A/N: I am mesmerized by Ressler. I don't know why. He isn't particularly interesting, and doesn't have a very large role. But when he does get an episode—boy, he's full of surprises! Like the fact that he rarely says anything, always looks vaguely angry and always uses the same bland tone…and in the episode where he loses Audrey, he suddenly starts spouting purple prose. Oh, I loved that little 'I feel nothing but hate!' speech. I also love that he apparently still has a severed head in his freezer, as the series hasn't show us that he got rid of it yet.

Lizzie I'm still not particularly fond of—she's so DUMB, so far as she has a character at all. But still, what she's going through is pretty heartbreaking, and the series presents her mental anguish as yet another one of her whiny outbursts, while face it, the poor woman has lost EVERYTHING she held dear. And that made her surprisingly nice to write. Now, I was honestly expecting the series to put this in, somewhere. Maybe they still will. Every Scully needs her Mulder, right?

First part is just people angsting and some strange kind of h/c. It will be more or less standalone. Second part will have sex. I wouldn't call it shipping, though. There's just too little to ship yet.

Takes place before episode 19 (when I wrote this, I hadn't seen that ep yet).

TRUST ISSUES – Part 2 in the Rinse and Repeat series

Lizzie Keen was sitting at her desk, pretending to type out a report, but in reality staring blindly at her screen, outwardly calm and collected, inwardly seething and deeply, deeply unhappy.

Men. Whoever had decided they were to be the most important people in her life? Lying, cheating men! Every man she was close to had lied to her. Tom was a lie; according to Reddington, he hadn't ever existed, he was a creation built specifically to lure her in. The man she'd trusted completely for the last two years…a stranger.

And then there was Reddington himself. He fed her half-truths and mysteries, but never told her anything. "I can't convince you that your husband isn't who he says he is; you have to find out on your own." Yes, he'd been right, and no, she hadn't wanted to listen, but really, hadn't he been able to do it ANY other way?

Who was Tom? Reddington obviously knew, but now she was ready to listen to him, he clamped shut his lying, secretive mouth and only told her to bear with it and act naturally.

Act naturally?

She had to kiss him, that bastard who'd invaded her life. She had to cuddle with him, and lick pasta sauce from his chin because he always got it on his face, and she'd always licked it off, and he might get suspicious if she used a paper towel instead of her tongue. She had to have sex with him, and fake orgasms, and every time he touched her it felt like rape and she hated being intimate with him.

She wondered if Reddington was getting off on this. Had he installed cameras of his own? Did he sit in one of his acquired empty houses at night, watching videos of her playing house with that actor and smiling his little smug smile as she floundered helplessly in the theatre that had become her life? Because now he'd made her paranoid, she wasn't quite ready to stop at Tom, or whatever his name was. Everyone said—every man said—they had her best interests in mind, but all they ever did was lie.

Tom had lied to her, and that hurt the most. But Reddington had lied as well, and manipulated her, and she no longer trusted his kindness. Even her boss was a liar, who'd denied beating a confession out of a man—if he hadn't done that, she would perhaps have been able to save him his stay in that improvised electric chair—but no one ever seemed inclined to tell her the truth.

Was she that gullible? Was that it, she was stupid?

Had even her father ever been truthful to her? Never before had she missed her mother so badly—before now, her adoptive dad had been more than enough, but now, she missed a woman, a mother, someone who truly and unconditionally loved her and was there to call and ask for advice.

In despair, she had taken out her phone, looked at her, replaced it and bought a disposable cell, and thought about calling a girl friend—not to divulge everything to in a rush of hot tears, but to be able to talk to someone who wasn't a goddamned two-tongued snake.

And she'd found she didn't have a single friend she trusted completely. None of the women she'd befriended after meeting Tom could be trusted. Did she have any friends from before Tom? She must have, but none of them came to mind. Tom's friends always seemed so much more interesting than her own vague acquaintances.

Of course, there was Alice Dillon, a girl she'd kept in touch with since high school, definitely before Tom, but even as she eagerly searched for Alice's number, she knew she would never call her. She hadn't seen Alice in four years. Alice hadn't even come to the wedding because she was due any of those days…and Lizzie hadn't attended the baby shower, or ever visited her when her daughter was born.

The cold fact was that she had no friends. No one she was really close to. Tom had been everything. And he turned out to be nothing, leaving her painfully alone to face this all.

She started as her phone buzzed, checked the time on her screen before looking at the caller's name. 8.12 pm. It was Tom. Of course. Speak of the devil. She moulded her mouth into a smile to keep the deadness out of her voice.

"Hi, sweetie." She winced. Was she overdoing it? She rarely called him 'sweetie' on the phone.

"Hey Liz." He sounded so…so ordinary. So natural. You'd never think he was lying to her. About everything. "Hey, are you home yet?"

You know I'm not. She grabbed the phrase and transformed it. "You know I'm not," she sighed, "I've got tons of paperwork to finish. I'm so sorry, I…"

"No, no, it's ok. I've got kind of delayed myself…"

"At that congress?" She wondered if he really was in Phoenix. Sometimes, he actually went to places he said he would go to—to keep the illusion complete, she guessed. He really did teach kids, and he did know a lot about pedagogic teaching…Next to being some kind of agent, he was an excellent teacher. She felt tears of anger and frustration sting in her throat. Damn you. Damn you, I loved you! I loved that gentle teacher!

"Yeah. So, have you eaten yet? We're taking one of the speakers out for dinner, but I'm afraid it'll be too late to drive all the way back once we're finished, so…"

"You won't be home when I get back? And here I was going to demand you massage my shoulders…"

He chuckled. "I'll make it up to you tomorrow, ok?"

She forced a breezy laugh as well. "You'd better!"

"I'm sorry, Lizzie. But if you'd rather have me come home, I can…"

"Nah," she smiled. "Take your professor out for dinner. Have fun. I'll be dreadfully late, too, so we wouldn't see one another anyway. See you tomorrow." She grimaced. "Be careful on the way back."

"I will. Love you."

