What Matters Most
There were only so many precautions he could take to keep them from finding him, and the fact that he refused to leave DC - or, at least, a certain someone that was in DC - limited him even more. The price Bud had put on his head hadn't helped either, or that he had been putting himself out there any time that Liz asked him to reach out to contacts for information. That meant that it was only a matter of time before someone found him and tried to bring him in. He just hadn't known it was going to be that night.
Tom dodged, the blow meant for him landing his attacker with bloodied knuckles against the brick wall behind where he had been. He didn't waste any time pivoting around, boot slamming into the man's ribs and he shoved him hard into the building, knocking him out cold. He turned, catching a blow to the jaw that snapped his head around and left him staggering a little. His arms were wrenched back by someone behind him, holding him, while another man approached with a knife in hand.
"There are a lot of people looking for you, Jacob," he said and Tom's lips twitched down. He hated that the name he'd been born under was so widely known now.
"Thanks for the warning," he snarked before kicking out, using the man holding him for balance so that he could get both feet off the ground. He landed the kick hard and swung around on the startled man he'd just used.
He had expected the other man to be down for a moment at least, so he didn't have time to register that he was coming back at him. The knife bit deep into his back, pulling a hiss of pain from him, and he was shoved hard against the wall. One of his attackers leaned in close, his fist full of the front of Tom's shirt. "Not so tough now, are you?"
They may have gotten a lucky blow in on him, but he wasn't down yet. "You don't have any clue who you're dealing with." He slammed his head into the man's nose, reaching for the knife that was still in his hand, and he took ahold of it quicker than the dazed man could follow. Bud was an idiot for sending these guys after him. The Major didn't cut corners on hand to hand training with any of his recruits, and Jacob had always excelled at close and dirty fights. Survival instinct took over and he lashed out, the knife cutting into his attacker's throat and he barely missed the bullet aimed at his head.
He had to get out of there. A scuffle in the alley might not attract a lot of attention, but gunshots would bring cops, and Bud had people in law enforcement. If they knew he was coming, he might not survive a night behind bars.
Tom grabbed his go-bag he had dropped and ducked around the corner, doing his best to ignore the burning pain in his back as he slipped away into the night. He faded into the shadows, a leaving the man that had been shooting at him to deal with one unconscious companion and one dead one.
She had been sleeping, like most people did in the earliest hours of the morning. Liz wasn't sure how many times the person outside her motel room had knocked, but it was driving her crazy. It was the middle of the night. If it was Reddington with the odd ours that he didn't bother keeping, she might just shoot him.
Blue eyes flickered to the gun at her bedside. She had recently made a few more dangerous enemies, and she grabbed for it as she heard the lock begin to turn from the outside. All of her instincts broke through the fog of sleep and she was on her feet in and instant, gun trained on whoever was on the other side as the chain lock caught as it was designed to do.
"Tom?" she breathed as her ex's face became clear in the small opening. She had told him to keep the key a few weeks earlier when he had been there to take care of her when she was sick. She hadn't really expected him to use it.
"I'm sorry, I thought you might be out."
"At four in the morning? What the hell are you-" The question was cut off midway through as she opened the door to let him in. While it looked like he had tried to scrub it off to an extent, he was covered in blood and she felt her chest tighten a little. "What happened?"
"It's not all mine," he offered as he moved stiffly inside and Liz turned to pull the curtains tightly shut.
"Is that supposed to make me feel better? What happened?"
He cringed at her tone. "Bud's people caught up with me tonight."
"Are you hurt?"
"A little."
"Are they still out there?"
"They didn't follow me, Lizzy. I wouldn't lead them here. I made sure-"
"I know," she murmured, allowing her tone to soften a little. "I have some first aid supplies in the bathroom."
He didn't move to follow her and for a moment she was worried he might pass out then and there. Liz inched toward him and reached a hand out to his arm. "Tom?"
Blue eyes blinked at her and he nodded. "Yeah. Sorry."
