(For disclaimer, see chapter 1) Here's part II. I got tired of sitting on it, so you guys can have it ahead of schedule. I might just add to this randomly after I finish up whatever ideas are lingering with this Dust to Dust bit. Like, separate stories and whatnot when it comes to mind or when I need a muse-booster.

Thank you to everyone that favorited, followed, or reviewed and thanks to RedandLizzie for the tumblr shout-out. You are all so kind! Feel free to prompt something if there's a particular scene you want to read; either by pm or review. I should have the next chapter to Of Puppets and Puppeteers up soon! Fingers crossed. Anyway, enjoy!


You've held your head up

You've fought the fight

You bear the scars

You've done your time

Listen to me

You've been lonely, too long

"Run."

Dembe had said it low and rough in her ear the moment he'd pried her from one of the assailant's arms. She doesn't know how he did it. She doesn't know where he came from. But he seemed to appear, and then they were moving; two shadows bleeding and breathing hard.

Run.

Run away from home. Run to school. Run the obstacle course. Run to Sam. Run or the target will get away. Run or the bomb will detonate. Run or that little girl will die. Run to her husband. Run away from her husband. Run to the safest place she can think of.

Race to the man she needs and hates and needs to hate.

Run away to save herself.

Run to live.

Run.

But Red didn't. He was taken. He was tortured. He disappeared. But not all trace had vanished. She'd never stared so intently at the pictures in the War Room as she did that day. She had discovered how all of the Blacklisters had been connected; heralding the oncoming storm that was Berlin. But there was more to it. There had to be. Cooper had told her that Red asked for favors after some of the more innocuous cases. Favors. Clues. Connections. Prizes.

The forty-eight hour mark was closing in on them.

Aram keeps watching her. Bounces ideas off of her.

The skeletal structures from The Alchemist's lab bother her.

The Stewmaker's cabin. The injections. Her screams.

Berlin's story. His daughter. Body parts.

Just pieces to a much larger puzzle.

"Search Baltimore Missing Persons between the ages of twenty-four to thirty five going back two years."

"Okaaay, who are we looking for?"

"Me."

Let me in the wall

You've built around

We can light a match

And burn it down

Let me hold your hand

And dance 'round and 'round the flames

In front of us

Dust to dust

Mr. Kaplan doesn't tell her what to do.

Ressler doesn't tell her what to do.

Dembe doesn't tell her what to do.

Mostly, it's because the four of them have become permanent fixtures in the small bedroom Red occupies. So far he's awakened twice; brief moments of clarity that drifted into darkness. Supposedly, the first time was after a very small, very bald, very flustered doctor finished patching him up. He reminded Liz more of a mole rat in glasses, but they barely met because she and Ressler were escorted to the house's foyer while the man saved Red's life. The second time was while they were transporting him to a safer location; a mountain home somewhere in the reaches of New York.

The place almost reminded her of Kornish's cabin, but the front of the house had a wrap-around patio that overlooked a lake and the trees didn't suffocate the property like gravestones. Whoever the friends are that loaned them the place, she hopes they don't come back for a while. If she has to lie low, if she has to play the part she was falling into before four days ago…this place could let her do it in peace.

It could let them do it in peace. For now, and for as long as it took Red to recover, they were safe. Kaplan assured her it wouldn't be long anyway, and she wonders, not for the first time, how resilient one man can actually be for no one to correct her. The team of soldiers Kaplan used during the Garrick incident came and went after securing their employer and his guest. Berlin was being held, prepped and ready for Red to arrive. From some of the looks on their faces, Red was more important than whatever he was paying them.

The men and women she'd met since tracking Red down were unshakably loyal, and it frightened her. For all he was, for all he suffered, for all he made others suffer, Red had touched these peoples' lives profoundly, and she imagines that they have touched his. It was in watching their silent exchanges that she realized she had been collected into this group as well. The odd, fearful contemplation that sat deep inside her bones wasn't from the possibility of being surrounded by Red's enemies, but from the possibility of a world absent of the man who could protect her from them.

The ride from the place he was being held to that doctor's house was worse than finding Zamani in her home. That was the one incident she couldn't shake. She may hate Tom and everything he did and didn't do to her, but that fear she felt sitting in the doorway to their dining and living rooms would not go away no matter how much anger she poured into the memory. Losing Red, a second time, had panicked her in a way she couldn't explain. Giving him the same assurances she had given Tom when Zamani broke into her home was like a fatal blow to her heart.

