Beat and Tired
Elizabeth Keen woke with a start, her mind still lost to the terrifying dream that she was struggling out of. She found herself sitting straight up in a bed that wasn't really hers and staring at a wall that no longer contained pieces of her own, private case. It was blank and void, showing only the off-colour paint of the motel room and not the blood splatters she had seen in her nightmare.
It was a wonder that she didn't wake this way more often, really. She had been through hell for a year and a half and had seen more evil in the world than any one mind should be able to process. Her life had been upside down, those that she had trusted had lied to her, and she found something new and terrifying at every turn.
She wasn't broken though. Not yet. She was still fighting the downward plunge tooth and nail. The pain and the heartbreak was better than going numb to it, she hoped, but as she clung to her humanity she found herself with more questions piling up, and that's where the nightmares came into play.
In a world of black and white that had blurred dangerously into grey, Liz found Tom. In her dreams he was always highlighted in deep red like the colour of blood. It took a while for her to realize it was his blood that she was seeing, and not the blood he'd spilled of who knew how many victims in his career as one of Major's operatives. Sometimes he was in their home, Zamani's knife dug deeply in him and his eyes lulled back as he gave up the fight to stay awake, and sometimes he was slumped against the wall of some alley. The sense of urgency crashed over her each time, dragging her away like a riptide.
The dreams had been more prevalent since the courtroom when he had walked in, hands cuffed and that purposefully blank expression on his face. He had looked at the judge and told him he was the killer and his name was Tom Keen. In that moment Liz knew that there was no black and white for people like them. He was rescuing her. He was choosing her. He was risking everything. For her.
But he didn't care about her like she had cared for him. He had used her. It didn't make sense.
Liz sighed, kicking at the sheets to untangle herself from them and trying to banish the dream from her mind. Tom had proven himself to be a survivor. He had called her several times since the hearing, asking how she was doing and sounding almost as if he just needed to hear her voice. She never could bring herself to be the one to hang the phone up.
She stood and glanced at the clock by the bed. Four in the morning. It almost wasn't worth trying to go back to sleep. A run might clear her mind and banish her ex-husband from her thoughts.
The soft knock at her door startled her as she was digging through a bag that held her workout clothes. She grabbed her gun from the bedside table and carefully edged her way towards the door, concealing it behind her as she tipped up on her toes and looked out the peephole. She blinked, wondering if she hadn't actually come out of the dream, and dropped the gun on the table so she could unfasten the locks.
The door swung open and she saw him standing there, weight shifted nearly entirely to his left and blood soaking through his jeans. She breathed his name and he looked up at her, those blue eyes of his pained and intense. "What are you doing here?" she whispered.
"I didn't have anywhere else to go," he answered roughly.
Her eyes scanned the parking lot behind him for any sign he had been followed and found only darkness, so she moved aside and gave him space to enter. He looked at her for a moment and took an unsteady step before pitching forward.
Liz gave a startled sound as she caught him as best she could, keeping him from falling fully to the floor. She shuffled him in, kicking the door shut behind them, and together, somehow, they made it over to the bed. He fell hard against it, eyes slipping closed and a breath leaving him. "Hey, don't pass out. Come on, Tom," his ex-wife said as she patted his cheek, rousing him a little.
He blinked, gaze shifting to look at her. "Sorry."
"Don't be sorry," she echoed what he had told her so many times when her job came between them. "Just tell me what happened."
She could feel his eyes follow her as she moved to grab a pair of scissors and a medical box she kept. "Wrong place, wrong time," he said after a moment, eyeing the scissors carefully. "Lizzy-"
"I just need to get a look at it. If you'd wanted to go to a hospital you would have just gone." He didn't seem to have the energy to argue the point. That might be a good thing if she had to call Red to take advantage of one of his contacts. He would grumble about it, but she thought he'd help if she framed the request right.
