Disclaimer - See Chapter 1.
A/N Sorry for the awkward break between the first chapter and this one. They are having a really long conversation and the first chapter was getting a little long.
Red couldn't believe how forgiving Lizzie was being regarding everything that's happened. He doubted that he would have found forgiveness in his heart if he'd been the one wronged so terribly. But, he admitted to himself, he would forgive Lizzie just about anything. Perhaps she felt the same way about him. He didn't know if he wanted to admit that he did have a secret of equal weight as the one he still kept about her father. He'd always found it odd that Lizzie didn't pester him with questions about her mother. It was always questions relating to her father.
"I always told myself that I would wait until you brought the subject up before I talked to about it. The only reason I'm going to talk about it now is to let you know my last secret. Like you I'd like to get everything out in the open. Please just realize that I can't tell you everything on the subject yet." Red found himself babbling slightly. He took a deep breath to get himself under control again.
Whatever this secret was it seemed to have Red awfully nervous. That in turn was starting to make her nervous too. He was usually so controlled, for him to be showing how nervous he is this had to be something that bothered him more than she could imagine. But, her curiosity was starting to win out over her nerves. She silently promised herself she would not get angry at Red no matter how the secret might affect her. She would think first before speaking this time.
"Can I ask you a question before I share my secret Lizzie?"
"Uh, sure I guess," Lizzie answered, puzzled by the question.
"Why is it that you've never asked me anything about your mother? You've asked what seems like hundreds of questions about your father, but nothing about her. Why is that?" he asked never taking his eyes off her.
Lizzie sat quietly, realizing that he was right. She'd never spared a single thought about her mother. She always wanted to know more and more about the father she didn't remember. Did she think she only had one parent? Why wasn't she as curious about her mother as she was her father? She didn't have an answer for any of these questions.
Red watched different emotions play out across her face. She went from puzzled to realization within moments and they were all displayed on her always expressive face.
"Um I don't know? Sam told me my mom was dead and I believed him. He never said anything about my dad, no matter how many times I asked him. I guess I thought that meant he either didn't know or that it hurt him for me to ask about my real father. Perhaps that I thought he wasn't a good enough father if I wanted to know about him so much. After years passed without an answer, I just quit asking."
"Do you remember anything about her now that the memory block is starting to crumble?"
"I still don't remember anything prior to the night of the fire. Dr. Orchard told me that the earlier memories might start coming back, but not to push it. Forcing the memories might cause them to retreat rather than come to the surface. As I mentioned I remember a woman was there arguing with a man I think was my father. It is the same woman that I remember helping/forcing you out of the house. Was that my mother?" Lizzie asked not know which answer she was hoping for here. If it was her mother she left her for dead in the fire and if it's not, she still wouldn't have any memories of her.
Red wanted to deny it. He wanted to lie and say it was just some woman that he had worked with in Naval Intelligence. But, he'd promised Lizzie that he would never lie to her. He knew if he lied to her here and was caught doing so, she would never trust him again.
"It was, she was ordered to get the Fulcrum from your father. He wouldn't tell us where it was, nor would he tell us where you were hiding. Your mother was actually the person who'd stolen it to begin with and she'd made you memorize its hiding spot and who it would be okay to talk to about it. Your mom searched the house for you while I waited with your father. When she came back she was frantic because she couldn't find you in anywhere in the house." Red pause for a moment before continuing, knowing the rest of the story would crush whatever love Lizzie might have had lingering in her heart.
"She kept pressuring him to tell her where you were, so he lied and told her he'd sent you somewhere else, once she had that information she shot him point blank in the head. I remember standing there, unable to believe that she'd just executed him in front of us. I was a lot younger and naive back then. I'm sorry to have to tell you Lizzie that your mother is the one that killed your father." He stopped talking when her watery eyes started to overflow and tears started to flow down her cheeks. He wanted to take her in his arms and console her, but his story was not yet finished.
"I didn't know until later that she'd been give orders to not leave any witnesses behind. I truly believe the only reason you survived that night wasn't just due to me. Your father told her you were spending the week with his parents in Florida. Remember when I said they were gone when I made it out of the fire with you? I found out that they drove down to your grandparents house. Your grandparents told her truthfully that you never came down there to stay with them. They were both executed just like their son, your father. Another fire was set to cover their tracks again." he paused thoughtfully. "I don't really believe in luck or fate, but that night something intervened to save you. When I got free from them outside of your house I told your mother that I could hear a girl screaming. She stopped for a few seconds to see if she could hear anything. For those very few seconds you were quiet. I told her I was going to go into the house that now had flames flaring behind the glass in nearly every window. I had to go back in that house Lizzie. All I could think about was, what if that was my daughter caught in there?" Red finished in a near whisper.
"What kind of monster was my mother? She didn't just kill my father, but my grandparents too. What about her parents, are they still alive? Do I have any family left or did she kill them all?" Lizzie couldn't stop asking questions long enough to allow him to answer.
"Is my mother still alive Red?" came her final question.
