A/N: Ha! Did I call it or what? Episode 20…ok, we knew they were going to hook Lizzie and Ressler up when Audrey died, but still. And…they did nothing with it. So I did it for them and tied it into the Rinse and Repeat series. Call this part 2.5.
Here's an extra little scene, then, call it a coda. Like Trust Issues it will have two parts in one chapter, because I'm lazy. First part is just h/c, for those of you who hate sex scenes because it makes them uncomfortable. The second one is for the people who are made uncomfortable by it but who like that
The Kingmaker – Coda
After she'd left Reddington, his cards, his lies and his cognac in the house that wasn't his, Lizzie found herself drifting aimlessly through the city. Her thoughts were all over the place, her feelings a mess. Several times, she lost track of time and space and came to herself parked on the corner of a street she had no memory of turning into.
Now there truly is no one left. I really am all alone. My husband is a murderer and a spy. My father consorted with the world's most notorious criminal and kept things from me that caused said criminal to kill him when he considered owning up to me. And that criminal…Red… "I wanted to trust you," she whispered. "I needed you to be honest to me…I needed you to be someone I could count on."
Her stomach ached with betrayal. Almost a month of suspicions and uncertainties had suddenly slammed home, and she'd been wrong about thinking her life was ruined when Tom turned out to be…whatever it was he was. She'd still had Reddington, then, as a last hope for truth. But now even that was gone. How could she even listen to a man who tried to fob off the murder of her father as some sort of…what did he call it? Euthanasia? How could he think she wouldn't find out—how did he think he could ever explain it?
At some moment she drove back to her apartment, but seeing it, windows dark, lifeless, made her feel so desperately lonely she broke off her parking routine and swerved out onto the road again.
"So where do I go now?" she asked herself, and hated the thin, wavering quality of her own voice. "Where on earth can I go now?"
Then it hit her, and at first she balked at it, but she remembered: a friendly mask, the promise that he'd have her back if she ever needed him. A promise made with the memory of sex and far too much booze still fresh in their minds. Still. It was all she had left, wasn't it?
Ressler was sitting on the couch with the combination Book and Beer, with the TV on mute in preparation for football when the ball rang, making him sigh in annoyance. He wasn't expecting anyone and he was tired after filling in what felt like 300 pages of paperwork. Many people seemed to think an FBI agent's job consisted of mind-blowing action and exciting arrests, but the bitter truth was that he spent 90% of his time typing reports and doing research so tedious it made all archaeologists seem like Indiana Jones.
But when he opened the door and found Lizzie Keen huddled on the doorstep saying "I didn't have anywhere else to go," his irritation melted away, and he welcomed her in with a gesture with his bottle.
Poor thing. This whole Tom business is really taking its toll on her. Or maybe it's Reddington. Again.
She followed him in, coat still on until he plucked it from her shoulders and hung it over the back of a chair, and sat down on one end of the couch.
"Do you want a beer?" She nodded, and he got her one. She took a perfunctory swallow and lowered it, holding it in both hands in her lap. Ressler had to keep himself from taking it from her and putting it on the table with an 'It'll get warm.' And then he didn't know what to do, she was so obviously ripped.
She took another bottleneck-licking sip and her dull gaze fell on the book he'd placed open, pages down, on the table. "What are you reading?"
"Chandler."
"Oh."
He grimaced. She was usually too voluble to his liking, but this was getting scary. He cleared his throat and gingerly sat down next to her. "So, you…did you find out…anything new? Or were you just…huh?"
She nodded. "Aram pulled the internal report of my father's death, and…" Her face began to crumple. She moistened her lower lip, tried to continue in a normal tone of voice, "and Reddington was there…he was there…when my father died, and…" She stopped, and then she produced the most terrible sound he had ever heard, some kind of horrid, high, breathless keening. Her hands came up to shield her face as her mouth opened wide, not to scream, but to express a loss so profound it went beyond crying. She gasped for air, choked on it, then made that sound again, something barely human and so awful it froze Ressler in his seat. "He killed him," she wept, her grief stretching and jumbling her words to an almost senseless mass. "He was there and he killed him because he wasn't supposed to tell me something and he killed him…and I asked him why and he said hewantedto die but hewasmydadandItrustedhimandI…" Another desperate gasp for breath; she sobbed out more words, but she was almost incomprehensible. All he could make out were 'loved him' and 'trusted him!' and 'all alone' and 'left me'. And then she started keening again, curling in on herself like something sick and broken, and he didn't know what else to do but pick her up, pull her into his lap and fold himself around her to keep her together.
