She sits at the meager desk in the motel room, her laptop before her. She's not bothered to put on more than her cami and underpants. The curtains are closed. It is dark. She is alone.
Alone.
Empty.
A sob rises up to gag her, but she chokes it down. She pecks the down arrow through her inbox. There is nothing there of interest. Nothing helpful. Nothing illuminating.
Nothing.
Her wet hair drips down her back in a cool trickle. She runs through the list of things she could do to keep busy. Running. Drinking. Playing solitaire.
She could nip out to the diner on the corner for a sandwich or some coffee, but her appetite is less than robust these days. It seems there is nothing optimal to distract her from the scene that intrudes her thoughts and plays out over and over.
"You killed him," she had stated matter of factly that day when they met in his apartment.
"Yes," he replied with a small nod of his head, equally matter of fact. He slid his hat off his head and into his arm.
"How?" She looked wildly around the room, trying to calculate just what he was telling her.
"I did it to save you," he floundered. She hadn't even stopped to note that Raymond Reddington was practically choking on his words before her, stumbling over them like a fool. He had almost seemed afraid in that moment, she realizes this now. But at the time she was too focused on her questions and the answers she would get.
"No!" She screamed. "I didn't ask you why! I asked you how. How did you kill my fiancee?"
"Lizzie," he began. "That man was not your fiancee. That man was no one to you but an enemy. He was an imposter who meant to do you grave harm."
"He was everything to me! He changed for me. We were going to be a family. He had changed!" She clutched her swollen belly as if to elucidate her point. "You murdered the father of my child! You took away my family! It wasn't enough for you to kill my father? You had to take everything from me?"
Once upon a time he'd revealed to her that he could live with himself and his deeds by saving her life. Could he actually be so deluded as to think he was protecting her here and now?
"Lizzie," he said taking a step towards her. Her shoulders had slumped slightly and she was breathing hard, her hand still on her abdomen as though she was a marathon runner trying to rub off a cramp. He took another step towards her and extended his hand, palm up. He did not dare to touch her. "You have to listen to me. Since you revealed yourself to be Masha Rostova, there is a dark legion of forces attempting to capture you. Tom planned to sell you off to the highest bidder. First chance he got, that's what he was going to do. I wouldn't, I couldn't allow that to happen to you."
She straightened suddenly in a sharp, angry motion. "You lie," she hissed.
"I know this is hard for you to hear. It isn't easy for me to tell you. Please. I'm begging you. You have to believe me. My life without you would be nothing. I would be but a heap of ash blown away on the wind."
"Well, we couldn't have that, could we Reddington? You, poor, narcissistic sociopath! Better you make the man I adore into a heap of ash and cast him into oblivion." She was panting with fury. She barely got the words out.
"Elizabeth," Red said sternly. "You need to relax. This isn't good for the baby."
"Like you care about my baby," she sobbed. "You know what would have been good for my baby? Huh? Having a father would have been good for my baby. Let's stop pretending you have ever had my well being in mind while you have manipulated my life over the past two years. Let's stop pretending your connection to me is anything more than the enormous mind-fuck it is and has always been!"
The cool demeanor with which she had entered the room had melted and she was crying hotly against her fist. She looked up at him to see him standing there with a strange expression on his face, as though he was wincing in pain. He looked oddly vulnerable and she hated him for it. She remembered the resolve with which she had given him the fulcrum and then turned on her heel. It had been over. Then he was gunned down in the street and there she was with her hand in his chest, trying to stop the blood flow, holding his heart nearly in her hand. How she hated the softening of her own heart in that moment, the desperation she felt that he should not die, not only because he had answers she so desperately needed, but because she cared for him.
Well no longer. She stood there with her hand on her unborn child and she resolved to put an end to this twisted thing. She was going to kill him.
It was as she slipped her hand around to unholster her weapon, she felt the searing pain that sliced through her abdomen. She looked up with a gasp of shock at Reddington, thinking for just a moment that he had beat her to the draw and shot her first. As time slowed, she realized the gushing between her legs. It didn't stop or slow. She doubled over in a pain she'd never known before and saw the puddle of crimson on the floor between her legs.
"No," she whispered. Her head started to numb and swirl.
"Lizzie," he called, but her ears did not want to let his voice in and he sounded very far away. She was about to lose consciousness. She knew this. She was hemorrhaging in a helplessly fast current. He caught her before she hit the floor.
"Let me go you bastard!" She screamed, coming to her senses at his touch. She writhed in his arms, longing for the spot on the floor where she would have landed had he not caught her. "Let me go! You've taken everything from me," she gasped as he carried her to the car. "Just let us die here," she'd cried, her voice ragged with pain and grief as she struggled against him. "There's nothing left! You've taken it all away from me."
She'd lost consciousness before they even got to the car.
She woke many hours later in a hospital room, a stranger's blood swimming in her veins and no baby swimming in her womb.
Alone.
Empty.
The nurses told her she had been delirious. In addition to the blood loss that nearly killed her, she'd had an infection and rampant fever. That was when she had dreamed of Tom meeting her in front of the church on their wedding day. Their wedding that never happened in real life, played out in her fever dream as he led her down the aisle and gave her away to a blonde woman holding a baby on the altar. How she screamed as the woman dragged her away and handed Tom her baby.
For a moment, as she recalled this dream, she half wondered if Reddington had been telling her the truth. He'd sworn never to lie to her. But nothing made sense and her head swam with the sedatives and painkillers they had given her so she couldn't figure it out.
Part of her expected him to come walking into her hospital room with a bunch of flowers, make a few jokes, tell her a story that somehow circled back to the situation they were in. But no. She was done listening to stories at his knee. She would have none of it. He could give her nothing to ease this pain. There was nothing he could say to make her forgive him.
Nothing.
In the end, it had been Samar who came with flowers and a card from the rest of the staff. "We're all so sorry, Liz," she said. Her normally impassive face looked wrought with vicarious trauma.
"Thank you," Liz had said, feeling it was an absurd reply but not knowing what else to say.
"If you need anything, Liz, anything. . . we're all here for you." Samar took Liz's hand in her own and squeezed it. The warmth of her hand made Liz realize how cold her own fingers were.
It was the last human comfort and contact she had experienced.
She slams her laptop shut and walks to the kitchenette of her room. She uncorks a bottle of wine, sloshes some into a plastic cup, and tosses it back. Looking around, she locates her jeans hanging over the back of a chair. She digs her cell phone out of the pocket, contemplates putting the jeans back on but throws them back over the chair. She takes her phone, bottle and cup to the unmade bed and climbs in, pulling the sheet and blanket up over herself.
She thinks of Samar holding her hand and stares at her phone for the better part of an a hour, intermittently sipping her wine. Unbidden tears slide down her face in cool trickles.
After she has finished a third glass, she presses on her phone and dials the number for the one person she feels she can trust.