Author's Note: I just wanted to apologize for such a long delay between chapters. It's been a wrangle. I had to cover an awful lot of ground with this chapter, and I can only hope I did it justice. Hopefully you all are still interested, and you'll let me know what you think~
See chapter 1 for disclaimer :)
Oh don't, don't you lift me up
like I'm that shy, no no no no no,
just give it up —
There are bats all dissolving in a row
into the wishy-washy dark that can't let go.
I cannot let go,
so I thank the lord, and I thank his sword!
'tho it be mincing up the morning,
slightly bored
O, morning without warning like a hole,
And I watch you go
There are some mornings
when the sky looks like a road.
There are some dragons
who were built to have and hold.
And some machines
are dropped from great heights lovingly.
And some great bellies ache
with many bumblebees
(and they sting so terribly).
- Joanna Newsom, Clam Crab Cockle Cowrie
Liz awoke, in the blue black early morning, into a stifling tension that gripped her. She had washed ashore into wakefulness from the oily press on unsettling dreams, that she was unable to recall distinctly but was also unable to dismiss. They lingered, spectral and cloying just in the corner of her barely-wakeful eye, ready to close over her again should she slide back into sleep. She felt her heart beating, small and hard, under her sternum and in her fingertips and wondered that Tom, beside her, didn't wake to feel her tremble through the mattress.
She looked over at the window with its curtain pulled back, to see the dark, faint opaline glow of dawning only just beginning beyond the rained out glass. The clock on her phone told her that there were nearly two hours still before her alarm was set to go off, but felt obscurely that she might suffocate if she fell back asleep. She put a chilled hand to her forehead and contemplated being virtuous and going for a run to burn off this fizzing feeling in her limbs. As good an idea as any, at the moment. She sat up and very carefully slipped out of bed, so as not to wake Tom. He liked to sleep late on the weekends, and she wasn't she sure she could face his concern without flinching and snapping like a disturbed cat. She shrugged into the big, tatty old cardigan she'd taken to wearing around the house lately. It had been one of Sam's, one of a succession of them he used to wear around the house in the winter, in deference to their quaint-but-drafty Nebraskan home. She used to tease him about his "old man" sweaters.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Hudson blinked up sleepily at her from his big, round pillow in the corner when she started turning on lights. The view from the breakfast nook window told her that the rain was now mixed with sleet and driven by gusts of wind, putting an end to all virtuous thoughts of outdoor exercise.
"You're not going to like it out there today," she told Hudson, who obligingly sat up and yawned a doggy yawn, all long mouth and pink, curling tongue. He was practically wobbling where he sat, but he was up because his human was up.
She prepared coffee, filling the machine with only enough for a cup or two for herself. Tom wouldn't be up for hours, and when he rose, he would perform his usual Saturday ritual, with fresh ground artisanal beans and french press cafetiere, occupied by sudoku puzzles from the week's newspapers, in his old blanket robe and worn moccasin slippers. She wondered sometimes if he was trying to impress her with these affectations, or if it was all a part of his natural tendencies toward fastidious routine and conscious haphazardness. In any case, she'd be long gone from the house by then, whichever way the day broke over the Dearborn case.
Liz hunted up her ratty pair of sheepskin boots, her umbrella, shrugged a coat over her cardigan and ushered Hudson out the back into the tiny rectangle of high-fenced back yard. She stood over at him with the nasty sleet pattering down on the unfurled umbrella as he nosed about the yard and looked back at her sullenly from beyond the circle of dry. Poor dog, she thought, it really is a miserable day, and held the umbrella over him instead, pulling up her hood one-handed.
The cold air worked to wake them both up and the dog had his morning gambol and did his business, and was given a biscuit in reward, and the woman let her mind go blank and wooly with the pleasant fiction that this could be an early morning back in Brooklyn, a year and a half ago, back when the world still wore a shape she understood.
