Chapter Three
The alarms woke her. They were blaring and screeching, and Liz jerked up at the sound of them. The walls were thick in this place. They must have been going off right outside of the door.
Tom made a small sound as he woke, grumbling against it, and Liz sat up. "Something's happening," she managed as she swung her legs over the side of the bed.
"What?" her husband asked, still making his way through layers of sleep. She usually found it endearing how slow he could be to wake, but right now she needed him with her.
"Not sure. Those are alarms. Someone may be coming for us."
"You think Kaplan would have told Reddington?" Tom asked.
"I don't know. Maybe, if she thought it would help us. I really don't know."
She was halfway to the cradle and Tom was sitting up stiffly, though his colour looked better after some rest. The door came flying open without warning and several men flooded the room along with Angela that Liz was beginning to really hate. "Miss Rostova, we need you and your daughter to come with us."
"Like hell," Liz snapped, making a dive for Agnes and one of the men caught hold of her.
"Hey!" Tom growled and Liz heard the sound of him fighting to get to her and their daughter. She didn't have a chance to look around at him as she swung around, one of the guards catching her around the middle as she did. The mostly healed scar from her surgery twinged and she loosed a startled breath before pushing it aside and throwing her weight into her attacker. She slammed an elbow into his ribs, putting her foot out to trip him back as he stumbled and he released her as he fell hard.
Angela had Agnes in her arms already and another man stepped in front of Liz to allow her to move to the door. "No one wants to hurt you, Ms Rostova," he said gruffly.
"Funny way of showing it," Liz snapped. "And my name is Keen."
She looked past to him, panic filling her as the woman took off with her daughter. Tom ducked past his attacker and darted after them, but another got in his way and Liz heard him grunt as the man slammed him hard in his battered ribs and he went down, arm wrapped around them and pain etched into every inch of his face. This was a waste of time. They were never going to be able to fight them off enough to get to Agnes. Not like this.
Tom's attacker pulled the first gun Liz had seen since the fight had started. They were packing, even if not openly. They probably had orders about hers and Agnes' safety, but those obviously didn't extend to Tom. The muzzle was aimed at his head where he was knelt down, trying to catch his increasingly ragged breath, and the man glanced over to Liz who had frozen. "Come along quietly and your husband will survive this."
"Bastard," Liz snarled, but it was Tom that moved. She wouldn't have bet on him being able to move as quickly as he did, but adrenaline did wonders. He was up before the man registered he was moving and his hand was on the gun, wrenching it to the side as it fired and the guard yelped as he pulled it from his hand, likely snapping the finger that was in the trigger with the way he did it. Tom didn't pause, didn't hesitate for a moment, as he turned the gun on him and fired two bullets into the man's chest.
Liz used her own opponent's distraction to take a risk, grabbing for the gun that he had hidden. Her fingers closed around it and she kicked out, catching him in the knee hard and he made a short sound of pain as she back-pedalled, the shot going off and taking him down. She spun, her mind registering that she hadn't heard Tom put the last one down and saw the man looming over her husband, Tom sprawled on the floor. How it happened didn't matter. Liz took the shot and the last guard went down hard. She risked the briefest look to see Tom moving to force himself to his feet before she started after Agnes.
She burst into the hallway, finding it empty. The woman was gone.
"Don't move!" a man shouted and Liz turned, finding him aiming a gun at the turn of the hallway. She leveled her own and took a low shot to the knee, sending him crashing down. She was on him faster than he could recover, kicking his gun away as she put another in his shoulder. "Where did they take her?" she growled, voice tight and dangerous.
"I don't know," he gasped and Liz moved to step against his mangled knee, pulling a howl of pain from him.
"Don't make me ask again."
She pressed down harder and he yelped. "The FBI is here! Mr Kirk would have taken her to the helipad. You too, if he could have."
"Where is it?"
"I can't-"
Liz fired another bullet off, this one buried in his gut. "You're the one wasting time, not me."
He coughed and choked. "North-west end of the building."
The fourth shot landed between his eyes and Liz turned, finding Tom behind her. "North-west?" he verified.
"Better be."
He nodded and she started forward, bare feet barely registering the cold of the concrete beneath them. Tom moved with her, keeping up well enough without her needing to slow her pace. She didn't think she would have even if he couldn't. Not with their daughter in danger like she was.
They were running, finding less resistance than they might have otherwise. The FBI was there, he'd said. Not Reddington. Her team. There was something about that that should have comforted her, but didn't. Nothing would until she was holding Agnes again.
