Ressler Prompt #6, submitted by oswasawas on Tumblr. It's Audrey's memorial day. Does Ressler want to spend it alone? Will he talk about this to anyone? And what will happen?
The rain trickles inside Ressler's coat, seeping down his neck to slowly dampen his shirt, softening the crisp collar with its wet fingers. The rain isn't hard. Just that persistent light rain that eventually seeps its way into everything, given enough time and a little breeze. Including someone standing in it when they really should be some place drier. Perhaps it's fitting it's such a wet, bleak day, he considers, given the circumstances. Given the date.
Yet Ressler ignores the rain as he stands alone, hands shoved in coat pockets. And it's not so much to keep them dry or warm, but more perhaps a learned response to prevent him from striking out at something. In the distance a slow rumble of thunder reaches his ears as the wind picks up a little, scattering raindrops from the sodden rose bush nearby. The rose bush he'd asked the gardener's permission to plant here for her because Audrey had loved roses. And perhaps sensing the man in the pressed suit and military hair cut before him was not a green thumb, the gardener had obligingly planted it right then and there. This single bush will bring her flowers when he can't be here. The saturated bush bears no pink roses at this time of year, but when the weather warms and the season's green foliage transforms the barren cemetery again, her flowers will bloom.
Raising his eyes, he takes in the view. Visibility is hampered and gravestones and trees disappear in a shroud of mist a few hundred feet in all directions, effectively cocooning him in this spot beside her grave stone. The cemetery is deserted, save for himself and the dearly departed below his feet. She's been gone for two years today, yet when he pictures her smile, her eyes and her touch it's as if she's been gone forever. Or never existed. Perhaps a dream all along. But she HAD lived. She was real. She would have been his wife and the mother of his children but for fate delivering the cruelest of blows. His eyes focus on the scudding clouds above, with no break in them for any sunlight to shine through. Most definitely the right climate for today.
He drops his eyes to her gravestone again, looking at the etched words. Seeing yet not reading, because he's memorized every letter. Every number. Every inch of the marbled surface. He's long since ceased to tell her he's sorry. Because it doesn't matter that he's sorry. It doesn't change the fact that because of his livelihood her life ended. It is what it is. She is gone and he remains alone at her graveside. It's a cliché, standing in the rain mourning a lost love, but he makes no move to leave her side.
In previous visits he's spoken to her. Halting at first, then more at ease as he tells her where he's at. What he's been doing. And sometimes, how he feels. Today the words are not uttered, seemingly content to remain unspoken. Yet his mind is a whirl with visions of their past. Of the day they met. First date. Second date. First night she shared his bed. His proposal. Her acceptance. It's all so surreal, again it's hard to imagine that all happened. But one memory surfaces again and again over every other. Of her blood pouring over his hands as she bled out in his arms on a lonely, cold street. He shakes his head a little, spraying droplets of rain as he does so, as if to wipe the memory away.
She had deserved better. So much better. If he'd never met Reddington, he'd have been blissfully unaware of the criminal and the nuclear fallout that surrounds the man. He'd have married his sweetheart. Gone to the office each day, arrested a few perps here and there and returned home to his family each night, oblivious to the fact that Raymond Reddington even walked upon the earth. But that hadn't happened. He HAD met Reddington, and become the lead agent on the Reddington Task Force. At the time it had been an honor. A huge feather in his cap and he'd allowed himself a pat on the back at that achievement. And yet the very case that assured him of a treasured place in the Bureau slowly but surely pushed his lover away.
His eyes remain downcast to her gravestone, but it's not the cold marble he sees. It's Audrey's eyes. Those beautiful eyes radiating deep hurt, replacing what had once shone there. Those same eyes that had glistened and then flowed over with emotion as he'd proposed. And of course he'd done it right. Dinner, flowers, the ring and a beautiful night of love making into the small hours before falling asleep with her in his arms. He'd done it right, except for one thing. The Concierge of Crime and the task force he had been put in charge of.
