Disclaimer: No copyright infringement is intended. I'm merely a fangirl having fun with Jon Bokenkamp's wonderful creations.
Author's Note: It's been years since I wrote something longer than a drabble, but The Blacklist gave life to the writing bug again or I should better say, it help to overcome the writer's block. However, this story would have never seen the light of day without the support of three wonderful ladies: Catiouslyshipping who gently but insistent convinced me to finish this even when Christmas is already long gone. Jessahme_wren and RedandLizzie - those two amazingly kind and talented authors - who generously lend this ficlet their time and beta magic. Thank you so much!
Loved
The elevator doors to the Post Office had not yet opened fully when Liz bent forward and slipped through underneath. With long strides, she hastened along the hallways of the FBI blacksite and into her office. When she reached her desk, she threw her large black handbag onto the desk absently and glanced at her wristwatch.
She groaned quietly as she saw the time. A quarter till nine. She was late. Really late. Dammit.
Liz let herself fall onto her chair, closing her eyes in frustration.
Earlier this morning, when she had entered the kitchen to grab a small bite of toast before leaving for the Post Office, Tom had tried to confront her. He had demanded to know why recently she only returned home from work late in the evening; what case could be so important that they had barely time to see each other.
Liz's immediate instinct had been flight, but that had been impossible without substantiating Tom's suspicions. As much as she had tried to avoid the discussion, had tried to escape from her husband and every doubt and fear connected with him at least for the day, it had taken significant time and energy before she had been able to leave the house. And now, she barely had the chance to prepare for the nine o'clock briefing in Cooper's office.
Over night, the task force usually received cables from the U.S. embassies in Europe and the Middle East that she still needed to read. Liz sighed as she opened the folder that had already been delivered to her desk, her eyes travelling over today's schedule. She could only hope that on the day before Christmas Cooper's mind would be on different things than finding Raymond Reddington.
Red.
Liz paused, looking up from the paper in her hand that had suddenly become irrelevant, her gaze shifting towards the small calendar on her desk. Today it was three weeks since Red had disappeared without a trace. And while he had been always on her mind, given the task force's new purpose of finding and arresting him, the realization gave her heart a little sting.
Three weeks since she had last heard from him. Three long weeks; she had been worrying about him constantly.
In the meantime, the team at the Post Office had pursued several leads, including one in Islamabad, but in each case they had at some point reached a dead end. Liz knew she was at least partially the one to blame for that, and she was still waiting for some kind of guilty feeling to set in. However, none came. Instead, she had to quell the swell of satisfaction every time Red slipped through their fingers.
It was as if in the moment Fowler had declared Red to be nothing but a fugitive, something had irrevocably shattered within Liz, something beyond her personal feelings, beyond the fear that had strangled her heart in those hours.
By abandoning Raymond Reddington, the Bureau had not only violated the duty to protect an informant but it had dishonoured the sacrifices Luli, Red, Ressler and everybody else had made that day at the Post Office. The decision had betrayed every professional principle she had believed in when she had joined the Bureau.
Therefore, Liz had made her own choice that day.
She would do everything to protect Red just as he had done for her, even when protecting him meant she had to deceive the team at the Post Office. She had stood by that decision in all the days that followed, because for as long as there was still a mole within the task force, the threat for Red within the FBI remained. Therefore, every time a new piece of reliable intelligence regarding Red's possible whereabouts had come in, Liz had tried to send Kaplan a warning in advance: a text from a burner phone one day, a short call from a public phone on her way home another time.
She hadn't dared to contact Dembe directly in case Cooper had ordered his surveillance without her knowledge, yet from the sparse and cryptic responses she had received from Kaplan, she could tell that even Red's own people were still in the dark about Red's current location.
The man had simply done what he had already offered her once that night in front of Anne Forrester's house: Raymond Reddington had seemingly ceased to exist. He had walked away, and to Liz it felt as if he had taken a part of her heart with him.
And still, she believed him, his promise that he would be there whenever she needed him.
That he would return. For her.
It was a delusion, of course. One she fell for easily because it worked oh-so-well with that weak, presumptuous part of her character that she tried so hard to silence.
Liz always had a very good sense of her own profile. It had been a necessity for a girl who had grown up without knowing her real parents, without knowing that essential part of her past. All she ever had was her own interpretation of herself. Maybe that was the real reason why she had become a profiler, why she searched for the truth behind the facts, beneath the surface of evidence based theories, why she didn't see the world like Ressler did.
