A/N: This is my first Blacklist fic, so any reviews would be appreciated.
Set after "Osterman Umbrella Academy"
~oOo~
"What's on your mind, Keen?" Ressler questions as he props himself in their office doorway. He'd noticed Liz from the War Room, staring off blankly into space, and he wanted to make sure she was alright.
"It's nothing." She responds, broken from her trance as she begins to pack up her belongings.
"You've never been a good liar." Ressler steps into the office and sits across from her, Liz looking to him as she sets her purse on the desk between them. "I take that back." Ressler adds, "You're a terrific liar. But I know you well enough to know there's something on your mind. Spill it." He commands.
Liz sits in silence for a moment, her irises jetting back and forth as she tries to word her thought. "Was it naive of me to think Samar and Aram would have a happy life? The dream wedding, the nice house, kids?"
Ressler leans back in his chair and extends his hand over the desk, his fingertips dancing lightly on its surface. "No, Liz, I don't think that was naive. We all wanted that for them. Hell, they wanted that for themselves."
"You know," Liz sighs before continuing, "maybe it was foolish of me to think they'd end up happy. We seem to draw unhappiness, especially in our relationships. I don't know why I expected theirs to be any different."
Ressler glances at her; she looks hollow, like each word she speaks empties her soul. He wants to comfort her, but he's not sure how. She had a point. "So, what?" Ressler questions, "You saying we're all doomed to die alone?"
"Think about it." Liz nods as she starts to gesture with her hands, "Me and Tom, you, Audrey, Samar and Aram, it just never works." She continues to toy with her hands, stopping in her tracks when Ressler reaches out and squeezes hers with his own.
"Don't put too much stock in that, Keen. It comes with the job. You know that." He squeezes her hand again in an attempt to soothe her, surprised when she returns the gesture before letting go and rising from her chair.
"Maybe you're right." She nods and slings her purse over her shoulder, "Maybe it's the job. Maybe if I ever go on a date I need to add that as a disclaimer." She adds sarcastically with a small chuckle.
Her comment gets a laugh out of Ressler, something rare. He rises from his own chair and looks to Liz, measuring his words before saying, "We could get Wing Yee's if you want, go to your place or mine, no disclaimers involved."
Liz tilts her head down, her lips turning up in a small, hidden smile. "I'd like that." She looks to him and smiles again, bigger this time. "We haven't done Wing Yee's in forever."
"You still like your usual? Number 7?" Ressler questions as he and Liz turn and exit the office, his phone in hand and Wing Yee's number on the screen.
"Yes." Liz nods as they board the elevator and
Ressler places their orders.
They drive in separate cars to Liz's apartment, Wing Yee's delivery showing up shortly thereafter. Ressler grabs the food in exchange for cash, looking over Liz's belongings as he makes his way through the apartment.
"This Agnes?" He questions as he sets the takeout bags on the table, motioning to the photo of a little girl with dirty blonde hair wearing butterfly wings, rainbow striped pants, pink shirt, and a tutu. "She's really growing fast."
"Yeah." Liz agrees as she takes her food out of the bag, "She is. Scottie sends me pictures of her now and then, tells me she calls her Mama. What's weird is I'm surprisingly okay with it." She flops down on the couch before digging into her food, Ressler coming to sit beside her.
"Well, maybe one day when Reddington, that imposter, is gone, you'll get to see Agnes again. Be her mom."
"Hell," Ressler's comment draws a small chuckle from Liz, "by the time Reddington's out of my life, Agnes will be my age and have abandonment issues all her own." Her voice is light and joking, but Ressler's sure there's a hint of truth to her words. "You know, it's almost a good thing she think's Scottie is her mom." She sighs before getting up and retrieving two beers from the fridge, handing one to Ressler before taking a long swig of her own. "Scottie wanted to be a mother, but Tom was taken from her at such a young age she never got the chance. Agnes deserves better than being in danger with me, and Scottie deserves her chance at motherhood. It worked out in some ironic, fucked up sense." She tries to laugh again, her head tilted back and tears clinging to the corners of her lashes.
"You don't mean that." Ressler tries unsurely. It was rare he and Liz talked about their personal lives in depth, but that seemed to be the topic of conversation today.
"I do." Her voice is more sincere when she looks to Ressler, "I do mean that. I shouldn't have been a mother. Agnes was my last, sad chance to keep Tom and I together. You knew how I felt about having a baby; I wanted her to be put up for adoption from the beginning. But then she was born and I saw the way Tom looked at her, and I thought that maybe we could've made it work. But Reddington put a target on our backs like he always does, on the back of our newborn child, and I knew then and there that I was poison, that if Agnes stayed with me she would die just like everyone else in my life: by the hands of Reddington or someone that wanted to get to him. I can't bring myself to put anyone else in my life through that. I am poison, Ressler, and poison is not the place for a child. I see that just as I'm sure my parents saw that when I was a child. I did it to protect her, and she's well taken care of. Better than I could've done for her. And what's so wrong about letting my little girl grow up with a mother that loves her, that can keep her safe, keep her fed, provide for her? A strong mother, the kingpin of a criminal empire, yes, but a strong mother. What would she have had with me? A killer for a mother? A mother who came home with broken bones and bruises every night; who never came home, or came home filled with so much rage that it devoured my child from the inside out, watching me fight my inner demons and the truth about Reddington? Poison, Ress, that's all I would've been to Agnes."
"Come on, Keen, you're more than that. Having Reddington in our lives has been," he pauses for a moment and takes a sip of his beer, noting the tears Liz attempts to covertly wipes from her eyes, "it's been terrible, honestly. We've all betrayed our morals; you remember how closely I used to follow the rules. I was ready to hunt you down. And then this switch flipped, with you and Reddington, and I started thinking with my head rather than the rulebook. That Boy Scout you met, that Donald Ressler, he's dead. That newbie version of you, she's dead, too. And that doesn't have to be a bad thing."
Liz looks to Ressler and offers a small, forced yet genuine smile. He was always kind to her, always knew what she needed to hear when things got tough. She appreciated that from him, admired it, even.
"Thank you." She says quietly, and reaches over to squeeze his hand in kind. Ressler looks to her unsurely when her hand lingers for a moment, and when she doesn't pull away, he turns his hand palm up and laces his fingers through hers.
Ressler turns to her, his head tilted down, his eyes narrowed intently and voice soft as he speaks, "He doesn't make you poison."
Liz feels his breath hot on her cheek, his face so close to hers she swears she can feel the heat radiating off of his skin. She stays unmoving for a moment, relishing in their closeness before slowly leaning in, hesitantly meeting Ressler's lips with her own. Liz lets out a small, breathy laugh when Ressler leans into her, his hand coming to toy with her hair as he deepens the kiss.
Liz decides in that moment that it doesn't matter if she is poison. It didn't matter if she's Raymond Reddington's daughter, or niece, or anything else. What mattered was the weight of Ressler's body pressed against hers, the feeling of his lips as they traced her jawline, the sensation of his hands, warm against her skin.
Elizabeth Keen decided then and there that it didn't matter if she was poison, Donald Ressler was the antidote. And if she had to depend on Ressler to keep her grounded, to keep the poison in her life from overtaking her soul, she was okay with that, and she hoped, going forward, that Ressler would be, too.