The Ocean Between Us

A/N: I don't have the words to express how touched I am by each review and alert. Please just know that your words mean a lot. Really. Now you go on to your reading and I'll meet you at the bottom.

Also, special thank you to the one-and-only inmate23, and also a shout-out to two amazing fellow Blacklist writers, Literary Bitca and Michelle My Belle!

Disclaimer: Still not mine, though not for a lack of trying...;)

Chapter 8

Liz opened her heavy eyelids tentatively but closed them quickly against the onslaught of light that assaulted her eyes. She took a deep, steadying breath and tried again, this time more slowly. Better. She took a couple more calming breaths, waiting for the world to swirl into place. When it finally did, she took a look around her surroundings. No windows, no furniture save a dirty metal table in the corner, a solid metal door on the wall opposite her and a lonely dirty light bulb hanging dejectedly from the ceiling.

She tried to shift her weight on the uncomfortable metal chair she was seated in but there was a chain pinned to a metal loop over her head, binding her hands tightly on the sides of her head. Still, when she put one hand up, she could pull the chain through the loop by stretching her other hand, which gave a bigger range and she could almost straighten her hand in front of her. That was how she managed to touch her fingertips to her right temple. She could feel a layer of crusted blood underneath and she winced at the pain radiating through her whole head at the touch.

She remembered the black Humvee coming out of nowhere showering her car with bullets. Her jeep stood no chance. She still managed to stay on the road but when the tank of a car rammed into her side, she lost control of the steering wheel and collided with a nearby lamppost. Thank God by that time her car was considerably slowed down so the force of the impact wasn't as powerful as to kill her, but it still knocked her out. The last thing she recalled was the breath-taking pain of her face crashing against the air bag. She definitely had a concussion and although nothing seemed broken, she was positive at least one of her ankles was at least sprained and a rib or two cracked.

It was painful to breathe and she shivered. She was barefoot, stripped down to her underwear and left to bleed in silence, not even a Band-Aid on her injuries. No concern for her physical state, no respect for her dignity. She knew what Red would do to anyone who treated her like this. What Red was going to do.

At the thought of Red, a brand new sort of pain shot through her. Not a physical one but all the worse for it. For what she had told him, he should just let her rot in here but she knew his care for her was completely unconditional and uncontrollable. He would come, no matter what. More than that, now that her emotions weren't as high, she was starting to understand why Red was so hell-bent on not giving her the answers she wanted. It didn't make her hate it any less, though.

This was how Red survived – by always having something to trade. That was how he got a foot in the door when he showed up on her doorstep, as well. He raised a plethora of questions and lured her with the promise of answers. For a good long while it was why she kept holding on to him, sheer curiosity, not deep feelings. The truth was, Raymond Reddington had scared her. For all his charm and smiles and quirky stories, he was the number four, a legendary criminal and traitor who had eluded capture by some of the most skilled secret agents in the world for more than two decades. She had witnessed first hand on many occasions what he was capable of, and most of it was unconscionable. When she had called him a monster, she really believed it. But that all seemed like such a long time ago. Before she had seen in Red's blacklisters what real monsters looked like and how evil and degenerate a human being could become. Before she had been hurt and betrayed by the man who was supposed to be there for good and for worse, to love her till the end of time.

She head learned and seen so much since then. The world was not black and white. Every monster had a soul and every saint had a shadow. And at some point her monster ceased to be a ruthless, unfeeling criminal and became a broken, damaged man forced into the life of crime by a dark past he hid so skillfully under a mask of charm and bravado.

Once that realization had settled inside her mind and soul, she could no longer simply ignore the depth of his devotion to her, the unwavering faith with which he stood by her side, always there to protect her, no matter what she threw at him. The warmth in his voice when he spoke her name. The way she sometimes caught him looking at her, as if she hung the moon and the stars.