You care. And not only did she care, but she cared too much. She'd let him breach a part of her she hadn't planned to open the door to, and she thinks that he might have been inside before she locked that piece of herself away; that maybe he'd been the architect all along. It's why she hasn't touched him since he held onto her in the ambulance. It's why she keeps her distance; why she wants to run away, but also never let him out of her sight.

Before her were miles of locked doors and he was the doorman. Supposedly, she had her own set of keys, but only for his doors. The entire situation was like some screwed up Japanese Puzzle Box. She hates it and she feels like if she loses him, she'll lose herself.

"How is your shoulder?" Kaplan's level and contrite stare pins her to her chair, and Liz's entire body tenses. It somehow seems sacrilegious to break the silence over her well-being. The question draws Ressler and Dembe out of their respective thoughts. With all eyes on her, she feels cornered.

Ricochet from the wall had embedded itself in her left shoulder as she came through the doorway when they were attacked. The wound itself hurts like a son-of-bitch, but she was getting used to it. That first day, she'd been mostly unconscious and she thinks Dembe had something to do with that. The second, Ressler couldn't keep her in the bed long after he told her that Red was still missing. She and Aram spent three hours sifting through profiles of young women until they got a lead. Lizzie got in touch with Mr. Kaplan and it wasn't long after that they'd found where Berlin had been holding him.

The finer details were a blur, but one thing was for certain: things moved faster when Red's people were involved. We're going to make a great team. She'd been side-lined for the extraction, but she wasn't an invalid and Kaplan wanted to keep her close this time around. Just in case. So she and Dembe, who was still sporting some grazes himself, manned the ambulance.

"It's fine." She doesn't sound very convincing when she shifts and her stitches pinch. There were only five of them. Stop being a baby. "Honest." That draws an imperceptible smile onto the older woman's face; the kind of skin-tight reaction that shows more in her eyes than on her lips. It's a face that reminds her so much of Sam that she can practically hear her father saying, Like hell, Butterball.

"Have you cleaned it in the last fourteen hours?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

And just like that, the four of them settle back into the silence from before. Ressler's been oddly compliant since joining her on this rescue mission. And if she didn't know him better, she might have thought that Dembe was rubbing off on him. A lot had happened and a lot was left to be concluded. Despite their constant and reassuring presence, Liz wants them to go the hell away.

There was no reason for the four of them to be in here. It feels weird watching Red with everyone in the room; like this is a private moment and they're stealing it from her. She supposes they all have a right to the chairs they sit in; have a need and vested interest in the man that occupies the bed. But the idea of him waking up to them all picks at her almost as much as she's warmed by the idea that they've come together for this. For him.

Liz takes to fiddling with the bracelet Red pressed into her hand. One of the men holding her had ripped it off when Dembe rescued her. From the way Red was acting…they toyed with him. And that hand Ressler found…the thought of them using her to torment Red creates a lump in her throat. Over the last few weeks of tracking down Berlin and attempting to get the upper hand, Liz had tried not to empathize with the man behind Raymond Reddington.

She was still pissed at him for killing her father, but it was a muted feeling; all dull edges and hollowed wells. She had tried to reach for the anger she'd felt the day she found out, only to find her reserves missing. Anger was an easy emotion for her to feel. But it was no longer directed at Red.

What Berlin had done to Red, to her, to Dembe, to Meera, to Meera's family, to Cooper, and even to Tom, fueled the violent urges that spiraled through her. She wanted to cry, to yell, to throw something…but the room was too occupied, the man in the bed was too peaceful, and she didn't want the others to know she was breaking.

"I'm going to make some more coffee and check the perimeter." Dembe's quiet way seems louder and Liz watches Ressler rise from his chair as well,

"I'll go with you."

Kaplan makes no move to acknowledge the men as they leave, and it's only after Dembe has closed the door that she looks away from Red's direction and twitches a smile the way her aunt did when Sam got sick the first time. It's the kind of smile that touches on reassurance and falls into regret. It whispers It's okay and echoes …well it will be, eventually. She hates this smile, but she returns it anyway; sure that it doesn't reach her eyes.

"I feel like I should be doing something." Liz endeavors to look somewhere meaningful as she says this: at Red, at his IV bags, or Kaplan's penetrating stare, but she just stares at her scar and remembers the way Red held onto her in the ambulance. The breath that fogged his oxygen mask, the way he closed his eyes, the sound he made.

He'd done that thing with his face she associates with honesty; where it appeared as if his entire world had been made right and was crumbling around him all at once. She didn't understand how a man could show so much with his eyes, how he could swallow so much emotion, how alive he was underneath all the death he carried around with him.

