The Ocean Between Us

A/N: So, the final chapter with a final twist! This was my first multi-chapter Blacklist story and I'd like to thank especially my beta inmate23 for her immense help and encouragement!

Also, I would like to give a big shout out to: oO-Winchester-Oo, Michelle My Belle, tinahartley912, Literary Bitca, Maddz2, Lacihenry14, terry1961, PoisonGirl616, Reddington, NeedTheDark, dasha-0391, SomeLikeItHot88, Red03 and Murmeltierchen for their regular reviews and support that helped me keep the flame of this story alive!

If I've omitted anyone, do forgive me, and to be clear, I loved ALL your reviews, favs and alerts! You've all showed me that the TBL fandom is one of the best, bringing together truly welcoming and amazing people:)

So, thanks to all of you for joining me on this journey! I hope you'll enjoy this final chapter and I'll meet you at the bottom :)

Disclaimer: Still have nothing to do with TBL except for obsessing over it;)

Epilogue: All the Light to Guide Us Home

When we don't say things

That were meant to be said

We will never know what we'll be missing here

If there's something we can do

To fulfill our want for nothing

And our need to be rescued alive

We have all the light to guide us home

All the time to heal our wounds

We have all the skill to fix what's broken

And all we ever wanted

I see you, I see you losing yourself

Falling through, the sound of nothingness

The precious moment is come

Time to refill our emptiness

And ignite our souls again

We have all the light to guide us home

All the time to heal our wounds

We have all the skill to fix what's broken

Nothing else is needed

We have all we ever wanted

~ 'All We Ever Wanted', Klas Wahlstedt and Per Blomqvist ~

"We will be ready for departure soon, Miss Keen. If you need anything, please let me know."

"Thank you." Liz gave the flight attendant a tight smile and settled deeper into her seat. She looked out the window – the sun was rising, all blood and fire, over the private hangars and trees in the distance. It reflected her grim mood and thoughts well.

She hadn't slept a wink at night, tossing and turning until she finally resigned herself to sitting on her hotel room's balcony with her eyes fixed at the horizon. Red had said he was setting her free. She didn't feel free. She felt like there were invisible hands tightening around her throat, choking her, squeezing the life out of her.

It was only when she finally stopped fighting and just gave herself up to it, clarity came. She knew what she had to do. She loved Red unconditionally, like she had never loved anyone before, and probably never would. But there was something between them that, if they gave themselves up to it, would burn them both up and leave nothing behind. Red would survive it, he was so strong, but all that would be left of her would be charred ashes. She felt she couldn't give him what he wanted, not without the risk of being consumed herself. And these days, after everything, she had so little of herself to go on. And she didn't want to disappoint Red. She knew she was disappointing him by running away but she thought it was an easier disappointment than he would face if she stayed. And she couldn't bear looking into his eyes a year or two from now and seeing that she was anything less than what he deserved, after all the horrors and pain he had to go through.

"Take-off in five minutes," the pilot announced through the speaker.

Liz leaned her hot forehead against the cool window and closed her eyes, willing the tears burning behind her eyes to go away.

~o~O~o~

"Why did you give her a choice, Raymond? What is wrong with you?" Dembe said, vexed. "You should have swept her off her feet and brought her here."

Red raised an eyebrow at him. "You watch too many old romance movies, my friend."

"And you too few," Dembe muttered sotto voce.

"What was that?"

Dembe just gave him a thunderous look.

"You know, you could always do it yourself," Red suggested innocently. "The feet-sweeping and what not," he added wryly with a wave of his hand.

Dembe ground his teeth. He thought they were done with it but it seemed Raymond just couldn't let go of the old game, couldn't stop hiding behind that character. It was a defense mechanism, Dembe knew well, but he had no patience for it now. "Stop it, Raymond."

"Someone's grumpy today," Red commented breezily. Dembe shot him a third-degree stare and jumped out of the yacht's cockipt, deftly walking away to the prow where he started to coil ropes furiously.

