"I knew your father, Lizzie. I knew Sam."
She tries to focus on the briefing, she really does. But all she can hear is the echo of the words he spoke before Ressler came slamming into the cold hallway in a rage, slamming the cell door shut and ripping her a new one for trying to talk to Reddington again without "approval" (read: permission), after what she had done to him in the hotel room. The fact that a jab in the neck didn't seem to particularly bother the man himself seemed to have no import.
"He knows things about me, Ressler," she'd snapped desperately. "I need answers. I have to talk to him."
"Maybe you should have thought of that before," he'd replied, no sympathy on his set, angry face. "This isn't the local sheriff's office, Milhoan. There are rules and regulations for a reason. If you can't figure it out, you won't last long here, no matter what Reddington…"
"Milhoan?" Ressler's angry voice interrupts itself, cutting across her awareness with a jolt. "Are we boring you here?"
"No, sir, Agent Ressler," she says, and she thinks she's done a fair job of keeping the sarcasm out of her voice. "Just anxious to get moving."
"Well, then, you're in luck," Ressler replies, not bothering to hide his sarcasm. "It's time to ante up, Milhoan — you're scheduled for a lie detector test."
She feels worn thin after the test, prodded and pushed, answering "no" over and over when she just wanted to scream "Why aren't you asking him?" Why can't anyone see that she wants answers just as much as they do?
As she stands outside the door of the little office where she'd been grilled, rubbing the back of her neck, another door opens across the hall, and Reddington emerges, held firmly between two innocuous agents. Satisfaction and frustration bloom together in her chest — the scrutiny, the prying and peeling had been plied upon him as well; she hadn't been there to witness, to try to unearth the truths that he surely held.
Their eyes meet briefly, and he smiles at her; despite her anger and tiredness and frustration, it seems a singularly sweet smile, an expression that fits his face in an odd way. She catches herself watching him move away down the hallway, and wonders what it is about him that is so compelling — is it just the secrets he keeps? Or something more?
She wonders too, how long it will take him talk his way out of the box this time…
Not that long at all, she discovers (unsurprised), as the aftermath of a passenger train derailment has them all scrambling. The work of The Freelancer, he says, and describes a horrific assassin who not only doesn't care about hurting innocent bystanders, but uses them deliberately as collateral damage to hide his true crimes. I can find him for you, he says, I know a guy. You should come with me, he says, like it's all just a lark, and even Cooper is laughing along.
Before she can really process what's going on she's in Montreal, in the back of a taxi with him, wondering what to do with her hands and hoping her awkwardness doesn't show. She can't ask him the questions that flood her mind and press up against her lips; although they aren't supposed to be there, she knows that FBI ears are surely listening.
Brazen it out, she tells herself firmly, what would a real field agent say here?
"Before we do this, let me be clear — I'm not here to socialize. I have no interest in having dinner with you, nor do we have the time. We meet your contact, we get the name of The Freelancer's next victim, and we go. Understood?" There, she thinks, proper, businesslike, straightforward. She's had enough of games.
"I agree with you completely," he replies, his solemn face belied by the twinkle in his eye. "But it is a restaurant, and it is dinnertime." And he hops out of the taxi to sweep around and open her door for her, exactly like a polished gentleman on a first date.
At the same time as she rolls her eyes in frustration, a small spark comes to life inside her, warming and brightening as he leans in and offers her his arm.
The next day and night pass in a whirling blur of tactical meetings, the glamorous party, The Freelancer, and Reddington, always Reddington — taking her arm, his hand on her back, instructing her, guiding her, even as he ripped away another set of blinders and destroyed an idol.
"We never really know anyone, do we?" he asks her on the pier the next morning, looking as worn as she feels, and the stray thought crosses her mind that he has orchestrated this whole mess as a lesson to her.
Even though they are finally alone, with no prying eyes or ears, she doesn't have the will to question him; she is filled instead with a quiet ease that is as foreign to her as the gown she still wears.
Instead, she just gets up and goes home; strips off the borrowed dress, tumbles into bed and sleeps, sleeps like she hasn't since the night before a helicopter first flew overhead.