Sometimes she envied him for that, yet how was she supposed to trust the facts when her own life had always been an ongoing investigation without reliable sources, her whole identity consisting of nothing but barely connected traces?
She didn't know if her grandfather had sympathized with the Third Reich or if her father had fought in Vietnam, if blue eyes or schizophrenia ran in the family. There had never been tales to be told at the dinner table about how her mother had disliked the smashed potatoes when she was her age. There had only ever been Sam, and much as she had wished for it, he hadn't been able to give her the answers she longed for, hadn't been able to give her that important part of the truth about herself.
Therefore,Sam had become her whole world all the more. He had been the closest to a parent she had ever known, and for a very long time, he had been the only one to give Liz the feeling of what it meant to be cared about, what it meant to be loved.
She had never been a very sociable person with a huge group of life-long friends. She didn't even have somebody who she would consider a best friend. She didn't have the capability to connect like that; she even felt alone in a room full of people. In a way, she had felt alone for her whole adult life, at least until she had met Tom.
From the moment, Thomas Keen had stumbled into her at a Starbucks near Battery Park in New York three years ago; he had seemingly wrapped her in a blanket of warmth with his smile and gentle nature, and she had easily given him her heart in return.
It was the reason why she had wanted-needed Red to be wrong about him, why she had wished that this was all part of some twisted mind game he was playing, that Tom's love for her wasn't a lie.
However, that house of cards had fallen when she had met Red's eyes only seconds before he had come out of the box. In that moment of pitiless clarity she had truly understood what Red had been trying to tell her in every possible way since she had met him–that she could trust him, that there was nothing he wouldn't do to keep her safe.
When she had returned home that day only to find the half-burned stuffed bunny still lying on the table like a malicious reminder of everything she had lost, the uncertainty in her life had suddenly become suffocating. It had felt as if a dark abyss had opened beneath her, swallowing everything around her. Her loyalties. Her love. Even her own identity.
All she had wanted in that moment when Red had called was a reason, something to hold onto when everything else was falling apart, something to let her understand why she chose to lie for him, why he was willing to risk it all for her. And for once she needed a simple, easy explanation. Hadn't he done what only a parent would do, trade his life for hers?
Are you my father? Liz still cringed inwardly when she thought of the question. Her whole confusion and desperation had culminated in those four words, and in her heart, she had already known the answer long before the weighted 'No' eventually had left his mouth. And still, in the sleepless hours of the early next morning, the questions and doubts had returned, haunting her like ghosts.
For the first time in her life, Elizabeth Keen had wanted nothing but cold hard facts. In the end, she had decided to do what she suspected Cooper had ordered for forensics to do long ago: running Red's DNA against her own.
Declaring a tiny strand of her own hair as evidence from the crime scene at the decommissioned blacksite, she had requested an analysis with the genetic material of Raymond Reddington they had in their database. The result had come within the same day. The two samples didn't show any significant matches.
It had been a strange rush of relief and sympathy that had washed over her in that moment, and it still scared her how easily, in the days that followed, the knowledge had only furthered the strange fondness she had felt already for the man.
"Agent Keen?"
The sound of her name forced Liz to abandon the thought as she turned her head to the door. A service clerk, a boy barely above twenty with long chestnut-coloured hair, stood in the doorway of her office.
"That's me," she said, wondering if she had ever seen him before.
"UPS delivered this for you." The young man held up a book-sized package as he walked into the office. Placing it on her desk before he proffered her the board with the receipt.
Liz signed the paper and waited for him to leave before she lifted the cardboard box with one hand, frowning. The package was heavier than she would have thought at first.
She turned it on its head to read the return address. The field contained nothing but a name: Frederick Hempstead.
The second she recognized the alias, Liz's heart clenched within her chest, random images assaulting her mind.
Brewer's Hill. The warm light of a sunset. Red.
For those few hours she had spent with him there, she had felt safe; Liz briefly wondered if Red would be sitting on that very same couch right now, watching a cold December sun rise.
It took a few seconds until she realized he wouldn't. The location had been named in her report on The Courier. His favourite place was no longer safe for him. Because of her.
The thought still stung as her trembling fingers grasped the flap of the cardboard box, and she opened the package. The content was hidden beneath uncounted layers of wrapping material, and only after what seemed to be endless seconds, she held the item finally in her hands.
It was an elegant silver frame, not bigger than the size of a paperback. Above lay a simple cream coloured card that covered the glass underneath almost completely. It held a single line, written in unmistakable red ink:
Lizzy, there are times, when it is important to remember that you were loved. Merry Christmas.
