The Short Game

Story 7

Author's Note: Sorry, it's been a while since I wrote this story and I actually had to re-read it to remind myself where we were before I started this chapter. Things will change again for Ressler and Liz with the return of Agnes into her life. I'm not sticking with absolute canon after this chapter—I will try and incorporate canon but it's really hard with the story as it stands to make that work.

Warning: sexual assault.

Let me know what you think.

DDDDDDDD

Liz sat in a chair holding Agnes sleeping in her arms. Her little face was something Liz couldn't stop staring at, couldn't stop noticing all the details of. She could stay up for hours watching her eyes flutter, her hand twitch, her breath move in and out of her body…

"Liz, you need to sleep," Tom whispered as he walked into the room.

"Sleep is over-rated," Liz said as she looked back down at Agnes.

Tom chuckled as he reached down for their daughter.

He lifted her carefully from Liz and placed her in her crib, looking down at her with love in his eyes before he turned and nodded for Liz to come with him.

She rose and looked one more time at Agnes before she followed him out of the room.

In their fake bedroom she pulled on some pajama pants and a tank top and crawled into bed. She felt the bed dip behind her, his body move closer to hers, and a tentative hand snake around her mid drift.

"Tom…" Liz started as she pulled away slightly.

"Liz, it's been weeks…" Tom said as his hand drifted up to cover her breast. "I thought with Agnes back you'd…"

She rolled to look at him; the man she was fake married to, the man she lived in a fake house with, the man who had no idea she had been sleeping and was very well possibly in love with, another man this entire time. The father of her child.

"Tom, I'm tired, and this is a larger discussion," Liz said as she removed his hand from her person.

She heard him huff and felt him roll onto his back behind her. Liz closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. She woke up sometime later to the feeling of his hand drifting into her pajama pants.

"Tom!" Liz snapped as she tried to pull away and shove at him with her elbow. He grabbed onto her hip to prevent it. She felt him find her and start to rub, fingers drifting inside.

"Tom, stop!" Liz called again as she struggled to pull away. Tom raised himself slightly and used his body to clamp down on her arm and her side, not allowing her to shove him anymore as he continued.

"You just need to hop back on the horse Lizzie," he whispered, his fingers starting to work her. "Maybe you feel you don't deserve happiness, but we can find it again."

Liz, stunned by the turn of events, felt her body freeze for almost a minute while he did what he did; his hand rough and insistent. When she felt her brain catch up to what was happening, she raised her knee closer to her chest and launched her foot back at him, catching him hard somewhere in the thigh, enough that he lost contact with her, rolled backwards, and she pulled away and rolled quickly out of their bed.

"Get out!" Liz screamed as she pulled out the gun she kept in her night stand drawer.

"Liz, I thought you'd like…" Tom started as he reached for his underwear, that he had apparently taken off at some point, and stood. "I may have misunderstood…"

"Me saying no? Me telling you I didn't want to?" Liz snapped.

"Shhh…you'll wake Agnes," Tom said as he stepped toward her.

"Not another step," Liz said as she readied her gun to fire.

"You'd shoot me?" He asked surprised.

"You assaulted me!" Liz yelled and Agnes started to cry. She looked over her shoulder and Tom lunged.

Liz fired and hit him in the shoulder. He was hurled backwards and then looked at her stunned that she had actually fired.

Liz heard Reddington's guards come barrelling into their fake apartment, prompted by the gun shot. Chuck was the first to arrive in their bedroom, gun drawn.

"He…he…he…needs to go to the hospital," Liz stammered, handing her gun to Chuck. "And never to come back."

"Liz!" Tom yelled. "I'm sorry, you used to like…"

"You will never have that chance again!" Liz yelled as she walked from the room.

She walked out of the bedroom and into Agnes' room to calm the screaming child while she heard Chuck and the others get Tom out of the fake apartment.

"Liz?" Chuck asked as he stood at the baby's room door.

Liz hadn't noticed that she'd been crying the entire time she calmed Agnes. Chuck must have heard. She was also freezing cold.

Chuck saw her teeth chattering and reached for a throw blanket on the ottoman and placed it around her shoulders.

"You're in shock," he said as he looked between her and the door. "I'm going to get someone here to see you. Can I take…?"

Liz clutched Agnes against her.

"Liz, she's asleep, can I…Tom's gone," he said kindly.

Liz looked up at him and saw he was being honest. She nodded and loosened her grip on Agnes so Chuck could carefully lift her up and take her to her crib, placing her gently down.

He turned to see Liz crying harder.

"Let's get you warm," he said nicely as he stood before her and gestured for her to come with him. He didn't touch her, something went down with her and Tom, and Chuck sensed it was big.

Liz carefully rose from her seat and followed him into the fake living room where he wrapped her loosely in another blanket and called Reddington from his phone.

Liz's mind was swimming, she could vaguely hear Chuck talking about Tom, medics, shock, the scene they walked in on, and her reaction. It was like she was in a tunnel, everything echoed in her head, everything seemed distant yet way too close. She could still feel his hand on her, his fingers inside her, his breath on her neck, his body pushing her down so she couldn't resist. Liz reached for a decorative bowl and started to vomit into it.

