Elizabeth Keen crumbles before she even knows she is hurt.
It begins in a seemingly deserted house in the middle of a forest. The room Keen is in smells deceptively like the natural freshness of wood, but the acidness which lies beneath is entrenched deeply into her senses.
Keen has her back to the situation at hand; however this does not prevent her from being aware of what is occurring. The sedative injected in her veins only makes her more aware, especially the dark edge in Reddington's voice as he recounts an allegory that appears to allude to himself.
She momentarily forgets she cannot save the stewmaker's imminent fate by appealing to Reddington's sense of justice, for he has no such faith in the legal system. It is not that Keen wants salvage the stewmaker's life. She simply does not want to witness Reddington's transformation into a nefarious criminal, which had so soon before been disguised by his paternal nature towards her.
Nonetheless, despite Keen's wishes, she hears the sharpening of Reddington's words into cutting blades. The disposal of Stanley Cornish is swift — a swish of wind indicates his harsh fall and the bubbling tells her that he will be ironically vaporised like the victims who preceded him.
Keen says nothing, for there is nothing to be said, nothing that can be said. Instead, her face distorts with the anguish her body is numb to as she hears the dwindling of Cornish's life, evaporating into the air she is inhaling. Reddington walks somewhere in front of her, his head motioning downwards to inspect her. She looks past him.
The FBI break through the door a few seconds later, but Keen hears none of the shouts which echo from muted mouths. She continues to stare forward, her mind being induced into a hazy state. She remotely hears Reddington murmuring something along the lines of her requiring medical assistance, to which she is too tired to contest.
A hesitant hand graces her cheek, the warmth of the touch contrasting starkly against her icy skin. Keen searches for the source of the contact, only to find the person she least expected, her colleague Donald Ressler. His face is etched with uncharacteristic concern, the wrinkles in his forehead creasing as he speaks to her.
Ressler's pearly blue eyes are so fixated on her that Keen feels obliged to reciprocate the focus. She struggles against the vapidness of her being, the words of support Ressler offers slowly hauling her back to reality. Her glazed sight clears and she imagines she would've felt grateful if she could have felt anything in that moment.
A robe curtains around her shoulders and Ressler helps her to her feet. Her limbs feel like disjointed parts of her body, unconnected like a jangled skeleton. Ressler draws her from the toxic environment into the open and Keen is glad because the house was unnervingly claustrophobic, making her feel exposed and vulnerable.
Nevertheless, with the separation from the house comes the rush of reality. At first, it happens slowly as she walks in front of Ressler, the melancholy curling into the crevices of her disintegrating defense. Then, it happens all at once, the sobs clogging her throat and it takes her a while to recognise the cry which has escaped is her own.
She falls unceremoniously, unlike the composed agent Keen promised she would be and the hold on her elbows mobilises immediately. Keen finds herself being manoeuvred awkwardly into Ressler's chest, but for the moment she is desperate for any sort of solace, so she grips Ressler's suited back and forgets about any of the ramifications.
She forgets she is crumbling in front of her sternest colleague who would no doubt usually disapprove such displays of emotion. All Keen can recognise is the nausea which rises in her system, the events which had just occurred fully coming to comprehension.
Amongst the despair, Keen feels Ressler's arms tighten around her as she rests her head onto his shoulder, the side of her head implanted against his cheek. Although she had expected withdrawal, she is instead given the clenching of Ressler's hands into her robe, mirroring the manner upon which she is holding onto him.
Ressler's words of comfort begin again and Keen doesn't miss how his voice sounds a little more strained this time around, as if he is bothered by her pain. Strangely this comforts her, the illusions dispelling as she realises somebody she thought was unreachable is near.
They stand there for many seconds, maybe even minutes, until Keen's grieving quietens and her steely resolve returns. She steps away from Ressler as he retracts his hands to land rigidly on his sides, still caged in fists. Keen exhales and for the first time in hours, she feels like herself.
"Thank you," Keen says following a long silence. Ressler looks at her, his face all lines and angles and his eyes scrutinising as always. To her surprise, his expression softens, even if she still sees the solidity which lingers.
Ressler shrugs, his suit shifting over his shoulders with the movement. "It's alright," he replies and his lips curve into a slight smile. It's a small thing, pinned to the edge of his lips, but it is there and for some reason or another, it provides Keen with reassurance.
After a few moments, Ressler steps towards her, his arm wrapping around her shoulders as he guides her to the emergency van. Keen is hypersensitive to the arm around her, every flex in his bicep subconsciously noted. Her legs are wobbly as she steps up to the back of the emergency van, despite the sedative having worn off by now.
Ressler is unreadable as he meets her gaze. Perhaps she is being a little too prying now, trying to decode the cryptic face he holds in front of himself, almost unassailable. But when Keen catches Reddington standing in the distance behind Ressler, she decides the juxtaposition is discernible enough.
In a moment of absurd consideration, Keen assesses that Ressler and Reddington are two diverse individuals. She doesn't know what prompts her to profile them so clinically — it is probably the events that have occurred, contrasting Reddington as a crafty, duplicitous genius whereas Ressler is comparably simpler, bearing a superiority complex that, when shredded, reveals a more affectionate shell.
A dark knight and a white knight, Keen allows, although she knows things are never that simple. Ressler and Reddington are also one of the same, sharing a base similarity: they are driven by some inner fuel that she has yet to decipher the source of.
Yet when Reddington replaces Ressler's position in front of her, an aristocratic smile on his face neither smug nor consoling, she begins to miss the stability Ressler's presence brings.