On His Own

He wasn't entirely sure how he was still on his feet. He had ghosted through the last several hours. Against Reddington's advice he had moved Agnes to the hospital instead of having equipment for tests brought to them so Nik could run them. The other man needed a break. The stress of what had happened was etched deeply into his face and while Tom knew he owed Nik for his child's life, he didn't think he was ready to risk it again by asking the exhausted and emotionally strained doctor to stay on any longer. He let the FBI supply a couple of plain clothed guards just in case and he was pretty sure that he saw a couple of Reddington's own men there as well. That, and he refused to leave Agnes' side. He'd be damned if he let anything happen to her now.

She was sleeping soundly in the little bassinet that the hospital had provided and Tom was slouched in the stiff-backed chair by the door, his eyelids drooping dangerously, but every time they closed completely all he could see was Liz. He hadn't been there at the end, but she had been so still, so pale as they'd taken her away, and he'd seen death more times than he could count. The idea of them zipping her up in a bag and carrying her away jerked him back harshly and he was left with a deeper pain in his chest each time.

"Even that couch over there would be more comfortable than what you chose."

Tom looked around, cursing himself that he hadn't realized someone was coming into the room. He blinked owlishly up at Harold Cooper, his contacts dry and sticking painfully to his eyes, and he swallowed hard to keep his voice from cracking. "I don't need sleep. I need to be awake to make sure she's okay."

Cooper snorted a short, mirthless laugh. "You'll have to sleep sometime, and there are plenty of nights to come that you'll barely catch a wink."

He tried for a smile and failed miserably. "What are you doing here? You get a lead on Solomon?"

"We're tracking down everything we can, but… it's nearly one in the morning. I had to send my people home. Reddington said you were here, though, so we thought we would drop by to see-"

"We?" Tom echoed, finally straightening in his chair. Every muscle protested the movement, but he ignored them as he stood to get a better view out the door. Cooper hadn't been the only one to come. Aram, Samar, and a very uncomfortable looking Ressler stood outside the little hospital room, waiting.

"Yeah," Cooper confirmed softly. "Everyone was… worried."

"We wanted to see if you needed anything," Aram said, popping his head into the room as if he just couldn't stand being outside any longer.

Agnes stirred in her little crib and Tom moved immediately to her. She looked like she might start fussing for a moment, but he stooped down, pressing a kiss to her forehead, and he felt a rush of emotions threaten to drag him under. "It's okay, baby girl," he promised. "I'm just going to step outside so we don't keep you up. I won't go far."

She gave a big yawn, her nose scrunching up as she settled back down, eyes drifting closed again. Tom swallowed hard and straightened, following them out of the room and desperately trying to get a hold on his very unsteady emotions.

"How's she doing?" Samar asked after they had all stepped out and Tom pulled the door closed as much as he dared.

He ran a hand through his dark hair, feeling it stand on end with the motion. "Doctors say she's healthy. She wasn't… when she was born she wasn't breathing, but they said that she's alright and that it didn't do any damage." He could feel their eyes on him, but he kept his own gaze focused on the floor. He didn't want to look at these people. Liz's friends. Liz's team. "They said she could go home as early as tomorrow, but… I don't know. They won't give me a clear estimate and Nik said he's dropping by in the morning and that he might want to run more tests just to make sure."

"How are you holding up?"

Tom looked up at that. He hadn't expected the question at all. They were there to check on Agnes, which was fine. Aside from Cooper these people really had had very little interaction with Tom himself. They were there because their teammate's child was in the hospital and their teammate was gone, so he hadn't expected them to care how he was doing. He certainly hadn't expected Donald Ressler to be the one to ask. He swallowed hard and nodded. "Holding."

Ressler smirked. "You're usually a better liar than that."

The dark haired man offered a shrug. He didn't have the energy to put on a front. He had spent the last twenty-four or so hours in a whirlwind slinging him back and forth between what he thought was the happiest day of his life - he was remarrying the only woman he'd ever loved without lies between them anymore - and terror. First Bud had tried to kill him, then he'd watched his oldest friend gun down the man that had raised them both, and he had had to clean up the mess. Liz could have walked right then. If she had, would she have been safer? Probably not. Then there'd been the shootout, the car chase, the wreck…

"Tom?"

He hadn't realized he'd closed his eyes until the voice jerked him back to the present. He blinked hard. "Yeah, guess I just don't have it in me tonight."

