A/N: Kind of a short chapter, but hopefully satisfying all the same. Properly disclaimed and thoroughly un-beta'd. Thanks for reading!
The flowers arrived at work the next day, a beautiful, elegant arrangement of lilies in a bold fuchsia color. No card, no name, just an abundance of color and scent. One of her coworkers stopped by her office to admire them.
"Who sent these? They're beautiful."
"No idea. No card or note with them. "Lizzie sipped her coffee and contemplated the speckled pink petals. She could guess who they were from, but she hated to assume, and a tiny voice in her head said she also didn't care for disappointment, if she were wrong.
"Not often you see an arrangement of just Stargazer lilies. Usually they mix them up with other flowers."
Lizzie's eyes snapped up to her coworker with a start.
"What did you say they were called?" She knew little about flowers, only enough to keep the ones on her balcony alive.
"They're Stargazer lilies."
Stargazer. No longer just guesswork, now she knew Red had sent the flowers. She didn't know why exactly, but she could hazard a guess there as well. She had spent an hour on the phone with her Aunt June that morning, trying to carefully wheedle information about her own past from the woman. She may as well have tried to wrestle candy from a sugar addict for all the good it did. Her past was still shrouded in mystery, except for the bare bones of the story and the scar on her wrist. She wondered if Raymond Reddington would be willing to play twenty questions next time they met.
Night found her at the picnic table again, making notes on a chart. A rustle behind her made her stop and look around. Sure enough, she could make out the outline of fedora and overcoat in the darkness. He palmed his hat and set it on the table and stood looking down at her, the tiniest smile tipping the corners of his full lips.
"Thank you for the flowers."
"I thought you might figure out it was me. You're a clever woman, Lizzie."
"Flattery will get you nowhere with me, Red." She rolled her eyes as she picked up her star charts and moved over to the telescope. She had set it up to find Mars and possibly Jupiter tonight. She made a few adjustments and looked through the eyepiece, scanning for the steady bright light that would indicate a planet rather than a star. She felt Red behind her, just before his hand wrapped around hers, tugging her away from her telescope.
"I know flowers won't create trust where there is none, Lizzie. Consider them a prelude to a partial explanation." He stood close to her, still holding her hand, stroking the palm with his thumb while Lizzie tried to concentrate on his words.
"Partial explanations? Why only partial?"
"Full disclosure could get you killed."
That was a conversation stopper. Lizzie pulled her hand away, backing up to the table and sitting down hard. So, a technically dead man was telling her that explaining the truth about himself might end her life. Nothing scary about that at all. He stood over her like some dark angel, a harbinger of doom in a cashmere overcoat.
"I'm a criminal, Lizzie. I was an intelligence operative for the government, but then they turned on me. They killed most of my former team, and my CI, and they tried to kill me. So I turned on them. It has made me obnoxiously wealthy, but also a fugitive." His voice had died to almost a whisper by the time he finished his sentence. His mouth was pressed into a straight thin line, his eyes shuttered and dark. In her earliest training in psychological counseling, they taught that often bodies and faces told the tale far more articulately than any words. She studied him in the dim light. Red's face was a study in fear. Fear of judgment. Fear of rejection. This was a man who carried so many secrets that they seemed to inhabit his body like so many ghosts. Was one of those ghosts hers?
He sat down beside her on the bench, watching her face, not unlike she had done a moment ago. Lizzie stared off into the distance, trying to find the words she needed. It was a bit like picking out a planet among all those stars.
"You told me about a girl you saved from a fire, Elizabeth. Where was it?" She kept her face turned away, she was a terrible deceiver, and he was far too observant.
"Lincoln, Nebraska." Lizzie turned back to Red, wide-eyed as she pushed up the sleeve of her jacket. Her scar was faint, but still visible in the lamp light. He stared at the mark, horror-struck by the implications. He started to stand, but she grabbed his arm and tugged him back down.
"I think I need that full disclosure, Red."