"Love you too." She hung up, her chin quivering, then slammed the phone on her desk. Even the relief of not having to deal with him, not having to pretend for one evening, wasn't enough to make her feel better.

Ressler, sitting a desk further away from her, looked up from his report, which he had been staring at for twenty minutes without ever turning the page and raised a blonde eyebrow.

"Trouble in paradise?" he asked, and she wanted to throw the cell at his head and maim him with it.

None of your business, was what she wanted to snarl, but "I hate all men," was what came out.

Ressler was taken aback. "Whoa," he said. He regarded her for a few seconds, then resolutely put down his file and got to his feet. "Want to go out for a drink? You look like you need one."

A drink? With you? With another lying, traitorous man? Fuck you! Her paranoia flared, and she leaned back in her chair, away from him. "You're asking me out for drinks? Why?"

He shrugged. "Because it's weekend as of two hours ago. And because you look like you could do with getting well and truly hammered. And because I feel like doing precisely that, and I'd prefer not doing it alone. But if you don't want to, suit yourself. I'm going."

He sized her up, not so much expectantly, but to give her a chance to either change her mind or stick with her decision, and she met his impassive stare with burning eyes.

She did not want to go home. Even with Tom gone, it was a hole of betrayal, a doll house where she felt like a puppet on strings.

Had Ressler ever lied to her? She didn't think so. If anything, he was always brutally honest with her, if he ever spoke to her at all. Ressler, who hadn't cracked a smile since Audrey had died a month ago, and who now regarded her with a face so expressionless it might hide anything below the surface. Howling rage. Desperate grief. Sheep jumping fences. Ressler never pretended anything; he didn't have to, because his face was a mask and he never made any pretence it wasn't. It was such a difference compared to Tom and Reddington's deceptively open, friendly, all-concealing features she decided that yes, she needed that drink and a friendly mask more than an evening without acting. Unlike everybody else, Ressler had never showed an interest in her. Even better: he'd rather be rid of her than have her here for any kind of purpose.

"Fine," she said. "Let me get my coat."

"Where are we going?"

She was sitting in Ressler's car and it made her feel claustrophobic and vulnerable. His car smelled as impersonal as he was: the last remnants of 'new car', a very faint scent of aftershave, an almost undetectable whiff of cigarette smoke, and just a hint of some feminine perfume. Audrey's, she supposed. No air freshener, no receipts on the dashboard or empty coffee cups in the back, nothing at all. It could be anyone's car.

Ressler kept his eyes on the road. Traffic was thinning out, but he drove carefully—or maybe he just didn't want to look at her while they spoke.

"There's a bar around the corner from where I live. I'll crawl home, later. You can take a cab."

She raised her eyebrows. "That's it?"

His jaw muscles worked. "What more should it be, Keen? I'm going out to get rip-roaring drunk and if you're feeling as low as you look, you'll follow my lead. Nothing more, nothing less." His eyes briefly flicked to her face. "I'm not planning to take advantage of you. If that's what you're afraid of. Or expect."

Lizzie snorted. She'd expect advances from Ressler when hell froze over.

"Christ, Keen, relax. You'll damage my upholstery."

Lizzie eased her grip on her chair. Getting drunk with Ressler. That was a truly terrible idea. It sounded exactly like what she needed right now.

The pub Ressler had mentioned was filled with dark wooden furniture, dimly lit, and had a very long mahogany bar that formed a widely spread hollowed-out half rectangle against the back wall, more or less trapping the bartenders against the shelves and shelves of liquor against that wall. A number of small tables stood in booths against the sides of the room, but were as of yet unoccupied. Soft music, something alternatively poppy, played unobtrusively in the background.

The vast expanse of counter already provided several customers with a place to drink, and Ressler preceded Lizzie to the corner place against one of the two shorter sides of the square. He pulled back two barstools with his foot, plunked down on the one closest to the wall and raised his hand to call over one of the women behind the counter.

"What'll it be?" she asked. Her voice was raw, almost masculine, the result of smoking two packets of cigarettes a day for at least thirty years, and perhaps a healthy intake of the spirits she distributed. She was pretty in a motherly way: somewhat stout, well-rounded with an impressive cleavage, beautiful eyes and a wrinkled mouth.

Ressler handed her a hundred dollar bill. "Vodka and tequila shots. Keep 'em coming. Keen?"

"I'll have double bourbon on ice, please." She watched as the waitress lined up four shooter glasses and alternatively filled them from a bottle of vodka and a bottle of tequila. A saucer with salt and lemon slices completed the line-up. "You're quite serious about this, aren't you?" she asked, amused despite herself.

Ressler nodded. "I don't drink often enough to be anything but serious about it when I do." He waited until she had her bourbon, lifted the first shot in a mocking sort of toast and belted it down. He shivered. "Urrgggh." Immediately he picked up the second glass and emptied that as well. Then he licked his hand where index finger and thumb met, pressed it into the salt, licked it and downed the third glass, ending with a bit of lemon. He shivered again, screwing up his face, and finished off with the last glass, which he then placed upside down on the bar.

It had taken him about forty seconds in total, and Lizzie watched with somewhat disconcerted interest as colour rose in his face like a flood, his eyes became glassy and his lips turned red.

He raised his hand again. The waitress wordlessly upended all the glasses and refilled them. Ressler stared at them with a dogged expression on his flushed face.

"Are you here to get drunk or alcohol poisoning?" Lizzie asked. She wasn't sure what she'd expected, but probably not this single-minded inebriation. Still, he was doing exactly what he'd said he would do, and she was here to join him. She took a big gulp of her own drink, wincing at the impact of it. Perhaps I should have eaten something before doing this. Already her head was swimming.

"Drunk. I'm a big man, Keen; it takes a while before I'm affected."

"You could start out with beer." She took another sip, and then quickly another.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "It takes ages before I feel beer. And it makes me sick much sooner." He picked up the first shot. "I fully expect to reacquaint myself with my toilet, but I'd much rather save it until tomorrow." He tossed back the liquor with the now-familiar little shiver.

"Do you like vodka?"

