A/N: I know, I know. I'm rising up out of the ground like Mushu. Maybe if the Blacklist writers give us more well-written episodes like 3x19, I'll stick the hell around. Don't worry, though. This isn't going to be like "Fix These Eyes". There's really three parts. They've already been written.
Spoilers for most of season 3. Dislcaimed.
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1/3
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With great preciseness, she takes the wine glass from him.
He looks at her, startled, lines forming between his eyebrows and across his forehead. She wants to reach out and smooth them with her hand. She wants to do things she can't think through, cannot say out loud for fear some deity will hear, and she stands there like an idiot.
Watches his mouth part in question.
"Wait here one second," she dares say, and she doesn't know how she finds those words.
His mouth closes. Head tilts. Forehead smooths. Curious.
Her heart is pounding in her ears, cadence to the waves beating the ship, and she turns from him.
It's a surprise her muscles stand strong enough to hold the disaster of her blood and bones and flesh. It's a surprise she makes it back into the shipping container. Lizzie carefully places the breakables on the magnetic strip deigned to keep them from falling, from shattering. And for a moment, she closes her eyes.
Just a moment; like five beats of hummingbird wings. Lizzie turns on her heel.
He's still looking at the stars.
She's still looking at him.
Later, she won't know why she started moving so quickly.
There wasn't any need. He was less than twenty feet away. There wasn't logic factored into the rational, wasn't any rhyme or reason. He wasn't moving away from her. He was standing there, not expecting anything. He was standing there, looking up at the stars with his hands fallen at his sides.
A man. He's a man.
And she doesn't know why she wants him, but she does.
So she strides, legs lengthening. Tank top billowing in the wind, hair flying, and all be damned if she doesn't feel like Tinkerbell. This isn't her hair. This isn't her body. She didn't kill those people. She didn't do those horrible things. She doesn't even really know if she loves Red or not.
She just can't breathe at the thought of a needle in his arm.
There must be some difference.
He flinches at her close proximity, eyes widening a fraction of an inch before she throws her arms around his neck. Red stumbles— but she's not pushing him down. She's pulling him in.
It's rough and unpracticed in a way first kisses generally are. There's barely a height difference so there's not much adjustment, but he's startled, she thinks— he must be startled - so his hands stay relaxed at his side a moment too long. She's managed to make the infamous Raymond Reddington stop. Stop.
All this potential energy she's got her arms wrapped around, and he has such broad shoulders— and she'd never— and his mouth, his mouth is soft and trembling beneath her own—
His mouth is barely moving by his own accord.
He's barely moving on his own accord.
He's trembling in her arms, though. He's trembling.
The thought is like a rubber band breaking. Snapping. She realizes. She realizes.
He's shaking, and she pulls away from the crisp tang of wine and a hint of buttery pie crust to see his face in the open moonlight. The ship is still rocking them. Her hair all beaten by the wind: wild. Elizabeth Keen feels positively wild. She the animal; he her prey.
The sight of him is like a bucket of cold water over her head. His eyelids are clenched shut. He looks like he's in pain. He looks terrified. His hands balled into tense fists.
That beautiful mouth of his moistened by her mouth—and parted, lower lip wavering like a pierced child.
Lizzie goes white, in the darkness. Her stomach rolls.
It's an awful feeling, to know she has miscalculated so much.
He's not thinking the way she's thinking.
Or he's her father, or something awful. He—
He opens his eyes, and his eyes are glistening; and when her heart breaks it is a quiet thing.
Her arms automatically relax their hold. Her breath wheezes from her lips by the way the air has been pulled from her lungs. Horror in her heart. Horror.
"We can't," he speaks low and quiet, and so very furious. "We can't."
His gaze still looks suspiciously wet, and she tempts the devil because she's still a child that likes to play games, she's still a child to him. She feels so awful and small. He must think of her as a child. And her breath is only wheezing. And she wants to throw herself off the ship. She wants the wind to carry her away. She wants to die in the water, and she wants to sink to the bottom of the ocean.
