Chapter Seven

He woke up in a warehouse, slumped down in a chair with his wrists bound together. A man was working on the shackles, threading a chain through the link on the cuffs, and Jacob took the momentary distraction to his advantage as he slammed forward. His head collided with the other man's and it sent him stumbling back and away.

Then he was on his feet, wrists still cuffed, when his captor straightened and Jacob saw a man that dwarfed him both in height and weight. That's all he saw before the man reared back and landed a blow hard enough to drive him back in the chair, rocking it back dangerously.

The man continued with the task Jacob had interrupted and pulled the chain taught. Jacob was hauled up by his wrists until his bare feet were barely touching the floor. Funny, he hadn't even realized they'd taken his boots until that very moment.

He hung there and he could already feel the ache start in his left shoulder from the old injury. It had healed up, just like the knife wounds in his side, but the damage done had left it weaker than it had been before. More vulnerable to injury. He wondered if his captors knew that or they just wanted to string him up for effect.

The sound of heels clicking against the concrete floor drew his attention as Maddie Tolliver approached. Her mother. Keen had referred to the woman as her mother. Interesting. Everyone in espionage had at least heard of the KGB spy. If she was who Keen thought she was, Jacob was already dead.

"Thank you, Elias," Tolliver addressed the man that had cuffed Jacob. She then turned her icy blue gaze on him. "Who are you?"

"I'm nobody," Jacob answered, his voice rough and he tried to stretch his legs a little longer to take some pressure off of his wrists and shoulders.

Tolliver motioned and the man - Elias - pulled back and landed a hard blow to Jacob's ribs. It threw him off balance, bare feet sliding across the concrete as he swung and all of his weight momentarily pulled against the chain. A sharp, pained sound escaped him and he found Tolliver studying him as he stopped swinging. "This is simple enough. I have questions and you'll give me the answers. If not immediately, Elias will get them out of you."

"I don't talk," Jacob growled.

"We'll see about that. Who do you work for? Townsend? Reddington?"

Jacob leveled a determined glare on her and she motioned. It became a cycle. Another blow, another question. Sometimes Jacob would pop off with a flippant response and sometimes he would just focus on staying on his feet. It wasn't his first time being tortured for information, and he meant what he said: he didn't talk. It was one of many things that had won him Bud's respect when he had first come into St Regis. From mock interrogations that left real breaks and bruises to real ones in the field, Jacob plastered a shit eating grin on his bloodied face and snarled his way through until he found an opportunity to get away. This time might be a little more difficult.

He wasn't sure how long had passed when he found Tolliver directly on him. He must not have looked like much of a threat as she leaned in, popping him none too gently against the cheek to pull his attention around. "A name and it stops," she promised.

"Go to hell."

She stepped back and Elias came at him again. Everything hurt. He felt like he was bruised and strained from head to toe, even if the overall damage wasn't severe. She wasn't trying to kill him, she wanted answers. Giving them to her wouldn't only mean breaking his contract, though, it would be signing his own death certificate.

"What's he given you?" a new voice asked from behind. Familiar, but he could turn to see the newcomer.

"Nothing. Yet." Tolliver motioned and Elias swung again, this time the blow a glancing one that sent him twisting around as well as swinging.

And then he saw her. Elizabeth Keen. She stood in the middle of the warehouse in her t-shirt and jeans, hair tied back, and staring at him like she'd seen a ghost. Like she recognized him. "Tom." The name his employer had given him road out on a breath and he blinked hard, trying to make sense of the recognition he saw in her eyes. "Get him down."

Tolliver looked as confused as Jacob felt. "Elizabeth, do you know—"

"Get him down!"

Someone off to the side flipped the switch and Jacob felt the chain go slack. His feet flattened against the floor but his knees buckled, sending him crashing the rest of the way down. Keen was on the floor with him in an instant. "Hey. Easy. You okay? Tom, look at me."

He grit his teeth and forced his gaze up to her. She was close, her touch gentle as she checked a gash that had left blood streaked down the side of his face. She looked terrified. Haunted. He let her check him over without a word, not daring to contradict the name she had called him. If she knew Brigitte Tremblay somehow - the only reasonable scenario he could come up with, even if his employer had indicated she hadn't had direct contact with her and that Keen should never know he was watching her - this fed might be his only hope at getting out of this alive. Whatever layer of cover she was weaving, he'd roll with it.

Jacob met her eyes and there was a myriad of expressions battling each other for more than half a second on her pretty face. Relief and surprise, fear and confusion, and all of them underlined by something Jacob was having trouble reading. Sadness, maybe. It was hard to tell. She bent down, though, and pressed a surprising kiss against his lips. "How are you here?" she whispered, her tone a little desperate.

"Not in front of her," Jacob managed.

"She's my mother. I found her. She's—"

"Just had her thug beat the hell outta me."

