A/N: Hello all and thanks for stopping by to read this lovely little story I got stuck in my head. This will be an AU but you might see some things that look very familar from the show. Of course I own nothing, no characters or anything remotely familar, sadly! This will be long and filled with lots and lots of angst cause, well, I just love writing angst for some reason! We all have our own theories about who Lizzie and Red are to one another and I will share with all of you my theory in this story. I could be totally off the mark, but if I was writing the series this is how I would play it. This is gonna be Lizzie/Red friendly, so if you don't ship them this might not be your cup of tea...who knows maybe i can convert you with my theory! So sit back and enjoy this story I have for you...
Prologue
One week. Seven days. Ten-thousand eighty minutes. Six hundred and four-thousand eight hundred seconds. That is what his life was like now. Every moment of every day it seemed as though he counted back to that day one week ago. He counted in days. He counted in minutes. he counted in seconds. At first, he did not even realize he was even counting, but slowly the numbers drew his attention. They brought with them no comfort. There was no escape from the pain bubbling from the deep recesses of his heart. The counting did not produce the answers as to why his world had been taken from him. They only contributed to the constant thought that she was gone. They only reminded him that his light had been blown out.
His cell phone buzzed annoyingly in the pocket of his coat. He ignored it, or tried to, but the person on the other end was persistent. Immediately when the cell phone would become still it would begin to buzz again. He knew better than to take the phone out of his pocket. He knew the number that would stare back at him and it would almost be his undoing. But, he was a haunted man these days. Perhaps it was a way of punishing himself for not being there. Perhaps he just wanted to see a reminder of her. Pulling the phone out and looking at the numbers lit in white, his jaw clenched. He knew the numbers staring back at him by heart. There had been a time when this particular phone number would fill his heart with pride and excitement. Now, those numbers seemed to scream at him.
You weren't there. You didn't stop it. You failed her. She. Is. Gone.
He knew it would not be her voice that greeted him. It would not be her laugh or her snide remarks that he had come to love as much as her smile. It was either Ressler or Harold Cooper. He did not want to speak to either of them. He had a goal, a reason for sitting in an alleyway in a cold, dark car. To answer the phone now would only distract him from his mission, and right now his mission was pain and torture. Right now, his mission was death.
Beside him a man began to stir. 'Good,' Raymond "Red" Reddington thought. He was getting tired of waiting. The silence surrounding him only gave his mind time to wonder and right now that was not such a good thing. He slowly put his phone back in his pocket. Whomever it was trying to reach him would give up soon. Red patiently waited for the man to come to fully. His eyes bore into the side of the man's head. What did he know? How much of a part did he play in what happened a week ago? How much blame would fall upon the man's head?
Groggy eyes met stoned, cold green orbs as the man turned and stared at Red. For a moment there was nothing but confusion within them. Slowly, recognition began to show through the haze, but it did not last long for another emotion began to grow. A deep, raw fear began to dance in the man's eyes as they widened.
"Hello Sergio," Red greeted calmly.
The man did not speak, could not even if he had wanted to. All he could do was shake, for he knew the man sitting beside him, or he knew the stories that proceeded him if truth be told. Desperately, Sergio began looking for a way out. Like a caged animal, he felt his insides turn to jelly. He had no recollection of where he was or how he had ended up here. All he knew was that he was in grave danger.
"By the looks of your greeting, you already know who I am. Am I correct?"
Again, Red's voice showed none of the turmoil struggling to break free from within himself. He had all the patience in the world to get his questions answered...for now anyway. Sergio's eyes fell upon the steering wheel in front of him. His gasps and cries echoed around them in the small compartment of the car. It was like music to Red's ears and he allowed himself to close his eyes for a moment and relish in the amazement of feeling something other than pain.
"P-please, sir. I-I-I didn't do anything," Sergio cried. He began to struggle against the rope that bound his hands to the steering wheel. His fingers pointed up, as if he were waving at passerby.