Tom pulled in a sharp breath as Liz laid a hand above the wound in his leg and began cutting larger hole on the jeans. She kept her expression even as she worked, revealing torn skin beneath the material. "This is going to hurt," she warned as she poured disinfectant on a cloth, fairly certain she was about to have to make that call. He was already paler than he should have been, and as she laid the cloth down against the wound and started to clean away the blood she focused on what she would say to convince Red to help the man that she shouldn't want to help. It helped to distract her from the muffled, pained sound that escaped him as he clamped his jaw shut and tried to keep it in. The muscles in his leg were tight and she frowned at the deep knife wound there. She couldn't help him. They needed a professional, and Ellie had made it very clear she was never going to be an option again.
Once she had the wound as clean as she could get it with the way he was involuntarily thrashing, she set several layers of gauze against it and wrapping it in place. He didn't stir as she worked, having gone quiet against the pillows. He was still tense, but she couldn't tell if he were conscious or not. "Tom?" She reached forward and touched the side of his face with the back of her hand, frowning at the clammy feeling of his skin. "You with me?"
Blue eyes blinked open and he gave a slight nod. "Yeah."
"I need you to hold this here, okay? Don't let up pressure." She carefully pried one hand free of his death grip on the sheets beneath him and set it against another folded piece of gauze, trying to slow the blood flow again.
"'Kay," he breathed, but then his eyes flickered to meet hers. "Lizzy?"
"Hmm?" she answered as she pulled her phone out and started dialing.
"Thank you."
He looked so beaten and tired where he lay and her chest clenched a little looking at him. She wasn't sure exactly what had happened, but she was certain she couldn't let him bleed out in her motel room. She couldn't let him die. As the phone rang in her ear, she moved around the bed to take hold of his other hand. "Keep pressure," she reminded him and he squeezed her fingers as the call connected. She might not be able to talk to him to keep him awake, but hopefully he could focus enough on that task.
"Lizzy? Is everything alright?"
Liz wasn't entirely sure that Red slept at night. Even on trips overseas he seemed only seemed to doze, and even that was a rarity. No matter what hour she called he always sounded wide awake. "I'm fine, but I need your help."
"What's happened?"
She paused and weighed her options as her gaze drifted to Tom again. His grip on her hand had gone limp and his eyes were closed. So much for giving him something to focus on. A curse left her lips as she piled off the bed and circled it. "Just a sec," she directed to her C.I. on the other end of the line and shook Tom a little. "Hey, don't close your eyes. You need to stay awake."
"Is it Tom?"
Did the panic in her voice immediately denote her ex-husband? She didn't want to know the answer, but the soft moan that left his lips forced her to at least answer Red's. "Yes. Can you send Rosa and-?"
"I can, but I won't."
A chill swept through her. "Red, I know you don't like him. I get that, but he's going to die." She waited and when he didn't say anything, she felt the chill replaced with anger that would quickly turn hot. "Reddington?"
There was a beat of silence on the other end and the Concierge of Crime sighed. "I won't send her there. The space isn't appropriate. Can you move him? I'll send you directions."
She had been coaxing him back to consciousness as Red spoke and when his eyes slipped open again she breathed a sigh of relief. "Yes."
"Good. We will meet you at the address."
The phone disconnected and a text came through just moments later. Liz pulled in a deep breath and was startled when a hand clumsily reached for her face. She caught it and, on impulse, pressed a kiss to it. "Red has someone. You're going to be okay."
"Hates me," he rasped and his brows drew together.
"Yeah, well, apparently he likes me enough for both of us. I'm not going to let him hurt you, Tom."
A small smile played at the edges of his lips. "Going to protect me, Lizzy?"
The amusement pulled memories forward of all the times she had thought she was protecting the man she loved from the evil in the world. Instead, he had been part of that evil. She frowned at the thought. Sort of. He wasn't all bad. Her clear cut world had always been an illusion and she knew it. Of course she would have fallen for a spy. What sort of sweet, innocent teacher would have been able to process the chaos that has rained down in them?
