Chapter Two: Monsters

Tourists filled the streets of Paris, leaving an already hot afternoon suffocated under the heavy blanket of thousands of people that didn't know the city or the language trying to find their way. It was, in Scottie Hargrave's opinion, the worst time to visit.

Or it would be if they were there for pleasure.

Dark eyes flickered up from behind her large sunglasses and focused on a man approaching. "Gabriel," she greeted, the corners of her mouth turning up. His own expression didn't lighten. Gabriel Moreau had been a sour man as long as the Hargraves has known him, but he was the best damn tracker this side of the world or the other. Irritable, brooding, and snappish, it took a special approach to get anything from him, but once they did he was gold.

"I thought it would be Howard," Moreau grumbled in perfect English.

"He was detained. You get me today," she answered in French. "Have a seat. Order something. It's been ages."

"The Hargraves never reach out without wanting something."

She shifted in her seat and pushed the chair opposite of her out with the tip of her red-soled pump. "But we pay generously."

Moreau looked at the chair suspiciously as Scottie took a bite out of her muffin, an innocent expression plastered across her face.

"That might fool anyone else," he grumbled as he took a seat.

"I'm not here to fool you, Gabriel. You know what I want."

"What is it you say? A needle in a haystack? This is a very large haystack, Scottie."

"I have faith in your abilities." He didn't look sold and Scottie loosed a breath. "Alright, Gabe. Money isn't what you're after. If it was we'd already have a deal. Name your price."

"This isn't about the price."

"It's always about the price."

"The people they worked for-"

"Are in prison. Or dead. Quite a few of them are dead. Alan, Peter, Laurel…. Patricia Morris took a bullet to the head about six months ago."

"From Raymond Reddington. I heard. He's dead too. Aligned with you."

Scottie tilted her head a little. "That was unfortunate, but had nothing to do with his alignment with us. Red made his own choice in the end."

"Saved your son's life I hear."

"See. You're already caught up. I'm not asking for anything more than a location. Howard and I will do the rest."

"You're digging your own grave," Moreau warned. "Your government will put Davis in prison whether you link him to your son's kidnapping or not. Why risk it?"

"Call it closure."

Moreau sighed. "I'll see what I can find. When I do, I'll send you the bill." He stood. "Whatever you expect, it will be more."

Scottie watched him leave. They had spent the last six months digging up anything and everything that they could about the people responsible for Tom's kidnapping as a child. They had uncovered multiple aliases that his adoptive parents had worked under - several with clear ties to the Cabal - but the trail had run dry. That's why they needed Moreau. He could find anyone, and despite his protests, haystacks were his specialty.

Tom was squatted down in front of his daughter's bookshelf and offering options for a bedtime story when he heard Liz call his name from the living room. Every instinct kicked into overdrive through his own exhaustion as he stood, motioning to Agnes. "Stay there, baby girl."

She didn't move and Tom regretted the fact that his sidearm was still in his bag. They had a spare in the lockbox in their room, but if Liz was in trouble he wasn't sure he could risk the thirty seconds it would take to duck into the room, open the safe, and get back to the front. He didn't risk it, instead moving carefully down the hall towards the front.

He stopped, blinking hard at what he found. Gina Zanetakos stood just inside their door and Liz stood next to her, having apparently let her in. She didn't look happy about it though. His wife looked pissed.

"Gina, what the hell-?" Tom tried, but she was already moving. He thought he heard Liz shout, startled by the switch, but it was nothing he hadn't seen from the blonde operative.

Tom got his arms up to deflect the first swing, the second coming at him fast and it connected hard with his right side in a way that told him she had done her homework about his injuries a couple of years before. The muscles protested the blow and Tom felt the breath leave his lungs as he stumbled a little, narrowly missing the next raging strike. He lashed out, the kick driving her back and he straightened in time to see Liz leveling her gun at Gina.

"Hey! Unless you want to take a trip to the hospital tonight, don't take another step."

To her credit, Gina didn't come at him again, but she locked a glare on him he hadn't seen in years. "Need to have the ball and chain fight your battles?" she snarled.

"You break into our home and one of us is going for a gun," Tom answered with a shrug. He opened his mouth to repeat the question he had tried to ask when she had jumped him when a little voice sounded from the hallway.

"Daddy?"

Tom whipped around to see Agnes in her princess pj's, book in hand, and a terrified look etched into her round face. Tears were building as her dark blue gaze shifted to Liz who still had her gun drawn and they were within seconds of a four-year-old meltdown. Even as he turned a look on Gina - one she would know well. One she would know better than to question - he could hear Agnes' sobs starting. "Don't," he snapped dangerously at Gina and saw her give the barest nods as she stared at the little girl.

Liz lowered the gun, tucking it away and out of sight and Tom scooped Agnes up, holding her close as he collapsed against his shoulder. Hot, wet tears were already soaking through his shirt and he bounced her. "Hey, kiddo. It's alright. Everything's alright." His calm voice didn't do much and she tightened her grip. She was saying something. He knew she was saying something, but between the sobs and the hiccups that were starting it was impossible to tell what.

