Chapter Nine

"I don't need a babysitter, you know," Jacob groused from his place on the couch, afghan draped over him and his hot tea and book well within reach. Liz had made sure of it. He'd been home from the hospital for nearly three full days and it was everything he could get his wife to do not to cancel the teaching conference that they had actually planned to attend together. That wasn't happening, but that didn't mean that she had to cancel.

"Well you told Kelly and Bruce not to drop by-"

"And my folks know me well enough not to."

"- so that left Don. He's just going to look in on you."

"The doctor said the poison is cleared out of my system. It's just recovery from here. Look? I'm on the couch. I'm not even at the computer, much less at the office." He flashed her his most innocent smile. "Don't you trust me, Lizzie?"

"No," his wife answered cheerfully and leaned down to kiss him. "Just let me have some peace of mind if you're making me go to this?"

"You were looking forward to it."

"And then a violent psychopath poisoned my husband."

Jacob chuckled, the sound dissolving into a cough. Liz shot him a look and he gave her a sheepish smile in return. He caught her hand, thumb running over her knuckles. "Say the word, babe, and I'm out."

"You don't want that."

"No," he said slowly, "but I will. You and me and our family is what matters."

"And I love you for it," Liz said. "I can't ask you to quit your job. I just… All I needs for you to be safe."

"I'll do my best."

"No more hospital trips."

"No more," he promised.

"Good. Don promised he'd be by this morning after he goes by your office."

"Is he on a case?"

"Sounded like it."

Jacob frowned and opened his mouth, but the doorbell stopped him and Hudson went tearing towards the door, barking the whole way. He started to get up, but Liz shot him a look and he sank back against his pillows. "Love you. I'll be back tomorrow."

"Be safe," he answered and grabbed her hand, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. "Love you too."

He held on until she had to pull away to get the door. "Hey, Don," was all he heard before his wife lowered her voice to speak to him, presumably so that Jacob wouldn't argue it. He rolled his eyes and slouched down a little further, listening as the conversation ended and the door closed behind Liz.

Ressler peeked around the corner. "How're you feeling?"

"Better than what Liz will have you believe," Jacob sulked. "Please tell me you brought me the information to look over. I'm going stir crazy."

His friend glanced back as if to make sure Liz wasn't coming back in. "I need your word - not a flippant promise, Jake, your word - that all you'll do is look over it from here if I give you this."

Jacob shifted, sitting up a little more. "Sure."

Ressler didn't look entirely convinced, but he pulled the files out of his satchel and handed them over. Jacob took them, flashing his most innocent look as he straightened his glasses and opened the first one up.

"I forget how obsessive you get when your benched."

Jacob shrugged, skimming the notes. "Zanetakos just rolled on her employer?"

"For a price."

"And she just handed over the antidote for this?" Jacob mused. He was missing something in the write up. He just couldn't figure out what it was.

"Not exactly."

That caught the younger man's attention and he looked up. "What'd you give her, Ress?"

"I didn't. Reddington did."

Jacob felt a little sick. "You're saying I owe my life to Reddington?"

"You don't owe him anything. He bargained for it. He got the name of her Shelf Corp broker and we got the antidote."

"How the hell did you get Cooper to agree to that?"

"I didn't," Ressler said quietly and Jacob sat all the way up.

"You went around protocol? For me? Ress, I didn't know you cared so much."

Jacob had barely contained his grin as he spoke and Ressler rolled his eyes, grabbing a pillow from the couch and tossing it at him. "Shut up, Phelps."

The dark haired man grinned. "Seriously though. Thank you."

"Yeah, well, after Cooper told me I did the right thing. Looks like you're working your charm again. I have no idea how you do it."

"It's a gift."

"So is your snark, apparently."

"Also true." Jacob watched his friend settle on the arm of the couch. "So did Reddington bring in a new case yet?"

Ressler's lips thinned. "Yeah, but we're good. All you get to look over is a closed case. I know exactly what you'll do if you get ahold of a live one."

"I can help from here," Jacob pressed. "Ress-"

"You are addicted, pal," Ressler chuckled. "Listen, I've got to go back in. Take it easy. Call if you need me."

"Will do," Jacob murmured, leaning back into the couch again, his mind focused in on what Ressler had said as his friend left. Reddington was using them for something. He was gathering pieces of information from them, and he wanted to know what that was. It had been several days since the FBI had visited this broker of Zanetakos', but she seemed like the best lead. It would be much later in the day before Ressler came back around, so if he were going to do something to track her down, it needed to be now.

