A month later, Ressler was awake in the middle of the night, sitting quietly with Liz. It was somewhere he didn't have to answer to anyone. He could sit quietly, not quite alone, and just think. Talk if he wanted, and tell Liz things he wasn't willing to share with everyone. But still, he could not bring himself to tell her the complete mess he was in. He had told her a modified version of what he'd told Cooper though.
Reddington had been right. Of course. The Nash Drug Syndicate was just a front, and underneath was an underground network that the Bureau was still sifting through, weeks later. Anthony Nash had been quiet as a mouse at first, swearing on his grandmother's grave that there was nothing illegal going on and feigning cooperation. But when Ressler had pulled the man aside and told him who was in prison with his brother Mark, and the fact Reddington had proof that could set Mark free, he could literally see the blood drain from Nash's face. The thought of being exposed for that murder and his family at his brother's mercy if released had made him sing like a canary, just like Reddington had said he would.
But getting to the bottom of why he'd had his men attack Liz had been a different matter. Nash had insisted he did not know who'd hired him. His client always called from a burner phone and he had no way to contact the man. And after weeks of this, Ressler was inclined to believe him. He had no reason to hide that anymore. He was going to jail for life. The one lead Ressler thought he'd had on Liz's attack was still a dead end.
Like the dead bodies Red had Prescott clean up. Ressler still had not contacted the Fixer on that. He could not bring himself to willingly contact the man.
He leaned forward, took Liz's soft hand in his and looked at her in the soft lamp light of her room. She was thinner. Despite the nutrition and physical therapy Debbie was giving her, her muscles were atrophying from lack of use. Her cheek bones were more pronounced under the vent. She'd lain in this bed for almost 7 months.
He longed to see her eyes. Hear her voice and see her smile. He was beginning to think he'd never see her awake again. And that hurt very much.
"Please, Liz… please wake up," he whispered to her. She had missed her daughter's second birthday. She'd missed most of her life, in fact. "We had Agnes's birthday party," he told her, his face close by hers. "Aram insisted on this pink mermaid cake. He was very proud of it, and picked it up before the party. Agnes, well she was more interested in the boxes her presents came in. And she wore most of the cake," he told her, smiling at that memory. "She had a good time though, Liz. You'd be so proud of her. She's getting to be so big now." He'd already told her about Agnes's birthday party the day they'd had it, weeks prior. But he found himself repeating things, just to be talking with her.
A sound behind him in the direction of the kitchen stopped him, and he listened. The distinct tone of Reddington's voice reached his ears, and he leaned back. Reddington had been released from Florence three days earlier, yet had gone to ground right after. Despite the fact his immunity agreement had been reinstated the day after Ressler visited him, the DOJ had been in no hurry to release him. And so it was weeks later before his paperwork was finally done. It was the first time Ressler had heard the man since they'd spoken in prison. Footsteps approached Liz's room, and the door opened more as Reddington stepped into the room.
"Donald, I'm sorry, I didn't know you'd be in here."
Ressler got up from the chair, not particularly wanting to talk with the man. "It's okay, I was just heading for bed. You can sit with her," he told the criminal. The man hadn't seen her in almost a month. He deserved some time with her.
Reddington approached the bed, and dropped his fedora onto a dresser. He stood in the soft light, taking in the sight of her. "She's gotten smaller…"
Ressler nodded. "She has. She's…fading away." He turned to leave the room.
Red's hand was on his arm. "I won't be long, Dembe's just getting a meal together in the kitchen, if you'd join us."
Ressler paused, not looking at the man. "It's late, I'm gonna head to bed." Reddington's arm dropped from his.
"Goodnight, Donald."
###
He may have escaped talking with Red in the early hours, but he could not avoid the knock on his door in the morning. Ressler opened it to find Red standing there, hat literally in his hand.
"May I come in?"
Still doing up his tie, Ressler stepped aside silently, and let the man enter.
"I've come to apologize," Red said, getting straight to the point.
"Why?" Ressler didn't ask for what. He already knew that.
Reddington nodded. "Because it warrants one." He then continued, "I'm sorry that the lead I gave you on Nash has not panned out like I had hoped regarding Elizabeth's attackers."
