Thank you guys so much for your lovely response to the story. I hope you enjoy this one, silly as it is haha! Sorry if it's ridiculous (Which it no doubt is). I can't wait for the Blacklist to begin again, I want more Red and Liz on my screen again. I'm sure I'm not the only one :p

Chapter Five

"So you, me, and Dembe played strip poker last night," she began conversationally, as she sat in the backseat of the car again on the way to the Post Office. Liz wanted to fit in as much conversation on the night before as she possibly could, before they had other things to focus on, like taking in the next Blacklister. Hopefully it would be a good start for her in putting all the puzzle pieces together.

"We did, yes. And what's more... it was all your crazy idea, Lizzie."

Now that was not something she could swallow down so easily. Liz prided herself on being a mostly serious person, with no-nonsense. She couldn't actually see herself suggesting the three of them do something so crazy and adventurous as playing strip poker, unless she was well out of her mind last night and hysterical over Tom. Maybe she hadn't been completely herself last night?

She tried to think everything she had learned through, hard.

According to Reddington, he had carried her into the car and took her back to his hotel room because she was too emotional over the learned truths about her husband and didn't want to have to be in the same room as Tom.

Reddington said she had slept in the bed for a good hour or two, until she woke and suggested the three of them play strip poker. Thinking back on everything she had so far learned, she recalled when she woke Red revealing she had slept for over nine hours in his hotel room bed.

She vaguely remembered checking her watch after waking, so it would have been roughly eight thirty in the morning. That meant she had gone to bed the night before sometime around twelve thirty at night.

A huge chunk of things were missing from her memory that could have gone down in those few hours before she had truly called it a night, and if playing strip poker was anything to go by, she was willing to bet whatever had happened was crazy.

"I just... I feel like I'm going crazy. There's a million things going on in my head right now, things I can't even begin to make any sense of. I'm going crazy about Tom, trying to figure this all out. And yet, at the same time, I'm also trying to figure out what happened last night and why there is a big chunk of time and events missing in my memory. " She was mostly talking out loud to herself, vocalizing her stresses softly. But when she spoke again, she turned her eyes on the criminal seated next to her, directing the words at him desperately: "Something happened last night and you're not going to tell me, are you?"

It was obvious he wasn't going to tell her or put her mind at ease anytime soon. He was evidently enjoying this. To Reddington, this was probably another exciting game to him.

Her eyes were still steady on him as she watched him sigh loudly. He removed his fedora and held it over his knees, as if buying himself some time with the action.

"Unfortunately for you, I'm not going to tell you what happened anytime soon. I would much prefer for you to work it all out yourself, and, believe me-" Here, he patted her on her knee with his hand quickly in what seemed to her like both a gesture out of comfort and tenderness- "I have full faith and confidence that you'll come to learn what had happened sooner than you think. You just need to exercise a little patience and mull it over exceptionally carefully, Lizzie. The answers are there, you just need to be willing to dig hard enough to delve them out."

"You know what happened last night. You know every single detail. Am I correct?"

Red gave a perceptible nod as he looked anywhere but at her while removing his glasses. "Yes."

"Then why can't you just spare me all of this trouble and come out and tell me?"

"I could do that, Lizzie. But then where is all the fun in that? In just telling you all the nitty-gritty details?"

"So this is why you're doing this?" She sighed internally and gritted her teeth. "For fun, despite the fact that you're driving me insane?"

"I share your frustrations, Lizzie. I know how incredibly... frustrating it can be to not remember certain things that went on. In fact, I went through it myself. I know from experience, when I was partying in Havana one night many years ago. Even still to this day, I have no earthly idea what the hell happened the night before. I woke up with this strange tattoo of a naked woman with the skin of a reptile on my shin and an even stranger sight of a woman in my bed. I think taking too many hits of acid did it to me."

Here he went, retelling her one of his adventurous, fabulous stories. Liz didn't even know why he was bothering with it all. Unless...

