By the way...I own nothing!
Someone needs to smack me and remind me to put a disclaimer!
That damn file was beginning to be a thorn in Elizabeth Keen's side. She had read it cover to cover, knowing that it just held a fraction of the life of the man who now dominated hers.
She knew the story all too well. Raymond Reddington started out as your run of the mill good guy, working his way up the ranks in the U.S. Navy, raising his family in a modest home in Baltimore. It had all turned to shit, though, and as much as Elizabeth studied that file, she still could not say why.
It made no sense. Nothing in Red's life made sense. He was dangerous, for sure, but he was also...protective. Nothing would ever happen to her as long as Red was around. Didn't it stand to reason that he would be the same way toward his family? Wouldn't he have moved mountains to keep them safe? There was a look that came over his face whenever she felt brave enough to mention his wife and daughter, full of regret and sorrow. It never failed to cause a swell of guilt to rise in Elizabeth, and she found herself referencing them less and less.
As small as the file was, and as little as it told her, Elizabeth couldn't help but feel that the truth was right at her fingertips. If she could only learn to read between the lines...
"There's nothing in that file that's going to help you, Lizzie."
Elizabeth jerked her head up to see Red standing at the doorway of her office, gazing at the scene before him in amusement. His coat and hat were hung up on the hook on the wall. How long had he been in her office?
Leaving the file open on her desk, Elizabeth leaned back in her chair and did her best to look non-plussed. It wasn't an easy task. "And what do you think I need help with?"
Red grinned. "Me, of course."
"Of course," Elizabeth sighed. "Everything just has to be about you."
She had no idea why it bothered her so bad. Red's selfishness should be something she was used to. There was nothing he could say that would convince her that his motives for keeping her safe weren't at least ninety percent for his own benefit.
"Why are you here?" Elizabeth questioned, only half interested in the answer.
As if he were about to reveal the most important information anyone could ever hear, Red turned and closed the door, making sure that the only noise was a quiet click. Elizabeth leaned in, immediately drawn in by his secretive behavior, but was taken aback when she registered the furrow of his brow and the almost imperceptible worry of his cheek.
He didn't have an answer.
"I'm here to bring you a case."
Liar.
Elizabeth crossed her arms over her chest and nodded her head, gesturing for him to continue. He stared at her for a moment, obviously thrown by something.
Oh. Yeah. It was her turn.
"So..." Elizabeth trailed off, giving him time to think something up...giving him time to make up a lie especially for her. "What is it?"
Red shrugged, his distracted expression replaced with his usual passive expression. "It's nothing that can't wait. You're obviously very busy doing something very pointless. I can come back tomorrow."
How infuriating was this man? Elizabeth rose from her chair and tried to push past Red to get out of the door, but when he refused to move she resigned herself to staring out of the window instead. Anything to keep from having to look at him.
From where Elizabeth stood, it looked like a lazy day at the office. Paperwork overflowed the desks and people were in no hurry to really get started on it. She stood there for the longest time, watching her coworkers before it dawned on her that it was all wrong. No one was looking back at her. Raymond Reddington had been in her office for over ten minutes and nobody was interested. A couple of months ago all eyes would be glued to her door and FBI agents would be running around the huge space, preparing as much as they could for whatever crumbs he would toss their way. Now they barely acknowledged him.
When had they let their guard down? When had it become such an insignificant thing for this dangerous criminal to just walk into an FBI blacksite whenever it suited him? How had they not noticed him manipulating them into accepting his presence?
How had SHE not noticed? And how had she not noticed him move to her desk to dig through his file?
"I thought you said there was nothing good in that file," Elizabeth said calmly, leaning back against the window pane.
Red didn't bother to look up from the file, not caring that Elizabeth had caught him red-handed. "There isn't." Elizabeth tried not to lose her cool as he shifted documents around, laying photos out and then shifting their patterns as if it meant something. When he finally looked up at her, he gave her a small smile. "I guess I just wanted to know what I looked like through your eyes, given that everything you think you know about me comes from this file."
"And how are you looking so far?"
"So far? Like a complete bastard, and I hold out no hope for it getting any better, so I'm going to stop reading now." Red pushed the documents and photos together in a pile and shoved them back into the file.
Elizabeth watched him intently as he moved from around her desk and gathered his things in his hands. Something was bothering him. Something had been bothering him from the moment he walked into her office. Elizabeth's ego wasn't so big that she could assume that she knew everything about Red, but they had spent enough time together for her to know when things weren't right.
Pausing by the door, Red reached out to push Elizabeth's hair behind her ear, a movement with so much meaning behind it that it left her speechless. What was he trying to tell her?
"You seem stressed, Lizzie. Maybe you should go home and get some rest. You're going to need it for our next little adventure," Red said in a voice so low it was almost a whisper. Elizabeth nodded once, and then he was gone.
Elizabeth watched from the window as he made his way out of the blacksite, then turned to survey the room he had just exited.
