Thanks to my Beta Thefirstfewchapters for all the work on that chapter and for the cat come back ;)

oooo Chapter 5 oooo

During the next few days they put some rules in place. Reddington wanted to keep Lizzie as busy as possible so that she didn't feel bored or trapped because he was hoping to stay at the villa for several weeks. He was quite at ease with being on the run but that was not the case with Liz, who was struggling with the situation in general.

So ... he needed to keep her busy!

The rules were simple and followed a precise daily program. There was exercise in the morning and in the afternoon they studied the Alliance's strategies. It was enough to keep them both busy. And he insisted on no alcohol, apart from allowing Liz a glass of wine with their evening meal. No more. There was such a delightful collection of wines in the cellar that it would have been a shame not to taste them. He promised to do the same, and locked down his bottles of whisky to avoid temptation.

He showed Liz the fitness room. The fitness program was a special training routine set up by Dembe. The room was filled with bikes, skipping ropes and all sorts of other gym equipment. Liz raised her eyebrows, trying to imagine Reddington using any of it.

And failing.

"You often …"

She didn't need to say any more. He gave her a deeply offended look and then took off his vest and tie, stretched out on the gym carpet and produced a set of twenty push-ups without any visible signs of weakness. Liz watched him, speechless.

However, once he had finished, the effect was rather spoiled by the breathlessness he tried hard to disguise and the fact that he couldn't stand up.

Liz burst out laughing and, helpless on the floor, Reddington could only roll over onto his back and chuckle in between gasping for breath.

"Perhaps ... I'm ... not ... as ... fit ... as ... I ... thought!" he managed. All he had really achieved was a stabbing pain in his still not-quite-healed chest wound.

He looked up into her laughing face and realised that he had achieved more than that with his ridiculous teenage antics, and that made it worth the biting pain and feeling rather like an idiot.

He accepted the hand she offered to help him stand up.

"So ... on a more serious note ... every morning ... one hour on the bikes ... and then the exercise regime Dembe has put in place ... he never lacks imagination when it comes to such things."

"No outdoor activities?"

"We have mountain bikes but the terrain out there is quite uneven."

"So, Inside will be perfect!" she giggled. Her mocking laugh was well deserved, after all. He had never been a word-class athlete but he was ready to show her there was more to him than the miserable demonstration she had just seen.

The second part of the day was more intellectual. Liz had tons of information to assimilate in order to better understand the Alliance and Reddington had to juggle between what was truly useful for her and what was a threat for her. He was walking on hot coals and he knew he was not really good at this when it came to Liz.

Sitting on his bed, he unfolded a large map that displayed all the Alliance's recent positions that he was currently aware of. Africa, Asia, Russia, they were everywhere, managing the world their own way.

"Where do these people get their power from?" she asked.

"The humble citizen imagines that the world is governed by the politicians he elected, " he started explaining. "Even though he tends to credit them with little trust, he stays quite convinced that the system is working well; and as long as he's got a job, a roof over his head and a decent school for his children to go to, everything is fine. The truth is that all that is just a smokescreen. Politicians aren't the leaders. The real power is in the hands of international companies, banks, traders … it's where the Alliance has been putting its own markers for dozens of years. And it's how they build the world the man in the street is naively living in."

"It sounds like the global conspiracy theory that some people tend to believe in. "

"It's far more subtle than that. The Alliance is not strictly speaking a secret organisation which has all its members working together for the same goal. Instead, it's a balance. All the members have their own individual interests and they are trying to change the power balance to serve these interests.

It's a sort of chess game where the king is the one who convinces his adversaries to join his camp and collectively increase their power.

At present it's the Director who pulls the strings. He's convinced that a bipolar world is easier to lead than the one that exists right now.

That's why he's working relentlessly to provoke a new Cold War."

"But isn't it in our common interests to have such balance?"

"The Alliance causes wars, bankrupts governments; it's responsible for just about all the disasters that impacts on our societies, except the natural ones. Everyone who tries to stop them is threatened and then, if they don't back down, killed. Often their families are killed as well."

They were back to what they were talking about on the day they arrived. Liz still had one question that she was struggling to ask. She gritted her teeth and asked it anyway. "Why didn't you talk about this earlier?"

"I had no real intention of involving you in that mess."

"But the Cabal, the threats, your escape …"

"Would you have believed me?" he asked. "You studied my official profile when you were at Quantico. One of the FBI's most wanted criminals lands in your life ... and criminals are notorious liars ... I couldn't take the risk that you wouldn't believe me, or that you would run away." He paused. "And I had time ... "

"Had … ?"

"The Alliance changed their plans, all this hustle and bustle has made them nervous."

