Disclaimer: Not mine.
Chapter 1: Undercover
"Hello sweetheart. How is your day?"
"Hi Red." Liz tiredly flopped down on her bed and turned the TV down. Her apartment was small but homey, and she actually liked it a great deal. It reminded her of her time at university – she had lived in similarly cramped conditions, sharing with two other people. Here she was thankfully alone. "Don't even ask."
"Is something wrong, Lizzie?" Red sounded worried and she sighed and shook her head. He was always worried.
"Not really, everything is going according to our plan, but there's this guy who keeps coming back, asking questions. He could blow my fake cover and then they would kick me out of the department, blowing my real cover. It's… stressful."
"Who is the man and what does he want, Lizzie? Is it possible that he is one of theirs?" Red's voice sounded grave – agitated even. A lot depended on her mission here, and they could not take any chances.
"I'm certain that he is not. You remember the brawl I told you about?"
"The one in which that pesky little politician got his face smashed? Yes, it made my day."
"Well, it's his lawyer and he wants me to testify. He's really persistent, not to mention that he is an annoying ass."
There was a brief silence on the other end of the line and Liz started to fall asleep; she was tired and she slept only during the mornings. She worked all night as a bartender and spent her afternoons at a gym keeping in shape or exploring the city. This was the longest, most exhausting and boring undercover job she had ever had to go through. Why was it always Ressler who got the good ones full of shooting and fistfights?
"I'll take care of it." Red hummed. "You can't be compromised, I can't stress enough how crucial it is to get this done, Lizzie, and we can't have him snooping around. This lawyer, does he have a name? There are lots of them in Boston, but I doubt that his name is Mr. Ass."
"You won't maim him or destroy his career, right?" She closed her eyes, the face of that infuriating man appearing in her mind. He oozed smug – but she supposed that he had a good reason for it. He was well dressed, sleek, and charismatic and dear God, he liked to listen to himself. He actually reminded her of a certain international criminal she knew.
"Of course not, unless that's what you want…?"
"He's just doing what he's paid for." The world was much more interesting with these kinds of people around; that was the reason why she was unwilling to tell Red his name.
"I'm not saying otherwise. I will ask Denny – your remember Uncle Denny, don't you? – to handle it."
"Oh, no! No, no, no, not Denny Crane, no! That man scars people for life!" She was fond of her honorable uncle, he was brilliant, but he was too much to handle for people who were sane or uninvolved in the world of international crime.
"Or I suppose that I can fly to Boston myself…"
Liz groaned and closed her eyes. The last thing they needed was Raymond Reddington in Boston. "Ok, Dad, don't come to Boston, please. His name is Alan Shore. Are you happy, now?"
"Happy? Of course I'm not happy, Lizzie. I've just offered to visit you and you rather than saying 'Yes, Daddy, I'd love to see you' gave me a name of an innocent man who was just doing his job. What do you know? I can have him tortured for annoying you."
"Not funny, Red." Liz gave a long yawn and nestled down in the pile of blankets. The idea of a chat between her father and that lawyer was amusing, though. Red would either like him or shoot him, but the latter was more probable – two roosters and all that.
"On the contrary, I find that extremely amusing. Are you falling asleep on me, Lizzie? I'm hurt. I must have done some horrible mistake in your upbringing if this is how you repay me."
"Sam brought me up." She yawned again and smiled softly when her father scoffed on the other end. She knew that he was smiling, though. "I just don't want you to take unnecessary risks. We are not supposed to be in touch at all, you know?"
"I know, sweetheart, and I know that this situation is mostly my own fault. I shouldn't have put you in that position. I should have… Yes, Dembe?"
She heard a muffled conversation through the speaker and then Red said, "I need to go. Sweet dreams, Lizzie. I miss you."
"I miss you too, Daddy." Liz sighed and tightly closed her eyes when the call ended. Being the only living relative of the Concierge of Crime came with a price; they were apart most of her childhood and almost all of her adulthood. When they had started to work together for the FBI, they had had to keep their distance to protect their little secret and Liz missed him fiercely through all those years.
Ok, this is the longest A/N I've ever written. I'm going to tell you a story. I was visiting my mother this weekend and she likes to have the TV on in the background while we talk. Yesterday, she had on this TV show centering on a bunch of lawyers and I wasn't paying much attention to it, but one of them seemed really familiar – so I watched it for a few minutes and then the character said something sarcastic and got punched. In that moment I started laughing.
Why? You can guess why. The TV show was The Practice and the character was Alan Shore. When I got home, I googled it and watched a few clips on youtube (Boston Legal, too), and I guess that that's it, that's how this little fanfiction initially came to be. I just wanted to have Alan Shore and Red Reddington in the same story.
The biggest problem was who would get Lizzie (since I don't really know any other characters from Boston Legal, I don't feel comfortable writing one of the girls there) and I eventually decided to go for Alan/Liz. Hopefully you will enjoy the story as much as I enjoyed writing the first chapter…
Comments, ideas? Should I dodge flying stones and go back to writing Red/Lizzie? Or are you with me?
