Missing/extended scene from 2x02.

Liz picked up the paltry file Red had all but tossed aside and set it on the coffee table next to the accoutrements his surgeon manicurist had left behind; she relaxed into the sofa beside him, closer now that there was room.

"Well, that's all very fascinating," she said, "I'll be sure to pass the intel about the assault along to Ressler and the team."

"At your leisure," Red said, with pointed sarcasm. "You realize the information I gave you on the bank is time sensitive. The longer you wait—"

"I don't want to talk about the bank anymore, I didn't come here to talk about a blacklister."

He eyed her curiously. "I thought you gave me all the information you could find about Jennifer."

"I did."

"Then what do you want to talk about?"

Liz studied Red's face whenever he brought up his daughter, watched each and every flicker of emotion pass over his features before he managed to stamp them out, desperate to appear calm and nonchalant. But he couldn't fool her. He could obfuscate the details of her own past with relative ease, but in this? Oh, he was a lot more transparent.

"Are you OK?" she asked.

His cheek twitched, but other than that, he had no reaction. "Why shouldn't I be?"

"I figured it out, you know," she said, ignoring his attempt at deflection. "Why you've been acting so strangely since we found out Berlin was targeting your ex-wife."

"Have I been acting strangely?" he asked, and smiled a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"You didn't know, did you? You had no idea they were in protective custody." Red took a slow, deep breath and inclined his head in reluctant confirmation. "All this time… You thought they were dead, didn't you?"

"It was the most likely explanation, given the… evidence," he said; there was a slight tremor in his jaw when he spoke.

"And you're just—what—fine now? This doesn't bother you?"

"What do you want me to say, Lizzy? That I'm feeling shocked? Depressed? Betrayed? I should be ecstatic. Against all odds and reason, my wife and daughter are alive. There was a time I would have given anything for that to be true." He let out a humorless huff of air. "Almost everything I've based my life around for the last twenty-odd years is a lie, but somehow it's not even the slightest bit comforting."

"Your ex-wife, she could have told y—"

"I guess it was foolish of me," he interrupted, "but I expected some kind of… grand reveal. A mystery that plagued my soul for decades should deserve at least that much, shouldn't it? But no—I find out while flipping through a stack of target profiles on what should have been an unrelated case. 'Not with a bang but a whimper.'" He shook his head. "Maybe I read too much. Life is rarely so poetic."

Liz's chest tightened painfully. Red was usually the one who offered comfort in their peculiar relationship. The thought of him needing comfort was a foreign one, and yet here they were. Not that he'd ever admit it, let alone ask for it.

A hug was too forward, a pat on the shoulder too stilted. He had held her hand while her life fell apart around her when they were still strangers. There was no reason she couldn't do at least that much for him.

He tensed up when she reached for his hand, perhaps unsure of her motives, but once her fingers closed around his, he deflated just a bit, shrunk in on himself just enough that he didn't seem quite as much larger than life as he usually did. He squeezed her hand in return, almost in reflex.

Rosa really did do an excellent job on his manicure.

When he spoke again, Red's voice was choked rough with emotion. Gone was the blithe, false cheer and in its place was something Liz could only describe as heartbreak. "Which is worse—losing your family in a violent tragedy or finding out decades later that their tragic demise had been faked in order for them to escape you?"

"I don't know."

"Neither do I," he said, with a hollow little laugh.

Liz searched his haunted face in silence for a few long moments. "You'll forgive her for it, won't you? If you—when you find her."

"Of course I will. Naomi, she… did what she felt she had to do to protect our little girl. In my world, you learn very quickly which kinds of actions are worth holding grudges over and which kinds aren't."