"It's been so long between the words we spoke,
Will you be there up on the shore, I hope,
You wonder why it is that I came home,
I figured out where I belong." – Long & Lost, Florence + The Machine

Trigger Warning; Brief mention of suicidal thoughts.

It has been six months.

Six months since she gave birth to her beautiful baby girl.

Six months since she said goodbye to Raymond Reddington.

Elizabeth Keen has been dead for six months.

And God, had they passed slowly, excruciatingly so, every day another that she didn't get to see Agnes's perfect little face. Every day riddled with the knowledge that grief, sorrow, plagued the man she so dearly cared about. Every day spent begging for information and Kate Kaplan so emotionlessly handing it over. Every night poring over the details, stifling her sobs into her pillow and desperately missing him, her chest aching with remorse.

Tom had left only a month or so in. He'd learnt how to swaddle the small helpless child, and quickly decided that being a parent wasn't to his liking and gave Agnes up for adoption. After that he disappeared without a second thought. She'd heard rumours that Gina Zanetakos had eventually caught up to him, exacted revenge.

After everything she had gone through, after all that she had sacrificed, in the end she had lost Agnes anyway.

Liz had half expected Red to adopt her.

But Kate had said that it was for the best that he hadn't, had promised that the family that now kissed and held her child were kind, loving. They were a proper family, the kind that Agnes deserved.

For the first few weeks after her death, she healed and settled into the safe house she had been spirited away to, a tropical island with beaches and palm trees and no one to walk beside her with a crooked fedora, amber sunglasses and a smile like the Devil himself. There had been little to no information on Red. He'd all but disappeared, stricken with misery, anguish, only a husk of the man he used to be. Kate had seemed edgy, nervous, for those few weeks, her answers clipped and voice tight when ever Liz dared to mention him.

The guilt had been corrosive, deteriorating her veins, sinking deep into the marrow of her bones until she felt as if she was being consumed by it. Something dark and dangerous had gnawed at her, fear bubbling in her bloodstream. Red had always been unpredictable, particularly when it came to herself. He had always made her safety paramount, had always come back for her.

Liz feared that he wouldn't be able to find anything to live for once she left.

But he did, and it was almost as poisonous as the guilt.

When he had remerged like a demon crawling from the fiery pits of Hell, a few pounds thinner and bags beneath his eyes that hung heavy on Liz's conscious, revenge had sung through his being. He'd bathed in blood, slaughtered and massacred those he deemed responsible for her death. A trail of bodies had been left in his wake, putrid flesh festering wherever they fell and all greatly ignored by the FBI, Dembe cleaning up any of the messes left behind as discretely as possible.

Red's rampages left his hands crusted in rust and his eyes dead.

The photos Kate would give her always turned her stomach.

When he'd stopped wearing his suits, looking so dishevelled, she'd almost sobbed the entire night away.

There was a time where she wasn't sure he would be able stop. Wasn't sure whether this relentless killing was merely a distraction, simply a means to keep himself from kissing the silver barrel of his own weapon. Self preservation didn't appear to be at the forefront of his mind, evident from the bruises that marred his skin, the cuts and scratches that littered his arms, hands and surely the rest of his body.

Liz had never felt so powerless in her entire life.

As the weeks dragged into months the body count steadily rose, Red seemingly becoming more erratic, violent.

Until one day, he stopped.

He stopped and vanished once more, divulging his whereabouts only to Dembe. It had been child's play for Kate to get the address, her stern tone and hard looks Liz is sure would have been enough to make Red's unyielding bodyguard and trusted confidant squirm.

Getting the address from Kate however had been much more difficult. It had involved days of conflict, of coercion and pleading. Nights of tears and hopelessness, dreams where Red haunted her, blood seeping from the white of his dress shirt and green eyes that were terrifyingly blank.

But eventually, Kate had caved.

And now Liz is standing on some beach in the middle of nowhere, storm clouds rolling ever closer like some ominous warning, dark and dangerous, unstoppable like Raymond Reddington himself. She is expecting the spark of lightning and the deafening crack of thunder any minute now, even over the roar of the sea and the waves that crash before her. She is waiting for the heavens to open and for rain to cascade down in heavy sheets from above, but for now only the sand whips around her, colliding with her ruddy cheeks, stinging and sharp, alerting her to the here and now as she stares at the figure standing by the shore.

His back is towards her, the water lapping at his shoes, at the legs of his trousers. Even with his shoulders slumped forward, tailored jacket and vest missing, and his hair longer than usual, she knows it is him, would know him anywhere. The sea spray, the waves that mercilessly crash against him, have soaked his shirt through, causing the material to cling to him like a second skin.

The chilled wind rushes by her, bitter, unforgiving.

He must be freezing.

It takes a lot for her to go towards him, fingers straying to the twisted and mangled flesh of her wrist, seeking comfort, seeking courage. Anxiety is burning through her, cold sweat rolling between her shoulder blades, heart thundering on the back of her tongue, threatening to spill forth and land with a dull thud on to the damp sand, waiting to be washed away into Davy Jones' Locker.

Her body flushes hot and shakes with the cold.

This isn't a reunion after time spent apart, after a short holiday, a brief stint in the tropics.

No, this is an admission to betrayal. Her actions, the most heinous of ways to toy with someone's heart, to rip it from their already grief stricken body and hold it before them, every lie pulsing away with a spurt of blood, the truth just as agonising.

He is only a few strides away now, can't hear her over the cacophony of the waves, of the wind. Standing as still as stone behind him, she tries to collect her thoughts, tries to find a semblance of calm because this isn't about her, this is about Red, about forgiveness. Already she can feel the tears pricking at her eyes, the ball of emotion embedded in her throat. She doubts that if she speaks noise will come out anyway.

Not that it matters.

She should have known.

They have always been so perfectly attuned to each other, so aware of each other's presence, so in sync.

Together we were right.

And because of this, because of the connection that spans between them, laced around their ribcages, effortlessly tugging them closer and closer as if they are spinning in orbit, he turns to her and Liz finds that she is in no way prepared for the sight that greets her.

There is no disbelief in his eyes, those burning green eyes that have haunted her relentlessly for the last six months. They are the eyes that she had looked for amongst crowds, glimpsing them in a stranger's face until she realised that they were missing the flecks of gold, the eyelashes that brush so delicately along the smooth skin of his cheekbones. There is no disbelief, only pain, only agony.

Betrayal.

She knows she should say something, wants to explain, but she can't unlock her jaw, tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Over the thundering of her heart, over the rumble of the ocean, she can hear his soft intake of breath, the whimper that escapes in the exhale. God, she wants to go to him, cradle his body against her chest as he crumples before her.

His wounds have been ripped afresh, the salty spray smearing into them, his chest cavity a gaping mess, hanging open. It's emotional carnage and Liz can't stop her fingers from shaking because he is just staring at her, so obviously in pain. She can see that he is trying to swallow past it, can see the way his body trembles underneath the saturated cotton of his shirt. There are tears welling in his eyes that he is so desperately trying to blink away.

And then he is saying her name, voice choked, hoarse, his heart wrenched in two.

"Elizabeth."

A/N; This kind of... just happened? I was listening to the song mentioned above and then boom, some reasonably angsty Lizzington. So, I hope you enjoyed it and the final chapter should either be up tomorrow or the day after. Thank you for reading!