Back inside she dried her dog with the clean, old towel in the basket by the door that was kept for that purpose, and sat herself down with coffee and toast at the dining room table, still wrapped in her coat against the chill she'd brought in from outside. Her willful denial of reality didn't hold up well against the misty, ill-formed fragments of her dreams that half-rose and battered and retreated before she could catch or confront them. She told herself they were symptoms of exhaustion and a disordered mind, but it was all very well to say when the rightful antidotes were unlikely to come.
Each strange case came up, and she held herself in check, kept her head down and went along for the ride to the best of her ability, on the promise that later that after this was all done and dusted she would think, she would sit down and work it all out, she would go and demand her answers. And until then she must simply cope, as all good cops and soldiers do. But there had yet to be any after, only the next and next and next, so she went on with her head down, and her eyes averted, and a growing sensation - a familiar sensation though she couldn't place why - in the pit of her stomach and the back of her neck, that she was careering towards something. That she was spinning towards freefall.
She needed to pick up her head and look around, but she couldn't quite figure out how. This morning in particular, the foreboding lived large in her. Danger, said something very small and distant in the back of her mind, under all the groomed and educated habit and maturity in the way, Danger. Be aware.
She dressed, hurriedly but quietly, in the dark-but-lightening twilight and the light from her closet. Tom did wake, though, enough to squint over at her and half rise in their bed, his face still slack from sleep.
"What's up? It's really early," he said.
"Work," she didn't look over, watching her hands button her blouse, "I have to go in."
"I didn't hear the phone," he persisted, sounding confused.
"It's on vibrate - it's Saturday, remember? I didn't want to wake you. Go back to sleep. I'll see you tonight, not too late."
Tom blinked at her and obediently slid down and turned away, becoming just a dark hillock in the bed clothes. By the time she she collected her shoes and blazer to put on her face in the bathroom, he was making huffing little sleep-breaths. His easy sleep set her teeth on edge, like a frustrated onlooker watching some enjoy a treat they were denied.
The face she saw in the mirror as she washed and put on make up was not one she liked on herself. Over-pale and hard along the jaw, she looked stern and weary. She decided to leave off the steely, professional eyeshadow, it might draw attention to the faint smudges under her eyes that concealer couldn't quite hide. She kept her usual dark, vibrant lipstick though - let them look at her red mouth, let them all think her bold and womanly.
At least she didn't have to try and hide eyes that were swollen from crying, at least she didn't weep at the slightest provocation the way she had on the ghastly trip home for Sam's funeral and the wrapping up of his estate. That was something, the crying time was passed and she stood on her own two feet again. The rest, that grief that tears didn't touch one way or another, she knew she would simply find room to accommodate within the dark, small spaces where she kept her other human hurts. It was better to keep moving than to dwell.
She gathered up her papers and briefcase, bundled up against the cold and damp, bid Hudson 'go lie down and be good' and made her exit, keys in hand. Between the heavy clouds and the winter timetable, it was still dark and grey, but there was a propelling force inside her bones and she would not sit idle. It was too early to head in to work, but that's not what she meant to do in any case. She was going to Red, with her files and her pointed questions, and she was going to sit and badger him until he gave answers or he had her bodily removed. And she didn't think such a move was likely on his part, sending her away too forcibly would do lasting harm to the working relationship he seemed to want to have.
Reddington's house was dark and quiet when she pulled up - no surprise at a quarter to seven in the morning, but there were lights burning in the upper windows so she didn't balk at ringing the bell.
An answer was some time coming and to her surprise it was neither Grey nor Dembe who opened the door, but a sharp-but-compelling faced woman, with pale copper hair pulled smoothly back and a speculative expression. The woman was casually dressed in jeans and a heavy grey sweater, yet Liz felt that she was being sized up and judged. The woman ushered her inside in a businesslike fashion. She was a previously unknown member of the household staff, Liz was willing to bet, rather than… Did Reddington have lovers or conquests, she wondered idly.
"Mr. Reddington is upstairs in the sitting room, Agent," the woman said, confirming her suspicion, "If you'll follow me."
So Liz followed her up the long, straight stair that led up from the foyer, watching the housekeeper's long braid sway against her back, listening to the sound of her own shoes ascend on the wooden treads and noting that the other woman's steps were virtually soundless.
