Halcyon

by meetmeatthecoda

An AU post-8.22 fix-it fic, wherein Liz survives her shooting - unbeknownst to everyone - & flees the country in an effort to protect those dear to her, living a solitary, lonely existence on a loch in Scotland & coping with the only outlet she has, a hobby begun as a coping mechanism during a traumatic childhood & kept since then as a closely-guarded secret: art.

2. Chapter 2: Liz

Chapter 2: Liz

Darkness.

Silence.

Nothing.

And then suddenly - flashes, bright and blinding, of colors and shapes. Memories. And words, snatches of phrases, clipped and garbled, working their way up through her consciousness, increasing in frequency and volume.

"…You're a monster…"

"…I don't know who to trust…"

"- because I care about you. Deal with that."

"I love you. That's what I wanted to say. That's what I wanted you to hear."

"I can't do it. I don't want to -"

Liz's eyes fly open with a sharp gasp.

"I've got a pulse!"

Liz blinks blearily, trying to make sense of the shifting ceiling, the world seeming to lurch underneath her, and the high-pitched wailing sound all around her, nearly masking the racket of the two people crowding on either side of her.

An unfamiliar face suddenly leans over her, peering into her eyes as a hand presses firmly on her shoulder.

"We've got you, ma'am," the stranger says kindly. "Don't worry, we'll take care of you. Just hang on. We're almost there."

The words bring her comfort, although they're spoken by someone unfamiliar, and she lets her eyes slip closed once again, the pain in her chest overwhelming her as she welcomes the return of the darkness, all the frightening noise and movement fading once more as she slips back into unconsciousness.

The only thing she's aware of as she falls away is the phantom feeling of warm, familiar hands cupping her face, gentle, ghostly lips on her cheek, and an aching wish to be closer, ever closer…

---

The next time Liz wakes, it's much less jarring.

She feels like she's swimming slowly upward from a great depth, heading toward the gentle, welcoming light at the surface and emerging from an all-encompassing, comfortable darkness in a gradual process that feels natural and organic.

When her eyes finally open, slow and steady, it takes her a long moment to remember exactly who she is.

Elizabeth Keen. Yes, that's right. She's Liz Keen.

And she was shot.

Blinking the soreness and grittiness out of her heavy eyes with difficulty, she takes in the room around her, squinting at the blinding white ceiling, the textured walls, and then down onto her lap at the crisp white bed sheets.

She's in a hospital.

That makes sense.

Liz tries to swallow, her sore throat clenching spastically, but her mouth is dry like cotton and painfully scratchy. She shifts carefully in the uncomfortable bed, feeling a dull, muted pain in her chest at the movement. Her heart rate increases in response and it's reflected in the annoyingly loud beeping of her heart monitor. She winces and lays back again against the flat pillows, resigning herself to staying put for the time being…

But that's not so bad, she thinks to herself with a little sigh, because she's not alone here, she knows she has at least one person who would never leave her side and let her wake up alone in a sterile, impersonal hospital. So - slowly but surely, continuing to blink her heavy eyelids - she turns her head to look toward her bedside, fully expecting to see him sitting there waiting anxiously for her to wake, concerned and loving, tired but relieved, and so happy to see her awake -

An empty chair stares back at her.

Liz frowns in confusion, feeling more awake now as her eyes scan the room, looking for a familiar suit coat or the trademark fedora, some indication that he's been here with her like he always has been, but there's nothing. There's no hint anywhere of his presence, just generic, tasteless artwork on the walls and a plain vase of slightly wilting flowers on her white bedside table, nothing that proves he's been here at all -

And her chest starts to ache in a way that has nothing to do with her gunshot wound, a jittery sense of panic spreading through her limbs at the realization that she's alone, and her heart rate monitor reflects the change. But she takes some shallow breaths, trying desperately to stay calm, telling herself that he's merely stepped out to reluctantly attend to something unavoidable and she probably woke at the one instant he's left her since she arrived here, and it figures, because of course, that's just her luck -

Suddenly, the door opens.

Her heart soars, fully expecting him to walk in and rejoice at seeing her awake, already craving the sight of his relieved smile and the way his hands will clutch desperately at hers -

But it's an unfamiliar nurse who enters the room instead, her blue scrubs swishing as she bustles, businesslike, into the room.

"Ms. Keen," the nurse greets her professionally. "It's wonderful to see you awake. How are you feeling?"

Blinking some more in confusion, Liz opens her mouth and tries to answer, but the awful dryness prevents it and she tries unsuccessfully to clear her throat.

"Oh, silly me," the nurse chastises herself. "You must be terribly thirsty. Here, let me help you."

She bustles to Liz's bedside and pours a tall pitcher of water into a paper cup with a long straw, carefully bringing it to Liz's mouth and helping her drink with an experienced touch. The cool liquid feels and tastes heavenly, flooding the parched desert of her mouth and throat, and she gulps greedily.

"Careful now, not too much," the nurse reminds her kindly. "You've been out for three days, you need to take it slow."

Liz reluctantly gives up her drink for now, nodding in thanks and trying again to clear her throat. It's easier this time and she manages to speak, although her voice is hoarse from disuse.

"Three days?" she repeats in surprise.

"That's right," the nurse affirms, putting the cup down on her bedside table and turning to scrutinize the many monitors attached to Liz. "Do you remember what happened to you?"

Liz frowns, recalling with growing clarity a dim, starlit sidewalk, a loud bang, a growing pain in her chest…welcome arms catching her as she collapsed to the ground, familiar hands cradling her face, soft lips pressed to her cheek…enveloping darkness and an overwhelming sense of sadness and loss -

"I was shot," she whispers.

"That's right," the nurse confirms sympathetically. "On the street, for all to see, you poor thing. But you're one lucky young woman, that's for sure."

Liz turns her head to look at the other woman questioningly.

"A good samaritan heard the shot and called 911," the nurse explains. "You were nearly gone from blood loss when the paramedics found you alone on the sidewalk, and they lost you a few times in the ambulance on the way here, but they managed to resuscitate and stabilize you long enough to get you here and into surgery."

Liz can only blink at her in shock, all the information almost too much for her muddled brain to take in.

"The surgeons worked on you for almost two hours," the nurse continues matter-of-factly, oblivious to her stunned silence as she starts pressing buttons on the monitors. "They almost lost you a few more times, but the bullet missed your heart by a few inches, and nicked a relatively small artery. They managed to repair the damage successfully and - after two blood transfusions - we pumped you full of the good drugs so you could rest and heal. Now that you're awake, with a few weeks of rest and fluids while we keep an eye on that wound, you should be as right as rain."

Of all the overwhelming information she just heard, there is only one thought reverberating through Liz's numb mind, one lingering question that is making her sore throat clench painfully, her battered heart rejecting the new pain starting to creep in…

"I was…alone?"

"Yes," the nurse answers simply, pity clear in her voice as she scribbles something on Liz's chart. "Well, apart from…your shooter."

She glances sideways at Liz's face, no doubt checking to see if the mention of Townsend's crony will upset her, but Liz keeps her face flat and emotionless.

"He was dead when the paramedics arrived," the nurse continues carefully. "We think there might have been a second shooter, but we're not sure. I don't suppose you remember anything about that, do you?"

Liz can only shake her head, ice splintering through her veins, because she was so sure she had a fraction of a memory, Harold's footsteps, Ressler's voice, Aram's cries -

"No one was with you on the street, your fingerprints were in the system but protected by high level government security, and you had no emergency contact listed. Of course, we're not allowed to contact anyone on your behalf without your permission -"

(Not to mention the visceral imprint of his hands on her face, his tearful eyes staring into hers, his soft lips pressing into her skin, his breath hitching in her ear, his cheek brushing wetness onto hers -

But no. He left. He left her.)

And Liz can't stop the tears from overflowing over her lids and running swiftly down her cheeks.

"Oh, my dear!" her nurse notices with a gasp. "Are you in pain? Does your chest hurt?"

Liz can only nod silently, because while her chest is killing her, it's not the bullet wound that's bothering her, it's the intense heaviness, the crippling sadness, the smothering grief at the fact that she was alone because he left her for dead -

"Let's get you some more morphine," the nurse says comfortingly, turning quickly to fuss with Liz's IV bag. "The best thing for you is rest, dear, so you just sleep and let your body heal -"

And Liz can feel the medicine enter her veins, thick and viscous, and she embraces the return of the nothingness gratefully, desperate to escape her grief, sinking back into her pillows with tears still leaking from her eyes.

"Miss Keen?" the nurse leans over her, adjusting her blankets for her and peering kindly into her face as she starts to fade. "Is there anyone you'd like us to contact for you? I'm sure it would be nice to wake up and see a loved one…"

Liz almost laughs at the irony of the statement, squeezing her lips together against another onslaught of tears.

"No," she manages to mumble as her eyelids droop and she succumbs thankfully to the darkness. "No, I don't have anyone…"

(Because he finally left her.)

---

The final time Liz wakes in the hospital, she recalls perfectly what's happened from the second she regains consciousness, and the tears pick up right where they left off, slipping down her face anew as soon as she opens her eyes.

Predictably, she's alone once again in her room and she gets to fall apart in private, releasing the desperate, smothered sobs that had built up while she was sleeping, as her chest aches and throbs in response. Luckily, she manages to expel all her grief before a different nurse comes to check on her. If the younger woman notices her red, swollen eyes, she apparently attributes it to the pain and trauma of Liz's condition, simply putting a fresh box of tissues on Liz's nightstand and busying herself with her duties, changing her bandage in silence, significantly less chatty than the previous woman.

Her doctor visits not long after that and goes over the details of Liz's condition with her. He uses a lot of technical terms that don't interest her, but ultimately tells her the same things the first nurse did, and Liz just nods silently and asks simple, one-word questions when necessary. He tells her that she should stay for at least another week - preferably two - for continued treatment, physical therapy, and observation to make sure her wound doesn't get infected, and asks again if she'd like to contact anyone.

"Are you sure there's no one you'd like to see, Ms. Keen? We'd be happy to contact anyone you -"

"No."

Her emotionless expression and firm tone brooks no argument, and the abrupt dismissal effectively puts an end to the topic. After that the staff seem to finally accept that she won't be having any visitors.

It's harder for Liz.

She spends the endless hours of the next few days lying listlessly in bed in her empty hospital room, staring - blank and unseeing - at the endless white walls…and thinking.

Logically, Liz knows that Red and the team must have thought she was already gone. There's simply no way they would have left her there on the sidewalk otherwise, a fact which leads her to an even more upsetting conclusion…

Now?

Everyone thinks she's dead.

Just the thought is enough to paralyze her into a near catatonic state, the snatches of memory she has from that night playing on repeat in her mind's eye. Awake or asleep, she can't stop herself from trying to piece together what happened in the exact order it all occurred.

(There are bits and pieces of older, out-of-place memories she can dimly recall, annoying things with swapped people and faces that she knows in her soul aren't right, just something her rapidly fading brain had foolishly presented to her in a panic when she was presumably on death's door.)

Impatiently shoving the distracting nonsense away, Liz focuses on what she couldn't forget even if she wanted to: Red, cradling her nearly dead body in his arms for the second time - crumpled and bleeding, pale and bloody, limp and heavy - pleading desperately with her not to go, not to leave him there, as Dembe hovers over his shoulder and pulls him away when the screeching tires of the team grow near…

While she knows in her brain that he had to leave or be blamed and arrested for her apparent death, her heart screams like a wounded animal when she imagines him laying her bleeding, broken body on the pavement and leaving her there, walking away without a backward glance, accepting just like that that she was gone -

(And she can only imagine how hard it was for him, being reluctantly spirited away into a running car and leaving his heart behind on a sidewalk this time instead of a parked ambulance, but just as broken-hearted and desperate.

