So I've been hurriedly binging this series over the past few months and, even though I haven't written fanfiction in forever, felt compelled to take on a bit of a challenge for myself. Long story short, and I'm sure people might throw stuff at me here, Liz annoys me. At first, I was tentatively half-on the shipper train but now, as I start Season 7, I'm done. And for some reason, I started concocting this 'Younger Red/Other female character' narrative in my head. Hopefully, you don't hate it...
Early warning: It will get raunchy, most definite MA rating.
Marrakech, July 1996.
The bar was a typical hotel bar, a curving structure around a long counter where one and occasionally two young men scurried from end to end.
It wasn't overly busy and he liked that. It meant he could stay alert and keep watch on his surroundings.
It was more of a business hotel, though in Marrakech, "business" was probably a very broad term. But most of those in situ were dressed in suits and ties, some pulled loose or discarded but all giving the air of some kind of legitimacy.
Raymond Reddington, however, sat at the bar, nursing his scotch, clad in a pair of loose-fitting slacks and a dark polo shirt, far more suited to the oppressive heat that would hit him like a hairdryer as soon as he stepped outside. A pair of sunglasses and a Red Sox baseball cap sat on the counter ready to complete his look of 'spent tourist'.
His contact was late – not unusual for Raji, who always tended to hit the hashish pipe a bit hard before their meetings – to steel his nerves, he'd confided once.
"Raji, if you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, you need never steel your nerves to meet with me," Red had told him.
"And if I'm not doing as I'm supposed to?" Raji asked cautiously. Red had laughed, brushing his hand through his hair, by this point damp with sweat.
"You'd better have a Pulitzer winning story as to why," he'd replied with a dangerous smile.
Red knew Raji was impulsive, he didn't think things through, but so far he hadn't done anything to warrant cutting him loose.
Still, he'd never been this late before and Red was beginning to worry. So much so that he didn't notice the woman who sat down next to him until she spoke.
"I can't figure it out," she said in a soft English accent that immediately had Red running through known agency operatives in his head. His panic didn't show, he was too smart for that.
"Figure what out?"
"If you're trying to stand out, or blend in."
He looked at her, studiously taking in her features. She was devastatingly beautiful. Long, soft tresses of chocolate brown hair, with flecks of fair and blond, framed her face which, for some reason and maybe it was the accent, had a hint of refinery, her dark, soulful eyes contrasted by quirked red lips, her choice of lipstick color only adding to the mischievousness he could read off them.
"Who says I'm trying to do either? I'm just a tourist gasping for a scotch and some respite from the grueling heat of this city," he tipped what was left in his glass down the hatch and signaled the bartender.
He glanced across the bar and tapped his watch twice before turning back to his new acquaintance.
"So, blend in then..." she said, eyeing him curiously. He laughed loudly, too loud for it not to sound fake but no one around them seemed to notice.
"Bill Kershaw," he offered his hand.
"Lily Bloom," she replied, taking his hand, and he had to stop himself from snorting at the obviously fake name.
"So what brings you to Marrakech, Mr Kershaw?" she asked, tracing a finger around the rim of her wine glass in a way that made him take a deep breath before answering.
"I feel I'm a... citizen of the world. And please call me Bill."
She smiled and looked around the room.
"I see your point. It's a bit like the United Nations in here – French, Italian, Arab, American...I suppose the lack of extradition laws are a big attraction..."
Red frowned.
"Extradition laws, that's an unusual concern for someone on holiday," he probed, already feeling like he knew the answers to any questions he might have had.
"Who says I'm on holiday?"
He nodded and raised his eyebrows, looking around once again to see if Raji had shown his face. But there was no sign of him. Something was wrong.
"You keep looking around, are you waiting for someone?"
He smirked and turned back to her.
"Well, given the fact that I'm sitting next to a stunning woman in an almost indecently see-through sundress, I think any answer I might give would be ill-advised, don't you?" He held her stare and smiled when she pursed her lips, raising her eyebrows in what was either humored interest or humored exasperation.
He hazard a guess that it was the former.
*
Just over an hour later, Red paid the bar tab, insisting on putting Lily's drinks on it.
"You really don't have to do that," she protested but he waved her protests off. Despite his being on guard, he had enjoyed their little interlude, flirting openly with a woman who, even if she knew who he was, had no issue with flirting back. He knew when he was being played but, whether that was the end game or not, this woman was attracted to him and, maybe in spite of the danger, he was attracted to her too.
"You still haven't told me what you're doing here," he said as they made their way to the lobby, dusk basking the street outside in a kind of purple glow.
"Neither have you," she said pointedly and he raised his eyebrows at her in what she must have construed as a warning because she quickly glanced around before speaking again.
"It's a rather personal matter," she said quietly and he sensed a change in her demeanor.
"I apologize, forgive my incessant curiosity," he said, holding his hands up in surrender. She smiled.
"That said..." he began, knowing that this might turn out to be the single worst idea he'd had in a while, "...I've got some good friends in this city. I might be able to help, depending on...the matter."
She looked at him then, head tilted in interest. He held her gaze, said no more, the ball was in her court. She finally broke eye contact and looked away. Taking a deep breath, she locked eyes with him again.
"Are you free for dinner?" she asked, stepping closer to him as a bell boy pushed by with a giant trolley of luggage. Red was assaulted by the smell of her perfume.
"Right now? No. But if you can give me two hours, even one-and-a-half, I can be all yours after that," he offered. There was no way he was meeting this woman again before hearing what Dembe had dug up on her. She smiled and nodded.
"Sounds good."
He gave her the address for a small couscous restaurant he knew about three blocks away. The owner was a close acquaintance and he would call ahead to brief him on the situation, providing Dembe didn't deliver an evacuation order in the next 15 minutes.
I realize that with the timeframe I've given it might be a bit early in his on-the-run days for Dembe to be in the picture. But I'm taking some poetic license! Love it? Hate it? Let me know!