He pushed himself off the couch and pulled in a deep breath, pleased that it didn't send him into a coughing fit. Shower first, and then he would do a little investigation of his own.

Raymond Reddington climbed the steps outside of the Phelps' town home one by one. He had received unsettling news that two days prior that had caused him to rethink the case he was ready to present to the task force in Jacob's absence. He had thought that the one positive that might have come out of the agent's near-death experience was that the adoption would be put on hold. The agency had not done so, though, and with events unfolding as quickly as they were around them, it was hardly safe to bring a child into it. He might be able to reevaluate for Jacob if it came down to that, but a child… Even Red had his limits. It was time to halt the adoption process in its tracks before the baby was born.

The Concierge of Crime pressed a finger against the doorbell and waited. The double doors made it difficult to tell if anyone was coming, but after his last two visits had been met with violent hostility, he thought it might be wiser to knock first this time.

He waited, about ready to go around to the back and slip in that way after all when he heard the inner door open. Jacob Phelps looked more than a little put out when he saw him, but he opened the door anyway. "What?"

"I feel your mother must have failed you when it comes to the manners department," Reddington sighed and the younger man rolled his eyes and stepped back.

"You're going to come in anyway," he groused and Red stepped past him, pulling his hat from his head.

"You look much better. Going somewhere?"

Jacob paused and then looked down at his own jeans and button up shirt he wore. "Why would I be?"

Reddington snorted. The man had proven adept at both avoiding direct questions and also lying without batting an eye. He might have truly missed his real calling in life. He would have made a superb criminal.

"Reddington, I'm assuming there's a reason you're in my home?"

Blue eyes blinked, his attention coming back around to the present. "Amanda Hansen," he said simply and watched some of the colour drain from the FBI agents face.

"Say what?"

"Amanda Hansen. Tell me what you know about her."

"Why the hell would you need to know about Amanda Hansen? And how-?"

"I've told you before, Agent Phelps: I know quite a bit about you. Your adoptive parents went to great lengths to give you a second chance without the darker aspects of your time in the foster system getting in the way, but they could only do so much." He watched the younger man's expression close off completely, sinking back behind a carefully constructed mask that would have told anyone else that he was having a simple conversation with an acquaintance.

"Is this case related?"

"It is."

Jacob tilted his head a little. "Whatever you think she has to do with that list of yours, she doesn't. That's all you need to know."

Reddington frowned. "I'd assume your team doesn't have all the information about your last couple of years in the system, so I thought-"

"You thought that you'd drag me through that," Jacob cut him off, his tone sharp.

"No, I thought I'd leave your name out of it. You're recovering, there's no need for you to be on this case, though any information about Ms Hansen that you could provide me would certainly help your team."

"You're a twisted bastard, Red."

A smug smile crossed his lips.

"Tell me what you're looking at first. I can't help you if you don't."

"And then you'll jump in the middle of it. No, Agent Phelps, I get the distinct impression that your wife may commit murder if I were to put you in any more immediate danger. That is one woman I'm certain that I don't want to anger."

Jacob snorted. "You have no idea, but it's your lucky day. Liz is at a conference. She won't be back until late tomorrow."

Reddington straightening just a little. Interesting. That certainly changed his plans for the day.

"You know what?" Jacob asked as he motioned towards the door. "If you're not going to tell me anything about it, then I don't have any information for you. I'll talk to Ressler directly."

"And risk things coming to light?" Reddington ask curiously.

"I trust my partner. I don't trust you. Easy decision."

A low chuckle escaped the older man and he nodded. "Very well."

He turned, hat fit against his head and he set his sunglasses on his nose to start down the steps. "Reddington?" The man in question turned. "I don't like working with half the facts. You give me the full story and it's going to make working together a lot easier."

"Have a good afternoon, Agent Phelps," Reddington said with a smile and started down the stairs, climbing into the back seat of the waiting car. "Mr Grey, I need you to find Elizabeth Phelps please."

Ressler hadn't expected to get a new case until Jacob was cleared back, not really, but Reddington had dropped in late the night before, catching him just before he was ready to go home, and had dropped a new case on the teams' desk. It was a couple, sort of a Bonnie and Clyde that were stealing from high-end marks. They'd made their way across the country and Reddington seemed to think that their next target was right there in the DC area. Ressler hadn't expected to spend his Friday night bent over what paperwork he had pulled together by the time he left, nor had he really wanted to be in this early on a Saturday, but he wasn't the only one.

"Freddie Landers and Amanda Hansen," Meera said as Landers' mugshot and Hansen's Illinois driver's license was put up on the big screen. "Landers has priors, though has never been convicted of anything more than petty theft. Hansen has near to nothing on her. Grew up in the foster system, but once she turned eighteen she simply disappeared off the grid."

