When Red led Lizzy out of his shipping container sanctuary to show her Polaris, he did so without any expectations. He had wanted to reassure her there was someone in the world who still knew who she really was, still saw her as decent and good and not at all monstrous. In his own experience, a little reassurance could go a long way, especially when your life was spinning out of your control.

They'd both been so melancholy, so lonesome on that breezy, moonlit night, and the stars had been so beautiful. It was the perfect atmosphere for sharing good pie, good brandy, private thoughts, and long dead hopes and dreams.

A heady rush of exhilaration filled Red even as he struggled and stumbled around to find the right words to say what he wanted to say to Lizzy, and he knew he probably ended up overshooting his simple goal by quite a bit. Perhaps overwhelmingly so, no matter how true his admission was. He was so nervous about her reaction that he couldn't even look at her when he told her how he felt and he certainly couldn't look at her afterwards, for fear of what he would see in her eyes.

Confusion he would've understood, he was used to offense, and wariness, too. Pity, however… If Red had found pity in Lizzy's eyes that night, it might've broken his heart. He couldn't stand the idea that she might think of him as a foolish old man pining after something he could never have; the fear taunted him from the deep recesses of his own mind often enough without her confirmation of it.

Despite his concerns, Lizzy hadn't seemed at all put off by what he said. The salty sea air charged the atmosphere between them, changed it so quickly and fluidly, Red couldn't pinpoint the exact moment of the shift no matter how hard he tried. And try he did, studying her sleeping silhouette next to him late at night for weeks to come, wondering what the tipping point must have been.

Because when he finally looked down from the starry sky, Lizzy had taken him by surprise with a kiss; he was powerless to do anything but return it, his mind wiped clean by the feeling of her lips on his.

In that moment, Red had been at a complete loss as to what to do with himself—he truly never expected to find himself in her arms quite that way. Fortunately, Lizzy had the presence of mind to guide them back towards the sofa before his knees began to buckle. He sat reflexively as soon as his calves hit the edge of the cushions and she followed him down, sitting with one leg tucked beneath her so she could face him and continue their kiss.

Her restless hands moved ceaselessly over his shoulders, down his arms, up his neck—everywhere and nowhere, all at once. His hands rested at her waist, where her light blouse thankfully did little to dampen the grounding warmth of her skin.

Lizzy was kissing him. Thoroughly, passionately kissing him. He needed all the reminders he could grasp hold of to keep him in the moment and prove that it was really happening. Not even his wildest dreams could hold a candle to this sudden new reality.

Red had no idea how much time passed before she pulled back—far enough only to speak, to examine his face. He must have looked quite kiss-drunk when she did, though. Concern furrowed her brow, pulled down at the corners of her mouth.

"Are you OK?" she asked, still slightly breathless. "I don't think we've had that much brandy, but if—"

"Lizzy," he interrupted, his serious tone belied by the giddy grin tugging at his lips. He caught hold of her fidgety hands and rubbed his thumbs over the backs of them. "Relax. It's not the brandy."

"It's not?"

"No, it's not." On impulse, he brought one of her hands to his mouth and brushed a kiss against it. Her cheeks dimpled and warmed, the flush spreading down her neck to disappear under her blouse.

"No one's ever reacted like that when I've kissed them before," she said, almost bashful in her incredulity.

"No? Is it a good thing or a bad thing that I did?"

"It's a good thing." She leaned in then, her lips almost touching his when she spoke. "I didn't think it was really possible to make a man go weak in the knees."

"Oh, believe me, it's quite possible," he said, sliding a gentle hand up to cradle the back of her neck, and closed the distance between them again. He angled his head and parted his lips in an invitation to deepen the kiss, which she did without any hesitation. His free hand settled on her thigh; he felt her muscles tensing and releasing under his fingers, still restless.

Soon, she broke the kiss and knelt up on the cushion, braced herself with a hand on his shoulder. "Hang on…" she said, "can I… just…"

"Yeah, closer—closer's fine," he said, feeling a little lightheaded as she twisted her body, pressing him back into the couch so she could slide herself onto his lap; he helped guide her to sit astride him comfortably, steadying her with his hands. Steadying himself.

"Like this?"

"Mmm," he murmured, and then they were kissing again.

Sensations filtered through Red's mind, one at a time. The weight of Lizzy's body against him, warm and enticing. The tingling pressure of her fingernails tracing patterns in the short-cropped hair on the back of his head. The humidity of her breath as she blazed a trail of open-mouthed kisses up his jawline to his ear, where she took his earlobe between her teeth and tugged at it gently, adding more and more pressure to match the noises of approval rumbling through his chest.

