The Very Definition Of Complicated

Disclaimer: I do not own her, or him, or the show. I make no money from this.

Author's Note: This chapter was supposed to...well, I don't want to give away spoilers, but… *sighs* The lovely idiots didn't follow my outline. They completely disregarded the bullet points. They, in fact, SHAT all over my fic schedule. I sat down to write what I'D PLANNED TO WRITE, and the characters just started doing something completely different. So... this is what happens instead. ::muttering as she walks away:: ...so unprofessional...

.|.|.|.

Chapter 4

.|.|.|.

They barely looked at each other during the brief periods of time when they were both at the office over the next few days. Reddington called in information over the phone more than usual, and when he was physically present he spoke to Aram, Samar, and Cooper. Liz, for her part, set about routinely avoiding Ressler's questions regarding what was going on, and she even handed her phone off to him at one point when Nick's Pizza called, only to have her partner pass the phone back, saying the line went dead when he answered.

After five days, there was a knock at her motel room door. It was 10am on a Saturday, and Liz had no plans to do anything involving work, any kind of responsibility, or even necessitating a shower. In the bathroom, brushing her teeth, she ignored the knocking, and after a moment, when her phone vibrated on the edge of the sink next to her, she glanced down to confirm it was Nick's Pizza calling, but ended the call without picking up, and before it could go to voicemail.

Three minutes later, having spat, rinsed, and pulled her hair back into a ponytail, she opened the bathroom door and entered the main living space to find Reddington sitting nonchalantly in the chair across from her bed, his hat lying on the table next to him.

"I had the door locked and the chain latched," Liz said. Reddington didn't respond. She sighed. "We need to have a talk about the phrases 'invasion of privacy' and 'breaking and entering'," she said, walking calmly into the room and sitting down on the bed. She was wearing only her sleep shirt and underwear, but refused to give Reddington the satisfaction of letting him know she was at all uncomfortable with the situation.

He looked her up and down, but made no comment on her appearance. "If we're going to continue functioning together professionally, we need to have a talk."

"This couldn't have been done over the phone?"

"It could have if you had been willing to answer my calls."

Liz gave a half-hearted roll of her eyes and motioned at her unwanted guest. "So talk."

Reddington nodded. "The first night you came to me, the night…this…started, I told you that you needed to make a choice and define what kind of personal relationship the two of us would have from that point forward. You ran through several scenarios, and—in what I can only assume was a desperate attempt to regain a modicum of control in your life at the time—threw me up against a wall."

"I was there; I remember," Liz said somewhat icily. She knew her tone was rude, but she was determined not to let Reddington see any amount of emotion that could be construed as weakness or embarrassment regarding her actions that night.

"Six weeks later you needed a palate cleanser to try to erase the association of a fraudulent—and ultimately failed—marriage from the date of your wedding anniversary."

"Again, my memory is fine, Reddington. Do you think you also need to remind me what happened five days ago?"

"My point, Elizabeth, is that initially you needed to feel in control. And then you needed a distraction. And this week was an attempt at gaining information." Reddington sighed and tilted his head, regarding her carefully. "You could have just as easily held a gun to my head or broken my nose on any of those three occasions and achieved the same desired result."

"My methods didn't get me tossed in the trunk of your car by Dembe," Liz pointed out. "I get the feeling people who break your nose don't walk away from that unscathed."

"You stabbed me in the neck once with a pen. Did you incur any retribution?" Red countered immediately.

Liz opened her mouth, mentally scrambled for a retort, and finally managed, "You hadn't brought Dembe on as security at that point…" When Reddington raised an eyebrow at her, she winced and nodded, silently admitting her argument was a feeble one.

