Thank you all so much for being so kind. I'm sorry I took so long to update this silly story! Hope you enjoy this chapter!

Chapter Three

Liz made sure her movements were as quiet as possible as she unlocked the front door and slipped inside the house to get changed. At first, she hoped Tom had already left for work so she didn't have to explain anything of her whereabouts last night; An answer she didn't exactly know the full details on herself, thanks to both Reddington and Dembe withholding the information from her. She was just taking off her leather jacket and hanging it up on the rack near the front door, when she heard Tom bounding down the stairs. He was dressed and ready to leave, but it was obvious he had waited for her to arrive home. He crossed his arms over his chest as he watched her carefully, and all Liz could manage was to smile at him in a somewhat guilty way.

"Well, where were you?" Tom demanded, in a quiet but stressed voice.

Oh, shit. Here it goes. "I'm sorry, Tom. I can't tell you. But what I can tell you, is that it was for work purposes."

"Liz, I was worried sick! I almost called the police and put out a missing person's report on you! I even called Ellie and asked her if you were with her."

"I wasn't with Ellie." I wish I had only been with Ellie, but I was actually with Raymond Reddington.

"Yeah, obviously. She cleared that one up for me. Why didn't you come home?"

"It's... work related. It's classified information. I'm sorry."

"You had me up all night, yet you can't even tell me what you were doing? Don't I deserve that much from you, Liz?"

"Okay, fine." Without missing a beat, Liz said the first thing that came to her head, "There was a stake-out. We had to pull an all-nighter in a surveillance van, me and my partner, another Agent at work. We were stuck there all night, and we just packed up to leave. I'm exhausted, I feel dead on my feet, and I really don't need to come home to this and get into it right now with you. And that's all that I can tell you."

"You didn't think of calling me so I didn't have to worry?"

"Babe, we're not allowed to use our phones. I never got the chance to call you. I'm sorry for worrying you, but I'm really fine. End of story."

"Yes, Liz, and I understand that now. But still, it doesn't explain the text message I got from you at, like, one in the morning."

Her mouth flopped open as she stared at him, uncomprehending. Text message? Apparently she sent him a text message? Saying what?

"Text message?" she repeated slowly, feeling her heart racing with dread. "What text message are you talking about, babe?"

"This one." Moodily, Tom pulled his cell phone out of his jean pocket and flipped it open, searching through his list of messages. Then finding the one she had supposedly sent him, he stepped closer to her to show her it:

Not coming home. With more fascinating company than your whining ass will ever be.

Liz gasped and rubbed a hand over the side of her face. The message had 'Red' written all over it. She knew, without a doubt in her mind, that Red had been the one responsible for sending the text from her phone to Tom. The question now just was how on earth did Red manage to get ahold of her cell phone in the first place? Why would he do something like that to her?

"Do you really see me that way?" Tom asked her, hurt. "Am I really whiny to you? Is that truly what you think of me?"

Red had definitely taken this entire thing too far. She was keen to have more than just a little chat with him. "No, babe. Of course not," she sighed, although what Red had bothered to text him had definitely had a ring of truth to it. Still, Red and her were going to have to have a serious talk once she could see him. "You know I love you."

He closed his phone up with a sigh, slipping it back inside his pocket. "I've got to get to work," he told her softly, frowning. "I'll see you when I get home. Just next time, please give me the courtesy of calling me first so I won't stress too much."

"I will, babe. Have a great day being an awesome teacher to all your forth-grade students."

Tom seemed to perk up, finally. "You know I'm the best teacher."

Yeah, I'm sure you are, considering your not even really a teacher, Liz thought. You don't even go to school- the place where you are supposed to go, you liar.

He kissed her goodbye and Liz had to fight against the very tempting impulse to knee him one in the groin. She kept a fake smile on her face as she waved at him as he left through the front door. Then once he was gone, she raced upstairs and got herself changed into a fresh pair of clothes for work herself. She had no idea what was in store for her today, but she knew it would take her mind off whatever might have happened with Red last night while she slept over in his hotel room bed, hopefully.