The stairway let out onto a large landing, large enough to be a room itself, the east wall of which all windows and a set of French doors leading to a deck. Opposite that was a single, wide step up and the wide doorway to the sitting room. The housekeeper left her there and retreated back the way they'd come, just as silent as before.
The sitting room was cozier, if not actually smaller, than the formal cavern downstairs. It was done in a rich bohemian blend of Edwardian, deco and Japanoisery. There was a spacious seating area facing a smaller relative of the stone fireplace downstairs, bounded in by large tansu of impressive age and character. The far end of the room was partitioned off with an immense and finely painted screen, making a small library nook. The room was dim, the curtains on all the many banks of windows were shut, but one, and there was no overhead light, only the warm incandescent glow of a pair of lamps with dense glass shades on the sideboard and a stained glass torchiere lamp in a far corner.
Red himself was sitting in front of the one window whose drapes were drawn back. He was well settled into one of a pair of russet silk club chairs by the window, with a small table in between. He looked entirely lost in thought, his attention out the window at the damp, grey morning, a hard-backed book open but seemingly abandoned on his lap. He was dressed in an almost startling state of dishabille, his habitual tie and waistcoat were nowhere to be seen. His dark shirt was untucked and open at the neck, it looked soft and creased - she wasn't sure but she thought it might be the same shirt as yesterday. She approached slowly, her shoes making little noise on the turkish rug, but she was sure he was very aware of her presence, even if he hadn't yet decided to acknowledge her. She was surprised by the way her attention was caught by his forearms in his rolled up sleeves, the sight of his neck in the disarrayed collar of his shirt, that especially struck her, vulnerable, human and… surprising. I hurt him there, she thought, and it rattled around uncomfortably in her mind. I struck at him and he allowed it, more than that, he hadn't struck back. That whole interlude seemed unreal. She often forgot about when she discussed with him the psychopaths they hunted, when she saw him dressed neatly in his fine hats and coats and ties.
Liz paused, a few feet away and shifted her briefcase in her hands, suddenly uncertain how to begin.
Red looked up to face her at last, taking her in with his usual piercing scrutiny. She felt herself blush warm, and was unsure quite why. He smiled up at her, after a long study of her, not theatrically the way he often did, but small and tired.
"You're out and about very early today, Lizzy," he said. His voice sounded rough and quiet from a night's disuse.
"Yeah, I had a theory about Dearborn last night. I wanted to talk to you about it."
"Why don't you take off your coat and make yourself comfortable," he gestured to the other chair, "Have you had breakfast? Mathilda fries a perfect egg, I think you'll find."
"Mathilda?"
"You just met her. Marvelously stern woman. This place is too big and too out of order for Grey alone - and he does like to go home from time to time. Mathilda is a wonder at marshalling troops, her reinforcements arrive later today."
"Oh. Well, I'm fine - I don't need anything." She considered it and decided that since she intended to stand her ground until she got some real answers, it would be alright to take her coat off and settle in. It would send the right message. Besides, this house of Red's was warmer than it had been the day before, more aired out and lived in. She set down her briefcase and slid out of her coat, feeling Red's eyes on her again, assessing her slim black slacks and neatly tailored blazer. She always felt under dressed in Red's presence, middle class and Nebraskan. As much as it rankled her, it was a sensation she couldn't quite put from her mind. It rankled even more that, though he noticed all, she was certain he would never comment or pass judgement, he didn't make decisions about people based on their surface appearance. The inferiority complex was hers alone.
She sat, took a deep breath and met Red's gaze squarely. "Dearborn," she said, "Shouldn't have done any of the things he's done. His college transcripts are impressive, he pays his parking tickets in a timely manner, he votes in every election, his supervisors like him - he and his fiance adopted a pair of cats from the humane society last year, for god's sake. Not that apparently decent action can't still hide a devious nature. But at this point I'm sure I know more about this guy than his own mother, and I just don't see 'Traitor to His Country' anywhere."