"We're still trying to find who hired Nash. Nothing yet, but we're still looking," Ressler told him, putting his suit jacket on. "But with the men who carried it out conveniently dead and disposed of, that's not looking promising."
"Point taken. But I did tell you where to find them," Red replied. "I also came to thank you."
Ressler didn't need to ask what for either. He really could read the man like a book. He didn't know if that was a good thing.
"I put you in a very difficult position with Cynthia Panabaker, and yet, here I stand, a free man again, thanks to you."
Ressler almost said "You owe me one," but didn't. Not with his new life of owing Prescott favors.
"So, I owe you one."
"Where have you been?" Ressler asked, ignoring the comment.
"Oh, here and there. After getting out of my 10 x 12 concrete box, I needed to stretch my legs somewhat."
"For three days?"
"Yes." Reddington turned to Ressler, studying the agent. "I'm sorry our last meeting was so…upsetting to you," he said, softening his voice.
Ressler didn't want to talk about that, and stepped toward the door to grab his overcoat.
"A few months ago I told you that if you were ever in a position you needed something, I could help."
Ressler looked down, not meeting Red's eyes. "Yeah, well, like I said then, I don't need any help."
"I don't believe that's entirely true, Donald. When we spoke in the prison, you didn't become unglued until I mentioned Henry Prescott."
Ressler's heart jumped. "I gotta go," he said, pulling on his overcoat and heading for the door. The fact it was his room and he was leaving Reddington in it didn't matter. It was Red's house.
"I know how easy it is for a good man to find himself in a bad situation. Trust me. I know how it happens, and it always starts with a favor."
Ressler was suddenly back in the car with Prescott. You're gonna be doing me some favors in the very near future. He left the room without saying another word.
Red stood in Ressler's room, slowly shaking his head. "Oh, Donald…what a tangled web we weave," he murmured, before putting on his hat and walking to the window. He watched Ressler exit the house and drive away.
###
Ressler's conversation with Red was still sitting uncomfortably with him. But it had prompted him to do something he should have done weeks ago. Pulling his phone from his pocket as he drove, he found the number, then dialed it.
"What do you want?" Prescott said in his ear.
"We need to talk."
"We talk when I say we talk. You don't call those shots, Mr. Sturgeon." Prescott emphasized his undercover name, making it sound like a dirty word. Which, of course, it was.
Ressler wasn't having it this time. "A few months ago, you cleaned up a crime scene. Got rid of a few bodies from an apartment. I need access to those bodies."
"Oh, you need access? Since when do I do favors for you? Not gonna happen." Prescott hung up in his ear.
As soon as the line went dead, Ressler texted Aram while he drove. [Gotta take care of something. Be there asap] He ignored Aram's return text asking him if he was working on a case. He then turned at the next light, changing direction as he drove across town to the neighborhood he'd been in over a year previously. A residential neighborhood with a non-descript storage shed at the back of a large lot. Henry Prescott's body dump. The area was quiet as he pulled in some time later. Exiting the car, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck prickle at the memory of his previous visit and Reven Wright's discovery, he walked toward the shed. The storage shed was padlocked with a heavy chain. But he'd expected that. After a trip around the entire building, satisfied there was no other way inside, he settled in to wait.
And it didn't take long. Ressler felt a twinge of satisfaction when Prescott arrived 20 minutes later. "Agent Ressler, what are you doing here?"
"Waiting for you," Ressler told him, rising from the tree log he'd been sitting on.
"I told you, you don't call the shots."
Ressler gave a shrug. "And yet, here you are." He peered in the closest dirty window. "Some of your drums contain bodies from a crime scene you cleaned up in an apartment for Raymond Reddington."
Prescott regarded him. "If I do this for you, you're gonna be doing favors for me for a very, very long time. I will own you for years longer than our original agreement," he replied, turning this to his advantage.
Ressler ignored that. He already knew that was how Prescott would spin this. "They're part of an ongoing case my team is investigating. And don't think you can show me different bodies. I'm looking for November 15th, 2017." For the first time it occurred to him that Liz was attacked almost two years to the date from Reven's murder.