"I don't think that's entirely correct, Sergio. I think you did quite a lot." Red grew quiet, watching and gauging the man's reaction. For a moment there was nothing but fear. In the final seconds of silence, before Red spoke again, dawning grew on the man's face. Red smiled, although he felt no joy or excitement. His smile turned into a sneer.
"The girl. Tell me about what happened to the girl," Red said, his words barely floating above a whisper. He had to keep his anger in check, otherwise he would wipe the man's life out before he got the answers he needed. His quest did not stop here, but only fueled the fire to continue to bigger and better fish.
"The girl," Red demanded.
"I know nothing about a girl! Please, sir, let me go," Sergio cried.
Red sighed, shaking his head slowly. "I'd hoped you would have been a little more forthcoming. Perhaps you just need a little refreshing."
Producing a knife from his pocket, Red grabbed Sergio's right pinky and with one swift move sliced it clean from his hand, bone and all. The scream that irrupted from the man's throat was ear shattering, but Red did not even so much as flinch. He allowed the blood to flow down the man's hand to the steering wheel. He allowed Sergio to scream until huge sobs wrecked his body and then he grabbed the cigarette lighter and placed it over where he had cut the finger off stopping the blood from oozing. Sergio screamed again.
"As I was saying, I need to know about the girl and what took place a week ago, Sergio. I don't have anywhere to be at the moment, so I can go through each finger until you cooperate. It's really up to you. You can stop at just a missing pinky, or you can have an entire hand of missing fingers."
"Please," Sergio screamed. "I wasn't there, I swear I wasn't there. I had nothing to do with what happened!"
"What was your role, Sergio? What were you asked to do?" Red said, his calm exterior failing him the more he had to talk about Lizzie.
Sergio lowered his head, tears streaming down his face. When he took longer than Red liked for him to answer, he reached over and cut the man's ring finger as he had done with the pinky. Again he watched the blood ooze. He savored the screams and cries of pain and then he burned the wound closed.
"They o-only needed my house!" Sergio screamed.
"For what?" Red said, his voice rising a little. Finally the answers would begin.
"A m-man came to me. H-he said he needed my house for a few days. He d-didn't say why. Only when they arrived did I-I realize what they wanted."
"What did they want? What was said, Sergio?" Red coaxed.
Sergio's head began to shake back and forth. His eyes slammed closed and he began to say the Lord's Prayer in Spanish.
"God isn't going to help you, Sergio. Men like us, criminals, we don't deserve his help. I am your god now and I am the only one who can help you."
"Sir, please, if I-I talk they will k-kill my family," Sergio begged. He turned towards Red, his eyes pleading, his breathing coming out in pants. "T-they know where I live. They have seen my family and they will butcher them in front of me without hesitation!"
"You have a lovely family, Sergio. I had the pleasure of visiting the softball fields this afternoon before picking you up. Your daughter has quite an arm, I must say," Red said, a soft laugh escaping his lips. "Your wife, she looked absolutely stunning in that red turtle neck and black jeans. You've done quite well for yourself."
Sergio eyes bulged from their sockets. His fear became so thick it could have been sliced with a knife. With all his strength he desperately tried to free his hands, but Red knew how to tie a knot that no one could escape from.
"See that car across the street from us?" Red said, pointing to a black car with tinted windows you could barely see inside of. In the front seat sat a man with two companions in the back seat. Although their faces could not been seen clearly, their bodies were visible enough that Sergio began to cry harder.
"Penelope is quite talkative. She cares very deeply about your daughter and had no problems begging me to spare her life in exchanged for anything that I wanted. Sergio, look at me," Red said softly, drawing the man's attention from the black car. He held up his cell phone as it began to ring. A deep voice answered.
"Dembe, would you mind cutting off the girl's hand and bringing it to me? It seems her father is in need of some new fingers," Red said, a smile plastered to his face.
"NO! LEAVE MY DAUGHTER ALONE!" Sergio screamed. He fought against the restraints of his hands to free them, but he did nothing but make the knot tighter. Red lowered the cell phone and watched as Dembe raised a large machete and waved it in their direction. He turned from them, making his way into the back seat.
