Gestalt

Chapter 11: Frederick Verne: Conclusion

Disclaimer: I do not own The Blacklist, or the characters, and I make no money from this.

Author's Note: Three month pause. Sorry about that! Hoping to wrap up this story in Ch12. Also? This update is for Becca, who reminded me that I really do love this story, and I really need to finish it. :)

…:::…

Liz waited until the door closed and the deadbolt slid into place above them before she allowed herself to make any noise, and even then, it was only a low, tortured sound, hissed out from between clenched teeth. The man had pinned her arm in place along the beam and kicked, his steel-toed boot catching the base of her fingers and knuckles and crushing them against the solid support.

The noise he heard come from Liz made fury spread like fire through Reddington's chest. He was pinned uncomfortably, his arms now hauled back on either side of the pole by Liz's instinct to draw in on herself. His ribs made breathing difficult as it was, and the tension Liz was exerting on him didn't help. "Lizzie?" His voice came out tight but steady as he craned his head to the side to try to see her hand, her face. When she didn't answer, his voice got more urgent. "Lizzie." Reddington clenched his jaw against the pain and twisted his torso. He could see her, perched on her toes in a crouch, her body arched away from the column, but her head thrown back against the support. Both of her arms were tense, elbows bent as much as the handcuffs and his arms would allow, her shoulders tight and high. "Lizzie."

"What?" she ground out between gritted teeth.

"I need to know how badly you're hurt. Is it your arm, or your hand?" Reddington asked, trying not to move his left wrist, lest he cause her more pain with the handcuffs.

Liz dropped unceremoniously from her crouch, extending her legs out in front of her and landing hard on the cement floor. She rolled her head to the right to glance down at her hand, and caught the anguished look on the edge of Reddington's face as he watched her. Her eyes watering from the pain, she immediately looked away, pressing the back of her head firmly into the pole behind her again as she worked to slow her breathing.

As Reddington listened to her continue to pant in pain, he shifted his weight to sit on the floor, a low groan escaping him as he repositioned himself without the use of his hands for balance as he settled onto the cement. He turned to look at her hand again, and was relieved to see nothing at odd angles or bleeding. "Lizzie," he tried again, "I need you to tell me where you're hurt. I don't want to pull on this handcuff if your wrist is broken, but I have to tell you, my ribs would appreciate a little more slack in the line if you could spare it."

Her left arm immediately released, and swung behind her to rest on the floor, palm down, near Reddington's hip. He relaxed slightly, repositioning with the use of his right hand before placing it over hers on the ground. Her fingers immediately curled in and she awkwardly grasped his hand. He gave her a comforting squeeze back, and stayed silent.

After several minutes, Liz gave a sigh and cleared her throat, releasing Reddington's hand, and allowing more slack in the handcuffs on her injured side. "Please tell me he's on your list," she said fiercely. "Please tell me we get to go after him."

"If he wasn't on my Blacklist before, he is now, I can promise you that," Reddington replied. "But I'm going to suggest we never make the FBI aware of this one. I think Frederick Verne could be handled… privately."

"I'm surprised you allowed him to exist before now," Liz continued, her voice still strained. "He's kind of stealing your look." She gave a harsh, uncontrolled laugh that sounded almost like a sob. "Unless you actually stole his…?"

"No, around the time I made off with his wife, he made off with my image. Really, I would hope you think I've got a bit more class than a cheap imitation artist."

"You haven't always worn that hat and those suits," Liz countered. "I've seen pictures in your file of you with long hair and much less sophisticated clothing."

Reddington bobbed his head, grimacing. "An unfortunate period of time when I needed to be less noticeable. If I ever find out who it was that decided that damn picture needed to be the one they used for the Wanted posters, I'll—"

"Break their hand?" Liz interrupted. "Break some of their ribs? Tie them to something to make them suffer…?"

Reddington winced and turned his head to the side, looking down at her uninjured left hand on the ground beside his. "Lizzie, I'm so sorry," he said, his voice thick. "If there had been anything…" Reddington found he couldn't finish his sentence, and rolled his head back against the column.

"It's only fair, I suppose. I had to sit and watch someone break your ribs. You had to sit there while someone broke my hand." Liz sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "But if we're going to keep this tit-for-tat thing going, do me a favor and don't get shot in front of me. I've never been, and I'd rather not know how it feels."

"You've already seen me get shot." Red's voice drifted around from behind the beam, and Liz's forehead wrinkled as she ran through her memories of the last two years.

"No. I'd remember that," she said confidently. "If you were shot in the last two years, I wasn't present."

Reddington sighed and raised an eyebrow that Liz couldn't see. "Well… you shot your ex-husband three times in the stomach during the same altercation, so afterwards… you understandably weren't paying a lot of attention to me."

It took Liz a moment to process the information. "He… he shot you?" She turned her head to the side so she could see his shoulder in her peripheral vision. "He missed. You… you walked out of there just fine…?"

"Clipped my arm; just a deep scratch." Reddington turned his head to the same side as Liz, just able to make out the curve of her face from the corner of his eye. "One of the benefits of wearing a dark suit: blood stains aren't highly noticeable."

