A/N: Short,quasi-angsty, real life has been conspiring against me lately, so hopefully I can get this finished before the season premiere. If only I owned a Tardis. Un-beta'd and thoroughly disclaimed.
"You're Raymond Reddington, the FBI's fourth most wanted, career criminal and traitor to his country. We checked the records, the medical records, dental records. We verified your identity before you made it into the box." Lizzie shook her head until she thought she could hear her brain rattle. None of this made any sense. But she couldn't deny the feeling of relief when he assured her they were not related in any way.
"The thing about records, though…" he trailed off, his gaze sliding away from hers in that way she knew meant he would try not to tell her what she wanted to know.
"No, Reddington. You don't get to hold back on this. I've been making myself sick with guilt for almost two weeks; you have to tell me what you did."
"Why so overcome with guilt, Lizzie? Surely not for treating your father like a criminal?" He watched her with a sly smile. He knew. He had to know how she felt about him. Lizzie thought she had hidden it so well, but he always knew everything. Right now, at this moment, however, she wanted to strangle him with her bare hands.
"I was at school with Raymond Reddington, the man who was your father. We were friends of a sort. We both went on to careers in Intelligence, but Raymond went…sideways. He got romantically involved with a CI, your mother, and then became involved with all kinds of unsavory people."
"He was a traitor? Like you?"
He still flinched a little when his treason was mentioned.
"We had another mutual friend, who worked in the Department of Records; so when everything that happened…happened, he made the switch in the files."
"But the Navy would know they'd been changed."
"This was the 1980s, Lizzie. Computer data wasn't so prevalent or reliable. So once it was done, there was little reason to question the changes."
"So you stole my father's identity."
"Well I didn't really steal it. Perhaps I appropriated it. After all, he was no longer in need of it."
Lizzie stared at him from where she perched on the chair. For just a fleeting moment, she thought maybe he would tell her that her father was still alive. But, given the circumstances, she would imagine that was not a possibility. After all, what man would let another man, even a friend; walk off with his name and his life?
Reddington walked to the kitchen and began to fill the kettle with water, as Lizzie turned to stare at him. The man was truly remarkable. She chuckled a little to herself, which of course, he heard.
"Something amusing, Lizzie?" He sat the kettle on the burner and turned up the flame, and then began to search the cabinets for cups. Lizzie sidled casually into the kitchen, opened the dishwasher and pulled out two mugs.
"Not really. Here, we just have this huge confrontation and you tell me that you stole my father's name, and now you're making tea. You'd fiddle while Rome burned, I bet."
Red looked askance at the mugs on the counter and shot Lizzie a smile.
"I don't see anything on fire at the moment. But then, you aren't cooking are you?" The little jab worked. Lizzie's eyes narrowed and she flounced out of the kitchen.
She sat on her couch and listened to Nero tuning up in the kitchen. The whistle of the kettle, the odd clicks and clangs as he made the tea. It was a weird domestic backdrop to a life that was beginning to resemble a Mamet play. Lizzie wondered if she would ever be able to take anything at face value again. Would she ever be able to trust that people were who and what they said they were? At this point she was honestly beginning to doubt it. She looked up at Reddington as he entered the room with two mugs, piping hot. He set his on the end table before he placed hers in her hands, wrapping his hand around hers on the handle before he let go. Lizzie blew a bit across the surface of the hot tea and took a cautious sip before she set it on the floor at her feet. She really needed a new coffee table.
Reddington sipped his tea delicately, watching her from the corner of his eye. So when the first tear slid down her ivory skin, he had already set his beverage aside. Lizzie stared into nothingness and let the tears fall. Everything was crumbling under her feet, she had no solid ground. When Red took one of her hands in his, lacing their fingers together, she realized that she had spoken that thought aloud.
"I don't know who to trust or who to believe anymore, Red. Everything is just…" she trailed off as the hot tears came faster and her breath began to hitch. Red squeezed her hand, stroking the smooth skin with a callused thumb soothingly.
"You can trust me, Lizzie. I will be your solid ground."