AN: I'm slowly finishing up the plotbunnies that have kept me motivated/distracted while writing Whatever You Need. I've spent the last few days working on polishing up this one. It takes place after The Cyprus Agency and it'll earn its rating in the second chapter, I'm afraid. :P


"Doubt is an insidious thing, isn't it?" he said, staring unblinkingly into the flickering, crackling fire. He swirled the Scotch in his glass and took a slow sip.

Red hadn't spoken for such a long time after she joined him there on the couch in front of the fireplace, she had begun to wonder if he ever would, or if he was just going to let her sit next to him in silence and soak up the warmth from the fire and from him.

Doubt is an insidious thing, he said. It took every last ounce of self-control she possessed not to haul back and slap him for being so blasé about her decision. He knew how much she struggled to get to this point. God, she would have preferred I told you so. She would have said as much if he wasn't acting so strangely.

The push and pull of Red's behavior towards her since Garrick's attack was giving her whiplash—he'd be warm and relaxed one minute and distant and detached the next. She was guilty of doing the same thing herself, she knew—whenever she suffered a trauma, she closed herself off from everyone and dealt with it alone. For someone like Red, it must be even more isolating. That, at least, she understood.

She wasn't able to seek comfort from Tom after a loss and, truth be told, she wouldn't really want to even if she could. Despite her better judgment, she'd come to expect that sort of comfort from Red, because there was something about his concern that felt genuine where Tom's did not. She always got the feeling Tom was going through the motions when he checked in with her, fulfilling his obligation as a dutiful spouse; he never seemed too disappointed when she pushed him away and let him off the hook. Perhaps that was one of the reasons she came here tonight, instead of going after Tom when he walked out.

She'd grown accustomed to a certain closeness meeting with Red in his sanctuary the past few weeks, speaking in low, hushed voices with their heads ducked near enough to hear each other, sitting just about as close as they could without touching outright. She needed that closeness now more than ever. The fact that he didn't seem willing to give it left her wanting.

His body language was strange tonight, less polished and assertive, more edgy and defensive. He seemed a lot like she felt—wired and drained at the same time. She couldn't imagine why. He'd been happy when he left her, or at least cheerful, upbeat, with a spring in his step and perhaps a little mescaline in his system. What possibly could have happened to change his mood so drastically?

He still hadn't turned to look at her, hadn't given her a sidelong glance, nothing. That was perhaps the only thing about him that felt normal. It was fast becoming a frustrating habit of his in moments like this.

Once he turned away from her to admire the view from the sofa in Frederick's house after he handed her that old mason jar of milky liquor, he never so much as glanced back in her direction. She'd been glad for it then; her finger had brushed his thumb on the jar when she took it from him and it prickled like it meant something. She had enough on her plate that day already without having to deal with the knowing look in Red's eye that was sure to be there.

He didn't look at her in the park after she found the photo of Tom among Gina's things, not when she searched his face with tears in her eyes, silently begging for the connection, not when he told her she could trust him, not even when he took her hand.

Tonight, his tendency was even more evident than it had been in the past. It wasn't that he didn't make eye contact that bothered her, it was that he wouldn't, that he made a conscious effort to avoid it. She wanted to scream at him to look at her, grab him by the face and make him. He'd driven her to this point, planted the seed of uncertainty in her mind and tended it until it took root. The least he could do was look her in the eye when her life caved in around her.

Doubt is an insidious thing, isn't it? What an infuriatingly accurate statement that was. Doubt tainted every interaction, colored every discussion she had with Tom. He was her husband—her husband—and every passing day she could feel them drifting further and further apart as she slowly built a wall between them brick by brick, Red's voice an insistent itch at the back of her skull. Be careful of your husband.

Between Tom and the baby and seeing all those poor girls used as living incubators for one man's twisted legacy, she felt like she was teetering on the edge of the wall she'd built and if someone even breathed on her the wrong way, she'd falter and fall. She wasn't sure what awaited her at the bottom, but she'd be damned if she let herself go down alone.

"Why don't you ever look at me when I come to you like this?" she asked, desperate for Red to acknowledge her presence with something more than a bon mot she could have found in one of the fortune cookies she had piling up in a jar in her cabinet.

At last he turned to face her; she sucked in a wincing breath, barely restraining a visible flinch. The mask he usually wore had disappeared completely and raw, undisguised heartache emanated from him in waves. Be careful what you wish for, she thought, feeling slightly queasy.

She couldn't imagine his demeanor had anything to do with her choice to call off the adoption, not when he pushed her so hard in that direction in the first place. Her entire world had fallen apart since that afternoon. Why did it look like his had as well?

"What is it? What's wrong?"

She didn't expect an answer—he only ever told her the bare minimum of what she needed to know, leaving her to figure out the rest for herself, if at all—so she was surprised when for once he didn't try to deflect, to turn the question back around to her.

"I had an opportunity tonight,"—he spoke haltingly, as if he was deciding again after every word if he was going to say anything more—"to find out the truth about what happened to my family. I didn't take it."

Bile rose in the back of her throat. "You don't know what happened to them?" she asked, searching his face for some small sign that she'd missed something, misunderstood him somehow.

After a tense moment, he gave a short, stiff shake of his head.

Her stomach dropped. It never, not once, occurred to her that he might not know what happened to his family. Everything in his file was so matter of fact about the whole ordeal, it didn't leave room for interpretation or give any indication there was more to the story than meets the eye. She even used what she thought was his callous abandonment of his wife and daughter as a weapon against him when he hit too close to the mark about her longing for a child.

