Father and Son by Daft Punk
1. Hello
He's not the same man he was four years ago. Wrinkles have creased the sides of his eyes. The bags under them are more pronounced than ever. He's thinner. It hurts his knees to stand sometimes. The astute Red Reddington is naught but an old man now.
Sitting in the warm sun on the terrace of his French villa helps the pain. But it doesn't fill the hole in his heart that's torn open since her death. The one chance he had at redemption; gone because of one miscalculation on his part.
He prefers to be alone these days. It's better that way, for him, and for everyone else. Everywhere he goes, death follows. Her absence is evidence of that. His wife and daughters deaths prove the point even further.
Roses no longer smell sweet. Whiskey doesn't burn memories away. The wine doesn't chase the smell of her perfume away. Where once the ocean and the horizon held a refuge for him on a sail boat all alone...in the center of the world, there is now a deep void. The glittering stars no longer shed some hopes of light amongst the darkness out in the country away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Books no longer hold good company for him. Not without her there to laugh over some amusing line he's read to her.
God he misses her. He misses the feel of her smooth, slender hand against his own large one. Her soft lips against his. Her lavender scented hair. The feel of her body molded against his own first thing in the morning.
He wakes up each morning pressing his chest against softness. When he realizes that it's not her body that he's holding against him, but rather a pillow, he feels his heart shatter. At night he roars at the moon, cursing whatever cruel God lays above it. He just wants it all to end.
He'd been close to achieving a little grace when she had told him they were expecting a little boy. Joy had consumed every fiber of his being that day.
Now he wallows in bitterness. This is the new Raymond Reddington. Red Reddington, The Concierge of Crime is no more. Now in his place, there is only Raymond the Carless. Red Reddington the Ghost.
He doesn't notice the absence of singing birds that morning. Nor the movement amongst the willow trees out in the garden of the villa.
He simply sits on the chair in front of his breakfast, donning his pale straw fedora, the one she liked seeing him in, and his glasses, unflinching and unmoving, waiting like he has each day for the past four years. What he's yearned so desperately for.
The crack of the gun resonates across the land escaping into the hills beside the estate. It takes him a moment to realize that it's finally happened. Red stains his beige waist coat and white shirt. A smile tugs at his lips.
"Hello, Lizzie." He whispers.
A/N: Let me know what you think!