What had just happened?
TBLTBLTBLTBLTBLTBLTBLTBLTBLTBLTBL
Elizabeth walked into her home just a few hours after she had left it. Red was right; she was stressed and she needed rest.
Knowing Tom wasn't due home from school for several more hours, Elizabeth didn't bother calling for him, and didn't bother walking up the stairs to her bed. The couch would do just fine. She kicked off her shoes and collapsed into its warmth, pulling the decorative pillow under her cheek and closing her eyes.
Sleep wouldn't come.
Tossing and turning on the small couch was doing nothing but hurting her back, so Elizabeth finally gave up and decided to do something productive. Like lunch. Food was the answer to everything.
Elizabeth trekked to the kitchen and made a grilled cheese sandwich, indulging since Tom wasn't there to scold her about her bad eating habits. Gluten-free pancakes? Really?
As she was about to make her way back to the couch and finish her lunch, the file that she had carelessly tossed onto the island counter caught her eye. She was tempted to have just one more look at it...just for her own peace of mind. Maybe there was something she had missed...
No.
She was not going to drive herself crazy over something so useless. Red had told her himself that there was nothing in that file that could help her.
Elizabeth walked out of the kitchen and did an immediate 180, grabbing the file off the counter.
Red was a criminal. What did he know about the truth?
The coffee table was much too small to give Elizabeth the perspective she needed, so she pushed it out of the way and set to spreading the file out on the floor. It looked like a mess of papers, but there was a pattern if closely examined...a tentative timeline of events that was so full of holes that there was barely a line to be seen. Once the file was devoid of documents, Elizabeth started on the pictures. They usually occupied a space of their own, but today Elizabeth tried something different. Instead of setting them to the side, she matched the photos to the documents according to the timeline.
The older ones were easy. Pictures of Red in his uniforms were placed with the appropriate military records, and once again Elizabeth was impressed with how fast he had moved up the ranks. For someone so young to advance so quickly was almost unheard of. It seemed strange to her that Red was ever that young, and that he was ever on her side of the ethical divide. Fantasies of what he must have been like rose, unbidden, into her mind, and she quickly shrugged them off. What he used to be didn't matter. What he had turned into mattered oh so much.
Other pictures were harder to place. Red's looks changed often, and there were no years attached to the photos to give Elizabeth any hints. She did the best she could with those and moved on. The only photos left were the ones that bothered her the most...the ones that made absolutely no sense. Elizabeth picked up a picture of a car covered in snow, out of gas and abandoned by its owner on the side of the road. Every person living on that street during that time had been questioned endlessly. No one had seen or heard anything suspicious, and there were no reports of a man banging on doors and asking for help, or even for a phone to call his wife and daughter.
The driver had simply disappeared.
All signs pointed towards a kidnapping. It was not entirely out of the realm of possibility. After all, Red was sitting on boundless classified information, and there were plenty of people who would do almost anything to get to it. There were various other theories sprouted up in the weeks after he disappeared, but none that seemed as plausible. No one could fathom the idea that this brilliant naval officer with a beautiful family and a bright future would ever leave his life behind on purpose.
Elizabeth shuffled through the pictures until she found the one of his house, brightly lit from the inside, waiting to welcome its master home for the holidays. She tried to imagine what had been waiting for him inside. Christmas decorations would have littered the house, and presents would have been piled under the tree. It would smell like food...pumpkin pie and perhaps a turkey in the oven... And his family...
His family was waiting.
Who wouldn't want to get back to that?
Flipping once more through the rest of the pictures, Elizabeth searched for the one that gripped her the most...the one that kept her up nights. It was not in the pile. She flipped through them once more and her stomach lurched violently. It was definitely not there.
The tentative timeline that Elizabeth had created disappeared quickly as she swept papers aside and scooped papers up, hoping desperately that it might have gotten stuck to the back of another photo but knowing that it wasn't. Retracing her steps led her back to the kitchen and even to the small table by her front door, and eventually back to her car. A hurried search of her passenger seat revealed nothing, and Elizabeth began to truly panic. Evidence was missing. Evidence that was entrusted to her by Agent Cooper to use at her discretion had slipped right through her fingers.
She was so screwed.
Unless...
Elizabeth ran back up the front steps and into her house, grabbing her cell phone and dialing Nick's Pizza as fast as she could. The phone only rang once, as if Red were waiting on her call.
"Lizzie! How exciting... I never get a call from my partner when we're not working a case! What's the occasion?"
"You're a thief. THAT'S the occasion."
There was a brief pause on the other end of the line, and for a moment Elizabeth thought he was going to protest.
"Your point?"
Why she had ever thought he would show an ounce of contrition eluded her.
"My point is that I want you to give back what you took. I know it's a novel concept, doing the right thing, but try it this once. Just for me." Elizabeth braced herself for the backlash. Using sarcasm with Raymond Reddington was a good way to get hung up on.
