De Rerum Natura

A/N: This story will be a prequel to the series but will have spoilers from the Seasons so far. I wanted to explore the backstory of Red before he turned himself into the FBI. This will eventually lead into the series, but it's not the main purpose of the story. And also, this is solely for entertainment purposes. I'm not trying to answer the big questions.

Rating: T...if you're old enough to watch the show you're old enough to read this.

Warnings: Violence, murder, mayhem, some foul lauguage, drinking, smoking, adult situations and relations, and overall mature themes.

Disclaimer: I own only the characters I have created.

Spoilers: Seasons 1 and 2, and maybe 3 if I'm still writing this when the new season starts.

Summary: "A man's true delight is to do the things he was made for." - Marcus Aurelius.

2005

The wind howled through the trees, stinging his face and slicing through the coat he'd tucked tight around his body. His legs had gone numb miles ago. Each step felt like he was walking through water; it was a struggle to get that one more step. That one more foot closer to home. It was dark; there were no lights, no signs of life. There was only the howl and one more step. Snow was falling hard and fast, covering his trail and making it nearly impossible to see his way in front. If it hadn't been for the clearing to give the road passage he would've been lost. But he knew that path well. It led home.

Home. He hadn't been home in months. It was going to be a surprise. A Christmas Eve miracle with presents but most of all: Dad. He could hear their voices in his head; the estatic excitement, the yelps of joy as they jumped to their feet to greet him. He could feel his daughter's arms around his neck and the touch of her lips to his cheek. The kiss of his wife's lips upon his.

Just one more step and he'd be home. Then one more after the last. Out of the dark came a solid post that had him stumbling to the right to avoid colliding with it. He looked up and huffed out a breath of air into the wind. Without seeing the words he knew what it was. It was a sign that indicated that the acres of land around his home had been bought. In five to ten years the trees would be gone and replaced by more houses. The saunciary he had called home would be gone and instead he'd have to deal with neighbors. Sighing he turned from the sign and took another step.

Just as he lost feeling in his feet, he rounded a corner and saw in the distance the opening to the front yard. If he could've gotten his legs to run he would've made a mad dash for the front door. All he could manage was a heavy lift of his right leg out of the deepening snow before tugging his other leg along. As he approached the porch, he tugged off the gloves to dig his keys out of his pants pocket. With trembling hands he dropped the keys into the snow. He bent over and pulled them out of the cold wet snow before dragging himself up the steps. Letting out a deep breath in relief, he went to the door and noticed for the first time that there were no lights on.

Maybe they were all asleep, he thought as he unlocked the door and swung it open. The house was warm and in the air he smelt something that shocked him in place just inside the door. It wasn't of baking goods, or of a burning fire in the fireplace, or of his wife's perfume. It was of blood. A lot of blood.

Flicking the light on, he felt the hitch in his chest as the splattering of red nearly blinded him.

"Raymond."

Taking a deep steady breath, he forced his eyes open and blinked away the memory of that night. The chaos in the small tattered shack in the middle of the desert flooded back into his ears. Men with semi-automatics, grenades, and all the bravo of frustrated men pushed to the brink with nothing to lose moved frantically yet orderly around him. Standing in front of him, shoulders square and determination in his eyes, was Dembe.

"No." That word escaped his lips faster than he had time to consider anything other than absolute death for his friend before his shoulders slumped. He knew that no matter how hard he protested nothing would change the man's mind. "I've cared for you since you were fourteen-"

"And I am a man now." Dembe approached him while reaching out to grip both his shoulders. "Raymond, my brother, I know this is difficult. I am forever in your gratitude, but I must go."

Looking away, out the window, he did not see the scene outside but a distant memory of volunteering his life for servitude to country. The fear yet courage he felt when he first took that pleadge to God and country. Now, he was a man with no country and his only alligence has been to the people who swore alligence, their loyalty, to him. Dembe was more than his employee and his friend; he was his family. In that moment he understood what every parent felt as their child went off to war.