Keen stopped a moment as if she were arguing with herself on what to do. Finally she looked back to Tolliver who was waiting more patiently than Jacob would have expected. "Did you know who he is?"

"He's the man that was outside of your apartment building. He bugged my hotel room, dropped another one on Simms."

"He's my husband."

Jacob schooled his expression as best he could at that one. Okay, this was getting stranger and stranger.

"Your husband is dead," Tolliver responded and Keen looked around to where Jacob was trying to straighten a little better even though he was still on the floor.

"They told me he was."

There was a long moment of indecision where the two women seemed to be waging some sort of war of the wills. Tolliver didn't want to go, that much was clear, but Keen wasn't backing down. Finally, it was Tolliver that gave, and she motioned her people out with a warning glare in Jacob's direction and a promise that they would be right outside.

"The key?" Keen prompted and Tolliver's blonde brows shot up. She frowned, but handed it over.

As soon as the doors closed behind them, Keen turned back to him. She worked to release the heavy cuffs from his wrists and, as they fell away, she looked directly at him. "I don't understand. Reddington said…. Cooper identified your body. How are you here? Was it Scottie? Did she….?"

Jacob watched as the woman that had just uncuffed him lost her battle with her own emotions and the tears that had been building started to spill over. She looked at him, desperate, and guilt tugged harder than he thought it ever could. He wanted to give her something - anything - to make the tears stop. He didn't know why, but he was halfway to reaching to thumb them away before he caught himself. "I don't know what you're talking about," he managed, his voice nearly as raw as hers.

"Where have you been?"

He shouldn't give anything away. He should play it safe until he had more information. He knew that, but even so, the next question tumbled from his lips without permission. "Do you know me?"

Keen stopped, choking down a sob and they sat on that cold floor in the middle of the warehouse staring at each other. "W-what do you mean?"

He shifted, trying to get his feet under him and she reached out. Her fingers touched his arms and she helped guide him up and steady him there, never breaking eye contact and he was fairly certain that those blue eyes of hers were cutting through to his soul. "I'm, uh… missing time."

"How much?"

Every inch of training screamed to shut up while every instinct somehow countered it, urging him to tell her anything she wanted to know. "Ten years. Well, starting about twelve years ago," he admitted softly. "Did we… meet during that?" They must have, and if they had then that meant Brigitte had been playing him. There was no other explanation for her handing over the same name that this woman was calling him.

"Yeah," Keen breathed and she reached up, her fingers soft against his bruised and bleeding face. "We had a family, a life. And then you died to…. help me find answers I didn't realize I needed to be looking for."

He pulled back from her touch. "Listen… I don't know what you think you know, but I'm not -"

"Jacob Phelps," she said firmly and he blinked in surprise. "You're missing ten years, so you're going by Jacob Phelps. They found you wandering alone when you were four, but you don't have any clear memories until you were nearly six and in your third foster home."

He pulled back a little farther. "Stop," he whispered, but she didn't.

"Frank and Eva Phelps adopted you when you were seven and you hated them. Frank was a drunk and Eva was useless. You have a scar here -" she reached around to the back of his head, fingers just above an old scar that wasn't visible beneath his hair - "where he broke a bottle over your head. You ran and the Major picked you up in New York City. He trained you."

"How could you know all of that?"

"Because you told me."

"I wouldn't tell anyone that."

"Not a mark. That's what you were thinking I was, right? Just a job?"

"Had to be."

"It started that way. I thought that was all it was, but it wasn't. Tom -"

"That's not my name."

"It was the name you chose. With me. With us."

He felt like he was drowning. Emotions of every shape and size crashed over him like waves that threatened to pull him under. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't focus. All he saw was this woman that he only recognized from a file standing there and rattling off the most intimate details of his life that no one knew.

She reached for him and he pulled away.

"Tom."

"I don't know what kind of game this is," he managed, stepping back, "but I'm done. She can't pay me enough for whatever angle she's playing."

Keen blinked at him, confusion replacing desperation. "Who?"

"The woman that hired me."

"Who is she?"

He shook his head, ignoring the headache that spiked as he did. "Doesn't matter. I'm done. I'm out. Good luck with Mommy Psycho out there."

Jacob didn't give himself half a second to let her talk him out of it. Instead he turned, starting for the far south exit. Unless Keen either called for help or Tolliver had the place surrounded, he should be able to slip out before they caught up with him. He'd be gone and never look back.

But why?

He shoved the inconvenient question down hard. For the first year or so after waking up to ten missing years he'd wanted nothing else but to find them again. There were so many missing moments, so many questions that the answers didn't quite fit. He'd wanted it more than anything, but it hadn't mattered. No one had the answers and no one could fix whatever had happened to his brain. The memories were gone and he had had to make a decision: move on or go slowly insane.

Jacob had moved on. He'd chosen to move on and it had worked out well for him right up until Brigitte Tremblay shoved him into this chaotic nightmare.

This woman - Keen, a fed of all things - swore they'd been together. She'd called him her husband.

