Chapter Four: Secrets

His cell had rolled to voicemail twice before she finally got ahold of him. He had been in with Ressler and still was. Liz hadn't had a chance to say much more than no one's life was in immediate danger and that she was at Halcyon to follow up on something Dumont had found.

Halcyon Aegis was slowly moving its base to DC and Tom had kept the offices that Scottie had used during the last presidential election. Slowly but surely part of the old structure was being converted into a technical base that Grey Matters could operate out of so that they didn't have to fly out of the city every time they were working a case. The progress was balanced somewhere in the middle right then, and Liz found herself parking in a slightly different spot than where she had the last time she had been there. She wondered just what went into converting what had once been a mansion-styled building into a covert base that could also house the more public side of Halcyon.

"Mrs Hargra- Mrs Keen!"

Liz turned to see a young man - Trey, one of Scottie's people that had stayed over - jogging up to her. "Agent Keen," she corrected. "Liz is fine. I don't need an escort. I know where I'm going."

That seemed to stop him in his tracks. "But Mr Hargrave isn't here."

"I'm not here to see Tom," she said pointedly and brushed past him and through the front door. It wasn't his fault, not really. Both the PR department and Tom's parents had thought it would somehow make the transition easier if Tom went by his birth name at the office. He hadn't fought it, even if he had remained adamant about keeping his legal name as it stood. It left those that didn't know them well in a state of constant confusion.

"It's all good, Trey. She's here for us." Liz looked towards the voice, finding Nez Rowan halfway down the stairs. She motioned. "C'mon. We've taken over your husband's office until they finish ours."

Liz quirked an eyebrow. "Does that mean you know what he's been working on lately?"

Nez blinked and raised her hand in defense. "He said he was going to tell you."

"He did. When Gina Zanetakos up at our front door."

The other woman shook her head as the topped the stairs. "He hasn't sounded the alarms yet. Do you guys need-"

"We have it handled on that end." Liz stopped, causing Nez to pause too. When she found grey eyes on her she held her gaze. "What I need is to make sure you have his back here. Gina is-"

"I know they have a past," Nez acknowledged and Liz snorted at the diplomatic approach.

"Yeah."

"Liz, if you think he'd…"

"I'm not worried about losing Tom to Gina like that. I'm worried about him not watching his back with her. She's dangerous. Last time he trusted her she put two bullets in him."

Nez's lips twitched down and her expression darkened a little. She got it. She may not have known Tom nearly as long as Liz had, but she knew him well enough to know exactly what Liz was getting at. For all the trust issues Tom had, he did have his blind spots. "We've got his back."

"Good. I'm doing everything I can to get reinstated before this, but-"

"We've got his back, Liz."

There was a long pause, both women staring at each other, and finally Liz nodded. "Thank you."

They pushed through the door into the upstairs offices that Tom had made claims on. There was plenty of space for Grey Matters to set up their temporary base there and, though he would never admit it, Tom likely enjoyed being in the middle of the team. Well, most of the team.

"Lizzie. Good to see you again," Matias Solomon all but purred and Liz resisted the urge to take a swing.

"There's a short list of people that can call me that. You're not on it. Dumont, hey." She brushed past Solomon to the tech expert who was sitting at Tom's desk. "You know Tom will spring for a desk of your own, right?"

He looked up and grinned. "Not like he uses it."

"It just makes him feel special," Nez teased, earning a look from Dumont.

"You said you found something, Dumont?" Liz asked, trying to pull him around to the entire reason she was there and not meeting her family at the park like they had planned.

"Yeah. Ran some background information. Looks like your ol' pal Dom wasn't entirely honest about his time in the KGB."

"I didn't really think he was. He knew Reddington," Liz answered softly. She watched as information scrolled across the computer screen.

"There's no direct link to Reddington that I can find, but based on what we have I'd say there's a familial match there to Rostova. Father probably. Maybe uncle?"

"If I got you a DNA sample could you run it against mine?"