Liz wonders if it was anything like watching through a window as a foreboding needle was placed inches from the thin, breakable skin of his inner arm, as she cried and raged, unable to save him.

She thinks it must have been.)

But lying alone in the hospital, as the shadows wax and wane over her bedsheets and the faceless nurses come and go, Liz also can't dismiss the depressing thought that…

Maybe it was for the best.

Even as her heart bleeds and bleeds for him, for herself, for them, she thinks that perhaps it's a good thing that Red left her there unknowingly and is now undeniably under the impression that she's dead. Because if things had gone according to plan that night, then Red would be the dead one, dead by her hand, and she's so intensely disgusted by herself that her sore chest is the only thing preventing her from vomiting.

Perhaps this was what needed to happen for him to finally let her go, to finally rid himself of the toxic presence she's occupied in his life for the last several years, even during the times she didn't mean to, and she cries in spurts for another whole day at the undeniable realization that - as much as it pains her to accept it - he'll be better off without her.

(And there's a sickening part of her that wants him to mourn her, the part that knows how he spiraled to Cape May after her first death, the part she keeps locked away deep in the recess of her brain out of sheer will, hating the unhealthy thing that batters and bombs her defenses, trying to escape its prison of so many years, but she keeps it firmly locked away out of habit and a newfound determination.

Right next to her tragic, useless, immortal love for him.)

Because, stuck in her hospital bed all alone, Liz has decided - at long last - something she thinks she knew deep down all along.

She doesn't want to be the death of him.

---

As she waits listlessly for her body to heal, her hands alternating between rubbing her scar and wringing her bedsheets, Liz divides her time equally between thinking about Red…and Agnes.

Despite all the practice she's had being separated from her, Liz misses her daughter like a severed limb.

She knows - in an offhand, impersonal, factual kind of way - that Agnes has been transferred to Harold's custody per her will. Despite the tumultuous nature of her life for so many years and her particular line of work, it had been a long time since she had revised her end-of-life paperwork.

Just another reason why she's a terrible mother, she notes belatedly, as she watches the hands of the clock on the far wall spin slowly and endlessly.

Harold has been the closest thing she's had to a father since Sam died and she has no doubt that he and Charlene will accept and love Agnes without a thought. Sitting in bed, picking at tray after tray bland, distasteful hospital food, Liz pictures Harold's beautiful colonial-style house and large backyard and knows Agnes will love it. She knows they live less than fifteen minutes from Agnes's favorite toy store, the one with the huge aisle of princess dolls. And she knows that Charlene is a fabulous cook and Agnes will love her egg-white omelets.

Liz knows all these things.

And yet, at night when the plain white curtains are pulled almost closed and the hospital is dim and quiet, she can't help but cry into her pillow and wish that she had had the foresight to change her will…so that Agnes would go to Red instead.

Red, who can recite Agnes's favorite Disney movies at the drop of a hat, knows exactly which shade of pink is her favorite color, and wholeheartedly supports her obsession with waffles for every meal. Red, who watched over her as a baby, woke every two hours without complaint to feed her bottles, and read her her favorite story books every night before she could even speak. Red, who raised her while Liz slept for ten whole months, missing precious time with her baby, lying in a different bed in a different hospital, asleep and unaware, while Red couldn't bear to let her go -

(Red, who couldn't physically love Agnes more if she was his own daughter.)

But, despite the guilt and upset roiling through her stomach during every waking hour, Liz knows she can't change things now.

And either way, as much as it shatters her broken heart…she is certain that Agnes will be safer as an orphan.

Because when she has to stop picturing Red wasting away on a beach somewhere at the loss of both her and Agnes at once, in a fruitless effort to salvage what's left of her sanity, Liz thinks instead of the unspeakable horror that would have befallen them all if Townsend's crony had found her when she was with Agnes.

Just the thought of her child being harmed as a result of Liz's actions make her nearly hysterical with panic and grief, her savage and spiteful brain unhelpfully supplying visions of Agnes on the street corner where she was shot, somehow getting struck with the bullet that was meant for her -

And, just the same, Liz can easily picture the way that Red would thoughtlessly throw himself between her and her daughter and any sort of danger, either that night on the street or any other time and place, and - no matter what - she would lose something she couldn't live without by simply existing to bring them to harm.

And it's that thought more than anything that makes up her mind for her, her wound slowly healing under her bandage while her heart continues to bleed under that, these realizations only solidifying her belief that, at the end of the day?

They're both better off as they are now.

Without her.

(Because she would rather die - in this way or in any other - than bring either of them the same fate.)

---

Contrary to the way every cell in her body continues to mourn, her first nurse was right.

In terms of her injuries, Liz was lucky.

And the irony is not lost on her.

As it turns out, it only takes a week of endless bandage changes, blood pressure checks, and what feels like a hundred different types of medication before her torturous thoughts propel her out of bed and onto her feet. She starts with short, assisted trips to the bathroom and soon progresses to short walks to the window and even down the long hallway.

After that, it's not long until the nurses show her how to properly change her bandage herself and start to decrease her number of medications. Her doctor visits every other day and approves of her rapid progress, eyeing Liz's stoic determination to care for herself with raised eyebrows and a fair amount of trepidation.

Soon, in addition to her doctor and the continuous parade of nurses, Liz is visited by a physical therapist, who works in short sessions to help her strengthen her sore chest muscles. She lifts small hand weights in bed, gritting her teeth through the pain and surprising the therapist with her reluctance to stop at the end of each session.

(Because the physical pain is nothing to the emotional torture she endures during every moment and, at least while she's occupied with her body's loud complaints, it takes the focus off her miserable mind.)

Between the morbid thoughts, meticulous wound care, and renewed physical activity, the two week mark of her death approaches with surprising speed and Liz is soon starting to itch somewhere deep inside herself, quickly becoming desperate to be anywhere but within these same four walls.

(Even if she knows that the place she really longs to be is no longer waiting for her.)

"I'd like to check myself out," she tells her doctor matter-of-factly at his next early morning check-in, tapping her fingers anxiously against her blanket-covered thighs, an odd itch present in her fingers and palms of which she can't seem to rid herself.

He blinks in surprise. "Ms. Keen, while I'm very impressed with your progress, I would wholeheartedly advise against that. After all, you were shot in the chest just two weeks ago. I would recommend that you stay for at least another few days -"

"I can change my bandage, take my medications, and do my physical therapy exercises on my own," Liz interrupts him firmly. "Is there anything else I need?"

The doctor purses his lips. "Technically not, I suppose," he admits reluctantly. "But if you stay, your progress can continue to be tracked and you'd have ready access to help should you need it."

"I won't need any more help," Liz says bluntly. "I'll be fine on my own."

"Ms. Keen," the doctor hesitates, considering his words carefully before he speaks again. "I don't know the details of your situation and you're under no obligation to share. But I would feel more comfortable if you had access to the mental health resources we have here at the hospital. Even without knowing the full story, it's clear that you've been through great trauma and I worry that you've not fully accepted it."

Liz eyes him steadily, idly noting that he's more perceptive than she's been giving him credit for. But he soon grows uncomfortable under her scrutinization, shifting his weight slightly as his eyes dart restlessly back and forth between hers.

"You're not wrong," Liz finally admits, her voice quiet and her eyes still firmly fixed on his. "But that's exactly why I need to leave. I can't work through the things I need to work through here. What's left of my life will never be the same and I need to be as far away from here as possible. It's time for me to leave and you're the only one who can make that happen. Please."

The doctor stares at her, long and hard, and Liz lets her desperation and grief show through the deadpan, unfeeling mask she's taken to adopting around other people, letting him look for himself. Whatever he sees there seems to convince him and, finally, he nods sadly in acceptance.

"I'll file your discharge papers today."

Liz breathes out a small sigh of relief. "Thank you, doctor."

He just nods again and heads for the door, before he stops with his hand on the knob and looks back at her, his brow still furrowed.

"Good luck, Ms. Keen," he says sincerely. "I truly hope things get better for you."

He doesn't wait for a response and Liz doesn't offer one, simply watching him leave before hanging her head, letting her grief overwhelm her once more as clouds cover the early morning sun outside her window.

Because she knows they won't.

---

The doctor makes good on his word and suddenly, Liz's room is very busy.

Over the course of the day, there are unfamiliar nurses giving her copious discharge instructions for her care, hospital employees handing her clipboards with paperwork to sign, and even a helpful assistant bringing her new clothes from the small store on the bottom floor of the hospital.

By the time the sun is setting, all her medicine, wound care supplies, and paperwork are packed into a duffel bag given to her and she's leaving her room for the last time, pushed in a wheelchair.

"Is there someone I can call for you?" asks the kind man steering her through the identical hallways.

Liz winces at the unwelcome reminder that she has no one anymore and, when she says nothing, the man quickly backpedals.

"I could also call you a cab, if you like," he offers kindly and Liz nods gratefully.

"Yes, please."

He helps her out of the wheelchair and guides her into a chair in the lobby before heading to the front desk to call her a cab, and Liz waits emotionlessly, her brain trying to catch up with where she is now. She fiddles with the strap on her duffel bag, staring blankly into space, until a bright yellow cab attracts her attention where it's pulling up to the curb in the rapidly darkening outside world. The same kind man from the front desk helps her out the door, into the warm July night air, and into the back of the cab, giving her a sympathetic smile and a friendly nod as he closes the door.

"Where to?" the cabbie asks gruffly, turning down the music playing on his radio to hear her response.

Liz's mouth opens to answer him with Harold's address on the tip of her tongue and she has to physically bite the side of her mouth to keep from blurting it out.

(Because that's where she wants to be more than anything in the world and she can easily picture the beautiful reunion, knocking on the door, and seeing Harold's face go slack in shock as Agnes catches sight of her from inside and runs into her arms -)

"Miss?"

Liz chokes back a sob and clears her throat.

"The self-storage units near Logan Circle," she grits out, thankful when the cabbie simply nods and pulls away from the hospital doors.

She knows what she needs to do.

---

When they get there, she asks the cabbie to wait and gets out, pulling her duffel bag over her shoulder and trudging slowly through the aisles of containers, looking around for the correct number.

It's been a long time since she's been here.

She has to retrace her steps twice through the endless rows before she finally finds the right one: number 723. Mechanically, Liz steps up to the keypad and enters her four-digit passcode.

0617.

Agnes' birthday.

Liz hears the lock click and she moves to raise the heavy metal door, opening it just enough to crouch and slip underneath before she closes it firmly behind her. In the complete darkness of the unit, Liz reaches a hand out and feels for the lightswitch she remembers on the left wall. Her questing fingers find it with little trouble and she flicks all the switches on, the long industrial lights above her humming and flickering to life, the large unit illuminating in a series of bright bursts.

Liz looks around.

There's not too much in the space, simply a haphazard collection of items she had no room for once a baby came into her life. There's some large pieces of furniture, the last vestiges of her life in the brownstone with Tom, pieces too big to fit in her apartment with Agnes. Tucked in the back, she sees a few old cardboard boxes of her childhood keepsakes, things that have been gathering dust here since Sam died and her life became a lie.

Liz surveys it all with a secondhand sense of sadness, before peering over the tall oak dresser for the door on the back wall she knows is there.

That room is what she's here for.

Taking a deep breath and trying to ignore the answering throb in her chest, Liz picks her way around all the clutter in the unit to reach the back door. Stepping around a large tub of Sam's old clothes, Liz makes it to the door and reaches out to grasp the knob, the metal cold as she closes her fingers around it. Emotionlessly, Liz turns the knob, opens the door, and steps over the threshold.

Once again, she closes the door behind her before flicking on the lights to brighten the antechamber of the unit.