He watched her thoughtfully, his mouth pursed as though weighing difficult facts. "Very good, Lizzy, yes," he sounded more tired than pleased, "You've come to the same conclusion I came to yesterday. This cannot be Dearborn's doing." He closed his book, setting it aside, straightening and leaning towards her. "This is not the case I thought it was when I brought it to you. You've had a rough time lately, I thought you deserved a nice, meaty victory." He huffed a wry laugh and shook his head. "But there will be no neat victories here. You would be far better off letting this one go, my dear. Let the official task force deal with what comes next."
"No. I can't do that - You obviously know more about what's going on here than they do. What about those deep cover agents who'll be exposed?"
"I'm certain they won't be. That kind of wholesale destabilization of operations isn't the aim of this play. As for Dearborn, I'd be willing to place any stakes you'd care to name that the unfortunate man is already dead."
"Dead?" she recoiled slightly at this, thinking of the picture in his profile - a solemn longish faced man of 36, with intelligent, heavy lidded eyes and a crop of short ruddy hair that looked likely to curl if it grew out. She had thought he had calculating look to him, but not hollow-eye stare of a zealot. What of the fiance, she thought, what of the two tabby cats? She's spent most of last night crawling into Dearborn's head and the thought of his demise was an unsettling kind of let down.
"Yes. You can hardly let the patsy live to decry their innocence, even if he might never be believed."
"So you know who's behind this? You must, if you're so sure you can predict what they'll do."
"I have a very good idea who's behind it, yes. I'm sure enough to tell you that you should stay far away from this case," He leaned farther forward for emphasis, she had to stop herself from averting her eyes, bowing her head and deferring to the force of his will.
"Well, that's not going to happen. I can't just pretend to know nothing and go about my life - obviously there's something very wrong here, it's my job to try and stop it."
He sighed and stood, seemingly restless. He walked around to face the window, running his hand along the curved back of the chair in an unaccustomed fidget. "You are remarkably naive for a profiler and FBI agent, Elizabeth," he said, taut with frustration, "But then, I suppose that's the way they like them on your side of the law. Good little soldiers they can order around and keep busy, who bask in their moral superiority and never look around to see the shape of what they're being made to do." His tone was more like a hard, scathing parody of the amusement he usually used, his posture stiff.
Liz was suddenly aware of just who she was sitting with, alone in a secluded room. He turned to pin her with such an intense look that she felt near to paralyzed, and exposed, and then a spark of anger that would talk to her in such a sneering way.
"I need you to open your eyes and see, Lizzy," he continued, "Who would stage a leak? who would turn a man, force him to become a traitor, and then stage an auction - put it abroad that there was information of a grave and sensitive nature to be bought, just to see who would come crawling out of the woodwork to grab for it. If it was the intel alone they were after, they wouldn't have made a show of Dearborn. Those around him know what intel he would have and could have acquired with his access. They will have been scrambling to make that intel obsolete from the time of the first webcast."
"You mean all this intel from him we've been racing to secure is basically useless?" she was completely unready to accept that idea.
"The scrambling makes for good optics, whether or not it's necessary. But no, the gears of the machine move slowly enough. If the intel he, or his impostor has were really to be exposed it would be disastrous for the balance of power in the intelligence community. But that's not the point of this manoeuvre. The point is to get the other players to show their hands, and expose the depth of their pocket books. Just look at the rules of their auction. It's neatly done, I'll admit. Bait so tempting that few can resist, even though it's such an incredibly obvious trap. Those that fall for it deserve what's waiting for them on the other end." His mouth had a humourous twist to it but his but his eyes showed only grimness. Still, his posture had lost some of that worrying, near-furious tension and he'd stopped staring her down with that look of judgement and expectation that she hadn't quite understood.
"But i don't understand, who's doing this?" she said.
"We are looking at the machinations of a small coalition of very powerful men, who work for their own ends from behind their powerful positions. More than that, I can't tell you, for your own protection."
"What kind of power are we talking about here? Obviously it involves international interests - what's this about? Drug cartels? Terrorism? What?" she sat straight and tried to reform her expression into something pleasant and impassive, not willing to give up or get riled so easily this time.
