#3

(Tag to The Simitar)

"At this point, we should start a beer fund," Ressler said dryly as he opened the door to reveal a sheepish Agent Elizabeth Keen. Third times the charm, he joked internally, chuckling to himself as she walked past him and into his (very green) living room. This was becoming a habit of theirs, and he wondered idly (though not with any preference one way or the other) whether he'd be on the couch again tonight or not.

"We probably should. A dollar a day should fund our current beer needs."

Liz put the 6-pack down on the living room table and shook of her coat. She rested it along with her scarf and hat on the back of the chair that no one ever seemed to sit in.

"Although," she continued. "I'm sure it would help if we didn't consume the entire thing in one night. Let's see if we can stick to just one or two tonight, shall we?"

"Do we have plans I wasn't informed of?" Ressler asked. Her presence was not unwelcome, however he hadn't known until he'd opened the door 19 seconds ago that she was coming over.

"I - "

Liz faltered, not sure what to say.

I didn't want to leave you alone after the hospital pumped you full of drugs and you mentioned you'd felt better than you had in weeks.

I was afraid the real Bethesda had given you more drugs for the pain and wanted to see what happened - if you took them or not.

I didn't want to be alone tonight.

I needed to see you again to make sure I wasn't just convincing myself you were alive, and that you really are and your severe injuries were indeed all part of a bigger plot to gain information.

None of them were a proper fit for the good mood Ressler had going on (despite the day's events). So instead, Liz spoke a lesser truth.

"I wanted to watch TV and drink beer to end this horrible day, and didn't really want to do it alone in my hotel room.

There. Less serious, but completely true.

"What's on tonight?" Ressler asked, grabbing the 6-pack and walking into the kitchen. "A favorite TV show or something?" He popped his head back out a second later, holding two already chilled beers. He was still grinning, and Liz had no idea how he could be so cheerful after being beat up, pumped full of drugs, chased around a fake hospital, and debriefed for two solid hours. She was certainly still holding onto some dregs of crankiness.

Liz shrugged. "I didn't have anything specific in mind. I was hoping we could find a good movie or something.."

"Awesome," Ressler said, handing her an open beer and kicking his feet up on the coffee table as he sat down on the couch. Liz joined him a few seconds later, after kicking off her shoes. He passed her the remote as he took a drink of beer.

"Bethesda gave me more pain meds," he said offhandedly, causing Liz's fingers to falter on the controller, accidentally skipping two channels.

"Oh?" she asked, trying to appear politely interested and nothing more (which didn't work too well, as Ressler knew immediately from the red that suddenly appeared in her cheeks that her heart was beating faster with anticipation).

"Yeah," he said, grateful to be able to offer the information on his own. She had allowed him the freedom to kick his nasty habit on his own, and he felt immense relief that she was going to stick to her deal to not pester him (or to turn him in). He just knew she was dying to ask him about it even if she didn't. Also he wasn't dumb - far from it, in fact. He knew she had many reasons for being here, but one was definitely to make sure he wasn't high as a kite after their day from hell. (Or was it just a normal day anymore? Seemed to him it wasn't another day at the office unless someone was kidnapped or beat up).

"Did you, uh, take any?"

He shook his head, downing another swig of beer. "Nah. I flushed them down the sink."

Liz whipped her head around in surprise, completely forgetting that she was trying to find something good on TV. "You what?"

Ressler grinned, amused that she was so surprised, and a little bit proud that this was the information he had to offer. (Although, he chastised himself, this wasn't something to be proud of. Normal people didn't have drug addictions to begin with. Only fuck-ups did).

"I, uh," he took his eyes off of her, nudging her hand to remind her that they were not going to watch the nature channel and that she should continue looking through the channels. He also needed an excuse not to look her in the eye. "I thought a lot. About what you said… at the office."

The thought of having to live without me. It must have been terrifying.

It was.

Normally, Liz went along with his dry humor and he had been expecting her to be sarcastic back or tell him it wasn't awful at all. But then she had to get all serious, and he'd spent a better part of that two hour debrief thinking about her words and the steely seriousness in her eyes as she'd spoken to him.

It was.

Liz dutifully kept her eyes off of his, knowing he needed to speak to the wall to talk about feelings (honestly, men) and finally settled on what looked like a promising movie on ABC. "And?"

"And I realized I can't afford to screw up. I almost got you killed in Warsaw. I could have been killed yesterday, and you're right - it would suck to have to live without you. I don't want to find another partner," he ended gruffly, coughing and moving his gaze from the wall to the ceiling.

