It was early morning when Red finally awoke having slept the night peacefully.
Elizabeth had slept fitfully beside him, awaking frequently to check on his condition.
Francis was a frequent visitor as was Dembe, so the three of them kept vigilance over the resting individual.
Red was in a bad mood, but considering all that had happened, he was relatively agreeable.
Liz balanced the tray artfully as she entered the room, a genuine smile on her face as she noted the patient was awake and alert.
"I hope there's some bacon on that tray." he practically growled, attempting to arise.
"No, no..." the woman held out a staying hand, "don't try to get up, at least on your own." She hurriedly set the food aside crossing hastily to assist.
"Like I haven't been shot in the leg before..." the man's tone was downright surly. "What? Two weeks ago, by Ressler, wasn't it?"
Elizabeth grimaced slightly. "No bacon... Mr. Kaplan left strict instructions. Poached egg, fruit crepe, toast," she looked the plate over, "umm, and some tea."
"I want my fucking coffee, I want some fucking bacon." the man folded his arms, his expression more than set. "And Kate Kaplan can kiss my rosy ass."
Elizabeth bit the inside of her jaw to keep from smiling. "Well, you can tell her that, but I think I can smuggle you in some turkey bacon."
Red's eyes shifted frostily.
The woman sighed mentally. "Coffee and bacon, coming up." she turned dutifully, but the man's voice stopped her.
"I need to tell you about the relationship between me and your parents." the man minced no words, facing the dreaded task head on.
Liz tensed slightly, turning back slowly. "I think maybe, that can wait until..."
"I will just give you the cliff notes. We can discuss the rest later." He steeled himself, shifting his aching body, preparing himself mentally.
Vowing to take Silas' advice and hear Red out, the woman drew in a deep breath. She took a seat beside Red, lifting her countenance.
If she needed a minute to process what he was saying, she would tell him. It was just that simple.
She would not run away.
"It must have crossed your mind a thousand times," he began stalwartly, "why was it, I invaded your life."
"Did you love my mother? Were you her lover?" Liz asked point blank, blurting out the enquiry.
"Where the hell did that come from?" Red was more than stunned, he was mystified.
He lifted his eyes to hers, holding them steadily. "I was fond of your mother but I did not love her romantically. We were never intimate."
He had to give her something...he was about to make her life hell.
"I was her handler, like you are mine." he patiently explained, ignoring the pain he was in, his pills having worn off an hour ago.
"My mother was a criminal." Liz said that like she had been expecting it.
Red opened his mouth, hesitating, "She was a traitor against her own country." he amended. "One must understand the circumstances under which she was operating. I was sent to assist her." he gathered his thoughts for a moment before continuing. "We gathered intel and long story short, we had to get out of Russia fast."
"And my father?" Liz asked hopefully, grateful for the small amount of information she had garnered.
"Your father was... complicated." He couldn't tell her who her father was, there was too much at stake right now.
"He wanted political change." that much he could say. " He wanted so many things. We were all working towards that end, but he got fed up with it all." Red sat back, easing his shoulder this way and that, wincing from the experience. "We all did at one point or another."
"He took the Fulcrum, didn't he?" Liz had figured that much out.
"Yes."
"Why does everyone think I have it?" she exasperated. "Why does everyone think he would place something so obviously dangerous, with a child?"
Red's expression went cold, devoid of emotion. "Because he did."
"You know this, for certain?" she felt she should defend her father but she had no idea why.
"I do." it was bluntly stated.
"It could have burned in the fire or he could have–"
"I found it, Elizabeth." Red put an end to the speculation.
"What..." she breathed out her shock.
"When I closed out your house," it almost felt good to get so much out in the open, "I found it, in your possessions."
Liz looked up at the man, in total disbelief... shock.
Red had the Fulcrum all this time and he...
She had been so sure, once he had it in his possession, he would do whatever the hell he was going to do with it and leave.
But he hadn't done either thing.
"Have you..."
"No." he stated simply. "I have not used it in any capacity."
"Why not?" she questioned breathlessly.
Red's eyes softened, understanding the question for what it was.
He reached out, brushing his hand over her cheek. "I had more important things on my mind."
