Author's note: this is a little AU since Meera is alive and for whatever reason the Post Office is in or close to Manhattan.
"What's going on with you? You've been drinking that cup of coffee for an hour."
Liz looks up at Donald Ressler as he looms over her desk at the Post Office. There is no telling what time it is . The lighting in this place always stays the same: Federal fluorescent, plus shadowy dark corners. It might be just after breakfast, or way past lunch. Or midnight. The coffee cup is in her hand. "And?"
"And it's been empty for half an hour."
He raises his eyebrows at her and she flushes as she sees that it was true. "Huh. I'm losing it. What did you want?"
"Oh. A few of the guys are going out tonight. Thought you might want to join us."
"Uh..."
"It's not just a work thing," he adds hurriedly."Some people are bringing their girlfriends, wives, whatever. Dates."
"Right." Where is he going with this? Like she cares if a bunch of them go out after work in any configuration.
"I just figured, since you and Tom -"
She gives him the look.
Don knows the look. The looks that says she will kick his ass if he so much as mentions her marriage to her no good lying cheating fake husband. "Yeah, anyway, do you wanna come?"
"It's not really my scene," she says.
Don picks at papers on the edge of her desk. "Right." Then he looks up with the glint of a man who has a trump card up his sleeve. "We're going to Mojo."
"Oh." That puts a different complexion on it. Mojo is a club downtown which has become the place to be in Manhattan. As so often in New York, this happened overnight: one day there was a nice bar and club in the financial district serving sherry and salsa to exhausted hedge fund managers; next day, even Beyonce couldn't get in without a door pass. "Supposed to be good," she says as casually as possible.
Don laughs. "That's it Keen, play it down. Aram got us all door passes after he did their security team a favour. We just jumped the waiting list for a booth by like eight months."
"It would be kind of cool", she admits.
"All right then. Shall I count you in?"
She nods, smiling.
"No date," says Don, as if writing it down.
Liz frowns. "Wait up. Who says I don't have a date?"
Don can backpedal faster than anyone she has ever seen. He should be an Olympian. "Oh hey, I didn't mean - I just thought -"
"I have a date," she says.
It is a little sad that he looks so crestfallen. and a little mean that she finds that so satisfying. "I'll see you there at eight," he says. "With your date." If he exists, runs the silent end of that sentence.
"Ok then."
"Ok then." Then she feels gulty. Don is a good guy. She can't help that he has a hopeless crush on her. "Thanks," she says. "I didn't mean to be such a grouch. Things on my mind, you know?"
He gives a shy grin. "I get it. I'll see you later."
Liz waits until he has gone before picking up her phone. She punches her speed dial. "Hey."
The deep slow voice on the end of the line says, "Good afternoon to you too. Is this business or pleasure?"
She cannot bring herself to say the word Pleasure out loud in the office. "I wondered if you wanted to come out tonight. To Mojo?" She holds her breath. Raymond Reddington is not her boyfriend. Not her friend. Not her colleague. It is hard to say what he is except that they have been seeing an awful lot of each other since his unorthodox proposal last month.
"Mojo. Ah, that takes me back." He is full of surprises. It's one of the things she likes about him.
"You know it?"
"Only in passing. I had a breakfast meeting nearby one morning and I was intrigued to see the number and sheer variety of minor celebrities staggering out under the weight of their hangovers. I mean people who couldn't get into the Jungle if they hung upside down in their underwear and ate raw scorpions off their own naked chests."
"So do you wanna come? It's kind of a work thing."
"I'd love to. Are we travelling incognito in separate cars, or arriving arm in arm, loud and proud?" She pictures him, composed and suave in his car or perhaps on his jet, glancing idly out of the window while asking the question, the terrifying question.
"Uh. I'm not sure. -The second thing." What is she doing? But she has told Ressler she has a date.
Reddington exhales. "All right then. I'll meet you there. My goodness it's been years since I had the stem of a rose between my teeth." There is background noise on his end of the line. Voices, shouts.
"Ressler's face will be a picture," says Liz.
Red chuckles. " I can't wait. I plan on dancing with everybody."
"Oh my God."
"Come on. Lizzie. Live a little. I have to go now" (she hears the unmistakable sound of gunshots) "but I will be there."
"Eight o'clock." His line is breaking up.
"I'll bring my castanets!" The call fizzles out in static and gunfire.
Lizzie clutches the phone and looks around her office. Everyone is working away, no doubt anticipating a fun night of drinks and dancing at the hottest club in town. Maybe whilst tracking or hacking or profiling, her colleagues are planning what to wear tonight, or who might be amenable to a late night liaison after a couple of drinks. Their biggest problem will be finding a cab in lower Manhattan after midnight.
Lizzie has bigger problems. First of all, this will be her first office night out since her divorce and she just knows that her co-workers are curious to see the all-business Agent Keen let her hair down.
And second of all, even given that she has already sparked a gossip wildfire by announcing that she will be bringing a date, she knows that not one of her colleagues is prepared for her to show up smiling on the arm of the FBI's Most Wanted Raymond Reddington.