These Moving Parts Inside Of Me, Well They've Been Shutting Down For Quite Some Time…

A/N: Stand alone companion piece to: If You Could Read My Mind Love. Set post 5x08: Ian Garvey. No scenes or spoilers except the obvious references, it's all me. So much of Liz's recovery was glossed over so I wanted to explore it further. This may be in several parts.

Song: Touch - Sleeping At Last

TW: Depression, suicidal ideation, grief.

Part 1: Rain Or Shine, I Don't Feel A Thing…

She was curled up on her side, the blanket pulled up around her shoulders, she held it bunched under her chin like an outer protective layer that could shield her from the world. The room was dark, the heavy velvet curtains pulled closed. She hadn't been out of bed yet and Reddington had hired a team of nurses who had cared for her during her ten month coma. She hadn't spoken since the vent had been removed. Her eyes were unfocused against the sliver of light escaping through the closed curtains. In the afternoons he would read to her, he would try to engaged her in conversation but she was just lost.

Tom was dead. Murdered.

What else mattered, apart from Agnes who she couldn't lift, or hold. Her daughter barely remembered her so she went inward. It was hard to care about anything at all. Tom's murder played on repeat in her mind, she went over every detail, every word he had said on the phone before she had arrived home. She hated herself for not getting up after she had been hit, not fighting back, not doing something. At night when the house was quiet and she thought everyone had gone to bed, she sobbed into her pillow. Her body wracking with pain and despair. Her throat ached from the vent and sobbing only made it worse but once she started it was impossible to control. She wanted to crawl out of her skin, bury herself in the cool earth next to Tom and be done with it. Why was she even alive?

There was a brief knock before the door swung open and Reddington entered carrying a tray with what she assumed was breakfast. She didn't look up but could smell what she thought was oatmeal and coffee. She wanted to tell him to go away, that she wasn't hungry but she lay still, her eyes glassy and fixed on an indiscriminate spot, she kept quiet.

'Good Morning…' He said brightly, placing the tray on the hospital table that was at the end of the bed. She didn't acknowledge him but he had grown accustomed to her silence. He walked swiftly over to the window and threw open the curtains letting in the morning sun then cracked the window allowing the fresh morning air to hit her bare arms. She moaned and pulled the blanket over her head, curling into a foetal position.

'Time waits for no man, Elizabeth…' He told her, taking hold of the blanket and tugging it back, she tried to hold onto it but her weakened grip was no match for him. She groaned in annoyance, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She covered her head with her arms, still curled up.

'Today we are going to get you up, you're going to eat something, we will get you dressed and then we will go outside for some fresh air, won't that be lovely?' He informed her enthusiastically. He could take that enthusiasm and shove it, she thought grimly.

She didn't move, he sat in the chair beside the bed perching on the edge. He leaned over, taking hold of her arms to gently pull them away from her face. She looked up at him then, her eyes glossy and a scowl etched onto her face.

'Now there'll be none of that…' He told her in response to the scowl. 'Let's get you sitting up.' She struggled for a moment against his grip and he let go of one of her arms to find the controls for the bed. He pushed the button to lift the top end and it slowly began to raise making it uncomfortable for her to stay curled up in the position she was in.

'Come on…' He told her and took her ankles, gently but unceremoniously pulling them straight. She tried to swipe him with an arm which he caught pulling it around his neck, he did the same with the other arm and pulled her up to sitting. She weighed nothing now after months of being tube fed. She struggled against him but he held her firmly.

'Shhhh' He whispered against her ear, 'I've got you…' She didn't want him to have her, she wanted to be left alone but then his arms were around her like he was hugging her and for a moment she settled into the warmth and comfort of it. In that moment she didn't want him to let go, his arms around her felt good, felt safe. The nurses lifted her all the time but this was different. This was him. He lowered her against the back rest and she clung to him for a moment, fistfuls of his shirt in her grip like she was afraid he would drop her but she just didn't want him to let her go. She buried her face in his neck, breathing in his familiar scent, tears flowing freely, wetting his collar.

Then her brain kicked in. Tom on the floor in a puddle of his own blood, Reddington looming over them with a gun, shooting, bang bang bang. Why hadn't he saved Tom, why hadn't he got there sooner? Why was she alive and Tom dead? She let go suddenly and pushed him away, her head falling back against the pillow he had moved. She avoided his eye but could see the hurt on his face before his mask returned.

