Envelope 27
Author's Note: A gentle reminder that this story is AU and anything in italics is a memory, a dream or a ghost conversation. The song reference that they are listening to is Spacehog's In the Meantime—give it a listen to help with the scene. Please leave a review.
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"Who is this again?" Liz asked him as she sat next to him in the SUV.
"It's Spacehog," Don said with a chuckle. "You don't know Spacehog? In the Meantime?"
"And how is this…good?"
"I'm sorry it's not the Back Street Boys," Don chuckled. "Change the channel if you hate it so much."
"And this was big in Detroit?" Liz chuckled. "Was this a moody make out song or something?"
He knew she was teasing him, but couldn't help but take the bait.
"No, that was Under the Bridge," Don chuckled. "This was more, the walk around wasted song."
"Wasted?" Liz asked with a raised eyebrow.
Don stole a sideways glance at her and said nothing.
They sat listening to the song for another minute.
"It sounds like a make-out song," Liz said as she looked out the window.
"Name the time and place Liz, and I'm there," Don chuckled as she shifted next to him.
She was back with Tom, and he shouldn't have said that and made her uncomfortable, but part of him was bitter how easy she seemed to slide away from him.
"Oh Christ," she said as she jumped at a stoplight.
"What?!" He asked, alarmed, his body ready to spring into action. "Everything okay?"
A smile creeped across her face and she grabbed his hand and placed it on her belly. It was the first time he'd touched her in a long, long time.
"Do you feel that?" She asked, excited.
Don felt nothing and moved his hand a little to see if there was a better spot. He knew her body like the back of his own hand, but this pregnant belly was territory he had not charted.
"Nothing," he said as she waited.
"Here," she said as she grabbed his hand and placed hers on top of his pushing it into her stomach a little.
"Liz, I don't want to hurt…"
"It's fine," she said dismissively.
Don sat there at the light with his hand under hers on her very pregnant belly, a belly that had occurred because she was involved with another man. He loved touching her again, but knew that this was incredibly wrong given their history.
He was just about to say that he needed to be ready for when the light went green, when there was a swift bop against his hand.
"Holy shit," he said in amazement as his eyes met hers.
He moved his hand slightly to see if he could get it again and it happened a second time and they both laughed.
"Oh my god," he said as he looked at her belly in amazement. "I mean, I know there's a little person in there, but…wow."
Then there was another slither against his hand and he smiled.
"The baby likes your voice," Liz said as she looked up at him.
"Maybe the baby is just having a party…"
Another thump.
"…in there, right…"
Another wiggle against his hand.
"…now."
Another thump.
Don and Liz looked at each other and smiled.
A car honked behind them and Don looked in the rear view mirror but didn't take his hand off her belly.
He reached his hand out the open window and motioned for them to go around him, it wasn't a busy intersection.
He turned back to Liz and there were some tears in her eyes.
"Are you okay?" He asked her concerned as he felt the baby continue to bump against his hand.
"Ressler, I need to talk with you about…"
The guy behind them laid on the horn and then pulled up next to them screaming.
"Go on!" Don screamed at the man as he took his hand off her belly and put the SUV in drive as the car maneuvered around their vehicle laying on the horn the entire time.
"We're here," Denbe said to Ressler as they pulled up in front of a non-descript building. Don listened to the final piano notes of the song that brought back that memory and sighed. He had forgotten she said she wanted to talk, and hadn't asked her once they started driving, then Tom had called her cell.
"Thanks," Don said as he got out of the car and walked with Denbe toward the door.
"Raymond is inside," Denbe said as he stopped at the door and watched Don walk inside.
Don walked into the large warehouse and was thinking this was a very bad idea when he saw Cooper.
"Why are you here?" Don asked as he approached the two men.
"We're giving you a choice," Reddington said as he looked at Cooper. "You can go in alone and just have the session recorded for your later listening pleasure, or one of us can be there to get the details."
Don swallowed hard. He knew their intentions were good, but he didn't want either of them to hear the intimate details of what happened between him and Liz, especially if he recovered any memories and things got incredibly intimate.
"I think I'd like to be alone," Don said. "But thank you."
Reddington and Cooper nodded, and Cooper patted him on the back before he started for the door. "I'll be outside with Denbe."
"She is the best regression and memory recovery therapist in North America," Reddington said as she placed a hand on Don's shoulder. "I flew her in from Montreal."
Don looked at him surprised.
"The Canucks know far more about this then we do," Reddington noted.
"I'm not even sure it's going to work, but nothing came up in any of her medical files and…"
"If there is a memory, she will help you get it," Reddington said as he turned and walked away. "I'll be outside with Harold and Denbe. Sylvie will know what to do."
Don nodded and walked into the room, met the woman, and got comfortable in the chair as the tape started and she started to take him back to July 2015.
Forty minutes later, he was exiting the warehouse with a digital file in his hand. They had discussed what he revealed but he had the entire thing to listen to at his leisure when he got home. She said she didn't know a lot of the details she normally would before engaging in this type of therapy, so there may be something on the file that was significant to him that she hadn't picked up on.
Don looked at the men standing around waiting.
"Nothing," Don said. "Like a blackout."
"I'm sorry?" Cooper asked.
"She said she sees this often in cases of date rape drugs being used," Don said quietly. "Like you remember everything until you don't, and then you do again."
"I don't under…" Cooper started.
"Someone chemsexed you?" Reddington asked.
"Chemsex?" Cooper asked.
