Disclaimer: I don't own The Blacklist. Carry on.
Once the two got into the car, they were on their way. Immediately after they left the silent street, they hit a patch of traffic. This left Ressler bickering about how long the traffic will last. Elizabeth ignored him, and just starred out her window, looking at the pedestrians walking on the street, one of them specifically. The sight of them reminded her of when she was in college. Alone, angry at the world surrounding her, but feeling so free.
Liz snapped out of her memories when Donald grabbed her shoulder tight, then let her go.
"Keen, we're here." He said.
Liz looked at her lap and looked back up, "Okay, that's fine."
They both got out of the car and started toward the stores on right side of the road. The first store they got to was by a name that they couldn't pronounce, yet they decided to go there first. Donald only picked this store out first to see how expensive everything was and see if his budget would be able to spoil Liz.
They stepped through the doors, and the scent of lavender was everywhere and it lured Liz to everything she was near. Donald followed shortly behind, closely looking at the prices of the pieces of clothing Liz looked at before she went to the next one. They all were a hundred dollars or more. The only thing he hoped was that she wouldn't want anything from this store, but seeing her amused by the clothes shes been seeing, it made him lose the hopes of that from happening.
Elizabeth was drawn to the clearance section in the back of the store, and she started looking closely for something that wasn't going to interfere with her rent's budget. Most of the clothing in this section costed from fifty dollars and below. It was the perfect range for her to go. Donald started suggesting shirts and jackets to her and she ended up noticing that they were what she would wear. It made her realize that Don knew what she was into.
When Liz found three clothing pieces that were perfect prices and what she liked, she went to the dressing rooms to decide whether she liked the fit of them and if they were completely worth the money. The first outfit was what Donald picked out just for her. A black jacket, a blue blouse, and a pair of black dress pants. It looked very similar to what she had, but a little more expensive than what she bought in the past. She felt very confident in it, so she decided to come out of the dressing room and show Donald what it looked like on her.
Ressler smiled at the sight of her looking so happy in the outfit he picked out for her. He was hoping that she would have this reaction, and it was worth seeing her this happy.
"What do you think?" Elizabeth asked as she stood in between the stalls in front of the mirror and Donald.
"Since I picked it out, it looks great, and I think blue is really your color."
"Red told me that once, I never put that into consideration into shopping before. I guess, we're going onto the next outfit then." She walked back into the dressing room and closed the door again.
Liz changed out of the first outfit and called Ressler over to get the clothes from underneath the stall door. He gladly got up and took them from her and brought them over with him to his seat. Liz got back into her old clothes and exited the stall, and kept the counter on the door to make sure nobody would take the stall. She walked to Ressler and noticed he organized a pile of three other outfits to make her try on. She was a tad excited to get started on trying on the next batch to see what he thought would fit her figure. Ressler passed her the next pile of clothes, she accepted, and ran to the dressing room to try it on. The outfit consisted of a red long sleeved blouse, and dark dress pants like before. She gathered it all together with a thin brown belt and walked out the door for a second time.
"You really thought out this." Liz started to admire herself in the mirror behind Donald.
"Well, I am quite aware of your sense of fashion, mostly from seeing you at work wearing very similar things daily." Donald rolled his eyes.
"Ress, thank you for this, but we don't need to buy all this here, maybe we can find another store with better prices and more of a selection."
"It's fine, you didn't do too bad with the prices so far, trust me. I'll take care of this, today it's all about you." He walked up to her and handed her the last pile of clothes left for her to try on.
"Whatever you say." Liz said before shutting the door behind her.
Elizabeth changed her clothes one last time in the stall and realized he picked out something completely different from what she has ever worn. A long navy blue dress with a black cardigan. It wasn't that she didn't like it, she loved this, but she thought he went too far with picking out an expensive dress. The price was a hundred fifty dollars. The price immediately made her want to take the dress off and give it back to him, she didn't feel like she deserved this most of all. Liz knew she had to show him it before she told him it wasn't worth it.
She walked out the door and paused. "Ressler, you're doing too much. I don't know if I can handle you paying for this dress."
"Elizabeth, you look beautif-," Donald caught himself before he finished the word, "great."
Liz blushed, "Um... thank you."
