Note: Many of the reviews left for 'Think Too Much' asked for a continuation. What I came up with wasn't quite in the same vein, so I've posted it separately, though it is a sequel of sorts. I'd encourage you to read the first one in order to know where you're picking this up from. For those that requested I continue this storyline, I hope you enjoy and that it meets with your expectations. (There may be a third installment).
Disclaimer: I do not own The Blacklist or any of the characters recognisable from the show used in this work of fanfiction. I am making no profit from this work.
Think Too Much: Havana Heat
Lizzie threw the newspaper down on the coffee table, having expended her Spanish vocabulary. She flopped on to the couch and closed her eyes, enjoying the relative cosiness of the house; it wasn't small by any means but it felt far more homely than the Presidential Suite of the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, where they had been previously. The hotels they had stayed in had all been lovely but she never really felt as at home as Red in the impersonal, yet lavish, rooms; there was something about a room filled with belongings that weren't hers that rendered her unable to sleep. She had supposed she would get used to being surrounded by foreign furniture, however she'd had no luck thus far. She often wondered how Red managed to flit from place to place without being attached to his surroundings; with the exception of Hempstead's house, in which he seemed truly at home, the stately apartments and high end digs were just treated for what they were, a temporary roof over his head.
Unpacking hadn't taken long as each of them only carried a holdall with their clothing and a few toiletries. Liz hoped to get some idea of how long they might be able to stay, unforeseen circumstances aside, so she might fill out her wardrobe a little more; back home she had despaired at having no space in her wardrobe, and now she found herself looking into a mostly empty one every day. It was her own stubbornness that kept the drawers and wardrobe so empty; her accounts had been frozen, she had no source of income, and she refused to let Red take her shopping – it was bad enough that he took care of everything else. She knew if she wanted more clothes she would only be able to get them with his money; she would have to swallow her pride and ask him at some point as the days became warmer and, at the very least, she needed swimwear for the pool in the yard.
She sighed into the empty space. Red had left an hour before to pick up dinner and cigars; he had wanted to go out to some restaurant he said she "simply must try" but she had worn him down, insisting that they ate in on the first night in their new, if only temporary, home. She seemed able to talk him round to things more easily of late and wondered what the reason could be for his semi-willingness to relent. The nagging anxiety of their early days on the run, the one that worried they would kill each other within days, was now non-existent; they had fallen into a rhythm, each keeping their own space but quite happy to share with the other. It felt too easy sometimes. There were days of activity and animated conversation in which they laughed and usually opened a bottle of wine, whereas other days were spent quietly reading, or there would be a crossword, and another bottle of wine. She had never drank so much wine and none of it had been her usual, safe chardonnay; Red seemed to know her palate better than she did, though it didn't come as a surprise to her.
The faint jingling of keys at the door announced Red's return. As he bustled past her with his purchases he flashed her a small smile, and the smell of takeout wafted through the room; Liz followed him with a growling stomach to set a couple of places at the kitchen table, beside each other. Plates piled high, they wolfed their food down, having not eaten since breakfast as Red had two meetings in the morning and early afternoon, after which they had to cross the city to pick up the keys to the house. On their arrival Red had insisted she wait in the car until he had checked the property; she knew his cautiousness was for their safety but sometimes she wondered if it was entirely necessary. If she had to wait in the car again it would be on the condition that she kept the key as she had sat sweltering without the air con for half an hour while he crept around the building and scouted out the grounds. Within ten minutes of his arrival back at the house she had managed to stuff herself to the point she felt sick and, with a belch barely held behind her hand, she pushed her plate away from her.
"Are you going to eat that?" Red asked, eyes fixed on the food she had left. Liz smiled and shook her head. With a semi-apologetic smile he pulled her plate across the table and tucked into her leftovers.
"Vulture," she chided. "Where do you put the food you shovel into yourself?" she asked in jest.
"I'm a growing lad!" he protested and she laughed, enjoying the camaraderie they shared; it was a relief to know he was on her side, no matter what, even though she still wasn't sure why. She was reliant on him, she knew, but he didn't hold it over her as she thought he might have done. As the days and weeks passed she relearned everything she knew about Raymond Reddington and was now able to separate him from the flamboyant persona of the Concierge of Crime he projected to the rest of the world; he had told her from the beginning that she was special but only since being made privy to the domestic side of him, to be able to observe him in his quieter, more contemplative moments, made her feel more special that anything he'd ever said or done for her, like she was one of only a handful of people he allowed to see behind the mask. To an extent.
"Do you have any other meetings this week?" Liz asked, elbow on the table, chin resting on her hand as she looked across at him.