Tom tried to keep his movements smooth so he wouldn't startle her more when he felt a hand on the small if his back and he saw Liz had covered the distance and was circling so that she could stand with them. She reached out, her touch finally calming Agnes a little and she was piling into her mother's arms without warning. Liz looked up and Tom offered a thin smile. "I've got this."

"I'll be right back."

She wanted to be involved in the conversation. Even if she hadn't said it in so many words, her tone was loud and clear. Tom nodded and grimaced as Liz took Agnes to the back. She would be asleep before Liz put her down, no matter how much the display had frightened her.

"She looks like you."

Tom turned and saw some of the rage had faded from Gina's eyes. Some. Not all of it. He swallowed. She knew. That had to be why she was there. She knew. "Yeah."

"I never could have imagined," she said softly. "You. This."

"I like my life."

"You were always good at lying to yourself," she murmured.

Tom reached a hesitant hand to his side that was beginning to ache as the adrenaline faded. "Liz and Agnes are everything to me."

Brown eyes watched him. "I believe that, more or less."

"What you believe doesn't really matter."

She hummed and looked around. He saw her study the little details of the new home. "It does," she said slowly and her gaze flickered back to meet his, That anger smoldering dangerously. "Because if I trust you or not will decide if I kill you and your little FBI bitch tonight."

Tom felt his own temper flare. "You so much as look at them wrong and-"

"You'll what?" She stepped closer. "That's your problem, Jacob. When it comes to me, you've never been able to pull the trigger." She was in his face now and he didn't budge. "You know I can. And I will. To protect what's mine."

"I don't have any problem putting you six feet under," Liz warned and Tom saw Gina's gaze flicker over his shoulder to where his wife had reemerged.

Gina snorted and made a show of stepping back. "Why have you been digging through our financials?"

Yep. She knew. Tom sighed and ran his hand through his dark hair, standing it on end. Liz moved past him and he nodded towards the couch and chairs. "You asked about Asia."

Gina Zanetakos made herself at home in the chair opposite of the couch with a beer in hand and an expected look. Tom's expression was closed off. Focused. Those expressive eyes were cold and shut off. Typically Liz could read the underlying subtleties that played out just behind the mask, but there was nothing that night. It reminded her of the day that the Pavlovich brothers had delivered him to their townhome after everything had come out. She hated it.

Gina locked her glare on Tom. "How the hell did you find Cecil?"

He shrugged. "Didn't take a lot. He's still in touch with Zhou. You'd be surprised to know how many people don't know I'm gone."

"Who's Cecil?"

Both Tom and Gina turned, almost like they had forgotten that Liz was there. Tom blinked hard and she recognized an intentional reset of sort. "He's moved money for St Regis for…. years." He turned to Gina. "He was there before I came in."

She shrugged. "I still haven't found anybody that was there before him."

Liz nodded, sitting back on the couch. So Tom had been in Asia to track down St Regis' money man. As much as she wanted to know why, she didn't dare flaunt it in front of Gina they Tom had left her out of the loop. They had to play this smart.

"You still haven't told me why you reached out to Cecil."

Liz watched her husband's gaze harden a little again. "I needed to make sure."

"I think we're past the point of vagueness, Jacob," Gina grumbled. "What do you want?"

Liz saw the barest clench in her husband's jaw before he answered. "St Regis."

There was a hush that fell over the room and no one moved. Gina was the first one to loose an audible breath. "You left." The two words escaped her lips with a venom that sounded like betrayal, and with the way she was seated Liz was half ready for her to come swinging at Tom again.

Her husband grimaced. "Halcyon's looking for ways to overhaul our training methods. Bud's program -"

"You told me it drowned people."

"It does. As it is, it does, but the core training's solid. It's the fact that we got dumped in as kids that..." Tom's lips twitched down. "I know it's not going the way you planned, Gina. You've had four years and you'rer bleeding money."

"You want to buy St Regis," Liz breathed.

"Yeah."

"No," Gina bit out immediately as she stood, slamming her beer down on the coffee table between them. "You had your chance. You chose her over everything."

"My guess is they've given you this long because of who you are, but you and I both know it won't last. They'll clean up. You know how this goes."

"I do, and I don't need your help. Stay away from my people. If I catch you near them again I'll put you down myself." With that she turned and stormed out of the apartment, the threat hanging heavily in the air. Neither Keen moved for a long moment.

Finally, Tom drew a breath. "I was gonna tell you," he murmured. "I just… didn't know if it was even plausible."

Liz swallowed hard, half a dozen starts to her question spinning in her mind and being replaced by another before it ever left her lips. After a few failed triest she forced herself to look at him. "Help me understand this, because right now al I'm seeing is a really stupid move to open up all sorts of terrible things from your past that put the three of us in in the crosshairs of a dangerous organization that you had managed to slip away from."

"Liz-"

"Your ex was in our home and threatening to kill us. Why, Tom? What the hell could possibly-"

"Keep your voice down," he snapped, dark gaze sliding back towards Agnes' room.