She wasn't by half as skilled an actress as he was an actor and surely he had noticed the change in her attitude. The way she was cold and warm and cold again, even more volatile than usual. How emotionally she reacted to his half-truths and manipulations these days. How could she not, she cared. She cared so much that she was starting to lose control. And the more she tried to fight it, the more powerless she became. That should scare her but it didn't and that scared her. Curiosity and thirst for answers was still there, but it had been pushed away by something deeper. That was why it hurt and affected her so much that he had so little faith in her as to think she would mindlessly swoon back into Tom's arms. That he didn't trust her with his plans and treated her like a little girl sometimes.

However confused and conflicted she was about her feelings, she was completely sure of his and if there was one thing she did know, it was that he would always, always come for her. That gave her strength and breathed a new life into her battered body. It was not a moment too late because the next thing she knew, the heavy metal door was swinging open.

The man who came in was thin and lanky, his hair was spiked like some boy-band pre-madonna, and something about his eyes was very disturbing. He carried a gun in his hand. He eyed her appraisingly, swirling the keys he held in his other hand with a lewd expression. She swallowed. She gave him her best suggestive look, opening her mouth a little and moving her legs apart. It was a risky plan but she had no choice.

She didn't have to wait long for the bait to work. The thug licked his lips, a lecherous smile creeping onto his mouth that made her almost physically sick. He put the keys and his gun away on the metal table and closed in on her, opening his belt. She carefully registered his every movement, strung up like a string and ready for action. The moment he placed his hand on the chair in between her legs, she closed them with all the strength she had, trapping his hand. Taken completely by surprise, he didn't even know what hit him when she head-butted him and managed to grab one end of his open belt as he fell unconscious, winding it around her hand. It took her a couple of tries but she managed to whip the belt around one of the table legs and tug it within her reach. She opened the shackles with the keys and took the gun. The man was coming to but she silenced him with a swift kick to the head.

She locked the door behind her and took a look around. It was silent, eerily so. A waft of fresh air enveloped her and she took the direction it was coming from. She hurt her bare feet on the steel grid that covered the floor and her sprained ankle protested at the strain but she pushed forward. The smell of fresh air was getting more intense, and the cold feel of the gun in her hand grounded her.

She pushed through yet another door and her breath caught, her lungs expanding her cracked ribs painfully. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the dazzling daylight and with a start she looked into the vast space of the ocean surrounding her from all sides, no shore in sight.

She was on a ship, taking her away from home, from safety, from Red, with a wave-breaking speed. Sea foam covered her face with a delicate mist and she took a deep breath. She couldn't swim the ocean back to Washington but she could give Red some more time to find her. She steeled her jaw and took a step back, closing the steel door behind her and disappearing back into the ship's bowels.

~o~O~o~

He sat alone in the darkness, an almost empty tumbler with golden liquid in his hand. His armchair was facing the night, which stretched out its long fingers into the room, enveloping him and filling him with a deep, tired sadness. It was late, the greenery outside turned charcoal and two dimensional, and the grey road under the window melting into the night. The silence after the door had crashed behind her was of that suffocating, devouring kind that sucked out all the light and color from the room. He knew it well. It wasn't the first time she had lashed out like that after all, and he couldn't blame her.

He kept her on her toes, in a state of constant danger and uncertainty, giving her just snippets of information, and it was taking its toll on her. He couldn't tell her the whole truth because he knew he wouldn't be able to bear to see the look of contempt and hatred in her eyes once she knew. He couldn't make himself drive her away like this, cut that hold he still had on her because this way, she at least allowed him to remain a part of her life. Even if it wasn't as an actual person, someone she cared about, but as an asset, source of information. It was still better than not being in her life at all. He had hidden his feelings from her for so long, allowing her to believe she was an obsession, a puppet, a means to an end. That was his strategy.

