A/N - There's a bit of hurt and a bit of hope going on here...
xxxxx
Reddington had spirited her to a secluded cabin some 50 miles outside of Washington. While she was on bed rest, he sat with her, fed her, watched over her in her sleep, even read to her. She slowly began to gain weight and some colour returned to her skin. Mr Kaplan helped to bathe and dress her, but otherwise she left the two of them alone, not wanting to give her employer cause to change their arrangement.
After a couple of weeks the doctor gave her the all clear, saying that she would benefit from getting up and starting to regain some strength, and that a bit of fresh air wouldn't go amiss either. Red smiled gratefully at this news; he was beginning to feel a little claustrophobic being cooped up in the cabin for so long and, whilst he might be able to endure it fine (after all he'd put up with worse in the past) he was glad to be able to get outside.
He started to take her on small walks around the cabin, although their route was limited to level ground as she was confined to a wheelchair. He did manage to make her walk small amounts, although he could never be sure if he was pushing her too much as she never complained.
Her lack of recognition, however, made his heart ache. She barely spoke, only ever responding when asked a question directly, and then only with a handful of words. If he asked her to do something then she would do it without complaint or disagreement, but afterwards she would just sit or stand in silence until instructed otherwise. This worried him more than anything as he had always admired Lizzie's fight, even when it was directed at him.
xxxxx
After a few days, she had been able to walk the entire length of the path to the cabin with Reddington supporting her by the elbow. Reddington praised her a lot, hoping that this would illicit some sort of a response, although he wasn't surprised when it yielded no results. Instead he decided to try a different approach.
"Lizzie," he tried to use her name as often as possible, "would you like to join me in the lounge this evening after you've had a rest? It might be nice for you not to spend the whole night in your room."
"Yes, sir, that would be nice." Her voice was quiet and soft and she smiled obediently, but he'd expected nothing less.
Later that evening, after Reddington had knocked on her door to wake her and suggest again that she join him, she made her way into the lounge. He was momentarily confused when he realised that she was wearing a bathrobe; he hadn't told her to bathe and she wouldn't have decided to do that herself, such was the nature of her conditioning.
It was almost like watching a car crash, time seemed to slow down. As Reddington sat there confused, horrified, she undid the robe and slipped it from her shoulders, allowing it to pool on the floor around her feet. It took him a moment to realise that she was naked in front of him, offering herself to him in an almost robot-like way.
He recovered from his horror quickly and launched himself towards her, gathering up her robe from the floor and bundling it around her with shaking hands. As he did so, the cabin door opened and Mr Kaplan walked in. She opened her mouth to talk as she shut the door behind her, but the scene playing out in front of her gave her pause. Instead, she surveyed the room for a second before closing her mouth, nodding, and striding over to them.
"Let me do it, dear." She firmly but gently prised Reddington's hands off the robe and wrapped it around her before guiding her back to the bedroom.
She emerged ten minutes later to find Reddington sat by the fire, staring into an untouched glass of scotch. His face was dark and he was obviously deep in thought as he didn't notice her return until she touched him on the shoulder.
"I've explained to Elizabeth that you don't want her for that, Raymond." The disgust in her voice was palpable, and Reddington shuddered slightly. "But it might be better if she hears it from you as well."
"I..." Reddington's voice was rough and filled with emotion. He swallowed and tried again. "I hadn't contemplated that she would do something like that, Kate, I had never expected her reprogramming to be so... thorough." He sighed and lowered his head to the palm of his free hand. "I worry that I'll never be able to bring her back."
"Just give it time," Kaplan's voice was almost maternal, the revulsion of a moment ago stripped away and replaced by an authoritative edge. "She needs you not to give up on her and she needs you not to give up on yourself either. You need to be the one to lead her out of this, nobody else is going to be able to do that."
Settling down in the chair opposite Reddington, Mr Kaplan indicated that he should pour her a measure of scotch too, and they whiled away the rest of the evening in companionable silence.
xxxxx
Reddington never slept well, even when he didn't have so much on his mind, so now he often sat up late into the night. One night, a few weeks after they had first arrived at the cabin, he was sat in front of a dying fire, staring deep into a glass of scotch, the rain falling against the windows lulling him into an almost meditative state. A strange noise roused him suddenly from his reverie, one he could only describe as the keening of an injured animal.
Standing, he went in search of the source of the noise, and tracked it back to her bedroom. As he drew close, the keening turned into a wail, the wailing into a scream, and threw open the door to her room, terrified that someone might be hurting her. As he entered, he saw her curled up in the foetal position, her hands over her head, her face twisted into a mask of terror, and then it hit him that she was having a nightmare.
Rushing to her side, Reddington gathered her up into his arms and held her close to him, whispering soothing nothings as her screams subsided. He sat like that for what seemed like hours as the tension finally left her body and she began to relax into that susceptible state on the edge of sleep and waking. As he felt the sleep ebbing from her, he leant down and whispered to her a phrase he had said to her once, right before they embarked on an undercover operation in the early days of their relationship.
"You have me. And I'm not going to let anything happen to you."
He could feel her face shift gently against his arm as she whispered "Red".
And there, sat on her bed, with the first light of dawn seeping through the window, he smiled genuinely for the first time in so many months as tears fell from his eyes.
