Coffee Time
Meera and Elizabeth drink coffee together while doing paperwork.
Ch. 2, Agent Meera Malik
The clink of the ceramic mug against her desk snapped Elizabeth out of whatever reverie she was lost in.
Blinking to clear her head, Elizabeth looked up to find Meera Malik standing in her office, a separate mug of coffee held in one hand.
"I thought you could use a little something." The agent said, gesturing with her own cup.
Elizabeth smiled at her, sitting up a little straighter and reaching for the mug on her desk.
"Thank you." she said, taking a sip of the warm coffee gratefully.
She ignored the old, yet still full mug of coffee which already sat beside her computer monitor, and if Meera had noticed it as well, she said nothing of it.
Elizabeth had set the now long-since-cold coffee down first thing that morning when she had arrived in her office, planning to fill out paperwork regarding...the incident...the day earlier.
She had failed to pick it up again.
How long ago that had been, how long she had been sitting at her desk, staring at the coffee with a pen in her hand, lost in her swirling thoughts...Elizabeth couldn't say.
Meera Malik was a welcome interruption.
The CIA agent was the only one of her coworkers Elizabeth did not actively dread interacting with.
Meera stood by Elizabeth's desk. Calm and collected with coffee in hand, observing as she waited for Elizabeth's reaction to decide whether she would stay or go.
Realizing this, Agent Keen offered a quick invitation.
"Would you like to sit down?"
"I wouldn't be against the idea." With a smile, Meera Malik settled into one of the chairs, coffee cup resting between her two hands.
A beat of silence before Agent Malik spoke up again.
"I was surprised you came in today. We all were."
Elizabeth's hands twisted around her mug, the fingers of her left hand reaching for the pattern of her scar. She traced the familiar shape and felt the warmth of the mug against her fingers as she answered, feeling awkward.
"I was just hoping to get through all the paperwork..."
Paperwork which lay still uncompleted on the desk in front of her.
"...it was better than staying at home, dwelling on it."
No instead she was sitting there, dwelling on it alone in her little office in the Post Office.
Her problems seemed to be following her everywhere. Haunting her at work, at home, with Tom...in her sleep. She had been having difficulties sleeping before this...now it was near impossible.
Elizabeth shifted in her seat, offering an uncomfortable, apologetic smile; a smile Meera returned genuinely.
"It's been a rough couple of days." The CIA agent offered, causing Elizabeth to nod in agreement, taking another sip of the coffee.
It was plain old coffee. A little overbrewed, no doubt poured from the coffee pot perpetually running in the breakroom down the hall.
Nothing special, but at a time like this, the hot drink was like a lifeline.
A tiny sliver of normal, able to ground Elizabeth in the moment.
She needed that.
A reminder that "normal" still existed.
"Do you want to talk about it?" The question caused Elizabeth to look at Meera, eyes questioning, skeptical. Unsure if the concern in the other womans voice was genuine or feigned.
"You don't have to. We can talk about the weather, or the rising cost of gas." The agent amended, gesturing with one hand. "I just thought you might not have had a chance to...yet."
Elizabeth looked away. Relieved at the lack of accusation in the other agent's eyes.
"No..I, I haven't really talked about it yet. Not outside the debriefing, at least. I just- I, Tom doesn't need to hear the details about it. What with the attack, and...and...I don't want to worry him anymore. Not with how close this was."
Meera sat calmly, head inclined slightly as she waited for Elizabeth to continue in her own time. Elizabeth Keen appreciated that. Most people would have said something.
Tried to reassure her.
Or pressed for more information.
Meera just sat silently, still and waiting.
It was comforting.
Elizabeth felt regret, realizing she felt more comfortable here, sitting at work spilling her guts to a CIA agent, than she did at home with her own husband.
She buried the traitorous feeling, forcing it down deep as she gathered her thoughts.
One problem at a time.
Better to work through this now and that later.
"It was close. It was too close. It was all so fast. First with Lorca...and then I had the hood over my head for so long...getting passed off, riding in the trunk of his car all that way."
Elizabeth shook her head and took a drink. Meera sipped her coffee as well.
"I almost thought I had reached him." Elizabeth offered, gazing past the walls of the office and remembering. "For a moment, just a moment, I thought I had him."
She scoffed, snapping away from the memories and back into her office, giving Meera a dry smile. "He apologized, but he didn't mean it. He was indifferent. They- Lorca's people, they asked him to make me suffer and he was doing the job they paid him for."