When she wakes, rested at last, she can't believe that she let such a chance go by. He'd been right there, right beside her, open and tired — maybe tired enough to actually answer her questions. But when she'd been sitting there, all she'd felt was a weary peace, a simple pleasure in being there with him in the early morning light with the smell of the sea washing over them…
And where the hell had that come from, anyway, she wonders, angry now as well as frustrated. The last thing Reddington makes her feel is peaceful! Why does she give in to him? What is it about him that disarms her? It's as if he exudes calm the way she does heat.
She wishes again for Sam's solid presence, for his reassurance and common-sense advice — not to mention, she thinks wryly, if Sam & Red really did know each other, he might be able to give her some much-needed insight.
She has to take back control, the control she desperately counts on, and use it to get some answers, to get the ground back under her feet.
He watches the sun set from the quiet penthouse, enjoying the beauty of the flaring colour that sweeps the skyline. It's rare, but welcome, that he gets a chance to enjoy the simple pleasures.
Dembe taps his shoulder hesitantly; he turns and smiles to reassure.
"If you really think she'll go out," the big man says quietly, "We should go if you want to catch her."
"Just watch her," he replies. "We'll just watch, this time. I need to see, to know what she knows, how much Sam had time to teach her. I just… I need to see her safe."
She goes out into the night — she knows she shouldn't, not now, not with everything that's going on. But the anxious and angry tumult inside her is frighteningly familiar, her fingers tingling and twitching, her nerves jumping — she needs the release, or she'll lose control completely.
It only takes a short time — a depressingly short time, she thinks — to find what she needs down a club-scene back alley only six blocks from her building. A date gone wrong, a crime of opportunity, a well-planned assault — she doesn't know and doesn't particularly care.
She moves silently, fast and fluid as flame, lashing out with a sweeping kick that knocks the legs out from under the unsuspecting assailant, whose attention was lost in the screeching and struggling woman in his sweaty grasp. Tangled in his loosened pants, he goes down flat on his back like a sack of flour, so she follows the kick with a downward elbow to his face that she thinks breaks his nose.
He starts screaming in agony, the girl still backed up against the chain-link fence is shrieking in fear, his face is covered in blood and her system is singing with adrenalin — she closes her eyes briefly as the darker parts of her just revel in it.
She stands straight, and delivers a hard boot to the gut of the writhing criminal on the ground, feeling the coils of tension finally start to ease out of her like fabric being ironed smooth, the roiling sparks inside her subsiding to a sullen glow of embers.
She offers a hand to the cowering girl, whose screams have quieted to snuffling sobs, and who is staring at Liz blankly, one hand clutching her blouse together at her throat.
"Come on," Liz says, as gently as she can. "He won't hurt you now. Do you have a phone?"
The girl nods shakily. "I-I did," she stutters out. "H-h-he took it, he threw it over there. It m-might be broken."
Liz turns her gaze in the direction the girl indicates and catches the glint of the screen in the cool neon light from the street. She picks it up — not even cracked — and clicks it on in some relief.
"Still working," she says cheerfully, offering to the girl. "You call 911. I'll just take care of… this." And she gives the man on the ground, trying feebly to struggle to his knees, a swift kick to the kidneys, just because she can. He collapses again, howling, and Liz pulls flex cuffs out of her pocket and secures his hands behind his back; then uses another to strap his bound wrists to the fence.
By the time she's finished, she can already hear the faint sound of sirens. "Gotta go," she says to the sniffling girl with a smile. "Could you just… not mention me?" And she lopes out of the alley, away from the main road, into the dark.
As she jogs behind the next building, sliding easily through the darkness, she thinks she sees something at the corner ahead. It's just a shadow, barely even an outline, but it has a distinctly familiar bearing…
As she approaches, slowing a bit in caution, the shadow turns and tips its head to her, then is gone in a swirl of dark coat, with no sound at all.
A few days pass quietly, days in the office catching up on paperwork with no sign of Reddington, then she's suddenly headfirst into chaos again, prepping to go undercover as an encryption expert against a spy killer so notorious he's thought of as a myth.
Panic is no good, it always starts the heat swirling and seeking inside her — to quell it, she needs to focus on something else, and this time she knows exactly what it should be. She won't allow Mr. Charisma to put her off again.
"Okay. Say I do this. What's in it for me?"
"Look at you," he says, his tone part-dryness, part-pride. "Camel trading like a Bedouin."
"If I'm going to help you, I want something in return," she insists firmly.