At first, she was too engrossed in her own grief to notice. She huddled on his thighs in a stiff ball, not responding to any shoulder-patting, back-rubbing or the shushing noises he made to calm her, but after another minute—one of the longest minutes in a life, and that included all the time he'd spent in the glass box with Reddington and his trip through the mountains in Mexico—she stopped wailing and began to cry—which was still horrible but a lot better than that sound.
"Why doeseverybodyleave me?" she sobbed. "Am I such a terrible person, that…why is everything connected to him? Am I only a m-means to get to him? Or is he the one who…?"
"Ssshhhh," Ressler said, holding her a little more tightly. In response, she clawed her fingers into his shirt.
"But why? Why me? What am I to him, then, if everything, everything was a lie? Who am I…who am I to him…I don' wanna be important," she cried, and Ressler winced at the wetness soaking his shirt. "I'm just me, I'm nobody, I'm just me and I just want my life back…"
It was at this point that Ressler realised two things, both of which were rather unfortunate. The first was, that, as she stopped keening, Lizzie had started to cry large amounts of tears and the one box of paper tissues he had was situated under his bed. The second was that even though she was a total mess and it really, really shouldn't affect him like that, having a woman in his lap had made him painfully hard, and there was no question that, as she was winding down, she would notice this at some point. The whole situation made him acutely uncomfortable.
She wasn't supposed to break down like this. He could deal with her naivety, her impulsiveness, her edginess and her paranoia—you could say things would be alright if you thought they actually would be. But things had obviously escalated to beyond salvable, and there was only so much soothing nonsense you could murmur into the ear of someone whose entire life had crashed around them before you began to feel vastly inadequate.
So Reddington really did kill her father. Well, that'd make anyone flip. He couldn't help thinking that there was more, a lot more, to Lizzie Keen's life.
Thankfully, the open-mouthed sobbing had stopped, now; she was still sniffling and messing up his shirt, but at least she was a little more quiet, and actually responded as he rubbed her back and kissed the top of her head. The response was a boneless, exhausted sprawl, shaken, every once in a while, by a hiccup.
Ressler held her, still hard, still uncomfortable, very much relieved she'd stopped bawling but beginning to get seriously pissed off at Reddington. He didn't know what the bastard had been thinking, but he better have a really good reason.
Something moved in front of him; looking up, he noticed that the football had started on TV. So much for a quiet night in, he thought with wry regret. The remote was on the table, out of his reach. He leaned his chin on Lizzie's head, pulling her even closer as he felt her move.
"Sshh. Just stay like that. It'll be alright."
She gave a huge snort. "I need a tissue."
Ah. Yes. "You can use my shirt," he said magnanimously. "It's soaked through, now, anyway."
She managed a reedy laugh, and he felt her body tense as she tried to keep from crying more tears. Who was it Audrey had once quoted? 'A woman's grief is like fertile land: sow tears and reap torrents.' Her shoulders shook when she failed, and he stroked her hair.
"It's ok, Lizzie. Just relax."
"I really need do blow my nose," she sniffed, and with a sigh he crawled out from underneath her and went to fetch his tissue box from the bedroom, where he took off his tear and snot-stained shirt and threw it into the laundry bin, shrugging into a clean shirt on his way back to the living room. Lizzie noticed his change from red-chequered to plain blue and produced another thin laugh before grabbing a handful of tissues and burying her face in them.
Ressler squatted down in front of her and placed his hands on her knees.
"Are you ok?" he asked, looking up at her.
It was probably a pretty dumb question, but she nodded. "Yeah. Sorry." She wouldn't look at him and stiffened as her stomach gave an enormous rumble.
Ressler smiled. "That's ok." He squeezed her legs. "Have you eaten anything this evening?"
She shook her head. "No. I couldn't…" she sniffed. "Couldn't force…anything down my throat."