She tried to steady herself and held his gaze as it returned to her. "I understand that you might feel the need to take control of some aspect of your past to try to balance out the fact that Scottie and Howard have been-"

"Do not try to shrink me, Liz." He squeezed his eyes shut, resetting himself, and he fell back against the couch. "Will you let me explain without trying to turn me into a patient?"

It was Liz's turn to grimace. He hated that. He'd told her before that he had had one too many social service therapists convinced that they could figure him out and that they thought they had. They slapped every useless label on him they could and it did nothing but isolate him further. He hated it, and she couldn't blame him for that. "Sorry."

He offered a thin smile, accepting the apology. "I knew something was off when she showed up in Costa Rica. If she trusted me she wouldn't have shown up herself, but she still took the job."

"So you started looking into the organization?"

"When I got the chance, yeah." He leaned back and Liz reached out, her hand brushing his leg and he dropped his own to hold on. Long fingers wrapped around hers. "I know the contenders that'll try to push her out. Bud screwed kids up, even I know that, but these guys…"

Pieces fell into place. Tom had always had more conflicted views than Liz did about his time with St Regis, both feeling like he had been saved and twisted up all at once when he had accepted McCready's offer. He saw what the man had done, at least in a way, and what happened to the kids growing up in the organization now. It was an emotionally charged conversation if they ever broached it and Liz was always hesitant to push him on it.

But here, now, he was the one poking at it.

"What if you handed it to the Task Force?"

Tom turned to look at her. "Liz-"

"Just hear me out. St Regis is huge. You have intel that could bring them down. It's well within the arrangement you have between Halcyon and the Task Force. Ressler won't fight you on the intel you need for them and we can stop them from turning kids into-"

"Monsters?"

The word cut through her argument and Liz caught his gaze. "You're not a monster," she said firmly.

"Because of you." His fingers tightened around hers again and she saw the struggle to put his feelings into words that made sense. "You…. Not everyone gets the chance you gave me, Liz."

"We'll make sure they're taken care of, Tom."

"How? Turn them back over to social services? How do you think they ended up in St Regis to start with?"

She pursed her lips together. "What would you do differently?"

"I was thinking about setting up some kind of program through Halcyon. The board loves charity projects and it'll keep them off the streets and out of the system. Give them a chance. The ones in now, if they wanted, would have the choice to get hired on at Halcyon at eighteen. Maybe later. If they wanted out they're free to leave."

They sat in silence for a long moment and she leaned into him. "You've been thinking about this for a while."

"Yeah," he breathed after a beat.

"I wish you'd told me."

"Doesn't matter now. All of that was balanced on Gina being willing to turn it over."

"Wouldn't the people you said would be after her fight you on it?"

She saw a small smile tilt his lips. "You think I wasn't going to offer Ressler something in all of that?"

Liz laughed and turned to kiss his shoulder. "Let's talk to him. Maybe we can still find a way."

"I just don't want those kids going from bad to worse. Least where they are now they can fight back."

"Hey." She waited until he looked at her, those eyes meeting hers. "McCready was the monster, not you."

Tom gave her a thin smile and she leaned up, her lips against his. "I know you, Tom Keen," she murmured. "Better than anyone."

There was a small sound of acknowledgement and pulled her into the kiss a little deeper. She sank in and she felt his his hands moving down her back, toying at the zipper on her dress that she still wore from the party, and she fought the frustrated sigh as she pulled away. "Agnes is in our room," she warned.

He loosed a breath and nodded, kissing her lightly. "We should be there if she wakes up," he acknowledged softly.

"After tonight, yeah."

She stood and he caught her hand, pulling her attention back around to him. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you right away," he said, and there was a sincerity there that she believed.

Liz squeezed his hand. "We'll figure it out."

He stood, his arms circling her waist and he pulled her a little closer. "I don't deserve you."

Her smile was real as she leaned in, her cheek pressed against his chest as he pulled her close. She stood there for a long moment just listening to the sound of his heart beating steadily in his chest. She had him, and she wasn't going to let him go. "I'm glad you're home."

"Me too," he answered softly, kissing the side of her head. "C'mon. We'll figure out how to read the Task Force in tomorrow."

Liz nodded, letting her hand drop down into his and she followed him back to their bedroom. Agnes was snoring, sprawled in the middle of their bed, and the exhausted little girl didn't even stir as they changed and crawled in on either side of her. Liz pulled the covers up and she finally turned, cuddling close to her mother, and a sense of peace settled in despite the evening's events. They were there and they would fight to be safe. No one - not Gina, or St Regis, or any other of the real monster's from Tom's past - would take her family from her.

TBC

Notes: I will forever be sad that we didn't dive further into St Regis in canon. It seemed like such a perfect opportunity for the task force to take on. So here we go. If they won't I will lol

Next Time: Tom talks to Ressler, Howard gets himself into some trouble, and Liz tries to convince her therapist to sign off on her reinstatement.