Reddington cleared his throat and shifted in his chair, appearing vaguely uncomfortable and fairly conflicted about what he was about to say before he continued, "I'm more than aware that a sexual relationship with me doesn't benefit you. Not only is it completely inadvisable in terms of your career, but you don't gain anything personally, either, outside of whatever emotional sugar rush you experience during the moments themselves." Reddington shook his head. "If you were looking to date someone and settle down, I would not be one of your choices. If you were looking to have an affair with no strings attached, I would not be one of your choices. If you were looking for a friend to simply spend time with, I would not be one of your choices." Reddington sat forward, leaning his elbows on his knees. "If you had any other available options, the things we've done over the last few weeks would not have happened."

"Wow. You really know how to make a woman feel good about herself," Liz deadpanned.

"I'm not saying this to try to hurt you, Lizzie," Reddington said gently. "I'm trying to explain that I think you made the wrong choice, based on limited options."

"You told me 'whatever you need'," Liz reminded him.

"This is not what you need, Lizzie," he said, shaking his head.

Liz crossed her arms, mistaking his tone for condescension. "Well, since you're the expert that has molded and guided all my major life choices up to this point so successfully, I suppose it's only appropriate for you to dictate the terms of our working relationship from this point forward, too. I knew when I was finally given the chance to make a decision myself it would only be a matter of time before whatever choice I made was deemed incorrect or invalid. So what'll it be now?"

"Lizzie," Reddington began.

"No, no 'Lizzie.' If we're going back to the original four choices, and our current arrangement has been taken off the table, that leaves us with—number one—a father-daughter relationship, which, I'm sorry—" Liz gave a harsh, short laugh, interrupting herself. "I feel like that ship sailed when I had to wash you off my hands before driving home that first night." Liz felt a small flare of triumph at getting a reaction from Reddington as she watched his jaw clench. "Then there's number two—some kind of a romantic relationship, which…I'm betting if 'just sex' is being outlawed, 'romance' is not available, either. Which brings us to number three—a purely professional, confidential-informant-and-source-style arrangement. And if that's the case, you don't call me 'Lizzie'. You call me 'Agent Keen'." Liz's voice dropped, dripping with the sting of rejection, and her eyes were angry as she glared across the room at Reddington.

After a long moment of silence, Liz stood up. "And CIs don't generally get to hang out with me while I'm half naked in my bedroom on the weekends." She nodded toward the door. "So you're going to need to leave."

Reddington, his eyes cast down at the fedora on the table next to him, nodded, and pushed himself up from his chair, palming the hat onto his head. Liz preceded him to the door, but before she unlatched the locks, she turned back to face him, her voice low and insistent. "And one more thing. Don't ever assume you know the level of value I assign to things in my life. Don't tell me what matters to me and what doesn't. Don't assume you understand the motivations behind my actions." Liz took another step toward Reddington, causing him to straighten slightly, caught off-guard by the bitterness in her voice as she continued, "And don't you ever compare what we did to me holding a gun to your head. If you ever make that comparison again, I will break more than just your nose."

Reddington swallowed. "Oh, Lizzie, no," he breathed apologetically, "that's not how I—"

"And if you call me 'Lizzie' one more time," she warned, her eyes dropping to his mouth, "you'd better be prepared to stay here and start taking off some clothes. Otherwise you need to tell me 'Good day, Agent Keen' right now, and leave."

Frustration and anger flashed across Reddington's face. "I talk, and you just refuse to listen, don't you—"

Liz set her jaw, incensed. "I thought we covered the fact that you don't get to 'Daddy' me, so stop scolding me like I'm—"

"—infuriating the way you believe this is all about you and don't take into account—"

"—just dismiss the idea that I care about you and that what we did actually meant something to me—"

Reddington's right hand was suddenly splayed across her collar bones, the pressure at the top of her sternum driving her back against the door. He brought his face close to hers, canted to one side, his eyes lidded. "This," Reddington whispered. "This would have meant something. If you had kissed me…if you had let me—" He let out a harsh breath. "The fact that you refused a kiss, despite everything else you allowed—that you asked for… that's what gave it away." Liz tried in vain to control her breathing, but the inch of space between her mouth and his, the heat of his breath on her lips, the way his hand had immediately softened at her throat but remained gently wrapped around her neck had her practically panting. She was acutely aware of her lack of appropriate clothing and the fact that he was completely covered, pinning her to the door in his full complement of attire, hat included.