"Okay! I will tell you everything you want to know!" Sergio cried, watching Dembe disappear from his view.
"Better hurry, otherwise I might not be able to stop him once he gets going," Red responded.
"A-a few months ago a man came to me at a bar I regularly drank at. At first i-it was just small talk about our criminal pasts and how much time we'd done. But then he started talking about this job he needed to get done. H-he said it was easy money and didn't even consist of much. A-all I needed to do was give his f-friend a place to stay for a few days and I'd be paid a good bit of money. How could I resist that? I wasn't working and things were getting tight with the bills and medical expenses coming in. I-I agreed to it and was told to go to a specific payphone and wait on a phone call. The day came and I took the call. I was told to get my wife and kid out of town and they would be in touch. When my family was taken care of, they came to my house. I was to ask them no questions while they were there and stay out of their way. But, I heard them talking one night. I knew what they wanted and why they needed to remain in hiding to get it done."
"What did you hear?" Red asked softly.
"Y-your name kept coming up, but I couldn't catch a lot of what they were saying. They spoke in a different language, Russian or something. But I heard the FBI agent, the one who was found murdered, and your name spoken for several days."
"What were the men's names?" Red interrupted. His anger was to a boiling point and he had to get the information fast. Lizzie's still, pale face floated to his mind and he had to fight back the urge to thrust his knife in the man's throat.
"The only name I knew was Christophe Pavlof. I swear to you on the life of my daughter and wife that is all I know!"
Red watched the man for what felt like an eternity. He watched Sergio shake from head to toe, watched tears building and falling from his eyes. The man was telling the truth. Although he did not know much, he had at least given Red a name.
"How much were you paid to house these men?"
Sergio looked uncomfortable, as if he did not want to answer. Red reached over and took his middle finger clean off the hand for his lack of answer. The pain was overwhelming and the burning to stop the blood was almost enough to make him pass out.
"Eight thousand dollars," Sergio cried.
Red stared at him as he processed this information. This man helped hide the ones that took Lizzie from him for eight thousand dollars. It was as if hearing him say her life meant nothing. Red's jaw clenched, his eyes small squints as he tried to take control of his raging emotions. Eight thousand dollars. He could add that to the list of numbers that would haunt him for as long as he had breath in his body.
"T-the girl, the FBI agent, she meant something to you, didn't she? I swear I had no idea they wanted to kill her. I swear to you that is all I knew! I would have never agreed to it if I had known they wanted to kill her."
Red sat back in his seat, laying his head against the cold window. For just a brief moment he allowed himself to close his eyes and see her face. He allowed himself to feel the hollow place in his heart. "Did she mean something to me?" he said, his breath fogging up the glass.
Raising his head, he turned back to Sergio. With a breath of a whisper he began to speak. "There's this painting that I sit and stare at during the nights when I can't sleep. I've studied every brush stroke. The painting depicts a boat out in a vast ocean. It's being tossed and turned by large, angry waves. Above the boat hangs ominous, black clouds. The wind is blowing the sails so hard they're ripping in two, and the rain, my God the rain, is falling from the sky in large droplets."
The love and awe at this painting could be heard soundly as Red described every detail. "There are figures on this doomed boat. They're just barely distinguishable, but they are there. When I first glanced at the painting I found it odd that the painter would not give them faces showing their terror, or worse, their crazed stares at death. It happened later that I realized I was not staring into faceless figures, but I was staring into the backs of their heads. They were looking at something behind the boat and for the longest time I assumed they were looking at the large wave about to take their lives."
Red closed his eyes. He could see the painting so clearly, every stroke and color laid before him. "It was insane for these figures to turn the boat towards the large wave. Did they not know what would happen? Surely they knew they could not survive such an attack on their small boat. I would sit for hours and wonder what their final thoughts were. I wondered if they were scared, or if they had no fear of death at all. You see, Sergio, I can relate to them. My life has been a sea of destruction. My life is filled with large waves and ominous skies. And then one night as I stared at the picture something caught my eye."
