Set shortly before 2x02 Monarch Douglas Bank. Lizzy comes to realize she can't hide Tom forever.


I.

Elizabeth was, without a doubt, a silly woman.

She was stupidly naïve in ways that mocked her age. The acceptance of her pathetic reality was not a peaceful one. She called herself a fool many times over, almost as if she'd been scolding someone else; a foolish girl, young and immature. Only, there was no girl. Just Elizabeth. It was her fault, believing that what she'd been hiding would remain hers and hers alone.

It didn't, of course. It involved a person, locked away in a rotting ship. Her wretched secret was many things – it was disgusting, wrong and futile. But it was never just hers.

II.

What a hound Reddington was! Sight never betrayed him. Nothing ever escaped him. She was not going to either. It took him some time, but he caught her lying, just once. Then, he simply followed her trail of mistakes. Elizabeth could, in fact, pinpoint the precise moment he realized she'd been hiding something – something big.

"Is there something wrong?" he'd asked one chilly evening as he dropped her off by her dingy motel. He was taking her all in and she felt as though the spacious Mercedes had shrunk in size, just like she had, with her slumped shoulders and rigid, bouncing legs. She'd allowed for her body to be overtaken by her nerves for mere seconds and he was onto her, immediately, with no delay at all. Rationality did not have enough time to kick in, to prevent her from making another rookie mistake.

He knows.

He didn't. But anxiety had won, regardless. His gaze arrived at her face mere seconds before she'd had the chance to relax those eyebrow muscles, as well as her tense jaw, and before she could dispel the alarm in her eyes. Had she been given another two seconds – just two – she would have pulled herself together; she would have been prepared with a comment, something predictably snide and ordinary for their interactions.

Two seconds were too much to ask.

Inside the trap the silly mouse goes.

"Fine. Just tired," she tried. She turned toward him then, presenting her entire face for another inspection.

Inside the trap the silly mouse shall stay.

"It's been a long day," he agreed and nodded, then retracted his eyes from her.

III.

The car stopped outside her motel and for the very first time, she longed to lock herself inside that boring, beige room. But she could not dash. She had to remain calm in an attempt to salvage the secret that forced her to hire a body double; that same secret that caused for her to lie to a hound.

He bid her goodnight and she was free to go. The car door was opened, then closed. Her steps to the room were measured, yet energetic. It's cold after all. People who had nothing to hide did not walk slowly when it was cold outside.

Lying required a certain balance.

She took a deep breath, then another when she locked her room.

In its little room the silly mouse shall hide.

TBC


Many thanks to my wonderful beta, Meaghan M (Juulna).