March had gone out like a lion, all blistery frigid evenings, thunderstorms and grey upon grey skies with ominous clouds looming, always looming. Like they were trying to tell her something. If only spring would come and offer some hope. Hope of new life, new beginnings.
Lizzie stood clutching the shoddy cast iron balcony railing outside her motel room door, flaking paint off with her fingernails, watching it float down to the ground two stories beneath her. The wind whipped at her warmed cheeks and through her charmeuse blouse and blazer. Red scarf flapping at her neck. She could almost hear Sam scolding her to put a coat on. If only he were here now to tell her what to do. Hold her hand, help her make the right choice.
Tom had been waiting in her room for her. When had he followed her there? She couldn't think straight, couldn't process where in her usually cautious routine she had faltered. He had been sitting in the darkened corner of the modest room, lying in wait for her. She was no stranger to him covering her mouth with his murderous hands, keeping her from alerting whomever was listening to his presence. Smart enough to sweep her place for bugs, he also knew the tech Aram was foraying into these days far exceeded his device's capability. Even coming here was taking a huge risk.
A risk he took anyway.
Or was it 'Jacob' now, instead of Tom?
It was Tom Keen that disappeared, leaving their marital home that night under the guise of walking their dog. It was Tom Keen that came back only days later to hold a gun to her head.
Jacob Phelps spent months in chains, fighting off an infected gunshot wound, killing an innocent dockworker. And it was Jacob Phelps that came back into the picture after being warned, ordered even, by Raymond Reddington himself to stay the hell away from his Lizzie.
One thing was clear: whomever was pulling Tom's strings was powerful, well-funded, ruthless and willing to sacrifice Tom's life in pursuit of their endgame.
"I'm not here to hurt you, Liz," he said, voice just above a whisper. She struggled against his hand and he removed it only to place his index finger at his lips, willing her to not give away that he was there.
"What do you want, Tom?" she hissed.
"You know what I want. Is it here? Or have you given it to him?"
"Tom, I really don't know what you – "
"Cut the crap, Liz, I know you have the fulcrum. Or at least, you did. I know about the boxes you got from Aunt June. Make this easy and no one will get hurt," he snarled.
"I thought you said you weren't here to hurt me," she reminded him.
"The people I work for, Liz, they're powerful. More than Reddington and his people. I've gone back to them empty handed once. They won't let it happen again."
"Sounds a lot like a threat."
"So you have it?"
"It's in a safe place, yes," she admitted, calculating, planning her next move.
He grabbed her wrist, squeezing her scar, pulling the wounded skin taut and drawing a cry from her lips.
The door nearly exploded off its hinges, light streaming in from the world outside and blinding Tom. Liz didn't even have to strain to look, hazard a guess. She knew it was him.
"Get out," he commanded, voice low, gravelly and deadly serious. Dembe cocked his gun in tandem with Red.
"Not without the fulcrum," Tom answered, insolent.
"Tom, you should know by now, Lizzie is far too intelligent to keep something of that kind of value in a cheap motel room," he countered, eyes leveling with his.
Tom backed toward the door, dragging Lizzie with him, her upper body secured to him with one arm, other arm still rigid, aiming his gun at Reddington.
"You're not going anywhere with her," Red warned. He lived to prove the lengths he would go for her. If Tom was in the mood to try him, he was ready to meet him there.
"I'm not going back to my employer without it." He wouldn't budge.
"King to b2," Red muttered under his breath. As if on cue, Dembe leapt the distance between himself and Tom, disarming him. "Check," came his whispered response, as if it were just for his own benefit.
"Your move, Reddington. I'll keep coming back until I get what I want," Tom threatened.
"I will meet this employer of yours before any other terms are discussed. Set up a meet for tomorrow morning. Corner of Thirteenth and Congress."
Tom cowardly backed out of the room and stalked away briskly, pulling up the hood of his black sweatshirt and virtually disappearing into the night. Red holstered his gun, while rushing to her side.
"Lizzie, are you alright? Did he hurt you?" he asked, starting to reach for her arm. He thought if he could just touch her, feel the life coursing through her, know that she was unharmed that he might just let Tom live one more night.
Before he could make contact, she jerked her body backward, hugging her arms around her visibly trembling body. Her eyes slammed to the floor, unwilling to meet the intensity of his gaze. "I'm okay," was all she would offer.
"Okay? Lizzie, what would have happened if I hadn't arrived when I did?" he was doing his best to control his volume, but his concern for her exceeded importance over everything in his universe. His patience for the way she downplayed her safety and his role in it was wearing thin on him.
"Let's talk about that for a moment. Why did you show up when you did? If I didn't know better, I would think you had the place bugged," she said, starting to pace, still refusing to look at him.
"I'm not eavesdropping on you, but I do have people following Tom."
"Why? I can take care of myself. But while we're on the subject, why do you seem to care so much about my physical safety yet you seem perfectly at ease with wrecking my emotional wellbeing and stability?" she asked, her volume steadily climbing.