She felt the smile that touched her mouth as she lifted the card from the glass, placing it fondly onto her desk. When she turned back, her gaze fell onto the item in her hand. The frame held nothing but a single photo in black and white. The image showed a woman in her mid-thirties, with long dark hair that framed a fine profile. She was wearing a dark blouse and trousers. Everything about her held the faint whiff of the eighties. She was crouched next to a small girl in a knee-long dress who was probably not older than two, the similar dark hair pulled back into a small perky ponytail. The child was wearing the biggest of smiles on her face as she looked at the person who was apparently behind the camera. And while only the outline of the woman's profile was visible, it was obvious she was regarding her daughter with an expression of utmost love.
Unable to look away from the sight before her, Liz swallowed, a futile attempt to stem the sudden surge of emotion rising in her throat. The identity of the two people in the photo wasn't a question. This was her younger self with her mother.
Her mother. Mum.
At the thought, her legs finally refused to support her. Reaching with one hand to her desk for support, she sank slowly onto her office chair. An unknown warmth spreading within her chest as her fingertips grazed gently over the glass-covered image. Even if she had no memory of her parents, right here in her hands, she held the unfading remembrance that she had been loved by her mother, had been loved so much that it was still visible in this photo after all those years, that she could still feel it.
Liz didn't know for how long she simply sat there, gazing at the image in her hands and allowing the tears to fall.
It was only the sound of her office door being pushed open that caused her to look up as Aram appeared in the doorway.
His eyes were still fixed on a tablet in front of him, he said, "Agent Keen, they are waiting for you."
The morning brief. Liz gasped, realizing she had completely lost track of the time. Startled, she threw a glance at her wristwatch; quickly wiping her eyes with the heel of her other hand. She should have been in Cooper's office five minutes ago.
"Liz, you okay?" Aram regarded her with a worried expression, as he had finally lifted his gaze from the tech in his hands.
"Me? Yeah, just give me a moment." Liz leaped out of the chair, the frame still in her hand as she reached for her folder. "I'll be right there."
Aram hesitated briefly before saying, "I'll let them know that you're still on the phone, something that's possibly important. Take your time."
Liz gave him a wobbly smile. "Thank you."
"Anytime." Aram nodded, closing the door to her office as he left.
Heaving a shaky breath, Liz sat down again and placed the frame on her desk. She gave it another long glance before she reached for Red's card that was lying next to her on the briefing folder.
Slowly, her index finger traced the words once more, and she had to close her eyes against the fresh tears that wanted to fall.
She knew it should bother her, how much more of the truth Red was keeping from her, if maybe she was nothing but a pawn on far greater chessboard. However, in this moment, it couldn't have mattered less to her heart. With a single photo, he had given her a part of her past, a lost piece of herself back. It was an incredible gift at a time she needed it the most. And for that, she felt deeply grateful.
She merely hoped that Red knew that wherever he was right now, that she would be there for him, whenever he needed her.
When she eventually rose from the chair, she slipped the card into her handbag, not willing to leave it behind. With swift strides she left the room, hurrying through the hallway towards the Cooper's office at the other end of the Post Office.
She never looked back on her way.
Elizabeth Keen therefore never saw the person who entered her office only moments after she had left. She never saw how the abandoned cardboard box in her dustbin was examined or how the picture in the silver frame on her desk was documented with the camera of a smart phone.
The intruder vanished as unseen as he had come.
Only minutes later and several miles away from the Post Office, a burner phone rang in an exclusive apartment building on Lafayette Square in Washington D.C. Its owner took the call at the second ring.
"Yes?"
"He has made contact, sir."
There was a pause. The man's long fingers enforced their grip on the phone. "Any reference on his current whereabouts?"
"No, sir."
Another moment of silence passed before the man ended the call without a further word. Slowly, he moved towards the one of the large front windows of the penthouse. For several minutes his eyes lingered on the busy traffic on the street. Lost in his thoughts, he rubbed his right thumb repeatedly over the Y-formed scar on his left wrist.
He only paused briefly when a knock echoed through the room, and a moment later a door was opened.
"You wanted to see me," a female voice declared, while the man never took his gaze away from the window.
"Let Tom know he needs to leave Washington for a while after New Year. That will lure Reddington out into the open. He won't be able to stay way. And I want two surveillance teams following Elizabeth around the clock."
"Consider it done."
"Of course. I know you wouldn't want to disappoint me for a second time, Lucy."