It was maybe the second or third time in their entire acquaintance that Red saw Dembe this angry with him, and so vocal about it. All of those times Dembe had ended up not speaking to him for a month so this had to be nipped in the bud. With a deep sigh, Red came up to his friend and put a hand over one of his to stop his angry work.

"You'll tangle them," he remarked softly and bit the inside of his cheek in frustration when Dembe wouldn't look at him. "Why are you so angry about this, Dembe?"

Then he finally did look up, his expression a mask of barely contained disappointment. "Because you two, you have something special, Raymond," he explained, letting the rope he was holding drop at his feet onto the deck. "Something that only few of us ever get to experience. Something so unique and rare that most people stopped believing it even exists. But I believe it does. You- You are so close. And you're throwing it away."

The corner of Red's eye twitched, but he said nothing. He looked down at his hands. "There are two parties to this, Dembe," he replied after a moment, his voice quiet, low and somber. "She's not here. She made her choice."

"And can you tell me, with full certainty and no doubt whatsoever, that you have done everything humanly possible, to make it work? To make her stay?" Dembe asked. "Can you tell me that you will look back on this day in five or ten years and feel no regret or sorrow? Can you tell me that you are fine?"

Red took a breath, a curt intake as sharp as the sound of breaking ice. "In five or ten years I might be."

And with that he turned around and went to the aft, where he sat heavily on one of the benches. In his heart of hearts he knew she wouldn't come. Sometimes love just wasn't enough. He knew that better than anyone else. Contrary to what Dembe might think, in real life, endings, if they happened at all, were messy, and love wasn't always rewarded or punished. Sometimes it just faded away into the background, part of the great clamoring mass of unanswered questions that eventually you just had to learn to live with if you wanted to grow up. He had grown up a long time ago.

Suddenly Dembe's hand dangled in front of him. "Car keys," he stated simply.

Apparently Dembe hadn't.

~o~O~o~

Red watched the tail lights of his jet disappear on the horizon. He could call them back but he didn't want to. That was it. He was feeling enough of a fool as it was for coming here in the first place. He would have a long talk with Dembe about his silly delusions and ideas, and also about his future movie and book choices. With that in mind, he went back to the black bulking car with black windows that Dembe had rented and sat himself in the driver's seat. He put they key in the ignition but his hand fell listlessly onto his tigh before he turned it. He had no idea how long he sat there just staring ahead with unseeing eyes when he heard the door on the passenger's side open and close.

"Mind giving me a ride?"

Red slowly turned his head and simply stared. Liz gave him a small, shy smile, her eyes incredibly bright and lucid.

"You- didn't go," he finally got out, his voice floundering as his brain simply did not compute what his eyes presented to him. Lizzie. Here. Now.

"No."

"The jet-"

"I sent it to Samoa for my things. I hope you don't mind."

At that point Red wouldn't mind if she sent it to the outer space.

The silence between them stretched and evolved into something almost palpable, choking their words and blurring their vision. Although that was probably the tears.

"You came," Liz was the first to break the stilness between them. She raised her eyes to meet his, clasping her hands together to stop them from shivering.

He nodded slowly. He had to look away from her because he wasn't able to think straight when she was looking at him with so much emotion and promise.

"Yesterday, for the first time, I lied to you," he confessed. "I'm not setting you free. I- can't do that. You…you are everything to me, Lizzie," he continued slowly over the knot in his throat. "When we first met you said the I didn't keep any tight bonds, that my best friends were strangers. That I had nothing in my life that was truly important to me. You were quite right," he admitted with a rueful smile. "Except for you. You knew straight away that I needed you. And it did indeed scare me. It had scared me for a long time. Now, however, being without you is what scares me senseless."

She blinked, and swallowed tightly. "That's- that's my fear as well."

He searched her face for a moment with steady eyes. "But you wanted to go."

At that Liz dropped her head and turned her gaze towards to the side, looking out the windshield.

"I'm not that girl you met four years ago anymore, Red," she finally said, her voice tight. "I'm not the wholesome, bright-eyed young FBI agent you started the blacklist with. I'm damaged goods now, Red, and just a shadow of that person, with no family, no job, no one. I'm a disappointment to myself. And you," she turned towards him, the backs of her eyes burning. She knew she was close to tears. "-you deserve so much more."