"No wonder you wanted to kill him," Liz said, remembering how he had advanced on Tom, his gun pointed unwaveringly at his head. "You don't like being insulted, and I bet you take being shot at as a pretty big insult. I'm actually really surprised you didn't kill him."

Red's low voice replied immediately, "You asked me not to."

Liz tried to imagine the size of the violent impulse Reddington had swallowed for her in that moment, but figured her imagination couldn't possibly do it justice. Dropping her eyes to where their hands lay palm-down next to each other on the concrete, she considered moving her fingers toward his. The outside edges of their hands were separated by no more than two inches, but just as she twitched her pinky finger with intended movement, Reddington gave a deep sigh and turned to face forward again, his hand rolling into a loose, but closed-off fist.

After a beat, Liz mirrored him, straightening her head and leaning it back against the pole with an apologetic, "I didn't know." She left her palm splayed on the ground.

"It wasn't important at the time. You didn't need to know," he said, bending one knee and shifting his position slightly.

"No, but it's… details. You said before you don't have anything personal to give. But you do; everyone does. You have preferences, and history, and…" Liz sighed. "We're stuck here until morning, and my hand is killing me. Tell me a story, but this time I want it to be about you. No lesson, no grand scheme or flashy punchline designed to impress… You talk about the expensive ties you buy, and the best kind of wine to drink, or why one should always use a professional tailor for suit alterations, but I feel like most of the time that's the character you play speaking. I don't want to know something about the 'Concierge of Crime', or even about 'Red'…" Liz shook her head and shrugged. "I want… I don't know…" Liz bit her lip and cast her eyes toward the ceiling again, slightly thankful there was no way to look him in the eye right now. "I want to know… one thing about… 'Raymond'."

His first name sounded strange to both their ears. Reddington had gone by many aliases in the last twenty-five years, and even when he wasn't hiding, almost everyone used his last name, or the more common shortened version of it. It was rare that he even responded to hearing 'Raymond' when in public; a mother shouting for her child on a playground or on the street. Lately it didn't even register as his name. It felt foreign for Liz to be inquiring about that man.

Like a child not wanting to lose the taste of the last bite of chocolate from their mouth, it took Reddington a long time to reply, not wanting to fill the air with a different sound. "That name sounds strange when you say it," he finally offered.

Liz turned her head, but left her eyes pointing, unfocussed, at the ground. "Do you not like your name?"

"That hasn't felt like my name in years," he admitted.

"See? That wasn't so hard," Liz said softly. "And now I know something about you."

"Oh, you know more about me than most do."

Liz frowned. "That's sad. I feel like you know everything about me, and I know next to nothing about you. I can't imagine the rest of the world knowing less."

"I don't know everything about you, Lizzie. I know… facts; I don't know preferences, opinions. And recently when I've tried to guess at them, I've been wrong."

Liz quirked a smile. "I'm sorry, you've been what? What did you just say?"

Reddington couldn't stop the twitch at the side of his own lips. "Careful, Lizzie. Smug people are unattractive."

"Well then it's a good thing you can't see me right now. Besides, 'smug' is one of your three default expressions, and it's only fair that I get to borrow it every once in a while." Liz crossed her legs in front of herself, and gave a small tug on her left cuff to prompt Reddington's answer. "So, what don't you know about me?"

Reddington sighed and tilted his head. "Your taste in music. What book made you love reading, if one ever did? Whether you like fireworks. Your favorite sound, your favorite taste, your favorite color…" He trailed off, not sure what he was actually asking of her.

"Well, that last one is easy," she said with fake sincerity. "It used to be red, but now, more often than not, the color just tends to annoy me." When there was neither motion nor sound from behind her, Liz twisted her body to try to peer around the column at him. She lifted her left hand off the ground and flicked the back of his hand lightly to get his attention. "...That was a joke." Liz maintained her uncomfortable position, despite the painful stretch it put on her right hand. "My favorite color really is red," she said after waiting another moment. When Reddington finally moved, twisting his head to meet her eyes over his shoulder, she gave him a small, sheepish smile. "My first car was bright red." Her smile widened a bit. "I got a lot of speeding tickets in that thing."

…:::…

An hour later, Liz had managed to nudge a half-empty cardboard box close enough with one foot that it could be positioned under her right elbow. Reddington had lied and gritted his teeth when she asked if resting their arms on the structure so she could elevate her hand would put him in a bad position in terms of his own injuries. Her hand had started to throb as it swelled, and he knew she'd be more comfortable if it was propped up. To prove he didn't mind the way his arm was held aloft, his shoulder pulled back, he'd launched into another story.

"…but Yasmine was never one to torture a man for too terribly long, so the next words out of her mouth, sure enough, were 'I'm sorry' and 'here's the antidote.'"

Liz gave a short, incredulous laugh, and shook her head. "And this was all at the top of the Eiffel Tower?"

"On New Years Eve," Reddington confirmed with a nod.