He felt himself growing hard beneath her and she felt it, too, pressed as tightly together as they were; she inhaled sharply at his ear and pulled back to lock eyes with him. Her heated gaze burned a path down his nerve endings to the base of his spine, moving his hips up of their own volition. Her eyes widened, pupils growing impossibly large and dilated. Very deliberately, she ground her hips against him in return, drawing a groan out of them both.

The record stopped playing. The sudden silence only served to emphasize the volume of their ragged breathing and the wind whipping past the big steel doors they had left open in their haste.

Red cleared his throat. "I should… I should shut those."

"Yeah. That's a good idea." They disentangled themselves unhurriedly; carefully, and with obvious reluctance, Lizzy eased herself off his lap.

The sound of rushing blood filled Red's ears as he stood, and the weight of Lizzy's gaze felt heavy on his back. He was hyper-aware of how unsteady he was on his feet, how his passion-fogged brain had slowed down to a crawl. It was a wonder he even managed to punch the right code in on the keypad; his fingers moved by sheer muscle memory alone. By the time he reached the record player, even that abandoned him completely, leaving him stranded in front of the modest collection of records without a single conscious thought to help him pick a new one to play.

"Raymond," Lizzy said, her voice breaking through the haze; a shiver ran through Red's entire body at the sound of it.

Good Lord, his first name on her lips…

He thought he would be forever relegated to 'Reddington' in her eyes, maybe 'Red' if he was lucky, with the occasional derisive 'Raymond Reddington' thrown in when they were in front of his peers while she pretended to be someone else—a wronged acquaintance, a disgruntled associate, a spurned lover. He never thought he'd live to see the day she'd call him Raymond when they were alone, in a quiet, intimate tone that spoke of familiarity and affection.

He turned, half afraid that everything would evaporate before his eyes, a heat mirage of wild fantasy.

But it didn't. There she was, still stretched out on the sofa, still looking at him with an intensity that made his heart skip a beat.

"Forget about the music," she said; he nodded.

Slowly, Red crossed the small space and came to a stop at Lizzy's feet. He toyed with his vest, contemplating whether or not he should remove it. Judging by her expression and the way she bit her bottom lip, she very much thought that he should. Her mouth parted slightly while she tracked his fingers slipping each button from its hole; she moistened her lips with her tongue and air caught in his chest under the fabric.

Red shrugged out of the vest, folded it neatly, and set it on the coffee table. He knelt on the edge of the sofa, then painstakingly crawled his way over Lizzy until their faces were aligned, careful to avoid making her feel trapped or boxed in; he lowered himself into the cradle of her legs, bracing his weight on his forearms. They lay there in the quiet for a few long moments simply watching each other, the subtle trembling of her body matching his own.

They'd been this close to each other before, technically. Closer, even. More than once, he'd held her in his arms, whispered soothing words and pressed kisses in her hair, all in comfort. There was comfort in this, too, more so than he would've expected given how fiercely they'd come together. But comfort wasn't all it was. There was exploration in this closeness, a desire to discover new and untold secrets.

The contrast between this and their previous encounters, it… it shook him to his core. It was as if all the untapped potential that always sizzled just below the surface between them had finally been set free, igniting a slow-burning ember that could hit flashpoint at any moment.

Lizzy was the first to break their standstill when she reached out a shaky hand and smoothed it up his shirt-covered chest, and across his shoulder. Her gaze alone was a caress as it followed her inquisitive fingers, searching and seeking and studying. Her touch ghosted over the tattoo on his right arm through the thin material of his dress shirt. She could probably see it, he thought, as she bit down on her lip again.

Red watched with wonder as she turned her attention to his buttons and began to undo them.

One button, two buttons…

By the third, the reality of their situation truly began to set in—Lizzy was undressing him. This was actually going to happen.

Four buttons…

There would be no holding back. Not that night.

Five, six…

She pushed the shirt off his shoulders, uncovering the thick, damaged skin on his back without so much as a flinch. 'I remember everything,' she had said, not so long ago. Did she remember that? Did it matter? Did anything matter other than her unabashed, unhesitating touch on his bare skin?

Lizzy stretched to leave lingering kisses on Red's chest, his collarbone, the hollow of his throat. His breathing hitched when she tasted him tentatively, then dragged her teeth along his skin.

