AN: OK, I absolutely without a doubt fully intended Chapter 5 to be the last chapter. Even when it hit upwards of 4000 words it was *going* to be the last chapter, darn it, because of reasons. Especially because, unlike with past chapters, I just never managed to hit a good point to split it. Until tonight. Sooooo... instead of an unusually long chapter, you get a shorter one faster and a final one that should follow in a couple days barring unforeseen circumstances. I hope you enjoy and that it'll be worth the wait in the end.
The next day at work was a nightmare, but not in the traditional 'whatever can go wrong, will go wrong' way Liz had come to expect since her first day at the Post Office. In fact, the exact opposite seemed to be true. Everything went just about as well as could be expected—the intel from Red's contact checked out, it looked like they'd be able to close in on the Blacklister by the end of the week, and it all happened with only the barest modicum of snark from Red aimed at the team.
The fact that not being able to drag herself away from her desk for lunch was objectively the worst part of her day did little to calm her nerves. Having things run so smoothly set her teeth on edge. She couldn't shake the unsettled feeling in her gut that her good fortune wouldn't last much longer.
Meera poked her head into Liz's office right as Liz was finally getting ready to leave.
"Liz, do you have a minute?"
Liz froze in the middle of putting on her coat with an arm stuck halfway in one of the sleeves. "I was just going to go grab some lunch," she said, trying not to sound as whiny or frustrated as she felt. She'd been trying to escape the office for at least an hour and her hunger was starting to wear on her. She slid her arm the rest of the way into her sleeve and fiddled with her collar self-consciously.
Pasting on a smile, she asked, "What do you need?"
"You meeting Reddington?"
Liz frowned at the non sequitur and the nonchalant tone of Meera's voice. Apprehension settled into her stomach, making her feel queasy.
"For lunch? No."
Meera nodded, stepping further into the office and shutting the door behind her.
"This won't take long."
Meera's actions belied her words; seconds ticked by while she watched Liz, her head tilted to the side like she was sizing her up. She'd been looking at her funny since the morning before and it was starting to make Liz uncomfortable.
"Aram made an interesting observation while monitoring Reddington's chip last night," Meera said at last. She didn't elaborate, just waited to see how Liz would respond.
Liz's stomach churned; she knew anything she said would only incriminate herself. It would be as little use denying Red's location as it would be to explain it. There was no explanation, at least not one Meera would believe, and the last thing Liz needed was to give anyone a reason to start watching her and Red more closely.
She lifted her chin and braced herself for the worst. "And?"
"You have no reason to be jealous of Red, hmm?" Meera eyed Liz appraisingly. "It's funny, I wouldn't have taken you for the aggressive type, but then again I missed out on the pen incident… He liked that, didn't he?"
Liz felt her face heat. Knowing him, he probably had.
"Look," Meera said after watching Liz squirm for a while longer, "it's my job to monitor Reddington, not you. Whatever you do when you're off the clock is not my business. Up to and including him. But Aram and I aren't the only ones who keep track of that chip and I guarantee no one else will be quite so laissez-faire about whatever it is between you and Reddington. Aram came to me with this because he knew I would be discreet about it. I'd like the same courtesy in return."
"Of course. I understand."
Liz picked at a half-eaten bag of trail mix from the vending machine while she waited impatiently for Red to wrap up his meeting with Cooper. It was all well and good they'd insisted on speaking with each other in private. She wasn't so sure she could contain her nervous energy or disguise her irritation at having been found out, even if Cooper still had no idea. The more she could avoid him, the better—at least until she and Red worked out what to do about their situation.
She was off in an instant when she saw Red descending from Cooper's office. Before he could say more than "Hello, Lizzy", she grabbed him by the elbow and started dragging him toward the elevator.
"We need to talk."
"Uh oh. Who do they think I killed this time?" he asked, smirking at the hand on his arm. She didn't normally manhandle him at the Post Office and he seemed to be enjoying it entirely too much.
The door slid shut with a clang and he turned to loom over her, stepping even further into her personal space with a leer.
"To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?" he asked, his voice pitched in a low, gravelly purr, and it took all of her willpower not to close the rest of the distance between them.
"Your goddamn tracking chip, that's what," she said sotto voce, berating herself mentally for even considering rising to his bait. They could be under surveillance even now, for God's sake.
He flinched almost imperceptibly away from her and she saw a flicker of unease in his eyes. Glancing quickly around the elevator, he reached up to remove her hand, giving it a subtle, apologetic squeeze before he let go and turned away. He slid his sunglasses on and waited at a much less conspicuous distance for the elevator to stop.
"Skipping lunch is never a good idea, Lizzy. Low blood sugar makes you irritable," he said, a casual hand at the small of her back ushering her out of the elevator. She started down the outdoor staircase at a good clip, forcing him to either raise his voice or speed up to keep up with her. He chose the former.
"If I could put in a suggestion," he called after her, "there's a little hole-in-the-wall bakery a few blocks from here, serves the most mouthwatering spinach and feta croissants. They usually run out long before noon, but if you say I sent you, I'm sure they'll manage to scrounge one up for you."
"I'll think about it," she called back, not even breaking her stride to offer him a glance over her shoulder to confirm she'd understood him.
