Authors note: I greatly appreciate all the wonderful reviews! You guys are all too kind. I am currently updating my other stories as well as writing some new ones so please have patience with me :)

Also any and all ideas or suggestions for this story or any of the others, or even a prompt for a new story are all very welcome! However I only pair RedxLizzie, sorry but I think I would have trouble pairing Liz with anyone else.

I found this chapter hard to write. I wanted to give some answers and background but not just throw it out there and rush things. So let me know how I did and if it's going too fast.


Elizabeth sat at her dining room table, her hand wrapped around a glass of alcohol that was still untouched. She didn't know how long she had sat there, staring into nothingness, in some sort of daze. Tom had left for work hours ago and seeing as she hadn't been called in to race after another mad criminal she had thought today would be a decent day to finally face what she had pretended didn't happen.

It had been four days since the incident in the park with Reddington and he had neither called nor tried to contact her. Part of her wondered if he was giving her space after their encounter but the part of her that thought him an unlawful monster, just as bad as the ones they chased after, told her he was doing it on purpose to make her squirm.

She sat her drink on the table and sighed, running her hands over her eyes and face, only stopping when she felt the rough brush of her scar brushing her cheek. Moving her hands from her face she laid them on the table, the inside of her wrists facing up towards her. She gazed down at the mark, squinting and tilting her head to the side as if by some miracle analyzing it would tell her all the answers.

The truth was she was terrified. Terrified of what she felt four days ago, terrified of what it meant, and certainly terrified of Raymond "Red" Reddington. As a girl she lived an average life, had both parents, living in a lovely house, even though her father would be gone days at a time out on business. She now knew what "business" he was actually doing, that of a criminal nature. That night, the night he left, he was in a wild rage. She had woken up to the yelling and shouting of her parents fighting. She heard her name being shouted in their argument and had crept down to the living room to see what was happening. Her parents had disagreements like any other couple but she had never heard fighting of this degree in their household, ever.

Lost in reminiscing she had begun to stroke her scar again without even noticing.

When her father noticed she was out of bed it seemed to only full his anger. Her normally quiet and controlled father grabbed her by the wrist in a crazy frenzy, dragging her to the fire-place. She could still hear her mother's screaming and feel the searing pain as the fire stoker was placed on her wrist. The spot her father picked was over her birth mark. Why he had picked that spot she hadn't known.

Slamming her hands on the table and coming back to reality Elizabeth stood and grabbed the full glass, moving towards the kitchen she went to the sink, dumping the alcohol contents in the sink in frustration. She didn't remember anything after that. She must have passed out from the pain because the next thing she knew she was in the hospital, her house no longer livable. In the struggle between her parents for the fire stoker the living room had caught fire. Her father was missing, his real identity coming to light and he would not be seen or heard from again.

Even though hospital and sealed police records stated her wound was from a heated object her mother insisted if anyone asked it was said it was from an accidental fire in their home. That was the story she grew up telling and that was what she told Tom. She still didn't know why she didn't tell him, or hadn't told him. It didn't seem to matter anymore; it was just a scar wasn't it? It hadn't been important to talk about at all…until now.

And if she really thought about it, it was just a scar. She had thought that the story of how she had gotten it was what Reddington was so interested in; after all he had asked her if Tom knew about the fire and how she received the scar. He had said he chose her because of her father, her father had given her the scar, and her father was a criminal, so naturally she concluded that he was fascinated with it for those reasons. That is what she had thought up until the day in the park, when he actually touched her wrist and placed a scorching kiss on her skin. The scar its self wasn't what Reddington was interested in. It was what the scar once was, her birth mark.

That day in the park, the feeling she had felt reminded her of her mother, of stories she used to tell her at night before bed. Her mother had a similar birth mark as well. Her mother's was not on her wrist though, it was on her shoulder and it didn't look exactly the same. Growing up her mother told her that her birth mark was magically, that one day it would lead her to someone special, someone who was just for her and only for her. She told her that's how she had met her father. As a child the idea thrilled Elizabeth, to have a magical mark and that her mother had one too.

But as a teenager she no longer believed in magic or fairy tales. Her father was gone and her mother was weakened and sick. There was more than one occasion that they had gotten into a fight. Her mother would not stand for any bad mouthing of her father. Even though he had hurt her, abandoned them, her mother still defended him. Even though her mother was falling apart, she fell into deep depression, couldn't hold a job, couldn't function, she still claimed that her father loved them.

This of course angered her to no end. Her mother even still insisted on telling her stories that her parents were made to be together, that she would understand one day when she found her special someone, that her mother and father were connected in a way that no one could comprehend. They were soul mates, she had said.

Closer to her last days her mother had grown delusional and sat her down and asked her if she remembered the stories of her magic birth mark, and tried to convince her that it was indeed real. That she would feel it when she met the one she was for, that she would not be able to control it and that she would not be able to settle for someone less. Being a teenager and seeing only a shadow of the woman who was once her mother she told her mother that she was crazy and dismissed her. She died three days later. The doctors told her that her mother was sick but she knew the truth, her mother had died of a damaged heart.

Elizabeth wasn't religious, she wasn't even spiritual. Sure she believed in gut feelings, intuition, and instincts. But magic? No. She wasn't even considering that any of the stories her mother had told her were real. Or that she had a magical birth mark that would lead her to her soul mate. She was a married woman to a man she loved. And hell be damned if anyone told her Reddington was her soul mate. The idea made her queasy. What she did know though was that she felt something far from normal that day with Reddington, a feeling she had never felt before, and it was linked to her scar, or more than likely her birthmark. And she also knew that, without a doubt, Reddington knew what was going on. He had said they needed to talk, and the knowing smirk he had held was all too revealing.

Almost as if subconsciously she found herself upstairs getting dressed and put together for the day. She had been avoiding Reddington for days on purpose, she had even told herself the first couple days that if they called her in she would tell them she came down with something or come up with some excuse just as to not see him again. Nevertheless she knew deep down she had to see him. Once again he held all the answers and she held only puzzle pieces in her hand. As she grabbed her car keys she scowled, this was her life and it seemed she was starting to know less and less of who she really was.