"Nothing until Friday now," he answered around a mouthful of food. Liz hid her small smile at how completely normal he could be, doing totally ungentlemanly things like talking with his mouth full and leaving the toilet seat up. "Do you have any plans?"
"Not really. I need-"
"What?" he asked, pausing in his consumption to look up at her with concern. He had done that a lot more lately, openly showing concern for her when he really didn't need to; she usually shrugged it off, but it had been happening more frequently and she found herself questioning it.
"Don't look so worried!" she laughed. "I was just going to say I need some clothes."
"Ah, you relent at last." His shoulders relaxed and he smiled broadly at the little victory. "A shopping spree?"
She shifted uncomfortably in her seat next to him. "Maybe not a spree."
"It's always baby steps with you, isn't it?" He chuckled. "How does tomorrow sound?" Liz nodded, biting her lip to stop any last minute protests; she had asked and she knew he was more than happy to fund her, she didn't need to go making things awkward for herself. She felt like she needed to get over herself as it was only to her detriment if she resisted. "Tomorrow it is then. I might indulge in a little retail therapy myself," Red stated. "It's been ever such a stressful time, after all." He leaned into her and gave her a nudge to let her know he was joking, though he had seemed a little put out when she turned down the first five properties he had found for them, and then insisted they go and actually look around three others; he had just wanted to put the money down and be done with it but she needed more than just a roof, however temporarily, she wanted a home.
They slipped into silence, the only sound the scraping of his fork against the plate, no morsel left for the trash. His appetite always astounded her, how he could go for two or three lunch appointments on busy days and still return to take her out to dinner. Despite the occasional rumour of his involvement with the FBI his business was booming and Liz had witnessed meetings with people she wouldn't want to meet in dark alleys as well as those who appeared far more amiable; Red assured her that it was often the other way around, and the nice ones were usually the worst.
"I don't care if I've just eaten, I think I'm going to have an early night," she stated, looking at the time. It was past ten, so not that early by usual standards, but they had been keeping some strange hours of late.
"That sounds perfect," Red agreed. Liz helped him with the dishes – he only ever let her dry, and she had long since stopped arguing with him over it – and followed her up the small staircase and down the hall. They stopped at their bedroom doors, which were practically opposite each other; it made leaving in the morning occasionally awkward as they would literally bump into each other on the way out of their rooms.
"Sweet dreams, Red," she said softly, reaching for the handle on her door.
"One can only hope," he replied, his tone light but falling short of being jovial as she was sure he had intended.
"If at first you don't succeed," she began merrily, "then I'll see you in the kitchen at three a.m." Her deadpan finish had him smiling again and she squashed the urge to hug him; she'd been getting that one more often of late, especially after he had confided in her about his difficulty sleeping a week or so before without asking something of her in return for the information.
He chuckled at her quip. "Goodnight, Lizzie." With a nod he disappeared into the darkness of his room, leaving her alone in the hall for a few moments before she opened her own door to slip into her lamp-lit room. She perched on the edge of her bed, not ready to lay down on the sheets to sleep just yet. Truth be told there had been something else keeping her up at night: she had noticed him watching her. It seemed a silly thing to say that she had 'noticed' it – he had always observed her fairly intently, and she had always been aware of the fact. It was that there was something different in his stare now, something softer; when he thought she wasn't looking she caught the half-lidded glances he gave her and she longed to be able to read his mind for a few scant seconds to get some idea of what it was he was thinking about when he looked at her like that. At the back of her mind a thought niggled away, burrowing deep into her subconscious; she tried to block it out, if only to prevent herself from ruminating on her own feelings for her strange travelling companion.
"Well, you managed until four," Red's tired voice greeted as she entered the kitchen, the soles of her bare feet slapping on the tiled floor. He sat at the kitchen table in his sleepwear, cradling a glass of milk, illuminated by the light from the oven hood. She hummed in response and opened the fridge, relishing the cool air that brought her arms up in gooseflesh – it really was too hot. She reached for a bottle of water and held it to her forehead, leaving the fridge door to close on its own as she turned to join him at the table.
"This heat is just awful," she complained. Even the fan hadn't helped to keep her cool, not that she could sleep with its constant low whirring sound in the room. "I might just go sleep under a cold shower." He waggled his eyebrows at her statement; the cami top she slept in being white, she immediately latched on to his line of thought. "Behave," she warned, tapping him on the arm. "Honestly, I don't know how you ever get anything done, your mind is constantly in the gutter."
He shrugged. "It's a struggle at times, but I manage."
"You brave little soldier." She looked over at the windows. "Have they been open all night?"
