Thank you so much for your such kind and encouragement. I am so anxious about this one. Merci, thanks for your alerts and kind words.

Chapter 6

"Heard my car engine going as it pulled out of the driveway?" was the first thing Red heard from Sam as he opened the front door, stepping inside the house with a casket of Miller Light beer hanging off the crook of his index finger. "Thought maybe you were doing a little auto theft and that I'd never see my car parked outside in the driveway ever again?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Sam. I just offered to take Lizzy to school. It was raining and she didn't want to get her clothes and her hair wet."

He forced a smile on his face, crashing back down to reality as Sam finally appeared in the hallway. Red felt his cheeks fill up with blood, his hands from the wrist downward to his fingers shaking.

Just in the car on the way back to the house, he had been thinking about Lizzy. About what he had done to her before she got out of the car to go into school, about how it had felt. How her cheek gave out the lightest tremble below his lips. At the time, he had been lost in the moment, perhaps dangerously so. He had gotten senselessly carried away, and then about fifteen minutes after having done it, he came to his senses and regretted what he had done with such burning ferocity.

Out on a whim, he had decided to find the nearest liquor store in Nebraska that he could to remedy Sam's alcohol drought.

He had felt sick to the stomach at the idea of facing Sam- being even enticed to crack open a bottle of beer on the way home- and now that Sam was standing there, right in front of him, Lizzy's adopted father so ignorant and unaware, it actually was a lot harder to meet his eyes than he had first counted on.

Guilt laid heavy like a rock in his heart at the thought of wronging his friend so badly. Sam would have never forgiven him had he ever found out that he had kissed Lizzy. A kiss on the cheek, mind- but still a kiss nevertheless. He knew fair well what insinuations Sam would draw out of it, and most of them would have been partly true.

Telling Sam and appeasing his own guilt needn't be an option. Sam could never know. He didn't need to know. Instead, Red ignored the heaviness in his heart to focus on performing the perfect masquerade of his usual self as he stepped closer towards where Sam was standing in the hallway while lifting the beers high into the air.

"Look what I have here, Sam," he murmured, with a grin. It was a great deal easier to maintain the act and keep it up when he forced a distraction onto himself instead. "I couldn't help noticing last night that you hadn't any secret stash of booze in the house anywhere and so fortunately for you, I've found a quick and easy way to remedy that in buying you your very own stash in order to put an end to your alcohol drought."

"You really think that's such a good idea, Ray? There was a very important reason why there wasn't any alcohol in the house."

"Oh? And what's that, Sam?" He followed Sam into the living room, his friend sighing loudly as he sunk down into his armchair. "You know, I remember when there used to be a time there where not even a day went passed in which either of us hadn't had a drink of alcohol."

"Well, times are fast changing, Ray. We aren't exactly those two young and foolish kids anymore, are we?"

"Don't remind me," Red muttered, half playful, half in serious irritation. Getting older the way they were, it just sucked the fun out of everything nowadays. He much preferred not to think of it. He tore the side of the cardboard carton open, yanking out two beers. As he sat on the couch across from Sam and leaned over to hand him one of the beers he had pried the lid open on, he noticed his friend's hesitation. "What?" He tilted his head in confusion. "You're not drinking anymore, Sam?" He choked out an insincere chuckle. "Had I known in advance that you had turned into such a goody-two shoes... abstaining from both the hard liquor and cigarettes, then I mightn't have bothered buying it in the first place."

It occurred to Red how agitated he was growing. His arm shook as he held the beer bottle out to his friend, with trying to persuade him into it. He realized this was his very own private way to attempt to make amends with Sam, to apologize for what had happened in the morning in the car with Lizzy. If he didn't end up taking the beer from him, accepting his peace-offering, it would have only made him feel even worse than he already did.

But then, just like that, Sam was swayed. "Oh, what the hell? One wouldn't kill anyone, right?"

He took the beer from him with a hoarse laugh while Red busied himself in cranking open one as well. He dropped the rest of the beers in the carton on the floor near the side of the couch, settling back into the chair comfortably, stretching out his legs. Metaphorically, he wiped his brow in immense relief and that heavy weight in his heart seemed to melt away into the background.

"You just wait until my Butterball gets home and she realizes I've had a drink."

