The next morning at work it was revealed that Yvonne had in fact agreed and the date was scheduled for Friday night after work. That was only the very next day so they were both freaking out. Aram because he hadn't decided where to take her and Yvonne because she didn't have anything to wear.
Liz offered to go shopping with Yvonne if she would help in exchange on Saturday. She agreed.
Ressler just asked Aram to come help out and Colin too because he happened to be there at the time. Then they disappeared down the hallway that led to the bathrooms for a suspiciously long time. Liz thought that they were probably discussing where to make reservations.
Shortly afterwards they put away their personal problems and focused on the job at hand. Today they had to track down a kid that has fallen in with the wrong group, he has a wealth of information at his hands and didn't even know it. Unfortunately he also didn't want to be found and it took a considerable effort to chase him around the city for a few hours. Once he was in their custody it didn't take much to get him to show what he had hacked and it all ended fairly well. They let him go, he seemed to be a decent kid, and he was scared shitless. When they had started pulling up information about some of their bigger names on his laptop they could tell he genuinely has no idea who they were.
In no time it fell back into the routine it had been before Ressler was hurt and the two new agents hardly seemed new anymore. They were back to the same family dynamic they had always had.
Liz and Ressler had also gotten used to going home together and Agnes waiting for them there. They felt like a little family and it was amazing.
Friday at work was much the same as normal, nobody mentioned anything about the pending date. Liz and Ressler went home like normal, though they were both texting their respective persons to tell them how it went. They laughed at that when they caught each other doing it and from then on they waited on replies together.
It seemed to go well from what little they could tell via their phones. Aram said it was "amazing! Best night ever!" and Yvonne went with a more toned down approach, saying it was "a lot of fun. She enjoyed it and they were doing it again."
Ressler also had PT on Friday after work but if was only an hour and it didn't hurt him the way it had at first. It was still painful, but not all-encompassing.
Saturday everyone was at Liz's apartment by midmorning and they had the rest of their stuff packed and in the vehicles to being to Ressler's in no time. The cleaning part took a bit longer but they were still done by supper. It was efficient when they all buckled down and just got it done.
Agnes, and Colin's kids, Nathan and Natalie, and kept themselves occupied, with only a couple disagreements, all in all it worked fairly well.
Everyone helped haul the stuff up to Ressler's apartment and then they left, leaving the unpacking and arranging to Liz and Ressler. They spent that night putting everything away and by the time they got up next morning Liz's influence was all over. It finally felt like the place was truly theirs, not his.
Saturday and Sunday were leisurely days, they had a huge waffle breakfast and did nothing constructive, but it turned out to be a family bonding kind of day and they all loved it.
By Monday it was back to the grind. Life had settled down again. If only they knew how short that would last.
Monday Reddington didn't show at all. However, with every big name that the taskforce brought down there usually came a huge selection of smaller ones they were forced to skip, so they had no problem filling their days if they needed to.
Monday also marked Ressler's last scheduled PT session. Afterwards he met with his doctor again who declared he was cleared for everything and that what he hadn't managed yet, like running and jumping, he could work on by himself without needing professional input.
The doctor also took a few scans again, his hip bone had completely closed over and was slowly becoming compact bone again. Unfortunately he hadn't yet gotten an erection, but the doctor remained hopeful and told him that they wanted to test his counts when the time came, so he wasn't actually supposed to have sex as soon as he could.
Tuesday morning Reddington came in. He went straight to Cooper's office, which Liz was totally fine with because that way she didn't have to talk to him.
He left after a few minutes and Cooper came downstairs to tell the group what was going on. An acquaintance of Reddington's, named Derek Restole, had gone missing. The man worked for a law firm that was headed by a known criminal. He had been reporting on this man's activity, because so far they had never been able to catch him in the act. His car had been found, totaled in a ditch outside of D.C., but there was no trace of him.