"Nothing so simple as that," Red shook his head slightly. He strode back to the window, his attention moving off her, she could only see him in profile, cast in the blue light of morning. His jaw was clenched, a hard look on his face. Outside, the frozen sleet had eased to a dull rain, and she could hear it faintly in the quiet.
"I'm not letting this go, Red. you can't just tell me, 'oh, never mind, the danger's past, the intel won't be leaked,' and not give me any solid facts. I can't accept that and I sure as hell can't take that to my boss and expect him to swallow it, not and have him think me more incompetent than he already does. You have to start being honest with me or there's no real point in continuing this arrangement - I won't believe you and in turn my co-workers won't believe me and we'll be nowhere."
"I told you once that I would go at your word, take myself off and never trouble you again. But you don't really want that, do you, Lizzy," he sounded far too calm and assured, "There's still too much you want from me."
That core of tension in her had been mounting and twisting from the moment she woke, she felt by now that she was encased in it. Red standing there with his casual arrogance, making pronouncements about what she must think and want, seemed a very great distance away, and with strange snapping sensation inside, like something crumbling and igniting, she realized she hated his serenity, his surety. She wanted to fly at him, unseat him from his measured detachment and make him face her. Without his mask, as raw and unsettled as she was. She stood, untouchable on her high fury and advanced on him.
"You know," she said, her voice sounding high and strained and wild, she felt she saw him and all his machinations with a sudden, monstrous clarity. All of it, sharp and bright, thudding into place in her head so firmly that it resonated into her chest with awful little jolts. "I never believed that, not for a minute. You've begun your game, and I seem to have a starring role. Well, I know you well enough to know that Raymond Reddington doesn't leave anything half finished. You weren't going to just leave. I'm too important to whatever it is you're doing, though I can't for the life of me see why."
"I've told you before, you're special, Lizzy," he said, placating and as unruffled as ever. He turned to face her and seemed not at all surprised that she was only a few paces away.
She saw him take a breath, getting ready for the rest of his usual spiel and she wasn't going to give him the chance.
"Bull. Shit. I'm not special, I'm useful and I'm convenient. That's just how it works with people like you. Well - you've picked your agent, you've picked your spot and now you've got to stand in it. You've said you'll only work with me, and you can't change your mind without looking weak. But that means you've got to work with me doesn't it? If I decide I've had enough you're pretty much screwed, aren't you," Liz was surprised at the hard, furious sound of her voice, but she could find no thread of caution by which to reign herself in.
Red's face was dark and thunderous for a moment, his drawn low brows catching the grey cross light, but she could see him trying to cover with his usual charming mask. He was going to try to placate and diffuse, so slippery, so agile. Her hands balled into fists, wanting to strike at him, wanting to break something, test his resolve not to strike back, and get past that oily, impenetrable surface he so readily displayed.
"I'm doing this as a favour, Lizzy. I don't need to give the FBI any of my time, that joke of an immunity deal is hardly the thing keeping me here, I -"
"Just tell the fucking truth - Just be honest for once. You've never done anything in your life that wasn't to benefit you. I know we're just part of your agenda. Well, fine. So what? We're using you to suit our ends, too. Just be honest about it. I'm an adult, I don't need this…" she gestured broadly to encompass him, the room, her temper out pacing her ability to find the words, "This coddling and hand-holding and blatant manipulations. Either you decide to be straight with me, or we're through." She stopped there, feeling the finality of what she'd just said ring in her. She felt clammy. She bit down on her anger, feeling tears of frustration sting the back of her eyes. She was all out of breath.
Red had gone utterly still and impassive. His green eyes were cold and distant, there was no expression for her to read in them, none of that strange amusement she now realized she was used to seeing when he looked at her. With precise care he brushed past her and walked over to take up her coat from the back of the sofa. He held it out to her pointedly.
"Pick up your briefcase, Agent Keen. It's time I was moving on with my day." he voice was scrupulously polite and without affect but she could see the collar of her coat crease and crumple, he was gripping it so tight.
