My first Blacklist fanfiction. Something short to get my feet wet. Reviews welcome.
Worlds Away Right at Home
Red couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten drunk.
He almost always had a glass of wine or two with dinner and a night cap. But it had been years since he had gotten too drunk to stand. So he sat on the bathroom floor in a studio apartment in Dublin, the sounds of the city pouring through a window above his head. It reminded him of home. Of Lizzie.
He hadn't meant to call her. Didn't realize he had until he heard her voice. His eyes drifted closed as a ghost of a smile touched his lips.
"Agent Keen. Hello?"
"Lizzie," Red's voice came out in a tired sigh, her name like a prayer.
Across an ocean Liz paused on her front steps. Ressler had just texted her about a lead in Red's whereabouts. It had been six months since he disappeared and if she were honest with herself, she missed him terribly. When she wasn't cursing him for running out on her. Still his voice was like a warm embrace.
"Red? Where are you? Are you okay?"
"I had to make it safe for you, Lizzie," he whispered, ignoring her questions. "I wouldn't have left you otherwise."
The pain in his voice slammed into her like a fist to her midsection. Cluthcing the stone railing, she all but dropped to the steps beneath her. "Red, please tell me where you are? If you can't come back, I'll come to you. Let me help you."
"No,no," he muttered, running his hand over his face. "I can't keep you safe, Lizzie."
"You always keep me safe."
Red pressed the heel of his hand to his blurry eyes, blocking out the image of Lizzie paralyzed in that wheelchair; on her knees in front of the box, Anslo's gun to her head. "Garrick_"
"Didn't hurt me, Red. You stopped him. Just like you stopped Wujing and the Stewmaker. You kept me safe," Liz's words broke off on a sob. "You always keep me safe. But I'm out here, Red, without you. Tom is gone and I have no one to rely on. Everyone at the post office mistrusts me. I... I need you, Red."
The silence stretched out as Liz waited for his reply. She hadn't meant to say all that, but if protecting her was his reason for staying away then he needed to know his absence hurt her far worse.
After a long moment, his voice came through, an air of resignment attached to his words. "Dublin sounds like home."