"Such as?" His tone is even drier, as arch as a forties starlet.
"The truth. Just once. I want to know what you meant about Sam."
"Well, then, we need to move quickly. Things are already in play."
They're suddenly underground, which he dislikes, but Lizzie, Lizzie's frantic, and the hot waves of panic coming off her are extremely worrying. Oh, she's good at hiding it — almost too good — nothing shows on her face, and her voice is urbane and smooth as she talks to Jin Sun and sets up the FBI's equipment.
But he knows, he can feel it, and when he moves to stand behind her, the heat coming from her is almost palpable and her fingers are twitching nervously over her keyboard. It's one of her tells, the twitching, he knows this from Sam — she's much closer to the edge than is safe, especially here.
He pushes calm at her as strongly as he can, leveling his voice, deepening it rich and smooth. When the opportunity comes to touch her, as a signal, he welcomes it with relief; his touch will soothe and reassure and quiet, even just the stroke of his thumb on her quivering back is enough.
And the two of them ease down together, in unison, as everything comes to a finish, successfully, it seems. It's fine, he thinks at her, at the room, willing it to be so, as fiercely as he can. It's all fine.
And there's a brief space of beautiful peace before it all goes to hell.
As they sit in the back of yet another luxurious sedan, she's still not quite sure what happened. She was positive she had been about to lose control in the suffocating underground room, no space to breathe, all those eyes watching her, waiting for her to make a mistake. Then, he'd been there, filling her awareness with himself, talking and talking and talking in a steady stream of words that blocked out everything else, settling over her like a warm blanket.
She looks over at him, wondering — still shocky from the sudden shooting, the rush to freedom — how exactly he does it. He notices her looking and offers a faint smile — she won't be drawn in again, so she looks away, concentrating on her need and frustration. He sighs and looks away, too — as they both stare out the windshield, he finally speaks abruptly, unable to stand the weight of her silence.
"Luli can stay with me. Dembe will take you wherever you want to go." He looks over again, wanting to gauge her response.
"You didn't have to kill him," she says in reply, her voice heavy with defeat. She musters the strength to meet his eyes.
"I believe I will always do whatever I feel I have to do to keep you alive," he says carefully, voice laden with intent sincerity.
She stares at him — it's curious phrasing, she thinks. He nods, satisfied, turns away from her and starts to open his door.
Oh no, she thinks, welcoming the flush of distracting anger, Oh no, you don't, and she reaches past him to slam the door shut again, the fabric of his suit sleeve fine against the back of her hand. She thinks she feels a faint inhalation at the back of her neck, but is sure she's mistaken as she sits back and sees nothing but a faintly quizzical impatience.
"I held up my end of the deal," she says firmly. "Now it's your turn."
He just looks at her, that wry twist to his mouth that she is beginning to find incredibly irritating.
"You owe me an answer," she says stubbornly.
He sighs, faintly. "What's the question?"
"Did you really know my father? How? What…"
"That's already two questions," he interrupts, holding up a hand. "Don't push it."
She flushes red at that, but battles back the automatic angry retort in hopes of a real answer.
"The simple answer is yes. I knew Sam; we met many years ago when we were both in the Navy. We… stayed in touch, to some degree."
She raises an eyebrow — this both rings true and is expectedly noncommittal — it could mean anything from exchanging annual Christmas cards to weekly phone calls.
"Do you… Did he…" she falters, stops; she can't broach the topic of herself, can't initiate, the need for secrecy too entrenched.
He smiles softly at her. "I share your frustration," he says gently, almost wistfully. "It's not easy, is it?"
"You act like it is!" she bursts out, words flooding out of her. "You… you swan around divulging secrets and playing the repentant criminal like it's all just a new and entertaining game — you have no idea what it's like. Sam's gone, and I'm all alone. I have nothing." And now she needs her strength to hold back the tears.
"You have me," he answers simply, and touches her cheek, feather-light.
His touch floods her body with warmth — not her usual achy and anxious heat, but instead a peaceful easing that speaks to her of home and comfort and safety. It's a lie, she tells herself fiercely, don't let him pull you in again.
"I know you were there," she grinds out, fighting it, reaching for the anger always waiting within. "Three nights ago, watching me. Why?"
"It's why I'm here, Lizzie. I'm here for you."