And at first she'd been okay with it. Her pride in him was obvious, having attained a coveted position at such a young age. Life had been good. The poster boy Agent and his beautiful fiancé on his arm. But it was a fairy tale. It was Camelot. In all good fairy tales there are monsters, yet in the real world those monsters walk on two legs. And he had been sent out to hunt one. And not all of them stay out in the world. Slowly, they permeate the hidden safety of indoors and come between lovers who had thought they were inseparable. That nothing could tear them apart.
He'd allowed the job to come before her. Had permitted Raymond Reddington to infiltrate his life. How had it been so easy to let her slip away? To inch further from him at every phone call. Every lead on the criminal that culminated in a hurried run out the door and the promise to be home for dinner. Promises which were inevitably broken time and time again. It had been too easy to lead his task force and be apart from her once Reddington entered his life.
He swallows hard against the sudden lump in his throat. But it's not hurt for himself. It's what he put her through. What he had given so freely and then taken slowly until there was nothing left but a shell of their former relationship. Of arguments that replaced softly spoken words nuzzled into each other's ears. Of nights returning home to a silent, dark apartment; a cold dinner in the trash, and her pretending to be asleep on her side of the bed. Of phone calls that ended in hanging up on the other, invariably with him unable to tell her what he truly felt for her with his team behind him needing his presence. They had both needed his presence, Audrey and the task force. Yet Reddington had the bigger draw. Reddington won that fight.
Until he had returned home late one night around 1am. The apartment felt different from the moment he turned the key in the door. And he'd known, even before he saw the envelope on the coffee table what he was going to find. Or not find, more to the point. He'd gone straight to the bedroom to find the bed still made and unslept in. Empty. It had taken a while before he'd returned to the living room, sank into the couch and held the envelope for a good hour before finally opening it. Her note was simple, yet it said everything she had needed it to. He hadn't even needed to set eyes on it to know what she was going to say. Nor had he ever forgotten those twenty words.
Don,
I will always love you, but I just can't do this anymore. I can't be second place in your life.
A.
And if there had been any doubt at her words, of which of course, there weren't, the final clarification was the engagement ring in the envelope. His promise to love, honor and cherish had been returned to him in a small white note card that still carried the faint whiff of her perfume. Dropping the ring from the envelope onto his hand he'd sat and looked at the tiny gold circle and diamond until his fingers had wrapped around it, forming a fist against that which he'd tossed aside for the job. For the pursuit of Raymond Reddington.
A rumble of thunder overhead pulls him back to the present, and leaving the confines of his apartment and returned engagement rings, he draws his eyes upward to the stormy sky. His head drops as a single tear rolls from his eye, lost in the wet rain that saturates him from head to toe.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, having determined that some things still need apologizing for after all. "I can never tell you how sorry..." he tells her quietly, his voice barely audible. And if she hears, if she understands from the great beyond where he can never hold her again, there is no way for him to know. All he can do is stand in the rain and apologize for the hurt he brought into her life.
The wind picks up as the clouds darken overhead, threatening to unleash their wet payload onto the city. The hour is late and soon the trustee will be locking gates as the sun sets. With a sigh, he offers a further soft apology and goodbye, before his fingers caress the wet marble of her gravestone. With a final look at her name etched into the stone, Ressler then turns from her grave and starts his walk back to the hill to his car.
He pauses a quarter of the way down the hill at a small patch of pink flowers, bravely pushing their way up against all odds in a patch of weeds around one of the trees. The same tree, he realizes, that he'd stood under and watched her funeral from afar. Bending, he pulls two flowers from the ground, feeling them slide easily out of the wet earth, their roots intact. The fact that they are technically weeds means nothing as he holds them. Perhaps because they're like him, standing in the rain and rising their head up high against the odds. Retracing his steps, he bends again to place the two flowers on the ground at her gravestone, burying the roots to transplant them.
One for her, and one for their unborn child.
His mind doesn't go to his child often. Not every time he visits at least, and not today. Thoughts of his unborn child are hazy and not as defined as his memories of Audrey because there are no memories where his child is concerned. Only lost opportunities, ball games, ballet lessons, and what might have been. He may not have known his child, but he mourns the loss of the fatherhood he should have had.