Liz wanted nothing more than to taker her things and hurry away, but she couldn't, she was absolutely frozen. It felt like the ground had fallen away from under her feet, that careering sensation from earlier was back tenfold. She was horrifically conscious of having done something irrevocable. She knew with absolute certainty that if she fled now, she would never see Red again. He would simply disappear. She wasn't sure she could even picture what that meant for her job or her life or her safety, she just knew it was true. She stood and stared, bewildered, at Red and his white-knuckled grip on her coat.
"You've made your position perfectly clear. I don't think we can have anything more to say to each other. I'm sure you don't need Mathilda to show you out." Red's voice was so distant and frigid that Liz was almost ready to give it up for lost.
It was almost lucky that she still felt in the grips of that peculiar lost sensation, and hadn't quite regained control of her limbs. She crossed her arms defensively, knowing it was folly to show such an obvious self-comforting gesture, but she felt precarious and had to hold herself together, physically if need be. She had promised herself she would stand her ground and get her answers, after all.
"Why are you doing this?" she said at last, and hated the note of hysteria in her voice. She took a cleansing breath.
"I believe I've made myself clear, this discussion and the Dearborn case are over."
"No," she said, "Not now, today, but all of it. You must know what you're doing. You must know that you're using obvious techniques, and you must know that I'm trained enough to spot it." This, at last, came out strong and clear, not pleading or snarling.
Red appeared to make a swift calculation and reach a decision. Something in his expression shifted minutely, she couldn't quite read it but it was there. His chin went up and he tossed her coat back to the couch. He consented to do this now, apparently "Training doesn't equate ability," he said, "But yes, I assumed you'd catch on eventually."
"You came here, knowing that just by asking for me by name would throw suspicion on me with my colleagues."
"Yes."
"You accuse my husband of god knows what, you try to keep me isolated from him and my co-workers. You take me into multiple dangerous situations, getting me acclimatized to violence."
"If you recall, you accused your husband before I ever said anything, but yes."
"That's classic grooming behavior, Red, and more. What exactly are you planning? And what is it you think you're going to get me to do?"
For a time her accusation rang broad and looming in her mind and in the quiet room. The rain, still falling indifferently, and the faint susurration of water in the eaves were the only accompaniment to the realization that their acquaintanceship, their partnership was being made or broken with this exchange. Liz found herself holding her breath. She studied Red's face as another change came across him. She noticed, finally, that he looked exhausted, that perhaps some of the stiffness in his frame she had imagined as cold fury was in fact the careful posture of a man who has long since parted ways with healthful rest. Much of the placid mask had fallen away and the lines of his proud, sensitively featured face were made into a look of such bleakness that Liz felt an inchoate pulse of dread in sympathy.
"You are to be protected," he said, "You are to be armed and prepared, for what's to come. I won't, after everything, see you used as an unknowing pawn, like some docile thing. You will have to decide, later, what you do or don't do. Whose side you'll take, whether you will bare your teeth. But I wasn't going to leave you blundering around on the field, exposed." He spoke to her, low and grave, his eyes holding hers, as though he was including in a secret pact, a new occluded history. "Don't mistake me," he continued, "I'm not a good man. My methods are often deceitful and brutal. I work for my own ends - that won't change for you, or anyone. But I made a promise a very long time ago, that you would be kept safe. For all that it has cost me, it's a promise I won't break."
"You talk like any of that should make sense to me - who did you promise, and why? What do you mean 'what's to come'? How do I know that it's not just more grim, meaningless portentousness to keep me on the hook?" But she found she was moving again to inspect the strange, sad sincerity on his face.
When he looked at her at her with such earnest, intelligent eyes, it was hard to remember all the terrible acts committed by his hand, though she tried to keep them in mind, for perspective. The shape of his mouth, she had realized, was almost kind when it wasn't smirking at her. Only now it frowned and sighed.
"Maybe you are owed something more concrete by now - But are you ready to hear it, Lizzy? Hear it and believe me?" He paused, assessing her, but somehow she didn't think he meant for her to answer.
She felt a moment's trepidation that she was about to get too much of what she'd asked for, that she was still too wound and unsettled to hear. She would never have admitted it in a thousand years. It was high time to move ahead, ready or not.