This room is much more organized than the one outside, almost clinical in its layout. Liz surveys it all with a cool sense of satisfaction. The north wall is covered with firearms, guns of all different sizes and types, largely handguns, with a few shotguns and an automatic rifle. The wall to the left has a plain shelving unit covered in neatly folded clothes. There are plain black shirts, jeans, and boots in Liz's size and brightly colored clothes in a variety of sizes for Agnes at any age, along with a basic assortment of toiletries useful in case of spontaneous travel. On the right wall, there's a small desk, which she knows holds a variety of different passports for both her and Agnes, as well as about fifty thousand dollars in cash.

This room is her wooden box under the floorboards.

(Because as much as she hates to admit it, her worthless excuse for an ex-husband taught her something.)

Moving forward once more, Liz picks a medium-sized black tote bag from the selection folded in the corner, larger than the one she got from the hospital, but still acceptable as carry-on luggage.

Tugging her hospital bag off her shoulder, Liz steps up to the table in the middle of the room and lays out both bags. Quickly and efficiently, she unzips them both and starts to transfer her meager collection of items into the larger tote.

One by one, Liz packs her medicine, bandages, and the few plain articles of hospital clothing before she strides to the shelves and starts grabbing clothes at random, as many articles as she thinks will fit into her bag. Arms full, she almost turns away when something on the highest shelf catches her eye and she does a double take. After a moment's hesitation, Liz shifts everything to one arm and carefully reaches for the garment on the top shelf, wincing as the movement pulls at her injury, until the tips of her fingers snag the fabric of her favorite hoodie and she pulls it down onto the top of her pile.

She runs her hand over the fabric, worn and soft, and brings it up to her face to inhale.

(It's certainly her imagination, but to her, it still smells like Sam.)

She puts the hoodie on top of her bag with the other clothes.

Quickly, she then grabs a hairbrush, deodorant, toothbrush, toothpaste, and a few other health and beauty aids - typical things without which she would look odd traveling - and tosses them into the tote bag.

Next, Liz strides to the desk, opens the right middle drawer, and pulls out a large manila envelope. Turning it upside down, she unceremoniously dumps the contents onto the desk.

Her multitude of illegal passports land in a pile and stare back at her.

(Evidence of the chaos her life has become.)

With shaking hands, Liz cracks open the first passport. She makes it through three of her own before she finds one of Agnes's, complete with a fake last name to match one of her own passports. Pausing in her search, Liz lets her fingers trail longingly over her daughter's tiny face, smiling up at her from the little booklet.

Choking back tears, Liz puts the passport to the side.

She won't be needing it.

Quickly flipping through the rest, Liz separates them into two piles, one of hers and one of Agnes's, and looks for a passport she hasn't used yet with a fake name that she's never given anyone.

(One that he won't know.)

It takes her a few minutes of passing a litany of familiar names - Liz Crawford, Josephine Sullivan, Grace Talbot, Carolyn Givens, Cynthia Rutherford - before she finally finds one.

Lyla Thompson.

Yes.

Yes, that will do.

Nodding to herself, Liz tosses the passport onto the table next to her bag and stuffs the rest of them back in the manilla envelope, hastily replacing it in the desk drawer and trying not to catch a glimpse of Agnes's face as she does so.

Opening the top left drawer, Liz takes out the neatly wrapped stacks of bills stored there and quickly counts it all. True to her memory, there's nearly fifty grand in total, but the amount makes her purse her lips in disatisfaction.

It's not enough.

The money she stashed here so many years ago was only meant to be enough to get her and Agnes out of the country in an emergency, and it's not enough for her to make a new life for herself somewhere. Gritting her teeth, she reluctantly accepts that she'll have to make another stop when she's done here.

Remembering the cabbie still waiting outside, Liz shuts the desk drawer and hurries back to her bag to pack everything. She tucks the money and her medication in a hidden pocket inside the tote and quickly folds and lays her few articles of clothing on top of that. Lastly, she put her toiletries and other hospital supplies in the inner side pocket.

Zipping the bag, Liz steps back and peers at it, scrutinizing, before nodding to herself. The extra clothes help expand the bag to make it look more full than it actually is. Good for fitting in with other travelers.

Throwing the heavier bag over her shoulder, her movements stiff and jerky as her chest throbs, Liz heads for the door and reaches for the lights when she gets there, before she catches sight of the wall of guns once more and stops short.

She hesitates, wavering in the face of her honed government agent instincts telling her to take a weapon.

No. No, she won't need it where she's going.

(Liz Keen needed protection in her life, but now Liz Keen is dead, and Lyla Thompson doesn't like guns.)

So, she turns off the lights and shuts the door.

Leaving the outer chamber of her storage unit, forcing herself not to look at the boxes of her old possessions as she goes, Liz turns off the second set of lights and raises the door once again to slip under it. Hearing the lock re-activate behind her, Liz wipes fresh tears off her cheeks and rubs at her throbbing chest, before tugging her bag further over her shoulder and trudging back through the aisles to where she knows her cab is waiting.

(And as she walks, grief and pain weighing her every step, she fails to notice the small, unobtrusive security camera high in the corner of the hall.)

By the time she gets back to her running cab, only fifteen minutes have passed and the cabbie is bobbing his head along to the music playing from his radio, his meter still running.

"Alright, where to next, miss?"

Once again, Liz has to physically bite her lip to prevent herself from saying what she really wants to -

(Take me home, she wants to scream. Take me home to my baby and my -)

"International Bank," she rasps, having to force the unwilling words from her sore chest. "And then the airport."

The cabbie nods without a word and pulls away from the curb in front of the self-storage units. Liz sinks into her seat, leaning her head back against the headrest gratefully, closing her eyes and willing herself to stay in control and postpone her impending emotional breakdown until she has some privacy from the prying eyes in the rear-view mirror. To distract herself, she tugs her bag into her lap and worries her scar, wrapping and unwrapping the strap around her hands as the constant itchiness of her palms continues to plague her, focusing on the sensation of the friction on her wrist and the intensifying ache in her chest, as the shadows and streetlights pass in alternating waves over her face.

(And she wishes she could beg the cabbie to drive faster because if she has one extra second to think, she knows she'll find an excuse to stay a little longer, and then she'll never be able to leave like she knows she has to -)

"This bank, right, miss?"

Liz's eyes snap open to see that they're parked on the curb in front of Red's preferred bank. Well, one of them, anyway. Not for the first time, Liz is thankful that Red insists on preparing for every possible eventuality.

(Except, of course, this one.)

Liz thanks the cabbie and asks him to wait and keep the meter running one final time, before getting out and heading into the bank, thankful for their extended hours and dedication to customer service.

It's less than twenty-five minutes before she's coming right back out again with everything she needs.

Convincing the teller that she was moving some money around on Mr. Kershaw's behalf was easy, given that she still remembered the number of the account he made for her and his PIN. So, she simply opened an off-shore account under her new name and transferred a portion of money there.

It's a small amount, only three million, enough for her to live on but not so much that he'll notice, not when there's such an obscene amount in there to begin with.

(And after all, why would he look? As far as he knows, she is once again dead and gone.

This time for good.)

Of the three million now secured and accessible under her alias, Liz also made a small cash withdrawal - one hundred grand in addition to the fifty she's already carrying - and now safely hidden away in wrapped stacks in the undetectable pocket in her bag.

Taking a bracing breath, Liz climbs back in the cab and shuts the door behind her. This time, the cabbie doesn't even bother to turn down his music and ask their next destination. He simply nods at her and pulls away from the curb, heading in the direction of the airport.

Luckily it's an even shorter drive to the airport then it was to the bank and time is suddenly moving far too quickly for Liz's liking.

(Because she's forcing herself to leave to keep the people she loves safe, but that doesn't change the fact that she doesn't want to go -)

"Here we are, miss," the cabbie informs her, cheerful and oblivious. "That'll be $37.50 for the fare -"

Liz unzips her bag with numb, trembling fingers, reaching into her money pocket and pulling out a stack of cash, fumbling to peel off a bill for the cabbie, not caring what denomination it is.

"Here," she says, finally managing to extricate something and tossing a one hundred dollar bill over the seat.

The cabbie peers at her payment in the dim light of the cab as Liz quickly repacks and zips up her money pocket and duffel.

"Woah!" he suddenly protests in the front seat, finally realizing what he's holding. "Miss, I can't break a hundred!"

"You don't need to," Liz mutters, opening the car door. "Keep the change."

"What? Are you sure? Jesus, thank you, miss -"

Liz doesn't answer, simply climbing out of the cab and slamming the door on his blustering, wasting no more time striding through the warm night and into the airport.

It's busy even at this late hour and Liz works her way steadily through the throngs of people, her chest throbbing and pounding both inside and out with every step, and she looks desperately for signs to the nearest ticket counter, knowing she won't be able to breathe fully until she's on a plane.

(And probably not even then.)

The busy airport is well-marked and it doesn't take her long to find someone selling tickets, and Liz steps right up to the desk without another thought, just grateful for the absence of a line at this counter.

A pleasant, blonde-haired woman smiles at her. "How can I help you, ma'am?"

"I'd like to buy a ticket," Liz says hoarsely.

"Certainly," the woman says easily. "Just one?"

Liz's throat contracts painfully at the question and she can only nod, not having the words to describe just how completely alone she is.

"And where to, ma'am?"

Oh.

Where to?

Liz had been so focused on simply acquiring what she needed and getting to the airport - and not there where she can't be anymore - that she hadn't even spared a thought to where Lyla Thompson will be living.

(And it's such an odd thought, the fact that she is picking a place to be reborn as Lyla, because Elizabeth Keen is dead and gone -)

Liz's eyes scan the expanse of screens on the wall behind the desk, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information, but searching frantically for the flights that are leaving the soonest, wanting to get off the ground as soon as possible, and then she finally finds the list of imminent flights and their destinations, and the first place her eyes fall on is the one she hears herself blurting out -

"Scotland. I'm going to Scotland."

---

The plane ride is worse than death.

(And she should know. She's been there and back. Twice.)

A rare but superbly well-timed stroke of luck has her sitting in the back of the plane with an empty seat next to her, so she takes the baseball hat she purchased on a whim in the airport store, pulls it low over her eyes and finally, blessedly begins to cry.

It feels like her soul is being ripped out of her body as the plane takes off and soars through the air, the sensation of leaving her baby behind forever nearly crushing her in her seat. It's no comfort at all that Agnes already thinks she's dead, shot down, murdered in cold blood, because Liz knows it's a lie of the worst kind, and what she's really doing is abandoning her daughter, stealing away like a coward in the night.

Even though her intentions are good and all she wants is to secure Agnes' safety, no matter how many times she tries to calm down by telling herself she's merely doing what any decent mother would do, the tears still fall in streams down her cheeks as she sobs silently, curled in on herself in her seat, wishing she could hold her child in her arms again.

(And it doesn't help that she's also mourning another loss, the only one that could possibly be comparable to Agnes, one that just started to spark to life during a recent afternoon in the park and came to a head on a starlit sidewalk where she was never going to kill him, the knowledge bursting inside of her all at once that she's loved him for far longer than a few days and she was finally ready to tell him so, which is irony of the worst kind because now he thinks she's gone and out of reach forever when all she wants is to be closer to him than ever before -)

The nine hour flight remakes her.

The tears, the time, and the distance work together to cleanse her in a way that she hates and, by the time the plane's wheels touch the ground again, she truly feels like a different person. She's numb and cold and ready to call herself Lyla because Elizabeth Keen is the one who died on the sidewalk and orphaned her daughter -

(- and lost the other person she holds most dear, along with every potential for a better life filled with a love she's never known and always wanted, all in one cruel, fell swoop -)

- not Lyla Thompson.

And that's that.