He lifted the tea cup, glancing at the creamy liquid, grimaced then sat it back on the tray. He was giving her time to process but not at the expense of his taste buds.
How does one wrap their head around the fact that a parent entrusted something so damning, so dangerous, to a child.
You don't.
Hell, he had a month to think about it and he still couldn't believe her father had done something so stupid... so distasteful.
What the hell was the bastard thinking, leaving that kind of target on his own daughter's head?
"I have to get up." he threw the covers aside and the woman arose automatically staring at his activity.
"What are you doing?" she was numbed, his actions not making any sense to her right now.
"I would like to use the facilities." he made mention, continuing on, arising slowly to get his bearings.
"Facilities..." she repeated vacantly, then it dawned on her. "Oh! You need to piss."
Red's brow lifted meaningfully. "You have to stop keeping company with Silas."
He made his way past the woman, around the bed.
"Should you be up?" Liz held out a cautious hand.
Red turned, his own hands lifting in a 'what the hell, I'm up already' gesture.
She followed after him hastily, but the man was already by the sink preparing his toothbrush.
"I thought you had to piss?" she was confused.
He pointed at her, "No more Silas." then crossed to the enclosed facilities.
So many things were going through her head, that she didn't even notice, she had not given him any privacy what-so-ever until the man re-entered the room, returning to the basin.
He brushed his teeth methodically, waiting for the questions to come.
"Kaplan says the bandages have to be changed." she blew him away by the change in subject. He shifted his gaze, putting the mouthwash aside.
She must have a hundred questions rattling in her head and instead of voicing them, she picked that statement to say. He smiled slightly, shaking his head.
The man was given pause for thought.
"You want to be the one that, first of all," Liz was perfectly serious, " pisses her off about the bacon and now you won't let me change the bandages?"
"Kate Kaplan doesn't scare me." he advised. "I'll call Dembe..."
"Stop pushing me away." she cut to the chase. "I already saw them." she reminded. The woman stepped the space separating them, her hands lifting to unbutton the first two on his shirt.
Red's hand bunched the fabric below her efforts, his eyes steady on hers.
"I'm still here." she met his gaze unflinchingly. "Take a hint."
He glanced at the pile of medical supplies waiting on the counter. His hand fell away slowly and Liz continued to undress him.
The cool air hit his bare torso and for a moment he felt panic.
Maybe in the light of day, she'd feel differently? Or maybe he was kidding himself and it was really him that felt insecure.
After everything they'd been through this past couple weeks, all the privacy she had lost, he'd be a damned coward if he did not take the shirt off.
And there was one thing Red Reddington wasn't and that was a coward.
Red made the decision, and in the end it was his own hand who pulled the shirt from his torso.
The woman's eyes scanned the visible scars before lifting innocuously. She picked up a sterile package, peeling the outer package away.
The man felt years of insecurity figuratively and literally, roll off his back.
She stepped behind him, hanging the shirt on a hook. Turning, she took in his newly bared skin, staring openly.
The scarring was... extensive.
She felt a moment of empathy which she quickly squelched, because she was more mesmerized by his broad shoulders, strong arms and the slope of his neck.
Red turned his head seeking her out as the silence had stretched into infinity.
He startled when he felt the light touch of her fingers skirting along his back before she placed the warm palm flat against it's surface.
She closed her eyes, as visions of fire suddenly overwhelmed her. A hand pulled her close before she was lifted in strong arms. The heat had been so intense, followed by bitter cold.
She vaguely remembered her hands feeling so cold, they felt like they were on fire.
A complete paradox that had suddenly been overshadowed by a deep, pained voice... soothing her. Telling her everything would be all right. She had been wrapped in warmth, her bunny tucked securely in the makeshift blanket.
Elizabeth's eyes opened quickly, a clarity in them that hadn't been there before. Understanding dawning on her.
She lay her cheek just under Red's shoulder blade, wrapping her arms around his waist, her finger nails curled into his stomach just above his waist. She burrowed into him.
He heard her faint sniffle, wondering if it was pity she was feeling, hating the idea.
"It was you... " she whispered tremulously, "not my father... you saved me."
He hesitated, uncertain as how to answer.
"You lied?" She stated, no venom or malice behind the words.