"Ressler, Liz, I want you to go visit his wife. See if she knows anything about her husband's spying or anything else related to it or if she has any idea where he might be. Park, Colin, go check out the vehicle. I want you to go through it yourself. Aram and Yvonne stay here, I want every piece of information there is on both the lawyer and this Restole."
"Yes sir," they all agreed and the agents for in their specified vehicles.
Park and Colin had a shorter drive and they arrived at the vehicle first. Forensics had already been through and had noted a bullet hole in the rear driver's tire. They were theorising that it must have been shot in a car chase of some sort, the driver lost control and the car rolled into the ditch.
The story lined up with what the scene showed.
Alina was investigating the front seat for any blood or anything that could be used to help locate the inhabitant of the vehicle when she heard Colin call her.
"Hey, Alina?"
"Yah" she said, stepping back and turning to him. He stood looking in the broken back window.
"There was a kid back here."
"What, are you sure?" she hurried over.
"Yup" he pointed. Alina rose to her tiptoes and stretched, trying to see from her short stature whatever is was that had caught the much taller agent's eye. There it was - a little plastic dump truck and a shoe on the door underneath a car seat. There was a drop of blood on the windowsill right under Colin's ponting finger.
Bagging the shoe and toy and getting the blood, they headed back for the Post Office armed with their new clues.
It was obvious to Liz and Ressler as soon as they entered the house of Mrs. Restole on the far side of D.C. that she was very distraught. The house was messy, there were books and toys and clothing strewn about and the poor lady herself looked beat. Her hair had clearly not been brushed in some time and her clothes were wrinkled and soiled from extended use.
They sat her down in a chair in her living room and Ressler brought a water bottle that he found in her fridge.
Almost right away she started talking.
"The car is totaled and they are gone. The police were here earlier - they said they think he is mixed up in something big - but if he was I never knew."
"He never acted strange" asked Ressler gently. "Like he was hiding something, like he wasn't feeling completely comfortable?"
"No" she answered quickly. "At least not at home. He was always the same, playing with Bo, he - the man I know would have no reason to be targeted like the police said."
Liz shared a look of confusion with Ressler. "Who's Bo?" she asked.
"Our son." Simultaneously their eyebrows rose in shock. "He's two. He's an amazing kid. Derek was always doting on him. We thought he should have a sibling, we were trying for a second one. He was with him in the car when it happened. I don't know where either of them are now. They have been gone for more than 24 hours now."
She was rambling the way that people in her situation tended to do.
"Do you have any family?" asked Liz. "Anyone you could stay with?"
"My sister. My sister lives here. But she doesn't drive and I have no way to get to her place."
"Okay, ma'am" said Ressler, gently placing his hand on her shoulder in comfort. "You just wait here, I need to talk to my partner okay?"
She nodded so Ressler nodded his head in the direction of the hallway and Liz agreed, standing and walking over there with him.
"Well the boy changes things" said Ressler. "I think we need to call Aram and have him get lists from the hospital of any kids his age that they have. If the boy is hurt, I'm sure they would try and get help, even just drop him off. I mean he's a kid."
"Yah, you call Aram, get him started on that. I'm going to take her and help her pack a bag, let's drop her at her sisters on our way back in"
"Okay" said Ressler already digging in his pocket for his phone.
Liz returned to the living room and helped up the mother, following her to the master bedroom and helping her get some clothes together while explaining the situation.
Ressler called Aram. He picked up on the first ring because he had his phone sitting beside him like he usually did in these types of situations.
"Hey Aram, we are at the home right now. The wife says there was a boy with him. Two or three years old. He might have been hurt in the accident."
"Oh no" said Aram on the other end, "not a kid again."
"Yah" said Ressler. "Can you get a list of all children in the DC hospitals right now, see if anything matches. Name is Restole, but if nothing comes up check in case they used some alias"
"On it" said Aram as he hung up with Ressler.
"On what?" asked Alina, walking alongside Colin into the war room.
