Hi everyone, I'm new to the fandom, this is my first Blacklist fic! Thank you so much for reading. I'm a bit nervous about this, please don't hesitate to tell me what you think!

Disclaimer : I don't own anything.

Profiling had always felt like a comfortable home to her. A place deep inside her mind that no one else could reach, a warm cabin at the top of the cliffs from which she could weather the storm away, a shield of reason and understanding between herself and the mind of others and a reassurance that the rest of the world still made sense, whatever else might happen to her.

Whenever she was called back to order, when her own personal vision of right and wrong came in the way of efficient decision making in the field, there was still something that she could do well and that others could not, the profiling, the understanding of minds great and small, honest men and criminals. Her one asset to the team, the one thing that she brought to the table.

And all of it was gone now, her last comfort, all gone in a puff of smoke because of him, the man who had taken everything else from her, so why not this as well? The man sitting next to her now with his arms crossed on the table in front of him, with words from the last conversation they had in this place hanging between them like the burning remnants of a wrecked ship on the sand, carved deep in blood in her memory.

He was everything that she was supposed to be able to understand, everything her training was supposed to help her dissect and more, the perfect subject, the highest challenge that one could hope for in this line of work. Everchanging and unpredictable, frustrating also, always somewhere in between, something more, something different, something outside the box, new shapes and patterns and meanings, her very own trickster god. A master of disguise, relentless and every time the same and different every time, like lines drawn on the sand by the ocean tide.

And it didn't work on him, for that very reason it didn't work, because the truth sometimes couldn't be summed up, couldn't be analysed, broken down and reconstructed again, only experienced and lived, always something more than the sum of its parts. The perfect subject being also the one riddle that couldn't be cracked, but it didn't matter anymore, not really, and damn him, and damn herself too, if he hadn't started to feel like home to her as well.

Not a shelter from the storm, not him, but rather the stillness in the eye of the storm, the narrow gap of quietness around which the entire world revolved. She had felt safe there, for a time, safe and quiet and comfortable, she had accepted to believe that everything would be alright.

I believe I know the real reason you don't want me to have the Fulcrum. Because you're afraid that once you give it to me, you'll be of no further use to me and you'll never see me again.

But all that she had found behind the mask was more manipulating from him as well, more of him trying to get her to admit things to him, to make her do things from him, without budging an inch himself. He may not lie to her, that was his rule, but he never told her the whole truth either, he used the truth and caged it and bent it to his will, letting out just enough of it to control and predict and manipulate.

A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.

She caught their reflection in the glass of the coffee shop's window, leaning towards each other slightly, at a respectable distance but with a strong connection between them, a strong unspoken undercurrent that must be obvious to anyone looking in. With their heads bowed together like this they could be anything really, friends, colleagues, something like that, lovers going through a rough patch, a teacher and graduate student maybe, he the silent reluctant one and she the jealous young lover insisting that he tell his wife about their relationship. She snorted at the notion with amusement steeped in raging bitterness that burned at the edges of her mind like acid.

Reddington raised an eyebrow at her, obviously intrigued, something like another challenge – surprise me, Lizzie. I so desire to know how you see things. She made contact with her own eyes, her own reflection in the darkened glass, saw the hurt and exhaustion there and realized that there was no reason for her to humour him – it had never seemed difficult for him to guess how she felt, moments or days or weeks sometimes before she even knew it herself.

White female, early thirties. A walking contradiction, resilience and self-destruction. One with a desperate need to find some kind of footing in her life and a compulsion to push it away, for fear it was all lies. Passionate about the truth and yet more than willing to bend the rules, her own idea of right and wrong. Passionately willing to depend on no one but herself, yet still posessed of a deep desire to find something or someone that she could latch onto and never let go. She was textbook, predictable even.

Well, predict this. Without thinking twice about it she leaned forwards and kissed him, not on his lips, not really, but close enough to guess at the softness of them against her own, the warmth of his breath upon her cheek. The immeasurable gap between a dream and a reality, something that almost could have been. Almost.

He jumped back and stared back at her, stricken as if she had slapped him. Shock written on his face, off-balance, his usual reserve forgotten. At once she realized her mistake and her blood ran cold, but she didn't back down, hating herself and how far she had to go, how much of him and of herself she had to damage to get a simple reaction out of him, to get through the cracks of the well-placed mask that might have fooled others but not her, not anymore.

"What is it, Red? Isn't that what you wanted? For me to admit I didn't want you to leave? That I'd always be on your side, do whatever you want, be whatever you wanted me to be? Isn't it how you profiled me? Please don't tell me it isn't, because I wouldn't believe you."

"Lizzie..."

Oh, how she hated when he looked at her like this, with a pained look in his eyes, as if she was the one acting out, the one behaving like a child and he only had to suffer through it quietly and everything would go back to normal eventually, because she would never go too far, couldn't let him go. He was the rock now and she was the storm, she the waves and the sea, and it was in his nature to stand up straight and strong and to wait it out, and it was in hers to rage and to scream and to lash out and fall back and lash out at him again, the ocean that couldn't live without the cliff and the shoreline.

