Her head on his shoulder anchors him, but it also distracts.
Here, at the culmination of months, years of work, a good and concrete step taken against the Cabal, he should be happy, or at least relieved, fired up to keep moving. Instead, he's plunged into his worst-case scenario, on the run, her life in shambles behind them. He still has plans — he's Raymond Reddington, he's got backup plans, backups for his backups, all the way to infinity. But he needs to stay on top of things, in charge, alert and responsive.
Instead, with her nestled beside him, sleeping with her head on his shoulder, weighed down by his failures, he can't focus, can't think straight. He just sits, breathes her in, to calm himself.
But she's been through it, and then some, in the last couple of days. She's not herself, not fragrant with the scent he knows almost better than his own. Instead, she gives off the stale smells of sweat and fear, of gunpowder and smoke; there's a faint taste of blood lingering in the scrapes and cuts he saw on her neck; and under it all, wound around her like a snake, salt and seawater and sex.
It angers him unreasonably to think of them together — isn't she entitled to whatever comfort she can find, in all this mess, in the destruction of her life? But how could she, how could she trust that… trust him with her body, her self, after everything he's done to her? Why does she believe the face he is showing her now, when all the others he has shown have proven false?
Snap out of it, he tells himself sternly, it's none of your business, it's not important, not now. They'll be at the airstrip any minute. But he wishes, just for one more moment, for the right to be angry, to take her to task, to replace that insidious scent with his own.
A warm hand on her face and a warmer voice in her ear ease her into semi-wakefulness.
"We're moving to the jet now, sweetheart, it's not far. Then you can lie down and really sleep."
She murmurs assent — she'll do whatever that voice tells her to, she thinks dizzily. The voice was right about everything all along, so it must be right now. Her eyes don't even really open; she clings to the arm next to her, and lets it guide her across the pavement, up a short flight of steps, to what might be a couch — it's something she can sit on, anyway.
The warmth beside her moves away; she doesn't like that, so she whimpers a little, reaches out. A hand takes hers immediately, squeezes it.
"I need to speak to the pilot; it will be very brief and then I'll be right back," the voice assures her. "You're safe here."
She sighs, lets the hand go, curls into the corner of her seat. Part of her wonders vaguely why everything feels so strange, misty and detached, but the rest of her just shuts down and goes back to sleep.
Less than five minutes gone and he's back in the cabin — her silent acquiescence, coupled with her edgy need have him worried. It's not like her to have no questions at all, to demand nothing; not like her to seek his touch or want him close. He's concerned about shock, about what damage the shooting, coupled with the onslaught of memory have wrought.
He finds her where he left her, curled up like a child, asleep again — rest, he thinks, can only help her. He goes to a compartment for a blanket; tucks it around her. There will be time, he thinks, dropping into the opposite end of the couch in exhaustion, time to try and work things out before they'll need to move again.
His last conscious thought is that he would kill for a hot shower.