"In another life," he said, "Before I started out to become what I am now, your mother extracted a promise from me. You were in danger, from certain forces, and she secured my help. I was young, overconfident. I didn't understand what consequences that promise would bring me. But even now I won't regret it."
"My mother?" she said, struck through with a feeling like an electric shock. "I don't - How could you have even known her? You were, your file says you were in DC, before. We lived in Chicago up until… Where Sam's from. That's how he…" she trailed off. It was uncertain ground for her, riddled with soft spots where her child's recollection was misty and fallible, and memories that sometimes seemed to be dreams. She didn't like the feeling of this sharp eyed, intimidating man so near to such a tender spot.
"No, I'm afraid you weren't. I'm sorry, Lizzy, but it was decided you were safer believing another story. You were only small, a thing repeated enough times to a small child begin to seem true. I'm sorry for that, it's a cruel thing to do, but it would have been far more cruel to leave you open to discovery. Your father, the one you were born to, is a hard, dangerous man. A man with power and reach and as untouchable as a deadly spider at the edge of a web."
"No." She said it without entirely realizing she spoke. It was the only almost-coherent thought she could produce. Her mind recoiled at the thought, the rending open and unraveling of the warp and weft of her earliest certainties, at the implacable but alarmingly sincere expression of Red's face. He's doing it again, she thought, tearing the face off her well ordered world, exposing it poor and seedy underpinnings, and then holding her in place to make her look as it all began to crumble. He stood, distant and unrelenting, for a moment he seemed as ghastly as any creature she'd beheld.
His persistence, his care and unrelenting insistence these last months was a terrible burden, and she suddenly found herself beginning to bow under the strain. How could he say these things and still say he meant her well? The rushing sound of the rain in the gutters outside seemed louder than rationally possible as her mind fixed on it, like a needle skipping a groove. "You're lying," her own voice seemed to be coming from a very great distance away, "You are. It's just another twist in your horrible game."
"Let's get you sitting down, hmm?" said Red, suddenly very near. She realized the bending hadn't been an entirely internal sensation. She was hunched and listing on unsteady legs. Red took hold of her elbow, his grip hard, supporting. Even as she tried to break free she was near to falling. He was unshakable though and led her over to the plush, velvet couch, where he let her break free and drop heavily to the cushions, watching above her from a careful distance. She fixed him with a wary glare.
"I'm not doing this just to hurt you, Lizzy. If you nothing else, you may believe you're not so important to be worth all the effort just for that," he said, low and rough, "Why even ask me, if you won't believe any answer I give?" His face was closed to her again. "We've reached the point where you have to decide if you can trust me, Lizzy. There's nothing I can say to convince you if you won't be convinced. It's down to you now."
He withdrew from her, probably to seem to be less actively hovering. Liz ignored his movements as he went slowly and quietly around the room, making no sudden movements and opening the drapes, letting in the watery daylight to make the room shrink and transform into somewhere earthly and ordinary. She was getting her breathing under control, it had gone all stiff and shallow. She ran a hand through her bangs, pushing them off her forehead. Come on, she thought, process this.
It was useless to try and check anything Red told her against her own early memories, deep down she knew that. For years and years she had been unable to remember anything clearly from before around the 3rd grade, although she did remember remembering, long ago when still on the cusp of girlhood, but somehow in the wreck of her teen years, she had lost the fine thread that led back to those earlier times. Third grade was too late, they were already in Nebraska by then, and Sam was already Daddy, so immediately, so much more her father than the faceless dark spectre of her Father she could nearly recall - unless that too had only been a dream that had taken root and obscured real memory behind itself.
But she came to the question she knew she must ask herself, why would Red lie? Would he do this just to manipulate - to make her trust, to make her emotionally dependent and off balance? All of it could be passed off like that, easily. The things she'd already accused him him of and he'd assented to, and so many others besides, the softness she sometimes saw in him when he looked at her, his occasional note of pride in her - she could call it only positive reinforcement. He'd told them when he came he was a liar, but could someone really lie with their every reaction? Liar even when he'd held her hand so sweetly when all her suspicion against Tom had been unfolding? It was almost too much to think about, her mind wouldn't encompass the grim string of 'if this, then that'. She leant forward, bracing her elbows on her thighs. Breathe, Liz. The rushing sound at least had retreated from her, it too having been mostly internal, the speeding blood in her ears.
