Disclaimer: I own nothing. The Blacklist and all its characters belong to NBC and Jon Bokenkamp. You can't sue me, I don't have any money. The song lyrics in italics come from the Gordon Lightfoot song If You Could Read My Mind (the song used at the end of the episode).
Authors note: Red's going over the deep end.
-/-/-/-/
He's only vaguely aware of the people moving about around him, settling in for the long flight.
He considers trying to sleep, but he knows it's no use, his mind is going like a freight train, his own exhausted brain won't let him rest. Not without the pills, anyway. He could take one, swallow it down with scotch and sleep for a few hours but they leave him groggy and confused and he can't have that, he can't risk it today.
Instead he lets it wash over him like a song playing over and over again.
Everything that happened that day is blurred, he only remembers snatches of it. He can remember the smell of her, the warmth, he remembers Kate telling him to go, warning him of the police. He remembers speaking with Tom. He doesn't remember much after that.
Finding out what Kate had orchestrated behind his back…
He remembers Kate sitting opposite him, explaining what they had done, how they had done it.
After that things move faster, slightly blurry again.
An empty nursery.
The bottle on the floor isn't cold yet, the blood still fresh.
A dead man's head in a bag.
The summer palace. Kate with that precious bundle in her arms.
The accident.
Her reluctance to tell him about Little Nikos.
Annie. He wasn't there, he couldn't even make it back in time for the funeral.
Kate walking bravely with him, knowing what was about to happen. She made no attempt to get away from him.
It only took one shot to knock her to the ground. She wasn't moving. So much blood and she looked so small and so very fragile…
He couldn't bear to shoot her a second time. He couldn't make his feet move closer to her, he couldn't check, make sure it was over. His heart couldn't take it…
O, Kate…
He meant it when he told her he would have named every other person on the planet before her. Kate, probably his oldest and dearest confidant. More than that, she was a friend. There were things about him that she knew, things he would never divulge to another soul. He trusted her with his life, with the lives of those closest to him, she knew so many secrets…
He left. He turned around and he walked away from her and perhaps that was the worst of it. He left her there alone in the clearing, left her there in that pristine, unspoilt place so that nature could take its course. An old woman, small and fragile, exposed and without any protection…
He remembers that day when he had been shot. The Director had sent out his henchmen, they were coming for him and his own people were outnumbered and outgunned, but Kate was perfectly willing to stay with him, to die to protect him.
That journey back to the car felt so much longer than it should have been. His heart was breaking and he could barely see through the tears in his eyes, but he could turn back either, what would be the point?
His heart was trapped in a vice grip and his mind wouldn't shut down and it was all too little, too late.
Kate was gone and nothing would ever bring her back.
When you reached the part where the heartaches come,
The hero would be me.
But heroes often fail,
And you won't read that book again
Because the ending's just too hard to take...