The Keens rounded the corner and into what looked like a hanger with stairs leading to the rooftop helipad. Liz spotted Kirk who was surrounded by guards and various helpers, halfway up the steps including Angela who carried Agnes.
There were guards, and Liz's gun clicked, signaling her lack of ammunition after several shots. She dove for one of the discarded firearms and heard the door behind them open. A quick glance showed familiar faces filing in - Ressler and Samar, accompanied by Baz and Dembe - and she saw a path open up between where she stood and the stairs that would lead to where Kirk was boarding the helicopter with her daughter. She darted forward, taking the steps two at a time.
"Liz!" Tom shouted after her, but she didn't wait. Kirk turned to look at her from his place as she reached the top, wind blowing wildly around her off of the chopper blades, and she saw the woman with Agnes next to him as the door to the helicopter was shut hard. A strange sound echoed in her ears as the helicopter started to lift off and, after a half a moment, she realized it was her own scream.
An arm came around her from behind and she fought, slamming her head back hard into the person's nose. "Lizzie," Tom pleaded in her ear and it took a second for her to register that he was the one holding onto her at the edge of the helipad. A few more steps and she would have been off the roof in her desperation to get to it.
"He has her," Liz shouted, in part to be heard over the noise and the other part pure desperation. Her vision blurred as she watched the helicopter fly away with their child inside of it. "He took her. Tom, he-"
Liz's knees gave way and her husband held her up and held her close, his breath in her ear as he spoke. "We'll get her back. I swear, Lizzie. We'll get her back."
A sob let loose and she turned in his arms, throwing her own around his neck and holding onto him. He stood there steadily, holding her close and stroking her hair. His promises were quiet and filled with all the certainty and hope that they kept her from completely losing it. She tightened her grip a little more and she felt him return the same.
She wasn't sure how long they stood on that roof, the wind strong and them holding each other up. She had hold of the back of his t-shirt like he would keep her afloat. Maybe he would.
When they finally parted, Liz saw the rare tears in his eyes and she wiped at her own. "We're going to save her," he promised.
"I believe you."
He nodded and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "You okay? You get hurt?"
"I don't think so," she breathed, though she wouldn't know until the adrenaline ran out. "You?"
"Not too much worse off."
She reached up to his face. "I hit you a minute ago…"
A very small, very forced smile appeared. "You've done worse. I'm okay."
Someone clearing their throat awkwardly drew their attention and Liz saw her partner standing with his arms crossed a few feet away. He was watching them like he wasn't quite sure what to say, his stony expression a careful mask. Liz swallowed hard. "Kirk took Agnes."
A little of the mask chipped away at that. "Son of a bitch," he managed, gaze sweeping out to where the helicopter was already gone.
"Where are we?" Liz asked. "Can we-?"
"Still in Cuba," Samar answered. "We're out of the FBI's jurisdiction, but Dembe is calling Reddington."
Liz felt her temper boil unexpectedly, and she wasn't entirely sure why. She hadn't done what she did out of anger. She hadn't done it to Red exactly, but because of the dangers Red brought into her life. But there they were again with Reddington being called on to bail her out as if nothing had changed at all. She had wanted to put a stop to the cycle. She had hoped that she could save her daughter from it, but nothing was changing. It was like she was swimming, not just against the current, but against the current in a raging storm with a riptide ready to drag her under. She felt sick.
"He won't take her Stateside," Tom said as he stepped closer, his hand slipping into hers and Liz felt a little calmer. Not a lot, but something was better than nothing.
"But until we know where she is we can't do much. We need to regroup and get all of us on the same page," Ressler said and Liz saw his gaze shift to her. "Unless you guys are planning at going at this by yourselves again."
She just barely managed to contain her cringe at his tone. He was pissed, and she supposed he had a right to be.
"We did what we had to to protect our daughter," Tom bit out, obviously not in the mood to play nice.
"Yeah? How'd that work out?" Ressler popped back.
Liz tightened her grip on her husband's hand as she saw his shoulders square up and he took half a step towards the shorter man like he was already ready to go to blows over it. They couldn't. She wouldn't let them.
Tom backed down at her tightened grip, but he still looked like he was seething over the comment. "We'll do whatever we need to to get her back," Liz assured Ressler. "And, for what it's worth-"
"Save it," he snapped. "Let's just focus on getting Agnes back safe."
She nodded stiffly and Dembe motioned for them to follow, his expression unreadable. Samar offered her a nod. "It's good to see you alive," she offered, and though the words seemed to be intended well, there was something forced about her tone.