Liz frowned, the worry starting to grow stronger at his slow reactions. It was like he was on autopilot, barely functioning to get from point A to point B. She coaxed him into the bathroom and he sat heavily on the closed toilet. His silence was unnerving her. "Talk to me. What happened?"
"I got careless," he muttered, shifting to shrug his jacket off as she started pulling at it. He cringed at the movement and Liz frowned, watching his expression carefully. "Stayed in one place too long. They caught me and I got as far as the alley behind the building before a guy caught me with a knife."
The explanation came as Liz saw the blood that had soaked through his dark shirt, sticking it to his skin, and that was going to hurt like hell to pull away. "Tom, I don't know if I can... You're hurt more than a little. We should get you to a hospital."
He snorted. "They'll be watching those. I just need a place to lay low for a day or two. I wouldn't ask-"
"But you don't have anywhere else to go," she sighed. "I know. Let's see what we can do with this."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. This isn't going to feel good. The shirt's done for. Do you have anything to wear if I cut this off?" She didn't want to open the wound any further by having him move to pull it over his head.
"In my bag, yeah."
"Whole world in that thing?" she tried to tease as she pulled a pair of scissors from a box on the counter.
"Most of it."
Liz couldn't help but feel a tug of pity for him. She wasn't sure if it had been part of the act or not, but Tom had always been a bit of a homebody. It had worked well for them and their life. Now, though, they were both living on the move, never staying in one place very long, and he was paying the price for lingering now.
She squeezed his shoulder and he looked around at her. "This is going to hurt," she warned. She could feel his muscles tense under her hands as she carefully cut the fabric, pulling it away from the skin beneath as gently as possible.
The wound itself was was positioned between his spine and shoulder blade, and it looked like the person had jerked the knife out, leaving a messy trail in its wake. Liz grit her teeth as she did what she could for it, cleaning away the blood and washing it out as gently as she was able to. He didn't complain, even if he looked as if he were sitting still by sheer force of will. Every muscle in his back was tensed, even after she had finished. "This needs stitches."
"What's one more scar?" he chuckled through clenched teeth and Liz resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
"That's not funny."
His strained smirk didn't fade until she returned to her work, carefully putting the gauze in place to make sure that the bleeding wouldn't start up again. "It's clean and we'll have to watch for infection, but I've done what I can for you. Can you stand?"
Tom eased himself up, swaying as he did, and she wrapped a careful arm around his middle to steady him as they moved very slowly back into the room, and he paused just shy of the bed. "I can make a pallet. It's fine."
This time she did roll her eyes. "You wake me up in the middle of the night beaten and bleeding and want to argue with me?"
She felt him tense a little. "I wasn't-"
"Good. Bed."
Liz somehow managed to keep a straight face as he simply nodded and did as he was told. She got him settled into the bed and carefully pulled just the sheet over his injured back, watching him for a moment as he finally began to relax just a little. The hour mixed with blood loss was sending him quickly to sleep, but it had left her wired and nervous, and she knew if she tried to curl up on the other side of the bed that she would toss and turn and likely end up hurting him.
With sleep out of the question, her gaze traveled back to the bag he had brought in with him. It lay discarded just inside the door. She shouldn't snoop, she knew. They had moved past that, but at least her curiosity stemmed less from a need for answers he was unwilling to give and more from a wish for an unfiltered glimpse into this man that she was so intertwined with. She was slowly getting to know him, but a peek to speed things up couldn't hurt. She had found herself wanting to trust him again, and she needed to make sure that was the best approach. She had to be careful. Yes, that seemed like a valid enough reason.
Blue eyes flickered to the sleeping form of her ex husband and Liz padded over to the bag, risking one more glance back before she pried it open. She found neatly folded clothes, a small bag with a toothbrush and razor and other toiletries stored away, his gun, ammunition, a knife wrapped up in a tank top and covered in blood, his glasses, and a pack of cigarettes. She paused at that, looking behind her. Tom smoked. How had they lived together for three years and she never knew? He had about choked on the cigar that he had tried to smoke with Sam at their wedding. An act. It had been an act because Tom Keen didn't smoke. Jacob Phelps did.