Cooper sighed to his left. "Listen, none of us are going to sleep tonight, and there's nothing we can do to find Solomon or the people he's working for until tomorrow, so here's the plan: Samar, Aram, and I will stay here and watch over…"

"Agnes," Tom supplied after a brief moment of waiting. "Liz wanted to name her Agnes."

The Assistant Director nodded. "We'll stay here and keep a careful eye on Agnes while you let Agent Ressler drive you back to your apartment, get a shower, a fresh change of clothes, and anything else that you need."

"I don't-"

"You just said yourself that you don't know how long they'll keep her," Samar cut in. "If there's a break in the case, we won't be able to offer this as easily. Let us help you. For Liz."

He risked a look at each of their faces before giving a stiff nod. They wanted to offer this for her, and he couldn't deny them that. "Okay."

Cooper motioned for the others to file into the room, but Aram held back. "I, uh, just wanted to offer, just if you wanted, to take Hudson over to my place for a little bit. Liz used to talk about him, and she said that he makes a mess when you leave him alone too long." His gaze shot past Tom and towards Ressler. "I mean, I know Agent Ressler took him while Liz was on the run, but… I thought…"

"That'd be really helpful, Aram. Thanks," Tom cut him off, trying to stop the stammering. "Just until Agnes and I get settled."

A strained smile flashed across the other man's face. "Absolutely. Anything you need."

"C'mon," Ressler murmured, motioning down the hall. Tom stood rooted where he was for a moment, eyes turned and fixed on the bassinet inside the hospital room. He couldn't move for a long moment and he felt a hand on his shoulder. "She'll be okay. That's why all three of them are staying with her. Nothing's going to happen in the hour or two it takes us."

"Shouldn't take us that long," Tom muttered.

"However long," Ressler corrected himself softly and guided him down the hall.

It was a strange thing, Tom thought absently as he followed the other man out of the hospital and to the FBI-issued SUV in the parking lot. He and Ressler had never had anything in common other than Liz, and he would have been the last one that he expected to be leading him out and driving him home.

Home. It had been home for a very short time. First it had been Liz's apartment that he had stayed at when she decided that his boat was too cramped and that the waves kept her up when she slept over, and then it was the place that she had asked him to move in with her, and then… then it was the place where she had said she wanted to marry him and that they were going to be a family in. It was where she had smiled and laughed and they had teased each other just like they had so many times before everything had happened. It was a place where they both felt comfortable and safe. It had been home.

But it had only been home with her there.

Tom swallowed hard as he fished the key out of his pocket, fitting it into the lock with trembling hands. He nearly dropped it before the lock finally clicked and the door swung open. The smell of chemicals was the first thing that hit him, a stark reminder that he had cleaned his former handler's blood off of the floor earlier that day. His gaze swept the front room, finding only a few small things out of place from it.

Ressler moved around him and into the apartment, his face set firmly as if he didn't dare let it crack for a moment without letting the floodgates open. Tom knew how that felt. "I'll get a bag together while you shower, if you want. That way we can get back quick like you wanted. Have you eaten? You want me to throw a frozen pizza in the oven or anything?"

"I'm not really hungry," he managed, "but yeah, if you could get a few of Agnes' things together. We…. Lizzie and I wanted to make sure to have everything ready so we weren't scrounging last second."

"Thought you didn't know if it was going to be a boy or a girl."

"We got mostly neutral stuff." He moved towards the room to the little dresser he'd put together with his daughter's things in it, but paused at the threshold, his gaze sweeping out over it and the emotions he'd been pushing back the whole way there finally crashed down over him and knocked him sideways, leaving him leaning on the doorframe for support. Their room. Their home. Their life and family that they had been building. They had been so close.

"Tom, you okay?"

He slid down, unable or unwilling to find his own voice. He wasn't sure. He'd never been good with his own emotions. It had always been so much easier to wear ones that didn't belong to him and shove his own so deep down that they didn't bother him. Until Lizzie, they'd been quiet enough that he could get away with it, but she had changed everything. She had changed him, and now he felt like he was being swept away by those waves and dragged under to drown beneath them.