He'd started sprinkling salt on his hand again. "No. Don't like tequila either, but it's cheap and it works fast, and the hangover's not so bad afterwards."

She chuckled. "I never would have guessed you'd be so efficient in getting drunk."

Again the arching eyebrow. "I'll have you know I'm always highly efficient, both in my job and in my pursuit of intoxication."

"Your pursuit of intoxication, huh?" She laughed again. The knot of unhappiness in her stomach was still there, but seemed a little less solid. One more quaff and the glass was empty, and she placed it on the counter with a clearly audible clink. By the time the woman, with an inquiring look, had refilled it at her nod, Ressler was almost through his second line of shots.

He was starting to droop a little, but his hand was still steady as he raised it to point at his upturned glasses.

"You sure, honey?" the woman asked. She was still recapping the bottle of bourbon.

"Have I ever caused trouble?" was his reply.

She shrugged and splashed more alcohol in the glasses. "I could give you the bottles?"

"I'd lose count. It's not so busy; I'd prefer it if you tipped me up. And I'd like some more lemon."

She went to the other end of the bar and returned with a fresh dish heaped with lemon wedges a few seconds later. "Here you go."

"Do you come here often?" Lizzie asked. It was nice to talk about someone else for a change. It was also nice that Ressler actually participated in the conversation. He usually wasn't all that talkative.

"Not very often. Just been here a couple of times the last few weeks." He dipped a digit into his first shooter, sucked the liquid from his finger to identify it, licked his hand and added salt, licked it off and tossed back the tequila. "Oh god," he grimaced, and hastily crammed a couple of lemon slices into his mouth. Sweat popped out on his forehead.

"Uh, are you ok?" She took a big swallow of bourbon to steel herself against Ressler possibly hurling all over the counter, or dropping from his seat in an alcoholic stupor. He did neither of the two, though, just sat there with his hand pressed against his mouth, going from red to unhealthily pale and back to flushed again.

"Huhff." He chewed, swallowed, and she realized he had eaten the lemon, skin and all.

She took a celebratory swig. "You're not very good at getting drunk, are you?"

"I've become better." He leaned his elbow on the bar and his head on his hand, and studied her with slightly reddish eyes. "So. You hate all men. That's a new one."

"It's a recent development," she confessed, and swirled the bourbon around in her glass before taking a drink. "Like your drinking, obviously."

"I have a pretty good reason to have started drinking."

"I have a pretty good reason to have started hating men," she shot back, and he snorted. "I'd rather not talk about it."

Ressler shrugged. "So don't." His hand wavered over his second shooter glass, but in the end he thought better of it and used it to rub the bridge of his nose instead. "I didn't ask you along to be your shoulder. To cry on, I mean. If you need a shoulder, ask Reddington."

"Reddington's shoulder might have spikes," Lizzie said morosely. She reached out, picked up the abandoned vodka and swallowed it in one go. It went down like tasteless fire, and she hastily drank some bourbon to soothe her tongue.

"Hey."

"You didn't want it."

"I was gathering courage to pound it down."

Lizzie's hand moved towards the remaining two glasses. "If it takes you that long, it must be spread pretty thin."

Ressler glared at her, but made no move to stop her as she went for his last remaining tequila. Instead, he waved at their waitress and pointed at Lizzie's bourbon. "I'd like one of those, please. No ice."

He got it, together with a bowl of peanuts and a carafe of water. Ressler took a handful of peanuts and firmly pushed the carafe to the side. He swallowed the bourbon in two gulps.

"You're not supposed to shoot bourbon, you know," Lizzie said, as he sat there looking flummoxed—at least, she thought he looked flummoxed; things were beginning to blur a bit around the edges after the tequila. Which was truly vile. She gratefully sucked on a piece of lemon.

"No shit." He pulled the remaining shot towards him with one finger. "So Reddington has unexpectedly grown spikes? I thought you trusted him."

"I'm not the one who was saved by him. Twice. Nor did I turn to him to hunt down one of my own ex-colleagues for me." I'm different. I only ask him to keep track of my traitorous, murderous husband—the fact of him being that, having been pointed out to me by him.

"I was only saved by him," Ressler argued hotly, "because I almost died because of him. Hell, do you know how often I've been shot, or even wounded, in all the years before that man nestled himself in the Post office like a hungry tick on a fat dog? Once. I was grazed, once. Didn't even need stitches. And now I've been shot and almost died of it twice in the past four months. And Audrey died of the kind of injury I'd just survived…" His voice grew suddenly husky. "She died because that fucker Jonica, who, by the way, used to be my friend, betrayed me and his entire team because he wanted to play at being a criminal. You catch a criminal with a criminal. Like…pigs, with truffles. Or no, that's not a good comparison. Ferrets with dachshunds." Lizzie blinked at that as well. "I only wish I could mount that head on the wall instead of keeping it in the free-..." He trailed off, and Lizzie shook herself.

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing." He finished the last vodka shot and motioned for the bartender to refill them.

"That's the third line, darling," her smoky voice warned, after doing so. "Makes twelve in total."

"She drank two of them," He thumbed at Lizzie. "I'm good."

"Nevertheless, you're not getting anything else before you drain that pitcher of water first."

Ressler smiled mirthlessly at the four brimming glasses. "I'll make 'em last, then."

"They're shooters; they're not supposed to last. But suit yourself." She added more peanuts to their bowl; unnoticed, they had devoured more than half of it, then shot Lizzie a questioning glance.

"I'm ok," she said, indicating her half-empty glass. Although decidedly tipsy, she wasn't quite as relentless as Ressler in her dipsomania—which was, frankly, somewhat unsettling. She knew the man as the picture of sobriety and he was now ruthlessly destroying that picture. She'd had no idea he was that miserable. He always seemed to be…coping. Never in high spirits, never low, simply…coping.

God, aren't we the prime of the FBI? Look at us sitting here, folks; him trying for an alcoholically induced coma and me literally drowning my sorrows in bourbon. And there he goes again, he just keeps pouring it in, one of these times he's simply going to fall over backwards from his seat and hit the ground like a ton of bricks.

