Previously...
Shaking his head, he reaches over the back of the couch (they look comfortable enough) and grabs the flannel blanket he leaves there. He sets it over the two of them, careful not to cover Sammy's face. When he finds himself fussing as he tucks it around them, he backs up quickly, satisfied they'll be warm and comfortable, and retreats to his room.
He leans against the bedroom door, breathing heavily.
Not your family, he tells himself, because though he didn't see Audrey and their unborn baby when he looked at Liz and Sammy, the affection swelling up in his chest was enough to make him realizes that he really, really misses the family that he didn't get to have.
Go to sleep, he tells himself. And deal with this in the morning.
Except, nothing is ever that easy.
5:45 AM
Ressler wakes up to the sound of a baby crying, and at first he can't understand what is going on or why he has a baby, because he was pretty certain he'd remember becoming a father.
Everything comes rushing back as he hears Liz's soft voice float through the open door of his room. "Shhhh, Sammy... don't wake Ressler. He's cranky in the morning, especially when he's been up late," she murmurs, and he feels briefly annoyed at that comment before realizing she's a little bit right. In fact, Audrey had once described him as a "bear waking up from hibernation early" and he supposes it's pretty accurate.
Regardless, he grunts and turns around to stare at his alarm clock, which flashes, entirely too fucking early and spawns the thought, why the hell do people have children, ever?
Grumbling about being up before the sun, he rolls out of bed and pulls his bedpants back on. He figures walking around in his boxers might not be conducive to an awkward-free morning.
Speaking of awkward...
Ressler remembers, as he walks into the living room, running a hand through his messy blond hair, the struggle he'd had last night looking at Liz and Sammy without thinking of what he lost, what he didn't realize he wanted. But Liz had no idea, and he needed to keep it that way, so pull yourself together, Donald, he thought, opening the door that separated his room from the living room.
Liz looks up in surprise. "Oh, good morning," she says. Ressler grunts in response and heads to the kitchen, intent on making copious amounts of coffee. Liz grins at Sammy, presses the tabs of his clean diaper in place, and kisses his belly loudly. Sammy squeals, delighted by the motion, and grabs his feet, grinning his bright toothless grin as Liz swoops him into her arms.
"See?" she mock-whispers to the baby. "I told you he was a bear."
Ressler rolls his eyes, but has to admit (to himself only) that they're both cute. He pulls coffee from the shelf, dumps a large amount of the ground beans into a filter, and presses the 'start' button in record time. "Morning," he finally manages, and Liz chuckles as she sets Sammy in the 'strap-onto-a-regular-kitchen-chair' highchair they'd bought him. He begins immediately banging his hands on the tray, demanding breakfast.
"Looks like you two have a lot in common," she says, moving around him to find the baby formula. He notices but decides not to comment on the ease with which they move around each other in the tiny kitchen. "Grumpy in the morning, and demanding milk - or, in your case, coffee."
Ressler doesn't respond. Liz walks around, placing a hand on his arm, stilling his movements as he pulls two mugs from the cabinet. "Are you OK? Did something happen last night?"
Liz hadn't thought until this very moment to ask him about last night, because when she'd woken up this morning she was just relieved to see he was here and alive, even though she hadn't doubted for a second he could take care of himself. Now, however, she was curious, especially since he didn't seem very communicative this morning.
"It was fine," he says. "We found some evidence that James Madison had been at the warehouse we were at, but no one was there and nothing was left behind to lead us anywhere else."
"Ah," Liz responds, both disappointed that they didn't find more, but relieved that he hadn't been in much danger. She finishes mixing Sammy's formula, and passes the baby his bottle. He is able to mostly hold it himself, but she helps steady it as he takes big, heaving gulps.
"How was your night in with Sammy?"
"Well," Liz begins, moving to sit next to the baby so she can help him with breakfast easier. "It was great until bath time, but he must be used to being bathed at a different time or by his father or something, because he threw a massive fit when I tried to clean him."
Ressler chuckles, imagining Liz crouched over the bath tum, fighting a four month old who didn't want to be where he was. He imagined water flying, Sammy screaming, and Liz soaked with soapy water. "Wish I could have seen that," he says, reaching into the fridge to pull out some eggs. "Scrambled, or...?"
Liz looks up, smiles briefly, and nods. "Scrambled is fine. With cheese?"
"Coming right up," he says, taking several eggs from the container and juggling them for a second before breaking them into the pan. Sammy giggles in delight, causing the bottle to slip from his rosy lips.
Ressler is comfortable, and it worries him. He's comfortable being up at the ass-crack of dawn talking about Sammy's bath time interspersed with information about the latest blacklister and it feels both normal and nice.
The sound of his doorbell chiming causes him to cut off the panic that was beginning to build again. Thank goodness, he thinks, and really the solution to all of this might be to simply ignore his feelings until they go away.
Liz swoops Sammy into her arms once more, and heads to the door.
Before Ressler can yell at her to stop, don't answer the door with Sammy! she's unlocked the door and opened it to reveal Reddington.
"LIZ!" Ressler yells, tossing the spatula down and running into the living room. "What the hell!? What if that hadn't been Reddington? You could have gotten yourself or Sammy hurt!"