"That's the newest photo we have on her?" Ressler asked, looking at the girl's young face.

"Right now it is," Aram said from his desk. "It's over ten years old, and I'm digging for anything else that I can find."

"Where the hell is Reddington?" Ressler asked. "He dropped this on us and doesn't bother to show up?"

"Dembe called a bit ago and said he'd be out of pocket for the rest of the day," Meera sighed. "We can always track him down if we need to."

Ressler's phone buzzed loudly in his pocket and he pulled it out, seeing his friend's phone number flash across the screen. "Aram, find out what you can about Hansen. Meera, you and I are going to follow the money and find out why these people haven't reported the kind of numbers Reddington is telling us as having been stolen. Something's not right here." He pulled the phone to his ear. "Hey, Jake, everything okay?"

"You got a second to step away?"

"Make it fast."

"Reddington stopped by my place this morning and said something about Amanda Hansen."

There was something in Jacob's voice that Ressler didn't like. He ducked off to the side and out of the immediate hearing of his other teammates. "Yeah?"

"I know her."

"Say again?"

"Well, I did. Back in foster care. She was in the same house as I was in my last home."

Ressler loosed a breath. Jacob had never told him a great deal about that final foster home he'd run away from, but the fact that he'd taken off running said a lot. He didn't like to talk about it. "She's partnered up with a guy named Freddie Landers. Is that familiar?"

"Nope, don't know that one, but listen, Ress, Mandy is… What's Reddington saying she's done?"

Ressler glanced back to make sure that the others were busy and not listening to him. "She's teamed up with Landers for robberies, but the weird thing is that no one that Reddington is saying that the people that they've stolen from seems haven't reported the money missing. Something's not right."

Jacob sighed on the other end of the line. "She's not a bad person, Ress. She's been through hell in her life. If she's mixed up in this…. it's him."

"Sounds a little biased, Jake. You think she might reach out to you?"

"I haven't seen or talked to Mandy in nearly twenty years."

"If she does, let me know. Otherwise, you better be curled up at home on your couch."

"'Course. Keep me looped in?"

"I'll do my best." He ended the call, pulling in a deep breath. If Jacob had to sit a case out, this was probably the best one for him. Ressler just wondered if Reddington would have had any way to know that.

Jacob set the phone down, looking up to the address that had been left in the file he'd been looking over earlier. This was where Zanetakos had gone to speak to someone about a shelf corporation to move her money through, and this was the same place that Reddington had come looking for… something. The man had both tried to kill him and saved his life. There was a reason that he'd turned himself into the FBI, there was a reason that he demanded Jacob for the team that he wanted, and there was a reason that he had looked at Liz as he had. So many questions made the agent uncomfortable, and it was time to get some answers.

He stepped out, pulling his jacket close, running his hand through his short hair and spotting a young woman directing movers from her wheelchair. She glanced up, looking frustrated with everything that surrounded her. "Sorry, baby, but we're closed."

"So I hear," Jacob said easily, taking in the scene. Someone like her would need the trust of her clients, so Reddington would have had to have given her something worth the name she gave. This move, it had to be him. In an instant he made a decision and flashed her his most charming smile. "Mr Reddington sent me by to make sure everything was running smoothly."

"I don't know you. I met the man that's supposed to be coordinating this, and you're not him."

His grin didn't falter and he reached a hand out to her. "Keen. Tom Keen. Mr Grey was called off on some urgent business. You know how it goes."

She studied him for a moment, as if trying to get a read on him, and finally she nodded. "Moving a business like mine is always a problem, even with it being taken care of," she groused, glaring at one mover in particular.

"Never know what they'll put in the wrong place," Jacob chuckled, stuffing his hands in his jacket pocket.

"I've been waiting to hear from your boss. I need to move Rostova's assets and I can't wait much longer."

Jacob didn't flinch, but filed the name away. "I'll let Mr Reddington know. Anything else you need passed along?"

She snorted, crossing her arms over her chest. "He should hire different movers."

His smile broadened. "I'll let him know." He turned, not wanting to push his luck. There was a good chance that if she mentioned it to Reddington that he'd ask for a description and he might even follow that back to him. That was fine. Let him. Jacob would be well on his way to finding out exactly who this Rostova person was and how he or she fit into Reddington's plans.