"What do you want, Reddington? What is it you want from me?"

She waited, desperate for unconstricted breath, but no more words filled the air between them.

"You don't even know how to answer that question, do you? Then let me tell you something. You're the one who's scared, not me. You're scared I'm going to do something stupid, endanger myself. You felt it was your duty to protect me from the people who are after you, whoever they are, and now you think you have to protect me from myself, too. It's the world on your shoulders, isn't it? And I can't understand the pain you feel, how difficult it is for you, can I? Because I'm immature, I'm a danger to myself, I'm only adding to the weight."

And with the look he gave her she knew that she was right.

"Red, please, talk to me. Say something."

"Lizzie", he said, defeated, "I've only ever wanted what was best for you."

And it sounded rehearsed and hollow, drawn out, like something he had practised and that he knew he had to say even though he knew it would make her unhappy, because there was no other choice.

You're right, Lizzie. I'm afraid, Lizzie. I don't wan't to do this alone anymore, Lizzie. Anything, something. Even storytime she would have been grateful for. Anything but this pained dutiful silence, protecting her from herself, in spite of herself.

"Oh, go to hell."

The stricken look again, but this time she just stood up and left. Almost hoping that he would stand up too, come after her and say something, let her see – almost – but he didn't, no, he didn't. Damn him and damn herself, he didn't.

x x x

The ring of her phone echoed in the chill darkness of her motel room when she went home that night, but she just ignored it.

After the first couple of times, she switched on the silent mode, took an aspirin and two valerian pills and let herself drift off into restless sleep.

x x x

After work the next day, she was headed back home when she saw him, sitting in the same place in the coffee shop at the corner of the street, the same as he was the day before, his head bowed and not trying to hide his presence.

She lingered there for a moment but he didn't turn round and he didn't look up, and she stood stricken in the sunlight, as if by a vision of some divine significance, the world frozen into place at the crossroads.

It would have been almost simple to make that choice, almost easy – one step ahead, as easy as stepping into the ferryman's boat when the right time came, but she climbed inside her car instead, started the engine instead.

There was a long enough time still, more than enough to reflect and reconsider, many crossroads and red lights and thresholds along the way, and she realized that her choice was not a statement but a process, always renewed and augmented of new layers as if it would never end, never be realized into action.

Tom Keen, Donald Ressler, Raymond "Red" Reddington.

Thomas Vincent Keen, white male, early thirties. Unknown, unknown, unknown. A social chameleon, at ease in any kind of situation, capable of building a whole new personality up from scratch, read a person and mirror what they wanted, be what they wanted in order to shape them to his will. Smoke and mirrors really, a perfectly mirrored image of the veil of lies and false wishes that she had wrapped around herself.

Donald Ressler, white male, mid-thirties. A knight in sour armour, a mind and heart where hatred and pain were all that was left, thinking that saving the world a thousand time would make it all go away.

The trade-offs you'd make, the rules you'd ignore. One year ago you wouldn't have done that.

But it was an endless, thankless quest, the blacklist – cut off one head and three, five, tens and thousands more will crop up in its place. They could burn the world a hundred times over and it would never be enough.

The only question is the body count. Don't ask me to feel your pain. I've got more than enough of my own.

Some could do it, set aside morality and let themselves be compromised, let themselves become monsters for the sake of other's lives, but she wasn't sure she could go down that road again. It had seemed like one thing to let a criminal go free and quite another to let a person die, but things were never quite that simple now. She did not know if she could have that strength again, and maybe that made her the true monster.

And Reddington, finally. He was impossibly charming, this one, a teller of stories with no equal this side of the sun and the stars. Tales of love and loss and the battlefield, tales from a different world, wider and brighter and more alive, tales that moved her to tears and stirred her in just the right direction.

There were two aspects to each of his stories always, two ways of looking at them, the motive and the intent, the thing he did and the thing he felt, the appearance and the truth, but they couldn't walk hand in hand forever, not every time, and one day or another he would have to understand.

One day he stops, the farmer who is no longer a farmer, and he sees the wreckage he has left in his wake. It is now he who burns, he who slaughters, and he knows in his heart that he must pay.

But why should he be the only one allowed to pay, Red? Why should he be the only one to be allowed a second chance?

She pulled over in front of the station and all that she could feel was intense relief, elation even. A weight off her shoulders, the day brighter again. Walking freely towards a prison door.

The thought occured to her that he might try to make her escape. Well then, she would just refuse to go, or escape him and surrender herself again.

Everything about herself was a lie, he said, and he thought that he knew her because he knew everything there was to know about her history, her real name, her past and her identity, but who she was really he had no idea.

They could destroy her relationships, these men, they could destroy her life, her past and her future, her work, her pride, they could take away all that she had but it didn't matter, because she was still there beyond all the lies, picked down to bare bones but still standing, the person that she had built from scratch by herself from the wreckage, misshapen and a little broken, made of pieces washed up by the sea and stranded on the shoreline, but nothing that anyone could ever grasp or control or hope to fully understand.

She went inside the door, walked up to the reception desk. There was still time, but she did not falter.

"Elizabeth Keen for Detective Wilcox, please."