"Liz?"
She blinked, pulled back to the present. If she loved him, hated him, or somewhere in between, he was still in a lot of trouble, and she cared enough to let him through the door. "We need to go."
He nodded, not bothering to argue again. He leaned heavily on her the whole way out to the car and Liz looked over her shoulder more than once as she helped him into the back so that he could prop his leg up. "Don't you dare go to sleep," she groused at him, but couldn't quite manage to put the bite in it that she felt she needed.
"You keep saving me," he whispered, eyes catching hers and she tried for a smile.
"Don't make me regret it."
Tom chuckled and winced as he shifted his weight. "You still never asked if I ever loved you, you know."
"Words from you are cheaper than they used to be," Liz pointed out and closed the door to jump into the driver's seat.
"I don't always lie."
She shook her head and started the vehicle. "Did you ever love me, Tom?"
Several beats of silence followed and as she pulled to the stop sign at the edge of the parking lot she risked a glance back. He was looking directly at her, blue eyes glassy with pain, but focused. "Still do."
She didn't answer as she turned and drove towards help.
He didn't remember much after falling through the door, head spinning and having lost too much blood in his attempt to escape. Apparently neo-nazis did not like to be crossed, and neither did Bill. Tom had been the one to take the fall for it when he had refused to use Liz as the scapegoat to an assignment gone very bad. In hindsight, the outright refusal might have been a bad life choice. It wasn't as if he was well practiced in telling the Major no.
Or handling the undeniable fact that he still had feelings for his ex-wife.
One of his attackers had gotten the upper hand for a moment, digging a knife into his thigh all the way up to the hilt. He'd taken a blow or two after, but he'd managed to end it, the same knife dug deep into the same man's neck. By the time he had managed to get to Liz's place he'd barely been able to think straight. Granted, the fact that he had gone there at all might have left many the question his thinking to begin with.
She had let him in though, that much he knew. She had saved him again, and this time she likely had only grief to gain from it.
Tom shifted a little, finding himself on a much narrower bed than before. A glance around proved he wasn't in a hospital, but not in Liz's motel room either. He could hear muffled arguing from outside the doorway, the door itself only barely propped open. He strained to hear what was being said and found his mind muddled by painkillers.
The door opened and an attractive woman with dark hair walked in, her face lighting up when she saw the blue eyes staring back at her. "Mr Keen, it's good to see you awake."
He moved again, trying to focus on her and decide if he was supposed to know her or not. Finally he decided that it didn't matter and he swallowed hard. "Where-" A cough made him wince and he wondered how long he'd been asleep for his throat to grow that dry. The doctor - he assumed, anyway - crossed the space between them and offered a glass of water with a straw. He accepted it gratefully and tried again. "Where's Liz?"
"Speaking with Mr Reddington. I'll let her know that you're awake. How are you feeling?"
"Drugged," he said and blinked hard, trying to work his way through the cobwebs. Well that wasn't happening.
The doctor smiled warmly. "Good. That means your pain is under control." She stepped forward, checking a monitor that he hadn't noticed before and reached forward to press a hand to his forehead. Whatever she found there caused her to nod approvingly and turn. "I'll let her know you're awake."
Tom nodded, feeling the room spin just a little. He waited and waited, alternating between looking towards the door and closing his eyes against the pain that was starting to find its way through the fog.
When he opened them again, he found someone who was very much not Elizabeth Keen standing by his bedside, and Tom tried to push down the feeling of being trapped. Liz had promised him that he would be safe, but Reddington's gaze was anything but friendly. The older man pursed his lips, tilted his head, and sighed heavily. "Tom, what were you thinking?"
"Excuse me?" the injured operative managed, shifting a little in the bed. It hurt, but the pain helped cut through the daze. If he were verbally going toe-to-toe with Reddington he needed to have his wits about him.
"Going to Elizabeth's… home." He bit out the last word, as if it had been a point of argument for some time. "You could have gotten her killed."