She was just tying her hair up when her phone pinged with a new message. It was from Nick's Pizza, A.K.A Red:

Outside your front door waiting to have breakfast with you.

She felt more pleased by that than she probably should have. At least, that would give them a chance to properly talk out what had happened last night, and Liz was determined to find out. She slipped on a pair of ankle boots, took her leather jacket off the rack and shrugged it back on over the blouse she was wearing, and as she stepped out the front door and locked up, she saw Red and Dembe waiting outside in the Mercedes-Benz, the car parked on the curb of her house address. When she climbed in and sat her bag on the floor by her feet, she looked at Red.

As usual, Red was dressed immaculately- in a white shirt, trousers and a buttoned vest, with the tie she had fixed for him earlier in the morning looking perfectly straight. She felt an odd sense of personal pride that she was the very reason his tie was straight and orderly, but it took some of the excitement out in seeing him again when she had only just seen him less than fifteen minutes ago. Her mouth went dry as she watched Red inspect the new clean clothes she was wearing with his eyes unnecessarily. What? Did he really expect her to turn up to work wearing the exact same clothes she had worn last night while playing sleepover?

"You said you wanted to have breakfast with me?"

Red finally turned his eyes away from her and Liz felt her body sag in relief as he stared outside the tinted window instead. "Yes."

"Are you finally going to share with me what happened last night?"

"Possibly," he said simply, before pressing his lips together into a tight, thin line.

"I saw it," she muttered, trying to keep her voice under control. It took everything not to raise her voice. "Just so you know, I saw it. Tom was waiting for me when I got in, and I saw it, he showed me it. I just want to know how you could do something like that? Or is this all truly some enjoyable game to you?"

She could almost hear Red's mind clicking into gear as he shifted slightly on the seat to look at her. She caught that little twitching thing he did, as he stared into her eyes deeply. "Saw what? What did you see, Lizzie?"

Ah, so this was how he was going to play it. Mr. Innocent. "Don't play dumb with me," she whispered, lowering her voice so Dembe wouldn't hear in the front seat while he drove. "You know exactly what I'm talking about."

"Honestly, I have no idea what you are talking about, Lizzie."

"Then shall I refresh your memory?" she asked him brusquely.

"Oh, please do."

Groaning in frustration, she reached down to get her phone out from in her satchel. Then she leaned over to press her phone into his hand. "There," she hissed, "Am I now starting to make sense to you?"

He glanced down at her cell phone and Liz made sure she watched his face very clearly for any signs that he comprehended what she was saying. Disappointingly, she never found any. His expression was blank as he looked from the phone to her, raising an eyebrow. "Why are you giving me your phone, Lizzie? Is this some kind of... test?"

"You sent Tom a text message from my phone last night," she explained, anger shaking her voice. "It wasn't a very friendly text message. Frankly, I didn't find it all that funny, if that was what you were trying to accomplish."

"I never sent anything, Lizzie." He had the gall to look utterly serious and his tone was just as tricky to fault. "I'm terrible with technology. Half the time, I don't even understand how to work a cell phone, nor do I have the patience. That's why Dembe always does it for me."

"Then did you get Dembe to do it for you? As a prank on my husband?"

"No, I didn't. I mean that with all my heart. I sincerely have no idea what you are talking about. What message to Tom? What the hell did it even say?"

She couldn't see that he was lying, he looked just as confused as she did. But she was positive Red had tons of experience in deceiving people. Besides, how else could the text message of that kind be sent to her husband?

"I know I wasn't the one who sent it," she went on irritatedly. "I never would have sent Tom something like that. Not ever in a million years, so either it was you who was responsible, or it was Dembe. Whichever one of you it was, I urge you both to fess up right now." She looked in Dembe's direction, only he was too preoccupied with safely driving them to whichever place Red had plans to take them for breakfast before they called into the Post Office. "Was it Dembe who did it, then?"