---

Liz walks out of the Glasgow airport and into the early morning daylight with her bag over her shoulder, her hood pulled up over her lank hair to fight the moisture seemingly saturating the air, and her itchy hands stuffed in her pockets. For a few long moments, she stares out at the gray, overcast sky and lets the bustling people move around her, feeling unanchored and adrift, wondering exactly what the hell she's going to do now -

"Miss? Need a cab?"

Well, that's a place to start.

Liz turns toward the sound of the thick Scottish brogue addressing her, which turns out to be a kind-faced middle-aged man leaning out of the window of his yellow cab with a questioning look.

She takes a deep breath of the cold air and nods.

"Yes, please."

The cabbie smiles at her answer and jerks a thumb toward the backseat.

"Certainly, miss! Hop in!"

Liz steps forward and opens the back door of the cab, climbing into the warm, dry interior. She bundles her bag onto her lap, her hands immediately starting to fuss with the strap again, and opts for leaving her hood up, for warmth as much as the instinctive comfort of a little anonymity.

"Where are you headed, then, miss?"

Liz flounders for a moment in the face of the same question as the D.C. cabbie, silently berating herself for her stupidity because, of course, cabbies really only ask the one question, don't they -

(And it doesn't help that her knee-jerk answer hasn't changed and she knows it never will.)

"Um…I don't really know."

She knows she must sound stupid, but it's the most truthful answer she can give the smiling face gazing at her in the rearview mirror, and luckily, he doesn't seem to mind.

"Not to worry, miss," he assures her warmly. "It happens more often than you think. My name's Craig, by the way."

Liz cracks a tiny, wane smile for what feels like the first time since she woke up dead and thanks him with a little nod. "It's nice to meet you, Craig. I'm Lyla."

"What a beautiful name! I cannae help but notice you're American, Miss Lyla," Craig observes politely. "Am I right in assuming you're a tourist?"

"That's right," Liz confirms, not minding the general question, while still holding some generic lies at the ready lest he become a little too curious. "I'm visiting. It's my first time here. I've…always wanted to come."

The vague, harmless mistruth hurts like crushed glass coming out of her mouth, but her cabbie seems delighted.

"How lovely! Well, allow me to be the first to welcome you to Scotland! It's truly a beautiful country, although I suppose I'm a little biased…"

He chuckles to himself and Liz laughs along with him, appreciating his small talk and hoping he doesn't notice the way her harsh laugh rattles in her chest.

"May I offer a friendly local's advice, Miss Lyla?" he asks happily, clearly familiar with helping tourists and excited to share the virtues of his country.

"Oh, please, Craig," Liz implores and he beams in response, launching immediately into a well-rehearsed speech.

"Well, if you'd like to stay in the heart of the city, there's plenty to do and see, and I can take you to several lovely hotels to get settled in."

The idea of staying in the city doesn't sit well with Liz and it must show unintentionally on her face because the friendly cabbie hastens to continue.

(Because, try as she might to ignore it, the word 'city' just brings to mind an all-too-clear visage of D.C. and everything she's just left there -)

"If you'd prefer to go somewhere a little quieter, Paisley is a nice town with a gorgeous museum, as well as Renfrew, where there's plenty of architecture to admire. Then again, if you're up for a drive, Loch Lomond is beautiful this time of year. Well -" Craig chuckles to himself "- a Scotland kind of beautiful, which can be a bit of an acquired taste, I'll freely admit."

Something about the name catches Liz's ear and the idea of being near water suddenly appeals to her in a way it never quite has before.

(Perhaps it has something to do with a sunny day in a park, a cool breeze tossing her hair and a splashing lake nearby, and everything to do with a man in a suit chasing after an excitable little girl and her new toy boat -)

"Loch Lomond sounds…perfect."

The cabbie smiles at her in the rear view mirror. "Buckle up then, Miss Lyla. We're on our way."

Craig proves no less chatty when he's actually driving, successfully maneuvering them out of the hub of the airport and through the unfamiliar streets of Glasgow. Liz gives him polite, but resolute one-word answers, trying subtly to discourage him from any more conversation, not wanting to be rude or ungrateful, but desperately wanting quiet. By the time they make it out of the city and onto more remote coastal roads, he's gotten the message and they fall into comfortable silence.

Leaning back in her seat with a heavy sigh, Liz pulls her sleeve back to rub methodically at her scar and turns her head to stare out the window.

Unlike her nighttime cab ride through D.C., Liz is no longer on the edge of tears and bone-crushing sorrow. Instead - on this very different ride - her insides feel numb and cold, and her mind is blessedly empty as the daytime scenery flies by outside. She takes it all in with an out-of-body appreciation.

Even though the clock on the dash says it's nearing mid morning, the overcast sky is full of puffy gray clouds that cast a dark blue pall over the land. By contrast, the vast amounts of vegetation and craggy hills appear to burst with green, creating a dichotomy of color that attracts the eye. And, no matter where the car turns - wherever there isn't lush green - there seems to be some body of water whose surface is constantly in motion, dancing and sloshing, reflecting the cloud cover back at the sky, making the liquid appearing gray and mysterious.

"It's quite something, isn't it, Miss Lyla?"

Liz glances at the rearview mirror to see the cabbie watching her take in the landscape with a small smile on his lips.

"Yes, it really is," she agrees softly.

(But all she's really thinking about is whether or not Agnes would like it and whether or not Red has ever been here before, and her heart throbs and aches behind her sore gunshot wound.)

About thirty minutes later, Liz notices more structures dispersed in the countryside and, shortly after, they enter what appears to be a town.

"We're entering Balloch, Miss Lyla, the town at the mouth of the loch," Craig informs her happily, confirming her suspicions. "And there…is Loch Lomond."

He points ahead out of the windshield and, as he turns a corner onto a paved street, a huge body of water comes into view.

Liz's jaw drops at the sight.

There's looming mountains and thick groves of trees around the perimeter of the loch on all sides except the town they've just entered, and the visage is impressive, the loch standing grand and majestic and beautiful.

"Shall I drop you at the nearest hotel, miss?" Craig inquires politely.

Liz drags her eyes away from the loch with difficulty and clears her throat. "Uh, actually, do you know if there's somewhere to inquire about places to rent? I have a feeling I'll be staying a while…"

"Oh, I didn't know you were looking to rent, Miss Lyla," Craig says in surprise. "Yes, I think there's an office on the main street up here somewhere…ah, yes! Here it is!"

He pulls over in front of a long row of shops and offices, and Liz spies the small sign for a real estate office. She unbuckles her seatbelt and leans forward toward the front seat.

"I can't thank you enough for all your help, Craig, let alone driving me this far," Liz tells him truthfully, and she reaches in her pocket and pulls out several bills, thankful that she'd taken a moment even in her grief-stricken haze after landing to exchange her US dollars for pounds before leaving the airport.

"I'm not very familiar with pounds," she lies smoothly. "Will this cover the fare?"

She hands him what she knows is a large amount of money over the seat and watches his eyes widen.

"Oh no, miss, this is far too much! This is a few hundred, but the fare isn't even seventy-five pounds!"

"Oh, well, that's okay," Liz smiles at him as warmly as she can, admiring his truthfulness. "Please, keep the change. It's the least I can do to thank you."

Craig wavers for a moment longer, looking as though he wants to protest more, his mouth opening in preparation, but Liz tilts her head and looks at him imploringly.

"Please, take it, Craig," she urges.

He stops short and closes his mouth, finally nodding in defeat. "If you insist, Miss Lyla," he agrees reluctantly. "Thank you very much."

Liz simply nods and opens the door, dragging her bag with her and stretching a little once she's on the sidewalk, before she closes the door and raises a hand to the cabbie as he slowly pulls away, smiling and waving at her as he goes.

With a heavy sigh and an absent rub at her sore chest, Liz turns to the door of the real estate office.

Time for the next step.

Pushing open the door and hearing the cheerful jingle of a bell from above her, Liz steps into the office and out of the rapidly warming, moist air outside, relishing the welcome of a temperature-controlled building. The dry air in the room allows her to push her hood back and run a hand through her damp hair as the door swings closed behind her. Looking around, Liz takes in the plain walls and generic artwork of the slightly old-fashioned but still cozy real estate office.

Leaning past a large potted plant in the middle of the main area, Liz peers around to see a red-haired, middle-aged woman sitting at the large desk with a fork in one hand, a book in the other, and a large salad in front of her, chewing absentmindedly and totally engrossed in her reading.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Liz blurts, and the woman looks up at the sound of her voice, startled out of her book. "I didn't realize it was lunchtime."

Liz glances around instinctively for a clock, spying one high up on the far right wall above a window, and notes with a flash of guilt that it's nearly half past twelve. Between fleeing the city so late, her desperation to catch the first available flight, the jet lag, time difference, and long drive from the airport, Liz had completely lost track of the time of day.

"Oh, that's quite all right, ma'am," the woman assures her in a Scottish lilt, quickly marking her place in her book and putting a lid on her salad. "I prefer a working lunch, as it happens. Please, do come in!"

Liz steps forward hesitantly. "Are you sure? I can come back later…" Her offer trails off lamely, the realization only occurring to her after she's spoken that she has nowhere to go in the meantime, but luckily, the woman won't hear of it.

"No, there's no need at all, I promise you," she assures Liz with a kind smile, gesturing to the chair in front of her desk. "What can I help you with today, ma'am?"

Liz sinks into the chair and pulls her bag into her lap once again, reluctant to let go of it and struggling to keep her itchy hands from fidgeting. "Well," she begins slowly. "I was wondering if there are any properties available on the loch?"

"Certainly, ma'am," the woman - Bonnie, according to her nametag - assures her. "Are you looking to rent or buy?"

Liz hesitates for a moment, remembering what she told the cabbie, but now - sitting in front of a kindly real estate agent - seeing little reason to dawdle.

"Buy," she says firmly.

(She came here to stay, after all, as much as she doesn't want to, and she might as well not torture herself with an easy way out.)

"All right, then," Bonnie says, suddenly business-like as she turns to pluck a thick binder from the neat row on her desk, flipping it open and starting to sift through the laminated pages. "Let's see what we have here…"

Liz watches - upside down - as Bonnie passes house after house in the book, some pages stamped with a big, red "sold" and others only available for rent, all in a large variety of styles. There's stone cottages and modern townhouses, fancy beach houses and huge, expensive things that Liz can only describe as castles.

(And she feels a pang in her heart when she sees them, thinking of the time that Red offered to whisk her away to a castle of his, because of course he owns a castle and she wishes now more than ever that she had gone -)

"It looks like we have a few viable options," Bonnie unknowingly interrupts her heartbreaking memories. "Do you have any specifications or anything in particular you're looking for?"

Liz shakes herself and tries to focus on the task at hand. "No, I'm not picky. But I do need somewhere to live as soon as possible. I'll take anything that's nearby, liveable, and can be closed on today."

Bonnie blinks in surprise. "Oh, well, that makes things rather straightforward. I have a handful here that could work," she murmurs, almost to herself, grabbing a pad of adhesive flags and marking a few properties as she flips through the book at top speed. "How many bedrooms would you like? Are you looking for something family friendly? Perhaps for a partner or children?"

Liz's throat tightens at the innocent question and she struggles to answer. "No, no, I'm - I'm alone. It's just me. So, small is…small is good."

Bonnie glances upward at her unexpected change in tone, her brow furrowing in concern, and Liz bites the inside of her cheek to steady herself. Something in her flinty, pleading gaze must beg the Scottish woman not to comment and, thankfully, Bonnie returns her eyes to the binder after a brief moment of hesitation. With no more questions, she peruses the rest of the properties, adding flags where appropriate until she reaches the end of the book.