He had never expected this to happen, though. He was the master of self-control and emotional detachment was his specialty. He couldn't have survived as long as he had otherwise. When he had started this game, carefully constructed his blacklist, he had a clear goal in mind and she was supposed to be just another piece of the puzzle. Of course he expected to grow fond of her, she was his dear friend's daughter after all, but nothing could have prepared him for Hurricane Lizzie. For how quickly and effortlessly she would push her way through all his walls, all his defenses. He couldn't recall when her thinking the worst of him stopped being amusing., and his interest in her had deepened and changed. Pragmatism had given way to passion. From an asset, she became a liability. The greatest vulnerability to a man who had none for twenty years.

He couldn't give her the answers she craved for fear of driving her away but by doing so, he drove her into Tom's arms. The irony wasn't lost on him and he let out a mirthless laugh. He deserved nothing more.

He took another deep swig out of the crystal tumbler in his hand, hoping the alcohol would burn away the bitterness in his mouth and give him the courage for what he had to do next. He had the Fulcrum and he would proceed as planned. He would disappear from Lizzie's life and let her live it as she deserved, with a good honest man at her side and a dozen of laughing blue-eyed children.

There was a soft knock on the door. Dembe had learned a long time ago it was best not to interrupt him after the loud standoffs between him and Lizzie so it had to be something really important. The ice in the already empty tumbler jingled as he moved to put it away. He sat up straighter as his bodyguard approached him and wordlessly handed him a phone.

"Hello, Mr. Reddington," came Tom Connolly's cheerful greeting from the other side.

An unsettling feeling of premonition crept up Red's back. He didn't like the self-satisfied note in the other man's voice.

"Tom," Red said evenly. "To what do I owe this call?" he asked pleasantly, his tone bland. "Really, if you're lonely and need someone to talk to in the evenings, I can recommend a really good therapist."

"I'm afraid it might be Agent Keen who will be in need of a therapist pretty soon," the reply came in clipped tones. Red felt the blood in his veins turn to ice. "If she survives, that is."

"What did you do, Tom?" Red asked after a beat, this time fighting to keep his tone level against the knot forming in his throat.

"I'm just making sure you keep your end of the bargain," the other man replied innocently. "You may want to turn on the news."

Red reached for the remote and swallowed as big headlines of "FBI Agent presumed dead in a car crash" assaulted his eyes. His hand constricted on the phone, his knuckles going white.

"Don't worry, she's not dead," Connolly assured him. "Not yet. As soon as you make good on your promise, she will be returned…more or less unscathed. If not, you'll be looking for parts of her in the sea for the next month."

"You must be so much fun at parties, Tom," Red said caustically. "That was not our deal," he added, a steely edge to his voice.

"You can hardly expect me to just trust a criminal kingpin and traitor, now can you?" he asked scathingly. "So I hope you don't hold this against me, Mr. Reddington. After all, business is business. I'm sure you would have done the same thing in my situation."

Red let out a short humorless laugh. "You can be sure of that."

"I'll be in contact."

Red was out of his armchair and through the door before he even switched off the phone. "Dembe, give me Mr. Hoffinger. We are going to be in need of his services."

As he got into his city car and Dembe started the engine, he looked through the window, chewing on his cheek. The only way to get Lizzie back required involving the last man on earth he wanted within a hundred miles of her, the last person he wanted to know of any connection between her and himself. He had to make a deal with the devil, and the devil would know the instant Red crossed his threshold. But that couldn't be avoided anymore. Right now Lizzie was somewhere out there, held captive, alone and possibly injured at the mercy of some thugs, and that trumped everything else. Getting her back was an absolute priority and once he knew she was safe, he would deal with the rest.

~o~O~o~

This time Liz moved in the opposite direction, heading as far up as possible to get to where she suspected the ship's bridge was. There weren't many guards around, they obviously weren't expecting much resistance from a single unarmed woman locked up in the hangar so it was quite easy for her to make her way through the ship. It would have been even easier if her head wasn't pounding and she had some shoes on but she clenched her teeth and pushed forward.