Ressler, however, no matter how far gone, remained steadily seated and faced her again, supporting his head on his hand.

"So what's it he's done to you, then?" he slurred, and for a moment Lizzie thought he meant Tom. Then she realized he was talking about Reddington, and she shrugged.

"What hasn't he done? He's infiltrated my life, he's lied to me. Worse, he told me the truth, but never the whole truth." She finished her glass in a large swallow, coughed and blinked back tears. "He ruined my life, that's what he's done," she added bitterly.

"That's harsh," Ressler said, and she glanced up sharply at the non-committal tone of his voice, but his face was sympathetic. The man couldn't help it he had such an expressionless voice.

"Not as harsh as losing your girlfriend," she offered, and to her intense mortification, a flood of tears coursed down his cheeks. They came out of nowhere, and he didn't even seem to notice, but they were there, just like that, and in combination with his blank face they scared her rather badly.

He shrugged his shoulders, picked up his first glass and emptied it. His involuntary shiver almost resembled a full body quake now, and the liquor brought more tears to his eyes. He kept ignored them. "Yeah," he said hoarsely. "That's pretty harsh as well." His tears pattered on the bar and he blinked at them, uncomprehending.

And his face still hadn't changed—he was producing the volume of tears Lizzie had only seen children, small children, cry, but unlike a child whose faced scrunched up and twisted, Ressler's face hadn't lost its perpetual look of neutral determination. It was eerie. He sniffed, and she hunted for a tissue before he started dripping snot on the counter as well.

"Here. You're…uh…"

"What? Oh." He accepted the tissue and blew his nose. "Sorry. I don't think this has happened before." He dabbed at his eyes, then looked at her, and now his mouth trembled before he started speaking in that same flat, staccato voice he had, but in fragments, so he sounded like a soft-spoken, faulty machine gun, "It's just…after she died. After Audrey died…When I got home, I started cleaning up. Her stuff…it was all over the place, like she'd come back any minute, and I…couldn't handle that, so I started gathering her belongings, and I found this…this little bag she had, you know, with…woman stuff. And it had a pregnancy test in it."

Oh Christ, Lizzie though, anticipating and dreading where this was going.

"It was positive," Ressler whispered. He stared at his shooter glasses, then picked one up and chugged it almost aggressively. "So how am I supposed to deal with that, huh?" he asked tonelessly. "I don't even…what am I supposed to do with that? I can't deal with that!" His voice rose, and another flood of tears streaked down his cheeks. He wiped them away angrily.

"Ressler…"

"And when it gets really bad," he interrupted her, "when I've got time to think, I picture that bullet, and where it hit her, and…I don't know how long she'd been pregnant—a week? A month? Two? And I think of that bullet, and I can't help wondering, did it tear apart my child as well as my…as Audrey?"

"Jesus Christ, Ressler…" She hadn't known pity could actually hurt. The lump of unhappiness in her stomach suddenly seemed to have tripled in size and grown glass shards; she felt almost sick with the mental agony he was projecting.

"Now do you see?" he asked savagely. "Do you see why I can't take time off to dwell on this? I can't stay home and think of this! I'll go insane! I need to keep busy, keep working, keep occupied. That's why I was back at the Post office before the soil over her grave had even settled, and that's why I'm here when there's nothing left to do, because I can't…I can't…"

"I understand." She did. Fifteen negative pregnancy tests and three failed fertility treatments and hours spent in tears of loss and self-incrimination and thwarted desire really did make her understand. Her heart literally ached for him, and she was surprised by the intensity of that feeling.

Ressler tossed back his third shot. "You can't tell Cooper," he said, suddenly anxious. "He'll make me take time off and I can't…it will kill me."

"I won't. But…haven't you ever considered counselling, or…"

"I can't talk," he spat. "I can't talk about this unless I'm…" He snorted, gestured at himself and the empty glasses on the bar. "Unless I'm completely pissed." He seemed to realise something. "As a matter of fact, you're the first I've ever talked to about this." And then he snorted again, and smiled, lopsided and raw. "Sorry about that. Didn't mean to burden you with my…"

"It's ok." She waved at the waitress and received a fresh glass. "Really. I'm glad I…But why didn't you come over when I asked you for dinner?" When my life was still weird instead of impossible. "You'd have been more than welcome, and it might've taken your mind off of things, at least for the evening."

He shook his head. "I'm no good company these days."

"Don, you're rarely good company." It had flapped out before she could check it, and she hid her face in her glass to hide her blush, hoping he'd ignore her.

Of course he did not.

"Oh. Really? Is that your professional opinion of me?" He sounded more amused than angry, though, and when she met his eyes, his expression was less stern than she'd expected. Then again, that might be the fact that it was hard to look stern with those wet eyes and gleaming red nose and mouth.

"Well, no. But you're always so…"

"So…what?"

"So serious."

"Serious? Me?" He seemed honestly surprised.

"Well…yeah! You never smile…"

"I do!"

"No," she maintained. "You rarely smile, and you haven't smiled at all since…"

Ressler looked pained, but to her immense relief he didn't start crying again. "Well," he said softly, "there wasn't much to smile about, was there? You're no poster child for carefree happiness yourself, either, at the moment, for that matter."

She nodded, took a drink. "We're both pretty fucked up, I guess."

"See?" Ressler said. "Who needs counselling? We're perfectly able to diagnose ourselves."

Somehow, from that point, they managed to shuffle back from the abyss of personal misery and find lighter topics, like placed they'd been to, people they'd known, movies they'd seen and alcohol. Ressler bought the option for more liquor by finishing most of the carafe of water, but opted for whiskey instead of shots afterwards. By now, he was, as he had set out to be, 'well and truly hammered', and the combination of too much alcohol and his personal confession had completely drained him. He was draped over the bar like a stole, and Lizzie had adopted a similar pose for camaraderie's sake.

And because it was rather comfortable.