"The men that attacked me were dead. I wasn't putting her in danger," Tom growled, and he knew he shouldn't have been so personally offended at the thought. But he was, and that really was all that mattered.
"And Bill?"
Tom tilted his head a little. "What about him?"
"Did you leave him alive?"
He found himself staring at Liz's self-proclaimed guardian angel, his mind trying to wrap around what he was getting at. Bill wasn't happy with him, but hurting Liz wouldn't have fixed anything. The Major wasn't one for putting his business in jeopardy just to kick back at a rogue operative.
Reddington nodded and took a seat in the chair by the bed. "Of course you did. You put your own loyalties above Lizzy's and that-"
"Bill sold me out," Tom snapped, sitting up in the bed and ignoring the pain that laced through his battered leg. He shoved it down as best as he could. "When I refused to hand her over he handed me over instead." It was between he and Bill, not Liz. Tom pulled in a shaking breath. The drugs running through his system set him on edge. He shouldn't tell Reddington this. He didn't know how, but he was sure the older man would use it against him. He always found a way. Even so, the next words slipped out. "I'd make the same choice over if I had to."
A smile that hardly looked real broke out on Reddington's face and he threw his hands in the air as if he were really excited about the whole affair. If he was or not, Tom couldn't tell through the bravado. Apparently he'd gotten whatever information he needed though. "Wonderful. Lizzy?" he called cheerfully. "You're not fooling anyone. Come in here."
Tom's gaze flickered over to the door and Liz slipped in, looking a little sheepish. "How're you feeling?" she asked he felt his body relax just a little, falling back against the pillows.
"Little fuzzy."
"Time to start asking the real questions, huh?" she teased and Reddington snorted.
"Little good it will do you." He stood from his seat and touched her shoulder as he passed. "Be careful, Lizzy."
She nodded and turned back, meeting Tom's steady gaze. "So."
"So," he answered, feeling the drugs pulling him back towards sleep again. He wanted to stay awake, even if his tongue were a little looser than usual. Carefully, feeling every muscle complain at the movement, he reached out and Liz took his hand.
"Rosa said you would be okay. You know the drill. Stay off of it, make sure to get plenty of rest. I'll tell her to drug you if you give her trouble."
The last one pulled a chuckle from him, even though he knew it wasn't an idle threat. He'd never been a very good patient. "I'll be nice," he promised. "Are you leaving now?"
"Not just yet."
"Reddington's pretty pissed, isn't he?"
Liz squeezed his fingers. "He'll get over it." She paused, studying him carefully. Her eyes were guarded, but she didn't pull away. "I don't know what to do with you," she confessed softly after a moment. "Part of me wonders if this is some trick… some way back in, but for what I have no idea. Why did you come to me?"
"At the motel or the courthouse?"
She looked startled by the question, and he wondered if she even gave herself permission to answer when she did. "Both."
Tom tightened his grip on her hand, the hold his only tether to wakefulness then. "Same reason. It's you."
"What does that mean?" she whispered, and he heard the tears in her voice before he saw them gather.
"Love you," he murmured and it was a promise, if she knew it or not. He wasn't a fool enough to think that she could just accept the words, but he couldn't deny them anymore either. He watched her for a moment, feeling more for her than he'd ever known he could. It was like a dam sprung a leak throughout his time with her, but when he chose her over the job, it crumbled, leaving him to be caught up and carried along in the rushing waters. It was easy to tell himself that it was all for the job when he had been her husband, but now that those feelings - the ones that he couldn't quite remember ever feeling for one person before - had gotten in the way of the job and he was still choosing them, he couldn't deny it. Maybe, just maybe, he could prove them to her, even if he didn't quite understand them himself.
Liz pulled in a deep breath at his side. "Get some rest, Tom. I'm not going anywhere."
A smile tugged his lips as he sank further and further back into the fog that led to sleep. Nothing was certain, but at least she was safe. That was all that mattered.