A/N: OK, officially no longer a one-shot. ;) Not entirely sure of the length of this yet, but I have wanted to revisit the Anslo Garrick episodes pretty much since they aired and decided it made sense to add on to the AU I already had. The presence of literally one follower also helped, in large part, so thanks, guys—I hope you enjoy, tentative though the progress may be (and already has been these past few months): I've a feeling Anslo, and striking the right balance with both his character and his relationship with Red, is gonna be tough!


II: Brought Down Close


WASHINGTON, D.C.

"Have you heard from him?"

Barely through the last of the Post Office's new security checkpoints, Liz looked at Cooper and the waiting faces of Meera and Aram. "No," she replied slowly, assuming the obvious. "Reddington?"

"He hasn't checked in like I asked him to," said Cooper. "I was hoping he might have with you, and we hadn't lost him again."

She shook her head, thinking of Red's comment the night of Frederick Barnes, how he could cease to exist in sixty seconds if he wanted to. "Who left with him on Tuesday?" she asked, though in truth the answer did not much interest her. In her mind, she was already running possibilities, seeking answers.

"Mr. Reddington was complaining about being tired, and Hastings and Zaworski accompanied him to a place in Silver Spring for the night," said Aram. "They're, uh, well, they're still not really sure how he got by them."

An unwelcome thought, the possibility of which would never have occurred to her until the moment Red turned up silent and trembling on a hook, gripped Liz suddenly. "They don't think—they don't think somebody got to him, do they?"

"There's nothing to suggest that at first blush, no," Meera replied.

"While they work the scene there, I want all of the intel we have on Garrick," said Cooper, addressing Liz again. "I know Ressler's recovering still, but he's your first stop."

"Yes, sir." Liz went to grab some notes from her desk and headed out again. She decided to stop home first and take Hudson for a quick walk before going to the hospital, figuring she could use the time to clear her head.

Life, of course, had been strange since the day she started this job and Red inserted himself smack-dab into the center of everything, but with the events of Tuesday, so much had changed all over again. The stakes were higher. Lives lost, lives almost lost. And the person at the root of all of it knew her now; knew what she looked like.

The only good thing about any of this was that it was a distraction from Dad.

Most days, she cried at least once on the way to somewhere and wondered if anybody ever saw this, whether in their rearview or while stopped alongside her. Probably not, she decided (at least behind her sunglasses, anyway), but a small and childish part of her always hoped someone would notice. Then, whenever she got home, if Tom wasn't there for some reason, she literally cried until she couldn't breathe, and her eyes burned in secret for the rest of the night. She had come to realize just how lucky she was to have Tom, though. He'd been more than supportive through the grieving process, and she found solace in his company.

Liz pulled up to their street and parked. Hudson was there to meet her at the door as always, tail wagging.

"Hey, buddy," she greeted back, moving past him inside. She was about to hang her bag up when she glimpsed the apple on the kitchen table.

Her heart dropped. No. It wasn't possible . . .

Liz took immediate stock of her surroundings, panic setting in despite Hudson's apparent calm. She stepped forward in trepidation. As she drew closer, she could see there was a note tucked beneath the apple, and she went to pick it up. The message was scrawled in red ink:

THE BIG ONE OF THESE—HOWEVER YOU CAN. WILL CALL.

Red

Liz's eyes trailed up to meet the empty house in front of her. She thought of the van she knew was parked outside. The mandated surveillance on all Post Office personnel until Garrick's inside man was rooted out meant she would have to make like she was going back to work and somehow leave from there. Assuming she really was going, that is. She looked down to Hudson for the answer. He blinked up at her patiently, his tongue coming out to briefly touch his nose.

"Not to worry, bud. Walk comes first."

As she retrieved his leash and ushered him to the door, her mind was already made up. Ressler was just going to have to wait until the morning.

»»««

Fitch was angry about the thwarted handover of Reddington, it turned out. Anslo didn't really care. If anyone should be well cross right now, it was him.

"Unfuckingbelievable," he muttered after hanging up with him.

Carranza glanced at him from across the room. "We still leaving tonight? Milan is only a week away."

Anslo shook his head, his eyes roaming the floor. "Mr. Fitch made promises to me, and I'm not about to be robbed of that because of happenstance. I just have to find him before he does, that's all." He rose from his seat, draining his glass.

"And lucky for me now," he told his friend, a slow smile turning on his face as he wiped his mouth with his thumb, "I know just how to make old Red come running."

