It had been nearly ten minutes since Liz had left their shared office to be questioned by Cooper. Ressler had left the comfort of his own desk chair no more than two minutes after her, knowing that, regardless of whether Cooper had told him to or not, as the senior agent, it was his job to brief the team on their newest case. He hated walking out the office, holding the file that he'd prepared and knowing that he was about to throw his partners name and reputation right in to the middle of the investigation, displaying her private life in the open for all to see. As soon as he cleared the office door and brought himself in view of everyone in the war room, he put his agent face back in place, hiding all the concern for his partner behind it. Out the corner of his eye, he could see Meera and Aram staring quizzically at him from behind the latter's desk. They both knew that something was going on with Keen, having witnessed her being escorted from their office towards the interrogation rooms by Cooper himself, something that happened, even if they were working a case. For the most part, when Ressler had called a team in to process Keen's house, he'd managed to keep it on a need to know basis but now...
"Alright everyone, gather round. We've got a new case." He walked in to the centre of the war room, waving the file high over his head as he headed to the large table they usually gathered around. Meera, Aram and a few other agents joined him at the table but just as he was about to speak, Aram cut him off.
"Aren't... Aren't we going to wait for Agent Keen?"
All agents present looked expectantly at him. Aram, as usual, began to nervously jitter an apology his way without actually looking at him while Meera silently asked him what the hell was going on. He wished he'd had the chance to go over it with them beforehand - but he hadn't, so now he had to endure the glares and flurry of questions he was going to get from the CIA agent once they got a moment alone. He sighed and glanced towards the direction of the room Liz and Cooper would now be in, wishing that he didn't have to do this. He turned back to the group and opened the file, neglecting to make eye contact with anyone.
"Agent Keen is not permitted to be an investigating agent on this case." His statement earned him a few confused looks for the agents, narrowed eyes from Meera and, for some reason, a petrified look from Aram.
"But all names on the Blacklist go through Keen. That's how this works; Reddington gives them to her, she gives them to us and we investigate." Meera was challenging him for information. If only she would just shut up and let him explain. "We work as a team, and we're not a team if Keen isn't here."
"And if you give me a damn chance, I'll explain exactly why Keen won't be joining us." He spoke through gritted teeth, loud enough for only Aram and Meera to hear. Aram recoiled away a little but Meera just nodded and gestured for him to continue.
"Reddington didn't bring this case to us, it's not a blacklister. Well, not as far as we can tell. Like Keen, Reddington won't be involved." He pulled a photo out of the file, turning and walking over to the glass case boards and stopping before the middle one. He took a deep breath before leaning forward and pinning the photo against the glass and writing, in block capitals, the name of their latest case target and stepping away. There was a collective intake of breath as he moved away enough for them to see.
"Tom Keen." He turned back to face everyone. Most of them knew of, and were involved in, when they investigated him before. Meera was cursing under her breath and Aram had rushed back to his desk and started pulling up everything they had on Liz's husband. "Birth name unknown. It's recently been brought to our attention that 'Tom Keen' is in fact an alias. Most of you will remember when he was investigated him before, and you will know that we couldn't dig anything up on him then. For those of you who are not familiar, I want you to go back over and read the files. Now, though, we have a little more information. Aram, I want you to go back and dig in to every name on those passports we have in evidence, I don't care how small a detail you come up with, I want it looked in to. Jenkins, I want you to go to the elementary school Keen works at, interview all the staff there, take Bates with you. Find out any and every day he's taken off, find a pattern if you can. Malik, go to your pals as the CIA, see if they can give you anything. Now people, move!"
More than two hours passed before Liz made a reappearance. She took one look at the screens in the war room, spotting various images of Tom and bulked straight in to her office, not wanting to be seen by the agents working the case. Ressler spotted her though, having become so attuned to her movements since they started working together as partners. He quickly finished his conversation with Aram, who had yet to find anything significant on any of Toms passports, and jogged in to their office, closing the door with a soft snap behind him.
Liz was sitting at her desk, elbows resting on the wooden surface with her head pressed in to her hands. Ressler wasn't entirely sure whether she'd noticed him enter, having made no move to change her position or acknowledge his presence. He took this as a sign of things not going to well. Ressler grabbed the back of his chair and wheeled it round next to where she was sitting. He slipped off his suit jacket, slung it over the back of his chair and sat down, lightly touching Liz's shoulder.
"Hey, you okay?" His tone was soft and comforting, but that didn't stop Liz from jumping and jerking slightly away from him.
"Shit, Ress, when did you come in?" She turned back away from him briefly, hoping that he wouldn't notice the few stray tears she tried to wipe away. He did notice, but chose not to comment on it.
"About a minute ago, I saw you come back. How did it go?"
It took a lot of self control for her not to break down in front of him again, not that he'd think any less of her if she did. The last two hours had been hell for her. She had had to repeat herself time and time again for the agents conducting the interview to believe that she knew no more than she'd already told them. She still wasn't convinced that they trusted her innocence in the matter but there was nothing more that she could do about it, she could only hope that Ressler and the team manage to find all the evidence they need on Tom. Liz gave a deep sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose before leaning back in her chair to look at him and started from the beginning.
"Cooper didn't conduct the interview."
"What? Why the hell not?" He was so sure that Cooper would be taking control of the whole thing, ensuring that Liz got a fair say, but evidently that didn't happen.
"They wouldn't let him. He was stopped from entering the room with me, something about him being 'too close' and whatever I was to tell him could possibly be manipulated to go in my favour. I get where they came from. Cooper tried to argue but he was forced to be on the other side of the glass."
"That's bullshit, there's no way in hell Cooper would do that. Don't they know who their dealing with? He's the fucking Deputy Director of the FBI!"
The sides of Liz's mouth started to curl in to a smile at her partners out burst. She patted his hand, which was pressed flat against her desk, lightly and left her palm resting on the back of it. "It's fine, Don. Nothing we can do now."
"But -" He started but she cut him off with a pleading look.
"But nothing. I just want it all to end, and I'm not going to start a dispute about my boss not being able to question me. Just leave it okay?" He turned his hand over under hers, taking it and giving it a quick squeeze and nodding. "Good. What do you have so far?"
Now it was Resslers turn to sigh. "Nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing. Whoever he works for knows what they're doing. We were right the last time we looked in to him, the passports are government grade and each of the identities could easily be the real thing." He paused, looking her straight in the eye. "I know we're going to find something, but... Liz... it could take months to do it."
Liz tried not to show her disappointment but knew she'd failed miserably, she should have known better than to try and hide it from the man next to her. It was stupid to think that, especially now, she could get away with anything around her partner, because, as she'd come to realise, he was much more than her partner, he was her friend.
"That's just a risk we're going to have to take. At least the team's doing something now... I just wish we'd done this sooner. If only I'd told you about this when I found out, you could have started the investigation while he was still around."
"You did what you thought was the right thing at the time. To be honest, I would have done the same as you; looking in to it myself before telling anyone. Do I wish you'd told me sooner? Maybe, but there's nothing we can do about it now, and there's no telling whether it would have been beneficial then anyway."
Liz nodded and he gave her hand a squeeze again before letting go. She wiped her eyes and cleared her smudged make-up with a tissue he passed her. Ressler knew he would have to go back to the war room soon but he didn't want to leave her, and he knew that she wouldn't leave their office until there was no one to see her. He didn't have to make a decision, however, because no sooner had he opened his mouth to say exactly that to her, there was a knock at that door and Meera let herself in.
"I've got something."