AN: In honor of 2x03's lovely dream sequence, I thought I'd try to finish up the first chapter of a fic inspired by a Lizzington dream I had a couple months ago, though my dream was a lot less, uh... exciting and a lot more angsty.
It was supposed to be a routine meeting. In and out. The targets weren't even particularly dangerous people, just average criminals with connections to bigger fish that were more to Red's taste. But if there was one thing Red had learned in life, one thing Liz was learning, it was that there was no such thing as an easy job. No, Murphy's law was alive and well. And fate, such as it was, had a sick, twisted sense of humor. The fact that it all began on a dark and stormy night was just icing on a cruelly ironic cake.
Liz never liked storms. Even when she was a little girl, she dreaded them; unfortunately, that dread was something she never managed to grow out of. She and Mr. Kaplan were safely ensconced in their latest hideaway, one of Red's cabins off the beaten path somewhere in New England. (Although, off the beaten path was a bit generous—it was in the middle of nowhere.) Liz had been ready to call it quaint until the pitch black rainclouds rolled in and ruined the mood. What had been a hot, sticky day—almost unbearably humid—transformed into a windy, chilly night in the blink of an eye.
Red and Dembe had been gone for hours, much longer than they should have been, by the time the power failed, so Liz's nerves were already frayed. There had been a sense of foreboding weighing down on her since they set out into the storm and losing power only made it worse.
The generator in the old cabin only covered the ground floor. Liz followed Mr. Kaplan around while the other woman set about lighting hurricane lamps and building a fire on the hearth of the big stone fireplace in the living room. It was embarrassing that she felt the need to do it, but Mr. Kaplan didn't seem to mind.
Once the fire could sustain itself, Mr. Kaplan rummaged around in Red's liquor cabinet, pouring two tumblers of his finest Scotch and pressing one of them into Liz's hand.
"I figure he owes us," she said with a shrug. She curled up against the arm of the well-worn sofa and wrapped a throw blanket around her shoulders, sipping her drink and soaking up the heat from the fire.
Liz envied Mr. Kaplan's calmness. She knew she wouldn't be able to relax until Red and Dembe returned, or at least until the storm passed. She didn't want to disturb the woman by pacing on the squeaky floorboards; she wandered over to the window and squinted through the rain-streaked glass into the stormy darkness beyond.
Suddenly, in the distance, she could just begin to make out what looked like a pair of headlights. The tightness in her chest eased as they came closer and she recognized Red's car.
The garage door creaked and groaned as it opened, gravel crunched under the car's tires, and somewhere under the roaring wind and the booming thunder, Liz swore she could hear a baby crying. She and Mr. Kaplan rushed to the kitchen to find out what had kept them.
Liz's ears weren't, as she thought at first, playing tricks on her. Dembe stalked through the kitchen door first, obviously agitated. "He insisted on bringing her here."
Red walked in holding a tiny, wailing baby tucked close to his chest.
"Good Lord. Why can't it ever just be a puppy that follows you home?" Mr. Kaplan shook her head and held out her arms. "Come on, dearie. Give her to me and go get yourself cleaned up."
"It's not my blood," Red said, his voice hollow, almost robotic. He didn't move to hand the baby over; Mr. Kaplan had to coax him to let go of her.
"Still needs cleaning," she said, matter-of-fact, as she cradled the baby to her chest.
Red nodded and trudged up the stairs to his bedroom on autopilot. Anxiety spurred Liz to follow him, along with an all-encompassing gnawing in the pit of her stomach that told her he shouldn't be alone.
He didn't close his door completely, which was a bad sign in and of itself. She pushed it open the rest of the way to find him standing in the middle of the room staring off into the distance, looking lost, backlit only by the flashes of lightning coming in through the windows. Red's trench coat dripped onto the carpet, staining it pink with tiny droplets of blood diluted by rain. He had started shaking, a subtle tremble against the chill of his soaked clothing. Liz needed to get him dry and warm and relatively clean, and she needed to do it quickly.
"Do you have a lighter? Or matches?" He didn't answer. "Red?" She touched his forearm to get his attention and he flinched.
"What?"
"I need something to light the candles."
"Oh. Right." He dug around in an inner pocket of his coat and held a small metal lighter out to her. "Here."
The lighter had certainly seen better days, but it still lit on the first click and soon the room flickered with a warm glow in stark contrast to the crisp tension in the air.
She left the lighter on the dresser and steeled herself before reaching for the buttons on his coat. He did nothing to stop her.
His trench coat she tossed into the tub, his suit coat and vest were likely ruined by the blood that had seeped into them, but they weren't nearly as wet; she removed them anyway. Checking his dress shirt and trousers with a few discreet pats, she determined they could stay for the time being, saving them both the awkwardness of her stripping him down to his underthings. Not that he would have argued in the state he was in, or even noticed, really. He let her take off what she already had much too placidly than she would have liked.
While she gathered a washcloth and the old wash bowl from the dresser and filled it with warm, sudsy water, he wandered over to perch at the edge of the bed. She knelt before him and began to gently rinse the caked blood from the short hairs at his temples as he stared, unblinking, at nothing at all. She continued until his face was nearly clean, when suddenly, one of his hands shot out and grabbed her arm. She met his eyes in her surprise and found them wide and almost scared, pupils large in the limited light. His trance had broken and in its place she found only horror.
"They're dead," he said desperately. "They're all dead." He looked stricken, and his grip was just a bit too tight. "I couldn't save them. I tried, but… it was too late. There was so much blood."
She didn't bother to ask who he meant, just pried her arm free and took his hand in hers instead. Her other hand went to cradle his head, fingers rubbing soothingly at the nape of his neck.
"You saved the little girl," she said. "You saved her. That's what matters."
His face crumpled at her words; he folded in on himself, curling into the fetal position, his damp head on the pillows. A painful, keening noise escaped him.
She had never seen him like this. Hell, she had never needed to comfort a grown man who was crying inconsolably before. Her dad shed tears here and there, at her graduation and her wedding and sometimes during a sad movie, but never like this. This was unlike anything she'd ever experienced, outside of her own bouts of despair.
Not knowing what else to do, she crawled onto the bed and wrapped her arms around him, coaxing him to turn over and face her, her own eyes stinging with the beginning of sympathetic tears. She held him as he cried himself hoarse, as he lost his breath and his voice and clung to her like she was the only thing keeping him tethered to solid ground. The storm raged outside with an intensity she hoped drowned out his anguish; the only reason she was privy to it was because she'd forced her way into his room and he deserved some privacy, at least.
The candles on the dresser sputtered and died before his sobs finally began to subside. She tugged a couple blankets free from their feet at the foot of the bed and spread them over Red and herself. She rubbed at his back as he drifted off to sleep, his breathing even save for the occasional hitch. She pressed a kiss to the crown of his head and finally allowed herself to sleep as well.
Morning would come soon enough, and with it calmer skies. If they were all lucky, it would bring calmer hearts as well.