Tom gave her hand a supportive squeeze and leaned in. "They'll come around."
Liz shook her head, watching part of the team that had become like family to her start for the door, Dembe and Baz following without so much as a hello. "I'm not sure they will," she confessed softly. "And even if they do, I'm not sure I deserve it after what I did to them."
"What we did," Tom corrected gently. "You're not in this alone, Liz. I'm right here with you."
She nodded, feeling her emotions shift dangerously and she tightened her hold on his hand like she might never let go.
For a relatively short plane ride, it could have been one of the more emotionally taxing ones Tom had ever taken. Liz had sat next to him, leaned in and silent. Her silence worried him more than anything else. He expected her to be laser focused and dragging the others into conversations on how they could start the search. There was nothing, though, almost like she was entirely spent by the time they had boarded the plane. He couldn't say that he didn't understand the feeling.
They went immediately to the Post Office where both Cooper and Reddington were waiting. The silence was as thick there as it had been coming back. It wasn't that they were walking on eggshells, necessarily, as focusing on the facts as they were. Liz stood quietly, still dressed in the blouse and slacks that she had fallen asleep in the night before, and neither of them had shoes on. They were dishevelled, exhausted, and beaten down, but no one dared approach the subject of Liz's faked death within the black site walls.
Liz's voice was even as she spoke, her emotions in check after the desperate outburst on the helipad. Tom, for his part, watched those around them as she walked them through what had happened. Reddington knew more about Kirk than he was letting on, even if the others didn't. It didn't set right with him, but nothing about the man did.
It was getting late by the time that she finished and Tom was starting to feel it weigh heavily on him. He had just stood as they parted their small huddle, but Liz motioned for him to stay where he was. "I need to talk to Red."
"You want me to come with you?" he offered.
Liz sighed, massaging the bridge of her nose. "No. I have to do this alone."
Tom tried for a smile and he wasn't sure how reassuring it was. "I'm right here if you need me."
She reached up, her palm against the side of his face and he leaned into the touch. "Thank you," she breathed before moving towards the man that had turned her life upside down.
Tom purposefully turned, trying to give her as much privacy as possible while still remaining within earshot. He no longer worried that Reddington would physically try to harm her, but he still didn't like the man. He certainly didn't trust him.
He found Aram Mojtabai standing as if he were uncertain if he really wanted Tom's attention or not. The technician was wringing his hands, dark eyes focused in Tom's feet rather than his face, and it took a moment before he looked up and cleared his throat to speak. "I, uh, just wanted to make sure that you guys were okay. I guess Mr Reddington is probably going to find you a place to stay for tonight?"
Tom grimaced at the thought. "I don't know what we're doing. We haven't gotten that far."
Aram nodded. "I, well, if you want, or if you need it… I have some extra space. Not a lot, but the sofa pulls out like a bed. You guys are welcome to stay tonight. Well, as long as you want. I promise not to kick you out first thing in the morning." He tried for a smile, the joke told so awkwardly that it was painful.
Still, it pulled a very small but real smile from Tom. "Thanks. I'll run it by Liz when she's done. We may take you up on it for tonight."
The other man loosed a long breath, almost like he has held it the entire time they had been speaking and his gaze drifted over to where Liz was having what looked like a very tense conversation with Reddington. "I was so worried about seeing her again. How stupid is that, right? Don't get me wrong, I was so relieved to hear she wasn't, you know, dead, but…" He swallowed hard. "But I wasn't sure how I was going to react when I saw her. Or you. I mean, of course I understand why you did it, but still… I'm just so glad you guys are okay and so, so sorry about Agnes. I'll tell Agent Keen too, but I need you to know…" He pulled in a shaky breath and he looked down at his shoes and shifted awkwardly.
Tom opened his mouth to try to ease at least a little of the tension and Aram shifted and moved so suddenly that it startled him. The FBI agent had pulled him into a hug almost without warning. "I forgive you for lying."
The former operative stood stiffly, uncertain of exactly how to react. Liz, he understood. She had a history with them. They were there for her and she had been there for them, but him… All he'd done was lie to them. He'd earned their trust and abused it, even if he had his reasons. He didn't expect them to understand. "Why?" he managed after a long moment.
Aram pulled back and his expression was so open and honest it almost physically hurt. "Because that's what family does."
"That may have been the most infuriating discussion I've ever had," Liz growled as she walked over.
Tom looked back, at least partially relieved at the interruption. "That bad, huh?"
