Notes: I have a fix it story bouncing around in my head, but I haven't had the time or emotional energy to write it in full yet. I hope to dive in in full when I'm done with a current multi-chapter I'm working on. For now, as I'm riding on the fluffy cloud that is the Keen2 AU weekend over on Tumblr's RP and after talking about this scene idea I had with a friend, I thought I'd go ahead and write it up. I don't know for sure if it'll end up in the full length story or, if it does, if it'll be altered in anyway. For now I just really wanted to settle into some Keen2 feels of a more hopeful sort.

When You Wake Up

The last forty-eight hours had been a whirlwind compared to the caged feeling that he'd been living with for the last thirteen months. No one could say that the decision had been made entirely on a whim - he'd been threatening to go to his family before he was able to get up out of the hospital bed - but it had been thrown together faster than he should have been comfortable with. If he'd waited too long, though, the plan would have been blown to hell by his own allies. They were convinced that Liz and Agnes were safer away from him, that Garvey would know he was alive and come after them all, and maybe they were right. Or maybe they were wrong. There was no way to know, and when the opportunity revealed itself to get to them, Tom had taken it without hesitation.

There had been questions and there would be more, but the one that Liz had pressed first and foremost was if he had been the one to fake his own death. As soon as she knew that he hadn't left them of his own free will, everything else seemed to take a back seat to getting to where they needed to go and getting as settled as they could be.

That's how he had landed there in that moment, leaned against the door frame of a room that, up until just an hour before hadn't been used. The bed had been made and a little girl tucked in with her favourite bear in a red bowtie, and the day had left her exhausted. He had just meant to take a quick peek in at her while Liz hopped through the shower to make sure she was sleeping alright in the new surroundings, but Tom had found he couldn't break away.

"She got big, didn't she?"

He jumped at the voice suddenly right behind him and turned just in time for Liz to shoot him an apologetic look. His nerves - more tattered than not these days - eased back out and he pulled in a deep breath. "I feel like I keep missing these huge gaps of her life."

"You and me both." There was a sadness there and his smile faded. Ten months. She'd slept for ten months.

Tom had asked for her the first time he'd woken up after the brutal stabbing, the drug-induced fog making it difficult to work out why Liz wasn't with him. Why he couldn't see her. She was always there when he woke up. After Zamani and when Gina had shot him… She was always there. He'd asked for her again and again, Nez had told him, but the doctors had refused to tell him the full story and had sedated him when he'd gotten too worked up about it. His own memory was spotty from those first few weeks, but from what Scottie and Howard said - and didn't say - they'd nearly lost him more than once along the way.

"Hey," Liz said softly at his side, her hand resting on his arm. "I'm exhausted. What about you?"

"Yeah," he breathed and he felt her hand drop down to touch his. His fingers wrapped around hers and that brought a very small smile from her as she pulled him into the room next door.

He had been sleeping there for months now, but not until right then with Liz there and the faint smell of her shampoo and bodywash from her showing in the air did it actually feel right. Nothing felt right without her there.

Liz stopped when they reached the bed, but didn't let go of his hand to crawl in. Instead she turned, those clear blue eyes looking directly up at him, and Tom froze where he was. She was the one that moved, slowly and carefully, as if anything too quick my shatter a dream that she thought she was in. He'd had enough like it to know how much waking from them hurt. This wasn't a dream though, he reminded himself, and her warm fingers brushing against his cheek until her palm lay against it was a perfect reminder of that. He leaned into the touch, soaking it up, and she held him there for a long moment, simply staring.

She shifted her grip after a long moment, fingers wrapping around the back of his neck and he felt her pull him down. He followed her directions willingly, eyes slipping shut as she tipped up on her toes to meet him halfway. Tom sank into the kiss, and no matter how lonely, how heartbroken he'd been for the past year, he didn't think he'd ever let himself feel just how much he'd missed her until right then. He had been a shell, a ghost, but right then, with her in his arms, it was like new life was being breathed back in and things could actually be right again.