Out of the corner of her eye, Liz is aware of Kaplan crossing her legs and reclining into her chair, but she doesn't respond right away, and Liz wonders if even Mr. Kaplan doesn't know what to do with her.

"He came to me after he killed Garrick." Liz's stomach flips and she looks up to find the older woman watching Red. Two days after he had been taken, she got that call, and asked that question, and he disappeared for weeks before she saw him again. This is the story she had wanted him to tell her when he showed up at her place. The question had been there, the worry, the excitement…it was a surprised by joy moment and he had distracted her away from the inquiry.

"He was quiet while I cleaned him up, when I told him to lie down, when I asked him what he needed. He was just…quiet." Liz watches Kaplan take on a demeanor that is nearly identical to the way Red looks when he's telling stories, and she feels like she's looking at the wrong person. This story isn't specific, it's not detailed the way she wants it to be. I'll never get the full version.

Liz's eyes travel over Red's prone figure. Except for the IV's, he was dressed like he was simply napping; vest undone, shoes on, cuffs rolled to his elbows…it reminds her of a long night that ended with her crying on the couch and drinking some horrible kind of moonshine. It reminds her of a comfortable silence, of sunlight breaking through the trees, of dust motes, and the smell of old manuscripts. It's the image of assurance and safety. But it's also a trick.

"He didn't want to be near you while he was cleaning house." Liz and Kaplan's eyes meet for a few seconds, and then the older woman shakes her head while something hard and thoughtful pulls at the corners of her mouth. "And he won't want you to do anything while he deals with Berlin, either."

"Too bad." The Berlin fiasco wasn't just about Red, anymore. Liz's entire life had been infiltrated and orchestrated from the moment she met Tom, and maybe even before that. This wasn't just Red's fight. "Berlin is about the both of us whether he likes it or not."

"And he's all too aware of that." She wishes that sentence accompanied some deep truth like: why I'm so important to him, or what he needs me for, or why he insists on risking his life for me, and saving me, and all this crap. Because then, she thinks she'd appreciate it more than she does. Liz has always had a hard time with altruism; questions it to make sure it is what it is. That there's no catch. She's more paranoid about it now. More paranoid about being used and ignoring the signs. Paranoid, because she doesn't want Red to wield her for some larger purpose, like she suspects he is. She wanted to be brought into the walls and the armor and the inner circle of the truth.

The smell of coffee floats in the air and rouses Kaplan from her seat with a sigh, "I'm going to leave you to stay with him. These joints aren't used to staying still for too long." There's some sort of anxiety that injects itself into Liz's system as she watches Mr. Kaplan head for the door. And she barely gets to protest before the older woman is gone. For the first time since everything happened, Liz is alone with Red and that terrifies her.

What she was able to keep hidden around everyone else is slowly creeping up on her from the darker corners of her mind, and she wills herself to stay strong. This push and pull in their relationship had to stop. The further she pushed him away, the faster he seemed capable of pulling her back in. Elizabeth Scott was not fickle, and yet she repeatedly came back to him after walking away. Why, though? Yes, there were answers she needed that she couldn't get without him, but maybe she could if she tried. So why bother with a man hell-bent on driving her nuts and almost getting her killed a handful of times?

While he said he had never lied to her, he wasn't always forthcoming. He'd gone off to deal with who he thought had been Berlin after she asked if he found him. He'd kept the circumstances of Sam's death a secret from her. He kept their connection a secret from her: the fire, her scar, her name…my real name. Her entire childhood was probably buzzing behind those unconscious eyes of his, and he wouldn't tell her. And his constant withholding of that vital information felt like some huge cover-up. And cover-ups are lies.

Despite her misgivings, her body moves closer to him whether she wants it to or not, and with it comes her chair; dragged hastily to the left side of his bed so that she doesn't accidentally brush some wounded part of him. Her stitches pull a little but she steels herself and sits down. The closer she is, the more nervous she feels. But the closer she is, the more detailed his condition is as well, and that helps ground her; doubt hemorrhaging inside of her.

She stays because of this, all of this. She stays because of the way he looked at her after she took his hand in the ambulance. She stays because, even though she might be able to find out the answers to her past on her own, she wants him to be the one to tell her everything.

This extraordinary, dangerous, funny, misleading, heroic criminal frustrated her in more ways than any language can express, but he's important to her. He's important like blood to a human body is important. She needs him if she's going to survive with her mind and heart and soul intact. Because I need to come out on the other side of things.