"You know, I'm feeling a little overdressed here," she said, her voice pitched low and warm in her arousal. Red's answering chuckle died in his throat as she bit down gently on his earlobe once again. When he made no move for her clothing, she cupped a hand against his cheek to turn his head and pressed an amused kiss to his lips.

"That's your cue," she whispered.

"I realize that," he said, stalling for time, scrabbling around for some semblance of his usual verbosity. "Haven't you ever tried to savor the sweet sensation of anticipation? Like the exquisite excitement of unwrapping a gift on Christmas morning—carefully sliding your fingers under the seam to unstick the tape and slowly peeling back the paper, wondering all the while what secrets might be in store just underneath…"

Lizzy shook her head. "Not really. I was more the type to tear the paper to shreds so I could get at the present as quickly as possible." As she spoke, she snaked her hands down between their bodies to undo the fastenings on his pants; she slipped her hands under his waistband and squeezed his ass, the material of his boxers gripped tightly in her fingers.

"Delayed gratification isn't really my strong suit," she concluded, and rocked her hips up at the same time as she pulled Red down against her; he dropped his head to the crook of her neck, sucking in a breath through his teeth.

"Good God, Lizzy," he said, his voice slightly muffled by her skin. "I hope you realize this is coming perilously close to ending before it begins."

"And I hope you realize all this is gonna go to my head," she said; there was a peculiar edge to her tone that tugged at Red's curiosity. He pulled back to look at her.

"What do you mean?"

Lizzy shied away from his questioning gaze and focused on a point somewhere over his shoulder. "The way you're acting tonight, you'd think I was one of those women you're always waxing nostalgic about. 'Lizzy, I'd love you to meet my best game theorist, Dr. Something-or-Other. Did you know she won Miss Universe in 1993?'"

"It was 1991. And it wasn't Miss Universe, it was—"

"Oh, come on," she said, still keeping her eyes averted, "don't play dumb. You know what I'm talking about."

"I'm not playing dumb." She scoffed. "I'm not. Elizabeth. Please look at me," he coaxed; grudgingly, she lowered her head, but her gaze settled on his lips rather than his eyes. Oh, well. Close enough.

"I've been… fortunate enough to have spent time with a number of beautiful, fascinating women in my life, yes. But that doesn't make you any less beautiful or fascinating."

"Right, sure. And I guess you probably had to give all of them advice about which color was flattering for their skin tone, too."

He shrugged. "So color analysis isn't one of your strengths."

"And neither is cooking. Or anger management. Or impulse control."

"Lizzy…" Red pushed himself back and moved to sit at her feet. "I understand how destructive being on the run can be to your sense of self, but you've never really given me the impression that you felt… inadequate… around other women in my life before. Jealous, maybe, but… Where is this coming from all of a sudden?"

Lizzy sat up as well and shifted along the couch towards him, stopping only when she nearly pressed against his side. Red was relieved—whatever insecurities she might have, she didn't feel the need to put any distance between them. Still, she rubbed at the scar on her wrist as she sat there, staring off at middle distance; he put a cautious hand on her back to rub between her shoulder blades and she rested her head against his chest with a sigh.

Her hair was soft and ticklish against his skin. He swallowed hard.

"Maybe I don't feel inadequate, maybe that's the wrong word for it," she answered, after a while. "But with everything that's happened the past couple years, it's hard to take anything at face value. I mean, obviously you're attracted to me…"

Red gave an amused huff of a laugh. "What gave that away?" he asked, making a sweeping gesture at his own disheveled appearance—shirtless, trousers gaping, with a hard-on that was still doing its damnedest to escape his boxer shorts.

"See, you joke about it, but I can never tell where I really stand with anybody anymore. I thought I could, but apparently I can't even trust my own instincts." She shook her head. "You were right when you said everything I'd come to believe about myself was a lie. God, everything—everything—even my name.

"And I'm being hunted because of it, by the 'good guys', people I'm supposed to be able to trust—not to mention the bad guys. All of it because of some accident of birth. Everyone's formed this… skewed image of me. They're sure they know me because of who my parents were or because of your interest in me or the things I've done, without making any effort to learn who I really am. I mean, hell, when was the last time anyone was interested in me just because of… well… me?"

"I am."

Lizzy glanced up at him through her eyelashes. "Maybe you are. But even you wouldn't be here if not for my parents."

"That might've technically been true in the beginning, but—"

"Boy, you really don't sugarcoat things, do you?"