"The restaurant," Reddington said as he shared a look with Denbe and Denbe walked away opening his phone. "Harold, it's when a cocktail of various drugs is blended to create a euphoric and looser sexual experience with two consenting adults. Unfortunately, date rape drugs are where chemsex is used most, but many couples seek out an alternative experience through chemsex. A molly, combined with Viagra and GHB can create a situation where the sexual experience is heightened and…"
"Why would anyone want to do this?" Harold asked, honestly.
"I didn't," Don said. "And now that I look at the situation, it's pretty obvious we were both drugged."
"So, you did have sexual relations with Elizabeth on that weekend?" Harold asked.
Don sighed and placed a hand on his hip and shook his head. "I don't know, and the only other person who could help answer that question is gone."
"The drugs would have left your body within hours, so unless you or Lizzie had any blood work that day, we won't know what was in you," Reddington said.
"Any other side effects besides the headache?" Cooper asked.
"I felt spacey, and all my muscles were sore," Don said. "Liz said the same thing."
"Probably as a result of the heightened sexual experience," Reddington said. "And without inhibitions…"
Don wiped his hand across his eyes, he was starting to get a headache.
"Denbe is reaching out to my contact to see if we have more information on the restaurant that wasn't," Reddington said. They had searched out information about the establishment and there was nothing to support it's existence. No liquor license, no permit, no bills, no taxes, no inspections, nothing.
"We were acting out of character," Don said, trying not to give away too many details of something so private. "Now, that I look back, it wasn't…normal."
"How so?" Reddington asked.
"Whenever Liz and I were together, in that way," Don hedged. "We never did anything in public. If you saw us at dinner or walking, we would look like two friends enjoying each other's company. We kept everything very, very private."
Reddington nodded and was waiting for more information.
"The second night we ate at the restaurant, she was all over me in the elevator and, let's just say we barely got in my door," Don said. "But, if we were both drugged then neither of us was thinking straight."
"Depending on the cocktail mix you were given and the amounts…let's just say whoever did this, knew what he or she was doing to get that timing so close, so you weren't stripping each other naked in the street," Reddington said.
Don cleared his throat.
"But the first night you ate there, it wasn't like that?" Cooper asked.
"No, it was…intense, but we were in my apartment," Don said. "But I only remember what we would have done had there not been any…enhancements, so my memories of those two nights, although missing for several hours, didn't flag as that odd."
"And I imagine neither would Lizzie's," Reddington said.
"But how could, this is going to sound crude, but how could a woman not know?" Cooper asked. "A man, well, the evidence is…gone, but a woman has it."
They both turned and looked at Don.
"I don't know," Don said. "But she was no different, except for the hangover, the first morning, but the second, she was more…affectionate."
The two men looked at him strangely.
"Let's just say she was acting different, and she asked me if I wanted to talk about last night," Don swallowed hard.
"She asked you that?" Reddington asked.
"On the way into work on Monday," Don nodded, embarrassed he had not seen the signs.
"And?" Reddington asked.
"I mentioned something about Tom," Don admitted sheepishly. "It was not kind. But I also honestly had no memory that anything else had happened."
The two men's faces fell.
"So, if Lizzie knew the second night that you and she had sex, and not the first, why didn't she ever speak with you about it? Share her suspicions? Do a paternity test?" Cooper asked.
"We weren't getting along, and she'd gone back to Tom," Don said. "A couple of times I sensed she wanted to talk but I was hurt and…I kind of blew her off."
Reddington's face fell again.
"You didn't know," Cooper consoled him.
"But I think she did," Don said. "And from her perspective I was being a total asshole about it."
"It's probably why you two were really at odds for a while there," Reddington surmised.
"She thought we finally took that last step, is looking at me thinking here is the future, and I'm making asshole comments about Tom, not wanting to talk and essentially ignoring her as the new cases picked up," Don said as he scrubbed at his forehead. "And she goes back to Tom because the option she thought she had, me, was being an asshole."
"Ressler, don't…"
"And then she finds out she's pregnant and she…she almost adopts out the baby, but something convinces her not to," Don said, his voice tight.
"Tom did," Reddington offered. "Tom convinced her to keep it."
"So, she goes with him because I've basically walked away," Don said. "Fuck."
The older men watched the younger man's self hatred wash over his being.
"Donald, don't forget that if she knew you had sex, she would know the date and know that the probability you were the father was there," Reddington offered. "And Lizzie didn't do anything about that."
"Because I was being an ass," Don supplied.
"Because you were being human," Reddington said. "Sure, you have just given us a probable version of her side of the story, but your side is she left you for Tom with no explanation and without looking back. She was pregnant with his baby in the blink of an eye and happily moving on with her life, getting married for god's sake, without you."
Don nodded and placed both hands on his waist and looked down at the ground.
"So, basically this drug fucked us over in more ways that one," Don said.
"Yes," Reddington answered succinctly.
"And once Agnes was born, Liz never indicated that she may have been yours? Even after Tom was gone?" Cooper asked.
"I'd have to think about some conversations, maybe in a different light…" Don said.
Both men nodded and Denbe came back to the group.
"Teresa can meet us in an hour," Denbe said.
Reddington nodded.
"Donald, let's get you back to your children," Reddington said, feeling the weight of those words. Donald Ressler may have two biological children with Liz, not one.
"Thanks," Don said as he walked back toward the car, the digital drive in his hand. It would be his listening material tonight once Aram left from his babysitting duty.
To be continued…