A/N: Trying my hand at a multi-chapter work - thanks for indulging me! Backstory, Tom-less, eventual Lizzington. I do not own these characters.
Chapter 1: Disclosure
Spring afternoons in Waverly, Nebraska were full and fair. Young lovers in rolled pant legs waded in Stevens Creek, its brisk and clear flow a refreshing and fun afternoon date. Early plantings had begun to spring up from the earth showering the countryside with baby green sprouts. New life was all around. Elizabeth Scott was just a few weeks from celebrating her eighteenth birthday, usually an exciting time for any young woman. But coming of age held no specific excitement or joy for Elizabeth. To her, it heralded the beginning of the end. The end of being so close to the man who wholly loved her and considered it the highest calling he could have to be her protector.
The tiny town she lived in with her father was like many other small mid-western farming communities. Crime was nearly non-existent and it was the kind of place where everyone knew each other's name and business. Except hers. The little girl who came to live with Sam fourteen years ago was shrouded in secrecy. Little was known about her real parents or why Sam was specifically chosen to look after her. He liked it that way. The less information that got around about his princess, the better. For nearly a decade and a half, he shored up defenses around her, effectively shielding her and her past from anyone that got close. Even Elizabeth, herself, knew not the truth of her origins. Sam preferred to be her white knight, nobly adopting her, making her his own and making the best life he could as a single dad could. It was a good life. Though they had few friends and a modest lifestyle, they were content with each other.
Theirs was a simple comfort. At first, her adjustment to living with him was tenuous, but through time and healing she began to trust him and develop a real love for him. In the beginning, it was in the way he would quiet her after a nightmare or hold her when she was sick, but it gradually turned into a loving respect for who he was, his struggle as a single dad and the way he always put her first, sacrificing so she had everything she could want or need. He was her friend. Her only family.
Sam was everything to her and leaving him was going to break her.
By the end of the summer, the tension in the Scott house was palpable and neither cared to admit what was bubbling just under the surface. Always the stoic, Liz pushed down her discomfort of the impending change to come. It came easily, a trait she assumed from her adoptive father. But refusing to address things was only stalling the inevitable. The night before she left for Columbia University, she knew, was her last chance.
"Dad, we need to talk. Before I leave for New York, I desperately need some answers. I deserve answers," she began to pace in front of him, launching into her opening arguments and readying herself for his pushback. "I've lived basically my whole life not knowing the truth about my parents and instead believing what I've been told is a lie! I just don't know how I can leave with this still hanging over me."
"Butterball, you have a valid argument and I have always known on some level that this day would come. You're a very intelligent young woman and keeping the truth from you has been a real challenge. But it's been one I have gladly taken on to keep you safe," he admitted.
"Please don't take this the wrong way. I appreciate all that you've done to protect me from this. But a criminal profiler digs into the psyche of a person to determine why they make the choices they make and their past has an impact on those choices. I don't know how I can effectively pursue this career with no shred of knowledge about my own past!" she said, her tone and volume beginning to rise. He held his hand out to her, conveying seriousness, stalling. Taking his hand in hers, she sank down next to him. The conflicting voices were warring within him. Tell her. Don't tell her. She wouldn't relent.
Sam sat back for a moment, rubbing his forehead and thinking furiously about what he could say to appease her. Could he just tell a half-truth? Whatever he did divulge, she will likely run right at it, using whatever resources she could employ at the university to research and hunt. She was an adult now, capable of making her own decisions and accepting responsibility for them. He could only hope that she would treat his revelation with caution.
Taking a deep breath, he exhaled slowly, buying just a few more seconds of the happy bubble he had painstakingly spent years creating for her. "Elizabeth, you know that I adopted you because your parents died when you were four. You had no other relatives to care for you. What you don't know is that only your mother passed away the night of the fire." There was no turning back now. "While intentionally set to kill your father, he escaped, leaving your mother behind to perish in the flames. Your father was presumed dead, the official report even confirmed it. In reality, he escaped that night and you were brought to me before he could find out that you made it out of the fire. I haven't thought much about it, but he could still be alive," he confessed, feeling one weight lifted only to be replaced by an altogether different substantially heavy dread.
She could only stare blankly back at him and attempt to process the enormity of his disclosure. Why would someone intentionally try to kill her father? Could he really be alive after all the years that have passed? Why go through all the trouble to keep this from her? She had thousands of questions, but one that couldn't wait any longer.
"What is my biological father's name?" she asked.
He hesitated, formulating his response. "Sweetheart, it wasn't safe for you to know then. I can only assume the same is true now. When you were brought to me, that was the most important instruction I was given," he explained.
Refusing to admit defeat, she countered, "Then at least tell me who brought me to you for safekeeping? You gotta give me something."
"It's not as easy as simply giving you a name. Years before you were brought to me, I was in the Navy and quickly became good friends with a fellow Ensign who would eventually become my Lieutenant Commander. His rise in the Navy was meteoric, his strength and intelligence simply unmatched. But I think it was also, in part, due to his charisma and likeability. He had a way with people, drawing them in, making them feel known. We hit it off right away," he began to trail off, clearly lost in his own memories of this man.
"Well anyway, he was chosen for a special operations unit, I wasn't, and we lost touch." Her heart fell at Sam's sad and distant expression. His pain at losing this friend was evident and was a side of him she had rarely seen. "He was assigned to a deep cover op for a couple of years and in that time, I got a few letters, just enough to let me know he was still alive but couldn't give much away about his position," he rose and crossed to a bookshelf. Pulling out a few dusty encyclopedia volumes, he reached with the other hand to the back of the shelves and retrieved a partially rusted box. Replacing the books, he returned and sat down right next to his daughter, his hands trembling. Fumbling with the lid, he gently opened the box revealing a worn leather diary inside with frayed twine holding it closed.
Sam carefully fingered the twine, slowly leafing through the delicate pages. She stared down at the hidden treasure that lay in his hands in awe. She had never seen this box or its contents. What else had lay seemingly in plain sight but beyond her understanding? She was afraid to follow that line of thinking any further, for now.
He stopped when he reached a worn photo of himself and another distinguished, handsome man, both in their dress blues. An elegant party. Their smiles held the warmth and excitement of youth, of lives yet unmarred by time and torment. She reached out to lay her hand over his, bringing him back to the moment.
"This was the last night I saw him before he showed up here with you," he recalled, whisper-like, as if just to remind himself.
"This…is him?" looking at Sam quizzically. She couldn't believe she was finally getting a glimpse into truth about her past. She wasn't sure what she had expected, but she couldn't have imagined this, the intensity of emotions tightening in her chest. There was something entrancing about his smile and his eyes, as if they were staring right into her. Spellbound and stone-still, she continued to stare in the angelic eyes of her rescuer.
"Elizabeth, this is my best friend, Lt. Commander Raymond Reddington. I owe him my life. And yours."