Marks the Past Leaves

Her laugh made it all worth it. There was something about the sound as it echoed in his ear, wrapping around him and soothing away all the worries and the fears of being found out - not necessarily by her, but by all of those that shouldn't know just how much he cared for this woman - and kept him from running. If Reddington ever caught wind of the fact that Tom was sleeping with the woman he had been hired to protect at a distance, or even more that he was falling in love with her faster than he could stop himself, there would be hell to pay. He would be fired at the very least and Bud would be pissed. Her smile and her laugh washed those fears away, and as they tumbled over each other in the bed and Tom landed on his back, he found himself smiling uncontrollably. It was worth it to be close to her.

Liz leaned down, her hair brushing his skin as she kissed him, hands moving down his side and ghosting over his ribs. He laughed with her as his skin tingled at the touch and she pulled away too soon. He sat up to kiss her again, but Liz had stopped laughing, her lips tugging downward ever so slightly in the shadows of the dark room. He tilted his head at the sudden change. "Babe, what is it?"

She reached out again, her fingers searching for something along his side and her brows drew together. She must have noticed that he was watching her, because Tom was almost certain that she blushed a little. "I'm going crazy. Sorry."

"What exactly are you looking for?" he chuckled as he sat up and leaned forward, his lips brushing hers.

"That," she mumbled when she found what she was looking for. She'd stopped where the skin was slightly raised along the back side of his ribs, fingers exploring what her eyes couldn't see in the dark.

Tom tried not to frown as he reached back and caught her hand, pulling it up to his lips and pressing a kiss to her knuckles. "It's just a scar."

"I know," she murmured. "From what?"

"I don't remember," he said automatically, the lie falling easily from his lips, but even he wasn't good enough to fool her on that. There were times when she saw right through everything.

She reached back around, determined not to be distracted, and felt at the skin where he'd caught a bullet at twenty-three years old. Thankfully it didn't look like a scar left by a bullet wound, but it was one of his more prominent scars from the rather adventurous life he had led. Jacob - because as much as he had come to enjoy being Tom, that particular scar actually belonged to him, not any of his masks that he had worn - and the man that was known in most criminal circles as The Major had been caught in a deal gone bad in Cape Town, South Africa. Bud had been injured and Jacob had taken a bullet trying to get him out, landing himself in a holding cell for nearly two weeks that had been anything but pleasant until they had come back for him. The young operative had taken the beating meant for his mentor, and Bud hadn't forgotten it. Loyalty was one of the few things Bill McCready valued over most everything else.

"Tom?"

Blue eyes blinked in the darkness and he realized that he'd gotten lost in the memory. "Sorry."

Liz brought her free hand to his face and she looked worried as she leaned in and kissed him. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He chuckled, pushing himself aside for the more carefree Tom Keen. "It's nothing. Really. Just kind of embarrassing, you know? I tried to ride a friend's bicycle while slightly intoxicated sophomore year at school..."

That pulled a laugh from her. "Yeah? Slightly?"

Tom flopped back on the pillows, his expression appropriately embarrassed. "Straight down the stairs..."

Liz's eyes widened. "You're lucky you didn't break your neck!"

"Doctor said the same thing. I did manage to break my collar bone and fracture my ankle though. I have a small scar on my shoulder from that." Might as well explain a few of them in one story. If she noticed one, she would eventually notice others. He didn't scar easily, but that particular event had left several marks on him that hadn't faded. He could get as close to the truth as he could - his collarbone really had been broken and his ankle fractured, along with other injuries that had just about killed him - without having to tell her the real story.

"How have I not heard this story before? Liz demanded as she leaned over and switched the light on without warning.

Tom blinked against the sudden flood of light that filled the room and she was inspecting his shoulder now, deft fingers finding the scar he had mentioned and looking curiously at it. That one had faded over the years, but with the light just right he still caught it in the mirror every now and again. "Because I want you to imagine that I've never done a stupid thing in my life?" he teased and she smiled.

"Everyone has their moments, babe," she murmured and leaned down, pressing a kiss to the scar.

"Except you, of course. You were perfect in school. No stupid stunts from you."

She laughed at his tease and kissed him. "Good answer."

He grinned, one hand coming up to the side of her face, tangling in her hair, and the other lacing his fingers through hers. He pulled her in closer, deepening the kiss and it seemed that the talk of scars was over. They were just marks that the past left on them, and he and Liz were looking forward. He wanted to move forward with her.

"You never ask about mine," she murmured, not quite breaking away from him.

"Your what?" he asked distractedly.

"The scar on my hand."

Tom pulled away a little, ending the kiss reluctantly. Apparently the conversation wasn't over. "Well," he said carefully, meeting her intense blue gaze, "I know there was a fire and I know that you don't like to talk about it. I figured if you wanted to tell me, you would."

She was watching him, as if trying to discern some hidden meaning. He kept his expression carefully patient so as not to give away that he would have liked nothing better than to reach over, switch the lamp off, and ignore the past. He could be Tom and ignore Jacob little while longer.

"I love you," Liz breathed at last, and then blushed a little. "I know we said that we'd... I know that-"

She was adorable when she was flustered. "I love you too," he answered honestly. At least with that, he could tell her the whole truth.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"You're not just saying that?"

"Not just saying that," he promised, and she kissed him again, reaching blindly over to the lamp to switch it back off. He couldn't be entirely honest with her at this point - and maybe not ever - but he could choose to tell her the truth on the most important things. Even if he didn't fully understand it, he did love her. More than anything else, and while he wasn't sure that people like him deserved this kind of happiness, he was equally sure that he couldn't walk away now. He was beginning to doubt very seriously that he ever could.

Notes: I don't know if you guys are on Tumblr or not, but there's a fun little RP over there for several of the Blacklist characters. Someone asked Liz about if she ever had seen any of Tom/Jacob's scars before she knew who he really was and if she had asked him about them. I've thought about this and, honestly, up until reading that my headcannon pretty much said that he'd coasted through and had been really lucky, but this little plot bunny took hold after reading that and just wouldn't go away. I really hope that the show dives into some more of Jacob's past while he was with the Major and maybe even what made him run from his foster home in Chicago.

I've also done a thing. Ugh. I started poking at a story that will be a one, maybe a two-shot that has to do with Jacob's comment to the Major (as Bud has a gun on him in the car) asking him if he was going to kill him 'after Cape Town'. It's weird, because I'm writing something before Liz. Would anyone actually want to read that even though she's not a part of it?