"I couldn't take that away from you." He took a shuddering breath, "You needed to believe...it was the only good memory of him you had."
The silence was uncomfortable for the man.
"Is there anything you wouldn't give up for me?"
"No." He answered without hesitation.
She ran her hand from his stomach up over his pectoral, threading her hand through the hair on his chest. Resting her hand over his heart.
She hugged him gently, mindful of his fresh wound. She leaned away, guilt racking at her psyche.
"I've been so unbelievably cruel to you. How can you have been so patient with me?" she was stupefied. "How can you not resent me, hate me?"
"There are many things in this world I hate, Elizabeth." he turned to face her. "You are not listed among them." he smiled gently at the wetness on her cheeks.
He cupped the back of her head with one large palm, petting the silky strands of her hair.
"It's their fault that I'm in this mess." she voiced her grievances. "Not you... I should have seen that, I should have instinctively known."
Red shook his head disagreeing with her assessment. "There is no way you could have known the twisted mess your parents and I had gotten ourselves into."
He took a deep breath, getting things back on track. "Let me say this while I still have the rocks."
She lifted luminous eyes, waiting patiently.
"Your mother and I took you to Sam, for safety purposes." he began. "We worked the next couple years together, trying to..." he sighed, "fix the impossible."
Liz began the ritual she had watched Dembe preform so often. She busied herself with antiseptically cleansing his wound.
"Your father was many things, but he adored you." Red stated quietly. "He had been visiting you at Sam's frequently. There was a lull in our issues and your father felt it was safe for you to spend the week with him." he recalled the time. "Everything was fine, until Katarina arrived."
Liz kept quiet, holding her questions for now, her hands gently administering to his injuries.
"She came for the Fulcrum." Red remembered vividly the details. "They argued, then your mother's husband showed up with his assistants."
Liz felt this is where things became... strained, for lack of a better word.
"The argument escalated." Red scoffed, remembering how heated things became, then of course... Elizabeth's part in the fiasco.
"Constantine saw you, with your father..." he sighed, "the resemblance was unmistakable." he explained. "He had suspected, of course, but now, he had proof of Katarina's infidelity."
Red sing songed his head. "Things went sideways, somewhere in the fracas, someone started a fire, or a fire started... I don't remember that part clearly."
He looked at that beautiful face, staring at his so openly and he just... couldn't tell her that in the confusion, she had shot her own father. Not right now, not with so much being thrown at her.
He gripped her hands tightly, his eyes gentle on her features. "When the fire started, Katarina told you to get out, to run." Red distinctly remembered the shrill scream coming from the beautiful woman's lips. "But being a child, I don't think you understood. You ran, yes. But you went to your safe space."
Liz stared off into space, seeing a quick vision of clothes hanging on a bar. Then smoke billowing in through the slats in the door.
"The closet." she concluded. "Is that when you came for me?"
"I heard you screaming." he remembered those screams in his nightmares. "I came back in, but the house was... an inferno by that point." his countenance darkened. "I finally found you but the house was literally giving way underfoot."
Red rubbed his thumbs hard into his eye sockets, trying to erase the images. "I reached the nearest window..." he stroked the raised skin on her wrist, his expression foreboding. "I can't recall much after that, to be honest." He had even tried hypnosis. "All I remember is trying to get out of that damned house."
He could still smell the burning flesh sometimes at night in his nightmares.
"The next thing I knew, I woke up," he recalled looking into those blue eyes that had been so terrified, "you were shivering uncontrollably but still piling snow on my back."
"I was finally able to push past the pain," he cocked his head slightly, his eyes constantly on her face, "I got you in the car, driving as far away from that damned place as I could, then called Kate."
Liz could not recall any of what he was relaying.
"They had left us."
Liz swallowed past the lump in her throat, listening to the raw pain in Red's voice, which was replaced by searing anger.
"That bitch left you in that fucking house!" he snapped. He gripped a glass, hurling it across the bathroom, which shattered into a fine mist of sparkly dust on impact.
Liz started, feeling the fury emanate from the man's very being. She stepped in front of him, before he could continue the carnage.
"All that matters is that you didn't leave me." She said evenly, cutting through his growing rage.
"How could she have left you!" he hissed quietly. "After everything we did trying to protect you! How could she leave her child!"