"I don't know, Lizzie. I'm not sure. Why don't you tell me what the message said?"

Sighing, she grabbed the phone out his hands and found the text message in her sent folder. She passed her phone back to Red, again watching his face very closely for any sign that told her he was the man responsible while he squinted and tilted his head to read the writing on the screen. For a moment, his face was completely expressionless. Then he laughed, like it was all some brilliant joke.

"At least whoever sent it was being honest," he remarked wryly, laughing again when Liz snatched her phone from him. "We did have a ball last night, Lizzie. You seemed to enjoy the company very much. In fact, you couldn't seem to keep the smile off your face. It was wonderful."

"Why was I smiling so much?" she demanded. "When are you going to give me any answers on what happened last night?"

Red rested one elbow on the side of the door and stroked around his chin with his fingertips thoughtfully, while she waited. All this not knowing was driving her crazy, in the literal sense. "The reason I haven't given you any answers, Lizzie, is because you are asking all the wrong questions. The questions you seek the answers to about last night aren't right, or as simple as you think they are. If you wish to know what happened last night, you are going to have to search deeply within yourself for the right questions."

God, he was unbelievable. "That makes no sense at all," she pointed out stiffly. "Why can't everything be so simple and straight-forward with you? I'm asking you a basic question, you just need to tell me a yes or a no."

"A yes or a no to what, Lizzie?"

She swallowed and tried not to be childish about it. "Did we have sex last night? Just tell me. Why did I come back to your hotel room after learning about Tom? What did we do?"

He stared at her intently for a few minutes, as if deliberating on how to answer, and Liz had to remind herself to remain strong and in-control. She had to know the answer, and she was going to give him hell if he didn't give it to her soon.

Red worked his jaw and opened his mouth to say something, but instead, he closed it up and simply smiled at her.

"I need a verbal answer, Red," she pleaded quietly. "Yes or no. It's as simple as that."

With a beat's worth of hesitation, Red finally said, "No."

"No?" Liz repeated, her heart surging with relief. "So that's a no to the sex question? Oh, thank God." She leaned her head back against the leather headrest in the spacious seats, breathing deeply. It was as if a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. All this time she had spent panicking, and for nothing. Nothing had even happened.

"No, it wasn't a no to the sex question, Lizzie. It was more of a... no because you're asking me the wrong thing. You're phrasing it completely wrong. I don't have sex, Lizzie. I rather prefer to call it a little something like making love. What no one probably knows about me, is that I'm an old-fashioned romantic at heart." He smiled at her softly. "I believe in happy endings and love mending and taking away all the anguish and suffering and it conquering all at the end of the day. So to answer your question, no, we definitely didn't have sex last night." He chewed the inside of his cheek, head cocked to the side as he observed her unnervingly. "Making love, however, well...that's another story."

All her muscles clenched as she lifted her head from the seat to stare at him in astonishment. Just as she was starting to feel everything was all right, he went and said something to turn it all around on its head again. She remained quiet as Dembe took them to a restaurant. She felt sick with anxiety and frustration that she couldn't seem to remember anything of what had happened last night. Red was clearly relishing confusing her and making her panic. She stared out the window, her eyes narrowed with worry, as everything flew past them. The traffic was fairly heavy at this hour of the morning and she let the scenery distract her for a good few minutes, until Dembe parked the car outside a restaurant she was familiar with that was famous for its Thai cuisine.

When Red spoke up, she felt her heart pick up a notch in speed. "Well, we're here. We have an hour before we have to get you to the Post Office, Lizzie, so let's make the most of it, shall we?"

"I thought you had somewhere you needed to be?" she shot at him softly, remembering Dembe reminding him of it before.

"I cancelled it. It wasn't important." Red pursed his lips, shrugging.

"Fine, then." Although Liz didn't feel much in the mood for breakfast, she couldn't deny this would be the perfect time to interrogate him some more.