Pride mixed with hopeless despair filled his gut and it took all the restraint he had to simply nod as he was pulled into a tightly firece hug. Irrationality played at his mind as he thought of sedating Dembe and having him carried back to the jeep and then out of the country. Anywhere but here and now. Shaking that out of his head, the embrace ended as Dembe stepped away while picking up an AK-47 while he did so.

Givng him one last look, Dembe told him, "Maʿ al-salāmah."

After swallowing the hard lump in his throat he responded with a rough breath of air, "Fī amān Allāh."

Dembe gave him a warm smile, one he knew he'd miss for however long the man was gone, before turning to leave the shack.

He watched out the open door as Dembe ran to the awaiting jeep, jumped in the back, and was soon gone into the desert horizon.

A jolt in his back jerked him awake as he blinked into darkness and coughed into the smoldering heat. The floor under him tilted again, sending him slamming his shoulder into the wall. A groan rumbled out of his dry mouth. It felt like they were hitting turbulance but he knew he wasn't on a plane. The terrian had shifted from smooth to rocky which had sent him rolling from where he'd been sleeping hunched in the corner and into the side of the vehicle.

Shaking his head, he tried to shake the fogginess away as he rolled away from the wall before being thrown forward from a sudden acleration upward. He tumbled over his own body, arms, and trapped hands then slammed into the side again. A muffled scream of pain escaped his throat as the side of his head hit the solid metal of the truck.

He nearly blacked out but fought against the darkness that threatened to engulfed his head. He was struggling to stay focused, to determine how long it's been, how the road twisted and turned, but he was losing his sense of consciousness fast. Moaning once more into the gag over his mouth he gave into the darkness as he slumped into the dirty, hot, metal floor.

There was a voice through the static in his ears as the darkness lifted. A bright light caused him to clench his eyes shut with a grimace as the pain in his head shattered his skull. The voice was getting louder as he felt a slap sting his face. Groaning against the pain, he didn't flinch with the next blow but he did will his eyes open. The light that had blinded him was from the sun high in the sky above him. Standing all around him was a squadron of men with AK-47's, blank stares, and they were all wearing camaflouge.

In front of him, and pointing a beretta 9 mil. at his head, was the leader of the brigade. He knew the man by reputation only and he looked ever as imposing as the picture he'd seen. Aubrey Annan looked like he'd trained with Evander Holyfield, and then ate him for dinner. He was a beastly man with beady blue eyes that starkingly contrasted with his nearly black complextion, and he swore that the man had the biggest hands he'd ever seen; they practically looked fake.

Clearing his throat, he said in a dry whisper, "Good morning to you too, Aubrey. Pleasent weather we're having. I see you've taken procautions against the sun," he indicated as he jerked his chin up toward the hat on Aubrey's head. "I thought I'd experienced the worst of the desert heat when I was in Kuwiat, but this..." his voice cracked from the dryness of his mouth. The taste of thick saliva nearly made him gag as he doubled over in a coughing fit. He was severely dehydrated.

Aubrey stepped closer with the gun inching closer to his forehead. "You will address me as General Annan."

He couldn't even form enough saliva to spit out or swallow. The barrel of the gun bit into his flesh but instead of cringing, he stared up into Aubrey's eyes and he ignored the man's request. Instead, he said, "That's an interesting first name you have...Aubrey. Your mother's influence?" The man's jaw tightened as the gun pressed harder into his forehead. Not taking his eyes off his, he continued, saying, "It's only that I know she's of French descent and would be the one to want to name her son that...It means "Fair ruler of the little people"." He started to laugh as he stared up at the man that blocked out the sun, shadowing him in his shadow, and shook his head. "Oh, the irony. You're neither fair nor little..."

Aubrey snapped as he drew the gun back and clocked him in the head with the butt of it.

The world blurred in his vision as the water in his eyes swelled from the pain. Yet, still, he didn't fall completely over. Righting himself he felt a flow of something wet running slowing down his temple and cheek. It had to be blood. He sat back on his legs and tried to speak around the cotton in his mouth. "Come now, I thought we could talk this over like civil men."

"You thought wrong," Aubrey told him with the gun trained back on his head.