She reached her car and, beyond locking the doors, she did nothing to try leave, just sat there with her forehead against the wheel, wondering why she seemed fated to lead such a complicated life. She couldn't even have a proper lunch break anymore without all this cloak-and-dagger crap. No, she had to kill time to put some distance between her secret lover and herself so it wouldn't look like they were heading to the same place. She had half a mind to leave Red hanging, but that wouldn't solve anything at all.
The bakery was just as small and hidden away as she expected it to be, completely unremarkable from the outside and so easy to miss, it took her three trips around the block before she spotted it. By the time she walked in, Red had two steaming mugs of coffee and two croissants on a tray in front of him on the counter and he was talking the ear off the boy behind the cash register. When he noticed her, he waved her over to the closest table and bid the boy goodbye. She sat before he had a chance to set the tray down and pull her chair out for her.
Her stomach growled audibly. The entire bakery smelled divine, sweet and savory baked goods alike, and her mouth watered while he set the plates and mugs on the table in front of her. She'd already made a good deal of headway on her croissant when he came back from returning the tray.
He took a bite of his own croissant, chewing thoughtfully as he watched her nearly inhale her food.
"I'm going to assume because we're here and not currently being interrogated by Cooper's flunkies that whoever noticed my whereabouts last night was open to being persuaded to keep silent."
She nodded, her mouth too full to even attempt to answer him verbally. He slid the rest of his croissant across the table to her and took a long sip from his coffee.
"I'd put my money on Agent Malik."
"And Aram," she said, finally coming up for air. "We were lucky this time, but we can't be reckless like that anymore."
"Says the woman who frogmarched me across the Post Office not half an hour ago. What's the matter, can't keep your hands off me in public?"
"Don't look so pleased with yourself. You've already established that you have no regard for my personal space, but if I start acting like that, they're bound to notice. This can't happen again. Meera suspected even before she had evidence from the tracking chip. We can't risk your whole list over this."
"My list is a means to an end, Lizzy. If I decide—"
"Red. You can't pretend you don't care about compromising your plan, whatever it is. It's more important to you than the two of us."
He blinked, taken aback, the corners of his lips turned down in a hint of a frown.
"You don't know that," he said quietly. "Priorities change."
"But yours haven't."
"They have. They've become… complicated."
"As if they weren't already."
"Not like they are now," he said, his frown deepening. He was worried, all of his strange nervous tics out in full force. She could almost see the thoughts whizzing around behind his eyes as he searched for a way to persuade her not to call the whole thing off. She had no intention of doing so, and as nice as it was in theory to see him squirm for once, in practice it was much less satisfying.
"I told you, I expected you would work with me, that your curiosity or perhaps your sense of duty would convince you our work was worth the trouble it would bring. I didn't expect this," he said, reaching for her hand across the table. "Not in a thousand years."
He seemed mollified when she didn't pull her hand away, even more so when she turned it over so she could grasp him back.
"You're gonna have to find a way to keep me in the loop on your choice of hideaways. If this is going to work, I'm going to have to come to you," she said, taking a purposely nonchalant sip of coffee.
A slow, relieved smile spread across his face and he relaxed back into his chair. He shook his head, returning her gaze over the top of her mug, looking for all the world as if he couldn't believe his luck.
"You know, it's a shame I haven't established a habit of kissing you passionately in public."
"We still have to get through the rest of the day, you ass. Don't put ideas in my head."
"Can I interest you in some dessert?" He chuckled when she narrowed her eyes at him. "Dessert dessert, Lizzy," he said, gesturing over his shoulder at the display case. "I am capable of going more than a sentence without making an innuendo."
Red's latest place was off the beaten path to say the least. Liz's GPS tried to murder her twice by telling her to turn onto roads that didn't exist; she made a mental note to make sure to update its maps at her first opportunity. She found herself on his doorstep at quarter to twelve that night, beyond frazzled and in need of a good, long shower.
Dembe greeted her at the door with a nod and a smile and moved aside without hesitation, taking her overnight bag from her and showing her in.
What a difference a few days make, she thought, a wry smile on her face as she followed the quiet man up the stairs.
"Lizzy!" Red stood in the doorway of what she assumed was his bedroom, with reading glasses perched low on his nose and a book in his hand with a finger marking his place. He wore pajama bottoms and a t-shirt like he had in his hotel room; her breath caught in her throat as she took him in from head to toe and back again. He looked pleased when she finally reached his eyes. "I wasn't sure you were going to make it tonight after all."
"To be honest, neither was I." She approached him with an odd sort of caution to match the edginess she'd felt all day. She ran her hand up to cup his cheek, rubbing at the faint traces of stubble along his jaw. He hadn't given her any reason to feel the need to walk on eggshells around him, but she could feel energy coiled inside him as if he was trying to avoid spooking her. She pressed a kiss just below his ear and whispered, "Were you worried or were you nervous?"
He let out a breath and with it some of the tension in his posture seemed to fade away; his hand came up to rest gently at her hip.
"Both," he said, just as quietly. "But mostly worried. This isn't an easy place to find even in broad daylight. I would have sent Dembe for you, but I didn't think you'd appreciate the presumption."
"The shower better be as nice as the last one."
"Would you expect any less?" He caught her hand as she moved past him into the room. "Tomorrow will be easier," he said, tracing her scar with his thumb. "I'm glad you came."
"So am I."