A/N: Thanks for the reviews and follows. Thanks to my beta Sarah for her help! For the reader who sent me a PM about not forgetting this fic. This update is for you. Hope you enjoy.

Chapter five

After waiting on Lizzie for almost an hour, Red had enough. If he was going to leave now, he was pretty sure she wasn't going to eat anything at all. He could accept her stubbornness and anger, but he wasn't going to accept her refusal to take care of herself. If she wasn't going to do it, he was going to do it for her. He walked through the hall way to what he assumed was her bedroom and knocked on the door. Of course she didn't answer.

"Open the door, Lizzie."

"Go away, Red."

"No. If you won't open the door, I will. Your choice." He said. He was getting impatient. He wasn't going to deal with her childish behaviour much longer.

After a moment of silence and just as he was about to open the door himself, the door opened.

"What do you want?" She asked shortly.

"You need to eat." He said as he pushed the door further open and stepped inside her bedroom.

"I can take care of myself." She turned to look at him. He clearly wasn't happy with her, but she didn't care. She wasn't happy with him either.

"Really? Drinking yourself into oblivion and not eating is taking care of yourself?" He took a menacing step towards her. "Look at yourself. You've clearly lost too much weight and you don't seem to care about your appearance. Tell me, what part of that is taking care of yourself?" Red kept his voice calm and collected despite the anger he felt.

"Leave." Lizzie said. She wasn't going to listen to him any longer.

"No." He refused.

"Get out of here, Red. The day you decided to exit my life was the day you lost the right to have any say in it. This time I'll make it easy for you. Leave!" She screamed.

Lizzie's agitated state caused quite some distress for Jethro who was now barking loudly and jumping up and down. "It's okay, sweetie." Lizzie stroked his head and crouched down next to him. "I'm okay." Jethro settled down, Lizzie's calm voice reassuring him there was nothing wrong.

He watched her with the dog and when she stood up and looked him in the eyes, he saw how tired she was. They couldn't continue arguing, she wasn't strong enough. "I'll take Jethro for a short walk then you can eat." His walk with Jethro would give her time to adjust to his presence. After that, they would talk. "Please? You need to eat." His voice was gentle and soft.

"Okay." She agreed. She knew he was right. She had to take better care of herself.

"Thank you." He turned around and left her alone in her bedroom again. "Come on, Jethro. Let's take a walk." He called for the dog who followed him immediately. Just as he stepped inside the kitchen he heard footsteps behind him. He ignored them and continued towards the door, ready to leave her alone.

"Thank you." Lizzie said just before Red reached the door.

Red turned around and watched her sit down at the kitchen table. He sighed. There was a long and rough road ahead of them. He wanted to see her happy again, wanted to see her smile, but knew he had to wait for that. He stepped outside with Jethro and closed the door behind them.

Walking up to the house after his walk with the dog, Red saw Lizzie sitting on the porch steps. Jethro saw her too and ran up to her, greeting her as if he hadn't seen her for hours. Red stopped at the bottom of the steps and just looked at her.

After a short silence it was Red who started. "Did you eat?"

Lizzie nodded. "Yeah." She sighed and looked at him. "I feel so lost." She admitted in a whisper.

He lowered his head in guilt. He knew he was to blame. He didn't quite know what to say, but Lizzie did. "I don't how to deal with this. I don't know if I can." She looked at him for help.

It broke his heart to see like this. Her eyes were wet and the look in her eyes held a certain amount of despair.

"What if you leave again? I'm not strong enough to go through that again. There were days when getting out of bed was even too much. I'm afraid I'm going to lose myself again."

He took a deep breath and pushed away the emotions her words caused. He had to be strong for her. "I'm here to stay, Lizzie. I'll be strong enough for the both of us." He knew he had to share some of what he felt to reach some form of common ground. "Don't think I haven't felt miserable. There were days for me too when I didn't want to get up. When all I wanted to do was be with you, but I couldn't." He looked at his watch. It was time for him to go. Leaving her was something he didn't want to do, but had to. For the time being he wouldn't be able to spend as much time with her as he wanted to. He was needed somewhere else too. But he'd be with Lizzie as much as he could.

"I have to go, Lizzie."

"Okay." She said softly pulling Jethro closing to her to comfort her.

He noticed how she pulled Jethro closer and he knew what the gesture meant. "I'll be back tomorrow. I don't know what time, but I will see you tomorrow." He saw her nod again but she didn't look at him. "Goodnight, Lizzie. See you tomorrow." He turned around and walked a few steps before turning back again. "I missed you so much, sweetheart." He said before disappearing from her view.

TBC...