"Sure. How're you planning to get that?"

Liz smiled. "That won't be a problem."

Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he was dreaming. It had been too long since she had been that young. The dirt worked into her dark blonde curls and the vicious look in her brown eyes that masked the fear. Everything she knew was gone and she had no one. She trusted no one. Certainly not an old man and scrap of a punk that he had hauled out of bed in the middle of the night to "test his Russian." Gina Zanetakos had been a force to be reckoned with even at fourteen and half starved, and she hadn't been impressed with what St Regis had to offer.

He had stumbled through broken Russian, desperate to impress Bud even just weeks into his own training, but it hadn't gotten him anywhere. Instead she had disappeared and Bud had told him to find her and bring her in or not to bother coming back at all. Jacob had chased her down and nearly gotten into a brawl with her in a back alleyway in St Petersburg when they had both been jumped. Gina had owed someone something, or at least the man twice her size had thought she did, and his focus had been on her. Jacob could have slipped away. Bud wouldn't want someone that couldn't figure their own way out anyway. It would have been easy enough, but something in him had made him stay and fight with her. It had been the start of something that had become a strange form of loyalty between them. Something like a friendship. It had been as close as people like them had known how to get, and they had had each other's backs.

He had tried. Despite everything that had happened in the last handful of years between them, Tom had tried to watch out for her. She was either going to get killed or brought down in all of this, though, and there wasn't much he could do to stop that. Maybe that's why he found his dreams filled with those accusing eyes he hadn't seen since they were young teenagers.

Tom jolted at the sound of the name that no one from his old life would use. The living room came into view slowly as he blinked, trying to clear dried contacts, and found his wife squatted down next to the couch. "Hey."

He blinked again. "Hey. Did I fall asleep?"

Her lips tilted up very slightly at the corners and she nodded over to where the end credits were playing on Tangled. Agnes was crashed out in her little beanbag, utterly oblivious to the world.

"How far did you guys make it?" Liz asked quietly.

Tom fell back against the pillow. "Not far. Maybe the horse chasing the guy?"

"You know she's going to make you back it up for the lights."

"Believe me I know." He cracked an eye back open.

She smiled, the expression a little strained. "What were you dreaming about?"

He looked up at her, a grimace tugging at his own expression. Being honest with her meant he didn't get to pick and choose when it was convenient. "Gina," he admitted softly. "When we were kids."

"Tom, babe, you've done everything you can for-"

"I know." He swallowed hard. "I know. What'd Dumont need?"

Liz let him shift the conversation without a fight and she motioned for Tom to scoot over. When he did, she sat on the edge of the couch. "You remember the film you found in Wilkinson's garage?"

"Yeah."

"There was someone else in the photos. My mother."

"Your…? That film had to have been over forty years old," Tom countered and Liz shot him a look. He shifted, sitting up a little. "You're related to him."

"There's a good chance. Dumont said he could run the DNA-"

"Or you could just ask your mom."

Her excitement faded almost immediately and Tom found her staring blankly. He cleared his throat. "You heard anything from her?"

"Not since last time. It's been… two months, I think? It's not like she's really been jumping at rebuilding a relationship with me."

"Maybe she doesn't know how."

"She could try a little harder to figure it out," his wife snapped. Tom reached a hand out to hers and she cringed a little. "Sorry."

"I get it," he murmured.

She squeezed his hand, her fingers lacing through his. "I know you do."

Tom pulled her hand up to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. It was hard. He knew how hard it was. Katarina had vanished without warning after Reddington's funeral. Liz had been grappling with her own grief and hadn't had it in her to spend too much time dwelling on it immediately after. Then a week had gone by. Then another. It had dragged on to the point that she had admitted to him that meeting her mother was starting to feel more like a dream than anything else.

