Tom's eyes flew open. White walls. Heart monitor beeping erratically. Pain in his shoulder. Pain in his head. IV in his arm. Metal cuff around his right wrist, chaining him to the bed. What was going on? The door to the hospital room flew open revealing Agent Ressler looking as pissed as Tom had ever seen him.

"Where is she, you son of a bitch?!" Tom blinked, feeling disoriented by the question. Where was who? Liz? Why was Ressler asking him that? Tom suddenly remembered the handcuffs and the pieces slowly started to fall into place. Something had happened to Liz and Ressler thought he was responsible. Tom strained his memory to make sense of it, but found nothing but bits and pieces.

A night club. Christopher Hendricks. Hotel room. Kissing Liz. Explosion. Smoke. Bullets flying. Pain. Blood. Serbian accents. Liz's voice screaming his name…

"What happened?" Why couldn't he remember?! His head certainly hurt. Did he have a concussion? Was it the pain medication that was dulling his mind? Tom yanked the IV out of his arm. Gunshot wound or no, he needed to be sharp. Liz was missing. Liz had been taken from him…

A shrill beeping filled his ears as his heart rate spiked. He couldn't think. He couldn't breathe. He hadn't felt like this since the day he'd called Liz at work and been answered by a man who had claimed he was going to kill his wife.

"The innocent act might have worked for you before, but I would seriously advise you against an encore performance. No one is going to take the fall for you this time." Ressler's voice dragged Tom back into the present. Liz hadn't died then and she wasn't going to die now. He needed to focus, to gather information.

"Agent Ressler, I don't know what it is you think I've done, but if you don't start explaining what is going on, I promise you will live to regret it." Liz had been abducted; that much was obvious. What was less clear was why Agent Ressler suspected him. Was it simply Ressler's general mistrust, given Tom's past associations, or was there more to it than that?

"Give it up, Keen. We found your account at Monarch Douglas. We know about the deposit. We got you cold on conspiracy to the kidnapping of a federal agent. I should mention that three agents died during the attack, so that tacks on felony murder. If you talk now, MAYBE I can convince the prosecutor to take the death penalty off the table. Where is Agent Scott?"

He was being framed. That made sense. Liz's kidnappers must have been professionals, but even professionals couldn't have made it through the security the FBI had provided without inside help. Whoever they had on the inside was diverting suspicion onto him. He was an obvious target, a criminal distrusted by the rest of the team, brought in only on another criminal's say so.

The fact they were using his Monarch Douglas account was both good and bad news. The good news was that very few people knew his account number and they all worked for Berlin. He now knew who had staged the attack. The bad news was that he'd have a hard time convincing Agent Ressler that he'd been set up.

A fake bank account would be one thing, Aram, assuming he wasn't the mole, could eventually prove it was a false trail. The fact that they'd used his real account meant he had no proof that this wasn't exactly what it appeared to be. Add to that the fact he'd been left alive, with relatively minor injuries, and the pre-existing prejudice Ressler had against him, and Tom was more or less screwed. The truth would not set him free, so he needed to try a lie.

"You want to find your partner alive Agent Ressler, I'd suggest you unlock these handcuffs." Tom trained his face into its most dispassionate and sinister expression. If this was going to work, Ressler would need to believe Tom was the monster the agent had always suspected he was. Ressler's curled lip told Tom he was on the right track.

"Not happening, pal." Tom searched his memory for everything he knew about Agent Ressler. He'd done extensive research on every member of the team, identifying potential security threats. They all had come back clean, but every agent had external vulnerabilities, loved ones, with the sole exception of Ressler. His parents were dead, no siblings, no close friends and because of that there was very little chance Berlin would have chosen him as his inside man. Ressler had once had a girlfriend, but she had been killed about four months ago. That was the pressure point Tom needed to push.

"That's too bad. You seem to be making a habit of losing the women in your life. What was your girlfriend's name again? Alice? Aubrey? No…Audrey, right? Died in your arms, didn't she? You were right there, and you couldn't do a thing to help her, just like you can't help Lizzie." Ressler took a step towards Tom's bed, rage etched in every line of his face. Perfect.

"What are you going to do Agent Ressler? Beat the truth out of me, with a pair of your colleagues right outside the door?" Ressler stopped and Tom smiled his most taunting smirk. Would Ressler take the bait? It was against protocol, but the man had a lot of rage inside him.

The ginger-haired agent stared at Tom for what felt like an eternity, before walking over to the door, opening it, and exiting the room. Tom watched through the window as Ressler spoke to the agents outside. After a few exchanges the men nodded, and left their post without a backward glance. Tom's smile became genuine. Thank goodness for the willingness of law enforcement officers to overlook civil liberties when one of their own was threatened. It was going to make breaking out of the hospital that much easier.

Tom reached over with his free left hand, wincing as moved his injured shoulder, grabbed his right thumb and popped it out of joint. He bit down on his tongue to keep from crying out in pain. Damn, that never stopped hurting.

Ressler re-entered the room, and Tom repasted a smile on his face. "Am I going to get beat up now, Agent Ressler?" Ressler smiled thinly and proceed to pull the blinds in the room. This was getting better and better.

"You know, I once told Liz that I would rough up for her. Funny how things work out, isn't it?" Ressler sidled up to the left side of Tom's bed and grabbed his left wrist with one hand and gently rested the other on Tom's injured shoulder.

"Last chance: Where is Agent Scott?" Tom knew he needed to be careful, that he'd only get one shot at this. Ressler would have to be distracted, so focused on hurting him that he won't see Tom's move before it was too late.

"I suppose that's open to interpretation. Tell me, what is your personal take on the afterlife?" Ressler's fingers squeezed his bullet wound, causing Tom's vision to go blurry with pain, though not enough to stop him from pulling his right hand free of the cuff and delivering a swift blow to Ressler's throat. The agent's hand instinctively flew to the injury, freeing Tom's left hand to deftly grab his gun. Tom pointed the weapon at Ressler's chest.

"Strip." The agent reluctantly did as he was told as Tom stood and turned off his heart monitor. When Ressler was down to nothing but his underwear, Tom motioned the agent to take his place in the bed. Tom began dressing as quickly as he could while keeping his gun on the federal agent.

"I don't have a lot of time, so I'll make this brief. There IS a mole on the unit, but it's not me and I'm now 90% sure it's not you." Ressler snorted in disbelief.

"Why should I believe you?" The agent's voice was barely louder than a whisper, which of course had been Tom's intention when he'd aimed for the throat. The injury would make it hard for Ressler to immediately summon help. Hopefully Tom could convince the agent not to try, but it was always a good idea to have a back-up plan.

"Because if it had been me, you would be dead by now. You need to find out who betrayed us. I'll be in touch." Tom straightened his tie and headed for the door. He paused with his hand on the handle. "I'm sorry, for what I said about Audrey. It's a terrible thing to lose the woman you love." Tom left without looking back to see how his apology was received. He'd meant what he'd said, it was a terrible thing to lose the woman you love. Tom would make damn sure that it wouldn't happen to him.