That felt like a lifetime ago.

He'd been a stranger then, a composite sketch of a monster pasted together from grainy surveillance photos, a list of crimes, and a number four stamped next to his name. Now that she knew more of the man behind the dossier, a man who willingly turned himself over to be tortured and likely killed in her place, she knew he was not the type of man to walk out on his family. Not at Christmas. Not ever.

Not willingly.

She always assumed he was being cagey with his half-truths and cryptic insinuations, that in the giant, crazy game of chess they were playing, he knew every correct move and precisely when to make them. She believed he already had all the answers and was simply choosing not to tell her until the opportune moment.

If that wasn't the case, if he could be in the dark about something as important as the fate of his own family, he could be in the dark about other things, too. It suddenly became a possibility that he was just as lost as she was in this mess. Maybe he knew the broad strokes better than she did, but some details were, perhaps, still a mystery to him.

"Can't you go back and—"

"No," he interrupted, his voice firm. "That avenue is closed."

The casual finality of his tone made her cringe inwardly, his safe, inoffensive words meaning he'd killed someone tonight. Her stomach sank further.

"Was it the mole?" she asked. She hoped it was.

He hesitated a moment before nodding, staring down into his empty glass. He leaned forward to pour himself another Scotch and his shoulder brushed hers when he settled back into the couch. He held himself very still, seeming to wait for her to shift away to regain the space she'd lost, but she found herself doing the opposite, relaxing into the cushions in a way that pressed her even closer to him. He made an abortive move towards his mouth with the tumbler before thinking better of it and offering the glass to her.

"You'll hear about it in the morning, I'm sure. Or perhaps later. Mr. Kaplan is thorough."

"So it's over?"

When he met her gaze again, she felt the intensity of it like a vise around her heart. She raised the glass to her mouth, the warmth from the alcohol giving her something to focus on other than how haunted his eyes looked.

"It's never over," he said. "But, yes. As far as the Garrick situation is concerned, it's over. The final mole is dead."

"Good."

Her vehemence broke through his despair for a moment and she could make out the tiniest hint of amusement in his eyes. "I don't think I've ever had your approval for executing someone before."

"This is different."

"Different how?"

"They could have gotten you killed."

The mole had gotten others killed, of course—Luli, some of Liz's fellow agents… Both Ressler and Dembe barely escaped with their lives. It wasn't as if she didn't care about them. She cared a great deal, in fact. But she cared about Red in a different way. She felt that his death would have left a hole in her life she wouldn't know how to fill. She couldn't define the space he occupied in her head and in her heart as it was. If she lost him before she even got the chance to try…

"I think if I had been there, I might have done it myself," she said in a rush, surprising herself with the conviction she felt. She took a gulp of Scotch and choked as it burned its way down her throat.

"That's very bloodthirsty of you," he said, keeping his eyes on her as he took the glass and refilled it again.

"I'm not myself tonight."—her brow furrowed; that didn't quite ring true—"Or maybe I'm more myself." He studied her face, searching perhaps for the source of this newfound ruthlessness. He downed half of the glass himself before he handed it back.

They lapsed into silence again, passing the glass back and forth. Her skin still prickled whenever she brushed against his fingers and it still felt like it meant something. She slid the tumbler from his grasp and drained it, but instead of giving it back, she took his now empty hand in hers.

"I heard you searched for me," he said after a while. "At great personal risk. It endeared you to a good number of my people, you know. They no longer think of you as 'that rookie fed crazy old Reddington wants us to risk our lives for' anymore. They think I've collected you like I collected them, that you're just as much a part of my ragtag network of allies as they are now. Have I collected you, Lizzy? Have I done something to earn your loyalty?"

"I couldn't live with myself if you died because of me."

He squeezed her hand, lips twitching into a tiny smile. "And you say we have nothing in common."

Her answering laugh died in her throat and she dug an eyetooth into her tongue to stave off a sudden onslaught of tears. She gave a deep, shuddering sigh and leaned into his shoulder.

"For the record…" He paused to clear his throat, but his voice was still thick with emotion when he continued. "I don't usually look at you when you come to me because if I see the pain that bastard has caused you in your eyes, I want to do whatever I can to take it away."

"That doesn't sound like such a bad thing."

"I'm not sure you realize what I'm implying."

"I'm not stupid, Red." The way she saw it, he was either implying he'd like to take Tom out of the picture or… something else. It was the thought of something else that sent a shiver down her spine, and it was not at all unpleasant.

He, however, seemed hung up on thinking she'd misunderstood his intentions.

"Of course you're not stupid, Lizzy, but a couple months ago you asked me if I was your father and if that's the box you've put me in, you're really not going to understand what I'm offering here."

"I didn't think it was a real possibility. It's just… I had no other point of reference for what you did with Garrick. The only person in my life who ever put my well-being one hundred percent first was Sam and even he wasn't as present as he could have been all the time.

"I'm not the kind of person people put themselves in harm's way for, especially if they have no obligation to do so. I didn't know what to think."

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She found herself swiftly approaching yet another turning point, only this one she thought she might just be willing to cross. "I was relieved you didn't say yes. When you hesitated, I thought I'd be sick."

"And why is that?"

"Because,"—she turned to face him fully, tucking a leg under her, and braced an arm along the back of the couch near his shoulders, her fingers skimming the back of his neck—"the more I think about it, the more I'd like to help you the way you'd like to help me."