"Yes, fat lot of good they are," he said.
"Oh. So we're not leaving them closed for security?"
"In this heat? Security can hang," Red groused, draining the last of his glass. "I'm going to attempt to sleep again. Are you returning to your room?" She nodded and allowed him to lead her back to her bedroom door where they each murmured their second round of goodnights before closing themselves in their respective rooms.
Perched on the edge of her bed once more, Liz considered her options for a moment; stay in her room and sweat, go back to the kitchen and sweat, or sit under the shower and freeze. She didn't fancy any of her choices. She wanted to get in the pool and swim until she was tired enough not to care about the heat. Deciding she might as well go for it, Liz opened her bedroom door as quietly as she could and slipped into the hall, making her way to the stairs. She stopped dead in her tracks at the sound of the one creaky step permeated the thick silence of the house – Red had made it that way for security purposes, supposedly. She listened intently for any movement coming from his room but after a couple of minutes of silence she continued her descent, heading for the dining room. She carefully opened the patio door and, after a last listen for any sound of Red moving upstairs, slipped out into the yard and headed for the pool area which was secluded by trees and shrubbery.
As she rounded the greenery she reflexively ducked behind one of the trees, out of view of the pool. Red was in the water, floating on his back without a stitch of clothing on. Part of her was screaming to just go back inside, to sit under the shower in the bathroom and shiver; another part of her argued that she should announce her presence and that it wasn't worse than that one time she walked in on him in their shared bathroom in Mexico. In the end, he made the decision for her when he swam to the edge of the pool to haul himself out, approaching the house; Liz moved to crouch behind a bush further in the patch of shrubbery as she anticipated him walking past her, though she still stared at him, transfixed by the fluidity of his movement; at his graceful ascent of the few steps up from the pool area she realised she shouldn't have worn white as she came to an abrupt halt and snapped his head around to look directly at her.
"It's rude to stare, Lizzie," he stated quietly after a moment. Liz was aware she had surprised him, but hadn't counted on him being quite so closed about it, if anything she thought he'd make light of it. Raymond Reddington was not a shy man. Sheepish, she stepped out from her hiding place and stood before him. "Are you going to swim?" he asked politely enough.
"No, I think I'm good." She knew Red was aware that she had intended to swim, it was plain as day that was what she was out there for; he had been more careful than she had been in leaving the house so as not to be noticed, so he had to know she hadn't followed him for the sake of ogling him. Not that the view was all that unpleasant. "I should probably head back to bed," she announced, gesturing to the patio door dumbly. Red nodded and waved for her to walk ahead of him, which she did. She paused at turned to face him as they reached the door. "You know I didn't mean to intrude, right?"
"Of course," he said. "If you still want to swim then go ahead, Lizzie. Don't feel like you shouldn't because I've seen you out here. Unlike you, I shan't be spying," he finished with a wink.
"Oh really?" She raised a brow in challenge. Part of her wondered just why he wouldn't be spying, though she swiftly quashed it, knowing it was the same part of every woman that had those fleeting thoughts.
"Not that you'd ever know," he assured flatly, bringing her out of her reverie.
"That makes me feel worlds better," she commented dryly, although he didn't smile at her attempt at humour. She thought about it; she did want to swim, to feel the coolness of the water and to wear herself out enough to fall into a dead sleep. As she considered things she realised Red hadn't gone inside, instead he remained nude before her; why did he keep her in front of him all the time? He'd been exactly the same during the bathroom incident in Mexico, practically sidestepping to the door to get out of there. He seemed uncomfortable about something and it clearly wasn't the fact that he was naked; she had been the only one bothered by his state of undress, blushing furiously in the moonlight. She thought he would have relished the opportunity to walk ahead of her, the drunken confession from a month prior that she was 'an ass kinda gal' and the subsequent slurring observation that he had a rather nice, pert looking one no doubt still fresh in his memory. Something was definitely off about him if he wasn't capitalising on that and she couldn't put her finger on it. Perhaps it was an embarrassing tattoo? The FBI knew about his tattoos, though his file said nothing about them.
"You know what, I will swim," she said and passed him, blushing, to head towards the pool to get away from the growing sense of awkwardness between them. As an afterthought she considered that she should at least ask Red if he was alright, however when she turned around she saw him disappearing into the house; there was something on his back, as she had suspected, although it was too dark, and he had moved too quickly for her to get a good look. She shook her head and headed toward the pool anyway, pushing the curious thoughts from her head as best as she could, knowing that to dwell on them would end all hope of her getting any sleep across the hall from him, no matter how much she swam.