"Bye sweetie," he whispers. "Bye baby girl," he adds, then begins his walk back down the hill as the heavens open above him. The rain soaks him, plastering his hair to his head. Unable to hold them back, his own tears break through, hidden safely behind the veil of water coursing down his face. And above him, he swears Heaven sobs with him. Making it to his car he doesn't open the door, preferring to stand in the rain. Because the rain is many things, and not only tears from heaven. It cleanses and washes away the dirt and grime of streets and roadways. And the sorrow and regret of a future lost. As his tears ease, still his cheeks are coursing with water in the cold downpour, as if trying in vain to wash away the pain.
Through the rain he spots car headlights slowing coming down the road of the cemetery. Time for the gates to be closed. Time for him to leave. With a press of the button on his car keys the car door unlocks. Pulling the door open he drops inside, tugging the door as gently closed as he can. To slam a door or utter a loud sound in the cemetery is almost sacrilege. Water runs from him, the wet rivulets seeping into his car seat and puddling around his shoes. He sits in the car, watching the headlights slowly approach. Leaning forward he turns the key in the ignition, does a U turn, and makes his way out of the cemetery onto the quiet road outside the gates.
And as quite often happens when he's spent a reflective few hours at her grave with what might have been, he's not ready to jump on the road to normal again. And in a practiced ritual he pulls into one of the parking spots outside the cemetery, shutting the engine off as the trustee, dressed in a dark blue rain coat, closes the gates for the night.
His mind is not yet done traipsing through the past. Knocking at the door of his subconscious, fedora in hand, Reddington won't leave his thoughts. He had lost Audrey because of the hunt for the man. Yet then the man had turned around and handed her right back to him in perhaps the single most confounding thing Reddington had ever done. Why had he done it? It's a thought that returns to him often. And each time he has no definitive answer. Only the certainty that Reddington had meant what he said. He understood love and loss, and the part of him that was still decent had sought to spare Ressler that pain. They share a bond, though he hates that term, like no other. Their history is complicated, to put it mildly. Few understand the complexities of Raymond Reddington and he doesn't count himself among that number. And yet, in the midst of the worst days of his life, Reddington has been there as a beacon in the dark.
Despite what had happened with Audrey, he cannot blame the criminal for it. He alone lost his fiancé. He alone allowed it to happen. It's easier to think that it was Reddington's fault, but that's just a cop out. A way of deflecting the truth. But there is no doubting that Reddington is a hard man to ignore. A difficult man to be around. Few would understand that. Audrey tried, she really did. And he'd always told her as much as he was permitted in an attempt to keep her in the loop. But she didn't live that life and only heard about it from him. She never met the man. Never endured the relentless frustration he was capable of causing.
His eyes raise up to the mirror, blue and a little bloodshot under his wet hair. He should get home. Streetlights flicker on around him, illuminating the streaks of rain in their yellow light. Sighing, he reverses out of the parking lot and carefully makes his way down the quiet streets. Perhaps the rain is keeping them off the roads. Perhaps the lure of the sports channel is too great on this late Saturday afternoon. But either way he's glad of the respite of fighting his way through traffic. But it's only after another ten minutes of driving that he realizes he's not going in the direction of his apartment. As if on a homing beacon of a different sort, he soon knows where he's heading on autopilot. And he's not sure why. He should just take the next turn off and head back to his dark apartment. But he doesn't.
He parks outside the apartment block a few miles from his own, sitting under a yellow streetlight. He makes no move to leave the vehicle once he shuts off the engine. He shouldn't really be here, yet his eyes drift up to her window. The window of the woman who knows all too well what Reddington is like. He doesn't need to explain it to Liz, because she does live it. She does understand how he gets under your skin, far better than he himself does. The curtain moves as he's looking at it and Liz is in the window, silhouetted against the light in her apartment. He can't be sure she sees him, yet still he involuntarily shrinks back into the seat. In a moment the curtain moves back into place, shutting off his view of her. He relaxes somewhat, decides it's not a good idea to talk to anyone today and should just get back to his apartment. And yet his hand does not turn the ignition, and slowly his eyes wander back up to her window, unsure if he wants the curtain to move aside again or not. Uncertain what he's doing here, now he leans forward to turn on the ignition.
