Well, I did say I would add to this when it fancied me, haha. And I also found an unfinished chapter of it in the bowels of my saved documents so...here it is! This is, technically, the second half of the last chapter. Hope you guys enjoy it.


She was crouched on the floor beside the bed. Gun in hand. Eyes probing the dark. Heart in her throat. It took her a moment between listening and catching her breath to realize why she was in this position in the first place.

Pounding at her door.
Demanding.

The focused intake of breath that passed through her lips sounded too startled for her liking but everything else was as it should be. She'd been practicing this move religiously. Set an alarm on her phone. Rolled from her side of the bed into a crouch when it went off. Gun beside the bed. Practiced swiping it smoothly after she mastered the position she would take for cover. Practiced deliberate breathing techniques to lower her heart rate. Made sure to duck lower beside the bed as to shield the top of her skull. Waited for the day when she could do it without thinking too much.

Over and over and over again.
An act of someone that wants to continue surviving and is paranoid she won't.

Tonight was the night that no phone alarm would have to drag her from sleep. And she had been more than prepared for it. Ears straining, Liz cautiously makes her way along the wall. Her eyes dart to her hotel window and after a second of watching the shades, the pounding on her door is back.

Gun leading the way, she trails off to the right down the hall, passes the bathroom door she closed before bed, and puts her eye up to the peep hole. Her breathing hitches. She flicks the safety of her gun back into place and reaches for the latch above the knob.

When she swings the door open, Red practically falls over the threshold. The two of them careen into the wall behind her, and she nearly drops her gun. Her hands have gone around his middle in order to catch him, but he reacts like he's been shocked. Teeth bared in front of her. Air hissed between them. And before she can say anything more than his name, he's moving; lurching away from her and the wall with a barely suppressed grunt, and makes a beeline through the dark for the room beyond the hallway.

"Red, what-hey." She's snagged his attention but it's a minute movement; a jerk of his head so that the side of his face can be seen in the wan light filtering in around the blinds of her window. He seems to sway for a moment in the dark, and it takes her only a handful of seconds to secure her door and walk briskly to his side. He bends then, searching through her room's mini-fridge. There's the tinkling of glass and a sharp, impatient sigh when he drops one of them onto the floor. Liz has moved towards the light beside her bed and she's just about to turn it on when he grumbles,

"No lights, Lizzie." He grunts as he eases himself to perch on the end of the bed. "Please."

"What's going on?"

"You need to get ahold of Ressler." That tinkling sound is back and she's trying to temper her frustration as she listens to him unscrew what he's grabbed from the mini-fridge. "Tell him-" his shadow moves and he throws one back. "Ah-tell him to get over here." She grabs her cellphone off the night stand and texts Ressler about Red's impromptu visit. Out of the corner of her eye, outside the glare of her phone's screen, she sees Red bent at an odd angle; his head bowed, canted to the side, and a hand pulling his jacket away. It's the slight intake of air that makes her squint through the dark towards him; her eyes roving over him with concern.

"You're hurt." The words seem to fall out of her mouth and hit the floor; heavy and ready for a deflection.

"Seems Tom isn't as dead as I thought." Half of his smirk is visible to her; the other half of his face dramatically cast in darkness. She's frozen. A dozen lies sit on the tip of her tongue and all she can do is look at him with as much stoicism as she can muster. Go to his side or stand resolute? It didn't matter. He was suddenly a pariah; dangerous and injured and she didn't know what to do with him.

"I couldn't tell you." Not that she didn't know how. Not when a good time would have been. Not that he was useful and helped get them the necessary lead to the meet with Berlin in order to save Red's life. Not how scared and confused she'd been after Meera's death, Cooper's dire-straights, and the inevitability of Red's abduction.

Should have.
Didn't.
Couldn't.
Plain, but not so simple.
The dull sound of her phone vibrating with Ressler's reply shakes away whatever Red was going to say back to her. She steps towards the lamp by the side of her bed.

"Ressler's on his way over with Samar. I'm gonna turn the light on. I need to check you ov-" Out of the dark, Red grasps her wrist, holding her fast. She looks down at his hand; startled by the grip and uncomfortable with how it bunches the skin around her scar.

"You could have." Thank God it's more dark than light in here. The pinched way his voice meshes with the shadows and the emotional turmoil that makes his eyes glint in the meager light of her phone is almost too much at this proximity. Lines she can't normally see are afforded to her in the most awful of ways. Like he's bone white and someone has shoved soot in them. He's worse for wear this close. Stressed. A kind of feral desperation that clouds her judgement and makes her eyes settle on his own. Without him saying so, she senses that there is something horrible bothering him beneath his desire for her to trust him and the pain evident in his stare.

"I didn't know how." He loosens his grip as her whisper carries on and on between them; a never-ending loop of guilt and questioning, suspicion and trust. Around and around we go. She manages to slip out of his grasp in order to turn the light on.

When she turns back to him, both squinting as their eyes adjust, she sees how his suit is covered in dust and other debris, and that there's blood peeking out behind the edge of his jacket and vest. The shallow rise and fall of his chest as he takes care to breathe without moving too much of his abdomen alarms her. There's bruising on his jaw, a bloodied brow. He's not too pale, but there's a pull at the corners of his eyes and mouth that disturbs the confidence she has in his ability to appear untouchable. Even with the mess that Berlin had turned out to be, Lizzie still had this lens through which she deemed him indestructible. It helped her sleep at night.