This whole morning had been a mistake. She'd broken something open that couldn't be mended and she didn't like the pieces that had been left before her. She was suddenly exhausted, though it was early. She wanted to be home, with her dog and her couch and to have stayed in bed until her alarm like she should have. A glance at her watch told her that she would only be heading out to work about now, on normal morning, even though this conversation felt like it had taken days at least.
Her mother. Could he have really known her? Before he was a criminal? The only thing she remembered of her mother was a sweet, low voice, singing. She'd lost the tune of that voice years ago, lullabies probably. Dark hair. A rich powder and peaches scent, she sometimes caught a whiff of something similar, some passing stranger's perfume perhaps, and something in her seemed to clutch, and lean towards it. "They told me she was unfit. An addict," she said, and was shocked at herself for engaging. Red stopped behind her somewhere. She didn't look around to find him.
"She wasn't when I knew her. She was strong and clever and in desperate straights."
"If - Say I believe you, why would you agree to… me, I guess. Make her such a promise."
"Did I love her, you mean."
"Yes."
"No, not love. I was young, hot headed. I was filled with an arrogant, slightly twisted sense of chivalry, as many young men are. Once I understood the wrongs she'd been done - it was an easy promise to make."
She heard him sigh again, faintly, and fought the instinct to continue to prod. To be drawn in. Liar, she reminded herself fiercely, his every move could be calculated falsity. Don't continue until you know where you and he stand. Until you feel less raw and glaringly vulnerable.
"Enough of this," he said, sounding frustrated. "Obviously this is not the moment. Are you feeling better? I can tell Mathilda to bring us some tea, or there's something stronger in the sideboard."
"No, I don't want anything. You're asking for a lot, Red, too much. But I'm alright now. Only I'm going to be late for work." She wasn't sure she'd be able to get her legs to take her down all those stairs, but she needed to leave here, shore herself up. She started by sitting up straight and reaching around to collect her coat.
"Fine. I think we've had enough of each other this morning," he said shortly from where he lingered somewhere behind her.
She stood, slid into her coat, checked her keys were still in her pocket and strode over to collect her briefcase, all her movements careful as if to protect the momentary cease fire. She turned at last to look at Red, she'd known he was near to hand, his presence was hard to miss, but she noticed he was staying out of arm's reach for now. He watched her, looking as uncertain of her as she was of him - it unsettled her for a second.
Yes. They'd had quite enough of each other for today. She turned from his gaze, far more flustered than she'd been since the very first when he'd been shown to her in the awful bullet proof cage. Even after she turned her face from him she felt his attention, but she decided she didn't want to know what he meant to convey, scorn or pity, or earnestness, or that cold mask she hated.
"I'm not asking you to make your decision immediately, Lizzy, but it has to be soon. Just keep in mind, nothing is done for only one reason. Even if you see more than one agenda, it doesn't always mean that it's truth, or importance is negated. Accepting what good comes your way won't cheapen you, not when you're owed so much."
His words lingered in her thoughts even as she made her precariously measured exit. She didn't flee, she was proud, but she knew she left with such precise care that it was obvious that she was affected. Fine. It didn't really matter now, her dignity was already smashed with the way she'd nearly swooned in his sitting room. She had managed to get him to produce a new answer, so that was something like a result.
She was in her car and on her way before she realized with a wry shock that they'd gotten well and truly off the subject of the Dearborn case. He couldn't have planned a better diversion, suddenly she'd been unable to ignore the awkwardness of their situation anymore. But Red was right, how much use was it getting him to answer her, if she wasn't willing to really believe in what he said. She was less certain than ever about her intended role in Red's scheme, and what's more she had no idea what to tell Cooper about the official case, nor yet how she explain her information about Dearborn without mentioning this encounter. She knew already she was never going to report anything about this morning.
Her mother. Was it anything like possible?