Then, out of nowhere, Katarina had called. It had been in the middle of the night from a blocked number. She hadn't said anything about where she had been or where she was. She hadn't even told Liz why she was calling. The conversation - if it could be considered that - had lasted all of five minutes, but the Keens hadn't slept the rest of the night. Instead Liz had gone over every angle, every word, and had tried to figure out some clue that Tom still wasn't sure was there.

"'m hungry," came the slightly cranky and still very drowsy voice from their daughter who was still sunk down into her beanbag.

Liz's expression softened. "What about a grilled cheese?"

Agnes looked over to her daddy expectantly and he swallowed a laugh at Liz's feigned insulted expression. "You don't think I can do it?"

"No," the little girl answered honestly and Tom couldn't stop the chuckle at that.

"Traitor," his wife grumbled as she stood. "I'll prove you both wrong."

"Please don't set the kitchen on fire, babe," Tom teased and barely got his hands up to deflect the pillow she grabbed off the chair to toss at his face.

"That was one time!"

"Twice." He watched her turn a questioning look on him and he grinned. "What? You think Baz and I never talked when he was camped out in the apartment across from ours?"

She huffed as she turned back to the kitchen, promising him an amazing grilled cheese and he couldn't help the smile that tugged just a little further with every grumble. He knew better than to bet against her when she decided to be stubborn about something.

"It's making noise."

Tom blinked, finding Agnes standing right next to the couch now and she was holding his cell phone. He reached out for it and she piled in on top of where he was still half stretched out, nestling in against his chest as he pulled the message from Scottie open.

"Hey babe?"

"If you're going to make a crack about my cooking again, Tom, I swear-"

"No," he laughed, his fingers playing idly with his daughter's hair. "You mind waiting on the grilled cheese?"

Agnes sat up at that. "I'm hungry."

"I know, baby, but Grandma and Grandpa just landed. They want to have lunch."

Tom heard the sound of the burner being turned off around the corner and Liz reappeared. "I thought they weren't coming in until Wednesday?"

He shrugged, trying to sit up and not having a lot of luck with the stubborn four-year-old in his lap. "Guess they came home early."

Her eyes narrowed just a little. "You sure this isn't just you trying to get me out of the kitchen?"

"You want to see the text?" he laughed, offering her his phone.

"Did they bring me a present?" Agnes asked.

"Guess we'll have to find out."

That sold their daughter on the idea and Tom let out a struggled oof as she piled off of him and ran to her room to get ready. He looked up to see Liz's expression had turned a little more serious. "What?"

"Any idea why they cut their trip short?"

Tom sat up slowly, swinging his long legs around. "Hopefully that they hit their last dead end."

"You think they're still trying to find evidence to link Davis to your kidnapping?"

"I know they are."

He caught Liz's hesitant look. "And you don't want them to?"

"What's the point? He's going away for life anyway." He stood, running a hand through his dark hair and standing it on end. "I just want to put it behind us."

Liz made a small sound of acknowledgement and wrapped her arms around him. He sank into it, feeling her fingers tighten around the material of his shirt. They stood like that for a long moment, soaking in a moment of quiet as long as they could.

"I'm ready," a small voice interrupted and they both looked over to see Agnes had changed her clothes to a mismatched combination of tutu and polka dot shirt. Tom stared, but the question of why died in his throat and he scooped her up and kissed her cheek instead. His little girl giggled in his arms and he readied himself for whatever news Scottie and Howard were bringing home. Maybe he'd catch a break and his parents really did just want to have lunch.

There was something soothing about the constant chatter of a four-year-old trying to tell a story. Scottie wasn't sure she could have recounted any of it if asked, but her granddaughter didn't seem bothered by it. She kept on as long as the four adults managed to react at just the right time, and her smile only grew as she threw her arms in the air. "Like the bad lady that came over last night," she finished and it was the way Tom turned to look at her that keyed his mother off.

"Bad lady?"

"Nothing. It was nothing," Tom answered, waving it off. "Misunderstanding."

"She was mean," Agnes said pointedly. "I don't like her."

"She's not going to come over again," Liz promised and kissed her head.