Ressler sighed behind him and shuffled forward. He stepped around where Tom had all but collapsed and then around where Hudson was nervously lying on the floor, watching his owner carefully. Ressler eased himself down onto the floor with him to the side and leaning back against the wall for support. There was a long stretch of silence and somewhere in there Tom felt something inside him finally snap and break. The tears that were so rare for him built up, blurring his vision before they slipped down his face and worked their way into a sob as he buried his face in his hands. "It wasn't supposed to be like this," he managed. "She was… Why'd it have to be her?"

Liz's partner cleared his throat a little awkwardly. "Because life is anything but fair," he said after a long moment, "and it likes to steal away the people that least deserve it."

"It should have been me. If it could have saved her, I would have-"

"But you couldn't," Ressler bit out, "and you can't. It doesn't matter how many questions you find answers to or how if you find your own vengeance for them or not, it doesn't bring them back. Nothing brings them back." His voice was wavering, breaking just a little as he spoke, and when Tom turned to look at him he saw a tear or two streaking down his face as well. "Nothing brings them back," he repeated brokenly. "At least you have Agnes. At least you have her. Don't…. Don't screw this up, Tom. That little girl needs you to be strong for her. You're what she has left."

Dark blue eyes blinked hard, shifting to look at Ressler. There was more pain there than he expected and, while it took a moment more than it should have, it finally clicked. "She was pregnant, wasn't she? Audrey. When she died."

Ressler looked a little startled. "Yeah."

"I'm sorry, man."

The other man snorted and his head thunked lightly against the wall as he leaned back. "Life's anything but fair," he repeated again softly. "Just make sure that you don't let your pain hurt that little girl."

Tom sniffed, wiping at his eyes hard. "I need to get back to her."

"Shower, food, and then we'll head out," Ressler said as he stood and offered the younger man a hand up.

Tom looked at it for half a moment before letting Ressler haul him to his feat. By the time that he had gotten through the shower and into a fresh pair of jeans and t-shirt, he could smell a frozen cooking in the oven. It looked like Ressler didn't plan to give him a choice on the food.

He rubbed at his eyes hard as he moved into the living room, mentally counting all the things that he needed for Agnes and making sure everything would be set when he got to bring her home. He set an old pair of glasses that he hadn't worn in ages on his nose - his contacts nearly useless after the meltdown - and ran a hand through his damp hair.

"Took Hudson out. You think he'll be okay until Aram can come grab him?"

"Yeah, he'll be fine."

Ressler nodded and the oven beeped. He leaned down to grab it out with the mitts and set it on the stove. "I don't cook like Liz always talked about you cooking, but I can make a mean frozen pizza," he tried for a joke.

"It's okay. She would have burned the apartment down trying to do that," Tom answered with a very small smile, images of Liz and her many failed attempts to cook flashing through his mind. He forced himself to look up. "Does it get better? Missing them, I mean."

The other man was silent for a long moment, pulling plates off the shelf and cutting a slice out to hand it over expectedly. "In its own way," he said finally. "You just… sort of learn to live with the ache."

"She cared about you, you know."

Ressler leaned against the counter, taking a bite of his own slice. "We didn't talk a lot when she came back. It was… I guess I always just thought we would have time to hash things out when everything settled down. I should have known better." He paused, clearing his throat, and his gaze flickered up to meet Tom's. "You're not on your own for this. I mean, I know you and Liz were… I know you guys were planning to tackle this together and now… we'll do what we can."

Tom stared at him for a long moment before nodding. "Thanks."

The two men ate it silence, the pain that they shared more than Tom could handle. He loved Liz more than life itself, but she was gone now, and Ressler was right. He had to focus on Agnes. He couldn't let the days, the weeks, or even the years get away from him while he sunk into his own grief. He had to be there for his little girl, for their little girl, even when Liz couldn't.

They'd grabbed the bag and petted Hudson one more time before starting out the door. Ressler paused there and finally turned. "You know… Liz saw something in you. Maybe it's there, maybe it's not, but…. For Agnes' sake I'm hoping it is."

Tom pulled in a shaky breath. "Yeah. Me too." He closed the door behind them and locked it. He needed to get back to his little girl. No matter what, he needed to be there for her.

Notes: I really struggled with where to put this: in Truth in the Lies or in Changing the Dynamic. It's heavily Keen2, so I went with here, but I do love some Tessler bonding.

Thursday's episode hit me hard, but I have a lot of hope moving forward. I'll be writing a one-shot soon (maybe tomorrow or sometime this week if all goes well) that focuses on that hope. So as sad as this one was, that one should be coming soon.