"Pity. I really didn't want to have to sever our...association so soon."

"You sold to the rebels-"

"I told you from the start that you weren't the only one I had arraingments with."

"My interests-"

"Are mine. But it's not a fair fight if I sell you all the weapons."

Aubrey started laughing at that, having found it funny. "You talk fair. What do you Americans know about fair?"

He had to nodded as he told him, "I agree, it is subjective given which side you're on."

"And which side are you on, Red?"

"The side that wins. If you want that side to be yours, then cut me loose."

Aubrey seemed to give that some thought before laughing again. "Just so you can supply both sides, get all the money, and then cozy up with the victors?" Aubrey gestured to one of his men to come closer. They exchanged a few words that he couldn't hear before the other man walked behind him and picked him up until he was wobbling on two feet. He holstered his gun and said to him with a wide smile, "Take him to the hole."

He was pushed in the back and was lead, and followed, to something that resembled a snakepit. Instead of snakes there were people being held prisoner at the bottom of a twelve foot deep by thirty foot wide hole. A wooden ladder lead down but they didn't give him time or the opportunity to use it because as soon as the barbwire wrapped gate was lifted from the hole he was pushed forward.

A couple of prisoners broke his fall as they all smashed against each other to the ground with grunts and groans and shouting and more pushing until he was clear of the men and leaning against the side of the dirt wall as the gate was closed above him. They didn't take the binds off his hands before pushing him in, but now it was easy as he used his teeth to undo them.

As he stretched and pulled at the rope, a pair of hands landed on his to help. He sighed at the touch and looked up into the brown eyes he'd been seeking out for months. At the sight of him alive and relatively well before him, he smiled. "Dembe."

"Raymond," Dembe said as he got his hands free of the ropes that bound them. "What are you doing here?"

"Feeling relieved, and dying of thirst, but most of all relieved," he said as couldn't help but pull the man into a hug that was warm and, better yet, welcomed. "I heard you were taken captive and I couldn't-"

"I did not mean to worry you," Dembe spoke into his ear before saying, "Thank you."

Taking a short step back and looking the man over, he said, "We're going to get out of this, don't worry."

Dembe took him in with a smile then laugh. "Now that you are here my worries are over. What's the plan?"

"Simple...To get up the ladder," he said right before an explosion sent everyone but him to the ground. He'd been the only one expecting it.

Through the smoke and fire that raged over the earth above him he spotted a figure opening the gate and pointing a AK-47 directly down into the hole. For a split second he thought this was it, it was all over, until he heard the eruption of gunfire and the man fell on top of them. Pulling the weapon out of the dead man's hands, he handed it to Dembe before heading up the ladder.

"Where's Aubrey?" he spoke to the man who'd saved his life and handed him a canteen filled with water. He knew Dembe would protest if he didn't take a few drinks for himself before passing it over so he wetted his mouth then gave it to Dembe.

The man then handed him a gun and pointed to one of the buildings on the compound. "General Annan barricaded himself in there."

As Dembe got the rest of the captured freedom fighters out of the hole, he headed toward the building.

"Raymond! Raymond!"

Ignoring Dembe's call to him, he aimed at a frantic guard outside the building who was trying to get in. Two shots took him down. As he passed the bleeding dead man he unhooked a grenade off his belt and pulled the pin as he rounded the corner to the building. He used the butt of his gun to break the first window he approached and threw in the grenade before covering his ears as he kept walking to the back.

He felt the walls shake as the explosion ignited a fireball that blew out the window in front of him. Shreds of glass stung his face as he closed his eyes and threw his arm up to protect his face from the flying glass and flames. The fireball was sucked back into the burning building and he kept going. Lifting his gun, he rounded the back corner of the buildng just as the door burst open and Aubrey Annan stumbled out. His back and legs were on fire and he hit the ground and started to roll as his screams of pain pierced his ears.

As he stared down at the agony on the man's face, he couldn't help but remember his own agnoy. The searing pain, nerveendings tingling and pulsing through his entire body, and the pure hell of any pressure, any amount of touch, against the burning flesh. The smell nearly sent him to his knees as he leveled the gun at the man's head; instead of feeling hate or any type of pleasure in killing the man, he felt remorse. He felt empathy as he put him out of his misery with a single shot to the head.