They were silent for a few moments, neither one of them comfortable with the serious atmosphere of the room.

"Oh, God, this is that horrible chick flick Audrey liked so much," Ressler groaned, rolling his eyes when he realized that movie was on TV. Bridget Jones Diary. It had its funny parts - he would admit to laughing a few times, but the main woman was just too much.

"Should I change it?" Liz asked, her hand poised over the remote to switch the channel.

Ressler shook his head slowly. "Nah, leave it on. There's a funny part coming up."

(Really, he should have been concerned how easy it was to say this. Recently, things that reminded him of Audrey made him smile, instead of clench up in gut-wrenching, almost physical pain.)

"She used to be the first thing I thought of every morning," he said, quietly, and Liz was looking at the screen but paying attention to his every word. "It was horrible. I'd wake up, and roll over, and she wasn't there and it would take me a few minutes to be able to move because the pain was numbing."

Liz swallowed hard. This was personal - not that they hadn't talked about personal things before (Tom, his drugs) but this was different. This was still raw (or maybe not so much, anymore. She used to be the first thing I thought of.)

"And then one day I woke up, and wondered where I put my shoes the night before. And then I thought of Audrey, and I felt bad, because she wasn't the first thing on my mind." Ressler took another drink of beer, and finally turned to face Liz, who was staring at him wide-eyed, unsure what to say or do. "I'm sorry, Liz. If you don't want to talk about… I mean, is it OK that I talk about her sometimes?"

Liz stared at him for about twelve more seconds, and then slapped him (gently) upside the head.

"Don't be dumb, Ressler. Of course it's OK. If you're willing to talk, I want to listen. Do you realize how hard it is to get information out of you? Sometimes, I feel like I barely know you."

"Ah," Ressler sighed, and then glanced at the TV (grinned, Bridget was sliding down the fireman's pole, great scene) and then spoke again. "I had a horrible day, that first day she wasn't the first thing on my mind. But then it happened again, and again, and then she was the third thing I thought of. The first time I went a whole day without thinking about her, I couldn't sleep. At all. That… that was the day I took those drugs, because I couldn't sleep. It shouldn't have surprised me how much they numbed me - I didn't think of her or anything else for about eight hours. I slept like a baby." He shrugged. "And then I just didn't stop."

"And now?" Liz asked, and Ressler wasn't sure what question she was asking.

And now, do you still think of her when you wake up?

And now, are you still taking the drugs?

And now, do you still feel bad that you forget to think of Audrey?

"I haven't used since Sitka, if that's what you're asking," he said, finishing off his beer and setting it on the coffee table.

They were quiet for a minute more. Then, Liz spoke.

"It took me a while to stop thinking of Tom. I know it's not the same," she added quickly. "Your girlfriend wasn't a spy sent to marry you to get information about the FBI. But it still hurt, knowing he'd betrayed me. But I don't think of him as much anymore."

"It's weird to move on," Ressler decided, and then sighed. "Want another beer? I'm still feeling like an open book. I certainly need more to drink."

Liz nodded, handing him her empty bottle and wondering what else he could possibly share. (It seemed like, between the two of them, they should have been worn raw by what happened and by what they'd shared with each other in the past month. Speaking about these things should have been like rubbing an exposed nerve, but it wasn't. And that was partially what made her uncomfortable, the fact that she was so comfortable).

"I'm gonna say something simply because I'm on a roll of sharing horribly personal things that I'm sure I'll regret tomorrow," Ressler said, popping the cap of her new beer and handing it to her. "But it sucks to carry your pain around and not share it with anyone, and you just happen to be the person listening to me."

"Go ahead," Liz said. "I'll share something when you're done, if it makes you more comfortable."

Ressler chuckled darkly. "Keen, nothing - no secrets you have, nothing you've ever done - is quite as horrible as what I'm going to say."

He was quiet for a minute. But, then he said it anyway. Without fear of being rejected by his partner, without fear of disgusting her, without fear of pushing her away. (And, at this point, he really needn't have worried about these things, because she was pretty sure that unless he was skinning cats, nothing he said could surprise her)

She was wrong (though, she wasn't disgusted, just shocked - she hoped it didn't show on her face).

"I'm relieved, most days, that my baby died. God, how messed up is that? That's seriously fucked up," he said, and he pressed the cold glass of his beer to his head. He closed his eyes and shook his head, feeling only partially better having shared his darkest secret.

"Maybe," Liz said quietly. "To someone who doesn't understand. It's not like you killed your baby, Ress. You - I think I understand. You didn't want a child born to you who was always in danger, screwed up because he or she was always being hunted by the horrible people on the Blacklist."