Scottie looked over to Tom who was avoiding eye contact. She nudged Howard hard under the table. "Didn't they have an ice cream machine just inside? I think I saw sprinkles."

"I like sprinkles," Agnes said, her attention immediately Howard. "Please, Grandpa? Please?"

Howard shot Scottie an amused look before standing from the bench seat at the outdoor bbq joint. "Anyone else want to put an order in?" An awkward silence met him and he winked at Agnes. "Just you and me, Princess."

The little girl cheered as she piled off of the bench and grabbed for his hand, happily skipping alongside him. Scottie watched, a smile tugging at her lips. It faded slowly as she turned to look at her son and daughter-in- law across the table. Tom met her gaze now and held it without flinching.

"Tom, if you're-"

"We have it under control. Better than the two of you do if Howard's face is anything to go by."

He had inherited his father's talent for redirecting focus in what could turn into an argument. Scottie had played that game long enough. "We're not talking about Howard."

Liz snorted a small laugh and Tom shot her a look. She nudged him lightly with her shoulder. "It's fine," she assured the older woman.

"Let's just enjoy lunch without talking about work, huh?"

Scottie held his gaze, and while Liz looked amused that Tom hadn't managed to successfully redirect the conversation to put Scottie on the defensive, there was no question that she stood with him. It was one of the traits that Scottie appreciated most in her daughter-in-law: the loyalty. She didn't know the whole story, but she knew enough. Tom had told her enough. Their united front was hard fought and won.

"Mama, I got sprinkles," Agnes announced from behind and she already had half the treat on her face.

"I see that," Liz answered with a smile.

Howard glanced over to Scottie for a cue if it was safe to bring the four-year-old back or if a second distraction was needed. She nodded and he hauled her up, a giggle exploding in response, and set her onto the bench attached to the picnic tables they were seated at.

Tom caught his mother's gaze again. "I will tell you," he said lowly. "Just let me enjoy some normal?"

Howard snorted. "Not in this family, son."

Scottie offered him a smile and reached across the table, her hand covering his. "We'll talk later."

He watched her for a long moment and she knew he was likely weighing the trust he was willing to place in the words. Finally he nodded and she squeezed his hand.

"Agnes, what are you doing?" Liz asked, the question riding out in a choked laugh and Agnes Keen giggled as she smeared ice cream on her face.

Scottie reached for a napkin, but her buzzing phone stopped her. She looked down and recognized the number. "If you'll excuse me for a moment," she said softly. She stood and used the focus in on getting Agnes cleaned up to slip over to the was a new number, but she had no doubt who it was. "Kat, Now's not a good time."

"This can't wait. Your son is going to get my daughter killed."

There hadn't been any dissuading her when Scottie had returned to the table. No putting off the conversation or enjoying the handful of normal moments that the Keens were able to catch between the chaos that they lived in. Not that Liz had really expected normal moments. Not with Tom's family. When she found out her own mother had been the one to call, all bets had been off.

At least Scottie had been willing to take the conversation to a quieter location to discuss the matter at hand. Candy met them there to take Agnes for the duration and Scottie had provided Liz with the phone number that Katarina had called from. She'd been taken back at first, but it had been Tom that admitted quietly that if she had any chance of catching her, it would be right then. He knew how much it meant to her. He always did.

Liz had tried the number. Once, twice, a million times. It wouldn't matter. It wasn't going to go through to the phone that Katarina had called from. She had bounced it somehow, leaving it difficult to trace. Dumont had offered to help her with that, but what was the point? By the time that he found it Liz's mother would be gone again. It was frustrating the way she would disappear and reappear only when convenient for her. With her luck Katarina would come swooping in and try to stop her from approaching Dom. Well, she could try.

"You look ready to take someone's head off."

Liz looked over, finding her father-in-law leaning against the doorframe to the hall she was standing in. Tom and Scottie were in Tom's office, their voices loud enough to hear what they were saying if she listened, but they weren't shouting. "Shouldn't you be in there?"

