Chapter 1

Legacy

It was all closing in. The post office walls were crowding her, crushing her. The fluorescent light above her buzzed, creating a sharp edged static that cut inside her head. She hated this building — and the job was no picnic neither. Elizabeth Keen closed her eyes and rubbed her thumb along the scar on her hand and allowed her mind to roam free for a moment. Her thoughts flew to her safe place. She pictured the sweeping cut of butterfly wings, and with a whoosh her mind soared taking her imagination from the oppressive office with it's too low ceiling, up and toward a warm endlessly round sun.

"Keen, Keen… uh Liz"

Her eyes snapped open and she glared at the speaker. Aram stepped back abruptly, "whoa! Sorry for interrupting whatever you were doing just then… with your eyes closed, looking zen-like, or maybe you were just napping, who can be sure, right. Ummm, bad time I suppose, right. I will leave you to your meditations now," he babbled.

She immediately censored her expression, relaxing her face into a tired but mildly amused smile." No, I'm sorry, just a headache. What is it, Aram?" The sharp edge stayed in her voice, that terse manner that had alienated team-mates in the past. No matter how hard she tried to smooth it over, those abrasive edges remained.

"I…can come back, if that's easier."

She heaved a sigh, "No, sit, talk to me?"

He sat gingerly down and fiddled with the ridiculous flowery resin paper weight that rested on her desk. She should've chucked it out by now. It was one of Tom's little gifts. The tit for tat gifting that they had done which had seemed so endearing when they were in blissfully married wonderland. Now Tom was the spy who was thrown out into the cold, so to speak. Well, she had wished she had thrown him. She dragged her eyes from the distorted looking violets that were cruelly frozen inside the offending nicknack and looked at Aram expectantly.

Give me something else to think about, something that isn't Tom, or Red, or Sam.

He seemed nervous. She knew she should try to smile and ease his nerves, but instead she just stared at him until he squirmed and spoke — likely only to break the uncomfortable silence that was starting to crawl toward weird.

"I know this has been a hard month with everything that has happened, with your father and…Tom and I don't want to heap more bad onto the bad but I don't know who to talk to." He looked back over his shoulder and tapped a finger on the chair's arm rest. He continued, his voice dropping to a low murmur, "It might put Cooper in a position and…if you don't mind I would rather talk somewhere else, to someone else, like you, you look like you need coffee, maybe we should do that, now, if you're not busy." He placed the paperweight back down with an awkward clunk and then accidentally knocked it off her desk. It landed with a dull thud on the floor.

She found herself wishing it had been a proper glass one, the smash would have been therapeutic. Seeing something else of his broken taking her mind away from her own brokenness.

"Shit… sorry," He bent down to pick it up, promptly bumping his head on her desk.

"Don't be," she replied as she stood, taking her coat. Elizabeth was already at the door by the time

Aram retrieved the paperweight and she paused in the doorway, looking back at him, "come on then."

She desperately needed to get out of here, Aram plus coffee was the perfect excuse.

It was overcast outside, despite that, Elizabeth felt her mood lift.

Aram strolled beside her, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched over, eyes fixed on the sidewalk ahead of him.

Not himself, she thought and instantly that trust-abused part of her shrunk away in suspicion.

She led him across the road and into a park and joined the line at a mobile coffee vender. Once she had received her order— double shot flat white with no sugar— they sat at a bench, a large space spanning between them. He sat stiffly, back rigid and his hands still lost from view in his coat pockets.

She tried to resist the urge to over analyze, he was almost a friend. Well, as much as a work colleague in this type of job can be.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

" So I was taking another look at our friend Dr. Gideon Hadley's affairs, you remember the Galatea clinic."

Of course I do. She silently screamed. She couldn't get that case out of her mind, it had left her raw, bleeding, tearing her hopes for a family away. That case had signaled the end of that part of her life.

Elizabeth stomach automatically tensed. She grit her teeth then forced herself to relax. She still saw those poor woman lying there, their future torn from them by a sick and deluded man. Their swollen belly's imposed upon them, and then the precious cargo inside, that they would never remember, was taken from them. So much had been stolen and all that wrong had been paid for by hopeful, innocent would-be parents. Just like she and Tom had been once. She shivered.

"What about it?"

"Well the late Dr Hadley kept immaculate records, every egg he harvested and embryo he created are logged, dates , it all very tidy and thorough. But the departments evidence logs don't match his clinics figures. There should be 20 more embryos on ice than there are."

Elizabeth frowned as she sipped her coffee, taking a long bitter gulp.

"You sure this isn't an oversight on his part— were they destroyed?

"No, there were detailed records documenting non-viable embryos disposal."

So where did these other ones go?"

"That's the thing, I don't know. So they weren't implanted, they should be on ice but they're not?"

"How far have you looked into this, other than the payments from Mallory, er, Shaw, was there any other amounts that suggested he might be dealing with someone else?"

"I haven't been able to, the very next day all the evidence, the files, hard drives everything has been ordered sealed."

"What? Who would do that, and why?"

Aram shrugged, but Elizabeth noticed the look in his eyes that accompanied the seemingly nonchalant gesture— he was spooked. He looked down between his feet. "I doubt it anything to do with anyone on the Blacklist, would it? I suppose I should just forget about it, forget I noticed it. It was probably just a clerical error on his part…" He jiggled his leg and a nervous huff of laughter escaped the technician.

"I could ask Reddington about it."

Aram shook his head, standing up quickly, "Look forget about it, I'm sure it's nothing." There was a panicky quiver in his voice. She dismissed it — Red tended to have that effect on people.

The conversation, or perhaps it was the coffee left Elizabeth's stomach feeling queasy. She didn't want to open that door again. The case had shaken her to her core. And so much destruction wrought in the name of one man's legacy.

A Legacy.

A lump formed in Elizabeth's throat. She tried to gulp it down. Sometimes, when Raymond Reddington looked at her, she got the eerie feeling that in some twisted way, that's exactly how he perceived her.

AN- Thanks for the follows and reviews, it's really encouraging. I don't have a beta, so this is probably gonna be a little rough, and also I'm likely to get details wrong from time to time too. Anyway hope you enjoy my little take on things, and the characters, constructive criticism is welcome. I have a general idea where this fic is going plot wise, but not much detail set in stone yet, although my main focus will be Elizabeth. Hope you enjoy it. :)