Red's brows furrowed. "Whatever anyone else might try to tell you, however real it might feel, I don't care about you just because of your mother or your father or The Fulcrum or any other insignificant thing. I promise you that.

"It's been a very long time since my interest in you has had anything to do with anything other than you. Everything else—as complicated as it might be—is an afterthought now. If it's even that. Sometimes I wish…" He stopped himself, afraid of going too far in the heat of the moment, but he could tell he piqued Lizzy's curiosity.

"Sometimes you wish what?"

He shook his head. "It doesn't matter."

"Please. It matters to you, otherwise you wouldn't have said anything."

Red studied her face, dear to him now in ways he never could have guessed as he watched her walk towards him with a determination to spite her nerves that first day in FBI custody. He'd been infatuated with an idea that day, but she'd quickly made herself very real indeed, as swiftly as a pen could puncture an artery.

"You and I," he said, "we've done the best we can with the hands we've been dealt. We've adjusted. We've made do. You with your expectations of what your career would be, your hopes for a home and a family and your… husband. Me with my… disillusionment with the people I once pledged my loyalty to and the loss of any semblance of a normal life.

"I don't often wish I could have it again—a family, a home. I'm pragmatic enough to realize how unlikely it is in the life that I lead; I came to terms with that a long time ago. The way I see it, it's too little too late for me. But sometimes… when I'm with you…"

"You see your way home," she said, sounding so uncertain, it made his heart ache.

"Yeah."

"I'm not sure I know what that means."

Dare he say it plain? Dare he share his fanciful daydream? Once she knew, she'd know forever. The knowledge would always be there, floating in the back of her mind, coloring their interactions from that point on.

Red cleared his throat. The tightness in his chest made it almost impossible to speak, but still he tried. "The only time I ever wish I could have another chance at that kind of life is when I'm with you."

"Oh. That's a… That's a pretty bold statement to make," she said, and Red couldn't read her expression properly to save his life.

"If I've made you uncomfortable…" He retrieved his arm and attempted to put some space between them. She laid her palm on his thigh, stopping him.

"Geez, Red, no. I had my hands down your pants a few minutes ago—of course you don't make me uncomfortable. It's just…" She ducked her head, allowing the curtain of her hair to fall and obscure her face. "If you go around saying things like that, it's gonna make me think…" She trailed off and shook her head with a shrug.

"Think what?"

She glanced up at him before looking away again quickly, blinking to clear her watery eyes. "Things."

He huffed a laugh at her vagueness. Throw in a couple obscure anecdotes and she could give him a run for his money. "Good things or bad things?"

"Good things," she answered. "Things I'm not sure I can let myself believe. I want to, don't get me wrong. But that hasn't worked out too well for me so far."

"Good things will happen for you, Elizabeth. No matter how absurd it seems right now."

Reaching out, Red gently brushed Lizzy's hair back from her face and tucked it behind her ear. Her eyes slid shut briefly as she leaned into his touch. He waited until her eyelids fluttered open again before he leaned forward, tentative and cautious, giving her ample time to pull away; instead, she met him in the middle, tipped her head up and sought his lips blindly.

Just when Red was beginning to lose himself once again in her mouth, Lizzy ran her hand down the center of his bare chest and worked it inside his boxers; he growled low in his throat when she wrapped her fingers around his length.

He broke the kiss to nuzzle her breasts through her thin, gauzy blouse, reveling in the noises she made and the feeling of her nipples tightening under the onslaught of his lips and tongue. Before long, she pushed him back into the couch cushions and pulled her top off over her head.

Red's mind stuttered to a stop as he took in her naked chest, only to be jump-started by her sliding her pants down her legs. Quickly, he followed suit, and then followed her as she lay back on the sofa.

Linking her arms around the back of his neck, she looked up to meet his eyes and nodded. He reached down to position himself; they both gasped as he pressed inside her, her slickness enveloping him in a stretching, squeezing heat. They kissed again, deeply, slowly, as they moved with each other even more slowly, basking in the sensations they stirred in one another.

Despite their best efforts to prolong the experience, they soon found themselves on the edge, forced to pull away from each other in an improvised precaution lest they have any surprises in the future. It was hasty and fallible, but it was all that they had, caught up in the moment out at sea under the starlit sky.

Only a few hours later, Red woke to a renewed sense of purpose and the feeling of Lizzy's naked breasts pressed against his back, blunted by the scar tissue there.