"Does it even matter if you have just one drink?" Red said, not understanding. He sipped at his beer, the frothy chilled liquid flowing down his throat. "Would Lizzy even truly care?"

"Well, you don't know her like I do, Ray." A nervous laugh escaped Sam's throat, his voice tight and anxious. He found it so fascinating how afraid Sam could be of his adopted daughter. "She's like a blood-hound when it comes to these sorts of things. There's no hiding these things from her."

"We'll have already thrown out the bottles into the trash by the time she gets here," Red reassured him.

"Still that won't make much difference when it comes to her." He watched as Sam nudged his ottoman closer with his shoes, then he lifted his feet up to sit them on it, relaxing. "Let me tell you a little story: One time when she was around thirteen, I decided I badly needed a cigarette so I snuck outside and stood out at the back door to have one. I was being real quiet about it. Butterball was so wrapped up in reading one of her books that I hadn't even thought she'd noticed I was gone. And you want to know what happened?"

"What happened, Sam?" He asked quietly, prompting him to continue.

His friend's voice was shaky with laughter. "Well, I rushed back inside into the bathroom afterwards, spraying myself with aftershave, trying to conceal the smell. And you know what that damn girl did? Instance I sat back down into my chair, she stopped reading her book and just stared at me disapprovingly with the most stern eyes. I felt like I was a kid that had been caught out with his hand in the cookie jar. I felt that bad at the time that it was enough for me to never touch another cigarette again."

Red laughed, bringing his eyes down to the condensation rolling down the neck of his bottle. He could only just imagine it. Sam talking with him, about Lizzy, about certain things that had happened during her childhood years... he felt so absorbed in listening. He just found it so riveting, hearing about her, learning about what she must have been like.

"The damn girl knew straightaway where I had gone somehow, that I had a cigarette outside! I swear, even gurgling down an entire bottle's worth of mouthwash wouldn't have been enough to successfully hide the stench from her. She's like a damned bloodhound for sure."

Red was grinning to himself as he swallowed down a few mouthfuls of his beer. He was so thankful; So very thankful that Sam was doing this, that he was telling him this. That smile waned slightly when he peered up at Sam again. He was so much indebted to Sam for not only taking Lizzy in, but for everything in general. For being such a wonderful father to Lizzy especially, to take due care and time to guide her along so that she wouldn't be lead astray.

"I haven't told you enough how grateful I am, have I, Sam? In fact, I hardly recall ever saying it to you at all, expressing the many ways in which how thankful I am."

"Grateful about what, Ray?"

"For Lizzy. For all that you've... done for her." He met and held Sam's eyes meaningfully, a dull ache palpitating at the back of his throat. "You've done such a tremendous job in raising her, Sam. Just this morning, while I was talking to her in the car, I realized just how... fantastically you've done with her. She's so much more than what I had expected. And, oddly enough, she's so much like you."

Such an overwhelming feeling coursed through Red to the point where he began to find it incredibly difficult to breathe. He felt as though he was about to burst open at the skin, to split open with the weight of the poignant emotions that had been stirred into him.

"She's so light, so frivolous and... bright. She's so very bright, Sam. She was telling me about all the subjects she was taking at her school."

And so desirable and so beautiful. He had to pause for a second to catch his breath. Had he been more mellowed-out than he already was from the alcohol in his system, he would have slipped up horribly. And she has one hell of a smile that has the potential to make your knees go weak, he would have added to the countless adjectives he could have used to describe her. But no, he couldn't. Not to Sam. Never in front of Sam.

"She's just... not at all how she was when I found her as that crying little girl from the house fire, Sam," he continued, shaking his head in wonder as he chuckled softly. Had he been in the company of anyone other than Sam, he would have felt abashed at the tone of his voice, at how undependable and shaky with emotion it had became. But he felt there was nothing wrong with Sam knowing. Sam would understand perfectly well, if not more than anyone possibly ever could. "There were many times there over the years where I had feared what would eventually come of her."

It was true, and he had. No matter where he had been at the time, no matter what location or what was happening, there hadn't been a week that had gone past where he hadn't wondered and reflected on that child that he had rescued from the fire.

While he trusted he had done the best for her at the time, in leaving her in Sam's capable care as he knew Sam, above all else, was trustworthy and entirely capable of looking after a child, he still worried, perhaps needlessly.