Liz had worked enough undercover jobs over the years that she was well aware that, sometimes, she had to pay her dues to keep up appearances. She had hoped that these particular dues would have at least seconded as a weekend away with her husband, but Gina had seen to it that that hadn't happened. Liz supposed she should focus more on the fact that Jacob had survived the experience rather than how much she missed their chance to get away together, but it seemed like every inch of their somewhat normal life that they had built up in the last two years was being torn apart. Ever since Reddington had come back into the picture she had felt her world shifting, and if she lost Jacob because of that - either to death or because he found out who she really was - she wasn't sure she could manage. In his own way, he had broken her. She'd been a top-notch operative before him, able to move in and out of personas with ease. She could use and toss away the fake relationships she formed and never bother to blink, but something about him was different. Liz wasn't sure when exactly the change had occurred, but somewhere in there he had gone from a mark to the man she loved. The fact that she even could fall in love with someone anymore was still a strange concept to her, but it wasn't like he was a great deal different in that. He'd told her time and again that she was the only woman he'd ever loved and she believed him. Someday, maybe, she could try to find a way to explain where she came from as well. For now, the lies would have to do. At least they had bits of the truth wrapped into them. The important parts were all there.

She pulled in a deep breath and shoved her hands deep in her pockets as she walked down the main stretch in the center of the university that she was at. There has been someone following behind her for a few minutes now. She hadn't had a chance to look back in a way that wasn't entirely obvious yet, but as she took a turn down a side street off the beaten path and he followed, her hopes that she was just being paranoid dwindled.

"Ms Phelps, I was hoping to speak with you for a moment?"

Liz turned, recognizing the voice immediately. "What are you doing here?" she demanded, leveling a glare at Raymond Reddington. "When Jacob finds out-"

"But he won't, will he?"

She watched him carefully. "What do you want?"

"A chat," he answered, his smile relaxed and easy. "There's a nice little coffee house just around the corner-"

"I'm not going anywhere with you. If you have something to say, you can do it here."

Reddington blinked at her. "Very well, Elizabeth, if that's what you want. I've come here to call in my favour that you owe me."

She snorted, hiding the discomfort she felt at the use of her name. "And what would that be?"

"I want you to cancel the adoption you and Jacob are in the process of."

Liz had always been talented in thinking on her feet, but that one struck her hard. "Excuse me?"

"The adoption. You need to back out of it."

"And why would I do that?"

"Well, if not simply to fulfill your promise to me when I helped to protect your cover with your husband, then for this." He held an envelope out to her and she took it after a moment of hesitation, finally pulling it open. The man that had nearly killed her husband waited silently as she tugged the papers from their place and unfolded them, reading her husband's name along the top.

As she scanned the pages she felt her chest tighten. "These are supposed to be sealed."

"Anyone can get anything with enough patience and resources at their fingertips, Elizabeth. Surely you know that. Currently your husband's team is working a case tied very closely with his final days in the foster care system. A housemate of his from that time, Amanda Hansen, has teamed up with quite an unsavory man and they are in the process of tracking her down. Now, they know him well enough I suppose that guilt by association is a bit of a stretch, but what sort of questions about your husband's character will this sort of information raise?" he asked, motioning to the paperwork. "I'd say that it has the potential to do quite a bit of harm to his career. It would certainly sideline him for a time, and that, my dear, would put you in quite the position, wouldn't it?"

"You don't know anything about my position," Liz snapped.

"I know enough. Not everything, no, but I promise you, my dear, I have ample resources and patience to figure out just where all the pieces go. I will find it. The question is, are you willing to sacrifice what time you have with your husband now? Should he become obsolete, I fear that at the very best you'll be recalled, and at worse… Well, would you be able to kill him now?"

"Why are you doing this?" she whispered, finding that the way her voice shook ever so slightly wasn't an act at all, and that made it all the worse. How much did this man know, and if he knew that she was after him, why was he playing this game? None of it made sense. "Your fight is with me, not him."

"Believe it or not I am protecting you, Elizabeth."

"By destroying my family?"

"A child will not fix the lies you've told, nor will it fix him and the struggles he faces. Cancel the adoption, or I will end your husband's career and you will lose him one way or another. Your employer will have no further use for him. Think it over, but if you both accept that child, I will release this to his task force."

Liz watched Reddington walk, holding the papers in her hands. She wasn't sure what the task force would do if they found out. She wasn't sure that Donald Ressler didn't know, but she also couldn't risk it. She couldn't risk Jacob.

TBC

Notes: Life has been crazy busy lately and I'm so sorry I haven't gotten back to reviews personally very much lately. I feel like a horrible person, but know that without a doubt I read each one and they make my entire day. You guys are the best!

Next time - Jacob receives an unexpected visitor and things spiral downward from there.