»»««

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

He'd called her from some pay phone or burner, with instructions to meet at Rockefeller Center at 6:00. The sun had already set an hour and a half ago, and Liz adjusted her scarf as she walked down Fifth Avenue, feeling anxious. What news did he have for her, if any? Would he be back to full strength, embarrassed by the condition she had found him in? No, she decided just as quickly: no matter what his current state, Red didn't seem the type to feel embarrassed about—well, anything.

It did appear he was taking every precaution for meeting with her, selecting what had to be one of the most congested spots on the planet this time of year, but then maybe this was also the last place Red thought people would look for him, she considered, glimpsing the giant lighted snowflakes on the storefront of Saks as she crossed at 49th. While she didn't have all the details surrounding his disappearance on Christmas Eve some twenty years ago, she'd still heard enough and spent enough time with him to know there had to be more to it than what his official file read. He must hate Christmas, she thought with some sadness.

Passing under light-encrusted trees, Liz turned at the line of flags surrounding the ice skating rink. The 76-foot Norway spruce had just been lit yesterday, and people were taking pictures everywhere. She spotted Dembe, who gave her a subtle nod. The reality that Luli's death had knocked Red's team down to one was hard to ignore as she acknowledged him back.

Liz didn't see Red anywhere but knew Dembe would have a visual on him, and on top of the Concourse, behind Prometheus and the fountain he hovered over, she found him—wearing a navy knit cap, a seeming preponderance of coats, and jeans. Jeans, Liz confirmed, with more than a little incredulity as she approached. A coffee cup rested on the ledge before him, and the sight of him so defended against the cold made Baltimore, where she'd never felt the skin of anyone so hot in her life, seem like a lifetime ago. Apart from the cut healing above his eye, nothing else was overtly different about him, but the combined effect was enough to suggest the FBI may have never found him, had he not turned himself in. Liz joined Red's side, looking at the skaters moving below.

"Don't you just love New York at Christmas?" he murmured, taking a sip from his beverage.

Liz's head shook in silent wonder. Just when she thought she might understand something about this man, he managed to prove her wrong. "Yeah," she agreed, scanning the tableau for herself, trying to see it through his eyes.

Red smiled, lifting his head to regard the Manhattan sky, nearly as bright as day and brought down close in the reflection of light against clouds. "They say this winter's gonna be a bad one. Calling for snow early next week, as a matter of fact."

"You follow weather reports now?"

"I follow everything," said Red. "So," his languid voice sang to her, if not very playfully, "how's the F-BI?"

"Looking for you. You're our new number one."

"Oh, I bet I am," he said around a dark chuckle, again reminding her of their last encounter. She suddenly wanted more than anything to hear a genuine laugh out of him.

"Donald still on the mend?" he asked her.

"Yeah." She faced the rink, feeling, for some reason, the need to grant him that small privacy for her next question. "How 'bout you?"

Red's eyes also remained in front of him. "I'm not setting one foot in the Post Office until I'm done getting to the bottom of this," he said, and for a second Liz thought he hadn't heard her. "As I'm sure you're all aware, you have a mole."

At this, she nodded, looking off at the changing colored lights and rushing water of the fountain. "We are."

Red turned, finally and properly taking in the sight of her. From two hundred miles away, Anslo's words needled him.

The girl. The agent. I want to know who she is.

"You needn't look so guilty by association, Lizzy. It doesn't flatter you. And besides—you went against your boss's orders to find me." He put his hand to his chest. "You used my people to find me. At the risk of making you even more uncomfortable than I already have these past few months, I'm touched." When his suggestion was met with no protest, he returned to his coffee.

Liz continued to watch the water tumble and fall. She knew exactly what she should be doing right now, but there were just so many questions. Most of all, she wanted to know why: Why'd you do it? Why walk straight into that man's waiting arms for me? Regardless of what the future held, it was impossible to deny things were different between them now. Forever.

"So why do this in person—" she did ask, finally, "why not over the phone?"

On the other side of the ice, a very small boy went down on his backside and was promptly helped to his feet by his older brother. Red's mind flashed to Sam. God, Sam. He could still feel his body fighting underneath him; still hear Elizabeth, tense and oblivious, halfway across the country.

"I screwed up," he said in a low voice, the admission at once surprising and vague. Liz had a feeling he was going to leave it at that, which he did.

"Anslo?" she pressed.

His head shook incomprehensibly. "He knows about you now."

"You're forgetting that I don't know about me still," she replied. "About why I'm so important to you?"

"Lizzy," said Red, smiling thinly. "As you may be forgetting, I've been through a tremendous physical ordeal. My hands have finally stopped shaking long enough to hold a hot beverage, the likes of which, I might add, is the only thing keeping a merciless headache at bay."