Nodding to herself, Bonnie quickly flips backwards through all the marked pages, reviewing all the options before stopping on the final one - tagged with a red flag - and tapping her finger on the photo.

"I think this one may be a good match for you, ma'am," she muses, her eyes scanning the specifications as she reads them out loud. "Right on the loch, under one thousand square feet, two floors, one bedroom, two bathrooms…"

Bonnie turns the binder around so Liz can see the photo of the house. It's much as she described it; a slim two stories, with large windows overlooking the loch, and a tall brick chimney. The house is a simple structure and looks a little run-down with weathered dark wood on the outside, gray shutters, and a dark blue front door. There's a stone path down to the loch and a small dock at the water's edge.

The property is small, simple, and a little sad.

(It's exactly what she needs.)

"The house has been on the market for a while, so it's a bit of a fixer-upper," Bonnie tells her carefully. "But it's minimally furnished - the previous owners vacated suddenly - and I think with a little extra time and money, it can be -"

"I'll take it," Liz says firmly.

Bonnie blinks in shock. "You'll…you'll take it?" she repeats, stunned. "It's a lovely place, ma'am, to be sure, but…I do have others you may like. Don't you want to look at the other options?"

"No," Liz shakes her head decisively. "This place is just right for me. And as I said, I'm in a bit of a hurry to close. What do I need to do before I can have the keys?"

"Uh, well, I -" Bonnie stutters a little, still clearly dumbfounded by Liz's unusual behavior. "I can accelerate the paperwork for you, as long as you sign in the proper places and can pay the downpayment, but the mortgage -"

"There's no mortgage needed," Liz interrupts. "How much is the property?"

Bonnie glances down at her binder in confusion. "Uh…the latest listing is down to one hundred twenty seven thousand pounds, ma'am, but -"

Liz immediately unzips her bag, reaching into the secure pocket and pulling out several stacks of bills, counting them to herself as she places them one by one on Bonnie's desk. When she reaches the listing price, Liz stops short and glances up at Bonnie.

"You'll make a commission off this sale, right?"

Bonnie just nods wordlessly, her mouth slightly agape at the huge amount of cash that's just materialized in front of her.

Liz adds three grand to the pile. "That's extra for you," she tells Bonnie matter-of-factly, before zipping up her bag, placing her hands back on top, and giving a bracing little sigh.

"So, where do I sign?"

---

Closing the door to her new house behind her with a resounding slam, Liz clenches her fist around the key, biting the side of her cheek as the sharp cut of the metal distracts from the constant, irritating itch on her palm.

She leans back against the front door, casting her eyes around the dim entryway.

The silence settles around her.

(And her heart squeezes painfully in her chest under her wound at the realization that she is well and truly, finally at long last, painfully and soul-crushingly…alone.)

The pain starting to overflow inside her makes her eyes well up with tears so quickly that she can't stop them, and a few slip down her cheeks without her permission. Wiping them away fiercely and taking a breath that hurts more than it helps, Liz pushes off from the door, moving forward into the house and looking around.

To her credit, Bonnie didn't oversell the place. It's not much.

The house is small, very basic, and quite barren. Looking to the right of the entryway, Liz observes a small powder room and a coat closet, both largely empty. To the left, there's a tiny sitting room with a large window on the back wall that looks down the sloping backyard to the water. True to Bonnie's word, the previous owners left some furniture behind; there's a plush gray couch against the wall opposite the window and a small coffee table sitting in front of it. A worn, brick fireplace is set into the far end of the house and there's a small, empty TV stand tucked in the corner to the right of the window.

Slowly moving forward with her self-guided tour, Liz passes through the entryway into the main hallway of the house, the majority of which is taken up by a large staircase ascending in the opposite direction, as well as a little alcove with a small clothes washer and dryer, and a back door that opens directly onto the small backyard with a single wooden lounge chair and - a few feet beyond it - the loch.

Peering around the corner into the last room on the right, Liz finds the small kitchen, complete with old formica countertops, a two-burner stove, microwave, toaster, and tiny fridge, with a small circular kitchen table and two rickety wooden chairs in the middle of the space. There's also a small window on the back wall with a thin lace curtain over it that lets in some gray-tinged sunlight.

Turning her back on the kitchen and likely impressive view out of the back door, Liz moves to the base of the stairs, running her hand over the bottom banister of the railing before beginning to climb. She goes slowly, her wound throbbing from the exertion, and she eventually makes it to the top, pausing on the small landing to catch her breath.

There's even less to the upper floor of the house, consisting simply of an open-plan landing with a small linen closet on the far left side, an attractive octagon window facing the street out front, and the rest of the space taken by the master - and only - bedroom, the door of which is on the right.

Liz heads for it.

Pushing lightly on the unlatched door, it swings open to reveal a decent-sized bedroom, constructed in a backwards 'L' shape with the master bath in the back left corner. With a sigh of relief, Liz sees a large bed frame with a bare mattress pushed up against the left wall, as well as two small nightstands, one with a lamp and an alarm clock. The right wall has a small writing table pushed up against it with a floor lamp next to it, and the vertical part of the 'L' consists of one long window that overlooks the loch, covered by a sheer white curtain with an armchair tucked in the farthest corner.

Liz moves forward into the room to peer into the master bathroom, noting gratefully that there's a sizable shower stall in lieu of a bathtub.

Thank god. She hates baths.

Realizing suddenly that she's officially seen the entire house, Liz turns on her heel to face the bed, letting her bag slide off her shoulder to fall onto the bare mattress.

No, it's not much at all. But it will do.

(Liz Keen might have wanted more, but Lyla Thompson is low maintenance.)

Satisfied with the necessities the previous owners left behind, Liz feels no need to spruce up the place or try to make it her own. This is simply a space to exist in by herself, alone as she is, somewhere to sleep and spend the rest of her lonely days.

(And she feels oddly comfortable here, in a house as small and empty as she feels, living her new life as sparsely as possible, allowing herself only the bare minimum of comfort, just as she deserves.)

Walking to the window, Liz pushes the soft curtain aside to let the gray afternoon sunlight in unobstructed and finally observe the loch. The water isn't far at all, so close that she can see the deceptively calm surface dance and gleam in the oppressive light, sloshing lightly against the tiny dock with a faint noise she can just barely hear with the old window closed.

(And even in the house as she is, she thinks she can still taste the moisture in the air associated with a nearby body of freshwater, and the sensation makes her so intensely homesick for the two people she left behind, that she can barely stand it.)

Suddenly exhausted from her journey, Liz lets the curtains fall back into place over the window and shuffles to the bed, shoving her bag to the head to act as a pillow before collapsing heavily onto the bare mattress. She curls up in a ball, drawing her knees up and pulling her hood up over her head, wrapping her arms around herself as tears gather under her closed lids and her wound aches, the now-familiar, dueling sensations carrying her quickly into a deep sleep.

---

It's the next morning - almost twenty-four hours later - when Liz wakes, her eyes gritty with unshed tears and her limbs stiff and sore from sleeping tightly compacted for so long. She stretches carefully on the bed, wincing as the motion pulls on her wound, noting belatedly that she needs to change the bandage. Her stomach also makes an obnoxious noise, reminding her that the last time she ate was in the hospital over a day ago, and she needs to venture out in search of food.

Despite these pressing issues, Liz continues to lay motionless on the bed with no real motivation to get up, the bare mattress soft and cushioning beneath her, and feeling drained in the way one often does after a long, deep sleep.

Absentmindedly rubbing her itching palm on the edge of the mattress, Liz's thoughts turn back to Agnes and what she's doing right now. A glance at the clock on the nightstand tells her that - although it's nearly eight in the morning here - with the time difference it's still the middle of the night in D.C. That means that in a few hours, Harold will likely be rousing Agnes and Charlene will be fixing her breakfast, perhaps her favorite omelet with extra cheese.

Liz's eyes fill with tears as she remembers all too well her and Agnes' mornings together before school, filled with giggles and pink clothes and hair brushes and slightly burnt toaster waffles and checking her bag for homework before they hurry out the door, five minutes away from being late.

Shying away from the pain quickly swamping through her body, Liz pictures Agnes on the street with her when she was shot and the horror of the image helps her shove the heartache back into the compartment in which it belongs, telling herself she did what was necessary to protect her child.

(Because much as it hurts, Agnes is better off sad and missing her than terrified and constantly in danger.)

Taking a certain amount of solace from this depressing reality and the fact that Agnes is no doubt safe and cared for - if not completely happy - with Harold and Charlene, Liz's thoughts turn away from her daughter to the other person who's taken up residence in her heart.

Red.

She's spent most of her time up to now thinking of her child, as any mother would, but Red is always in the back of her mind and, with the sound of the loch just outside and the muted early morning sunshine filtering into the room, Liz wonders.

She wonders how he's coping with the loss of her, if he feels the absence of her as keenly as she feels the void of him, and if he thinks about her at all.

(And she pictures vividly in her mind that night on the sidewalk, those snatches of memories she thinks she has, of him holding her close, grief-stricken and desperate, and her wound throbs and her palm itches.)

All at once, her tumultuous thoughts and tortured body propel her upright on the bed, and the room swims slightly around her, the long bout of inactivity and lack of sustenance taking its toll. After her vision clears, Liz pushes herself hesitantly to her feet, and starts to wander the room aimlessly in an effort to clear her head.

Walking to the window, she pushes aside the curtain to look outside and, finding the gray waters of the loch just as she left them the day before, she moves to the small writing desk against the wall. More out of needing a distraction than any actual interest, Liz pulls open one of the two drawers in the desk, inspecting it for any contents. To her surprise, she hears the telltale rattle of loose objects and peers inside to see a generic pad of paper and a few sharpened pencils.

Interested now, Liz takes them out and shuts the drawer, wandering over to the armchair tucked in the upper 'L' of the room and sitting, drawing her legs up under her. She sets the pad of paper on the arm of the chair, staring at the blank surface and twiddling one of the pencils around her fingers, feeling a sense of satisfaction at being able to fiddle with something.

As Liz sits quietly, she hears the town around her house start to come to life in the early morning, the sounds of slow-moving cars and the occasional loud voice from outside reaching her ears. As she listens idly to the meaningless sounds, she turns to look out at the water, the small waves lapping at the shore of her backyard strangely mesmerizing.

(But even as her eyes stare at the loch, they become sightless as she retreats into her mind's eye, seeing his face hovering over her, his green eyes watery and scared, the closest to crying she's ever seen him, the remembered expression making her want to sob right along with him -)

And when she comes back to herself, it's to find that she's sketching on the pad of paper, her hand ghosting over the smooth surface in familiar, almost forgotten motions, leaving lines and shadows in their wake that quickly start to make up an image, and when she pulls her hand away she sees -

Red's eyes staring back at her.

Liz blinks in shock at the skilled recreation, realizing all at once how long it's been since she's drawn or painted or created any kind of art as a form of therapy, and just how good it feels to have something to do with her hands.

(And as she looks into the black and white visage of his eyes, just a thin section of his face from his eyebrows to the bridge of his nose, the insatiable itch in her palms finally lessens.)

Liz's stomach then interrupts her revelations with a truly startling noise, and she feels nausea start to take hold in her empty stomach. Resigning herself to venturing outside for food, she gets slowly back to her feet. Setting the pad of paper and pencils on the desk, she heads to the bathroom and - with one last lingering glance at her sketch - reluctantly goes to get herself ready to leave the house.

It takes Liz a few minutes of standing in her empty bathroom to realize that she doesn't even own towels with which to dry off after a shower, let alone soap or shampoo. Dejected, she sets about washing off the best she can with warm water from the tap and cleaning her wound with the supplies she brought, lamenting that everything else will have to wait until she gets back with purchased items. Wincing, Liz gently pulls the bandage off her chest.

