[Notes: Flashforward fic. Takes place sometime in the future.]

I will love you constantly

There's precious little else to me

~ Hot Gates, Mumford and Sons

Little Else

She woke in a not-quite-familiar bed, hugging the pillow under her and far too comfortable to have woken on her own. Elizabeth Keen lay there for a moment, trying to get her bearings through closed eyelids. No alarm had gone off, so that hadn't woken her. Hudson wasn't slobbering in her face either. She finally cracked one eye open, finding the room drenched in shadows.

Then she heard it: the tiniest sound from the man next to her and she looked over. Jacob was curled tightly onto his side, brows drawn together and fistfuls of the sheet gathered into his hands so tightly that she thought his knuckles might be turning white. Another small, strained sound escaped him and Liz felt her chest tighten a little.

Carefully, trying not to startle her ex husband, Liz eased up on her elbow and reached over with her free hand. Her fingers ghosted over his face and she could see the sweat against his forehead, brought on by whatever demons he was facing down that night. Finally, the tip of her fingers touched strands of dark hair and she risked making contact to smooth it back and whisper to him. "Jacob? Babe? You're having a nightmare."

Blue eyes snapped open and Liz had to jerk back to get out of his way as he sat straight up in the bed. Jacob sucked in gasping breaths, hunched over bent knees as he took in his surroundings for several seconds before turning wide, haunted eyes on her. "Liz," he rasped, finally seeming to come down from it at least a little. She had woken from enough terrible sights within her dreams to know how difficult that could be.

"Hey," she said softly and reached forward, her hand light on his cheek, but she didn't miss the way he flinched at the contact. "Where were you?"

He blinked at her in the darkness before turning, swinging his long legs over the side of the bed. "It's nothing," he answered as he stood, his voice tight and he reached for his glasses on the nightstand.

Jacob didn't say anything further and Liz bit her tongue as he padded across the bedroom floor and into the bathroom. A moment later the water could be heard from behind the closed door, but she didn't see any light peeking out from under it. She pulled in a steadying breath and eased herself out of bed as well.

Things had evened out finally. They weren't calm by any means with Jacob working for the task force and he and Red constantly bumping heads over cases. They had begun to rebuild their relationship, but this was the first time she had been woken by one of his nightmares. Heaven knew she woke him with enough of hers over the years and he had been ready to help her in any way possible. Now it was her turn.

It was just before five on a Saturday morning. If they were lucky it would be a lazy day, but that didn't mean they were getting back to sleep any time soon. Liz had the coffee pot on and it was almost done by the time she heard the stairs creak and saw Jacob slowly making his way down, dark hair scattered in every direction and standing on end from his shower. He offered her a thin smile. "Sorry to wake you."

"You want to talk about it?" Liz asked carefully as he followed her back into the kitchen.

"Nothing to talk about."

She turned, watching him move for two coffee mugs and start to put them together. "Liar," she murmured, her voice a little teasing, but when he didn't react she reached out and touched his arm. He flinched very slightly and Liz frowned. He had his bad days - she knew that now that he was at least trying to be honest with her - but there was only one thing she could think of that would cause him to react like that to her touch. Slowly she moved around so that he could see her and looked up. "Was it the boat?" she asked quietly.

Jacob tensed, frozen mid-pour of the creamer as his gaze flickered to hers. "I said there was nothing to talk about, Liz. Just drop it."

She pursed her lips together, weighing her options. She could let him shut her out of this. He probably had every right to. She had done it to him and if he was willing to overlook that and push forward, she should be happy with that. The problem was that it was hurting him, if he wanted to admit it or not. "You have a habit," she said quietly, moving to grab the coffee, "of ignoring things. I never saw it before because you always seemed to want to talk about everything. You were the one that made the don't walk away angry rule."

"We agreed on it," he countered as she poured.

"It's a good rule. My point is that I never realized that there was a lot you were internalizing. That's dangerous after a while."

"It's fine."

"No it's not. It builds and builds. If you don't want to deal with it you just bury it or try to replace the bad memories."

"There's nothing wrong with making better memories, Lizzy. We have enough bad ones for one lifetime."

She smiled, setting the coffee pot back where it belonged. Instead of going for the coffee, though, she wrapped her arms around his middle and pressed her cheek against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. "And we'll make them, but babe, you can't just ignore the bad ones."

"I compartmentalize things. It's what I've always done and it's worked so far."

"Maybe when you could slip from one identity into a new one, but you don't anymore. Jacob, this is real. This is us. I-" She pulled in a deep breath, trying to steady her voice. It wouldn't do any good to cry. When she had a better grip, she looked up. "You can't just push out terrible memories by trying to rewrite them."

"I'm not-"

"I held you prisoner on a boat, so what did you fixate on? A boat. You wanted to run away on a boat."

He blinked at her, like he'd done his best to avoid making that connection. "It was a nice boat," he murmured softly.

Liz laughed, returning to the tight hug. "It was, but we need to clear this. If you're having nightmares about it and can't talk to me..."