The knock on his window startles him. And turning suddenly he sees her, getting as wet as he still is in the rain despite the hooded coat she has on. He can't have Liz standing out in the rain and as he motions to the passenger seat, she's already running to that side of the car. In a flurry of movement and rainfall, the door is flung open and she breathlessly flings herself in beside him with a gasp and meets his eyes.
"You're wet," they say in unison, then nod and look away momentarily.
She smiles, touches his hand for the briefest of moments and tilts her head to him, lowering her rain hood. "You stood in the rain all day," she says, and it's not a question. Nor does he reply. They both know he did. "At the cemetery," she adds. She knows what today is without him having mentioned it.
His eyes slide to her in appreciation.
"I knew you just needed some time, so I've been waiting," she adds, gauging his reaction.
Mouth open to ask her what she means, she beats him to it, but not before her hand covers his and this time does not lift from his.
"Because I know you, and had a feeling you would come here."
He finds his voice. "I didn't even know I'd come here," he tells her shaking his head and focusing on the rain pouring down the windshield.
"Call it woman's intuition," she smiles. "Honed to laser sharpness when pregnant," she chuckles, patting his hand under hers.
And suddenly all he can see is the image of a pregnant Audrey. Her swollen belly carrying his child. His flesh and blood. And his breath catches in his throat. He looks away, swallowing hard and wishing fervently the image would vacate his head. A hand is rubbing his arm, and he hears Liz behind him.
"I'm sorry. I wish you didn't have to feel this way."
So does he. Eyes remaining fixed on a point outside his driver's window, she waits for him, still rubbing his arm and holding his hand. An arm he does not move away from her. He sniffs, exhales and turns back to her. He doesn't need to tell her in words.
"It's a hard day, and I'm sorry, Ress," she offers. She pauses, then continues. "So I made you some dinner," she begins but he cuts her off.
"YOU made?" despite how he feels inside, that remark still conjures up images of burned pans, a kitchen in flames and an apron with World's Worst Cook on the front of it.
She smiles, meeting his eyes, "Let me rephrase that. I ORDERED in some dinner, and I've kept it warm. In case you-"
He falters, drawing his hand gently from under hers. "I should probably just-"
"Please." Her tone is soft, yet the intent behind the word is hard to ignore.
And he realizes he doesn't want to ignore her. He nods, manages a small smile and thanks her.
"I bet you haven't eaten all day," she says softly, and he's about to disagree when he saves himself the trouble. Of course he hasn't.
"Shall we?" she asks, eyeing the rain that shows no sign of letting up as her hand rests on the door handle.
With a nod together their respective car doors are opened, slammed and both of them jog through the rain puddles to the foyer of her apartment building. Shaking the rain off as best they can, they stand together in the empty hallway, turning to look at the deluge.
"Dinner awaits," she prods, and he turns, motioning to the elevator. "Lead the way," he tells her, following her as she shakes the water from her coat, dripping all over the tiled hallway. As they walk, the volume changes outside. They turn together to look through the double glass doors. The rain has suddenly stopped, and while the sun doesn't shine through the air is calmer, as a cascade of drips replace the steady downpour.
The thought comes through, despite his trying to push it down. Heaven is no longer crying.
They turn and step into the elevator, yet all he can see is Audrey's smile at their reunion in the hospital. The ease with which she had sat with him and her laughter as he'd motioned to his uneaten jello as a peace offering. And the words she had spoken when the conversation had turned from small talk to carefully tread on troubled pasts. 'I just want you to be happy, Don.'
He doesn't notice Liz looking right at him as he steps out of the elevator at her floor.
"Are you even listening?" she gently chides, to which he hesitates before giving her a small shrug and smile in reply.
Because he is listening, but not to her spoken words. But to a woman who loved him and wanted him to be happy, and to his heart that feels lighter than it has all day.