Liz saw the deflection for what it was, but the fact remained—perhaps one of the more unsettling things to come out of all of this—that Red must have been conditioned to withstand what the doctors said he had under Anslo. When? And by whom? Emboldened, she met his eyes.

"I've never seen anyone in that state," she told him. "When we found you, you know?"

"Hmm," Red chortled. "You should talk to Agent Malik."

Master of deflection indeed. "Garrick and his team . . ." she went on, undeterred, "do you think they'll try again?"

"I don't know."

Liz paused, hating to sound melodramatic, but the concern was real. "What if they come after me?" she asked.

Red held her worried gaze, his lips pushing out very far. "Then I'll come after you."

She believed him, of course—and maybe it was just that she needed some levity in that moment, but between his grim and healing face and the inescapable Christmas all around them, a funny thought struck Liz then, and a smile lapsed across her face. Red peered at her, his own expression softening.

"What?"

"Nothing. I was just thinking of It's a Wonderful Life, you know . . . Not like you're my guardian angel or anything," she quickly prefaced, already regretting the decision to say any of this out loud, "but when George tells Clarence, 'Well, you look about like the kind of an angel I'd get.'"

"'Sort of a fallen angel, aren't you?'" Red quoted, not missing a beat. He laughed softly. "Yeah. Always loved George. And Clarence. Please, though—" he said, his tone suddenly derisive as he raised his cup and held it there while he finished talking, "don't worry about Anslo."

He drank from his coffee. Liz stared at him. Never mind that Anslo was the one who last had you by both wrists, Red.

Lowering his cup again, Red hunched into the Concourse's granite ledge while simultaneously angling closer to Liz. "With everything that's happened," he said, "I know you're feeling rudderless right now, but you shouldn't."

Her eyes welled instantly at his words, and Red dipped his head, his jaw clenching in surprise. "I just need to take care of some things," he recovered, barely, before looking at her again. "Lizzy, I want you to know, wherever I am, whatever I'm doing—if you are in need, I will be there."

She was searching his face back now, still trying to reconcile this version of the man in front of her with the one she knew. At least in the church in Baltimore, even through the blood and the gloom and the dark and terrifying circumstances, Red looked like Red. It was suddenly as though she didn't recognize him at all. His assurance did comfort her, though, and Liz nodded briskly in acknowledgement, scrubbing her foot against the ground.

"So," she said, needing to take a step back from the intensity of everything once again while also realizing her boss would probably appreciate at least one second of her acting like an FBI agent in the course of this secret meeting, "you're not going to check in with Cooper at all, then?"

"I haven't decided. Soon, maybe."

"I bet he's wishing that chip was back in you. Who knows, maybe I'll end up getting one of my own at this rate."

"Yes, it is a bit curious they didn't think to replace that when they had the chance," Red pondered. "Helps me out quite nicely for the time being, although those things are an absolute bitch to get out in a hurry, let me tell you."

Liz looked at him, the thought having never crossed her mind when they found him: what it must have taken to get the chip out between the time she was tossed from the ambulance and the moment she found it lying in the street. He finished what was left of his coffee and sniffed, glancing past her in the direction of Dembe.

"I have to go."

"Oh—" Liz tried not to act surprised, "yeah, um. OK."

"Be on the lookout for anything suspicious. And watch your six. Especially at work."

"Yeah." There was so much more Liz needed to know, so much to ask, to say. Why was she letting him go like this?

"Lizzy," Red said then. His eyes were suddenly like flint. "Be careful of your husband."

She stared back at him, a defensive instinct rising in her as she thought of Tom's own pleas the other day.

You need to walk away from this job before it destroys you.

I need us, together. And safe.

Liz wanted to challenge Red, to implore him to explain what in God's name he meant, once and for all, and yet under those eyes, she found that she could not.

"Stay out of trouble," she told him, lamely.

He smiled, but there was a remoteness to his expression she had never seen before. Not cold, and not disingenuous, yet something vaguely troubling all the same. It was as though he were a million miles away. Or maybe just the opposite: he was very close to something he did not want to be.

Liz turned and started back towards the street. And wondered why it was, for all her resentment at this never-ending routine Red had of keeping her in the dark, she felt more and more alone with every step she took from him.

Red's smile faded as he watched Elizabeth recede through the crowd. He returned his attention to the skaters below and considered them for another minute or two before easing himself back off the ledge. Hitching his hood up against the night, he finally moved away.


END 2/?


I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

. . .