"Right," he nodded, still not meeting her eyes. "Don't get me wrong, Keen. I didn't want Audrey to die - that was the last thing I ever wanted. But she didn't tell me, you know. Before it happened. I don't know what I would have done, if she'd told me she was pregnant. I'm never home before eight or nine at night, and I leave most mornings at 7am. I am kidnapped, beaten up, drugged, hunted, shot at and chased after on a weekly basis. Hell, a daily basis! I'd be a horrible father. Audrey and the baby would always be in danger. I mean, take you and Reddington. He likes you - for whatever unknown, creepy ass reason. You're not even related, yet you've been sought after by his enemies, kidnapped, and had a gun to your head more than once simply because you're important to him. A wife and baby? They wouldn't have ever left me alone. If Audrey had told me, I can't say with confidence how I would have reacted. I may have left them.

Thrown them into protective custody and never saw them again. Maybe I would have tried to make it work - though, of course, it couldn't have."

Liz nodded, listening quietly. "I think that's what finally made me say no to Tom about the adoption."

Ressler agreed, nodding and taking another drink of his beer. "Most days, I'm relieved I never had to find out what horrible choice I would have made. Because really, there was no good way that situation ended. I sometimes think I would have been excited to have a kid. A little Ressler. But then… Keen, people like us, we don't get kids. Maybe we get to have a husband or a wife. Preferably someone we can talk to about our jobs - someone with clearance. But never kids. Meera managed it, I don't know how, but now she's dead and her kids don't get a mom. It's kind of a lot to think about. Knowing that this job we chose cases us to have to give up so much. I loved Audrey. I still love her. But … " He paused, sliding his hand over hers to take the remote and mute the TV. "God, I loved her so much."

"But?" Liz prompted, folding her legs under her body as she turned to face him on the couch. She wanted to comfort him, reach out in some way, but she didn't know what would be accepted and what would be turned away. But her heart broke a little more when she saw tears (frustrated, angry, sad, she wasn't sure what emotion they were created from) gather in the corners of her eyes.

"I hate myself every single day for it, but sometimes I find myself relieved that I don't have to keep living that life of fear, of secrets, of lies and always breaking promises. I feel relieved that Audrey is dead because that the coward's way out, Liz. Instead of letting her move on, I trapped her again in a relationship and now I feel relieved that it's over."

Liz reached out and touched his hand, encouraged when he didn't pull away. She wrapped her fingers around his hand and tugged to pull his attention back to her.

"Thank you for sharing that with me, Ress. I hope I can help you see that nothing you just said to me - not a single word of it - makes you a bad person, or a coward, or a fuck up. It makes you human. A human who is hurting … more than anyone should ever have to hurt."

A single tear slipped from his eye, and Liz wiped it away from his warm cheek without comment. "You loved her in a way that not many people love. She was lucky to have you for as long as she did - and she knew that, or she wouldn't have taken your grumpy ass back."

Ressler chuckled, and Liz knew she was bringing him back from the precipice. He was angry and sad, and it was all amplified by the lack of drugs in his system, throwing his emotions and hormones off track. Honestly, he was the poster child for drug withdrawal. He had gone cold turkey off of his drugs for two weeks, with crankiness and a few tears being the only symptoms she had seen so far.

"You loved her, Ressler, in a way most people are jealous of. She was a good person, and of course you miss her every single day. But it's not unnatural to feel relieved that she escaped your crazy life."

Liz pulled her hand back from his face, meeting his eyes one final time before he reached a hand up to wipe at the tears that hadn't fallen yet but were threatening to.

"This movie truly is horrible. Funny, though," he said, clearing his throat and pulling away from her. She let him. "Let's finish it, have another beer, and get some sleep."

She smiled, settling back onto the couch. (A bit closer to him this time, he noticed. He didn't comment. Her presence was oddly comforting to him, anchoring him to reality.)

"You can have my room again," he said, and she nodded.

"I'll cook breakfast before we go in to work tomorrow, in return for devouring half of the 6-pack again. God, we have to stop that."

Ressler chuckled. "Next time. Next time we can simply have a night in and not discuss near death or past relationships or any other shitty topic. Deal?"

Liz nodded. "Next time, then."

It only occurred to her later that, for the first time, they had actually (kind of, sort of) planned a next time.


I hope I'm staying true to Ressler's character. He's kind of hard to write, but I felt like the show didn't do justice to him in this situation. He went through a horrible ordeal, and they didn't barely touch on it. :( Poor Ressler. *hugs*

Please review!