Her eyes narrowed as she stared at the side of his face, and she felt her mouth go dry. Anger hit her suddenly in a dangerous wave, making her temples throb and her face heat.

She rubbed her lips together to give them moisture. "Did I somehow take drugs last night while in your hotel room?" she asked him slowly, trying to gauge and access his expression for anything revealing that told her an answer. Unfortunately for her, Red had his practiced poker-face on, and when he shifted slightly on the seat to look at her, his expression remained infuriatingly unreadable as his eyes darted back and forth between her eyes and her lips. "Are you saying that's why I'm unable to remember things the way I am?" Her voice shook and broke as she held his gaze helplessly. "Because I took... hits of acid? You gave me drugs last night?"

Liz had a feeling she wasn't doing very well in concealing the panicked look on her face at the idea of taking recreational drugs, because Red laughed softly at whatever expression he could see there on her face. "Good God, heavens no. You think you took acid last night?"

"Did I?" she demanded ferociously. "Is that why I seem unable to remember what happened last night? We took recreational drugs in your hotel room? And then afterwards, that was why I came up with the ridiculous idea to play strip-poker?"

"God, no. No drugs, Lizzie. At least not any of that hardcore stuff like acid, anyway. Mescaline? No. Heroin? Absolutely not."

Well, that made her feel slightly better. So she hadn't taken any illicit drugs after all. It still didn't explain why she was experiencing some type of amnesia over what had happened last night, though. What had happened to her? Her hand automatically found her scar and she traced it with her fingers absent-mindedly while she thought that little piece of information through.

"Did I- oh, I don't know- did I hit my head, maybe? Get into an accident? Something that caused me to not have any memory of last night at all?"

She was basically just throwing random questions up into the air. Questions that, hopefully if she pushed hard enough, Red would clear up for her.

"Or was whatever happened last night that bad that I'm suppressing the memory out of my own volition?" She threw her hands up in the air and shook her head hopelessly when she realized Red was watching her. "What? I'm just trying to make sense of it all," she whispered, hating the fragility in her voice. "You're not telling me anything. I mean, you're not giving me any valid answers to all of my questions and I know you're probably not going to, because it's the way you are. I just- I... I need to understand. I... I don't know."

After that insane moment of talking to herself, Liz fell silent and pressed her lips together to stop herself from rambling on again. It was just so very frustrating, not being in the know, and Red clearly knew everything about what had happened last night. Her heart felt heavy with despair and she actually felt her eyes well up with moisture. Jesus, was she actually about to start crying right now? What was going on with her this morning? Her emotions were everywhere.

"Are you-" she began to ask, then paused. But then she decided she just had to know. "So you aren't my father, are you?"

Red seemed to hesitate for a moment. He lifted a hand and ran his fingers over his closely shaved scalp as he looked away from her quickly, biting the inside of his cheek. "No," he finally answered. "After last night? Heavens, no, I am not your father, Lizzie." She wasn't sure why, but Liz felt extremely glad of that. If they had actually done what she suspected- and dreaded- they had done last night, at least he wasn't related to her in any way. "Besides, sweetheart, would a father really play strip poker with his daughter and intentionally make her lose so that he could perhaps have a glimpse of her in her undergarments?"

She almost laughed. Almost. "Probably not. That would be wrong, wouldn't it?"

"Exactly."

The car jerked over to the curb of where the Post Office was, and Liz slung off her seat belt and reached down to collect her bag. She felt relieved. Very, very relieved to be away from Reddington. At least for a little while, so that she could properly think everything through. Time alone from him was good. Hopefully, after a while, she would no longer feel as tempted to murder him as she did now with frustration as her sole motive.

"Well, I'm off now," she breathed, turning to look at him and quickly wishing she hadn't. "I have the information you gave me on the next person on your list. So I-"

Red's penetrating gaze was on her and she didn't know what to think or what to do, when he leaned over in the seat and pressed an unnervingly prolonged kiss on her cheek. She could smell the pleasant cologne he was wearing due to his closeness, and she felt her heart rate pick up in speed and her hands go clammy.

