Title: that which consumes
Rating: T (slight innuendo)
Summary: And now, all that occupies her thoughts in her waking hours, all that plagues her in the time dedicated for slumber, is him. For badwolfgirlandheroncomingstorm for The Blacklist Secret Santa on Tumblr.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Just using them for fun
AN: I'm so sorry this took so long. I hope you like it.
I.
Six months have passed since Red was forced to run, fleeing from her life just as quickly as he'd invaded it.
The silence is unbearable. Sharp and pervasive and bitter on her tongue.
Everything has morphed into colourless haze.
Her alarm in the morning is a dull chime, Hudson's barking is distant, Tom's voice is a blur. Her days at the Post Office are a mirror of the last, where she'll spend hours poring through what is ultimately useless information, futilely hoping that it would result in a lead. The personnel have been cut down significantly; more leave when the search continues to prove fruitless.
Liz hasn't heard from Red since that phone call, when he'd issued both a promise and a warning. She knows it's for his safety (and her own), but there is a niggling faction of her she can't yet rationalize away that claws at the pit of her stomach; that she may need him.
Here. With her. To guide her. To give her answers, whether it be enshrouded in riddles or just the plain and simple truth.
For months, her life had been nothing but Raymond Reddington. Speaking to him, speaking about him, wondering what is was about her he found so fascinating. He'd poked and prodded at her defences, shattered the foundations of her marriage and forced her to re-think everything she knew.
He'd been equal parts intrusive and protective.
But he'd always operated under the notion (regardless of it being misguided or not) that all he did was for her best interests.
At first, he'd made her greatly uncomfortable by the intensity of his attention, proven already by their very first meeting where he'd admitted - without hesitation and in front of her colleagues no less - that he found her special. His eyes - whenever trained on her - were piercing yet somehow soft, but always knowing, as if they held the answers to everything she did and didn't want to know.
He'd been brutally efficient whenever he conducted business, more than willing to make the sacrifices required, but if she was in danger, if it meant her life, the tenacity he displayed in his dealings would then be swiftly directed towards ensuring her safety.
He'd proved it with Wujing, in that bunker where she had been certain she was a moment away from being shot. Red had stepped in front her, shielded her, remorselessly killed a man to save her. At that point in time, Liz hadn't thought more of it, brushed it away as Red attempting to gain her trust (for whatever reason) and nothing more than a ploy to bring her on side.
He'd proved it again with the Stewmaker. Liz had thought and called him a monster, even after he'd saved her life. A flash of hurt skittered across his face, but it had then been quickly replaced by the resoluteness he exuded whenever he felt that the ends justified the means, whenever he genuinely believed that there wasn't anything he wouldn't do to protect her.
Liz had pushed him away in an attempt to maintain a respectable distance for reasons she was rapidly forgetting.
She'd only believed him when it was too late.
When she saw him bound and lead away by a man who promised to torture him to within an inch of his life, it was only then that it dawned on her: the lengths Red would go to ensure her safety.
It was as she watched them remove his DARPA chip in a high-speed moving vehicle, as his eyes fluttered shut when they were usually so observant and sharp, as he gave her a name and location that had at first meant nothing to her (and is Red anything but wasteful), it was as he lay bleeding, half-conscious.
Even then, he still thought of her.
And now, all that occupies her thoughts in her waking hours, all that plagues her in the time dedicated for slumber, is him.
How he'd been kind in an alarmingly upfront sort of way, contrasted with her husband's kindness that was now tainted by mistrust and lies. How he'd steered her towards the answers to a case instead of immediately believing that she knew them. How he had done everything in his power (and more) to keep her safe.
She thinks of how she may have approached things differently, how she may have treated him with less disdain.
All the buts, what-ifs, maybes.
All the possibilities, the potential.
All the things she'd said and done that she can't take back.
Liz wallows in an emotion she can only label as guilt.
That she'd lost something she never truly realized she had until now.
That she may never get it back.
She doesn't quite have the strength to combat how she now feels towards Raymond Reddington.
Gone is the need to keep him away, the need to keep him at arm's length, replaced – quite simply – with pure need.
To guide her, to protect her, to give her the answers to questions she has been too afraid to ask. She needs to know what it would be like to finally close that bridge between them, to inhale the scent of his cologne, to memorize the taste of his lips.
Wanting him is not the reason she feels guilty.
It's not taking advantage sooner, it's the possibility that she may never have the chance to know.
So if – on the rare occasions – Tom is able to convince her to have sex and she replaces Tom's face with Red's, she has no regrets.
If she imagines Red moving atop her, his face buried in her neck as he utters her name (the one only he calls her), his weight above her, heavy and comforting, she does not feel apologetic.
It's the closest she can be to Red.
And for that she will feel no shame.
Not anymore.
Not after she'd tried to so hard to remain professional and he was the only truly honest person in her life. Not after he'd proven time and time again that he was the only person could really trust.
With him gone, she feels as if she's floating adrift with no anchor. Nothing to keep her from being swept away.
Tom is still there, but barely.
His initial dogged insistence that they move, that she leave her job to start anew has now faded to a perfunctory demand here and there, to which she will quickly respond with an emphatic 'No.'
They'd argued at first, heatedly, but with her long, drawn-out days she no longer has the strength to fight.
So she ignores him.
Eventually, he suggests separation.
She promptly agrees and he moves out by the end of the week.
The silence is now deafening.
Liz still thinks of Red.
II.
Liz is having coffee one morning. It's a weekend and Tom has long since left. She feels her skin prickle, her senses telling her that someone is watching her.
From behind her she can see someone's shadow.
She quickly reaches for her gun at her hip, but a hand swiftly blocks her, the shadow now stepping into her peripheral vision.
Dembe.
Her arms fall limp on her lap, her mouth gaping as he takes a seat on the chair opposite her.
He stares for a moment, gauging her before he speaks, "I'm sorry. I did not mean to startle you."
Liz tries to control her breathing, erratic and pulsing in her ears, "It's OK." Her eyes dart around before returning to him. "Why are you here?"
A beat, "I don't have much time." He pauses another moment. "You are being watched."
Liz frowns, "By who?"
"Your people."
She tries to swallow the ball now lodged in her throat, "My people?" Her gaze turns downward. "They think Red will come to me."
"He would if you asked."
She can feel her hands trembling. She balls them into fists, clenches her jaw, "Is he safe?"
"For now."
Dembe looks away and then stands, "I must go."
She takes hold of his wrist, looking up at him, not sure how to phrase what she wants to say, but then she'll realize that Dembe won't judge her for whatever she now feels for Red.
Liz closes her eyes for a moment, then asks him softly, "Can I speak to him?" Dembe hesitates. She squeezes his wrist gently. "Please."
Dembe then reaches into a pocket in his coat, gives her a card, "Be there at that time."
"Thank you."
III.
It's late and she's taken all the precautions to ensure that she hasn't been followed. She then sees headlights flicker to her left, can just make out the shape of Dembe's body.
She gets into the car, where Dembe then passes her a satellite phone, "I'm sorry, but you cannot be long."
She nods, grateful, "I won't be."
Liz then clutches the phone to her ear, waits for it.
"Lizzie."
At the sound of his voice (familiar and deep) she lets out a long breath, one that she's probably held since he left, and in the softest tone she's ever heard herself speak, Liz utters the words that will spell a new course in their paths, "I need you."
When she returns home the next day, Liz finds him sitting on her couch as if he belongs there.
He smiles.
And everything shifts.
All the anxiety, the unease, everything that has led to sleepless nights and hollow days are washed away.
The silence is no longer.
FIN