A/N: Hey guys! Thank you, thank you, thank you for the reviews/favorites/follows! I had originally planned for this to be a one-shot, but I think I'm going to take cues from the show and continue it. Let's see how long I can weave the mystery of the photo through this fic before it gets solved, shall I?

On a slightly different note: while I'm flattered at how "well" you guys apparently think I write Liz and Red (which does mean a lot to me, as I'm hoping to write for television one day), you should probably only expect platonic stuff for the time being. I'm still nursing the possibility of him being her father, so I can't ship them in any romantic capacity. I mean, if it goes a different direction in the show, I'm down for it, but for right now, sorry to disappoint!

WARNING: This chapter contains spoilers for 1x06, "Gina Zanetakos."


Liz had been anxiously anticipating a situation where she could tell someone to go to hell. As it happened, Red was the perfect person to test the phrase on and see how the words felt as they rolled off her tongue.

They felt good. Right. Like burning a bridge she'd never meant to build.

She was doing the cooking tonight, a weak apology for the hell she'd put the two of them through lately. Liz couldn't fathom how she'd brought Tom in on suspicion of murder and had him cleared all in one day, and he held no grudge. Well, no grudge on the surface. In true Tom fashion, he'd only expressed concern for her, for the distance she'd placed between them since her first day on the job.

"I'm willing to put this behind us if you are," Tom told her over her hastily-made chicken parm.

Liz finished chewing the bite she was on. "Tom, I don't know how to make it up to you – "

He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. "Liz, I love you. Unconditionally. And I know you're going through a tough spell. I should've been prepared for this."

Her expression brightened a little. "So you don't think I'm bat-shit crazy?"

A melodious laugh escaped Tom's lips. "No! If anything, we're all a little crazy when we think no one is watching."

Liz smiled and meticulously cut her chicken parm into small squares.

"But . . ." Tom began.

Her shoulders sank. "Oh, no," she muttered, embarrassed.

"It's not what you think, Liz. I just . . . I mean, I know you're not allowed to talk about work in detail, but you went from zero to stressed-out in the blink of an eye. I can't help but feel like there was some sort of catalyst."

Under the table, Liz raked her nails across her knee in frustration. Red, she wanted to say. Red was the catalyst. Red was the root of all her troubles. She wanted to tell Tom that she'd done the right thing by severing ties with Red. Instead, she opted for a simpler, "There was. And that catalyst has been neutralized."

Tom grinned. "You're a tiny bit scary when you use words like that."

She shot a grin back at him as she collected their empty plates. "Not as scary as I'm going to be later tonight."

"Ooh," Tom cooed, raising an eyebrow.

Liz carried the plates to the kitchen and began to rinse them off. She put them in the dishwasher one by one. And somewhere between the last dish and loading the detergent, Liz began to entertain her misgivings all over again.

If she knew one thing, it was that Red couldn't be trusted. His reputation for stirring the pot preceded him, rendering any potential "genuine" interaction null and void. As earnest as their conversation at the Jefferson Memorial had felt, she took it with a grain of salt. Somehow, though, pinning it all on Red just felt lazy. Like something she and the rest of the FBI expected. There was no doubt, at least, that she was privy to his criminal dealings even after he'd turned himself in, and could spill the beans to Cooper at any time. Liz chuckled mirthlessly. Red was relying on her for once; finally, she had power over him.

Liz turned the problem of the Stewmaker's missing photo over in her mind. Why indeed would Red have nicked it if it hadn't meant something deeper to him? Was there still a decent human being underneath all the muck his personality had accumulated over the years? Something was surely missing, Liz thought. She may have been acting in the moment when she confronted Red in his hidey-hole of the week, but she wasn't done coaxing answers out of him.

She remembered how it felt when she'd gone to him, distressed about not knowing who to believe. She remembered the warmth of his hand, the jolt of sincerity she'd felt from his being there so she had someone to cling to as her life spiraled around her. And she desperately wanted to believe that, although he lied through his teeth to everyone else around him, he wasn't lying to her.

Liz shut the dishwasher door and pressed the wash button.

Back to square one.


Miles away, Red swirled his scotch in its glass and stared ahead at the spackled wall above the painting. He took a sip, grimaced as the acrid liquor trickled down his throat, and crossed his legs.

Red refused to lie to himself by saying Liz would come around in due time. He knew her well – better than he was willing to reveal just yet – and he knew that when she was set in a decision, little could be said to make her switch sides again. That was her problem: she took the world too literally, wasn't able to see the sordid happenings beneath the façade of ordinary life. The most realistic option facing him now was to refrain from putting all his eggs in the Liz basket.

But he hoped. And for a fleeting moment as she had turned on her heel and stormed out, he had hurt.

None of this surprised him, of course. He'd made his living off people distrusting him. If one person's opinion mattered, though, it was Elizabeth Keen's.

She didn't believe in him. But he most ardently believed in her.