"Perhaps she didn't have a choice?" Liz tried to explain away her mother's actions. "Perhaps she was forced away before she could..."
It did not sound feasible even to her own ears.
Red dropped his head, leaning into his fists on the sinks counter top, his mood certainly no better.
It was a possibility. Though, he couldn't imagine anything keeping him from saving his child.
He would have rather eaten a bullet and died along with his child, rather than leave without her.
He was not present to offer such a service to his own daughter but had he been...
"Your father loved you more than anything in the world, Elizabeth." he stressed.
She secured the bandage to his back, keeping her eyes averted. "You mean, where my mother didn't." She assumed he meant.
What could he say? That her mother did love her? Because now, after all this time, he wasn't so sure.
"I don't remember anything but tiny flashes." she admitted. "I wonder why?"
"You were terrified. Almost catatonic." he tried to find an explanation himself. "After a couple days, you still hadn't come out of it, so Kate suggested replacing the night with a different memory."
He pulled away from her touch, more troubled by the fact than he would like to admit, but in the end... "It worked."
"It's very complicated Elizabeth. So damned complicated." there were times, he himself, could not sort through the mazes of deceit. "There are so many layers, besides you wouldn't believe me, even if I told you." he muttered. "There are some times, I don't believe half of it myself."
Odd, her heart didn't feel as though it was in pieces.
She moved closer to him needing the security. He turned towards her, as he always did, looking down at her.
Liz wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. She felt Red tense, before relaxing against her, enfolding her in his arms.
Today had been... a revelation. For them both.
She found out a little of her past and what he had physically hidden for so long.
And he realized what he had subconsciously hidden. What he had denied for so long.
Katarina Rostova had only cared about herself.
He wondered now, had he built Katarina up in his mind? Had he been as blind to Katarina as Lizzy had been to Tom?
Did it even matter? The damage was done.
Liz sat her hand in the center of his chest, gently stroking him with her thumb.
She leaned in, kissing the scarring that showed on his shoulder. The man startled at the unexpected touch, his head turning slightly.
She laid another soft kiss to the side of his arm, gauging his reaction.
She stared openly at the hard chest covered in a wealth of hair, scanning the tight muscles of his arms.
Placing her palm flat on his abdomen, she felt the ripple under her hand as he reacted to the unexpected touch.
Liz mapped the rough area of his flesh, one particular indentation catching her attention. She tapped the spot gently with her finger, her eyes lifting questioningly.
"Russia, 2001." Red stated roughly, answering the silent enquiry. "Gunshot."
Moving the tip of her finger over an inch, scratching her fingernail across his warm skin which caused a rise of goose flesh over his body. She traced a thin white line about an inch in length.
"Dublin, 2004. Knife."
She traced a jagged scar on his side, faded with time, but still visible.
"California, 1984. Surfing."
She lifted a quizzical expression, her brows furrowing.
"Got caught up in a wave, was thrown into rocks. Got that and a couple broken ribs."
"And possibly a lifelong fear of surfing." she quipped.
"No, I was out the next day." he dismissed such an implication. "It hurt like hell, but I loved it."
Liz traced his torso and arms, mapping out each one. Red supplying the place and incident for each, his voice never changing pitch.
She traced the small round scar at his neck, the last one she hit upon.
"DC, 2013." He smiled warmly. "Ballpoint Pen."
"I'm sorry." She apologized readily. Those blue eyes stealing his heart when they were that soft and only for him.
"No you aren't." He chuckled. "I'm sure there have been days you wished to repeat the action."
"Okay then, I'm sorry for the reason I did it." She grinned. "I have wanted to knock sense into you, but not stab you." she shrugged minutely. "Not lately, anyway."
"Well, that's a relief." he took it as a good sign. "I have enough enemies, I don't need one sharing my bed."
"Red..." she looked at him oddly, and he prepared himself for the worst.
"Um hmm?" he humored her anyway.
"Are we still going on our date tomorrow?"
It was his turn to look at her oddly. "I've just been shot... twice."
"Francis said," she lifted warning eyes, "they're just flesh wounds."
"Oh he did, did he?" Red held his smile.
"That's what he said." she nodded vigorously.
"Well then..." he contended, "Damn right we are."