She pushed down the conflicting emotions and set the offending cigarettes aside. His wallet was at the bottom of the bag and she fished that out next. It was the same one he had had for years. He hadn't had it on him when she had shot him, so she could only imagine that he had stored it away somewhere safe during that time. Liz flipped it open, finding it more bare than she had ever seen it. His driver's license was gone, as were any credit or debit cards. Nothing to identify him, except... There was a photo of some sort, and something shoved down into one of the pockets. She went for the pocket first, pulling a ring on a chain from it and her breath caught. His wedding ring. He had kept it.
Liz's fingers were trembling as she went for the photo and pulled it out. A tiny little face of a child that had almost been theirs was what she found and her vision blurred. He had never given her a straight answer about the adoption, and it was one of the lies she still held against him with more than a little bitterness. She hadn't thought she could forgive a man willing to use a child, even if it was to stay close to her. She had come up with so many theories, so many possibilities as to what had been going through his head that she had finally just refused to think about it any longer.
Now, though, she had to know.
Liz stood and crossed the small room, crawling onto the bed with him as carefully as she could so she wouldn't jar him too badly. The movement woke him, though, and she shoved the picture in his face without waiting for him to say anything. "I know you feel like crap, and I swear I'll let you go back to sleep as soon as you've answered, but, Tom-"
"Were you going through my wallet?" he asked, his tone not quite accusing.
Well there was no point in lying about it. "Yes. Tom, please, after everything, just tell me. The adoption. Why? Why were you so determined?"
He shifted, wincing as he did, but he moved so that he could look her in the eye as he spoke. "I never had a family, Liz. I don't know who my parents were and my time in the foster system...sucked." He gave a mirthless little smile at that, years of buried hurt and pain flickering through his eyes. "So when you said you wanted to adopt I got it. It... I wanted to help a kid escape that kind of childhood. I wanted to build a family with you."
"You had to have known all this would come out someday, Tom. Why would you-"
"Because I'm just as good at lying to myself as I am to others," he admitted softly. "I thought...maybe it just wouldn't end. I thought maybe I could spend the rest of my life as Tom Keen. I wanted to."
"You kept this and the ring."
"You said it earlier. My whole world is in that bag. It's all I have left."
Liz watched him for a moment, mind spinning. "You...are the most frustrating man I've ever known."
Tom chuckled, eyes slipping closed. "You've told me that before."
"I know," she whispered and set the little picture on the nightstand before crawling under the covers with him. His eyes slid back open and he was watching her carefully. "Get some sleep, Tom."
"You went through the whole bag?" he asked curiously.
"I did, and don't think that I didn't find the cigarettes, jerk."
His lips twitched downward. "I'm a nervous smoker."
She snorted and Tom gave her a little, sheepish smile. "Was a nervous smoker?"
Liz couldn't hold back the laugh as she rolled her eyes before leaning forward to kiss the tip of his nose. "Don't think that this means I've forgiven you."
"Wouldn't dream of it," he answered drowsily.
"Just that I'm less likely to shoot you."
He cracked an eye open again. "Please don't shoot me. I'm trying to limit the number of near death experiences lately."
"Good." She paused, weighing her words before she spoke them. "Are you mad that I went through your bag?"
Tom gave a very small shrug. "I don't want to hide things from you anymore, Liz. Go through it all you want." He smiled a little and she could tell that he was already drifting off again, and when he spoke, his words were barely more than a mumbled whisper. "Love you, babe."
She felt a real smile take hold and she scooted closer to him. "You too," she whispered and settled in for whatever sleep she could manage. Loving him was dangerous, she knew, but so was her life on whole. So many things had turned out to be made up of lies, but there were a few truths mixed in, and they were ones that mattered the most.
Notes: So... This little piece has been bouncing around for the last few days. I just couldn't get it right. I've had a couple different requests for Liz finding the picture, and with that, I couldn't help but have her find the ring. FaultyHoneyTrapping over on Tumblr did a lovely little short comic for the same scenario a while back. Definitely an inspiration for Liz's snooping.