What If? Part 10
Author's Note: Thanks for your patience as I try this keenler fic out. Let me know what you think!
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"Uh, we had a little spillage," Liz said as she stood outside Ressler's door with Lucy covered in ice cream.
"She only needs a couple of licks of yours..." he said as he pulled Lucy from Liz's arms.
"She just turned two, we needed to celebrate, " Liz said as she followed him inside as he carried Lucy to the washroom and stripped a giggling toddler down to hose her off before the ice cream got even more sticky.
"You think this is hilarious, don't you?" Ressler chuckled with his daughter.
Lucy nodded.
He flicked some water at her face and she laughed harder and so did he. Liz watched the pair of them from the door of his washroom and smiled.
"I'm sorry, " she offered.
"Is fine, Liz," he chuckled.
"I know you were going to get some things done around here and we are back a little early..."
"Is all good," he said absently. He had started to plan a trip for them to Maine but he could continue that another day.
Ressler reached for a towel and dried her off playing peek with the towel as he did and she giggled even more.
"Can you grab me a clean diaper?" Ressler asked over his shoulder.
Liz nodded and went to Lucy's room to grab one. She walked into the teal room and noted another new butterfly was hanging from her ceiling since the last time she was in here. It was starting to look like a butterfly conservatory in here. Dolls and fake groceries and stuffed animals lined the edges of the room. Big wooden letters that said Lucy were above her toddler bed. It was a little girl's dream room.
She found a diaper and walked back to the washroom with it just as Ressler was blow drying her hair as she sat wrapped in a towel and kicked her legs.
"Look at you at the daddy salon," Liz smiled at Lucy.
"Maybe Liz will do that special ponytail for you again?" Ressler asked Lucy. "Would you like that?"
Lucy smiled and nodded. Liz knew hair was a struggle for Ressler. His ponytails always were neat but lop-sidded but his braids were decent. Liz did a high ponytail with some small braids that Lucy thought made her look like a princess.
"Who can say no to that face?" Liz said as she leaned forward and grabbed one of Lucy's swinging feet. Lucy started to giggle and swung her feet more emphatically. Liz pretended to keep missing her feet and Lucy thought that was the funniest thing ever.
"Let's get a diaper on you before all those giggles result in you needing another hose down, " Ressler said as he put away the hair dryer and threw a diaper on her. "And Liz can do your hair."
He smirked, knowing Liz wouldn't ever back out of that. Things had been good between them. They were friends again and, once he was sure she wasn't trying to take Lucy back, Ressler relaxed about her involvement in his daughter's life. Liz's interest in Lucy seemed to be exactly what she had explained. A little bit of time with Lucy to develop a relationship like Lucy had with the other people in his life.
At first, Liz was very cognizant of not looking too eager, pushing too hard. Then as time went on they struck a balance and she seemed to be less cautious around them and asking for time with Lucy. She took Lucy one night a week. Usually for something involving food, princess movies, or a play place. Ressler was grateful for the help and happy that, one day, when he told Lucy about Liz, that they'd have a relationship of some kind.
"I'll get the elastics," Liz said as she walked from the washroom with Ressler as he carried a newly diapered Lucy in for her pj's.
She watched Ressler get Lucy into her footie jammies with tigers on them and smiled.
She'd been doing this a lot lately when she watched them together. It was a different side of him, one she knew was there and was badly to see up close. He loved Lucy with every part of his being. He was a great dad. Casual and organized at the same time. Loving and rule-oriented when required. He had managed this crazy change in his life with grace.
She felt guilty for abandoning him and Lucy so soon into her life. But she needed to be a better person before she could be a better friend to him and Lucy. And she saw her role as that: friend. She birthed Lucy but she hadn't been her mother. Not by a long shot. Now though, he was letting her be involved in Lucy's life and she hoped Lucy would, one day, understand why she was better with her dad. Forgive her.
"You doing her hair or what?" Ressler asked Liz as he turned to see her spaced out.
"Uh yeah, " Liz nodded and jumped into action while Ressler turned down Lucy's bed, got her stuffies, and turned the lights down low. Ressler said getting Lucy to sleep each night was a "process". Liz hasn't observed it before and she now started to understand what he was saying.
An hour later she was sitting in his living room drinking a glass of wine when he emerged from Lucy's room.
"I thought you'd gone," he said when he emerged from Lucy's room looking like he just woke up.
"I was listening to you read and then tell her the story, " Liz said.
"I wish I knew you were out here," Ressler said as he fixed his mussed hair. "I fell asleep for a good 20 minutes."
"I wondered why it was so quiet, " Liz chuckled.
"She won't fall asleep without me, "he said. "If I don't lay down with her, next to her little bed on the floor, she's in and out of her room for hours. "
"You sleep on the floor?" Liz asked.
He chuckled. "Usually for under an hour, but I have woken up there some mornings."
Liz chuckled softly. Of course, he slept on the floor to help his daughter. Of course, he did, he was Ressler.
He walked to his bar and grabbed a wine glass and poured himself a glass from the bottle Liz had opened.
"Sorry, you were busy and it was just sitting there..."
He chuckled and took a drink, sitting in the chair facing her on the sofa.
"I think I've had that bottle for at least a couple years," he smirked as he swirled the wine in his glass. "I don't drink much anymore. "
"Why?" Liz asked interested.
He smirked and took another drink. "Lucy. I want to make sure I'm in a position to take care of her or get her to the hospital if she's sick."
Liz nodded.
He drained his glass and placed it down.
She took another drink.
"You still seeing Rania?" Liz asked him. She needed some wine in her before she asked the question she'd been dying to ask.
"We're not dating," he said as he watched her finish her wine and put down her empty glass.
"But it... works?" Liz asked, not sure if he'd appreciate her invasion of his privacy.
She had wanted to ask about Rania for months. When she discovered he was visiting her every week years ago she was incredibly jealous. Actually, had followed him for two weeks of Saturdays before she approached him on the street. She thought they were dating and when she discovered they were just friends with benefits... she got even more jealous. It was ridiculous, she knew it.
She had kissed him, dreamed about him, given him her baby, left him, shown little interest in him even when she came back, fantasized about him, and was jealous he'd found someone to share the most intimate part of his life with. Liz had decided for her own sanity she needed to not think about Rania, who was probably a woman who could work as a model but worked in art acquisitions for the DC capital commission, and accept she was never going to be in any romantic relationship with Ressler. Liz needed to accept that Ressler was obviously no longer interested in her.
But now it has been almost a year and a half of Ressler's Saturdays with Rania, and she wondered if they were now dating and not just fucking. It appeared they were not dating. But that still made Saturdays difficult for Liz. She even found out that Aram took Lucy a few Saturdays when his mom was in a senior's bus tour of the east coast Ressler had given her for Christmas. He wasn't giving up his Saturdays.
He swallowed hard. "It does. "
He wanted to tell her that the reason it works is because he has no feelings for Rania. That despite the shit that Liz had pulled and he giving him no indication she was at all interested in him, he didn't have room in his heart for anyone else and hadn't since she kissed him in the back of that truck. That he had resolved himself to being a single dad forever. That he couldn't picture anyone else being Lucy's mom but her.
Instead of saying all those things, he rose from his chair and collected their glasses and walked to the kitchen with them.
"I better..."Liz said as she reached for her jacket. "I'll see you in the morning. "
He exited the kitchen and smiled at her. "I'll see you in the morning Liz."
She leaned in and kissed his cheek before she walked out his front door.
To be continued...