Fortunately, by this time in her life, Liz is quite familiar with wound care.

(Or perhaps unfortunately.)

Methodically, Liz sets about with the process, barely needing to glance at her hospital provided instructions; she cleans the wound with the wash the nurses gave her, lets it air dry for a few minutes, and then applies various creams and ointments to help the new skin of her closed wound continue to heal, before covering it with a fresh bandage and gently taping it in place.

Once she's done with that, Liz cleans up the mess, rinses her hands, and splashes her face with cold water. After using the toilet, she gathers her limp hair into a ponytail, brushes her teeth with the toothbrush and toothpaste she brought, and tugs on a clean shirt from her bag. She shrugs to herself, not bothering to look in the mirror when she's all done.

She's as good as she's going to get.

Stuffing a large wad of cash in the pocket of her hoodie and leaving her bag tucked under the bed, Liz leaves her new house and locks the door behind her. It's early enough that the heat from the July sun hasn't set in yet and - when combined with the cool air wafting in off the loch - Liz is quite comfortable in her hoodie. Setting out towards the town, Liz retraces her steps from yesterday, walking slowly and looking around in a way she didn't have the presence of mind to do yesterday, observing the place in which she now lives.

(A truth that Liz doubts will ever feel real.)

It's a quaint town, but quite modern in most ways, with plenty of different kinds of stores within walking distance. Tourism seems to be a major aspect of the area, and indeed the sound and smell of the loch are never far, even when the shoreline is out of sight. As she walks, avoiding eye contact with anyone she happens to pass under the guise of being fascinated by her surroundings, Liz keeps a look-out for a cafe or coffee shop.

Breakfast is her first priority.

It's only a few minutes of walking before she finds a nice cafe, pleasantly bustling, but not overcrowded. Liz slips inside and works her way through the customers already there, being careful not to bump into anyone or otherwise draw attention to herself. Finding an empty spot in the corner, Liz scans the menu quickly, her empty stomach awakening once again at the delicious smells of eggs and coffee wafting around the cafe. When she's made her choices, she steps up to the counter and orders as much food as she thinks she can carry, intent on continuing to explore the town and scope out her next stops as she eats.

That, and she's too skittish to sit in one public place for too long.

Liz retreats to her empty corner while she waits for her order, keeping one eye on the pick-up counter and one on the door, wishing briefly for a cell phone to occupy her idle hands - itching again - and to help her blend in a little. Before too long and not a moment too soon, her order is ready and Liz gratefully takes the paper bag of food and large, steaming coffee from the smiling barista and hurries out of the cafe.

She barely makes it outside before she's reaching blindly in the bag for the first thing she can reach, coming up with the breakfast sandwich she ordered, unwrapping it hurriedly, and digging in. Liz tries not to moan in pleasure at the taste of hot food, the warm egg, melted cheese, and crisp bacon on a flaky, toasted croissant damn near the best thing she's ever tasted. She devours her sandwich in record time, washing it down with her huge coffee, and following it more slowly with the small selection of pastries she also purchased.

(And, as she eats, biting into a chocolate turnover with relish, she tries not to remember the last time she walked in a picturesque place eating pastries and drinking coffee, because it was pacing the familiar streets of D.C. with Red at her side -)

Liz finishes her pastries within minutes, continuing to walk as she does so and trying to keep her painful memories at bay while they follow her like a foreboding cloud. By the time she's found a trash can in which to throw away her garbage - a much easier task here than in D.C. - she's also spotted a small pharmacy, a larger home goods store, and a supermarket.

The pharmacy is closest so, with a nod to herself, Liz makes a beeline for it. Once inside, Liz grabs a basket and starts methodically walking up and down the aisles, grabbing the cheapest version of everything she can't manage without and throwing it in her basket. It steadily fills with necessities like laundry detergent, dish washing liquid, toilet paper, tampons, soap, shampoo, conditioner, razor, shaving gel…

It's less than twenty minutes before she's leaving the store with her single bag of supplies - paid for with the crumpled cash in her pocket - and heading purposefully across the street to the home goods store.

Inside, she goes through much the same process, this time heading straight for the linen section and gathering the cheapest, plainest bedsheets she can find in her arms before moving on to pillows, pillowcases, and blankets, which are quickly followed by basic towels and washcloths.

Again, Liz makes quick work of paying with cash and she leaves the store with an additional bag in hand.

From there, it's on to the supermarket as Liz quickly starts to tire from the excursion of shopping, carrying, and walking, the combination of activities proving to be a lot for her still-healing body. She slows as she walks into the grocery store, gratefully grabbing a shopping cart to lean on, her feet feeling heavy as she begins to plod through the many colorful aisles, looking without enthusiasm at all the different choices.

Taking a bracing breath, Liz starts to pick a few items off the shelves, more out of a sense of obligation than anything else and, one by one, a pitiful selection of food lands in her cart. By the time she makes it to the self-checkout, she has a half-gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, a small carton of eggs, a bag of apples, a tiny flat of bottled waters, a package of sliced cheese, a box of uncooked spaghetti, a jar of cheap tomato sauce, a tub of butter, and a container of peanut butter.

She can't stomach the sight of any more.

And although she has plenty of cash left in her pocket - let alone in her precious duffel under the bed and the bank account sitting untouched at her fingertips - she has no urge to spend more than strictly necessary, getting a narcissistic sort of pleasure out of barely scraping by with only what she absolutely needs.

(Because how could she spoil herself with the finer things when she left behind the only necessity in her life, the little person who deserves the best she can offer, and yet must make do with nothing but the only thing Liz can give her by leaving?)

Exiting the grocery store with her third and fourth bags in hand, Liz starts the walk back to her house. The sun has risen higher in the sky during her travels, making Liz a little hot in her hoodie, and she manages to shove her sleeves up to her elbows even with her hands full, as the warm food finally in her stomach weighs down both her feet and her eyelids. In an effort to keep herself alert, Liz glances around at the establishments that line either side of the cobblestone street, not looking for anything in particular as she was on the way in earlier. She sees a plain lawyer's office, a small bookstore, a fancy-looking restaurant, an art store, an impersonal bank, a utilitarian post office…

Liz's feet slow to a stop on the pavement, but not out of fatigue.

An art store.

The sparkling clean windows gleam in the early morning sunlight and a handmade sign above the door is written in beautiful calligraphy.

O'Shea's Arts.

Pulled forward as if in a dream, Liz steps off the curb and crosses the empty street to stand in front of the store, peering through the two large glass panes on either side of the door at the items on display. The left side of the storefront is filled with a smattering of different art supplies, all thrown together on shelves and tables in a pleasing array of colorful clutter. Liz can see sets of bright, high quality colored pencils, brushes and palette knives of every shape and size, every level of graphite lead pencil and charcoal imaginable, thick pads of watercolor paper, and elegant calligraphy pens with every color ink.

Dragging her eyes across the seemingly endless display, Liz moves slowly past the door and over to the right side of the storefront to find a different kind of display. Instead of products and supplies, this window is crowded with easels of varying heights, all of them filled with beautiful canvas paintings - some landscapes, some portraits, some still art - all the chosen features signed by a different, lucky artist.

Liz spends several long minutes admiring all the different paintings in turn, observing the style, composition, and technique of each. The majority of them likely aren't professional, but they're nice to look at all the same, perhaps as a collection of local talent.

The reflection of a car slowly passing in the street behind her breaks Liz's staring contest with the storefront and she blinks quickly, taking a step back from the window. The movement brings her within sight of the door once again, and she notices the "open" sign for the first time, hanging cheerily on a hook on the inside of the shop and written in beautiful calligraphy that matches the store's main sign above her head.

Liz hesitates, the handles of her shopping bags heavy in her hand as she flounders, knowing she should just continue on back to her house. But for some reason she doesn't move, her feet fixed to the sidewalk with not a trace of the fatigue that had previously weighed her down, the sleepiness plaguing her having magically disappeared all at once.

Indecisively, she scratches her empty palm against her thigh.

(After all, what could it hurt?)

Clenching her teeth and taking the plunge, Liz steps forward, opens the door, and walks inside the store.

Over the threshold, the intimately familiar smell of paint and paper washes over her as the door slowly swings shut at her back, cool air conditioning wafting over her heated face. Looking around, Liz's eyes take in the long-forgotten sights eagerly, craning her neck to peer down the long aisles with interest. Her feet move once again without thought and she finds herself drifting toward the aisle nearest the register, lined floor to ceiling with paints. She enters the aisle and slows down, her head swiveling as she peruses the large selection of items for sale.

Liz passes dainty watercolors, bright acrylics, and thick gouache, but her feet only come to a stop when she reaches the huge display of oil paints. There must be nearly a hundred different colors in attractive little tubes, the names of the colors written on neat labels in the same handwritten curly font, and Liz's fingers drift longingly toward the paint, almost able to feel the texture of it between her fingers -

"Those are homemade."

Liz startles violently, whipping around and sending her bags knocking painfully into her knees as her heart thunders, looking behind her to see a white-haired man with a full, matching beard and kind face standing behind the otherwise empty counter.

"I'm ever so sorry, miss, I didn't mean to frighten you."

His Scottish brogue is both pleasing to the ear and comforting to Liz's panicked mind, her profiling instincts telling her he's not a threat as an intuitive sense of calm washes over her, and she shakes her head quickly.

"No, no," she hastens to tell him. "It's my fault, I'm too jumpy these days. Uh, you said these are homemade?"

"Aye," he affirms proudly. "I make them myself."

"That must be quite a process," Liz comments, her heart rate starting to slow. "Where do you get your pigments?"

The man's thick eyebrows rise at her question. "Well, I like to grind what I can from the rocks around the loch, but I have to obtain the unnatural shades from a supplier in Glasgow."

Liz nods in understanding. "Paint making always seemed like such a tedious and difficult task to me…but it must be very rewarding," she muses, before her curiosity gets the better of her once again. "Do you use a real glass muller?"

"Aye," he answers with a little nod, looking impressed at her use of the correct term. "My grandfather taught me the traditional method. This was his shop, as a matter of fact."

He seems happy to make small talk with her, smiling kindly at her undoubtedly pale face and hunched posture, and Liz appreciates the bout of normalcy, something of a balm to her battered soul.

"That's wonderful. It's a lovely shop," Liz tells him genuinely, casting an appreciative eye around before remembering what caught her attention outside. "Are the pieces in the window yours?"

"No, lass," he explains patiently. "I like to feature local artists in the storefront - some amateur, some more experienced - to engage with the community. It's a small town, you know."

Liz nods, pleased that her initial assumption had been correct. "That's a great idea. And they're beautiful; they certainly caught my eye."

"I assume you're an artist yourself, miss?" he inquires politely.

Liz's mouth pulls up at the corners and she glances down at her shoes self-consciously, shaking her head. "Oh, I wouldn't say that," she mutters. "I'm more of a hobbyist and…well, it's been a long time since I painted."

"Nonsense," he contradicts good-naturedly. "Once an artist, always an artist, I say. And at any rate, anyone who knows what a paint muller is must be up there with the best of them."

They share a little chuckle that fades into comfortable silence.

(And the pure, innocent interaction is so unexpected and welcome, Liz's lonely heart soaking up the attention like a thirsty plant, as her throat clogs with tears at the long-absent emotions.)

"My name is Malcolm, miss," the man prompts at her silence, recapturing Liz's attention. "Malcolm O'Shea."

"Oh, I'm - I'm Lyla," Liz tells him haltingly, stumbling just a little over her new name.

"It's nice to meet you, Miss Lyla," he tells her with a smile. "I can't help but notice your American accent…are you visiting Loch Lomond on holiday?"

Liz's smile falters as she's reminded of the reality of her situation, brought back to the painful truth on this, the first full day of her new life. "No, I…I just moved here actually," she chokes out, trying desperately to keep herself together.