Liz looks shocked, because Ressler doesn't yell at her (often) and even Sammy looks alarmed at Ressler's tone of voice. The littler of the two begins to shriek in fear as Reddington looks on in amusement at the proceedings.
"I - I didn't think about it," Liz says, trying to comfort Sammy as Ressler stands there, fists clenched, pissed.
"You have to think," he says, trying to control himself (panic, fear, anger) as he approaches Liz. He takes Sammy from her arms and holds the squalling infant against his chest. It should concern him how quickly Sammy quiets in his arms, but he's too busy being relieved that Liz and Sammy are OK to worry about it.
"Good morning," Reddington greets, hanging his hat on a hook by the door as he walks inside. He's still amused, Liz is still shocked, and Ressler is still pissed.
"Sorry I snapped," Ressler apologizes finally, staring at Liz as he continues to ignore Reddington. "I just... we learned last night that there's a good chance Sammy is being hunted more intently than before."
"He's right," Reddington says, tossing his coat onto the couch and walking into the kitchen. He reaches for the spatula that Ressler had thrown. He works the eggs into a good scramble, casting amused glances at the trio still in the living room. "It was definitely James Madison's blood on the floor. From what Mr. Kaplan can tell me, it doesn't look like it was enough blood loss to cause death. So, James didn't give in. There's a good chance that whoever is hunting them will double their effors to find Sherry and Sammy."
Liz and Ressler are still mostly ignoring Reddington as he takes over the making of breakfast.
"I'm sorry I didn't think," Liz says. "I forgot all about the case for a minute. In the kitchen, it was... nice."
Ressler smiles, and cups her jaw in his large, warm hand for just a second - just until he realizes what he's doing. He pulls away quickly. "Ah, yeah. Just... be careful, yeah? Especially with Sammy," he says, handing the infant back to Liz.
Thank God for Raymond Reddington, he thinks as the older man interrupts the awkward moment by asking, "Eggs, anyone? They're really very good."
He rolls his eyes as he walks back to the kitchen.
8:50 AM
Aram is both amused by the sight of his two action-oriented partners trying to quiet the fussy baby and annoyed, because said baby is interrupting his (really very cool) findings.
"I'll..." Liz says weakly, motioning toward the office she and Ressler share. "I'll go calm him down. Ressler can fill me in."
Ara and Samar shared an amused look - and work very hard not to laugh - when Ressler passes over the diaper bag that had been hanging off his shoulder for the past ten minutes.
"Yes, yes, the sight of me caring for another human being is hilarious," Ressler cuts in, having noticed the look they shared. He is an FBI agent, and a damn good one at that. "Please continue with what you were saying."
(Aram tries not to be upset with the fact that Ressler is more focused on the woman bouncing a baby in her arms in the next room than he is on the information being presented).
"Right. Well, we scoped out the security cameras around the address of the building you and Mr. Reddington went to last night," Aram started for the fifth time. No baby to interrupt this time! "And we were able to catch Repo leaving the warehouse. Here, watch," he says, and he presses 'play' on the security tape he'd pulled up. Ressler squints - it's dark, clearly they left at night - and everyone moves fast. He can make out three men, however - one is probably Repo, the one with a bag over his head, limping and being forced by the other two, must be James Madison. The third, he's not sure, but Ressler wonders what role he plays, because Repo seems like the muscle in this video, whereas the third man is directing him.
Could this be the mysterious man who hired Repo? Ressler wonders.
"Great!" he exclaims when the video ends. "Which way did they go? What else do we have?"
Reddington cuts in. "Not much else, I'm afraid. They went northwest, but that leads to a part of town simply filled with holes a rat like Repo could hide in. Sadly, my contact is of no further use to us, because he was not involved in helping Repo find his next location. James Madison should be safe - for now. I don't think Repo will try again so soon to extract information."
"The third man?" Ressler asks, because Aram has replayed the video and he's sure this time that, whoever this man is, he's in charge. He says as much, and Reddington grins widely.
"Ah yes, good job noticing that our mystery man has shown up. That," Reddington says. "Is — "
Their conversation is interrupted (which annoys Ressler as he's pretty sure Reddington was about to tell them who had hired Repo) by a tall, thin man holding a package.
"Mr. Reddington?" he asks, and Ressler recognizes him as one of the lesser ranking agents (which makes sense, since he's delivering packages). "This came for you."
"Ah, thank you, Mr. Jones," Reddington replies, smiling briefly as he takes the package. Once Mr. Jones leaves, his smile turns to a frown and he sighs as he begins opening the box. "Packages, unless delivered by the giver, are almost always bad things," he muses, and while Ressler would like to claim Reddington wasn't always right, it seemed more and more likely he actually could predict the future.
Because opening a package and finding a hand - still painted red with blood, with loose meat hanging by threads - definitely qualifies as "bad".
So sometimes I write in the outline "Reddington tells Ressler the next step" and then as I'm trying to write, I'm like: CURSE MYSELF! WHAT THE HELL WAS THE NEXT STEP?! Because of course I don't remember.
Sorry for taking a while to update! Real life will be in the way for a few weeks, but I'm hoping for 2-3 updates a week regardless.
Please Review!