No words were said because nothing needed to be said. In that moment, Aubrey knew he'd picked the wrong side.

Lowering the gun, Red looked around at the carnage in the wake of the attack on the compound and knew that it would all soon be over. The South Sudan freedom fighters now had a chance at winning this war. They would get their victory and independence. And he knew in his heart that Dembe would lead them to it.

And then...He took a breath and stepped away from Aubrey Annan's dead body.

Then it will begin.

1996

Nine years earlier

The boy had yet to leave the corner he huddled himself in the night before. He had reassured him that no harm would ever come to him again but that did little to ease the boy's fears. There was no trust left to believe, no hope to feel, and no future to dream. Not yet anyway. Red knew that having lasted years in that hell of a life that there had to be some fight left in the boy. He wasn't speaking of the anger, even though the anger was good, but of a real spiritual fight. A fight to believe in something good again. A life.

Having done all he could for the boy medically, having patched up the broken skin and wrapped the smoldered blisters from burns, he made sure he rotated out the bandages along with the plates of uneaten food. It was in protest, he knew, but he also knew that if the boy didn't eat he would wither away and die.

Taking a drink of the scotch from the glass in his hands, he wondered again at his decision. It hadn't been one he'd thought out and planned, but instinct. At seeing that boy in that hell of a basement, seeing the burns, the brand on his shoulder, and the anger and fear in his half dead eyes. something inside of him just knew. He had to take him. There was no other thought in his head, no other way his body could move except for forward in the dark and musty room. He had unlocked the chains, untied the binds, and lifted him in his arms and took him.

He didn't speak a single word to anyone. Newton hadn't even questioned him as he opened the door to the car for the both of them and drove them to the landing strip. That had been nearly a week ago. So far the only useful thing he'd learnt about the boy was that he understood English. They had yet to have a spoken conversation; the boy had been answering his questions with either a shake of his head or a brief nod. It wasn't much, but it was a start.

Finishing the scotch, he stepped away from the window he'd been standing in front of, the view of the Eifel Tower in the distance, and walked over to the food service cart that Newton had wheeled in. He took one of the plates over to the table and switched out the dinner with the breakfast and tossed the uneated food away.

"I assure you the only thing I'm trying to gain from feeding you is your life," he told the boy once more before picking up a strawberry from the fresh fruit bowl and eating it. "I like your spirit. You don't want to give in. You think that now that I saved you, and am feeding you, that you owe me. You did not ask for what happened to you...nor did I ask to find you. You owe me nothing," he told him as he stared down at him and shook his head. "The only one you owe is yourself...but, generally speaking, I prefer that you live." He went to walk away when he heard a soft yet deep voice.

"Why?"

Stopping mid-step, he turned and looked at the anticipant brown eyes that stared back at him from the frail, thin body of the teenage boy. Sighing, he simply asked, "Why not?"

The boy's hands were clenching the fabric of the pants he wore. His jaw set and he stared straight at the floor but the anger he saw was hard to miss. The boy was furious. "Look! See the damage that is me."

Shaking his head, he told him, "Damaged, maybe, but not dead. We're all damaged. It's what you do with that damage that counts. It's what seperates the survivors from the victims. And I believe that if you still have a breath in your body there is no reason not to continue going on, and to live. Otherwise...what's the point in fighting? If you don't want to use all that anger you feel right now to survive, then stop pretending to be a survivor."

The boy's anger grew as he shook his head and a fist hit the wall behind him. "Why care?! You want to hurt me!"

He almost laughed at that. "If I wanted to hurt you, kid, I would have left you to die chained to that standpost." Despite the anger and that yelling coming from the boy, he was happy. They were finally talking. Gesturing around the vast hotel room, he told the boy, "Take a good long hard look around you. I'm giving you a choice, probably the first real decision you've ever had to make in your life. It's a simple decision. Do you want to live or do you want to die? If you choose life," he pulled the chair out from the table and slapped the back of it, saying, "eat up. If not," he reached around his back and pulled out his gun; he released the magazine but left the one bullet in the chamber and placed it on the windowsill next to the boy. "One shot to your head is all you need."