Red decided to answer her last question first.
"Yes, she's still alive. She's the biggest reason why I won't tell you who your father is, it would lead you to her. She and the Alliance only want the Fulcrum. They will do anything, kill anyone, torture anyone that stands in their way." he said earnestly.
Lizzie's head was reeling from everything she was learning about her mother. It wasn't until Red asked why she never had any questions about her mother that she realized her total lack of curiosity about the woman that gave birth to her.
"What I don't understand is that when Dr. Orchard recovered memories of that night I heard the woman telling my father that she'd taught me about her secret. And, that she wasn't going to leave without me. Why would she involve me in something like that?" Lizzie asked confused.
"You have to understand Lizzie she thought that teaching you where to find the Fulcrum would protect you. I didn't understand her logic then and I don't understand it now. All she did was put you in danger. She thought that your father hid you from her and that the Fulcrum was either lost with you or destroyed in the house fire. I only heard her theory about it being lost when I went back to work after recovering from the burns."
Red honestly didn't understand why her mother involved her in this entire mess. None of them were in a position to dictate anything to the Alliance. They were too young and inexperienced. This was shown to him in dramatic fashion on Christmas Eve 1990. He had his family ripped from him by a single order from the Alliance. They would all pay for it one day soon. He's been working towards that goal for twenty-five years.
Lizzie didn't understand how teaching a four-year old that there was a secret she could only share with certain people, she didn't even know if her father was on that list. How was this supposed to keep her safe. She didn't consciously remember her mother telling her that there was something hidden in her toy bunny. But, she must have remembered on some level since she grabbed it before Red pulled her out of the closet. She's held on to it ever since even with it being burnt.
"I don't remember her. I suspect that she didn't wake up one morning and decide to kill her husband and his parents. To do such horrible things that has to be a part of her personality. It sounds like you knew her, was that something you could have predicted she was capable of?" Lizzie asked quietly.
Red realized he was going to tell her more than he truly wanted her to know right now. He didn't want her to start hunting for her mother. He was afraid she would switch her focus on her past from the mystery of her father to the mystery of her still living mother.
"Your mother was assigned to work with me in an investigation during my time in Naval Intelligence. We were working on a case of a U.S. citizen suspected of treason. We were told that this person was part of a bigger group. This person managed to obtain some secrets that would be disastrous for the U.S. Government and her closest allies if they were to become public. During our investigation we became aware of what actions we were capable of committing in the name of national security. We did things we told ourselves were necessary and didn't reflect our true natures." Red paused while he remembered the moment when he realized he could torture and kill without remorse. Or at least without the amount of remorse he suspected other more normal people felt.
He continued, "We were lying to ourselves. It was this lack of remorse that lead to us being assigned to the team. I always suspected something showed up in my psych evals, both the ones I underwent when I entered Annapolis and the ones I regularly endured when assigned to Naval Intelligence. I'm sorry to say that your mother always showed less remorse and more book thirstiness than I did."
She was a little surprised that Red was sharing so much with her. She was both grateful for what he was telling her about his connection to her family and unhappy that her mother was capable of acts that were possibly worse than what she's seen Red commit. She knew from her field of study in college that there was a genetic component in some mental illnesses. Was it possible that her actions in keeping Tom a prisoner for so many months was out of her conscious control. Was she capable of horrible psychotic acts simply because her mother was?
"Do you think that I'm like her Red? Am I capable of the same horrible things that she committed?" she asked nearly in tears.
"No, Lizzie. I don't believe anyone is born evil. I believe that the argument of nurture vs. nature will prove that how a person is raised means more than a person's parents. I also believe that a person's experiences can cause them to act against their true natures at times. Maybe I need to believe that so I don't think of myself as a monster, regardless of what other people think on the subject."
Lizzie visibly flinched at Red's last sentence. She knew that she was guilty of calling him a monster on more than one occasion. It was just recently that she's realized that he became the man he was now because he was forced to, in order to survive. She wondered why Red had been forced to run a full year after the night of the fire. If the investigation didn't turn up the Fulcrum in a year, was Red's need to leave his wife and daughter tied to the Fulcrum or some other case he'd worked.
"Did your need to leave on Christmas Eve in 1990 have anything to do with the Fulcrum?" Lizzie asked unable to curb her need to find out if she was responsible for the destruction of Red's life.
Red understood the true meaning to her question. He'd love to tell her no, but he was again caught by his promise to never lie to her.
"It took me nearly ten months to recover from the burns I received the night of the fire. I made sure my location where I was recovering was a secret from everyone. Since your mother couldn't find me, she waited until my first day back on duty. She showed up and wanted to know if I'd found you in the house. I feared what might happen to you and Sam if I told her the truth, so I told her that I found you in the house dead from the smoke and heat. I told her I disposed of your body with the help of a friend. I hoped this would explain your body being missing from the house when the police and fire department investigated the fire. I realized too late that she didn't believe me. I got wind of her plans to kidnap Jennifer so she could swap her for you. One of the team tasked by her to carry out the job was someone that I worked with before. He warned me it was going to happen on Christmas Day. I found out on the 23rd. Trying to take them with me when I disappeared would have made me too easy to locate. I didn't tell Carla anything. She needed to be able to answer honestly when she was questioned. You know the rest of the story. It never seemed to be safe to go back for them, then they just disappeared." Red leaned back exhausted after revealing so much of a past he tried to keep from remembering on a daily basis.