Red shook his head, regarding her with suspiciously bright eyes. She could tell he was nerving himself up for something, he had that look about him, contained but kinetic.

"Lizzie, true, you are not that person anymore," he agreed and she felt the sad resignation overwhelm her at his words. "Lizzie, every expectation I ever had about you, every notion, you've surpassed them all a hundred times. How can you not see that?" he asked incredulously. "You're so much richer and wiser with the knowledge that only comes through all that you've been through, all that you've experienced. But it doesn't make you less, it makes you more," he expostulated, his voice rising. "You are not damaged, Lizzie. Only now are you whole and entire – loyal and strong and honest and stupidly, amazingly stubborn and beautiful as you are, my love. And if there's someone undeserving here, it's me. I'm the one who's merely shadows. The ghost of old lies held together by good intentions and hope."

"And love," Liz added softly.

She swallowed, finally seeing in his eyes what had escaped her all this time. They were the same. Broken, shipwrecked ghosts wading blindly in the debris of their lives, that had somehow found a way to each other. And together, they had the skill to fix what was broken, to refill the emptiness. Together, they had all the light to guide them safely home. Because, as terrible a cliché as it was, they were each other's home.

Smiling, she reached out and touched his cropped hair, very gently, with her scarred right hand, letting her knuckles brush his cheekbones, stroking her hand down the length of his sideburn and cheek to touch his throat over the little round scar. Red felt the pulse jump in his throat, and he knew she could feel it as well.

"And love," he echoed. He put his hand over hers and brought it to his lips, placing a soft kiss on the delicate skin of her palm.

"We are so worth each other." She let out a teary laugh, feeling her heart swell and overflow with affection for him, leaning into him like a plant to the sun. "Can we just simply agree that we are both damaged and undeserving? And we can go from there? And if you-"

She broke off, because he was looking back at her, his eyes so intent that it almost tok her breath away. His fingers touched her then, hands cupping her face as he bent to kiss her – a kiss that started out gentle and quickly flared into a near-ferocity that left her mouth feeling bruised. Her nerves sang as he kissed her cheek, her jawline, her throat. She pulled at his tie, the buttons of his shirt, snapping some of them off in her impatience and haste to get it over his head, to feel his skin against hers. The scars on his shoulders coming up all the way from his back gleamed like silver fingerprints. She kissed them, and heard him laugh, say something she couldn't quite hear, and then his arms went around her, lifting her up, and moving her to the back seat. She realized the car must have auto-tinting glasses and he must have pushed the darkening button because the space around them went dark and there was only the faint, changeable illumination of the sunlight coming through the roof.

~o~O~o~

When they had both emerged from the car back at the marina, looking somewhat disheveled, Dembe couldn't help the wry amused look he gave Liz. Her cheeks were bright red when he caught her gaze. "It was really hot in the car," she said, stalking past him onto the yacht. "I think the AC might have broken down."

Red had just smiled at him, with that bright rare smile that lit up his whole face, and patted him on the shoulder. He looked lighter and happier than Dembe had ever seen him. "Thank you. We're setting sails, my friend."

Now they were far away from the shore, and Dembe was at the helm steering them into far away unknown waters. He took a deep lungful of ocean breeze. He couldn't help the satisfied smile creasing his lips as he watched the two of them on the prow. Framed against the sun setting on the horizon, their clearly outlined silhouettes seemed to soften and reform as they clung together, two separate shadows melding into one.

Dembe let out a short laugh. He didn't know if he would ever be so lucky as to find such life-altering, ever-lasting love that spanned continents and years like Raymond and Elisabeth shared, but at least now he was sure it really existed.

THE END

So, I hope this ending made up for all the angstier/darker parts! I would immensely appreciate if you let me know how you liked it in a final review.

Also, I'm working on a new TBL story, it should be out soon so if you want to stay in the loop, put me in your author alerts:)