"Are you hungry? I'll make you eggs on toast."
She surfaced, eyes wet, nose red and gleaming, lips swollen and quivering, from the tissues and presented him with a trembling smile. "That…would actually be really nice."
"Good." He gave her knee a pat and plucked the remote from the table. "Here. Tell me who's winning."
Scrambled eggs were fast and easy enough; he had a two slices of toast and three eggs done in roughly five minutes. Five minutes were enough for Lizzie to regain her composure. It wasn't enough to make her face any less blotchy, but the flood had stopped and she pretended to be interested in the players on the screen.
Ressler gave her the plate. She regarded it with the queasy helplessness of someone who had lost their appetite so long ago food no longer was welcomed but feared. Ressler knew the sensation. He nudged her. "Take a bite, you'll feel better in a bit. Come one." He noticed with detached interest that her eyes were completely devoid of make-up. Either she was really good at cleaning up without a mirror, or she'd simply cried everything off. He felt another protective stab of anger directed at Reddington. Knowing Reddington, he must have a reason, a very good reason, for killing Lizzie's dad. After all, why else risk being seen? Knowing Lizzie, she hadn't given him the opportunity to explain. But how do you explain that? he wondered. Jonica had had nothing to do with Audrey's death, not directly, really, and Ressler had still wanted to kill him. And while it hadn't diminished his grief for her death, he had to admit to feeling a savage joy at the sight of Tanida's severed head.
The memory of that particular present was all that kept him from paying Reddington a little visit and beating some answers out of him on behalf of the small woman nibbling on her toast next to him.
That, and the fact that Lizzie might not actually thank him for going out and getting killed by Dembe or Reddington himself; the man knew how to handle a gun. What with everybody leaving her, and all that.
So, for the moment, he remained seated on the couch, pretending to watch TV and casting surreptitious glances to the side. He'd been right, he noticed, satisfied; once she'd started on the toast, she wouldn't put the plate aside until she'd wolfed everything down.
"Want some more?"
Another shy smile. Of course, now she was embarrassed. Women. They soaked you with bodily fluids and made you cook, and then they acted all flustered. "No, thanks. Thank you."
He reached for her beer on the table, put his arm around her shoulder and drew her against him. "That's ok. Drink your beer."
"Yes, Don." She obediently took a sip.
They both watched the game for a couple of minutes. Ressler was very much aware of the warmth and the slight weight of her, leaning against him. He wondered if he should offer to talk, or listen, but he really didn't want to. Talking wasn't his forte; he was more the strong, silent type. Also, he never knew what to say to distraught women, and he was scared to death she'd start crying again. So they just sat, and gradually she relaxed against him, her head leaning on his shoulder. A few times, she cleared her throat, as if preparing to speak, but in the end she kept silent until the break.
Ressler dreaded the commercials, because they meant he had no excuse to watch the screen anymore, and had to strike up conversation. He tried to keep his tone light. "Do you want anything else to drink? Or eat?" She'd finished her bottle some time ago.
"Nah." She blinked up at him. Her nose still held a tinge of redness, and she looked strangely vulnerable without make-up, but he didn't think he needed to be afraid of any new outbursts. "I'm good. I…I'm sorry. For turning up like this. I don't normally…I…" she huffed out a laugh. "I'm sorry for doing what you did to me, last time."
Ressler raised his eyebrows. "My memory may be a bit hazy, but I don't recall crying all over your nice and comfy shirt," he teased.
Thankfully, she was up to teasing. He rather belatedly realised that he might have set her off big time if she hadn't been. She snorted. "You cried all over the bar."
"I did not."
"Yes, you did. You almost dripped into your vodka."
"Vodka. Nasty stuff. I rest my case."
"Ressler…"
"Do you want to stay over? We…I have a spare bedroom. I keep my skis there, and my sports gear, and you'll lie amidst laundry, but at least it'll be clean laundry."
She shot him a smile that was much more like her normal smile. "I'd like that." He wondered if he should kiss her, then wondered if he wanted to, then wondered if she'd want him to. What exactly was the etiquette when presented by sadly bereaved and unhappy women that effortlessly managed to render one half-hard while appealing to all of one's protective instincts at the same time?