The things we tell ourselves.

"Let's try to get a little bit of a handle on," She makes a sweeping gesture towards him before she settles her hands on her hips. "This before they get here."

The hotel room isn't spacious. One queen-size bed. A bathroom. Two lounge chairs. A TV. A last minute room for someone on a last minute trip. She had decided to switch motels earlier that week, but found the locks on her new residence didn't add up to her need for a secure door, so she booked a hotel room for the week. Nervous and uneasy. It was like before when she felt someone was watching her and it ended up being Ezra, one of Red's people. It was a little comforting to know, now that Tom was apparently back in the swing of things, that her intuition was as honed as ever.

She darts into the bathroom, snags the traveling kit from beside the sink, as well as a towel, and returns to him in a flash. He's drawn his jacket and vest back again and is trying to peek at the wound a little better now that the light is on.

She sets the supplies next to him on the bed and crouches down to get a better look at what they're dealing with. For a moment, she watches his tentative ministrations; how his bloodied fingers inspect the tender area, how he stops breathing when he does so, how intent he seems upon doing it himself. He was a mess, and it stands that it was Tom that did this to him. He moves to untuck his shirt, and the fabric pulls a little faster than he would have liked. When a helpless sound hisses through his teeth, she slowly reaches for his wrist.

"Stop that." He lets her draw his hand away and she's afforded the first real glimpse of what's been done to him. It's bloody and painful-looking, but what could've been a pretty nasty gut shot, turns out to be more of a shot meant to clip him than do any real damage. She knows that they are both aware that Tom could have killed him if he wanted. So why didn't he? She lifts the edges of his vest and jacket away from his shirt to peer around the side of him, finds that the bullet seems to only have grazed him, and gives him a look that mirrors the relief she feels.

"Small mercies," he says and she rises to help him as he stiffly removes his suit jacket and places it on the bed beside him.

"You're sure it was Tom?" She drags the chair from the foot of her bed and shoves it close enough that she can sit and examine him without unnecessary difficulty. The uneasy silence that fits into the breaths he always takes before telling her the truth is louder and more irritating this time. She's impatient. And she's already decided she isn't going anywhere. What could he possibly have to say that would make him hesitate? She knows he wouldn't lie, at least not outright. Part of her really didn't want it to be Tom, but she doesn't think he's mistaken. There would be no reason for him to jump to that conclusion of he wasn't sure.

"And Gina," he gets the assassin's name out around a grunt of discomfort as she lifts the bottom of his shirt up for him to hold. She winces, though whether at the mention of Gina or the way the fabric peels unkindly away from Red's skin, she isn't sure. There's some kind of crap all in his wound and she's suddenly exhausted by the idea of causing him more pain. She grabs the towel and some packages of gauze from her kit.

"Lie back." He blinks at her with a measured expression that turns a shade more sorrowful and angrier than she expected. "What?"

"Tom has-" A knock that's nearly simultaneous with Ressler's voice swallows whatever Red was going to say, and she takes one last look at him before going to her door and opening it up for her partners. She ushers them in with small, terse greetings, and closes the door again once they're in. After flipping all the locks, she turns to find Red listing to one side again and Samar taking up the position on the chair she'd just vacated.

"What happened?" Level, with just a note of concern, she inspects the wound with a tired, but amused, Reddington staring down at her.

"Tom happened." Both Samar and Ressler turn when Liz answers for him, having stopped just beside the bathroom door; inches into the shelter of the shadow cast out from the corner of the wall.

"Tom?" Ressler looks between Red and his partner with a deepening frown upon his face. "He's alive? How the hell did he get to you of all people?"

"Apparently," Red's breath hitches when Samar resumes the task Liz had tried to complete before their arrival. As she continues, the tightness in his voice remains, and somehow adds a level of tension that had been absent from the room. "He's reconnected with an old friend." While the crocodile smile is not lost in Red's expression, it's interrupted by a wince that twitches it's way across the criminal's features. He looks down, a bit too sharply, as Samar begins cleaning his wound.

"Don't look at me. I'm not the one who put a clotting agent in my bullet wound." Reddington scowls at the derisive tone in the Mossad Agent's voice. His jaw clenches and his eyes stray closed. Liz and Ressler exchange glances before Liz moves away from the wall and towards Red; noting the slight sheen on his forehead and the way the color drains from his face.

"I didn't." He manages to get the two words out and then Liz has stopped Samar with a gentle hand to her shoulder.

"Let's make him lie back first." She takes Red by the arm but he holds fast, his head bowed but listing slightly towards her.

"There's no time for all of this." His face bunches into a wince and he almost places a hand protectively over his side. His attention catches on Ressler who has moved to stand beside Samar, worry evident on his face. "Tom and Gina have Dembe."


okay so I'm still chipping away and apparently this is going to be a three part event haha hope you enjoyed it! Thanks for being patient on my other stories as I get through them. Expect the next part soon!