"Oh, I see," Malcolm murmurs, his brow furrowing, seeming to sense the change in her demeanor. "Quite a big move for someone so young…"

The gentle inquiry isn't lost on Liz, although she gets the sense that Malcolm would drop the subject if she side-stepped his question. But, for some reason, she feels desperate to share at least a small grain of truth with this kind-faced man whose friendly concern is so unanticipated and appreciated.

"I experienced…a loss," she mumbles, unable to come up with a better word to encapsulate all that's happened in the past few weeks, figuring it best to keep things vague. "And I need…a fresh start."

She looks up into the Scottsman's eyes as she says the last words to see him peering at her with concern and slight shock, no doubt taken aback at the tears and pain he must see staring back at him. He blinks once or twice, his hands twitching slightly at his sides as though he wants to comfort her, before he stills himself and speaks again.

"I'm sorry to hear of that, Miss Lyla," he murmurs kindly. "I didn't mean to upset you, lass. We'll say no more about it, shall we?"

Liz nods quickly. "That would be nice, thank you."

"Of course, of course," Malcolm assures her, taking a beat and letting Liz get a hold of herself before he deliberately brightens his tone and places his hands firmly on the counter. "Now, I believe I only have one last question: does this fresh start of yours perhaps include…a return to your old hobby?"

Liz looks around the store once more, feeling a little lighter for the expressed emotion, and inhales deeply, the pleasing scents of pressed paper, linseed oil, and charcoal filling her lungs.

"You know what? I think it just might…"

(Because she hasn't felt at home or at ease or like herself anywhere at all since the moment she woke up alone in a hospital except for here in this shop surrounded by art and paint and things that remind her of Sam.)

"Would you mind helping me though?" Liz asks Malcolm timidly. "Like I said, it's been a while and I want to make sure I get everything I need…"

"Aye, lass," Malcolm says happily, emerging from behind the counter. "It would be my pleasure."

And so he takes her around the shop, aisle by aisle, efficiently collecting all the items she needs for oil painting. He makes sure she has tubes of primary colors of his homemade oil paints, a nice variety of different-shaped and good quality brushes, a long-handled palette knife, a jar of turpentine, a bottle of linseed oil, a nice plexiglass palette, several stretched canvases pre-treated with gesso, and both an A-frame and tabletop easel. On a whim, Liz also picks out a large pad of paper and a set of graphite pencils for sketching that comes with a sharpener and several large erasers.

Less than twenty minutes have passed by the time they're back at the front counter and Malcolm makes quick work of ringing up her large array of items. Liz waits for the order total, her fingers straying toward the wad of cash in her pocket in preparation.

(And while she feels a tad guilty at buying these extra items, it doesn't feel like she's treating herself to lavish gifts, like decent food would make her feel. Instead, it's more like these supplies are just as essential as the basics for which she was forced to leave the depressing sanctuary of her house. And she has an odd inkling that these things will help her survive much more than pillows and soap ever could.)

"That'll be fifty-four pounds even, Miss Lyla."

Liz quickly hands Malcolm the appropriate amount of cash, adding a little extra that she hopes he won't notice until later.

"Thank you for everything," she tells him sincerely as he neatly bags her items for her.

"Not at all, lass, it was my pleasure," he assures her with that same smile, before handing over her new possessions.

Luckily, it's only one extra bag that she adds to her handful of others and the large boxed easel, which she tucks under her other arm. "It was nice to meet you as well."

"Likewise, lass," Malcolm says warmly, coming out from behind the counter once more to escort Liz to the door. "And I imagine we'll be seeing more of each other, given that you've settled here?"

Liz smiles and hefts her easel under her arm, nodding in thanks as he courteously opens the door for her. "Oh, yes, I have a feeling you'll be seeing me again soon."

With a final wave, Liz heads back out onto the cobblestone street, now slightly busier with bustling people, breathing in the air - still thick with moisture from the loch but warming rapidly with the hot sun - as she resumes her journey back to her new house.

(And as she walks, trying to beat the return of her persistent fatigue, she notices that her hands are no longer itchy and restless now that she's carrying the bag of paint, brushes, and canvas.)

By the time she makes it back, Liz is nearly dead on her feet, and only manages to deposit her groceries on the kitchen table before staggering upstairs. She dumps all her other bags on the desk in the bedroom and clumsily extricates one of her new pillows before collapsing on the bed, her eyes closing almost before she's fully horizontal, falling instantly into exhausted sleep.

(But before she fades completely, she also manages to prop the little pad of paper up against the lamp on the bedside table - snagged from the desk on her way by - so that the little black and white, graphite sketch of Red's eyes is the last thing she sees before her own slip closed.)

---

When Liz wakes from her second sleep in her new house, she grabs her new health and beauty aid products and heads directly into the shower. It's been far too long since she bathed - a period filled with traveling, crying, and sleeping in equal parts - and she sighs in relief as she steps under the spray. She stands there for what feels like hours without even washing, just letting the hot water run over her sore muscles, getting rid of all the physical and metaphorical dirt and grime of the past few days, attempting to cleanse more than just her skin. Eventually, the water starts to cool slightly, and Liz takes that as the signal to shampoo and condition her hair and thoroughly soap her body - paying special attention to her wound - before she regretfully exits the shower.

By the time she's done and standing over the sink, looking at herself in the foggy mirror with a towel wrapped around her as the residual steam from the hot water swirls in the air, her skin feels warm and clean.

(But, on the inside, she doesn't feel nearly as cleansed as she'd hoped.)

Leaving the comforting warmth of the bathroom, Liz retrieves her duffel bag from under her bed, hurriedly dressing herself in a soft pair of sweatpants from the hospital store, a loose-fitting black t-shirt, and Sam's hoodie. She pauses only to tug on a thin pair of socks she bought at the drugstore, aiming to fight off the slight morning chill in the empty, loch-side house, before she restashes her bag under the bed and shuffles downstairs.

Wandering toward the kitchen, her arms wrapped around herself to fend off the shivers from her wet hair, Liz stops in the doorway and surveys the few sad bags of groceries she carelessly left on the table the day before.

Wincing, Liz notices the perishable items that have been sitting on the table all night.

Hurriedly, moving with a purpose now, she puts the appropriate groceries away in the otherwise barren fridge and arranges the rest of her meager collection on the counter next to the toaster. Her stomach awakens at the sight of food and, although she doesn't feel like eating, Liz half-heartedly opens the bag of apples, grabs one, and conducts a cursory search of the drawers until she finds a knife.

Sinking into one of the rickety chairs at the tiny kitchen table, one foot drawn up under her, Liz sets to work peeling her apple.

The silence of the house settles around her, and the only noises keeping her company are the scratching of her knife, the soft ticking of a clock on the wall, and the occasional creak or pop of the wood in the walls.

The thinnest hand on the clock completes one rotation as the red apple peel falls to the table in a single, long curl.

Liz methodically cuts up her fruit, coring it before cutting it first into quarters and then into eighths, while the soft, early morning light trickles in through the sheer curtain in front of the window. The muted sunlight travels slowly across the room as she eats, illuminating the pale yellow walls of the would-be cheerful room around her.

(Her chewing sounds far too loud in the empty house.)

The apple is tasteless and mealy and Liz makes quick work of it, a restlessness driving her to her feet to clean up the scraps, rinse off the knife, and replace it in its drawer.

With the obligation of sustenance temporarily fulfilled, she begins to wander once again.

Her feet take her aimlessly through the house, retracing her steps from her initial tour of the place into the small living room. First, she perches gingerly on the edge of the sofa, finding it plush and comfortable. Then, she rests a foot experimentally on the coffee table and gazes at the empty TV stand. Next, she surges to her feet and walks over to inspect the fireplace, running her fingers down the worn bricks. After that, she walks over to stand in front of the large window - this one not covered by curtains - and stares out at the loch.

The dancing surface of the lake captivates her for a while, the meager sunlight sparkling prettily off the small waves, the ebb and flow of the huge expanse of water oddly comforting.

Liz's palms itch pointedly.

Pulling herself away from the visage, Liz leaves the room and heads for the stairs, once again making the climb to her bedroom. Obviously, it's just as she left it not half an hour ago, and Liz's attention is drawn to the remaining bags from her outing yesterday, still taking up space on the desk.

Grateful for a new goal - however short-lived - Liz starts to put away the rest of her new belongings in their proper places. With the towels and other such linens already in the bathroom from her morning shower, she finally makes the bed, slowly but surely putting the sheets and pillowcases on, trying to draw out the process. When that's done, she takes the few assorted things she got at the pharmacy and arranges them on the bathroom sink, the little solitary line of bottles and products looking lonely and pathetic.

All but one bag unpacked, Liz sits heavily in the desk chair in her room, needing a break to rest after all the activity of the past few days. She rubs absentmindedly at her sore, aching chest and peers out between the curtains at the loch once again before her gaze falls to the last bag on the desk.

Her new art supplies.

(And her fingers seem to drift toward the bag without her permission and she remembers why exactly she felt compelled to buy it all in the first place.)

With shaking hands, she turns the bag upside down and dumps out all the supplies on the desk, looking at the assortment with fresh eyes, and suddenly feeling an urge to paint that's more intense than any she's felt in years.

So, with absolutely nothing better to do…she does.

Liz falls into the familiar preparation and steps like she never left the hobby at all, her skills reawakening in rapid waves, and her mind and body relax into the process gratefully as she finally provides them something to focus on other than her pain and grief, and the residual ache in her chest fades into nothing as she works.

She starts by laying everything out on the desk, lining up her tubes of paint and brushes next to her knife and palette. After that, she makes another slow trip downstairs to rifle through the kitchen cabinets for something in which to pour her turpentine and linseed oil. She manages to find a stray mason jar and a squat glass that she thinks will do the job, and she returns to her room to add them to her desk and grab an extra washcloth from the bathroom for brush cleaning. Once she has poured the necessary liquids, Liz sets up her two easels, constructing the smaller, tabletop one and pushing it aside before unfolding the larger A-frame easel. She takes her time adjusting it to her height and securing the screws before situating it further back in the top limb of the backward L-shape of her bedroom, making sure to tilt it away from the direct sunlight. Once she's satisfied, she places one of her canvases at the ready on the easel and tucks the others she bought under the desk for safe-keeping, ready to be used when she needs them. The only remaining thing from her bag is the sketchbook and pencils Liz picked out and, after a moment's thought, she places the book on her nightstand next to the tiny graphite sketch and divides the pencils between the nightstand and desk.

With all her supplies set up, Liz walks over to the long row of windows, brushes aside the curtain, and - with a grunt of effort - pushes it open a few inches. It has the intended effect of diluting the fumes from her jars of liquids with some fresh, summer air, as well as the added benefit of the ambient sounds of the loch. Liz leans on the window sill for a moment and listens, the quiet sloshing noise of the water quite calming, even with the faint sounds of the nearby town.

(And although the natural noises of the large body of water help to soothe her, it also simply reminds her of how alone she is.)

Sitting at her desk with a sigh of relief, Liz grabs her canvas and a pencil and sets to work.

She begins with no real subject in mind, simply reveling in the alternation of long and short strokes of her pencil, scratching pleasantly across the rough canvas as a silhouette comes to life in minutes. She keeps her sketch rough, abandoning her pencil as soon as she can to reach instead for the tantalizing tubes of paint. It's incredibly satisfying to pick colors - straying toward her neutral shades for a suitable skin tone and dark ones for clothing - and squeeze them in little piles and lines onto her plexiglass palette.