Sam probably did not understand the high extent to which dropping into his house again eleven years later and seeing her, alive and well and so filled with life, had soothed him and calmed his mind. Seeing her again was like a great big weight had been lifted off his chest; an invisible weight that had been bearing him down, sending him slumping and his shoulders in a permanent state of aching, for years.

"I had wondered whether the knowledge of her past would become too much for her, that... she would grow to become a young woman in such pain and despair that she would attempt to dull and numb those feelings away with alcohol or drugs and other various vices, but you've ensured that she wouldn't, haven't you Sam? The love and guidance you have given her over the years has helped her to rise above it all to become such a beautiful bright young woman with such potential."

He raised his eyes from his bottle again to his friend, sentimentality flooding him.

"And you, Sam..." He laughed again. "You've come so marvelously far from that scared, cowering man that you were the night I had unexpectedly pushed her into your arms at your front door step, urging you to take care of her, to... to make sure that she was safe and loved and well provided for."

For the first time during Red's speech of Lizzy, Sam lifted his head to laugh. "I wouldn't be so hasty to say that. I think I'm still very much that same old cowering man I was back then. There's no one else more terrifying in the world than Butterball, and raising her, as you very well know, it's still a challenge even now. I just thank God that her Aunt June was there during the puberty years to help her otherwise I would have been downright hopeless with it all."

Afterwards, once their beers were finished, they threw the empty bottles out into the trash while Red hid the rest upstairs in the guest bedroom that he was sleeping in.

The guilt returned as his companion again when he heard the front door open as Lizzy made her way in from school. He paused with one shoe hovering over the first step to the stairs, listening as Sam asked her how her day at school had been. He heard Lizzy mention something about being handed out a new assignment, his heart rate increasing unpleasantly.

In a moment of indecision, Red considered heading back into the living room to sit. He yearned for nothing more than to be able to sit in that chair, seeing her first thing as she came into the room. He would pat the space beside him, inviting her to sit next to him. Browbeat her a bit more into not mentioning any of what had happened in the car this morning to her father Sam.

Only having to endure being around her right now after he had made such a terrible mistake this morning, it would have been more than he felt he was capable of enduring.

Instead, he decided the best course of action would be avoiding being near her altogether so he started treading up the stairs, taking the left into the guest bedroom. He shut the door hastily, leaning forward to press the center of his forehead into the smooth wood as he inhaled loudly against it.

What he had done to her this morning, it had just been a mere moment of weakness; One he would not be repeating again.

He had made such a grave mistake with her this morning.

He should have kept himself in better check, and yet, he had failed in doing so terribly.

He knew that if Sam had ever come to find out, he would never forgive him. He didn't want to have to hear what perverted and distorted accusations that would have spilled out of Sam's mouth; That he was nothing less than a disgusting pervert for being attracted to her, that he was preying on Lizzy, taking advantage of her goodness. And if Sam had, could he really fault him for that? Sam would have been accurate with his assumptions regardless of how hard it would have been for Red to hear them being said out loud.

But everything would be vastly different once he left the house and carried on conducting his business and meeting with various contacts and associates. Lizzy would just become a passing thought in his mind from time to time. He wouldn't think about her then, not while he was busy.

It was only four more days or so of staying in Sam's house. Four more days until he would leave and forget all about her and what had happened. He was the adult here, not Lizzy when it came to this situation. The sole responsibility of whether or not boundaries were overstepped were resting on his shoulders alone.

Four more days, that was all. It could easily be done.

But in the meantime, however, he would have to try to avoid Lizzy and keep his distance at all costs. His friendship to Sam and Lizzy's well-being depended on it. Out of sight, out of mind, as the phrase went. And that phrase had never been more truer than it had in the circumstances he had found himself stuck in now.

Elizabeth had noticed Kenneth hadn't bothered to come down for dinner tonight.

She wondered suspiciously if it had something to do with her. Was he avoiding her because of what had happened when he drove her to school in her dad's car? Did he regret kissing her on the cheek?

She sat in a chair at the kitchen table with her father, that familiar companionable silence shared between them with the exception of their knives and forks scraping against their plates.

When she had asked her father where Kenneth was, her father had been strangely vague on the subject, as if he was keeping something from her. He had just said that Kenneth did not feel like joining them for dinner that night, that he would be upstairs in the guest bedroom though he did not provide her with any proper reason why.