"I don't merely seem to care about your safety. I do. I've been caring about it for over 25 years, Elizabeth. I've sacrificed more than you will ever know to keep you safe and I am not about to let all that go to waste because you are disillusioned about your ex-husband. His motives are his own and if it comes down to you or him, he will choose himself just like he did before."
"You don't know that, you can't know that. People change," she pled.
He swallowed hard. How did they get here? Back to the same place they had been in nearly two years ago: he knowing for sure what Tom really was and she, unwilling to believe she had been completely duped. Tom was still working her, he was sure. He was playing an angle, but to what end, Red still wasn't sure. What he was sure of was that he wouldn't, couldn't continue to fight for her heart if she was still going to fight for Tom's.
"Do you still love him?" he asked finally. He didn't usually ask a question he didn't already know the answer to, but in this case, he had to hear it from her, one way or another.
She worried her scar, casting her eyes to the floor again. She couldn't hold up under his knowing stare.
"I don't know. I'm confused," she finally admitted.
"About?"
"Tom and I. You and I," she answered.
"There is no you and I. You said it yourself, Lizzie, we are partners. That's where this relationship ends," his voice was beginning to crack under the weight of words he prayed weren't true to a God he had long abandoned. His private supplication had become quite laborious, and sadly, quite routine. Whomever was listening to his pleas, if anyone was listening at all, it was the ramblings and petitions of a man desperately in love. Love and sorrow collided.
"Of course I said that! I have to say things like that. I have to keep distancing myself from you. I have to keep telling myself that it would better for me to return to a man who nearly destroyed me, a literal fugitive, a liar than to take up with a man that is practically those same things – and who could cost me my career!"
"I have never lied to you," he ground out, tone serious and stern.
"Maybe, but you haven't told me the whole truth about everything either."
"I am trying, Lizzie. I've had twenty more years on this earth than you to become stuck in my ways and most of those years have taught me one thing and one thing only: self-preserve."
Of all the things he had divulged to her in such back handed ways, this was the most revealing of all.
"If you're never going to change, if this is how it is always going to be, you and me on two very different playing fields, then I don't know what to say. I can't keep doing this," she conceded.
"I will only do what I feel keeps you safe. Beyond that, I said I am trying, but you seem to expect overnight results and long-term rewards just don't work that way."
She could only stare blankly back at him. Long-term rewards? So he had thought of their future, too.
He was starting to get nervous, shifting from one foot to the other, frequently glancing at the door. Probably an occupational hazard, she thought. The unflappable Raymond Reddington did not get nervous. He finally broke the silence.
"It comes to this. I won't compete with Tom, nor live in his shadow. After tomorrow's meet, if you want me to go, say the word and I'll get on my jet, leave and make things less complicated for you," he stalled, screwing up the courage to state the ultimatum.
"But it's your move, Elizabeth. You have to choose. Tom. Or me."
With hat firmly replaced, he walked out, the door hanging open behind him. The chilly night air brought her from her thoughts, drawing her out to the balcony in time to watch his car pull away.
Neither would sleep this night.
She tossed, turned, stared at the ceiling, paced and finally gave in to her tears.
He drank a 12-year old single malt scotch as if trying to extinguish an out of control fire.
Forgivingly, the morning sun rose full of glory, lending contrasting warmth and newness to the dark day he had been dreading, ending the torturous night of restlessness and unease.
She sat on the edge of her plastic floral bedspread, fingering the soft and worn bunny from another time and another place and running her hand back and forth over the scorches. For something so small, so seemingly insignificant, it carried a heavy curse.
She arrived at the meeting spot a few minutes early only to find Tom also there waiting. Red was always on time, never early or late. It often infuriated her, but today she was glad for a moment alone with Tom.
"We only have a minute, before everyone else shows up, so I just gotta ask you something. Our marriage, was any of it real?" she asked.
He shrugged, looking suspiciously at their surroundings.
"Liz, what do you want me to say? It started out as just a job but I don't know, along the way, the illusion of it all was overpowering, especially when we talked about becoming parents."
"So you would have gone through with adopting a child with me knowing at some point your job would come to an end and you'd abandon us? You know what, don't answer that. I don't need you to say anything. I'm pretty sure you holding a gun to my head is all the answer I should ever need," she spat turning to walk away. He grabbed her elbow, stopping her short. No matter the reason for this meeting, she knew he was deadly and she didn't want to push him.
He pulled her closer and leaned down to kiss her. In a moment, she saw all their happier times flash before her. Their wedding, their honeymoon, their first place together in D.C. The apartment. She then remembered all the blood and finding the hatch in the floor. The way the apple of her cheek throbbed from the back of his hand. She jerked back from him, glaring.
A block away, Red sat in the back of his car with his heart in his throat. She kissed him. Her back was to him, but it didn't matter. He had seen enough. The apple-man's videos had nothing on this. She knew full well what she was doing now. She knew him.
She made her choice.
He steeled his insides for one last moment and began to walk toward them.
"Red, how long have you been here?" she asked, her face suddenly hot.
"I believe we have business to discuss, is this mysterious employer joining the party?" Red deflected.
Tom's attention was turned to an older, smaller stature man walking toward them from the west.