"And the Fulcrum, why did you wait so long to get it back?"

"Lizzie, I never really needed the Fulcrum. The Alliance's major players at the time when I went underground were convinced that I had it and that was enough. I was the only person who knew that in fact you had it. That was enough for me to be able to blackmail them into leaving me alone.

The only reason why I came close to you was because of Tom ... and Berlin ... I had no idea what danger was threatening you. I had no choice. I didn't know how else to protect you from Tom; so I had no choice.

Of course, it put me in the spotlight and the Alliance started to mistrust me even more than they did already. Alan Fitch had been defending my position, keeping the Alliance off my back for a long time, but then his position was threatened and ... well, you know what happened next."

Red paused, before continuing, "It's all my fault. If I hadn't hired Tom, I would still be dealing with my business and you would be working as a talented profiler for the FBI. We might never have met."

"Without the Fulcrum you would be dead!"

"My life has no value, Lizzie!" he said and she was devastated to realise that he truly meant this. "I would never have forced you to give it to me, whatever the consequences."

"Your life is important to the people who are close to you, Dembe, Mr. Kaplan ..."

"That's as maybe, but I could disappear ... or die ... tomorrow and everything is in place for them to be able to carry on and cope without me."

"Stop talking about planning, or managing without you! Whatever you may think, people care for you, love you."

"Lizzie, I put them in danger more than anyone else!"

She stared at him, on the verge of tears.

"You're important to me, do you not get that?"

She was holding his gaze, he looked away. He understood but he didn't want to truly accept it. He was scared.

She turned on her heels and walked away, locking herself in her bedroom. The discussion had gone south ... again.

He didn't want to die. If he had, he could easily have given up and shot himself at any point in the last twenty-five years. What was keeping him alive was the need to work out how to defeat the Alliance, to keep pursuing them, to keep working against them. Knowing how they operated wasn't enough. He needed to know more. And he needed to protect and defend the people who could easily become their victims.

He had nothing to lose, so he was willing to take on the worst tasks; the tasks that left him with the worst nightmares; but at least he saved anyone else from suffering them.

But now, he had to admit that having Liz on his side was giving him hope: hope that he would one day fully understand what happened the night of the fire and, moreover, the hope that eventually he would finally be able to share the suffering from his past.

He had to wait for an hour until she came out of her bedroom; hearing her sobbing through the door was almost unbearable. Finally she came back to his room, traces of tears still visible on her cheeks.

He hadn't moved; sitting the whole time and thinking through possible solutions to a problem that might in fact have none.

He had been sitting still for so long that the cat had come and curled up beside him in the chair, purring quietly.

He scratched the cat behind the ears and tried to work things out; Liz and him ... it was ... complicated. He had to learn to deal with that.

He sensed her standing in the doorway waiting, clearly determined not to be the first to break the silence. So, finally he gave in. "I understand," he said, quietly, as to end a never ending dispute.

After a short pause she prompted him further. "But you're scared ..." and left the sentence unfinished by the inflection in her voice.

He looked up at her, shuddering to think that she understood him so well. He deserved the love of no one. And yet, deep inside he had an aching emptiness; a need to have someone who cared for him. And more and more he had been thinking about Liz ... caring for him. Because she had told him she did. And had told him to 'Deal with that.'

He didn't want to be a monster in her eyes any more. And ... maybe ... he wasn't.

Maybe she really did care.

He opened his mouth to reply but found himself merely nodding instead as words failed him.

And it was like a release of tension and emotion. A slight motion that was worth a thousand words.

He had to admit that Liz was the only person who could truly understand him. With the possible exception of Dembe.

And he was going to have to spend the rest of his life on her side, or, hopefully, by her side, but certainly keeping an eye on her from near or from afar so he needed to get his head around the fact that she cared.

The rest of the day was calmer. Cooking, however, was becoming an exercise in itself! They were either going to end up with food poisoning or starving and both were regretting that Dembe hadn't scheduled in some cooking lessons in between their fitness exercises, which would have at least had the advantage of distracting them from the tedious - according to Reddington - fitness regime!

After dinner they firmly set both the Fulcrum and the Alliance to one side and sat on the terrace while Reddington shared his knowledge of Russia with Liz. He talked for hours about the country, its history, its geography and the people he had met there; providing rambling, amusing anecdotes about incidents from his travels and visits told in his entrancing gravelly voice.

He enjoyed making her laugh and found, as their time together wore on, that what had once been a rare thing became something he was able to do more and more.

And so, with the cat curled up comfortably between them, he found they stayed up later and later and that she seemed gradually happier and more relaxed.

And gradually he grew ever more fearful and tense, because this bubble they were living in could not last forever.