It was with little things like this that made her wonder, seriously wonder, whether or not they actually did have sex last night. Earlier this morning, he had kissed her on the wrist, and usually, he never did anything like that. He usually never made any advances towards her, especially not romantically nor physically. Yet suddenly this morning that all had changed. How? Why? Why was Reddington suddenly acting all smoochy with her? Because they did actually have intercourse last night, and she just only couldn't recall it, for whatever strange reason?

She forced a smile on her face quickly as he leaned back in his seat somewhat smugly, and she tried to appear carefree and completely devoid of any physical signs of stress or nerves.

She climbed out of the car, still smiling, faking it so much that her face began hurting, and it was only when the car disappeared from her sight that she let it wane. She was no longer masking her expression as she trod into the perimeters of the Post Office, and as she entered the elevator, she got a sudden fright when Ressler appeared. He quickly got in with her.

"Hey, what's up, Keen?" He asked her, his mouth full. He was holding an opened plastic container of what looked like some type of chocolate pudding or cake, clearly having an indulgent, unhealthy breakfast.

Cake!

It came to her then, so unexpectedly that she had to lean her back against the wall of the elevator for support. She tried to focus on breathing slowly and steadily as she thought it through frantically. Waking up in a dark room on a bed under warm, cotton sheets. Her eyes feeling puffy and sore from bawling. Feeling suddenly hungry and realizing she hadn't eaten anything or had the chance to eat the dinner Tom was preparing when she had arrived home since she had left so abruptly to go to Reddington.

And the cake! Chocolate brownies that she had come across sitting on a plate on the breakfast table while Dembe and Reddington were distracted playing a card game. She suddenly recalled eating two big slices sneakily and licking the crumbs greedily off her fingers as she rested her hip against the entryway into the other room, watching them. Then making her presence known to the two men in the room, who were both sitting on matching ottoman's, facing each other and engaging in witty banter.

"Um, what's with those brownies? Room service?"

"Ah, no. That would be Dembe's, Lizzie," Red had filled her in, without glancing up from his deck of cards in his hands. "Dembe's special recipe. One of these days, you'll have to try them. That certainly wouldn't be an experience not to remember."

Liz could only faintly remember feeling impressed. "I didn't know you cook, Dembe?" she had asked in wonder. "They were so delicious. Hope you don't mind me, uh, eating some. I didn't get the chance to eat anything at home with Tom."

And then, for reasons unknown to her, she had suddenly erupted into a fit of laughter. She had covered her hands over her mouth, shocked by the sound as it left her, and then she started laughing so hard that she couldn't breathe, felt tears streaming down her face because she was laughing that maniacally. The hotel room oddly enough appeared as if it was spinning- either that, or she herself was swaying- and the bewildered expressions on both Dembe and Reddington's faces as they finally peered over at her sent her even deeper over the edge. Then, most disturbingly of all, that was when she had thought of her ridiculous idea.

"Hey, you know what we should do?" She had asked both the men excitedly, and then she howled with laughter again as they both rose from the ottoman's they were sitting on, exchanging concerned looks for her.

"Lizzie, are you all right?"

"We should- we should - strip poker!"

All this came back to Liz as she stared critically at the chocolate pudding in the container that Ressler was holding in his hand. As the elevator finally reached the floor, Ressler turned to her while shoving a gooey piece of the cake into his mouth with his fingers. "You want some?" he gestured awkwardly, but she shook her head violently.

Oh, no. What the hell was in those brownies Dembe had made then?

Hoping this isn't too silly? This is just how I envision Red and Liz in a situation like this, where he knows all the answers and is deliberately withholding it from her, and Liz getting aggravated over that fact. Hoping it isn't too out of character also. Big thank you to you all for being so lovely and kind. :)