The moment passed, and he fled to the kitchen to get two more bottles of beer and saltine crackers.
"Who are playing, anyway?" Lizzie asked, as they sat through a commercial promoting toothpaste that apparently turned your teeth into snow white plastic. She absentmindedly munched a cracker.
"You don't know?"
"I was preoccupied. And I haven't kept up to date with football."
"It's the Ravens."
"Baltimore?"
"What else? And the Minnesota Vikings."
"Ah. And who's winning?"
"The Ravens."
"Huh." She took a swallow from the bottle. He wondered if he should have given her a glass. "Is it true you used to play football? Professionally?"
"Professionally? No. I was pretty serious as a kid, but you know how it goes: you get injured at a crucial point in your career, and before you know it you're an FBI agent and only watch it on TV."
"Poor you. Must've been hard."
"How so?"
"Because you don't do giving up easily."
He shrugged. "I get to shoot people, now. That's cool, too."
She laughed, an honest, spontaneous laugh. "You're such a child!" But then she sat up on her knees and shook her head. "No. I take that back. You're not a child. I'm sorry." She kissed him on the cheek. Only he turned his head exactly at that moment, and she ended kissing him on the mouth instead.
Well, then, Ressler thought. So much about etiquette. He kissed her back, not giving in to the desire to rip her clothes off and do her before the break was over. You didn't pounce on a married woman in distress. It was only that she was sending out some mightily conflicting signals. No, it was all very controlled, very proper. Kissing for comfort, the equivalent of a hug. Only he had to call a stop to this controlled, proper kissing soon, or the rest of the evening would be spent in blue-balled discomfort.
However, it was Lizzie who pulled back first, panting slightly, her hands balled into the flannel of his shirt. "I…" she started, looking away. "Sorry. It's late."
Yes, I also regularly find myself necking people when the clock approaches eleven, Ressler thought. But he said it was fine and told her that if she wanted to go to sleep, that was fine as well, the spare bed was made up and ready if she didn't mind shifting his towels to the floor.
"Ok. I think I'll…I think I'll go to bed then." She took a final sip of beer and got up, not meeting his eyes. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I'm just…really tired."
He smiled at her, heartfelt but wryly. You're a damn tease, Keen. It may not be your fault or even your intention, but…damn it. "Do you need a toothbrush? I probably have a new one in the cabinet in the bathroom. And take a shower, by all means."
Lizzie thanked him again and disappeared. He heard the shower turn on a couple of minutes later, turned up the volume and sat back when the players ran back onto the field.
It really wouldn't do picturing her in the shower.
Ressler groaned and rubbed his hand over his face. Fuck my life, I need an outdoor hobby so I won't be home when people come knocking at my door.
Kingmaker – Coda 2
The game lasted to around eleven-thirty, and Ressler sat through most of it trying to ignore the miasma of unhappiness that was coming from his spare bedroom. He tried to think of ways to tell Reddington that it might be time to either tell Keen what he wanted with her, or get the hell out of her life so she could go back to being a happy-go-lucky greenhorn. Unsurprisingly, every scenario that popped up in his head ended with Reddington leaving the room with some flippant remark—either that, or Ressler pulling a gun on him and Reddington laughing in his face and showing him pictures of Anslow Garrick and Mexican mountains. He didn't like the man, and he disapproved of what he was doing…but he didn't like Keen so much he was willing to fight her battles for her. Not without ammo, anyway.
When the Ravens had won, he watched the news, grinning when Patrick Chandler's arrest was broadcast clear and detailed on the news, and turned off the TV and the lights. He washed up, combed the gel out of his hair, brushed his teeth and went to bed. He didn't need much sleep—a prerequisite of being an FBI agent—but the day had been long and eventful, the evening nerve-wracking and weird, and his alarm clock was set to go off at six-fifteen. As he closed his eyes, ignoring the brief but painful throb of heartache at Audrey's absence, he pictured disassembling a Glock—his way of counting sheep. Within five minutes he was gone—something he'd taken with him from being Special Ops: the ability to fall asleep instantly.
The Special Ops training was what woke him up as well, about half an hour later, as his subconscious alerted him to the presence of another person in the same room.