He didn't remember her, even if he was strangely drawn to her. It didn't matter. Deep pocket clients with vague job descriptions were always more trouble than they were worth, and this was no exception. He was done. He was going home.


After she had woken up - after Reddington had told her that Tom was dead - Liz had dreamed about him nearly every night.

Some dreams were nicer than others. Playing with Agnes, teasing moments, Tom's laugh…. But others were nightmares that left her with her face pressed into the pillow so that her sobs didn't take Agnes up. Garvey's men in their home and Tom bleeding out in front of her. There was one where they were chatting in the kitchen. Agnes was in the living room getting ready for school, Tom was cooking breakfast and teasing her about something, and she asked him a question. When he didn't answer she turned in time to watch him fade away, all traces of him gone from their lives.

This was worse. It was like a waking nightmare. Two and a half years after her husband was murdered, after a man she trusted had ID'd his body, after she and their daughter had done everything they could to pick up the pieces of their lives, there he was.

And he couldn't remember her.

It was like the universe was playing a sick joke on her and she had no idea how to even begin processing it. With the way he left, she might never get the chance to.

Liz had told Katarina what she knew, and that was that she had no idea what was happening. Yes, she'd been told her husband was dead. Yes, she was certain that was Tom. She knew him. And he was off limits. If she ran across him again she needed to call Liz immediately. She'd handle it.

And then Liz had left. She was emotionally spent and she had a sting first thing in the morning. If she was lucky, she might catch a couple hours' sleep before meeting Krause to coach him through the plan one more time.

When she had left Agnes had been asleep and Ressler had looked ready to crash out on her couch as soon as the door was locked behind her. At some point Agnes must have woken up to find her unsuspecting Uncle Donnie there and conned him into letting her stay up. The result was a surprisingly well constructed fort that was complete with what looked like a chair from the breakfast table to hold up the quilt acting as the roof that stretched over and used part of the couch and several pillows to hold the front 'flap' open. Peeking out from inside was a familiar pink and purple sleeping bag and Agnes herself was snoring softly, using a stuffed puppy as a pillow.

It was Ressler that had Liz stopped dead in her tracks and desperately trying to choke back a laugh, despite the night she had had. Her partner, normally so put together, was asleep on her couch with a tea cup and saucer on the floor next to him like he'd fallen asleep mid-tea party. If that weren't enough, he was covered in glitter and had a tiara set precariously on his head so that his hair stuck out at odd angles around it.

Liz bit her lip as he stirred awake. "You were busy," she whispered.

Ressler blinked hard, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and the tiara slipped from his head and clattered to the floor. Both adults cringed as the four-year-old turned inside her fort, but only managed to cuddle closer with the stuffed animal.

After a long moment Ressler sat the rest of the way up, swinging his legs around to stand. "Laugh it up, Keen," he said in a teasing, hushed tone. "You're the one that called in your big favour on babysitting duty."

"I needed someone I trusted and that's a short list these days." She let her gaze wander over to where Agnes was sleeping soundly. "How did she talk you into all of this?"

"Told me national security depended on it."

Liz choked on a laugh. "No."

"I swear she did," her partner chuckled, but the smile faded as he turned to look at her. "So what happened?"

Liz opened her mouth and then shut it again, not trusting anything swirling around her mind at the moment to make sense if she tried to explain it. She needed time to process. Time to figure out what the hell was happening.

Ressler sighed, drawing her attention back to him. "Listen, you don't have to tell me-"

"Ress…"

"-but I meant what I said. I'm here. Whatever you need. If it's watching the munchkin or backing you up when things go south."

"When?" Liz asked, struggling to keep tightness out of her voice.

The corner of his lips quirked up slightly. "When. I'm here. I'll be here."

Part of her wanted to tell him, to trust him, but the idea of even trying to put it into words that night left her more exhausted than she had been already. Instead she reached forward, her lips thinning out into something she hoped resembled a smile, and put a hand on his arm. "Thank you."

He offered her a tired, half-smile of his own and nodded towards the door. "I better get home to try to get this glitter washed off."

"Wouldn't want to show up to arrest The Collector looking like a party favour," Liz agreed and she watched him start for the door. "Hey Ressler?" He stopped and she swallowed hard to try to force the words out. When had it become so hard to be open and honest, even with the people that she cared about? "I trust you. You know that, right?"

"I do."

"And I'll tell you. Just… not tonight."

He watched her for a long moment before nodding, turning to leave without pushing it any further.

Liz waited until the door shut behind him and loosed a long breath. She'd been too optimistic. There was no way she was getting any sleep that night.


TBC

Notes: I feel like maybe I should duck for cover for separating them again. In my defense, though, they won't be separated for long, and I did offer up a glitter-covered Ressler by way of apology :P

Next Time: Reddington throws a wrench into their case, Liz chooses to trust Ressler with a secret, and Tom Jacob demands answers from Gina.