Glass

For the Guest who left the prompt – thank you.

All she sees is glass. And Red. And blood. And rage. At whatever, whoever, what anything – what anywhere led to this…and she rushes forward to where he lies still on the ground.

The pavement wet with evening rain and all of everything smelling of hot humid asphalt. And the smell of blood. Metallic and lingering and –

She reaches him in a matter of seconds, a matter of heartbeats, and she feels the edges of the shards find purchase in her skin but no pain registers as she reaches her hands farther out – the reaching takes forever but no time – and finds the side of his neck.

Still warm. His skin soft and slick and still warm. Her heart beating one off in a sigh of relief and she looks up to find Dembe's shoes even with her line of sight.

He's still here. She hears herself say, and she's not sure if Dembe thinks that she means that they (whoever they are, Berlin? her father? Another adversary?) left him here on the street or if he interprets her true meaning that he is still here. That Raymond Reddington is still here on this godforsaken earth and for that she remains in theory upright and functioning.

She leans back in and feels along his neck, strains with two fingers, and there it is again – a pulse, slight, tentative, but there. Definitely there.

She remembers walking into his hotel suite – how long ago was that now? Months, days, years? It seems like it has always been like this. Lizzie. Red. Together – no punctuation in the middle. She walked into his suite and tore her hands across the side table. Rage and fury and anger (not unlike now) determining her judgment her movements, and she had pushed that pen into his neck and there had been blood.

But that had just been blood of a man, of an enemy, of a person who only existed as a photo on a white sheet of paper in a government office and this man in front of her – same man, same blood – was Red. And, oh my god, she can't lose him now.

She glances up again and sees a familiar black sedan rounding the corner, windows up and tinted, traveling at a high rate of speed. Mr. Kaplan. Mr. Kaplan. She says it again out loud but really for herself. Mr. Kaplan will put him back together. Put them all back together.

She sees him in her mind, how he must have hung from the chains in the warehouse. How Anslo almost took him, but didn't. How Anslo almost took her, but Red traded his life in exchange for hers and she should have know it then but didn't. Or didn't let herself anyway. Think about it – think about Red.

And Mr. Kaplan had come that time too, with the Calvary, and they had been too late. Or so she had thought.

And then he had come back and maybe, maybe, if she thinks about it now – watching his blood navigate the shallow maze of the paving stones and pool – oh god, it must be too much if it has started to pool – she probably knew it then, when he stood there unassuming in her living room.

Mr. Kaplan is out of the car now and right at her side, Red's side, and seems to be less concerned than Lizzie but still has a frown on her face.

He'll be all right, dearie, she says. But Liz doesn't believe her because that's what anyone tells anyone else when they want them to calm down and not get in the way of the being all right. In the middle of the saving or dying or whatever is really going down.

She leans down over his body, touches her lips to his ear (still warm), and whispers sweet words to him because now, there might not be another time. And the words have been there forever but she hasn't spoken them aloud.

She remembers him widening his eyes in surprise as she stood, waiting and fidgeting, for him in a red dress in a house that wasn't hers but wasn't his either. How the appreciation was there and it made her think things, feel things, but she had said nothing just smiled and then he had taken her hand.

She should have told him then.

But she didn't. And now there is so much glass.

Above her Dembe talks to Mr. Kaplan and they say words, words, words, which seem to indicate that he shot back and they (who are they?) got away. Hence the glass. Hence the blood.

She leans back in and repeats the words to him but his eyes don't open. All of him stays so still and when she hears the siren of an ambulance she knows that Mr. Kaplan was lying. That he won't be ok or they wouldn't have called for the paramedics because paramedics operate in the pedestrian world and will know who he is and that he does not. Operate in the pedestrian world with freedom that is.

The scream of the siren reverberates off the brick buildings and the approaching lights bounce across the fractured glass and she's scared. Hot and cold and not sure this is real. And so, so afraid.

She tells him this, in his ear, and repeats the words. And tells him she's sorry she didn't say them sooner but she wasn't sure if he wanted to hear them or not and what would she have done if he did?

And that world of what if that used to terrify her has become the only place she wants to be in this moment of glass, and blood, and people who do not know him.

She places his hands on his cold ones and begs him not to go. To stay with her. And to know.

He has to know.

The uniformed technicians spew forth from the ambulance and go about assessing and asking and strapping him to a stretcher.

Taking him away. But from her vantage point it's clear that he is not dead.

And she'll stick with that for right now, thank you very much.

Mr. Kaplan approaches her from behind and pushes her towards the vehicle with the spinning lights and before she knows what is happening she's sitting on a vinyl covered bench watching them make him breathe and holding Red's hand in her own.

The streets begin to blur by in a hurry and outside she sees the buildings, trees, people pass and she realizes that no matter what happens she is ok to not go back to that world as long as she can stay with him wherever he is.

She leans over, amidst the tubes, and monitors, and hands, and whispers the words in his ear again and she knows this is serious and wills him to be ok…just to be ok…even if he hates the words and never talks to her again.

And the hand in her own twitches. And she looks at him and nothing seems to be happening but the beep beep beep of the monitors and the frantic words of the driver talking to whoever is ahead.

And the hand tightens on hers and releases.

And she knows it – knows beyond anything before or ever - that her words are his.

And they speed on through the night.