforced separation could do to a pair. And the Cabal would be merciless.
“This means we must first find a way to bring your Soulmate somewhere further away from prying eyes, and then keep the two of you together from there.” Red smiled for a moment. “I don't imagine it will be hard to convince him of the benefits of this idea.”
Liz's own heart leaped at the thought. Then she frowned. “But … that means he'll have to be on the run, too.”
“It's not a perfect solution,” he acknowledged, “but it will give us the chance to keep you both alive and healthy. And besides, if it comes down to it, no legitimate court will prosecute you or Donald for anything you did to stay together. That, in turn, merely adds to our motivation to take down the Cabal.”
“So that we can make sure we don't have to worry about a court that's under their control,” Liz finished with a nod.
“Exactly.” Red looked her over, then, in obvious concern. “But first things first. We need to get your Soulmate to you, before either of you fall dangerously ill.”
Liz blinked. “But we do have some time there.” When he didn't reply, she cleared her throat and stared at her coffee cup. “We were just friends. Partners. We never...”
Red cocked an eyebrow and opened his mouth, clearly about to say something, but she glared at him, and he changed his mind. “In that case, yes, we do have some time – but still not more than a few weeks.”
“Yeah.” Liz took a deep breath. She hadn't really been looking for a chance to find a Soulmate, but here it was, anyway. And if she allowed herself to admit it, she was glad that it was Ressler. At least, she would be once they were together again.
~