She herself was, she had to admit, really quite drunk as well. She was rather enjoying the sensation. Sitting at the bar, wilfully getting drunk to forget one's sorrows had a certain romantic notion, and she appreciated the picture the two of them made. It was fitting, and it made her love Ressler in a way that had nothing to do with being in love.

Time sped up the way it only did when you were either having a great time or when you were drinking, and she was amazed to check her watch and see it was almost one. Her internal clock maintained it had only been half an hour since they'd sat down at the bar, but no, they'd been here for over three hours.

"What time's it?" Ressler rumbled from where he'd laid his head on his arm.

"Twelve-fifty."

"Huh."

"Yeah. Hang on, I gotta pee."

"Not going anywhere."

Lizzie made her way to the bathroom, did her business and studied herself in the mirror. White face, check. Large, limpid eyes, check. She always thought she became more beautiful when she'd had a lot to drink.

You're an idiot, Tom. If only you weren't a fraud, you could've had this for real. She snorted, and went back into the bar, where she found Ressler with his eyes closed. The bartender had taken away their glasses and even the bowl of peanuts, and as Lizzie made her way back, she caught her eyes and gave a small, conspiratorial nod.

Lizzie reached out and shook Ressler's shoulder. "Perhaps we should go home."

He cracked one eye open. "We?"

"I'll deliver you and go home myself."

"I'm not a pizza."

"I'll walk you home, then."

"I'm not a virgin girl either."

She laughed and repressed the urge to ruffle that insanely neat and ordered hair of his. "No. But you're falling asleep on the bar, and if I don't walk you home I think you'll probably won't reach your house."

Ressler blinked. "There's some messed up grammar in that sentence of yours, Agent Keen."

His eye closed again, and she shoved him a little harder.

"Hey. Stop that. Come on, get up."

He moaned, but pushed himself up until he sat straight up, and slid down from his stool, grabbing his coat. "Christ." He rubbed his face.

"Yeah." Lizzie put on her jacket as well and stood swaying. I'm so going to regret this tomorrow. How am I going to hide this mother of all hangovers I'll have from Tom, tomorrow? Tomorrow would bring what tomorrow would bring, she decided, and grabbed Ressler's arm. "Let's go."

Slowly, waveringly, they made their way to Ressler's apartment one block away. It took them a while, and the cool night air sobered the both of them up—a little. Lizzie checked her phone. One message, from Tom or course. He was staying over in Phoenix and would see her Saturday, early afternoon.

Right.

It occurred to her they were no longer walking and she pulled Ressler's arm. "Have you fallen asleep? Come on."

He smiled. Good god, it was a true and honest smile! Alright, it was sad and drunk and lopsided, but it was a real smile and it made his face look…not like a mask. "We're here, Keen. This is where I live." He paused, not moving. Lizzie did not let go of his arm either. She didn't want to, because the moment she let go she was on her own again, and the prospect of going to her own house made her feel like crying.

And so, when he said, hesitant and a little self-conscious, "Want…to come up? For coffee?"

She only hesitated for a few seconds before nodding.

2.

Ressler opened his door with the exaggerated care of the intoxicated, tongue caught between his teeth as he bumped the key against the door a few times before smoothly sliding it into the lock. Lizzie followed him in, repressing the urge to glance over her shoulder to see if anyone was spying on her. Even if Tom was keeping watch on her—Tom or anyone else—it'd serve them right to see her enter Ressler's house.

The apartment was surprisingly cosy, what she could see of it from the hall that was. There was a mirror against the wall, a small table for keys and mail, a newspaper stand, and some colourful poster or painting. Not the Spartan decoration she'd envisioned based on his personality. Maybe Audrey had decorated the place. Or maybe he just wasn't such a stiff as she'd thought he was.

They halted there in the hall. Ressler took of his coat and carefully placed his gun on the little table—dear god, they were both wasted and they had both had their guns tucked beneath their armpits this entire time! She wondered how many rules they'd broken this evening—and how many they were going to break the rest of this night. Lizzie quickly struggled out of her own shoulder harness.

"So," Ressler said, staring at her with a somewhat quizzical look on his face. All of a sudden, he looked a lot less drunk. "Were you really here for…coffee?"

Lizzie swallowed, then sneered at herself. Now she was in, she might just as well carry on with this. "Did you really ask me in for…coffee?" She dropped her jacket on the newspaper stand.

He had the grace to look vaguely ashamed. "No."

"Good. I don't really feel like coffee right now." She gazed up at him, wishing he weren't so tall. It reminded her of…someone she didn't want to think about right now. "I thought you said you…"

"You talk too much." And it shut her up, too. She'd always thought he was too quiet, and here he was accusing her of being the opposite. But before she could open her mouth and defend herself, he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her.

Gently.

And then he slammed her against the door and for one second she panicked and struggled, thinking he was attacking her, that this was another ruse and he was yet another double agent sent to infiltrate her life, or kill her; but he was still kissing her, delving into her mouth with a desperation she didn't think anyone could fake. She knew, because she reciprocated in kind, the sudden fear turning into violence and lust. And so she was none too gentle as she tore open his shirt, sending buttons scattering all over the place, and ripped it down his shoulders. Ressler didn't protest the demise of his shirt, he simply shrugged it off and tossed it away before, much more carefully, taking off her blouse by pulling it up and over her head, like peeling a banana. Lizzie surfaced from her blouse with her arms held high, somewhat ruffled and dishevelled.

"What the…?"

"You still need to wear this, tomorrow," he said dryly.

She launched herself at him, more or less forcing him through the hallway and into his living room. "You have…" She kissed him, and he managed to position her neatly onto the couch, "…way too much presence of mind to…"

"Shut up, Keen."

She shut up and straddled him on the couch. That position more or less halted any forward moment, but it did enable her to grind down on him and feel that, drunk or not, he was not incapacitated at all. It gave her a heady sense of control and she resisted him as he tried to push her aside a bit.

"Before we take this any further," she panted in between the oral battling she might, at another time, have called kissing, "I want you to know that you're really not my type."

"Good," he panted back, "'cause you're not my type either. Now move your ass so I can get into your pants."

