I want to thank you all so much, I was so shocked by the huge response I got to the story, I really wasn't expecting it. It was a great surprise, and I really appreciate it. A big Thank you to RedandLizzie, for recommending this story on her blog. I'm a big fan of the blog, so it was a really touching surprise. Thank you everyone so much! I hope this chapter is all right. Thank you! P.S. sorry for the lack of Red/Liz in this one, I'm just taking it slow and building up to Red exploding and losing all of his carefully contained composure :)

Chapter Two

"I'm sorry," Liz speaks up loudly over the music as the man takes her hand and leads the way to the dance floor. It's fairly crowded, with people standing around dancing, but they manage to find a space not too close to other people to dance together. "I don't believe I caught your name?"

"I am Nikolai." The man smiles at her kindly. "What is yours?"

"Liz."

"Well, it is wonderful to meet you, Liz." He squeezes her hand and his eyes shine at her brightly in the soft light. "Your husband is a very lucky man to have such a beautiful woman in his life. I hope he doesn't mind me asking you for a dance, but... it just would be a shame for you not to."

As the man wraps an arm around her waist, pulling her in closer so that their bodies are flush together, his words sink fully into her brain. She leans into him, searching his eyes with her own and putting her face inches from his, as she asks, "I'm sorry, but... did you just say 'Husband?"

"Yes, I did say that," he explains, taking her hand and placing it on his shoulder. "The man you were sitting with at the bar, wearing the hat despite it being dark. He is your husband, yes? I am right on assuming so?"

Red.

He assumes Reddington is her husband? How bizarre. No one has ever assumed they were a married couple before.

Without her control, Liz's eye's find where she left Red sitting at the bar. She can't help but feel relieved that he is still sitting exactly where he was when she left him a few minutes ago. He hasn't chosen to leave the vicinity, and he's still waiting around to talk to her in spite of her disregarding him for another man.

Liz can tell he is deep in heated conversation with Dembe- probably even about her as the hot topic of conversation- because although he is staring straight at her and her dancing partner on the dance floor, she can also see him shooting off words she is unable to hear over all the noise, while Dembe is watching her also from where he is leaning over towards Red's stool to hear him over the thumping music.

She sees how Red throws his hands up in the air as if to emphasize whatever it is he is talking about with Dembe, and in that instance, she wouldn't have minded being a fly on the wall to hear what he was possibly saying about her.

Although his expression is impassive as ever, she can faintly tell that something is bothering him. It's in the way he holds himself; in his rigid body language and the way it seems as if his mouth is running a mile a minute.

Liz drags her eyes away from him with some difficulty, focusing on the man in front of her instead, who seems to be studying her face closely with his eyes. "No," she laughs nervously, shaking her head. "No, I don't know where that impression came from, but... he isn't my husband. He's far from it, in fact."

She might be mistaken, but she thinks the man, Nikolai, looks relieved. All the tension seems to leave him in a whoosh of air. "I'm glad to hear that, then. I would hate to step on any toes."

"You are definitely not stepping on anyone's toes," she assures him, with what feels like a tight and forced smile. "There's really no toes to step on. I was married, but... it's finished now." She inhales in a deep breath, shrugging, "I really don't know what else to say on that. It's... done." She knows she can't tell the man what truly happened to her marriage with Tom, but she doesn't exactly want to. Liz was certain it would be a turn-off for any man to hear, and turning this man off isn't something she finds she wants to do tonight.

She feels ready to move on. What happened with Tom is in the past, something now done and over. Tom's dead and... she was the one that was responsible for that. Her throat tightens abruptly as images of her last few minutes with Tom play in her mind. She knows, in the back of her mind, that she isn't completely prepared to let go of Tom and the person he made himself out to be when they were together. Letting go and moving on seems as if it will be the hardest thing she will ever have to do, but... she had to do it, whether it was by a new man coming into her life or not.

"I have to say, I'm a little surprised that he is not your husband..." Nikolai's words tear through her thoughts and she makes herself look up at him.

"Oh. Why's that?"

"Because he looks so..." Nikolai pauses for a moment, as if searching for the right words, "...So taken by you. Like a man in love. Just... looks and the way he was touching you. I honestly assumed he was your husband. That is why it is so... surprising that you say he is not? Are you sure he is not your husband?"

"Well, he's not my husband. Absolutely not."

Liz can't help but wonder if this man is accusing her of lying and pretending that Red isn't her husband. But then why would she lie about something like that? There would be... no need. She catches Red from behind Nikolai's shoulder as he stands from the stool with his hands in his coat pockets, staring right at them. Heat radiates its way up the base of her neck and her face as she meets his eyes from behind Nikolai's shoulder and then she finds herself having to look away to avoid him entirely. This man's massive misunderstanding... assuming they were husband and wife... its bewildering on her. How can anyone get that impression?

"We're just partners. We work together, that's all."

"And are you sure he knows that?" Nikolai asks her outright. "That you are just partners and... no more than that? Because, the man I was seeing with you before appeared as if he didn't?"

The subject feels too dangerous and unsettling on Liz. She often wondered what it was that made her so special, and why Red had planted himself so suddenly into her life the way he had. The answer to that question still remained a mystery to this day.