"You're mine," Prescott told him, then fished out some keys from his pocket. As the padlock and chains fell away, and they stepped into the dark depository of silent drums, Ressler's mind was filled with memories of finding Reven Wright. Grabbing a flashlight, he followed Prescott through the murky room, to stand before 4 drums with the date he was looking for. Taking the offered gloves and mask, he knew the drill as Prescott pried off the lid to the first drum.
"What are you gonna do with them?" Prescott asked, shining his flashlight into the drum to reveal the head of someone under the formaldehyde.
"Print them," Ressler said, taking the kit from his coat pocket. He'd got it from his vehicle while waiting on Prescott. "Identify them."
And it was no easy task, having to get each arm, dry the hands and then print each finger, remarkably preserved in the liquid. He also took photos of their faces, dried off as best he could. But as they moved to each drum, he was inwardly surprised at Prescott's assistance. But then he also knew the price of this. Prescott was right. He owned him. He squashed it down, concentrating on getting all the prints of the four men. As he got the final prints, putting all of it back in the bag and in his coat pocket, Prescott resealed the final drum.
They exited the building, and Ressler was glad of the fresh air after breathing in the chemicals in the shed for so long. As Prescott chained and padlocked the door behind him, he turned to Ressler.
"Don't ever call me again. I contact you. You got that?"
"Loud and clear," Ressler told him as the Fixer walked away. But he'd got what he came for. He couldn't think about what it had cost him. Because it was worth it if it led to more information on what had happened to Liz.
###
"Where did you get these?" Samar asked him as Aram busied himself with the four sets of prints.
"Reddington. He got a lead and says these men were in Liz's apartment the night she was attacked." It worried Ressler how quickly he could lie these days. But then, it was actually the truth, just stretched. Very stretched. He left out the part about them being dead and hidden in drums of formaldehyde by his Fixer for months.
"This shouldn't take too long to run them through CODIS," Aram told him, breaking into his thoughts.
CODIS, thought Ressler. They still had never found what search Liz, or Tom with Liz's badge had run. It felt like he was playing chess with half his pieces missing. And the knowledge that the King on the board, Reddington, knew more than he was sharing was growing. Not that it was a new feeling where Reddington was concerned. But coupled with his own hiding of details from everyone around him, it was doubly frustrating.
Cooper came up to them. "Reddington is back. He just called with a case and he'll be here soon," he told his team. "Aram, what are you working on?"
"Oh, um, it's…"
"Prints I asked him to run. Information that Reddington supplied on men present the night Liz was attacked."
Cooper raised his eyebrows. "I see. So you've already spoken to Reddington today."
Ressler shifted his eyes. "Yeah, well, we do spend time in the same house, currently."
Cooper smiled and nodded. Ressler's explanation was sufficient, though it was obvious from the prolonged gaze at Ressler, he knew the agent wasn't telling everything. "This is a good lead. Aram, anything coming up on the prints?"
"Nothing… not a thing yet, but I'm still looking in other databases," he replied, keeping his eyes to his screen.
A prickle of unease ran through Ressler. If these men were in the system, CODIS would have flagged them by now. Unless…
"These men, how did Reddington obtain their prints? Where are they?" Cooper asked Ressler.
Ressler didn't meet Cooper's eyes, keeping them averted and watching the trace on Aram's computer. "Reddington didn't say," he said, feeling his stomach churn.
"Well, speak of the devil. We can ask him." The elevator door opened to reveal Reddington and Dembe approaching. Ressler's stomach dropped even more.
"Good morning everyone. Lovely to be back," Redding waxed, smiling as he came up to the team.
"These prints," Cooper said, getting right to the point. "How did you know these are the men who attacked Elizabeth?"
Ressler didn't dare meet Red's eyes.
Reddington didn't miss a beat, however. "I haven't been idle in the months since Tom's death and Elizabeth's attack. I assure you, these men were there that night."
"Well, we're going to need to talk to them," Cooper said.
"That's going to be rather difficult, Harold. You can't talk to them. They're dead. But I did have their prints."
"Dead? How do you know they're dead?" Cooper asked.
"Well, they certainly didn't give up their prints willingly. They were quite dead when that happened," Reddington told them, holding up his hands against Cooper's protest.
"We could have questioned them. Did you kill them?"
Still Ressler did not meet the criminal's eyes.
"So that's what you've been doing since you got out of prison?" Cooper asked.
