Always Come Home to You

She was exhausted. Exhausted and empty after her conversation with Red. She should be angry, but following the three-day long deep cover op, she couldn't quite drum up that emotion. Instead she was just left dragging, her key missing the lock twice before finally slipping in and she pushed against the door.

The apartment was quiet, and why shouldn't it be? Agnes was long since in bed, and Tom may have even been as well. Ressler had all but shoved her out of the Post Office doors when he had found her sitting at her desk, staring at the paperwork she was supposed to fill out. She wasn't getting anything done, so why didn't she go home to her family? So she did, but she didn't feel the immediate shift that she should have walking through the door, and that set her raw emotions just a little more on edge.

She toed her boots off at the door, half kicking them into a corner to handle in the morning. One glance down the hall showed what looked like the bedroom light on, shedding light down towards her so that she could see that Tom had been busy the last few days. The apartment was all but put together and he had even set the kitchen table up.

Liz loosed a breath she hadn't realised she was holding. She was home.

"Hey."

Blue eyes blinked hard, turning back to the hallway where the voice had come from and she found a half-asleep Tom standing there, dressed for bed. A smile tugged at her lips. "Hey you. Agnes already asleep?"

"Hours ago," he confirmed. "How was the case? You get your bad guy?"

"Girls, actually, and yeah. The lead, anyway."

"The others get away?"

Liz frowned, the conversation she had had with Reddington the first thing her mind went to. "They didn't make it," she answered after a moment.

Her husband echoed her expression and reached out to her. She took his hand and let him pull her in, folding her up in a hug and pressing a kiss to the side of her head. She held on there for a long moment, focused on the warmth and the safety. She had spent the last three days on constant alert so that she wouldn't risk her cover being blown, but as they stood there the edginess finally started to wear down a little, chipping away at the hollowness as she pressed her cheek against Tom's t-shirt, his fingers working their way through her hair in silent support.

"So, I may have kissed one of them," she murmured, not letting go.

"One of who?"

"The women that I was working with."

Tom snorted a laugh, pulling back so he could look at her, amusement clear in his eyes. "Okay, I know you can't go and tell me all the classified details of your case, but I have to hear this one."

She rolled her eyes and gave his shoulder a playful shove. "Dork." His grin didn't fade and she started past him to their room, pulling her jacket from her shoulders as she moved. "Apparently the head of the group of thieves I was under with liked me."

"Well, I can't argue it," her husband chuckled as he took a seat on the bed. There was a book laid out there as if he'd been reading when she came in, and he carefully tucked a bookmark in place.

"Yeah, well, it almost got heated." She glanced over at him from the corner of her eye as she moved to pull clothes to change into out of the drawers, chewing on a question that she wasn't sure if she wanted to ask or not.

He seemed to clue into the silence and quirked an eyebrow. "Go on."

She loosed a breath. "How do you get out of it? A situation where your options are sleep with someone or blow your cover?"

Tom blinked at her from his spot. "You're asking me for cover advice?"

"Is it weird?"

Slowly his lips quirked at the corners and she saw all the signs of a grin about to break free. He was excited. Careful with it, but excited. Of course he was. He might be trying to find that normal life with her, but he was good at this, and he was excited to share it. His smile was contagious and she felt her own ease into place as he spoke, his hands starting to move as he did. "It's never this or that. People like to try to simplify it, but it never is. There are always other options. The key is getting to a place that you can calculate the risks and read the situation quick enough that you don't lose a beat with it."

"She was pretty persistent. If Emma hadn't walked in when she did…"

"Yeah, but you read people with the best of them, Liz. You would have found something else she wanted. Something to distract her."

Liz padded across the floor, looking at him curiously. "Okay, I promise not to get mad at your answer-"

"Oh hell," he chuckled. "That's never a good sign."

"I'm serious. I'm just curious. Has there ever been a time when you couldn't talk yourself out of it?"

Her husband shifted uncomfortably. "Honestly," he said slowly, as if reminding himself that the words that followed needed to be honest, "before you it didn't matter. If it was easier, if it got the intel or whatever I was after, I took the path of least resistance." His gaze flickered up to meet hers. "You changed that for me."

"Have you been in a spot where you had to test that resolve?" she asked quietly.

"A time or two. Every time I chose you."

Liz felt a smile appear without really giving herself permission.

Tom reached out for her again, pulling her to the bed where he sat. She stood looking down at him, him looking up at her, and his voice was serious. "That's my choice, Liz. If you're ever put in a bad place, you do whatever you have to to come home."

She tightened her grip on his hand and lifted the other to his face, her thumb tracing the length of it before she leaned down, kissing him. He started to stand into the kiss, but she eased herself down with him instead, a laugh escaping her as they toppled back. They laid there for a long moment, wrapped up in each other, and she moved closer so that their foreheads touched. "I will always come home to you," she whispered, her voice a little rough. "I just need you to do the same."

His eyes drifted open and he smiled. "I'll be right here."

She made a small sound of acknowledgement. Tom didn't sit still well. It wouldn't surprise her if there was a day that he wanted to make use of his skill set again, be it with helping her team with the FBI or some other route. Normal was relative for them. That was becoming more evident with every day, but as long as they could come home to each other and their little girl at the end of it, she thought they'd be okay.

"I promise I'll always come home to you," her husband murmured, kissing her forehead.

"Good."

She started to sit up and he gave a small sound of protest as he tried to pull her back down to the bed with him. "I've missed you."

"I've missed you too, but I need a shower, babe." She laughed at him as he huffed, but she caught hold of his hand before he completely let go of hers and shot him a suggestive look. "That doesn't mean you can't join me."

He blinked at her, seeming to take half a beat longer than he should have for the invitation to register, before his grin returned and he popped to his feet to follow her. Liz shook her head, laughing at him as he followed her into the bathroom. Everything was coming together and with honesty between them, it felt right. She hadn't been able to tell him so much then for fear of terrifying her seemingly innocent husband. Tom wasn't as innocent as he'd appeared, though, and while she couldn't tell him everything, it was a relief to know she didn't have to hide everything. That honesty let them take on their troubles as a team. It wouldn't always be perfect and it certainly wouldn't be easy, but it was home, and she wouldn't change that for the world.

Notes: So, for an episode without Tom, it inspired a fic pretty quickly.

I feel like Liz likely knows that there's going to be a day that... I don't know. I don't want to say 'wants more', because I don't think that's it. He has a family, which is more than he ever knew he wanted, but I think he'll want to feel useful. Last week's episode really showed us that when everything went crazy and he said 'what can I do to help?' and seemed a bit frustrated when all he was expected to do was stay home with the baby. I feel like that's one of the reasons she was glad to see that he kept the passports. She knows there's going to be a day when he makes use of those skills of his, and she's going to support him when it happens.

It's just sooner than either of them may think ;)