Lizzie felt horrible to have been the cause of Red's family been torn from him, but she also knew she couldn't be responsible for what happened when she was a young child. Ultimately if was her mother that was responsible for destroying her and Red's lives.
"Do you know where she is now? Is she still working for the government?" Liz asked him finally.
"I know she's working with the Alliance. She's worked her way to the top tier in the past twenty plus years. I don't think Braxton mentioned you when he reported in to his contact. His MO was to have everything planned out before ever making his first move. If he admitted that he didn't recover the Fulcrum from the Factory his reputation would take a blow and he couldn't handle that at all. We've taken out all of those involved in your kidnapping. That should be enough to prevent your mother from discovering your new identity."
"Was my name Masha before you took me to Sam?" Lizzie asked remembering what she heard during the memory recovery.
He was surprised that she remembered that name. The only person that ever called her Masha was her mother. She insisted on calling her that Russian nickname. She never tried to hide her Russian heritage.
"Your mother called you Masha. Everyone else called you Mary. Your first name was Mariya. It was too unique to let you keep it. Since you were only four years old it wasn't hard to make you forget that name by calling you Elizabeth. Of course Sam always called you Butterball or Lizzie. Those few hours that I spent with you I called you Lizzie. Seeing you now I can't imagine calling you anything but Lizzie. " he said quietly.
Lizzie couldn't help the tears that filled her eyes at the tender look on his face. After listening to Red provide her with so much information about her past she made a decision she hoped she wouldn't regret.
"When we get back to DC I have something to give you. I found something sewn inside the toy bunny I had with me in the fire. I took it to Aram to see if he could figure out what it is." after a pause she continued, "There is something else waiting for me when we get to DC. The harbormaster's wife reported him missing. When I first encountered him I told him a story about escaped prisoners from Cumberland and that was why I was on the boat."
"Was it just the two of you on deck? How did they know you were the FBI agent he encountered?" Red asked with a confused look on his face.
She was near tears again as she started to wring her hands and sniffled.
"I gave him my card. If I'd known then what was going to happen later I wouldn't have done it. If I'd known what Tom was going to do I would have moved him off of that damn boat." Lizzie said miserably and finally gave in to her tears.
Red moved to sit next to her on the couch. He pulled her into his arms and she buried her head into his should and started to sob uncontrollably. He had a feeling her tears were not just for what happened to the harbormaster, or Tom, but for all of the horrible things she's seen or been forced to do in the past year. He held her until she cried herself out and just sat quietly in his arms.
"Did the detective say if he wanted to talk to you about his disappearance or his murder?" Red asked her quietly after letting her recover a bit.
Without moving away from Red's comforting embrace she said, "When he talked to me yesterday he said he was missing. When I checked in with Cooper this morning he asked me why a DC detective was asking to speak to me about the murder of a member of the department. I told him I didn't know. I told him that the detective told me that the man was missing, the fact that he's now talking murder was news to me."
Red sighed. For them to jump to murder so quickly told him that they'd found the body. The only way they found it was someone told them where it was located. This chatty Cathy didn't only threaten Lizzie, it threatened the members of his organization that helped the guard dispose of the body. Red was certain he was spilling his guts about Lizzie keeping Tom prisoner and that the infamous Raymond Reddington came to help her clean everything up. While Red could care less about his name being brought into it, but he had to make sure Lizzie and Mr. Kaplan were protected.
"Dembe" Red called out to where Dembe was sitting in another section of the suite.
"Yes Raymond?" Dembe said almost immediately from the entrance to the room.
"I need you to contact Mr. Kaplan and let her know the body of the harbormaster was located. that means our large Samoan friend is telling the DC Metro police all about what went on aboard that ship. Tell her to take all the necessary precautions to maintain her safety and freedom. Tell her to have someone find the guard and if it's possible to quietly get him taken, have them take him to a safe house that can't be traced back to us. If it's not possible just keep him under surveillance. I'll have more orders for her later." Red instructed him.
He never felt Lizzie make any move to object to his order to kidnap the guard. Dembe turned away and walked to another room while he pulled his latest burner from his pocket. Red could hear him murmuring from the other room and turned his attention back to Lizzie who still hadn't moved an inch. He craned his neck trying to look at her face. What he saw both surprised and pleased him. Her eyes were puffy, but closed in an exhausted slumber. He was sorry for her worry. But, he was pleased that she felt safe enough in his arms to fall asleep. He got as comfortable as he could, determined to let her get as much rest as she could. They would need to fly out within a few hours. They both needed some rest before then.