'Here…' He said softly pulling the blanket up over her pyjama covered legs. She wouldn't look at him, hugging her arms around herself. He pulled the table up to where she could easily reach it and took the newspaper off the tray. He poured out two cups of coffee and then sat back in the chair.

'Eat. Before your oatmeal gets cold.' He said before opening the paper. She didn't look at the food, she didn't look at him. She awkwardly turned away from him, laying on her side and pulled the blanket up to her shoulders as he began to read aloud articles he thought she would like to hear. He didn't attempt to feed her which she was glad of.

She had been washed and dressed in loose fitting clothes, light weight pants and a long sleeve top with thick woolly socks. She had tried to fight them when they had gotten her out of bed but she had been sat in the bath tub and been hosed down, hair included. Someone had dried it for her and brushed it out but she had just stared into space lost in memories she didn't want to remember. The next thing she knew she had been sat in a wheelchair and wheeled out onto a large terrace that overlooked the extensive grounds, a blanket around her shoulders and one across her lap. She didn't remember how she'd gotten there. She was alone for a moment, looking out onto a large pristine lawn and a lake further in the distance. She could hear the sounds of the water birds in the distance.

She suddenly had the urge to get up and run, run away from this place, run until her lungs burned, run to the lake and maybe just allow the water to take her. It seemed far but not far enough that she couldn't get to it on foot. She tried to lift one of her legs off the foot rest of the wheelchair but her limbs felt so heavy, just sitting there was an effort. She tried again, this time using her hands to try and help lift her leg but it was impossible. She had a bone deep tiredness and for a moment she became fearful sat alone in a strange garden unable to move. Her arms fatigued from trying to lift her leg, she reached down to release the break, her fingers fumbling with the mechanism. Just as she was reaching down to release the other side she heard the doors opening behind her.

'Ah there you are…' Reddington said as he approached her. 'What a magnificent day!' He exclaimed as she looked up at him, she must have had an expression of guilt on her face because he looked down to see what she had been doing.

'Where did you think you were going to?' He asked, releasing the other break and standing behind her to push her along the terrace. A wooden ramp had been placed over the steps at the far end to enable him to wheel her down to the path that cut across the lawn. For a moment she wondered if he had given her something to make her feel so weak before the rational side of her brain kicked in to remind her that she had been in a coma for ten months. He pushed her a few feet along the path before turning a corner around the edge of the house. She could see Agnes playing on a blanket, that had been set out on the lawn. She took in just how big she had grown, an unsettling feeling resting against her chest. Agnes was beaming up at a woman sitting beside her, she let out little giggles every so often gazing up at a woman. Elizabeth's heart sank at all the time she had missed with her daughter, a daughter that barely knew who she was. Angry tears pricked her eyes. She wanted to hurl the blanket off her legs, she wanted to punch something, get out of this damn chair and go back to her dark room where she wouldn't be confronted by the image of her happy smiling child with someone else.

Reddington had pulled to a stop to allow her to watch Agnes play. She stiffened when he placed a hand on her shoulder. 'She's happy and healthy Elizabeth, you don't need to worry about her. She has been very well taken care of.' She wasn't worried, she was enraged at all the time she had lost with her but most of all there was a deep deep sadness. She frowned, wrenching her shoulder away from his touch and almost tipped forward in an effort to stop him from touching her. She didn't want to be comforted, she wanted to scream and yell and cry. He grabbed her arm to stop her falling, coming around to the front of the chair. He knelt down in front of her but she refused to look at him. He covered her hand with his own and looked up into her scowling face. She moved her hands and crossed her arms over her chest, tucking her hands under each armpit. She could see his signature pursed lips and frown out of the corner of her eye.

'You can't stay quiet forever…' He told her getting up to resume pushing her toward the lake.

She slept most of the afternoon, missing lunch but he let her sleep. He woke her at six, she was deeply asleep, the kind of sleep that you have to be pulled from like sticky tar in the depths of blackness where no dream can exist. Her limbs were heavy with an invisible weight weighing her down. She was hard to wake but he was gently persistent. He stroked her hair and her face, squeezing her arm gently, saying her name in a low voice next to her ear and he raised the top of the bed slightly. He loosened the covers and opened the curtains, allowing the evening light to kiss her face. She moaned slightly as she began to surface. She screwed her eyes up tight, that bone deep tiredness not letting her go, her heavy limbs resisting his efforts.