"Wanting to do that for some time now, haven't you?" Lizzie asked triumphantly.

"Christ, do you ever shut up?" He physically picked her up and deposited her back-down onto the cushions—and promptly got hit in the nose by one of her flailing, sensible working shoes-clad feet. "Ow! God!" He veered back, covering his nose and blinking back tears.

Lizzie jumped upright, grabbing for the closest thing she could get hold of: his pockets. "I'm sorry! Are you alright? I'm so sorry!"

"Don't be sorry," Ressler spat from behind his fingers, "take them off!"

"Are you bleeding?"

"For fuck's sake, could you please—"

She undid his pants and, pulling both pants and boxers down, swallowed him down while he was still nursing his nose. Maybe she undid him a little at the same time, because he went abruptly and completely silent.

Ha! Didn't expect me to do that, did you? As a matter of fact she hadn't expected so either, but she was pleased with the result—rigidity all over—and therefore decided to continue her administrations. Ressler seemed rather pleased with the result as well, if she gauged his reaction correctly. She pulled back until only the tip of his cock was still in her mouth so she could look up at him, and found him staring down on her, still with his hands on his face, like a deer caught in the headlights.

Maybe he was not so pleased after all. A number of questions rose in her mind, all painfully anti-feministic and equally ludicrous to ask with her mouth full. Good? Not good? Like it? Am I doing it right? Fortunately, Ressler saved her the embarrassment by dropping his hands to her head and very softly stroking her hair.

"This…" he said huskily, "this will not last long."

It's not supposed to be an all-night program, Donnie, she thought, amused, but again she heeded his earlier advice and did not voice her thoughts aloud. She got a better grip on his buttocks and pulled him closer so she didn't have to stretch her neck so far, and swirled her tongue around the cleft at the tip before sucking him deeper in. Faintly, she was aware that if they both hadn't been this drunk, neither of them would ever have done this. She had never been this easy, not even before she got married, and Ressler…well, she couldn't picture him prowling the streets for pussy on the weekend. Neither was he the kind of guy to deliberately have sex with a married woman.

Good thing my marriage can be considered invalid, as I did not marry the man I—stop thinking about him! Stop thinking altogether!

Her self-annoyance might have made her a little rough, because Ressler clamped down on her head and said pleasantly, "You know, that saying they have, about sucking golf balls through garden hoses? That's hypothetical. You can't actually suck my balls up through the urethra. It won't work."

She needed two seconds to digest that and then collapsed against his thighs in a fit of helpless and unstoppable laughter, because to hear him say that in that inflectionless voice was just so insane she couldn't do anything but laugh, and it felt oh so very good to laugh again.

Ressler waited patiently until she'd calmed down, cool as a cucumber. "Are you quite finished?"

"Yes," she hiccupped. "Sorry." She wiped her streaming eyes. "I think I kind of killed the mood."

"Not really." His mouth twitched up in a somewhat embarrassed little smile. She checked, and no, not his mood in any case. "Besides, it's nice to see you laugh again. Even if it's at me."

Lizzie very gently ran her hands up his stomach, pausing briefly on the fresh scar just above his right hip. "I wasn't laughing at you. You just…" she sniggered, "you surprised me, that's all." She wanted to ask him if the scar still hurt him, but before he could accuse her of talking too much again, she dipped her head and went down on him again. This time, she actually did her best, applying any skills she'd accumulated over two years of marriage and several years of being a small girl in a hard world. She'd never thought of herself as a pro and deepthroating was something she'd never got the hang of, but several men had told her she was a good lay and, whether that was something to be proud of or no, it wasn't something you held back on during moments like this. Besides, Ressler had earned a bit of expertise, as far as she was able to give it, with that unexpected remark of his. It was hard to smile around an erection, but she managed whenever she thought of garden hoses.

She was just beginning to get to the point that her cheeks started to cramp up and she hoped he was almost at his limit when his fingers tightened on her scalp again and he whispered, "Either stop now or keep go-…" but alcohol was a bitch and his control was lacking, and she felt that sudden stiffening of erectile tissues in flesh that had been firm but pliable before; she kneaded her fingers into his butt and had one split second more to prepare for the flood before he gasped and came down her throat. He reeled, head thrown back and balance pretty much gone, so it was just as well she had such a good grip on him or things might have become seriously messy.

Swallow? Spit? Unfamiliar house: bathroom location as of yet unknown. She swallowed, sucking gentle until he softened, gave him a final lick and pulled back, expecting him to sag to his knees or drop down next to her. Instead, he took a couple of deep breaths to steady himself, briskly pulled his pants up and her to her feet.

"What are you…?"

"Time to return the favour. But not on this couch; it'll give me a crick in my neck."

"Oh wow, we're actually taking this to the bedroom? Do you keep your coffee machine in there?"

"Keen? Shut up. And take off your boots before you kick me again."

Giggling helplessly, she was quickly whisked away to a spacious bedroom with a large bed carelessly covered with a rumpled duvet. Once there, Ressler shucked his shoes and the rest of his clothes, fumbled with her bra while she obediently got rid of her shoes and removed her panties with businesslike efficiency.

"Your pursuit of sexual gratification is as efficient as your pursuit of inebriation, I see," Lizzie couldn't help commenting. The light was still off, but the room was at worst dim, lit by the glare of an alarm clock and a streetlight just outside the window. The low light made her feel pleasantly anonymous.

Ressler pushed her down on the bed. He was a tall man, and he wasn't particularly gentle, yet she didn't feel threatened by his greater strength. "If you'd been paying attention, you might have noticed I already got my gratification," he said, casually spreading her legs and leaning his chin on her stomach.

"Ah, so it's my gratification you're seeking," Lizzie marvelled. "How incredibly chivalrous of ahh…!"

Very few men she knew could do oral sex well. Most seemed to think that motorboating a woman between the legs would automatically carry her to paradise on soaring pink clouds, resulting in screaming orgasm. Most of those men, she thought, would be surprised to find out that a woman had a clitoris and that most of her sexual pleasure came from that discriminatorily tiny organ, and that if you ignored it, pleasure was pretty hard to come by.

