Summary: Set several months after Red's trial, the team is deep a dangerous struggle with the Cabal. Liz receives a strange call from law enforcement in Germany. They've picked a man up claiming to be her dead husband.

Part One

She could hear him talking, but his worlds swirled together, bending in on top of one another so that they were unrecognizable. Like buzzing, distant and garbled. If she turned to look at him, if she forced herself to focus on him, maybe she could make out whatever he was saying. She didn't, though. She couldn't bring herself to care. Instead, she watched the clouds slip past outside the window as the started their descent, his voice serving only as background noise to her raging thoughts until -

"Keen?"

Liz was dragged roughly back into the present moment and she turned, finding Ressler peering worriedly at her from the bench seat across aisle. "I'm okay." The answer was automatic, and if her partner's expression was anything to go by, it didn't have him fooled for a second.

"I thought we were past lying."

"What do you want me to say, Ress?" She watched his lips twitch downward. He didn't have a ready answer for that, and she pulled in a breath she hoped would help to steady her nevers. It didn't, and she leaned her head back against the headrest. "We never should have come. We don't have the time to waste."

"You don't think it's him."

Liz wasn't sure if it was a question or an acknowledgement. She turned back to the window. It didn't matter. "Of course I don't think it's him." The dead didn't just come back to life. Not when they were really dead, at any rate.

"We're making our final descent into Cologne Bonn Airport," Edward's voice sounded over the speakers.

"Hey." Ressler waited until Liz finally turned back to look at him. "You can't blame yourself for needing to be sure. I'm with you every step of the way."

She nodded, not risking her voice. They would be in and out, back in DC in under twenty-four hours, and she'd be able to focus. The Cabal was on their doorstep and they didn't dare take them on with distractions hanging over their head. Ressler was right. She had to go. Even if her head knew it wasn't him, she still had to convince her heart.

The German police met them at the Cologne Bonn Airport and escorted them to where the man was being held. There had been a raid based on an anonymous tip - one of many Reddington had sent out across the globe to see what sort of Cabal strongholds he could manipulate the local law enforcement into stirring up for him - and they had caught sight of an SUV that had been fleeing the scene. The German police had pursued, there'd been a chase that had ended in a wreck, and they'd found the man cuffed in the backseat.

"He asked for you by name," the officer told Liz as he led both FBI agents down the hall. "We tried pulling his records, but they all came back as deceased. The photo we sent -"

"Photos can be altered," Liz said tightly and the German police officer looked over at her, startled by her tone.

"Agent Keen, I'm not certain -"

"It's fine," Ressler cut him off. "We just need to meet with him personally."

The German officer nodded slowly, his expression still uncertain, and paused at a door. "He's here. The room is fitted with video and audio. A man will be outside the door if you need him."

Liz nodded, glancing to the man in question that was already at his post. She looked to Ressler. "Could you…?

"No way, Keen. You're not going in there alone until we know who we're dealing with."

She tried for a smile. "You heard the man. Video and audio, and both of you will be right outside." She watched him struggle with it for a moment before finally nodding, and the guard at the door buzzed her in. Alone.

Liz stepped in, finding a tall, lean figure standing with his back to her. Dark hair, familiar posture, and when he spoke - turning as he did - she felt her breath catch in her throat. "I told you, I'm not saying another thing until you let me talk to… Liz."

"Tom." Her dead husband's name escaped her lips without permission and she watched an equally familiar smile start to pull at his split lip, the expression reaching his eyes. He looked tired, bruised from the wreck. A cut over his eyebrow and there was blood on the collar of his shirt, though that looked older than just a few hours.

"You're here. They wouldn't tell me if they got ahold of you. They wouldn't even tell me if they tried. I didn't know…" He stopped, reigning himself in, and there was a brief flash of hurt - old and deep, like he'd wrestled with a painful question for a while now - that she saw him force back just as quickly. "It doesn't matter. You're here." He stepped forward, and for the first time she heard the cuffs on his wrists clink, drawing her attention away from those dark blue eyes that she had once known so well. "Liz? Babe, say something."

The old term of endearment jolted her. "You've been dead two years."

He blinked hard, looking away for just a moment. "I… it's been two years?"

"Yes."

He shook his head. "I had no idea."

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"I was… I remember the hospital, I think. The lights were… in and out, and then the next time I opened my eyes I was in a cell. Hooked up to a bunch of medical equipment and it… hurt like hell." He grimaced, and Liz watched as she thought he got lost in thought for a long moment.

"Then what?"

"Then they saved my life. If I was ever anywhere other than the complex before then, I didn't know it. The raid was the first time that they moved me."

"What did they want?"

"I don't know. I have some ideas, but… Liz." The smile returned and he took a step closer, holding her gaze. "You're okay. They wouldn't tell me anything. No one would. How's Agnes?"

"She's safe."

"Good. That's… good. Are you getting me out of here? I wanna see her."

"I don't think that's a good idea."

If he'd brushed her curt tone off to shock, that forced him to acknowledge that it was more. "Liz, what's wrong?"

"You were dead," she said again. "Cooper identified your body. There wasn't any question."

He stared at her, his jaw clenching just a little in a familiar, tense gesture that she'd seen again and again over the years. "Liz? Look at me."

She did.

"I'm right here." He stepped closer again and the door behind her opened. He glanced past her, but Liz couldn't look away. It was all she could do to hold it together, and she had to hold it together.

"Liz," Ressler called out softly from behind her before breathing, "Hell. Tom."

Dark blue eyes snapped back to meet hers. "Liz," he called out again, his voice pleading. "I'm right here. Whoever Cooper saw… I don't know. I don't know, but it's me."

Liz squared her shoulders, meeting the man who looked like her husband's eyes. "I trust Cooper. Completely. That means someone either used a body double to fool him then, or they're trying to use a double now."

Tom had told her about the doubles coming out of the old Russian site that he'd investigated with Halcyon. They hadn't been perfect, but they'd been damn close. Altered to look like the people they were replacing, trained to act like them. The Cabal would certainly have the means, and it would be like them to play on an old heartache, wrenching it back up and forcing her to choose between a hope she'd never dared to have or turning him away. Turning Tom away. She knew she couldn't.

When he took another step towards her, only a few steps between them now, she heard the German guard join them in the room. "Lizzie, please. Ask me anything. It's me. I'll prove it to you."

Liz shook her head. "No." She pulled in a trembling breath. She didn't trust herself to. "You'll be transferred back to the United States where my team will personally oversee a series of tests. There won't be any third parties, no chance for error or for manipulation. We can't risk it."

"Okay."

That caught her by surprise. She had expected more of a fight, either from Tom or a double, whatever the case turned out to be. "Okay?"

He gave a thin, mirthless chuckle. "Fighting you has never gotten me anywhere. The sooner you get your proof, the sooner you stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you did after…. Like you don't know who I am."

He held her eyes and it was everything Liz could do not to reach out. They were too close. There was too much at stake. As desperate as she was to believe that, somehow, the man she loved loved had come back from the dead for her, she didn't have the luxury of being wrong.

TBC

Notes: I'm putting this in the Truth in the Lies set because, while I think it will likely be a two or three parter, it won't be a full multi chapter. It's really just focused on the Keens and this momentary journey. Because I couldn't shake the plot bunny, so I thought I'd try to contain it instead lol

I have no idea when the next part will be up. I've been super busy with my original work and my day job. Hopefully soon though!