"You don't care about me," Reddington continued as if the statement were an instruction and not an observation, withdrawing his face slightly to look her in the eye. "You like to think you do, but you don't, not really. You've lost everyone else in your life who you would normally get to show affection and concern for, and you've decided I'm 'damaged', which I admit, is horrifically accurate in so many more ways than you know." Reddington's lips drew back in something close to a snarl, but his voice remained quiet and deep. "You found someone who you think needs fixing, and now that you have nothing else in your personal life, you're bored, so you've decided you care. You don't."

"Reddington—"

"You don't," he repeated, his voice a growl.

Liz shook her head. "You just don't want me to care," she fired back. "It's easier when it's just you, because you have control over those emotions. If I start to have any kind of feelings for you… that gets messy, doesn't it?" Liz raised her eyebrows challengingly.

"You don't have feelings for me," Reddington corrected her, his voice losing some of it's power, his chest burning with a small amount of panic. He'd arrived at her motel intent on shutting their physical arrangement down in order to distance himself from further emotional compromise when it came to Elizabeth Keen, but he hadn't considered the possibility that their assignations had had a similar effect on her—which was completely unacceptable based on the double standard he had clung to from the very start.

"You know a lot about me, Reddington, but you can't know exactly what's going on in my head," Liz warned. "You can't know exactly how I feel."

Liz reached up and gently caught the hand Reddington still held at her throat, dragging it down the length of her torso and arching into the man in front of her as she guided it around the side of her waist to the small of her back. She skimmed her palms up his chest and cupped both sides of his jaw, holding him still as she leaned in to whisper against his mouth, "And while the reverse is also true—I can't claim to know exactly what you're feeling—" She paused to curl the fingers of one hand, gently running them along the soft skin just behind his ear before continuing, "—I think I'm able to make a pretty educated guess these days."

Reddington held very still, his eyes closed, his lips barely parted. Liz put a small amount of distance between them, pulling back just enough to focus her eyes on his face.

"You didn't come here to tell me I'd made the wrong choice. You came here because you did." Her voice was quiet. "You care about me too much, and you can't distance yourself from our…more recent activities. You don't want to stop because you're concerned about me: you want to stop because you're terrified of what this is doing to you."

"Well… you certainly haven't lost your edge," Reddington murmured, his eyes still closed. "The recent increase in time out of the office and in the field hasn't dulled your abilities as a profiler at all…" Reddington reached up and pulled Liz's hands from his face, and opened his eyes as he stepped back a pace before adding, "…Agent Keen."

Liz felt like a bucket of cold ice ran down her spine at the formal name, and the chill was immediately replaced by a furious warmth through her chest. Licking her lips, she launched herself forward, her eyes on his mouth, but his strong hands caught her upper arms and held her in place while he stepped back again. "Don't do that," he said, his voice agonizingly quiet. "The only reason for you to do that now is to try to win the argument." He shook his head, unable to look her in the eyes. "Don't use that as a weapon. I can't—" he stopped, mid-sentence, and winced. Shaking his head again, he abruptly dropped his hands. He raised his eyes to hers, and clenched his jaw. "Regardless of either of our motivations for it, we agree that our previous arrangement is done?"

"Who's refusing the kiss now, hmm?" Liz said in a low, accusatory voice.

Reddington stared at Liz for a moment longer before he said with a hollowness to his usually rich voice, "I'll see you on Monday morning, Agent Keen."

He side-stepped her and opened the door, and only faltered and paused for a half second at her cold, desperate accusation at his back.

"Coward."

He swallowed, stepped over the threshold, and pulled the door quickly closed behind him, leaving Liz alone again in the room.

.|.|.|.

Sorry. Seriously, this was supposed to be the "kiss and make up" chapter, but it kind of got away from me. Sorry. Next chapter is the last one!