After she had eaten most of her dinner, Elizabeth stood up to put her plate in the sink. When she looked around, trying to find the plug to fill it up with water so she could get started on washing up the dishes, she saw the full, untouched plate of food covered with plastic wrap.

"Dad, is this Kenneth's dinner over here?" she asked.

"Sure is, honey. If you wouldn't mind, could you take it upstairs for me and see whether he wants it up there or not?"

Elizabeth nodded obediently, grabbing the plate and a clean knife and fork to carry upstairs to him. Nerves took hold of her again as usual when she started stepping carefully up the stairs towards the guest bedroom. She knew he was still awake and that she wouldn't be disrupting him when she dropped her eyes to the space below his door. She could see the light reflecting from in the room. He had the light in the bedroom on still.

Approaching the door, she lifted her hand hesitantly, then knocked twice while she waited.

"Yes?" His voice drifted out through the wood of the closed door, slightly muffled, and she couldn't help detecting the note of annoyance in it. "Yes, what is it?"

"Um, it's me. Liz."

"Yes. What is it, Lizzy?"

She was not prepared for it when the bedroom door suddenly swung open, the light blinding her eyes momentarily. She blinked several times before her vision returned to normal, Kenneth becoming visible from where he stood in front of her.

He was wearing the same clothes as he had earlier this morning when he drove her to school; The jeans and the blue shirt, but he had undone three of the top buttons, the collar hanging loosely around his neck and the warm, tan masculine muscles in his throat to be seen. She found herself fixated on that patch of hair on his chest, always seeming to be fixated on such a personal sight without her control, and with some effort, she dragged her eyes away up towards his face instead.

Her heart raced when she saw that he was staring at her expectantly, waiting. She did not know how people acted normal around someone they liked so very much, especially when they had kissed them. Her eyes went to his tightly-pursed lips, thinking about how it had felt to have them on her cheek. It had felt so unbelievably wonderful, like a dream. She wanted him to kiss her again but on the lips.

He was wearing black-rimmed reading glasses, something she was not anticipating on. She never even knew he was required to wear them, but she had to remind herself that she hardly knew the man at all aside from what she felt about him.

They suited him, she thought. They seemed to bring out the color of his eyes in addition to making him appear both more irresistibly intelligent and handsome to her.

"Is there a particular reason why you've come up here, sweetheart?" he asked gently when Elizabeth hadn't spoken. "Since you are just standing there, I'm assuming there is?"

Despite his pledge to keep his distance and avoid her at all costs, Red felt sordidly relieved that she had come upstairs to knock on the door. As usual, he found her reactions whenever he was near her so beguiling. This morning hadn't changed anything, it would seem. Even now, it still appeared as if she found it excruciatingly difficult to so much as even maintain simple eye contact with him.

If he had to be honest, he enjoyed having that particular affect on her. She held some sort of hold over him; that he could not, and would not deny. But it also satisfied him that he obviously held some sort of unexplained power over Lizzy also.

She bit her bottom lip as her eyes fell to the plate she was holding out in front of her. "Um, sorry for intruding but my father asked me to come up here to give you your dinner because he wasn't sure whether you wanted to eat it up here or not," she explained quietly, looking every which way but directly at him.

"Yes, I'll eat it up here in private like I usually prefer to do with my dinners." He took the plate and silverware from her with a thankful smile, stepping back into the room. "Thank you, Lizzy."

He moved towards the table near the bed, placing the plate and cutlery down on it carefully. When he turned, he saw that Lizzy was still standing there, her arms curled around her stomach, as she looked around the guest room curiously before she met his eyes again tentatively.

"I never knew you had to wear glasses?"

He hadn't been expecting her to comment on it. It was the very last thing he had been expecting from her, and it surprised him. "That's because I'm partially blind in my right eye."

"You're blind in your right eye? I never would have even known that if you hadn't told me?"

Before he could refrain from doing it, he went on, hoping to obtain her interest, "Believe it or not, Lizzy, I was actually swimming in shallow water on a holiday when this great, large beast of a Dasyatis Lata- also known as an Hawaiian Broad Stingray in simpler terms- came towards me practically out of nowhere and stung me in the eye."