"I don't know why I trust you," She whispers, reaching out to squeeze his hand. "But I do." She stays like that for a long time, and the others leave her alone. She can hear voices every now and then from beyond the door, but as far as she's concerned, no one else exists.

You're like a mirror, reflecting me

Takes one to know one, so take it from me

You've been lonely

You've been lonely, too long

We've been lonely

We've been lonely, too long

Around midnight, a sound reaches her through the nap she didn't mean to take, and she finds Red's unsteady gaze directed at the ceiling. Leaning over, her hand still gripping his, she tries to make him look at her.

"Red?" A blink or two is all she gets in response, and then his eyes close. Sighing, she's almost about to get Mr. Kaplan, when his hand tightens around hers. She's not sure if he's awake or if it's some kind of involuntary movement, but her thumb brushes along the back of his hand, and she squeezes back, just in case.

"Lizzie," He swallows around her name, and his eyes open again. They look around the room slowly and waver in their search for her.

"Hey, Red." Liz doesn't make the same mistake she made in the ambulance. She caters to this experience in a way she didn't when Tom was in the hospital. It's different. Everything was different. His head falls to the left so he can see her better, and she leans forward again. His eyes seem distant and fogged with sensation, and when she can't think of anything else to say, she jostles their hands a little and asks, "Are you in pain?"

"Mmm…no…" Everything about him seems like he's wading through honey; all slow motions and delayed reactions. A thrill of fear plunges her heart into her stomach. At least he's talking. Tom had just blinked at her a few times before falling back asleep. "Dizzy." Liz glances up at the bags hanging above the bed, and chalks it up to the trauma his body has suffered and the meds that Mr. Kaplan has him on. Still… She doesn't know much in the way of things medical.

"Do you want me to get Kaplan?" He shakes his head, winces, and the dithering silence swallows them. Liz watches him breathe and keeps brushing her thumb across the back of his hand. Just when she thinks his breathing has evened out again, he surprises her and draws in a deep, startled breath, and the noise that comes out of his mouth sounds a lot like her name mixed with Berlin's. "Easy, it's just us." He's panting, now, and she's sure she'd feel a startled heartbeat if she moved her forefinger to check his pulse.

"The Alchemist...Kornish." He says, finally, his eyes moving towards her again; holding her in a way that lay people behold something divine. There's no squirming away from this heavy look, and after a moment she nods just so he'll look away. He doesn't.

She thinks, watching him stare at her, watching him catalog the scratches on her forehead, the sling her arm is in, and the bags she knows are under her eyes, that he would like nothing more than to address them and make them better. But with the lethargy plaguing him, she knows he isn't capable just yet.

"Aram and I figured it out." He makes a little sound in the back of his throat; dry and weak. She thinks there should be some water on the table next to his bed, but there isn't, and looking away seems to have made talking impossible. What she planned to say is lodged in her throat as she glimpses the bruises peeking out from under his collar.

He's still staring at her, and it takes his small frown for her to realize that there are tears burning her eyes. "I don't know what to say." She wants to apologize. She wants to tell him how happy she is that he's finally awake. She wants to tell him that he isn't allowed to die or get hurt or taken or tortured ever again. She wants to demand promises that he probably won't be able to keep. She wants him to talk and laugh off her concern and smile and say something ridiculous or infuriating.

But all he does is pick up their hands and press her knuckles to his mouth. It's not a kiss, exactly, but there is a moment where they linger at his lips, and then he's drawing in a breath and he holds it. There's pain and salvation riddled in ever line on his face. He may not look at her just then, and he may not say anything, but it's too agonizing and too obvious to ignore: that they're both the most important person in each other's lives. Anything she might have wanted to say, anything she might have wanted to tell him, he didn't need to hear any of it. He didn't need to be coddled or reassured.

This right here, it was all the confirmation he needed.

He had her.

She had him.

When he exhales and lets their hands rest low on his chest…that's when she bursts into tears.


Wooh! I have a few more ideas for this. I can't guarantee that they will be along the same story-line, but we'll see. I think this is just gonna be the place where I dump all my thoughts about how and who they all are. Probably just character studies. Hope you liked it! (Again, the song reference is from The Civil Wars "Dust to Dust". Great song. Great Album. Great band. Check 'em out!) Also, everything I write is unbeta-ed so...if there are mistakes, please point them out. I'm sorta ocd about them and I can only re-read something so many times before my eyes just...don't see the mistakes haha.