It figured that, after all the surprises he'd given her that evening, Ressler was rather good at it. Very good, in fact. He didn't just use his mouth but his fingers as well, and he had a way of vibrating his tongue that actually made her whimper. There was very little in the way of soaring pink clouds, not with the whirl of alcohol behind her tightly shut eyelids, but she couldn't help moaning aloud as the first stirrings of orgasm whispered around her spine, making her toes curl and her fingers claw into the pillow.

"No!" she gasped, as he stopped, "No, go on, go on, go…" and then he slid inside of her again, only half hard at first, but completely erect after a stroke or two. Her body, confused by the interruption, responded by building up to climax again, and brought up her legs on their own accord to wrap around his waist and make sure he wouldn't stop again. He didn't; on the contrary, Ressler latched down on her mouth again, swallowing the mews that escaped her and just…kept…going. He lifted her butt with one hand and the angle was just right, just perfect…He brushed her anus with one finger and she came, not exactly screaming because his mouth muffled any sound she made, but loud enough to hear herself and feel almost embarrassed by it. Almost; she was still too drunk and it felt too good to be anything but satiated. She was ready to flop down in a boneless sprawl and fall asleep, but Ressler either hadn't caught up yet, or, more likely, didn't care and kept on thrusting into her.

Right, she thought hazily, he's got one on me; gonna take a while before he's going to shoot his load again. Not that this overly perturbed her. Alcohol had one big advantage, and that was that it both desensitized and aroused her, and while she was still tingling from her first orgasm, she was already heading for a second. Nevertheless she was not unduly irked when his batteries ran out only a few seconds later and he collapsed on top of her.

"Jesus," he muttered against her neck. "Fucking shots."

That made her giggle again—a stifled giggle. "You're squashing me."

"Sorry." He remained lying on top of her for another half minute, then groaned and rolled to the side of her, pulling her along and against his chest. A bit of wiggling enabled him to pull the duvet from beneath their bodies and spread it over them instead.

She thought she should probably get up and find a bathroom, but decided that she could do that in a minute or so. Now, she was warm and sticky and snug, and Ressler went out like a light with both arms still wrapped around her. She was comfortably trapped, and not one bit sorry about it.

"Good night," she said, but she got no reply. Oh boy, are you going to be sorry in a few hours, she thought, and fell asleep wondering who of the two of them she meant by that.

She woke up briefly at five to go to the toilet and spent exactly three seconds wondering if she should leave now. But she was still woozy with drink, and a truly spectacular headache threatened in the background, and it was cold, so she went back to bed and nestled gratefully in Ressler's warmth.

The next time she woke up was because Ressler shot up straight out of bed and made a run for the bathroom. Getting reacquainted with his toilet, she gathered, and yes, if she interpreted these sounds correctly he was indeed being sick. But when he stumbled back into bed some ten minutes later he smelled of mint instead of vomit, and she had to applaud a man with the collectedness and the strength of stomach to use mouthwash or toothpaste after puking his guts out.

When she woke up for the third time, she was alone in bed and the shower was running. The alarm clock showed it was almost nine-thirty in evil, red-glaring numbers. She moaned and burrowed further below the covers. The headache slumbering at the base of her skull was slowly stretching its hooked claws through her brain, but if she was lucky, it wouldn't wake up all the way and tear through the cotton that filled her head. Thankfully, she didn't feel nauseous, only slow and heavy and generally miserable.

She dozed until Ressler came out of the bathroom with his wet hair combed back and dressed in clean shorts. He tossed a towel onto the bed. "Here. Shower. I'll make coffee. Breakfast if you're up to it." Apparently, he was back to using simple sentences only. She lingered another ten minutes, then unwillingly got out of bed and made her way over to the shower. Here, she fidgeted over things she had completely disregarded the evening before, like the fact that her legs were stubbly—the last time she'd shaved her legs and armpits was three days ago. Then she laughed at herself for caring about insignificant details like this. She'd just cheated on her husband with a man she didn't even like very much, who obviously hadn't cared she wasn't silky smooth all over. Surely she could overcome these imperfections if he could.

She washed her hair and removed all make-up remains, took an aspirin from the bottle left conveniently on the basin, and dressed in the clothes she could find.

"Do you know what happened to my blouse?" she asked Ressler as she sauntered into the living room. He was sitting at the table in sweats and a t-shirt, cradling his head in his hands while hanging over a cup of coffee. He hadn't slicked his hair back with the translucent cement or gel yet, or whatever he put into it, and some of his bangs had fallen back over his forehead.

"Chair," he said, with a fain nod, and she indeed detected the item of clothing hanging over the back of the chair opposite of him.

"Thanks." She put it back on.

"Coffee?"

"I'll get some." She'd already spotted a mug laid out for that purpose, hunted down the coffee pot and helped herself. She joined Ressler back at the table, content for the moment to warm her hands and soak up the soothing coffee smell without actually drinking it. "Are you hung-over?"

"Pretty much. You?"

"I'm fine as long as I keep still and the rest of the world keeps quiet."

He grunted something that could mean anything, and took a tentative sip from his mug.

"Ressler," she started, and he interrupted, "After last night, you might call me by my first name." and immediately after that, "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For sleeping with you."

She smiled a little. "Was I that bad?"

He frowned. "No. It was good."

"I agree. Especially for drunk sex. I've definitely had worse."

His ears reddened, and he scowled at her as he tried to finish his sentence. "But we shouldn't have done it, and…"

She wouldn't let him. "Why?"

"Because you're married. And because I…"

"That's not what I meant. As for me, my marriage is…complicated. What you should be sorry about is breaking your own word. You said you wouldn't take advantage of me and you did, in a way. Not that I care. I was there, and I…but you said you wouldn't, and you did, so feel ashamed about that, not for sleeping with me."

"Oh." He took another sip of coffee. Complex sentences were obviously still too much for him to process at this point.

Lizzie sighed. "We should probably just pretend this never happened."

"Uhuh."

"And that's why I'm not calling you 'Don', because I never have before."