She doesn't want to be found.
"I'm sorry," she croaks, everything shaking now. The wind was warmed before, humid from the ocean. Now everything is cold and smells too salty, nausea rocking her whole body. Sick. She feels sick.
And she steps away like a drunk man, eyes dripping and going waywardly to the night sky.
Such different stars, now. "I'm sorry," she gasps. "I thought you wanted—
It feels like she's dying. It feels like someone has died. And—
His arm shoots out to steady her, gripping vicelike to her forearm. It's clammy from how he's been clenching it. Sweaty. She shivers. He has such powerful hands. She wonders if he could kill someone from a single blow. She thinks he probably has, once.
"Elizabeth, this has nothing to do with what I want."
The words are odd to her. It's an odd statement.
He won't look at her. He sounds wrung out. Like every word is torture.
"You want me."
She doesn't know if it's a statement or a question. She doesn't know, but she says it anyway.
He sighs ruggedly, shaking his head in jutting, frustrated movements. His lips twist in what might classify as a broken version of a smile. Amused, in an ugly way.
Like she's silly, she thinks. Silly.
"You're my world, Lizzie. Every man wants the world."
He wipes his palms on his pants and readjusts his hold so that he can anchor her closer. So they stand, face to face. The wind still whipping, but quiet. Waiting. Hands that could kill brush up her arms, leaving goosebumps in their wake. Hands that could kill tuck her hair behind both ears. Cup her jaw.
His trembles no longer. Sure. He leans in and her eyes close when he kisses her brow.
Kisses her closed eyelid. Kisses her cheek.
Then, nothing.
She feels his breath puff against her face. "There's no shower, just a tub. I called for the preparations just as we arrived; the water should be hot. Let me run you a bath."
Before Lizzie can tell him no, he's gone.
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He thinks he probably should've stopped after the second bottle.
Dembe makes sure he doesn't asphyxiate. Cleans up the mess.
Tom called him sometime earlier to discuss the arrangements. It might've been yesterday, he realizes.
That might've been yesterday.
He knows how long it's been, though. He knows time. It's been three days, three hours— maybe ten minutes since—
Since.
Well. It's a memory.
Tom doesn't want the memory and Kate— Kate insisted it wasn't good for him. Not that anything is good for him, not that anything will ever be good for him in his lifetime, now. Wouldn't let him see—
Wouldn't let him. Told him no, told him Lizzie would want to be left alone, so he didn't go see her.
In hindsight, he doesn't understand why Kate would say such a hateful thing. But he can still taste vodka two days later, and Dembe won't stop his goddamn hovering, and Tom told him to leave. She'd only been alive a few hours, then. The child.
Saint Agnes. Beautiful. Pure. She was gurgling, and her mother was—
Lizzie. Elizabeth.
Lizzie wouldn't even let him see. He remembers her exhausted, gorgeous face twisted in disgust, because he ruins. He ruins, and that's her little girl. Tom told him to go.
So he left. He left.
He's going to stay away.
He should've stayed away in the first place, but he loved—
He loved—
Lizzie is at peace. She's finally free of him, and he told her he would kill her. He told her, once. She was naked and he was touching her bare shoulder blades and she was there. She was there. She was alive. She kissed him. She kissed him first.
Everything isn't making sense. His thoughts don't make sense. His thoughts hurt.
She's at peace. He can't ruin that.
He keeps thinking he has another chance. He keeps forgetting that Tom wants a closed casket, so he's really never going to see her face again. He's only got his memory, now. A memory.
Goddesses like Elizabeth should be carved into stone to worship. He loved.
He would've, he thinks. If God sat across from Raymond Reddington at a dinner table and told him he would give Lizzie in exchange for another—
Raymond Reddington would gladly kiss that barrel.
He has five days to straighten out. Tuesday.
They're going to put her in the ground on a Tuesday, and he fumbles around for his phone. There's this woman he knows, and she has the best opiates in the region. It'll straighten him out.
He's got five days.
He's not ever going to touch her face again.
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tbc