Soon there were doctors and nurses asking her personal questions, there was an exam to make sure she wasn't hurt by his roughness, there were drugs given to her that sent her off into blissful sleep on the couch in her fake living room while Reddington promised her he wouldn't leave her side and that Agnes would be safe.

When she woke the next day it was after lunch, she felt hungry and groggy and dirty. Liz rose from the couch and looked in on Agnes, Dembe was walking around her room singing softly to her as he did.

"Elizabeth?" Dembe asked.

"She's okay?" Liz asked.

"She's fine," he smiled softly at her. "And you, how are you?"

Liz sighed. She didn't' know how she was, honestly. She didn't feel anything but empty.

She looked over her shoulder.

"Tom?" Liz asked.

"You asked he never return, and he will never return," Dembe said clearly.

Liz was pretty sure that meant he was dead, but as much as she should care, she didn't. She didn't care about anything right now.

"I need to have a shower," she said as she walked away from the room. She heard Reddington directing workers and walked toward the noise.

"Lizzie," Reddington said as he approached her cautiously. "Rested?"

She nodded.

"What's going on?" Liz asked.

"We're dismantling," he said. "I thought you'd like to see the bedroom gone and then decided you probably wanted a real apartment with Agnes. I have a realtor coming over with some listings later today to show you some pictures and…"

"Not today," Liz sighed.

"Okay, well, a hotel until you decide?" Reddington asked.

Liz nodded and walked toward the washroom.

She stripped down and stepped into the shower, making the water as hot as she could stand to wash off everything that was Tom. She kept feeling his fingers, no matter how hard she tried to forget. She kept questioning why she didn't act sooner, and she kept wondering how she allowed herself to be that vulnerable with a man who had hurt her and so many others. As she played the blame game in her head and scrubbed at her body, she tried to will those thoughts from her head by focusing on the present. The smell of the soap as she lathered it, the one chipped tile in the corner, the mumblings of workers pulling apart the fake apartment around her. She managed to get through a brief shower and she pulled on her pajama pants and tank top again, not having thought to bring any other clothes with her. She walked to the dresser that was now sitting in the fake living room and pulled out jeans, underwear, a bra and a big loose sweater. Liz went back to the washroom, showered again, and put on the clean clothes.

Liz settled on her sofa and went back to sleep in her clothes with her hair still wet.

When Liz woke again, she sensed someone nearby and turned her head to see Ressler sitting on the chair near her head sound asleep in jeans and a flannel shirt.

She rose slightly and looked around. The workers appeared to be gone and everything was silent. Liz lifted the blanket off her body and walked toward Agnes' room, worried she had been left unattended and found Reddington sitting in the chair in the baby's room doing a crossword puzzle.

"Lizzie, you're awake," he said as he watched her walk toward the crib to look down at Agnes.

"Someone has been feeding her and…?" Liz asked, her head still fuzzy.

"Yes, the little princess has had stellar care while her mother recovered," Reddington said. "How are you, Lizzie?"

Liz swallowed hard.

"Ressler is here," she said as she looked over her shoulder at the man asleep awkwardly in a chair in her fake living room.

"Lizzie it's been just over 24 hours since your assault," he said as he watched her carefully. "You were asleep most of the time from the sedatives."

Liz looked at him confused, she wasn't sure what that had to do with Ressler.

"You were supposed to fly to New Mexico on your undercover case yesterday morning," Reddington explained. "I called Donald once you were done with the doctors and explained you would not be joining him."

"But the girls…the records…" Liz said, suddenly aware their entire operation may have just fallen apart.

"He got them," Reddington explained. "I don't know how, or the details, but I know Donald was here by dinner time yesterday. And, besides a few phone calls and trips to the washroom, has been in that chair since he arrived."

Liz leaned over Agnes and kissed her little head.

She turned to look at Reddington and closed her eyes.

"Tom?"

"You asked he never return again," Reddington said. "With a man like Tom and a child in the mix, there was only one way to guarantee that Lizzie."

She nodded and started to cry.

"Lizzie?" He asked, worried he had just killed a man that she wanted around.

Reddington got up but stayed back from her, he knew enough about victims to know that you let them come to you and didn't force yourself on them.

"No, uh…thank you," Liz said as she tried to control her emotions.

"What happened to you never should have," Reddington said clearly.

Liz cried harder.

"Liz?" Ressler asked from the door to Agnes' room.

She looked up, saw him standing there groggy in worn and wrinkled clothes, and ran toward him clinging to his frame as he carefully wrapped his arms around her and looked at Reddington surprised.

"Shhh, I'm so sorry," he said softly to her. "I'm here, you're safe and…and Agnes is safe too."

She cried and Ressler carefully walked her backwards away from the baby's room for fear of waking the baby up. He stood with her for another half hour while Liz cried hard against him, and her body shook.

He whispered comforting words to her and carefully rocked her side to side to calm her. Liz started to tire from all the crying and her legs began to give out. Ressler walked her to the sofa and laid her carefully down. She pulled at him, and he sat down near her head while she lay her head on his lap. He carefully stroked her hair and said soft, kind, words to coax her off to sleep.

Liz's last thought as she lost consciousness was that with Ressler, she never worried, ever, that he would hurt her.

To be continued…