Keen.
For god's sake, woman, can't you just decide what it is you want from me? But he was as cowardly as she was; unwilling to confront her he pretended to be sleeping and studied her from beneath his lashes.
She was standing in the doorway, wearing a T-shirt—one of his, he noticed, with a faded Nike logo. Well, he had parked her in the laundry room, and it wasn't as if she'd packed for a pyjama party. It reached halfway her thighs; her legs were bare. She didn't seem to be crying, simply hovered there, staring at him from a distance like that creepy vampire guy that had been dominating the billboards a few years ago, who women seemed to like so much. Her presence grated on his nerves and made his back prickle; he wished she'd go away and leave him in peace. At the same time, knowing her there made him harden instantly—it was the T-shirt, he thought, and the more or less certain knowledge that she wasn't wearing anything else, and was probably considering joining him.
He wished she'd make up her mind.
Just as he was about to 'wake up' and ask her what the hell she thought she was doing, she made her decision and quickly approached the bed, sliding between the covers and sidling up to him before he could protest—if he'd been inclined to do so. The modern man was a strange creature: basic morals suggested he should tell the woman desperately searching some kind of comfort that snuggling up to a healthy young man who hadn't got laid in more than a month wasn't a very good idea, not if she wasn't prepared for some very embarrassing scenes. But modern man was not so tough not to appreciate having a soft and pliant body so close, even if it was only to curl around and hold while he was sleeping. And if she needed that, being held, well, he could do that, couldn't he?
So when her back pressed up against his chest he hesitatingly put his arm around her ribs, curved his body so only their upper bodies touched and, as she relaxed against him, drifted off.
Until her hand snaked back over her hip and effortlessly covered the distance to come to rest on his crotch. He arched into it with a sigh of pleasure before jolting awake, again, all the way, and lay rigid for about thirty seconds while she slowly stroked up and down the length of him. Not that this wasn't nice, but there was only so much he could take before he needed to act on it, be it in the flesh, literally, or manually. The previous time she had accused him of breaking his word when they'd ended up banging each other; this time he hadn't made any promises, but Christ, not two hours ago she'd been crying over her brutally murdered daddy. He swallowed as she did a little twist with her fingers that felt particularly good and, fed up, leaned forward and spoke in her ear, "Would you make up your bloody mind already?"
Her hand froze, then slipped underneath the waistband of his boxers and squeezed. "What the hell do you think I'm doing, Ressler?"
She's got a point. One could hardly call this mixed signalling. Maybe it was time to abandon the overly well-behaved modern man creature and revert back to caveman routines. It took him one second to wriggle out of his boxers and align his body with hers. She arched her back and he pushed into her—no need for foreplay for her either, he was relieved to discover—easy and slick as anything. But this position didn't feel right, too languid, too loving, maybe; he couldn't pound into her this way, and he felt that was absolutely necessary. This wasn't about love; this was about working through things, and in his case about his willingness to help her with that…and, of course, plain and simple physical desire. It shouldn't be sweet and slow. He didn't want sweet and slow, not with Keen. But he could give her hard, if that was what she was looking for.
He pushed her to roll over onto her stomach, but that wasn't ideal either, so he slid out, prodded her until she sat up on her knees and told her to grab hold of the headboard.
So far, Lizzie had kept more or less silent apart from the occasional soft grunt or sharp exhale, but now she looked back at him over her shoulder and said, "If you're finally finished positioning me, can we…" But he thrust into her, none too gently, and she broke off with a muted "Ahh!"
"Shut. Up."
And this worked. God, it worked perfectly. His hands tightened on the rise of her hips as she thrust back aggressively, not giving an inch although he almost slammed her into the headboard. If he hurt her, though, she didn't show it—and she didn't sound it, either. She gave as good as she got, and he was renowned for being dedicated. And so it was hard, and fast, and he couldn't keep it up for more than 3 minutes before his breath began to stutter and his balls tightened.