It was nothing but a fabrication to impress her, he just could not seem to help himself, and it was not one of his finest, he knew. But it was either that or telling her the embarrassing and dull truth; That along with aging and getting older, eyesight doesn't remain as good as it once was. He so loved that she indulged him in his nervous chatter every now and then.

"Hurt like hell, and manifestly, it's effected my eyesight in my eye ever since."

He earned a dimple-cheeked smile out of her and it made his heart rate increase. It was so gratifying that he didn't have to worry when he tended to babble in front of her, as Lizzy seemed happy to listen and hang onto every single word he said. At times, she could look so intent and engrossed as he spoke, as if she was truly listening, letting his words sink in and crawl underneath her skin.

"Partially blind in your right eye or not, wearing them makes you look good. You look... all the more handsome and intelligent." She spoke the words in a low and hesitant murmur, her cheeks aflame as the breathless comment passed her lips. There had been something she wanted to ask him. She had to consider what it was very carefully until she remembered. "What did you mean with what you said in the car this morning?" she asked, as it had bothered her all day. She had felt so ecstatic that he had kissed her cheek. "That I shouldn't speak any of it to my father?"

He turned away, showing nothing else but the back of his head and his back to her.

"I apologize for what happened this morning. As you no doubt already know, Sam and I are very close friends. We've been friends longer than you have even been brought into this world. To tell Sam would be to... complicate our friendship tremendously and frankly, it isn't something I would like to risk." He did feel as though he meant it. He hadn't really wanted to speak about it- in fact, ignoring the entire subject would have pleased him greatly- yet Lizzy clearly wanted to. He supposed he could not fault her for that. Perhaps he deserved to give her a proper explanation. "I overstepped a line and for that, I hope you can find it within yourself to forgive me."

"You're apologizing?" Elizabeth felt a gut-wrenching pain through her abdomen at his words. He had no reason to apologize but she could tell by the way he was avoiding her eyes and how his tone went, that he was feeling remorseful. "There's nothing to forgive, Kenneth. I... I actually wanted you to do it and I liked it when you did."

He lifted his head to meet her eyes, startled by what she said.

Red's heart seemed to freeze at her words as he glanced away from her, working his lower jaw muscles. Could she not understand that she could not say such things? That she shouldn't be saying them, certainly not to him, of all people?

"Er, if that's all, you can leave now, Lizzy. You'll have to thank Sam for me for making dinner."

He turned his back on her with great effort as he moved towards the bed, pretending to be preoccupied with the crossword he had snagged from the newspaper downstairs. To look her way would have only served to be immensely painful on him.

He found he could not possibly bare to see any potential signs of hurt or embarrassment on her face, particularly when he knew it had taken a lot for her to come out and say such a thing to him, being as shy and guarded as she evidently was with people.

It came to his attention then that she had a crush on him, though he was unwilling to believe. He did not want to believe, he could not. He was unworthy of such a thing and to think that there was even the slightest chance or possibility that Lizzy may have returned his feelings... it was a horrifying prospect.

But he could not disregard how everything clicked into place with great clarity. In that instant of hearing her words and repeating them in his head, her behavior, although sweetly endearing and amusing of her, immediately made sense.

She had a crush on him. She liked him, him as Kenneth. A part of him had desired this outcome, had privately yearned for it, and yet now that it had been fulfilled and he had gotten a taste of what it was like to be the object of her affection, he was struck with sheer dread.

If ever a moment came where she knew his true identity, Red had no doubts in his mind whatsoever that things would be hugely different.

The reality was that Kenneth Rathers was in actuality Raymond Reddington, and Raymond Reddington... he was nothing but a hideous excuse for a man. A hideous creature, utterly undeserving of the title of a young woman's crush.

He listened carefully until he heard her footsteps retreating out of the room against the carpet. It was only then that he found the strength within him to turn around and shut the door.

Here is another chapter and I thank you for inspiring me to write so much. I always worry that I have done unwell with their characters in keeping them true which I sense has happened here in this chapter. I'm sorry if that remains true. I may take slower to update as I have to return to work and normal life. If there is anything you would like to happen in the story you are always invited to let me know. I'll just say that something will happen to make Red decide to stay a bit longer which won't be so good for Elizabeth but will make her fall into Red's arms and bring them closer :)