"Fine. You can have it back. I was done with it anyway."
Well...this was new.
"If you're scre..."
"I'm not screwing with you, Lizzie. Unless you want me to."
Elizabeth took a deep breath and counted to ten. Red knew how to push every single one of her buttons. The key was not to react when he pushed them all at the same time.
"If you don't answer me I'm going to take that as a yes..."
Another deep breath.
"Well if you're not gonna play..."
No, she was not. One...two...three...
"If you want the picture you can come and get it."
There was a soft beep as Red hung up on her. Elizabeth looked at the phone in her hand and smiled, proud of herself for keeping her temper in check. It wasn't an easy thing to do.
Mentally grumbling over the fact that she had to leave her cozy house to go see Red in his current depressing abode, Elizabeth grabbed her keys and headed out the door. She was halfway down the steps when she noticed the black Mercedes blocking her car in. The bastard had probably been in her driveway the entire time they were on the phone. When she got a little closer to his car the back window rolled down.
"Get in, Lizzie. It's cold."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes and climbed inside the car. Red was waiting for her in the back seat, holding the stolen picture between the tips of his fingers.
"I suppose you want this back," he said tiredly. "Can't imagine why. It's just an old picture." He made no move to give it back, and Elizabeth fought the urge to just reach over and take it from him.
"It's evidence, Red. Just because you are working with the FBI don't think that you can just walk in and take whatever. It doesn't work that way."
Red sighed heavily and waved the photo in front of her. "For goodness sakes, Lizzie, I told you you could have it back. What else do you want from me?" His voice sounded so weary that Elizabeth was taken aback. She made no move to take the photo.
"Why did you take it?"
Red pulled his arm back and dropped the photo in his lap, chuckling slightly. "Why does anybody do anything?"
Elizabeth made a high pitched noise in the back of her throat and banged her head gently against the back of the seat. She would honestly rather him lie than pointedly dodge the question.
"Just give me the damn picture and..."
"I didn't know they did this," Red cut her off, running his hand over the picture in his lap. His voice held a certain sorrow, and Elizabeth was instantly captivated. Her eyes followed his fingers as they traced over the hands...over the candles...over the flames... "They must have thought something terrible happened to me...that I had been tortured or murdered or perhaps something far worse."
Elizabeth frowned. She had always assumed that Red had kept up with them after he had disappeared the first time. He had kept up with her just fine...
"It was assumed that you had been kidnapped. At least until you showed yourself and the truth came out."
Red's laughter was cold and empty and frightening. Elizabeth found herself inching closer and closer to the door, her instinct to flee almost overwhelming.
"And what is the truth? Please, enlighten me, Lizzie." Red stared at her, through her. Elizabeth had seen that look before, though never directed at her. She was so close to the door...
"You disappeared because you wanted to disappear!"
Elizabeth snapped her mouth shut, wishing she had had the sense to do that before it completely took off with her. Red wasn't laughing now, in fact, he was scowling.
"Let me tell you this, Elizabeth," Red growled, his voice low and menacing. "No one in their right mind would choose this life. This life chooses you. I didn't ask to be separated from my wife and child. I would never willingly put them through this." The picture of the candlelight vigil held in his honor crinkled in his tight fist and Elizabeth cringed. "Now they're gone. By the time I was finally free to return to them they were the ones who had disappeared. It was really only then that I knew what they had gone through, and I hated myself for it. I hate myself for it."
It was the most honest thing he had ever said to her. There was such an expression of self loathing on his face that Elizabeth almost reached out to him.
Almost.
"They did this every year, you know," Elizabeth said, tentatively testing the waters of this conversation. "The whole town held a candlelight vigil on Christmas eve, every year until people realized that you were very much a free man. But even after the town stopped, your wife and daughter continued. They believed in you up until the very end."
Red smiled sadly. "What was the end?"
Elizabeth shrugged. "I wish I knew."
"Me too."
Red turned away from her then, not wanting her to see his eyes shine with unshed tears. Too late. Elizabeth heard a slight rip as his fist closed even tighter over the picture. Leaning over, Elizabeth reached out and gently pried it from his grasp, slightly massaging his fingers, encouraging them to loosen up. When the picture was free she continued to work his fingers, rubbing them soothingly between her own. It wasn't holding his hand and it wasn't a hug, but it was something.
"I think you better go back inside. I told you you needed rest and I was serious," Red said softly, effectively ending the conversation. Elizabeth didn't know if she should be sad or relieved. She nodded and tried to pull her hand away, holding back a gasp when his fingers closed over hers.
"Every Christmas?"
Red's face held so much hope that Elizabeth would have lied if it wasn't the truth.
"Every Christmas. Goodnight Red."
Elizabeth took the ruined photo from Red's lap and exited the car. She watched him pull away from the curb, only heading inside when the car was out of sight.
Maybe she was wrong.
Maybe what he used to be mattered more than she thought.