"No," Lizzie grated out, feeling him falter. She curled her spine and reached between her legs to clamp her fingers around the base of his cock. "Don't you dare…not yet, I'm almost there, I'm almost…"
"Christ, Keen," he gasped, pulling her against his chest, which forced her to release him and placed her more or less on his thighs, legs spread out on either side. "Calm the fuck down, I'm not…finished yet." She bucked against him, and he was afraid that it wasn't going to take long, anyway. The change of angle helped, for a little while in any case, as did the fact that he had to rock up instead of forward now, but the way she ground down on him did not, and in the end he relinquished some of his hold on her to place a tentative finger on her clit in order to speed things up a little. She moaned, deep-throated and raw, and that was it for his self-control; he dropped his head against her neck and shuddered through his orgasm while she kept rolling her ass, as if riding him harder would enable him to keep it up longer. It didn't.
Lizzie whined in protest, damn the woman's endurance. He took her hand and placed it between her legs to replace his fumbling fingers. At first, she hesitated, but when he grabbed her hips again, thrusting up in short, fast jerks he hoped he would be able to keep up for some time until he'd softened too much, she started rubbing herself in small circles. Every couple of circles she touched him, too, and that was enough to sustain him until she finally, finally gave a strangled cry and sagged down on him.
It was at this moment that Ressler remembered that he had left the box of tissues in the living room.
He winced and moved to pull out, but Lizzie clamped down and wrapped her arms around him, backwards. "Don't move…just yet."
"I'll slip out," he protested, but she did another clench, and he discovered that he wouldn't. As a matter of fact, he was growing hard again. She'd obviously felt it too, because she started rocking again, just little movements, nothing that would get either of them off, just keeping them there on the edge of arousal and oversensitivity.
And that would have been nice if it weren't for the fact that balancing on the bed on his knees with an armful of woman was pretty straining. After a while, his thighs cramped up, and after another minute his abdominal muscles started to quiver. Lizzie gradually stopped moving, lay heavy and warm against him, but she was still doing that clenching thing occasionally—she must have pelvic muscles like steel cables.
He lightly slapped the sides of her buttocks. "Are you done?"
"H-mm..."
He chuckled quietly. "You're done." He scuttled back a bit, rolling on to his side and stretching out his legs as he pulled her with him, trying to keep the mess to a minimum. The last thing he wanted to do was change the bed in the middle of the night, or sleep on wet patches. Lizzie, even though half asleep, seemed to come to the same conclusion, because she carefully pulled away and disappeared into the bathroom. He himself padded over to the living room, not bothering with boxers, to get his tissues.
Well, that was riveting. And fucked up.
He wasn't sure he was glad to find she'd returned to his bed and crawled into it, but decided it was better than if she'd gone back to the laundry room. At least she wouldn't end up staring at him from the other side of the room again. He hoped. When he joined her, she leaned over him and kissed him on the lips, the pressure of her mouth brief but firm. Then she turned away from him and, if he interpreted the sound of her breathing correctly, instantly fell asleep.
Ressler shook his head. But he had only come to Remove the magazine and clear the chamber by locking back the slide. Check by both visual and physical inspection whether there is not a round in the chamber before he drifted off as well.
Ressler's mind woke up a few minute before six fifteen in order to prepare him for the brutal beeping assault of his alarm clock. The rest of his body was still fast asleep, but his brain started to register impulses from his immediate surroundings and sent out signals to his extremities, the better to react and slam down that button when the alarm would go off.
One of the things his body registered was the presence of someone sharing his bed, and his mind automatically provided Audrey. Because even after two months, old, reinstalled habits were hard to break, and his sleeping body was very easy to fool. It was only when he made the semi-conscious decision to spoon up against her that the dull voice in his head reminded him: Audrey is dead.
He froze, opened his eyes, saw long dark hair and a pale shoulder, and his body insisted Audrey, it's Audrey, who else would it be you wake up next to?, but of course it wasn't, and he felt a stab of disappointment so intense he had to grit his teeth to keep from making a sound. Now wasn't that strange? He didn't feel guilty for having sex with Liz Keen, but the view of her in his bed disturbed him in ways he couldn't even describe. It hadn't been like that the previous time—god, there was a previous time. But then they'd both been drunk, and in the morning he'd been more concerned with functioning like a normal human being than he'd been with soul-searching; now, they'd both made the conscious decision to get up close and personal.