"Babe, I don't blame you," he promised, his fingers tangling in her hair in a soothing motion.

"I know, but every time I bring it up the only thing you'll say is that you understand why I did it. That doesn't... Feelings aren't always rational. If they were, I never would have..." She sucked in a deep breath and he kissed the side of her head. "You have to handle the feelings too."

"You know I hate it when you go into shrink mode, right?"

"Do you trust me?"

"Of course I do," he answered automatically.

"Then trust me here. Talk to me."

He pulled back and she saw the conflict raging just behind the mask of calm. "I don't know what you want me to say," he managed, voice breaking a little under the stress. "Do you want to hear that I tried to hate you? That it was as easy as it was hard? I was in pain and I was sick and I... You didn't just leave, Liz, you..." He swallowed hard. "It doesn't matter. We're here now. You know why I did what I did. You didn't then."

"It matters," she said sternly, promising herself not to argue her side. She had spent so long defending her actions to herself and to others that it was almost second nature to her now. He had lied and he had infiltrated her life. He had put a gun to her head and had threatened her to get to Red. He had cost her the life of a friend and nearly the life of her boss. The man she had loved had been a lie.

But he wasn't, at least not entirely, and she knew that now. He had known it too, and while she had thought he was a monster, he had suffered under it with the knowledge that even if he told her the truth she wouldn't have believed it then. Liz pulled in a deep breath. "You know exactly how I felt, babe. We know now, but-"

"I just don't see the point in focusing on it."

"Maybe because it's waking you up with nightmares?"

He cringed at that. "That wasn't the first time I've been locked away, you know. I've been put through worse and I just... bounced back."

"But it wasn't your wife holding you," Liz murmured guiltily.

"Guess that's true."

A short laugh escaped her. "Unless you have other wives I need to know about?"

That finally pulled a small, real smile from him. "Just you."

"Oh good. Started to worry there for a second."

Jacob pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I thought about a lot of things during that time, you know. I tried not to love you. I really did, but I couldn't help it. Even through everything. I thought I'd managed for a little while, but in Germany I realized that I couldn't leave it behind like I always did. I'd lost everything and all I wanted back was you. For once, the job didn't matter like it should have."

"Is that why you came back for me?"

He nodded and Liz tipped up on her toes, pressing a kiss against his lips. He leaned into it and she felt his strong arms tighten around her. She felt safe and secure there as they held onto each other, standing barefoot in his kitchen in their pajamas and trying to move forward as best as they could.

"Love you," he murmured breathlessly as they parted.

"You too. I know... I know you don't like talking about it, and I know that your... I know it wasn't exactly something you learned growing up, but we need to learn to talk again. We used to be so good at it."

"Mostly."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I'd bug you, you'd shut down, I'd push, and then we'd yell. Then we might talk."

"I do that?"

"You do that."

"No wonder you don't want to talk to me about things," she tried to tease and his smile finally reached his eyes.

"Yeah, well, I'm not exactly the most open person either," he huffed, shaking his head and chuckling.

"Guess we're a pair."

He leaned in and kissed her again. "I'm willing to work on it," he promised.

Liz leaned in, her arms wrapped around his middle and her fingers playing with the edge of his tshirt. "I think the coffee's cold by now."

He shot her an amused look. "Yeah, might be."

"You want to head back upstairs? We can try again in a couple of hours."

Jacob's lips twitched upward. "You trying to get me back into bed, Agent Keen?" he teased and she swatted at him, only drawing a bigger smile for her efforts.

"And if I am?"

"I think I might be persuaded."

Liz grinned as she took him by the hand, leaving the mugs forgotten as she tugged him up the stairs after her. He followed and everything felt a little lighter after their talk, as if at least some of the weight had gone off into the air and left them. It was a start. Jacob would likely never be very good at divulging everything without being poked and prodded, but he'd opened up to her and she had been able to accept what he said. It helped them both, if she were honest with herself, and it would help them move on.

She found herself nearly giggling as they toppled back onto the bed and she landed half on top of him. He sat up just enough to catch her in a kiss before pulling her back to the mattress with him so that when they finally broke they were lying facing each other. She wasn't sure when he'd lost his glasses in it, but she found herself lost in those eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "And don't you dare say it doesn't matter anymore."

Jacob smiled and leaned in to kiss the top of her nose. "I forgave you a while back, you know."

"But I'm still the reason you have nightmares."

Strangely enough, the smile broadened. "Most of the time you keep them away. When I was on my own - in Dresden and when you had to go with Reddington on the run - I used to wake up with them a few times a week."

"Really?" He nodded and as Liz nestled closer she felt him put an arm around her shoulders where they lay. "I sleep better with you too," she confessed softly.

His smile relaxed and he pulled her close. She could feel herself drifting then, safe where she lay.

Notes: So, this is totally one of my partners in crime over on Tumblr's fault. It comes from a couple of conversations that we had and I told her I was going to write a short. She promptly demanded it. Her fault.