"That was Ressler, the wife says they have a little boy, who was also in the vehicle, and Ressler wants us to check the hospitals to see if he was brought in."
"Makes sense" said Colin, tossing the bag with the shoe and the toy on Aram's desk. "We found this in backseat of the vehicle."
"No" said Aram, already clicking on his computer.
"Alright here we go. Hospitals in DC - inpatients. This might take a bit, because there is a ton of people in hospital in this city right now and I don't really have any way to filter by age."
"Wait, you have access to the medical databases?" asked Colin.
"Not all of them, but the hospitals in DC, yes. Actually, I kind of have access to anything I want. I've hacked for worse reasons."
"So you are hacking?" asked Yvonne.
"Not really. If I called the hospital they would send the link but that would just take unnecessary time" explained Aram. "Now we have half a dozen hospitals, and hundreds of patients. I could use a few more sets of eyes. Speed this up."
"The last name is Restole," offered Yvonne from her place behind his shoulder. "I know that if either the father or the son is in hospital, it might be under a different name, but you never know."
"Might as well start there" said Colin, grabbing a chair and dragging it around.
"Yah, these systems organize clients alphabetically by last name anyway."
All four agents focused on the screen and Aram picked DC general, the biggest hospital with the wisest variation of clientele, and scrolled for 'R'.
"Alright, here we go". The screen showed only enough information to ID the patient, you had to click on the name for the full file. There was a last name, first letter of the first name, health care number and a tiny picture in the corner of some. They were looking for either Restole B., Restole D., or a picture that matched with what they had already pulled up on the family. However, because it was so tiny they had to scroll quite slowly.
"Ra-" said Aram, thinking out loud "Re- ahh, okay now a "Res-"
He scrolled right past it the first time. Fortunately he wasn't the only one who caught it.
"Woah - hang on a second" said Alina, bringing her finger up to rest on his screen.
"Yah, scroll back" said Colin.
"But we haven't made it to the 't' yet, 'Rest' we are still at 's', objected Aram, we can't be there yet."
"No, go back" said Colin again. Shrugging Aram scrolled back. "See, right there. Ressler, E."
"But Ressler's been out of the hospital for a while he shouldn't be in the system" said Yvonne.
"It's not Ressler" said Alina. "His first name is Donald, it would be 'Ressler, D.', it's 'Ressler, E.' I didn't know he had family that was hurt."
"Uhhhh, his family doesn't even live in DC" said Aram. "They live in Detroit and he only has a mother and brother as far as I know. Their names are Lisa and Robby, so still no 'E'."
"Well he hasn't mentioned anything" said Colin, "at least not that I know of. It's probably just someone else with the same last name. In which case we shouldn't be snooping because it's private information."
"No" said Aram, now very curious, "it's not a common name. It's Scottish or Irish, I think, and there is still some of them over there, but when I was supposed to be sleeping the one night I spent in the hospital when Ressler was hurt I heard him talking to Liz. He said that he's the last male of reproductive age in his family and if he never had a son that his family name was over. I don't think they knew I was awake and to be honest I was only half awake I wasn't intentionally eavesdropping - I - I never even heard the conversation end."
"Hey, Aram" said Yvonne, rubbing his shoulder because he was starting to ramble in distraction again. "Focus. That doesn't matter right now, we would never say anything anyway.'
"Yah" Aram nodded and turned to face the computer again. He rested his mouse over the name, ready to click. "But its got to be somehow related to him."
"Okay, well let's look. If it's not then we quickly x out, no damage done" decided Alina for the group.
"Yah, sounds good".
Aram clicked on the name and the file appeared. A picture of a little red headed boy filled the screen. They didn't even have to read the information about DOB or what his parents were listed as. One glance at the picture in the top of the page told them that the little boy they were looking at was Ressler's son.
"Well, it looks like he got his son after all" said Colin.
"Yup, there's only one man on earth who could have fathered that little boy" said Alina.