"You're welcome, do you think you want the dress?"
"No, it's too much, like I said, I don't want you to become bankrupt because of me."
"You're not expensive, trust me on that, and you know what I'm going to buy you these outfits and that dress. Don't complain about it, I've got it covered." Don walked over and placed his hands on Liz's shoulders, lightly holding them. "Believe me, I'm trying to be kind." He kissed her forehead lightly and pulled away gently, but quickly.
Elizabeth blushed more than she did before. The kiss on her forehead made her world stop for a second. It made her notice he was really caring towards her and he really meant what he was doing. She hoped that she wasn't overanalyzing this too much.
"Let me change and you can pay for the outfits you picked out for me, then we can go."
"Sure thing." Ressler walked away and picked up the clothes resting on the chair beside the one he was in.
Liz changed as quickly as she could in order to get out of the store and onto the next.
She got out of the dressing room and noticed Donald waiting for her to give the dress to him so they can check out and head out. She gave it to him and started walking out of the dressing room portion of the store and towards the cash registers.
After five hours of constant looking through stores and admiring the city, Elizabeth and Donald left and headed home. They both felt tired and their bones ached the more they moved. The moment they got through the doors, the first thing they did was drop the bags from their hands to the floor. Never has a mission from work ended up making them feel this way, besides when Liz was drugged by The Stewmaker a while ago.
"Home." Liz walked through the door and leaned against the counter in the kitchen.
"Finally. Hopefully you have everything you need so that we don't have to go on another one of those trips for a while." Donald replied as he shut the door behind him.
She smiled at what he said to her, "Maybe I forgotten something."
"You better not, we just got back from all that traffic and dealing with a bunch of impatient cashiers." He covered his forehead with the back of his hand.
"I swear we didn't, we can go on another trip if I forgot something next week or some other time." Liz walked to Donald as she spoke.
"Good. What do you want for dinner? Do you think we should order out or do you want to see what I can probably cook up?"
"Hmm, maybe we can order out. I'd rather you not in more pain from standing and walking around. We did plenty of that today." Liz walked back to the counter, then turned to face Don again.
"Alright, any thing specific?" He grabbed his phone out of his right pocket.
"Maybe Chinese food?"
"Fine by me." He dialed the number into his phone and replied with the order.
As Donald made the order, it seemed strange to Liz hearing platter for two. She thought to herself that it seemed like they became close or something. It might may end up making the delivery guy think they're more than co-workers. She knew she didn't want that to happen, but if she wasn't in the kitchen when they arrive to deliver the food, maybe they wouldn't think they were together or that Donald was a hungry guy. Many thoughts ran through her head again, so she ended up getting up from the table and grabbing a few of the bags from the door and bringing them to her room.
Donald ended the call, and walked to Liz's room. He noticed her unpacking clothes and accessories from the bags from the shopping trip. The one thing he wanted to do was help her out. He walked passed the doorframe and stood next to Liz who's back was facing him.
"Keen, do you need any help?" He asked kindly.
Elizabeth got up from the floor, and stood in front of Ressler. "Sure, all I'm doing is removing my clothes from the countless number of bags we got today."
"I'll bring the rest of the bags in here and we can go through them until the delivery man gets here."
"That sounds great. Thank you, Ressler." She smiled then got back to her bag she was unpacking.
"You're so welcome." Donald said before he walked away from the room to get the rest of the bags.
The two started unpacking all the bags and separated the clothes into categories of what they were. Once they finished categorizing them, they started bringing them into the bathroom closet and placing them inside there. When they finished that, the food arrived just in time for them. Donald went up and paid the man and he brought the food to the table and set everything up for them both. Elizabeth came out of the closet and noticed the table was set to dine. Her face was in awe, as she sat down across Don.
"You pulled out all the stops for this, didn't you?" She asked.
"The best only for you." He replied.
Liz and Donald started eating away their dinner as soon as they both stopped talking and just focused on the food in front of them. To them, this bonding time definitely helped gain a better connection to each other. And they both realized it without it being spoken of.
Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as the last, and I apologize for re-uploading chapter 3 many times, I'm not very fond of my corrections to my own writing. See you guys soon with another fun filled chapter!