"Harold, as much as it may come as a surprise you, yes, there are occasions I need to kill people. I gave Agent Ressler those prints after I obtained them. Aram, I assume that's what you're searching diligently on there?"
Ressler felt ill. Reddington had just covered for him. Things were getting too complicated. He was getting trapped in lies and half-truths everywhere he turned.
Aram's screen finally stopped its endless scrolling through names and he looked up at Reddington. "The prints aren't in any database. None. I've searched all the law enforcement ones," he said, looking up apologetically at Red.
"Well, that does complicate matters, doesn't it?" Reddington said. "Harold, a word?" With that, Cooper and Reddington headed upstairs.
Ressler grabbed the corner of Aram's desk to steady himself. Something was wrong. He was all but positive that those names would have been in the databases. In the time it had taken him to drive back to the Post Office and run the search, he was now sure Prescott had had them removed from CODIS. There was no telling how deep his web of informants and contacts ran. He sagged under the weight of the additional years of servitude he now owed the Fixer, and for nothing.
Prescott had played him.
He clenched his teeth. And so was Reddington. Giving the task force just enough to keep them working and his own immunity agreement intact, but not enough to ever find anything. As usual, Reddington had his own agenda in all of this.
"Ressler?"
He slid his eyes to Samar.
"What's going on here?" she asked.
"I don't know anymore," he told her, shaking his head and dropping his eyes. "I don't know!" he said, raising his voice to her startled eyes.
And suddenly he couldn't be there. With CODIS searches and hidden agendas and his own lying to his team and boss, and Prescott hovering over everything, he just couldn't be there. Still in his overcoat, keys jangling in his pocket, he left them and strode toward the elevator.
"Where are you going?" Aram asked.
"Ressler? What's going on?" Samar called after him. "Ressler!"
But he ignored both of them, punching the button to the elevator and getting out of there.
###
Traffic was light and he got back to Camp Liz in record time. As he strode into the house and past the kitchen, he heard Debbie call out to him, but he ignored her.
He entered Liz's room, stood at the foot of her bed and stared at her. "Why can't you wake up?" he asked her, his voice a little above the tone he normally used with her.
She lay there, unresponsive to everything around her as she'd done for almost 7 months.
"Liz, why can't you wake up?" he asked her, louder now.
"I need you to wake up!" he told her, raising his voice now. He walked to the head of the bed, looking down at her.
"Wake up," he told her through clenched teeth. "Dammit, wake up."
"Wake up!" he shouted at her now, tears pricking his eyes as desperation broke through.
"Wake up, dammit!" he yelled, leaning down to her, tears spilling over. "I need you. Wake up!" he yelled, tears rolling down his cheeks.
"Why won't you wake up? Why?!" he shouted to her as she slept on, oblivious to his pain.
Behind him, Debbie slipped silently into the room, not wishing to intrude, but concerned. "Don," she said softly.
He turned to the nurse, pointing at Liz. "Why won't she wake up? There's nothing wrong with her!" he shouted, tears falling as he begged the nurse. "Make her wake up!"
"Don, sit down. Come on, sit down here," she urged, approaching him.
"I just need her to wake up!" he cried, moving away from the nurse's hand.
"I know you do. I know that. Come on, sit down here," she said softly again, as he stepped further away, running his hands through his hair.
"Make her wake up. Please," he begged her, tears falling.
"I can't. She can't wake up until she's good and ready. I'm so sorry."
"I need her! I need to talk to her!" he told her, his voice cracking with his tears.
"Talk to me. Come on, Don," she told him, now getting her hand on his arm and steering him to the sitting area in the room. "Talk to me."
And he almost sat, and almost talked with Debbie, but part of him couldn't do it. He shook his head, tears still streaming, and with a last look at Liz, he fled from the room.
And heading down the hallway toward the front door, his walk became a jog, which became a run. Running to his car, he knew where he needed to go. Away from Liz and her endless sleep. Away from Reddington and his hidden agenda and half-truths. Away from Henry Prescott and his favors. Away from the looks and questions in his coworker's eyes.
He drove away from the house, not seeing Debbie's worried eyes watching him from Liz's room. He headed out of town, heading south. Toward the cabin where there was no internet. No phone signal. And no one to demand anything of him.