When she got high enough on the stairs to reach the bridge, she heard voices and huddled behind one of the two massive doors that led up.

"Connolly just called. We may need to proceed to the next phase of the plan," one male voice was saying and Liz took in a surprised breath. Connolly? This couldn't be a coincidence.

"Dave is really quiet," a second voice remarked. "He went to bring her some food and should have been back by now. I'll get one of the guys to check on him."

That was her cue. She had to act now or-

"What do we have here?" came from behind her and a pair of strong hands grabbed her around the waist. She managed to get a well-placed elbow into her attacker's side but it seemed to make no impression on him whatsoever and he continued to squeeze so hard that she felt her already weakened ribs start to give under the pressure. She saw black spots dance in front of her eyes and the gun slipped from her grip.

There were hurried steps coming from the bridge and she made a desperate attempt to get away from her captor but it was already too late.

"What the hell is this! What is she doing here!"

"Jesus, you'll crush her, let her go!" came the command and Liz found herself crumpling to the floor, desperately catching her breath, her ribs and lungs on fire. "Remember our orders. She is not to be harmed. Yet."

"You, don't stand there like this, get her back to the holding room. And this time she won't get away," the other voice said, and she felt a needle being unceremoniously pushed into her right shoulder.

Then she knew no more.

~o~O~o~

"This is a rather unexpected visit, Mr. Reddington," the Director gazed at him over his rimless glasses with mild interest.

Red sat himself comfortably opposite his desk and crossed his legs. "There is a rat trying to dig his way into your nest," he announced without preamble.

"And you're informing me about this because-?"

"Because he's become rather…annoying," Red said with a dissatisfied pout. "And you know what will happen if I get annoyed."

The Director moved uncomfortably in his chair. "Why won't you get rid of him yourself?"

Red's face remained immobile.

"Ah. I heard on the news. Agent Keen. Of course," the other man nodded knowingly, a sly smile passing through his lips. "But tell me, why would I do that? He's obviously causing more trouble for you than he is for us right now. I'm fine with that."

Red drew himself up somewhat, allowing a little tic to flicker in the corner of his mouth. "I am a known agent. You know what you can expect from me. We are locked in a standstill and neither of us can move without the other falling with him. Connolly, on the other hand, is unpredictable. He knows about the Fulcrum and who knows what he'll do next. Are you willing to risk it? How much of a gambler are you?" he asked, tilting his head to the side with a small smile.

"While I do agree with you," the Director admitted, his expression taut. "I'm afraid I will have to call your bluff, Mr. Reddington. Prove to me you have the Fulcrum, then we can talk about any tit-for-tat."

Red gave him a thin smile. "Make sure you have a good look at tomorrow's morning papers," he said and swept away from the room.

"Wait."

~o~O~o~

When Liz opened her eyes, a sense of disorientation more intense than any she had ever experienced washed over her. She felt incredibly light, as if she were floating five feet above the ground. There was no sense of time or space and she felt no pain, just an overwhelming numbness.

The mercenaries were coming in and out every couple of hours now, checking her bounds and injecting her with new doses of the drug. At least as far as she could tell, she was half-conscious for the most of it.

But when the door opened this time, something was off. She blinked, trying to see the man standing completely still in the door, his silhouette outlined by the light coming from the corridor. Suddenly the lights in the cell turned on and she blinked rapidly, trying to get the blurriness away from her vision. She shook her head a little to get the last black spots out of her line of sight and looked at the man again. Her breath caught in her throat.

"Tom?"

tbc.

Another cliffhanger, sort of, I know, but we are slowly drawing to an end so everything will become clear in a matter of several chapters.

I hope you've enjoyed this installment and you know the drill – reviews make smiles!

* When I wrote Liz kicking the slimy thug's a**, I had in mind the scene from the movie 'Lucy' with Scarlett Johansson doing pretty much the same to escape her captors - a really good fight scene that is and I can see Liz pulling it off:)