'Elizabeth…' Her spoke her name softly again, raising the bed further. She moaned again, lifting one arm to push against him but it seemed to flop against him instead, resting against his shoulder. It felt impossibly heavy so she let it flop back to rest beside her. She couldn't understand why he was waking her, what cruel possible reason he would have but she couldn't seem to formulate the words or she didn't want to speak them which she didn't know. He pushed the button on the bed controls again and she sat up further, tears prickled at the corners of her vision. She shook her head at him, her chin trembling. Go away.

'We need to get you up sweetheart…' He said softly, she froze for a moment at the pet name, searching her brain for a memory of when he might have said it before but she couldn't think. He pulled her to sitting, leaning her weight against him as he swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Her arms were loose at her side, her head was resting against his shoulder, she shook it moaning against his shirt but she couldn't seem to make her spine straighten or her arms work. Leave me alone, she wanted to scream at him. She felt tethered to the bed, her body wanted, needed to be supine, like gravity itself was too heavy to resist.

'We're going to have dinner together, you missed lunch.' he explained to her moans and head shaking. He moved back slightly, holding her arms to steady her. Her head still flopped against him, tears still threatening. He grabbed the arm of the wheel chair bringing it closer before he pulled her arms around his neck, easily lifting her into the chair. He knelt down, she was still tilted forward, her head against his shoulder. He lifted one leg onto the wheelchair rest and then the other then pushed her back slightly, taking her face in hands. He brushed her hair away from her face to reveal a scowl which he laughed at causing the tears to flow.

'I'm sorry…' He chuckled, 'You need food, you won't get stronger if you don't eat.' He said then suddenly serious. She didn't care, let her wither away, she just wanted to sleep.

He pushed her out of the bedroom and into a long corridor, she couldn't remember ever seeing before, he bumped her down one step and into a large high ceilinged dining room, a long polished dining table dominated the room with an open fire against one wall at the far end. Two places had been set, one at the head and one next to it where the chair had been removed. Apart from the nursing team and the woman that had been with Agnes, she hadn't seen anyone else and vaguely assumed Dembe was here somewhere.

He pushed her up to the table, she was slumped to one side in the chair and hadn't attempted to straighten herself.

'Soup, I believe.' He told her, taking the lid off the bowl in front of her. He reached out and gently pulled her arm to straighten her, like she was some kind of doll he could manipulate. She was irritated, she didn't want to be sitting here listening to what she knew would be a convoluted story or many. He had been unusually quiet, even at the lake he held back and let them sit in a comfortable silence. He pulled a cloth napkin out from underneath her spoon and shook it out tucking the corner into her pyjama top. He pulled his own chair closer and sat down, taking her spoon and dipping it into the broth. She could see tiny pieces of pasta in the bowl with what she assumed were vegetables.

The moment he brought the spoon to her lips, her stomach rebelled churning wildly at the thought of actual food. She turned her head away from the spoon, like Agnes had done so many times and the broth spilt down the napkin. He made a clicking sound with his tongue, she didn't need to look at him to know he had that look of annoyance on his face that she knew well. She shook her head briefly, a single shake. He put the spoon down inside the bowl and pulled his chair closer, he stroked the side of her head before taking her face in his hands again and pulling her to face him, to look him in the eye. He didn't let her go, his thumbs stroked her cheeks. Her eyes were glassy and he could see the emotion on her face.

'If you don't eat, how do you expect to get stronger?' He asked softly, her chin trembled slightly. She didn't care about getting stronger, she just wanted to sleep and never wake up again. 'I know it doesn't feel like it now, but you want to hold Agnes again, I know you do… And she wants that too, she needs you Elizabeth, she needs you to get strong again.' She tried to shake her head in his hands, tears spilling down her cheeks. Agnes didn't even know her, how could she want anything to do with her, she was happy without her.

'For me…Please.' He asked as he let go of her face and brought the spoon up to her lips. She sipped a little, it was salty, the broth strong. It made her cough. He let her rest for a moment before bringing the spoon back to her lips.

When she had eaten a quarter, she lifted a shaky hand to signal she'd had enough. He took a glass of water off the table, he lifted the straw to her lips and she took a few sips, looking at him. He was smiling clearly pleased with her effort.

'Are you okay to sit here while I have mine?' He asked in an attempt to get her to speak. She didn't shake her head so he took that to mean she was. Her hand was resting on the table and he took a slice of bread from a side plate, folding it over so the butter was inside and put it in her hand with a shaky hand she brought it to her mouth and took a tiny nibble. He moved his chair back to his own place and lifted the lid from his own bowl.

'So shall I tell you what's been happening with the task force?' He asked as she watched him with glassy eyes.