"Very sensible."

"We'll just never speak of this again and act normally."

He looked up from his coffee. His eyes were vaguely bloodshot. "Can you do that? Just ignore the fact that I came apart in front of you like a first-class idiot, and that you sucked me off before I went down on you and we rutted like a pair of street mutts on a rubbish dump?"

Despite herself, she felt her cheeks heat up. "I love that image you're conjuring up."

"Good, because that's the image that'll pop up in my head every time I see you at work from now on."

Great. That's what I'll think of too, now. "Better invest in loose-fitting slacks, then." She sighed again. "Look, just forget about this. It never happened."

"I'm glad you think I'm so forgettable."

This time she clacked her tongue in annoyance, because now he was being wilfully obtuse. Worse: sulky. "I'm not saying I'm going to forget it. I'm only saying I'm going to pretend it never happened. Or did you want to go to Cooper and ask what his thoughts on relationships on the work floor are?"

"No."

"Want to fight Tom for my hand?"

"No."

That's almost too bad. I don't know what tricks he has up his sleeve, but I know you pack a pretty good wallop. She stared at him until he lifted his eyes again. "Don't tell me that you've developed a deep and passionate love for me overnight."

He gave a soundless snort. "Not really."

"Well then."

"I'm just…I'm not very good at pretending."

Lizzie shrugged. "Neither am I. I'm still alive, am I not?"

Another blank look. She almost expected his eyes to become blue screens of death: understanding crashed; try again, abort, fail? Then: "Alright. So we'll never speak of this again and ignore the fact it ever happened."

"What drinking binge-caused, guilt-riddled sleazy sex night are you talking about?"

He barked out a laugh, blanched, and pressed his fingertips against his head to keep it in one piece. He was, Lizzie decided, definitely much the worse for wear, far worse than she was.

"Maybe you should go back to bed."

"I can't. You're still here."

"Then I'll take my leave. I should be heading back anyway, before Tom gets home."

He winced at that. "I can drive you, if you want."

No, no, I can climb a mountain with a fever of 104 degrees and a hole in my stomach!

No, really, I'm fine driving you while my head is obviously splitting and dropping you off at your house would kind of undo any future pretending.

"Uhuh, because that wouldn't look suspicious at all. Nah, I'll call a cab. Um…"

"In the drawer, in the hallway," Ressler pointed, and she went to retrieve her phone from her jacket and rummage around in the hall table drawer, finding a neat stack of vouchers for various services, including taxis. She called the phone number provided and was told that a taxi would pick her up in fifteen minutes.

More than enough time to pour a fresh cup and actually drink it. Obviously, Resser had come to the same conclusion, because he had gotten up and was spooning coffee into the filter of his coffee machine when she came back into the room.

"Do you want some toast?" he asked. Half a loaf of white bread lay on the kitchen counter.

She shook her head. "Coffee's fine. The cab will be here in fifteen minutes."

He nodded.

Lizzie went to collect her shoes. All of a sudden things were awkward between them. Ressler looked different with messy hair and barefoot in sweatpants. The soft fabric made his ass appear rounder, and she vividly remembered grabbing hold of his buttocks and pulling him closer to...

He's right; this will take some getting used to. She wished he hadn't shared her vision of copulating dogs with her. Then it hit her why seeing him dressed like this made her uneasy: he looked just like Tom. Ressler had the same physique as Tom. Oh, he was a little broader in the shoulders, a little wider in the hips, but it was the muscled buttocks that gave it away. Now why had it never occurred to her to wonder why a first grade school teacher, who, according to his own word, only went running once or twice a week as a workout, had the same muscle tone as an FBI agent who, as she knew for a fact, worked out at least three times a week? She'd always simply assumed he had good cells, but that was bullshit, wasn't it? To maintain that kind of musculature one needed constant training. When did he do that, then, and where? When she was doing her own routines at the gym? In his little cubby hole? Girl, you really are a total failure as a profiler.

The coffee machine gurgled and dripped. After another minute or so, it settled down with a hiss, and Ressler refilled their mugs. This time, they both drank it, leaning against the counter. After a few sips, she glanced at him from the corners of her eyes and decided she didn't much care for the despondent slump of his shoulders. Could just be the hangover, but with her luck he'd commit suicide the moment she was gone, and she didn't think she could take that, on top of all that was happening. She nudged him with her elbow.

"What are you going to do today?"

"Hm? Today? Nothing, I guess. Sleep some more. Read. Maybe read up on a case. Why?"

"Just wondering."

"You're a profiler. You don't 'just wonder'." Something dawned on him, and he smiled again, a strange little mocking smile, but a smile nevertheless. "You're worried about me."

"No, I'm not," she said quickly, and the smile very briefly widened to a grin. The grin told her he'd probably be alright. The kiss he planted on her forehead confirmed it. "What's that for?"

"For being cute," he said. "I'll be fine. I'm hung-over and I'm still not sure I shouldn't bring out the self-flagellation instruments, but I'm not going to kill myself over sleeping with you."

"Oh." Lizzie could feel herself reddening again. "Well, good."

Time to leave.

"You should probably go and wait outside," Ressler said helpfully. "Or you'll miss your cab."

"Yes, that's probably a good idea," she said gratefully.

He walked after her as she marched to the hall, checking she had everything she'd worn when arriving earlier.

"Keen. Lizzie." She winced as he said her first name. 'Keen' might be a bit impersonal, but at least it was businesslike and held no connotations with betrayal. But when she turned back to him his face was still like a mask—be it a despondent and somewhat worn one—closed and reserved but earnest, the smile from the kitchen lingering only in the vague curl of his mouth. "If you need anything…I don't know what's going on with you and Tom, but it sounds like it's connected to Reddington. And if it is, and you need help…I can't offer you the resources he can, but I will watch your back, if you need me to."

She nodded, suddenly so absurdly grateful to have him on her side it made her eyes sting. "Thanks," she whispered.

"See you at the office, on Monday."

She opened the door, just in time to see a grey car with a taxi light drive up to the curb. "See you then."