She goes to peer at Red again over Nikolai's shoulder, but Red has somehow... mysteriously vanished. Dembe is still standing there at the bar, looking as if he is guarding her glass of wine for her, but Reddington... The stool he was sitting in is abandoned and unused, along with the one she was sitting in previously before Nikolai invited her to dance with him.

Her heart flops in her chest- an unpleasant sensation- as she lets her eyes roam around the busy room, searching for him among all the numerous people standing around, minding their own businesses and enjoying themselves. She spots no sign of Red anywhere she looks; He isn't at the bar ordering himself another drink, nor is he near Dembe talking with him and going wild with the hand gesticulations anymore. So... where is he? How can a man just... slip away completely unnoticed by her?

"Something wrong?" Nikolai asks her loudly. "Are you looking for someone? Where is your... your partner?"

"Good question. I don't know where he went. But he's probably just sulking in a corner somewhere." She says that, not for him, but for herself. To ease her mind. But Liz knows something is wrong; A bad feeling overcomes her, knotting her stomach. She feels as if something terrible is impending on them, all due to Red's sneaky disappearance.

Red has never been the easiest person for her to understand or get along with. Yet, being around him for as long as she has, Liz feels as if she does understand him on some level; maybe not why and how he does the things he does, but she understands certain things about the man he is quite well, she believes.

He can be unpredictable at times, and that made him dangerous. Like an animal. He is capable of committing terrifying, savage deeds, whenever he felt his life personally- and Liz's- was at stake. Red had made it clear that if you cross Liz, you were crossing him as well; and no one usually crosses Raymond Reddington and gets away with it.

But now, the only threat in the room she felt in operation, was him.

Who knows what he is up to? He's capable of doing anything, to anyone. Except her.

She didn't realize, until just now, that ignoring him and choosing to dance with another man could be some kind of a dangerous game to him. A challenge, a thrill, and Red always seems to enjoy challenges.

Now she feels petrified of what he might be up to. Maybe she's only over thinking everything and she hopes he isn't the type of man to do anything so outlandish as interfering on her unwelcome while she's trying to have some harmless fun in dancing with a stranger, someone new. Liz hears her heart pounding in her ears over the frantic bass line of the music, and she lifts her hand from Nikolai's shoulder, pressing her palm flat into the flushed skin of her collarbone. She can feel her pulse beating under her skin as she breathes deeply, fretting over the multiple possibilities of the unknown when it comes to Red and his actions.

She startles when Nikolai moves, his mouth and voice suddenly near her ear, "If you want, we can go searching for your friend? I'm sure he isn't too far from here. He's probably around here... somewhere. I'm sure there is no need to worry about him."

Liz tries to appear careless as she meets his eyes. "No, it's fine. I'm not worried about him at all. He's a big boy; I'm sure he can handle himself..." More like, she's just worried what he might do, and what he is capable of doing...

But all those nerves over his disappearance seem a somewhat wasted effort. Looking around wildly, at last she finds Red, standing just barely a meter away from them to the left of her.

Hat no longer on his head, she notices the way he turns the brim of it over and over in his hands, as if using it as something to keep his hands preoccupied and busy, as if to stop them from doing something else they probably shouldn't do. Relief hits Liz in copious amounts as she runs her eyes up his coat, before finally meeting and settling on his face. His eyes glint at her in the soft light, luminous with warmth and something else she hasn't recognized glistening in them before as the muscles of his jaw slacken and his lips part slightly, revealing the tight clenching of his teeth. Then she notices the way his eyes flicker to her dancing partner, scrutinizing him in a somewhat critical way, and that warmth is... gone, just as quickly as a sharp knife slicing through bread.

To Liz, it seems as if the entire world has came to a screeching halt as she sees him start to approach them quickly. In a rather flamboyant way, she watches as Red flings his hat across the sea of heads in the room like a discarded frisby and with such speedy movements she didn't know she was capable of, she intercepts him, fortunately just before he can do anything to her unsuspecting dancing partner.

"Red, what are you doing?" she hisses quietly. "Whatever you are thinking of doing right now, please, don't."

The amused hiss of air through his teeth and the slight shaking of his head at her words stuns her. Liz tries to meet his eyes, but he isn't helping her. Red seems perfectly eager to avoid her gaze; Either by staring at the man she was dancing with, or just by looking at anyone else in general. As if she isn't there, standing directly in front of him.

"What is wrong with you? Why are you acting like this?" The instance the two questions come flying relentlessly out of her mouth, something clicks. "My God, are you ignoring me right now all because I agreed to dance with another man? Is that what this is all about? Because I wouldn't dance with you, and I'm dancing with someone else? Is this a kind of weird... jealousy thing that I'm not understanding?"

Stunning her all over again, Red tilts his head back and laughs at her words, tongue pushing out the side of his cheek, like she's being so ridiculous to make such an assumption of him. If Liz didn't know any differently, she would have suspected he was high or on some illicit substance, but now, she thought she knew better. Laughing and diverting the eyes- it's Red's way of avoidance, in something he didn't want to have to deal with answering.

Deny it as he might, Liz took it as a confirmation.