He smiled. Through the hurt and the pain, Red allowed himself to smile as he relived his revelation. "It was the smallest of shifts and yet what I saw in that moment changed my whole outlook on the painting. I remember walking up to the painting, my eyes glued to this one small part in the upper left hand corner. It had been hidden from my view for so long. The violence of the sea had all but swallowed it up, but even such destruction could not hide its secret for long. There, behind the large wave, was the bluest sky I think I have ever seen painted. It was so small and yet the significance of the finding hit me like that large wave would hit the boat. The figures were not heading towards their deaths but towards the only calm in the midst of such a devastating storm. And from that moment on I did not see the waves. I did not see the clouds in the ominous sky. I did not see the battered boat or the ill-fated men. All I could see was that blue sky. That one tiny speck of blue outshined all else around it and I clung to it."
Sergio watched him as if he had lost his mind. Of course he would not understand. No one could understand what that speck of blue meant to Red.
"She was the speck of blue in the center of the storms in my life. She was the reason I turned the boat in the direction of the waves that would destroy me. She was the reason I stopped seeing death all around me and saw the bluest sky these eyes have ever seen," Red whispered, moving closer towards Sergio. His handle on his rage was slipping, but he did not care this time. He had gotten the name he needed and Sergio was of no more use to him. "You asked did she mean something to me? She meant everything!"
Red raised the knife towards Sergio's throat, his hands slightly shaking. He corrected them before the man could notice. He would enjoy watching the man's blood drain from the artery in his neck. He would enjoy watching the light in the man's eyes dim to nothingness. This is what he did best. Take life when it was necessary. He had once been tricked in to believing there was a way to change, a way to make the hideous beautiful again. He had so stupidly believed that there was hope for a second chance. People like Sergio and all the rest who were involved proved to him that second chances are only for people who truly deserve it. Death was the only constant thing in his life, the one thing not taken away from him. It was inevitability.
"Please, please...don't do this. I didn't kill the girl! I swear it. Please, let me and my family go and I'll never speak about this. I've learned my lesson. Please!" Sergio cried as he felt the cold metal of the blade touch his skin.
"Your wife and daughter won't be harmed. I don't kill the innocent," Red whispered in the man's ear. The blade slid through Sergio's throat to his carotid and with the flick of his wrist the man's blood began to pour from his body in waves. With every beat of his heart blood oozed from his throat down to soak in his shirt. Sergio began to cough and choke as his life flowed from his mortal wound. "You won't be alone for long. Others will join you shortly, Sergio. I am going after them all," Red seethed. He stayed until the man breathed his last breath. He stayed until Sergio was still and death had taken him away. The sound of silence was deafening, yet Red welcomed it with open arms. Behind his close eyelids Lizzie's beautiful face shown, so alive. So very much alive.
Red climbed into the back of the black car, moving over the mannequins that posed as Sergio's wife and daughter. He slumped in his seat, staring out of the window at nothing. Dembe sat quietly waiting on Red to give his orders. He knew where he needed to go, but he found it hard to get the words out.
"Dembe, take us home. I need to change." His words were barely audible, but he knew the man understood him.
"Should I clean up before we leave?" Dembe asked.
Red finally looked away from the window and met his friend's concerned eyes in the rearview mirror. "Leave him. I don't care anymore."
For a moment it looked as though Dembe would argue, but he never spoke a word of resistance. He watched his friend and boss for a few seconds longer. He watched how his eyes grew glazed and distant. He had seen that look so many times in the hell he had endured before Red had saved him. It was a look of giving up, of not knowing how to care anymore. That look scared him more than the rage and insanity he had seen from Red the week after Elizabeth Keen had been found murdered in the back of an alley similar to the one they found themselves parked in now. With a sad sigh, Dembe pulled out onto the street headed towards the house they occupied that week.
"One week. Seven days. Ten thousand eighty minutes. Six hundred and four thousand eight-hundred seconds," Red whispered.
A/N: Let me know what you think! This is only the beginning of this long roller coaster ride! I can't wait to get this story out of my head because it is controlling my life at the moment! ha. Please, comment and like and hopefully the next chapter will be out soon.