The boy sat there on the floor as he turned and walked over to the couch and sat back down. Taking the remote in hand, he flipped through the channels until a show stopped him. It was in black-and-white and immediately had him laughing like a kid again.

"Oh, I can never tire of the Stooges," he chuckled. "When I was a kid I would wake up at four in the morning and sneak down to the living room so I could watch them before having to get ready for school. My mother would get so mad at me...She never did understand my sense of humor."

Moments later, as he was laughing at the sight of Moe slapping Curly, he heard movement. Glancing over his shoulder he watched as the boy got up from the floor and walked over to the table. He sat down, stared at the plate and then with a resigned breath, began to eat. Smiling slightly, he went back to watching the old TV show.

During a commercial break, he muted the TV and asked, "How long?"

It took awhile for the boy to answer but he knew he had to be patient. And he had all the patience in the world. "The year, I do not know. Was only a boy when I was taken."

He surmissed in his head that the boy looked to be around thirteen or fourteen. Seven or eight, maybe even nine years, he thought in disgust before shaking his head. "I'm sorry." After a long moment he asked, "What's your name?" He knew once he got the kid's name he would be able to figure out what happened. Trace the history and find if the boy had any family or relatives.

This time his answer took longer to answer. "People do not care to know my name."

"I care," he told him as he got up off the couch and approached him. He hadn't introduced himself yet; it's been too hectic and they weren't exactly on speaking terms. Now that they were, it wouldn't be right if he didn't properly introduce himself. "I'm Raymond Reddington." He stuck out his hand so the boy could shake it.

The boy stared at his hand for a long moment before hesitantly reaching out. With a meek voice and shake, he told him, "Dembe Zuma."

As they shook hands he told him, "Pleasure to meet you, Dembe."

He sat across from Dembe and poured himself a cup of coffee. Checking his watch he saw it was five-fifteen in the morning. He'd been up since a little before four because he had a call to make to Soto in Japan and he had yet to have coffee or eat anything himself. The scotch was the only thing he'd wanted that early.

"Who are you?" Dembe asked, breaking him from his thoughts.

He took a sip of coffee as he leaned back in the chair and gave that some consideration. "That's a tough question to answer."

"You do not know?"

Smiling a little, he said, "The question isn't who I am or even who you are. It's who do we want to be."

Looking at the table and shaking his head, Dembe asked, "Who I want to be?"

"You want to hear a story, Dembe?"

Dembe gave a short nod as he went back to eating, finishing the plate.

"It's by William Stafford called 'A Story That Could Be True'." He smiled as he recalled one of his favorite poems as he looked across the room at the far wall. "If you were exchanged in the cradle, and your real mother died without ever telling the story, then no one knows your name. And somewhere in the world your father is lost and needs you, but you are far away. He can never find how true you are...how ready. When the great wind comes, and the robberies of the rain...you stand on the corner shivering. The people who go by...you wonder at their calm." His eyes left the wall as he looked at Dembe and finished the poem, "They miss the whisper that runs any day in your mind..."Who are you really, wanderer?" And the answer you have to give, no matter how dark and cold the world around you is..."Maybe I'm a king.""

Dembe's eyes were wide staring at his and there was a small smile on his lips.

"You liked that story?" When Dembe gave him a nod, he said, "There are plenty more stories where that one came from. Do you know how to read?"

His eyes shifted downward at the table in near shame as he shook his head.

"Well, see there, that's something that has to change. There is no shame in not knowing. There's only shame in knowing yet not doing. You want to learn?"

Looking up with a hint of a smile, he gave a nod.

Smiling wide, he said, "Good; it'll give us something to look forward to."

The boy finally seemed relaxed enough to breathe a little easier, which had him strangely, yet amazingly, excited. He had no idea what would happen when he had decided to take Dembe, but this was turning out to be an interesting endeaver. One he was glad he'd taken.

TBC...