Meera's eyes were serious as she watched Agent Keen at her desk.
Elizabeth Keen was looking past her, focusing on nothing in particular as she spoke. Her left hand was curled into itself, resting against the coffee mug, her right clenched tightly around it.
Meera was silent as she listened, allowing Elizabeth to lead, watching her as the memories flicked by behind her eyes.
"He," a pause before she continued, "-tortured me. And then he injected me with something before I could escape. The ropes were too tight. A paralytic he said- he said that I wouldn't be able to move, but that I would still be able to feel everything. Like that made it more forgivable. I saw my opportunity and I took it...but it was too late, I couldn't get far enough...with the drugs and the pain...and the damn dog of his."
A derisive little laugh as Elizabeth's eyes darted to the other corner of her desk.
"Short story shorter, he caught me again, dragged me back. That's where it should have ended, where it would have ended...except..."
"Reddington." It was the first time the other woman had spoken during the exchange, the first time she had asked anything.
Elizabeth nodded but did not look at her.
"How did he get there? How did he find you?"
Sipping on the still warm coffee Elizabeth responded slowly, the words escaping like a weary sigh. "I don't know. I'd just about given up, I was drugged, paralyzed, I couldn't lift my head let alone try another escape. There was nothing more I could do...and then there he was."
"No explanation?"
"No explanation."
Eliabeth stared back into the moment, emotions whirling around her thoughts, everything clouded together and confused. She had to keep going though, she had to finish telling somebody. She couldn't keep it all in, all to herself anymore.
Meera gave her the chance, by asking quietly, almost shyly. "And Cornish?"
Elizabeth Keen flinched at the words anyways, something akin to guilt flashing across her face as her eyes stuck resolutely to her mug of coffee, now mostly empty.
"There was...an incident...I was out of the room. I couldn't see it, I couldn't move, I could barely even speak...I couldn't do anything... but I, I could hear it."
Her face crumpled, her left hand clenched so tight the knuckles were turning white as Elizabeth looked back through her minds eye, reliving it all again. Hearing it.
All of it.
Reddington's voice, soft and gentle at first...his hand brushing against her hair...then he was just a voice in the room behind her, flat and ominous and chilling.
Her own voice, sounding so very distant, so very small.
And then the splash. The hissing...the bubbling.
Shaking herself out of it, away from the memories and back to the quiet of her office, Elizabeth hurried on to finish it.
"And then the FBI arrived and it was over."
Silence for a moment as both woman stared off into space, thinking.
It sounded so final when she said it like that. Like someone else's story. A nice clean ending, over with it.
Elizabeth wished that was true.
The two looked at each other, each thinking their own thoughts, feeling out the shift in their relationship; indifferent strangers no more.
"Did he-" Elizabeth began, faltering before resolving herself to ask. "Did he ever explain how he found me first? Before the Bureau did?"
"He wasn't exactly forthcoming with that information." Meera answered apologetically.
"And they haven't figured it out?"
"They're working on it now. You aren't the only one with paperwork."
The two managed small smiles at the joke, hollow as it was.
Silence filled the room and Meera moved to stand, glancing at Elizabeth and meeting her eyes before speaking.
"Well, however Reddington managed it. We're lucky he did."
Meera's words stabbed at something in Elizabeth Keen's chest.
She remained seated at her desk, nodding in acknowledgement as Agent Malik left.
Elizabeth felt frozen as she sat stock-still, grappling with the burst of confused emotions in her chest.
It had been an awful situation to begin with, a near death experience, confusion and shock were to be expected. But adding Reddington into the equation made it all the more complicated.
Whatever the feeling was...Elizabeth didn't want to put a name to it.
If only things could be simpler. Like they were before all this started.
Unable to sit still any longer Elizabeth Keen stood up quickly, stretching as she looked at the paperwork spread out over her desk, actually seeing it for the first time that entire day.
She would have to get to work.
"But first," Elizabeth thought to herself, picking up both the empty mug and the old one as she headed towards the door. "More coffee."
xxx
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Author's Note:
Tadah, Chapter 2.
Elizabeth Keen and Meera Malik have a heart-to-heart over coffee.
It turned out quite a bit longer than the first one. A bit more detailed.
I love Meera so far, her and Lizzie have a great dynamic going in the show.
So...Is Meera being a good friend to Lizzie here, or is she just a really good interrogator? Perhaps a little bit of both!
The next chapter is in the works, and I would like to thank everyone for reading, with an extra special "thank you" to those who left reviews!