"I don't have any good New Years stories; that night always seems to turn out…boring for me," Liz said, bending one knee up and then the other to stretch. "I've never gotten into any trouble worse than having too much champagne and locking my keys in my car one year. I was too tipsy to break into the damn thing, and Tom didn't know how…." Liz trailed off, and frowned. "No, I suppose he knew how, he just pretended he didn't. So we slept on a friend's pull out couch and I popped the door open the next morning. All very vanilla, in comparison to yours."

"Not a fan of vanilla?"

"It can be boring," Liz answered.

They fell into silence, the levity of Reddington's Paris story gone, but before the momentum of the conversation was lost entirely, Liz asked, "Speaking of flavors… you seem to have such a romantic relationship with food. What's your favorite?"

"Food? I don't have one. That's like asking someone to pick their favorite hair on their head. There's too many." Reddington didn't turn around, but from the soft rustle of clothing and the slight tug on both his wrists, he could tell Liz had shifted to look at him, and he didn't need to see her face to guess the expression on it. "...okay, maybe not my head," he said, gesturing as much as his restraints would allow.

Liz settled back against the pole. "If you could have any food in the world right now, delivered here—" Reddington interrupted with two quick tugs on their handcuffs, reminding her that he wouldn't be able to eat it. "—okay, and fed to you, what would you want?"

Reddington sighed and closed his eyes, tilting his head to the side as he considered the question. "Anything home cooked. Restaurant food can be delicious, but there's just something about the time taken and the singular concentration on the task that makes something cooked in a person's home just taste..." His mouth moved almost as if he were imaging a specific flavor. "It's more personal. You don't get that in a restaurant. Or even with a hired chef. Whatever food it is... the home it's prepared in seems to be the secret ingredient."

"Lamb chops," Liz volunteered after a pause.

"Your favorite?"

"Oh," she said, the word low and drawn out like a moan. "Yes. They have to be prepared well, but when they are…. It doesn't get any better than that. I always order them on special occasions; every birthday." Turning her head, she prompted, "Best birthday?"

"Hmm…" Reddington paused to think. "I don't remember what year it was, which birthday, but there's a company out of Kona that will take you scuba diving at night to see manta rays. You descend down to the ocean floor, and look up, and they turn massive spot lights on, directed up toward the surface, and… these animals just fly above you through the water, dozens of them, like reverse silhouettes, the underside of them standing out white against the blackness. It's dark, and warm, and so quiet except for the harsh sound of your own breathing through your mask. It's peaceful, and yet at the same time you're acutely aware that without the tank on your back… human beings can't survive in that environment. It's a stolen view that by all rights shouldn't naturally be ours. One thing goes wrong with your oxygen, and… yet those gorgeous, silent ghosts above you would just keep flying. You don't matter to them at all. Seemed like a good way to go, actually. The thought was almost…enticing… in its serenity."

Liz looked down at her left hand, and again resisted the impulse to move it toward Reddington's where it rested next to hers, palms still flat on the concrete. "That sounds awfully bleak for it to be your favorite birthday," she said softly.

"I don't usually celebrate. But don't misunderstand… it was stunningly beautiful. I recommend it if you ever get the chance." Red paused before adding, "And yours?"

"My favorite birthday? Um… I've never really gotten excited about mine, either. I mean… It's just a random day; it's not my actual birthday…"

"Worst birthday, then," Reddington interrupted, his voice low.

Liz took a deep breath. "Last year. My thirtieth. That week I found out Tom was not the man I thought I married. My whole marriage was a lie." Liz cringed, thinking about it. "We went out to dinner with friends, and I barely kept my food down." Liz closed her eyes and swallowed, willing herself not to get overly emotional. "I got a really great gift that year, though, which took the edge off."

"I'm sure Tom gave you something extravagant, since things were starting to—"

"I don't even remember what Tom gave me," Liz interrupted. "But someone else gave me a really beautiful music box."

…:::…

The next hour was spent mostly in silence.

Liz's back was starting to ache, and she could only imagine how much Reddington hurt, his arms pinned to hers and who knows how many broken ribs. Her hand was swollen and angry, her third and fourth fingers purple and fatter than the rest.

"I want in," Liz said, interrupting the quiet.

"On what?" Reddington asked, his voice tired. He had closed his eyes some time ago, willing sleep to take the pain from his side, and, increasingly as he sat on the hard floor, his back.

"Cases. Connections. I know you'll refuse to tell me anything about my past… What if we make a deal? I've gone this long not being able to remember what happened the night of the fire. You promise you'll never try to get into my head again, and that one day you will tell me everything, and in the mean time, you let me in on all aspects of the cases we work together. How you know the Blacklister, your past with them… It won't go in any official report; I'll consider it an extension of your immunity agreement that only goes as far as me. But I want to know. I want in."

"And in exchange…?" Reddington asked, his eyes open now.

"I give you the Fulcrum."

Reddington considered the offer for a long moment. "How will you know I'm giving you everything? Letting you in on all the details? Once I get the Fulcrum, how do you know I'll hold up my end of the bargain?"

Liz took a deep breath. The truth was she didn't. "I guess I'll just have to trust you."

The pair lapsed back into silence.

…:::…

TBC.

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