Tom lifted her up and Liz made a small sound as they both fell back onto the bed, never breaking the kiss. If anything it deepened and he felt her hands on the side of his face, and they remained there even as they broke to catch their breath as if she were afraid he'd pull away from her. He leaned down, his forehead pressed against hers and they were both struggling to pull in enough air. "I'm not going anywhere," he whispered, trying to ease the unspoken worry.

There was a small shift in her expression and she pulled him back down into another kiss, her hands traveling down his sides and tugging at the bottom of his t-shirt. He shivered a little as her finger tips ran across bare skin, but she stopped. Froze. She went a little pale where she lay and the sharpness of her eyes dulled in a way that sent all the wrong kinds of chills through him. "Liz?" he asked, trying to keep his voice calm. "Liz, babe? Look at me. Babe?"

Blue eyes blinked hard, refocusing on him, and he felt her palm rest against his left side. It took a moment for him to work through the terror that something had happened to her to realize that her hand was pressed against the raised scars that Ian Garvey's knife had left just over a year ago. He shifted off of her and watched her sit up slowly, that haunted look not really fading.

They sat there for a long moment before Liz swallowed hard and opened her mouth as if she were about to say something, but nothing came out. She squeezed her eyes shut and he could see the struggle playing out across her features. Finally, she cleared her throat and looked at him again. "I thought you were dead."

The words should have been obvious after everything, but they came across like a confession to a deep, dark secret. Her eyes slid closed again as they sat very still on the bed and Tom reached out, his touch hesitant, but she took his offered hand immediately, holding onto it like her life depended on it. "I remember pieces. Everything was blurry… like looking through your glasses and trying to get my eyes to focus. It was… I could think but I couldn't seem to move, and there he was, standing over you, hurting you. There was so much blood." She squeezed his fingers a little tighter and he lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, waiting to see if she needed to continue. He knew her. This could very easily be the first time she'd spoken openly about everything that had happened.

Her eyes opened, but she didn't look up at him, and a soft, mirthless chuckle escaped her. "I remember thinking how stupid you were."

"Hey, thanks," he huffed, but he felt his lips tilt up just a little.

"Going at that guy like that. I remember, when I woke up and Reddington told me you were dead… I remember thinking that if you hadn't done that you'd have made it."

"He was going to kill you," Tom breathed, and he fought the images in his own mind. They didn't do either of them any good right then.

"And instead he killed you," Liz choked out and he could see the tears slipping down her cheeks. He reached up, trying to catch them and wipe them away, but they were coming in earnest now. All he could do was pull her in close to him. She folded into him willingly and he stroked her hair.

"I'm here," he promised. "We're both here. Had to fight like hell, but we're here."

He felt her hand slide back around to his side again, her fingers wrapped up in the fabric of his t-shirt. "It wasn't easy for you, was it? Things that Nez has said, that Scottie seemed to be worried about…"

"I'm okay."

"Are you?" she asked pointedly, looking up at him. That warning was there in her gaze. No lies.

Tom loosed a breath through his nose and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. "I didn't bounce back as easy on this one. Still haven't in some ways, but I'm okay. I'm not going anywhere." He caught her gaze and offered her a soft smile. "You don't get rid of me that easy."

That finally pulled a smile from her and leaned up to steal another kiss from him. "I really am tired," she murmured as they broke.

"Me too. C'mon." They shuffled to the top of the bed and pulled the comforter back. Tom tucked his long legs under it and nestled down, feeling Liz settle in next to him as he reached over for the light. Her arm wrapped around his middle and she leaned into his shoulder close enough that he could hear her breathing slowly even out. "I love you so much," he said softly.

"Love you too. Promise to still be here when I wake up?"

"Yeah. You?"

She managed a sleepy affirmative and Tom inched down just a little lower into the soft pillows, one arm wrapped around her shoulders and his fingers playing with her hair as she drifted against him. He wanted to hold onto that moment. He wanted to hold onto every moment until the end of time. They'd fought for those, and he'd be damned if he'd let them go so easily.