And that was fine. He was under no impression that Audrey would have wanted him to stay alone and pine for her. Neither did he think that bedding another woman would soil his memory of her; he'd loved Audrey, a lot, and he loved her still, but she was gone and apart from the fact that he simply wasn't over her yet, he didn't see why he shouldn't have another relationship, if it came to be. But seeing Keen lying next to him just didn't feel right, so he turned off the alarm clock before it could go off, quietly slipped out of bed and grabbed his running gear so he could get dressed without waking her up.
Running steadied him. He liked to start his day with a nice, relaxing work-out, not too long, just half an hour every workday morning. The world was a quiet, peaceful place this early, and the rhythm of his feet on the ground enabled him to think without thinking—reflect, he guessed he should call it—on things without breaking his head over them, and wake him up like a physically-created mental caffeine boost. He had started running in his late teens, after quitting football, and never really given it up, apart from the occasional forced break caused by, say, a bullet or two. It had been a bit of a struggle to pick it up again after Mexico. But then, his physiotherapist had remarked how much faster he was healing than expected because of his 'marvellous physique' (Ressler suspected that the man was gay. He didn't mind, but he'd felt a bit uncomfortable with the man's slavering over his abdomen and the way his face lit up whenever he told Ressler to take off his clothes), so he'd gradually eased into it again. By now he was so used to it he had to make an effort to even break a sweat.
He made the effort now, taking an alternative route so he had to run faster than he was used to in order to return within half an hour. Part of him hoped Keen would be gone when he came back, immediately followed by another part's recriminations that he should have left a message telling her he'd gone running but hadn't actually run out on her, and would be back to make her breakfast. The recriminating part was assuaged when he entered and found her sitting at the table with a mug of coffee in front of her. The other part…was stifled by the pitiful figure she made, dressed in her rumpled clothes and with her pale face.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey," she returned. She hesitated. "You were gone, so…I made some coffee. There's enough left for another mug, if you want."
"Thanks." He rinsed out the Donald Duck mug Audrey had given him six years ago and poured himself a cup. It meant he didn't need to face her just yet. "I went running. You were still asleep. I figured I'd let you sleep."
"Appreciated."
"You're still up early." He slipped two pieces of bread into the toaster and automatically stocked the table with first one plate, out of habit, and then two, and knives, orange juice, jam, honey, cheese and butter.
She patted her forehead. "Internal alarm clock. You don't get up at seven for a year and suddenly break that habit."
"Mm."
Why were these things always so awkward? Or was it just awkward with her? Because she was his partner? Because the sex was awesome but he couldn't wait for her to leave again? Or because whenever they did end up fucking each other, it was always connected to and the result of either or both of them being so miserable and frustrated anything was better than being alone? Sounds like a healthy grounds for a wonderful relationship to me.
He sneered at himself and waited until the toaster spat out his breakfast. "Toast?"
"Do you have any yoghurt?"
He checked. "No."
"Oh. Yeah, toast, then." She spread butter on her slice and sprinkled sugar on top of it, which made him arch his eyebrow.
"Sugar? Really?"
"It's the only way to eat toast," she mumbled around a mouthful. "When I was twelve, my dad…" She trailed off into silence.
"What?" Ressler asked gently. Other people liked to talk about lost loved ones. He didn't, but that didn't mean he expected Lizzie to keep quiet too.
She shook her head. "He just used to say that it was. With cinnamon."
"I can get you cinnamon, if you want."
She produced a thin, mocking smile. "Did you like watching me cry that much?"
"No," he said hastily, and the smile grew to something approaching normal before collapsing.
"Urgggh. I'm sorry. I know you said it's ok, but I'm still sorry for…going off like that."
Ressler made a non-committal noise and went to get two more pieces of toast. At the moment, he was less concerned with the crying than with the aftermath of the unbridled sex with the distressed co-worker. They needed to talk about this, or their relationship at work would become really uncomfortable.
"So," he said, pouring himself a glass of orange juice…and stumbled to a halt. Lizzie seemed to shrink in her chair. Maybe it was better to simply ignore it again. Or try. No way that I can do that. He sighed. "What is our strategy this time? Do you want to pretend this didn't happen either? We can't blame it on alcohol this time."
"I know."