"And then some. Did you know that this is your fault?"
"Shocker. Couldn't possibly be that he hasn't figured out how to stop making the same mistakes over and over," Tom grumbled.
"Mr Reddington has been really hurt by all this, to be fair," Aram piped up in defence of the Concierge of Crime.
"I know," Liz admitted softly, "and once we have Agnes back I'll be in a better place to accept that. For now, he's going to have to stop trying to control this. Just because we weren't able to get away from the danger doesn't mean that we were entirely wrong." She sighed heavily. "I need a shower, a change of clothes, and a chance to think."
"Aram offered us his couch for the night."
Liz's expression softened. "Thank you."
The technician beamed at her. "It's no problem at all. I was just telling Tom I'm just glad you're both okay. Anything else… We'll figure it out after we get Agnes home safe and sound."
Tom watched Liz nod slowly, the day taking its toll. He felt it too. She was right. A shower and probably some sleep would start them fresh. Kirk wasn't going to hurt Agnes. That much they knew, but if they wanted a chance at finding their daughter, they had to be at the top of their game.
The shower helped, just as she knew it would. When she opened the door, steam pouring out around her, she saw that Aram and Tom had already gotten the couch pulled out and the bed portion of it made up. Her husband was stretched out on it and she thought he might have been asleep until he cracked an eye open to look at her. "Hey."
"Hey," she greeted back, taking a careful seat on the edge of the bed and wincing at the way the skin around his nose was a little discoloured. She reached forward, fingers brushing up against the side of his face, not quite close enough that it would have hurt, and he leaned into her touch. "I may have broken your nose earlier."
Tom snorted. "It's not broken, just bruised."
She hummed softly and crawled into the squeaky bed with him, careful as she draped an arm over his middle and felt him shift closer to her. He was tense, worried just like she was, but he hid it better. He always hid it better. "Are you sure we don't need to have you see a doctor? Not just the nose…"
Her husband shrugged a little. "What are they going to do? Tell me to take it easy on the cracked ribs and stay off my knee. Neither are an option, so why waste the time?"
Liz wanted to argue, but it was pointless, and if the tables were turned she knew she would have made the same argument. "I was thinking."
"Not surprised."
Liz risked a look up to find him looking down at her from where they lay and she steeled herself. "I'm not sure where I stand with Red."
"Have you ever known where you stand with the man?"
"Fair, but I mean moving forward. He's willing to put resources into find Agnes, but I want to make sure that we don't limit ourselves."
"What are you thinking?" he asked, his voice hesitant.
"You said Susan Hargrave's organization was able to help you guys get to Kirk once. Would she help again?"
Tom tensed and Liz sat up, propped on her elbow. His expression was careful and guarded. "For a price, but... we're tapped, Liz. Any money I had stored away that you didn't get to during your investigation a while back and that didn't get spent getting to Karakurt to clear your name went into that villa and pulling this stunt off. I sold the boat and everything. I'm not saying we don't have anything, but not the kind of money it'd take to hire someone like Scottie."
"Maybe she'd be willing to do it because she was responsible for nearly getting me killed?"
"No. We've already played that card with her to find Kirk the first time." He sighed, shifting so that he was propped up to look her directly in the eye. "She's not like Reddington is to you. She's not going to just drop in and help us. She's a businesswoman. She'll need something in return."
"I love how you think Reddington never asks for anything in return," Liz huffed.
"I know he does, but you know what I mean." He paused, closing his eyes for a moment. "I'm with you on not wanting to rely on Reddington. If you guys… pick back up after this, I don't think it should be because you owe him for finding Agnes."
"I don't want to have to rely on him," Liz said softly. "I do care about Red, but I'm not a child to be protected. I need to have the freedom - we need to have the freedom - to make our own choices without him threatening to pull support if he doesn't like it."
Tom reached forward, his fingers tucking a loose strand of her hair back. "I know. I may have something that'd be worth it to Scottie."
"What's that?"
He closed his eyes and there was a long moment that he was simply silent. Liz was about ready to ask again when they fluttered open and she felt a strange sort of sinking feeling as he spoke. "Me."
TBC
Notes: Thursdays feel like such a void during hiatus, so I feel like I need to post something. I know that's kind of silly, but hey, at least it forces me to update, right? I would love to know what you guys think of this chapter. It has a couple of scenes in it that actually solidified my resolve to write this story, so I'm interested to know your thoughts.
Next time - Tom makes a deal with Scottie Hargrave, Ressler picks a fight, and the team finds some very unsettling news.