Shots rang and Red pulled Lizzie to the ground with him, covering her. Tom was cowering behind a nearby oak. Red looked around and when he thought it was clear, stood but still keeping her behind him as he scanned for the shooter.
Lizzie gasped and covered her mouth as she saw the older man, Tom's employer, lying on the ground bleeding out. She grabbed onto Red's shoulder as a violent shudder ran through her at the thought that it could have been any of them.
Tom was visibly angry. "I know you had a hand in this, Reddington."
Red turned slightly to face Tom when Lizzie first saw the blood on his face. He moved to calm her when he saw her own blood drain from her face.
"I'm okay, Lizzie, it's just a flesh wound," he attempted levity only to be met with her stricken look. He momentarily attempted to decipher this look, wondering if it was due to his bloody jaw or Tom's employer, lying in the street, eerie eyes still open.
"What the hell am I going to do now?" Tom shouted at them.
"Well, based on previous experience, I'd say you are going to disappear before the police arrive," Red answered smugly. He hated Tom with every fiber, every molecule of his being but he also very sadly knew the game he was merely a pawn in.
"I gotta go, Liz. I'll call you," he shot over his shoulder as he started to run.
Red took her elbow, encouraging her to get out of the street. She still seemed dazed, eyes wide and silent mouth slightly agape. Once they were safely out of sight, he stopped her and ran his hand down from the crook of her elbow to her hand, holding it between them in both of his. His body language would plead with her. His words never could.
"Lizzie, have you given any thought to – "
"Yes. I have. I've been thinking about it for quite some time now, actually," she confessed.
"And have you made your choice?"
"This is too confusing, Red. I'm pretty sure I just witnessed a hit being carried out on Tom's employer. I know you ordered it, but I can't figure out why you didn't have Tom killed as well?" Her volume rose as she pulled her hand from his and stepped back. Her defensive posture back in place.
"I have no reason to kill Tom outside of you asking me to. And you didn't. You seem to be quite comfortable with Tom once again," he said casting his eyes aside, fearful if their eyes connected he would give too much away. Disappointment. Anger. Undeniable love.
"If you need me to choose right now, I choose neither of you," she said finally.
He nodded silently. Staring past her at nothing.
"I wish the best for you, Elizabeth. That is all I have ever wanted for you. The best in your life, in your career and in love. You deserve it," he said, still avoiding her. At the last moment, he looked back at her and taking a step closer, laid his warm hand on her cheek and said, "Take care of yourself," dropped his hand and walked away.
She couldn't speak.
She could only watch his elegantly dressed form get smaller and smaller the further it got from her.
Driving back to the post office, she thought, hoped that maybe throwing herself into her work would push this from her mind and get her through this. Her stubbornness drove him away. She had to live with that now.
She passed the park where she and Red first held hands. He comforted her when she so desperately hoped he would be wrong about Tom. She passed the café where they had an early breakfast after a long night of strategizing in her storage bunker. Reminders of him were everywhere. A red fire hydrant.
Determined, she sped up, weaving in and out of traffic and headed in the direction of the airport.
She ran, blowing past people and barricades to the private end of the airstrip where his gulfstream was scheduled to depart from. She got to the glass in time to see the wheels leave the ground and the plane glide effortlessly away from her and out of her life.
"No," she breathed, fogging the glass.
No, it can't be.
He can't be gone.
Her life, insignificant as she felt it was, was made special, precious even, by him. He made her laugh. He made her cry, but he was always there to hold her and comfort her. His strength seeping out of every pore and making itself available to her every need, her shortcomings. Most of all, they shared an extraordinary past, had reconnected in the present at fate's behest and she longed for a passionate future with him.
If only she had told him.
"No!" she screamed, fists hitting the glass as she gave in to her sobs and collapsed to the floor, forehead pressed to the window, his jet now far from her view. She wept. For all that they could have been. For all they would never now be. She wept not caring that she was making a scene.
She kept her head down, her hair keeping her swollen, red eyes and tear streaked face from view.
She didn't hear the footsteps gently approaching.
She didn't hear because all she wanted in the world was to be left alone, to wallow in her mistakes, to shrink into herself and never come out.
A strong hand appeared inside the curtain of her hair holding an ivory handkerchief. She looked at it for a moment, unable to process and determine if she was dreaming. Her eyes caught the crimson letter 'R' embroidered into the corner.
She looked up, ashamedly and saw him standing there, his own eyes welling with tears. She fell apart again, shaking her head and his name falling from her lips over and over, Red, Red.
He knelt on the floor, enveloping her in his arms and telling her over and over that it was going to be okay. That they would be okay. She clutched at him, burying her salty lips in his neck and kissing the warm skin there over and over. She amazed him, awaking a dormant part of himself with every contact. He responded with his own sighs, letting her know how achingly good she felt in his arms. Stroking her hair over and over, he simply whispered.
"Lizzie."
"Red. I choose us."
Just my hopes, dreams for tonight's ep. Well, my dreams go further but I try to be realistic. 'Tis my first attempt at anything remotely angsty. I crave your feedback, whatever it is as this is something I'd like to become better at. Thanks for reading!