"Can't say it was an accident, either." I just happened to fall balls-deep into you, never saw that coming.
"It was my fault," Lizzie said, ready to go all martyr about it, and he decided to halt that train in its tracks right away.
"Oh yes, of course it was your fault, because as a male, whenever a woman flashes her magic tits of doom my dick takes over, rendering me completely helpless and unable to defend myself the moment you offer yourself to me."
She twitched at the 'tits of doom', winced at the 'offer', but insisted, "I crawled into your bed, not the other way around."
"I could've kicked you out."
"You were asleep."
"Yeah, you totally took advantage of me." He leaned forward and fixed her with a stare. "I was faking."
"Aha! I thought you were!"
"Kind of hard to sleep while you were projecting misery in the other room."
"That misery must have been a huge turn-on for you, then. I won't complain but that isn't the kind of…thing you grow at a surprise visit." Despite his annoyance he was rather charmed by the fact that she wouldn't say 'boner', 'hard-on', 'weapon of mass destruction' or even 'erection', but he kept his face straight as she pointed an accusing finger at his nose. "Don't think I didn't notice while I was sitting in your lap, when you were" she raised both hands and crooked her index fingers next to her face, "'comforting' me."
"I wasn't 'comforting' you, I was trying to make you stop making that godawful s—what the fuck are we arguing about, here?"
"Whom to assign blame," said Lizzie. "For last night." She popped the last piece of buttered-and-sugared toast into her mouth and sighed, exhaling a spray of sugar crystals.
"Sexy," Ressler muttered, as she slapped her hand against her mouth and suddenly she laughed, almost choking on her bread. When she stopped coughing, though, her eyes were moist again, and not just with coughing.
"I don't know," she said, and wiped her eyes. "I…I just don't know anymore."
Ressler nodded. He finished his coffee and then his juice. "Ok. Let's get that cleared up, then. We had sex, twice. I liked it."
"Glad to be of service."
"Shut up, you didn't know. Do you love me?"
He couldn't help smirking as she grew bright red and stared into her mug to escape the horror of that question. He took pity on her and answered it for her. "I'll take that as a no. Don't worry, I'm not in love with you either. You're alright, Keen, but you're not…" You're not Audrey. He cleared his throat, ploughed on. "Are you sorry you slept with me?" As in, does it make you want to scrub out your lady parts with the toilet brush? He shut his mouth right before that tumbled out.
She tore her eyes away from the dregs in her mug. He bet she was feeling sorry now, but for entirely different reasons. "No. But Ressler, I…"
"Then let's keep it at that," he interrupted her firmly.
"No hard feelings," she said, and added, "No pun intended, ha ha," which surprised him into laughter and a rather heartfelt "Oh, Christ."
He shook his head, pushed back his chair. "I'm going to take a shower. Are you here by car, or…?"
"Yeah. It's parked around the corner." She slowly stood, rolling her shoulders. "I'd better go, drive by my home, pick up a change of clothes."
He felt a profound sense of relief. "Ok."
She hesitated, and he badly wanted her to leave, so when she opened her mouth he interrupted, "Look, if you're going to say 'sorry' or 'thanks' one more time, I am going to do you right here on my kitchen table, just for the heck of it. I'd probably wreck it, and I'm actually pretty fond of this table. So do everyone a favour here and accept the goddamn hospitality."
Lizzie stared at him, eyes wide, and burst into laughter. She sounded just a little hysterical, but the grin she shot him was genuine.
"Keep your pants on; I'm leaving. Have your shower. See you at..." And then her expression changed again, deflating first, then shifting into determined. She lifted her chin, drew herself up. "Why don't you come and meet me at my house," she said. Her tone was different, too, now.
"What's at your house?"
"A mess," she said. "Something I should introduce the FBI to. Use their expertise instead of trying to hide from it. It's high time I did."
"What kind of mess?" Ressler asked, envisioning Tom Keen's broken body on a smashed coffee table. "Does it have to do with Tom? Or Reddington?"
"Both," she said. She picked up her jacket. "Meet me there—you know where I live, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll see you there. And I'll show you. And maybe…maybe you can help me again. Make sense of it all."
"Sure," said Ressler. "Count me in."