"Oh, I heard enough," Howard drawled out, a chuckle leaving him. "Tom has it under control."

She watched him a moment, judging for herself if she believed the utter faith that Howard seemed to have in his son. It sounded real enough, but if there was one thing she'd learned about the Hargraves it was that they were a capable bunch when it came to slipping behind whatever mask they chose to wear. Tom came by the talent naturally.

Howard loosed a breath, motioning back behind him. "He wants her to run an organization for him out of Halcyon."

"He mentioned that," Liz said carefully and Howard's blue gaze caught hers and held it. His smile didn't falter.

"I know what he's doing, Liz."

She didn't flinch. "What's that?"

"Distracting Scottie. Trying to."

Liz stopped, weighing her words carefully. "This means a lot to him. St Regis-"

"It can wait."

"So can yours. Davis' trial won't be quick, and even if he's in prison you can still bring the charges-"

"This needs to happen now." There was something in his tone that caused her to stop and he seemed to hear it too. Liz saw all the signs she knew too well in the man's son of resetting and readjusting, pulling himself back under control. When he spoke again his voice was quieter. "St Regis can wait. It should wait. Right now they're a united front against Zanetakos. Give it time, let the battle play out, and when they all turn on each other Tom and your Task Force can step in."

"After Gina's dead?"

Her father-in-law quirked an eyebrow. "Would that be so terrible?" Liz stared at him for a long moment and he chuckled. "Don't worry. I'd be the last person who would judge you on that."

"On what?"

Both turned, finding Tom and Scottie moving to join them in the hall. Scottie eyed her husband a little suspiciously and he flashed her a charming smile. "Get everything squared away?"

"The start of it," Tom answered and his gaze swiveled to Liz. "You get ahold of your mom?"

"She bounced the number," Liz grumbled, pushing down the irritating relief that he hadn't pushed the subject Howard had been so focused on. She didn't want to dwell on if she would be alright with Tom's ex taking a bullet to the head or not. The woman had been ready to slit her throat once and she had shot Tom. She had also saved his life by killing the man that had raised them. She had also stepped up when he needed help getting to the bones in Costa Rica. Gina was a complicated subject.

"It's fine," Liz promised after a long moment. "I've barely spoken to her since…. for the last six months. Why start now?"

Tom gave a thin smile and wrapped his arm around her, kissing the side of her head in the only support he could really offer in the moment.

"When will you be back on cases?" Scottie asked and Liz looked over at her.

"Soon. I just need one last signature and I'm back."

Tom groaned and she couldn't help the tiny smile that tugged at the reaction. "I don't care what she says, that woman's fishing for something. You're good to go back and have been for months."

"That your professional opinion?" she teased and Tom flashed her one of his more charming grins.

"Just the opinion of the guy that knows you best."

Liz rolled her eyes good naturedly and leaned into him, nudging him lightly in the ribs.

"If the FBI won't take you back, I'm sure Tom could find a place for you in Halcyon," Scottie said suggestively.

"We've got it covered," Liz said dismissively. "Let me know if my mom reaches back out to you?"

Scottie's expression softened. "Of course."

"I'll keep you updated," Tom promised and that was that. Liz felt Howard's eyes on her and their conversation echoed in her mind.

She waited until they were halfway down the hall and on their way to where Candy was watching Agnes before she leaned into her husband, grabbing his attention subtly. "Your dad's not going to let the Davis thing go."

Tom's expression darkened and he loosed a breath. "I know."

TBC

Notes: A little longer chapter this time because there very likely will not be an update next week. I'll be out of town for a convention (Wynonna Earp convention!) all weekend and I'm already behind on the writing for the next chapter. If I feel confident that I'm caught up enough by then I may be able to update on Friday before I leave. We'll see, but most likely not.

Next Time: Scottie and Howard get some news, Liz visits Red's grave, and the Task Force and Tom finally get to meet Ressler's new girlfriend.