Malcolm's paints are a beautiful, creamy consistency, and Liz barely needs to use any turpentine to thin them to a spreadable consistency. With that step minimal, she moves right ahead to mixing her colors, delighting in the scrape of her knife along the palette, grabbing portions of burnt umber and titanium white to create a lovely tan, adding more white little by little as well as snatches of cadmium yellow and alizarin crimson to create different swatches of color from which to choose.

When she's satisfied with the shades she's mixed, Liz grabs her brushes and stands, moving to her easel and - with a distinct loosening in her limbs - begins to paint.

Her mind goes blissfully blank as she paints, entirely focused on her hands and her brush, bringing her subject slowly to life as the paint glides onto the canvas to create cheeks with a tinge of red, quaint ears, a flattering forehead, close-cropped hair with delicate sideburns, a nose with a slight upward tilt at the end, thin, pink lips, a round chin…

It begins to rain as she paints, the sunlight receding from the room as naturally as it came, the clouds of a summer storm covering the sky and turning the surface of the loch gray and moody as raindrops disturb the surface, the waves breaking more audibly at the dock in the backyard.

Liz pauses only to turn on the lights in the room, dragging the previously unused floor lamp over next to her easel and taking the shade off, allowing the naked bulb to act as an artificial sun. She inhales the petrichor wafting in from outside, the strong, earthy scent mixing with the chemical smell of her turpentine and keeping her mind clear as she begins mixing colors for the clothing of her subject, pulling together prussian blue, phthalo green, and mars black for an engaging mixture as a collar, tie, and windbreaker come to life around her subject…

The entire day passes by in a blur as Liz paints, the gray sky slowly darkening further into night as she adds the finishing touches to her portrait, adding highlights to the appropriate features, texture to the clothing, and tweaking the complex shade of the eyes until she manages to tear herself away. She turns away from her easel, putting her palette and brush down and shaking out her cramping hands, before blinking hard and turning back, attempting to look with fresh eyes at her creation, only to see -

Oh.

Thunder rumbles lowly in the night, echoing endlessly over the huge expanse of the loch.

It certainly has been a while since she's painted but she'd always been good at capturing a likeness…

And it almost frightens her to see Red staring back at her from on the canvas.

(It's undoubtedly him, perfectly intimidating and imperious, and the sight of him - however fabricated - sets her heart racing painfully under her wound.)

Liz slowly backs up from her easel until the back of her knees hit her mattress, and she lifts the covers and crawls underneath without taking her eyes off the portrait, a maelstrom of emotions thundering inside of her as the cool rain picks up outside her window.

It's a long time before she finally falls into a deep sleep, her strained eyes losing the staring contest with her unblinking canvas, and the painting seems imprinted even on the backs of her closed eyelids.

(And she knows in her soul that that painting - created lovingly with her own two hands - is the only thing that's soothed her itchy palms and sore chest and aching heart since the moment she woke up dead.)

---

The sun rises to find Liz painting again.

She woke early from an uneasy sleep, used the bathroom, forced herself to eat a dry piece of buttered toast over the kitchen sink, and then she's back at her easel as the first rays of early morning sunlight peek through the lace curtains.

(Her dreams - vivid and present for the first time she since before the hospital - were filled with images much like the one propped up on her easel and watching over her while she slept, his imposing visage mixed with rumbling snatches of his voice and the faintest scent of smoke in the air.)

Liz has wanted a paintbrush back in her hand before her eyes even opened that morning and she wastes no time in answering that call, carefully taking the portrait of Red off the easel and putting it on the desk instead, leaning it against the wall out of the direct sunlight to continue drying. She grabs a blank canvas from the stack on the floor under her desk, picks up her palette and knife, and starts again.

She paints with a purpose now, beginning a new portrait with a clear goal of what she wants to create. Her brush strokes are even faster than yesterday and she utilizes the skin-toned color she mixed the day before, the oil paint still wet and usable, as well as the different shades of green, gray, and blue for the eyes. She needs only mars black and titanium white for the clothing of her subject, painting down to chest level this time to showcase the beginnings of a crisp tuxedo.

When she's finished around lunchtime, Liz steps back from her palette to see Red in formal wear, a look pulled from several distinct memories over the years of undercover operations and fancy parties.

(Her heart skips a beat painfully under her wound at the beautiful rendering of him, gallant and elegant, remembering how it felt to be escorted on his arm.)

Liz takes a break to rest her hands and eyes, heading to the kitchen for a bottle of water and an apple, belatedly smearing it with a little peanut butter to mask the unappetizing taste. She's still chewing when she leaves the kitchen once again - still as spotless as the day she arrived - and hurries back to her room.

Once there, she starts another painting, this time painting a smiling Red, using almost all her neutral tones to mix more skin-toned paint, and nearly all her prussian blue and mars black for a baseball cap and loose button-down shirt. She spends the rest of the day tweaking his mouth, a deep furrow in her brow as she tries to recreate the smile he always seemed to save for her, the one full of adoration and amusement and sheer love. Only once she's satisfied with that and his stormy eyes - the blues and grays more made more prominent by the shades of his clothing - does she lightly paint over his transparent, trademark amber sunglasses.

(But the glasses can't quite hide the look in his eyes, a near perfect recreation of her favorite expression on him, and she wishes more than anything that she could see it again.)

By the time she's done, the sun has long since set, and she lays in bed staring at her collection of three portraits and feeling twin aches on either side of her wounded heart, one for her daughter and one for him.

(Because while she is gaining an incredible sense of satisfaction from painting again, as well as deriving a purpose and something to fill her lonely days, she is as far from happy as she could possibly be.)

In the morning, Liz showers, puts on fresh clothes, and eats some more dry toast with some peanut butter spread over it before returning to her room. She sits on her bed, the sheets and blankets still in a Liz-shaped pile from her restless night's sleep, and rests her back against the headboard before taking her sketchbook and pencils from her nightstand. Bringing her knees up as far as she can without putting undue pressure on her wound, Liz creates a makeshift work surface, leans her sketchbook against her legs, and begins to draw.

With the exception of the small drawing still propped against her lamp, she's even more out of practice with graphite sketching than with oil painting and she fills several pages of her book with simple, isolated things - eyes, noses, ears, lips, trees, mountains, birds - filling and flipping the pages in quick succession before she feels ready to attempt something bigger.

Liz starts another portrait without thinking but, as her hand glides effortlessly over the smooth paper, she finds herself drawing a different person than the one staring at her from three different canvases across the room. She sketches tinier features, bright inquisitive eyes, a cute button nose, shoulder-length dark hair, and a smile so adorable that tears are slipping down Liz's cheeks before she's even finished her drawing.

Gritting her teeth, she blinks the tears out of her eyes and adds the final touches, her hand starting to ache just as she sets her pencil down to see Agnes smiling back at her.

(And she thinks if she looks down that she might see a gaping hole in her chest from the grief and sadness of missing her daughter so much, and the slowly healing gunshot wound is absolutely nothing compared to the void where her baby girl should be.)

Liz wipes her tears away harshly, knowing she has no right to feel the way she does when she's the one who left the smiling little girl on the paper.

Closing the sketchbook and putting it aside on the nightstand, Liz pushes herself to her feet and wanders back downstairs toward the kitchen, the dull, annoying ache of hunger starting to settle in her stomach once again. Entering the small kitchen, she glances at the shrinking pile of groceries on the counter, noting absently that she's almost out of bread, bottled water, and apples.

With an internal shrug, Liz sets about making herself a single grilled cheese sandwich with a small frying pan scavenged from the back of a low cupboard and pouring a glass of milk from the slightly off-smelling half-gallon in the fridge.

The hot sandwich tastes nicer than the apples and toast she's been consuming, and Liz feels a pang of guilt for enjoying it. Sighing, she quickly washes her dishes and shuffles back upstairs to her desk, her arms wrapped loosely around herself.

Liz peers out at the loch, bright with reflected sunlight today, feeling lost, before she turns to study her painting supplies. Surprised, Liz notices that she only has two canvases left and several tubes of her paint are nearly empty, a sight that inspires considerably more concern than her dwindling groceries did. Another glance at her limited assortment of brushes, palette knife crusty with dried paint, and palette smeared with a rather pleasing assortment of leftover paint splotches decides the rest of her day for her.

It's time to go shopping.

Seeing from the alarm clock on her bedside table that it's only just past eleven in the morning and satisfied that she has plenty of time, Liz grabs a handful of bills from her duffel bag under the bed, stuffs them in her hoodie pocket along with her house key, and leaves for the shops.

Just as she did on her first trip for supplies, Liz reluctantly stops at the grocery store first, hurriedly buying another half gallon of milk, loaf of bread, and small flat of bottled waters, before hesitating near the checkout. Sighing in defeat, she also selects a box of plain crackers to go with her peanut butter and a bag of oranges, simply because she's tired of apples.

Liz hustles through the self check-out once again, carrying her one small bag of foodstuffs without a problem and - after pausing to reluctantly remove her hoodie and tie the sleeves around her waist, unable to deal with the midday July heat any longer - she retraces her steps from days prior to Malcolm's shop, something like excitement propelling her feet.

(And it's not exactly a happiness that fills her - she doubts she will ever feel truly happy again without the two people that are an ocean away - but more so a stark relief at having a goal, however ultimately pointless and short-lived.)

The little bell above her head jingles happily as she opens the door and crosses the threshold to see Malcolm behind the counter once again, his head bowed over a pad of paper with a fancy-looking pen clutched in his left hand.

He looks up as she approaches the counter. "Ah, Miss Lyla!" he cries in delight, putting down what Liz is now close enough to see is an old-fashioned calligraphy pen, which Malcolm was using to scrawl beautiful letters on a thick pad of paper. "It's good to see you again, lass!"

"Likewise, Malcolm," Liz smiles genuinely, feeling her heart warm just a little at the reception. "I've come to replenish my supplies."

"I'm glad to hear it, Miss Lyla. You've been painting then, I gather?" he questions.

"Like a fiend," Liz confirms, with a little unexpected spark of pride. "Your handmade oils are lovely. I can't get enough of them."

"Well, we'll have to remedy that then, shan't we?" Malcolm says with a grin.

He accompanies her through the aisles once again, but this time Liz knows exactly what she wants, pulling things off the shelves and putting them in a basket hanging off her arm as she chats with Malcolm, making easy conversation and not minding his polite, casual questions.

"What do you like to paint, if you don't mind my asking?" he inquires, as she plucks several tubes of his paints off the shelf - more burnt umber, titanium white, prussian blue, mars black, and new cadmium orange, ultramarine violet - and adds them to the new brushes and palette knives in her basket.

"Portraits mostly," Liz hedges, more unwilling than she ever has been to share too much about her private work. "I dabbled in landscapes and still life when I was younger, but I haven't done them in years."

"Well, if you find it in yourself to paint any," Malcolm comments, courteously taking the multitude of different sized canvases that Liz now picks off the shelf for her. "And you'd like to display them in the window, I'd surely compensate you for them."

Liz's eyebrows raise at that. "Really? I thought that was a collection of local talent."

"Tis," Malcolm agrees easily. "And you're both talented and local, yes? Seems a perfect match to me. Besides, I have a feeling your paintings are slightly more professional, not to mention good advertising for my paints. I'd also be happy to put them up for sale, all proceeds to you, of course."

Heading back to the register with him following dutifully behind, Liz smiles and nods her thanks. "I'll definitely keep that in mind, Malcolm. Thank you."

"Oh, my pleasure, lass," he murmurs to her in his soothing Scottish brogue. "Will this be all, then?"

At her nod, he begins to tally her purchases up at the register and Liz glances around as she waits, surveying a particularly attractive set of watercolors before a small display on the other end of the counter catches her eye. It's an assortment of beautiful leather-bound journals in a range of sizes with covers in different colors of supple leather.

"Those are gorgeous," Liz murmurs, and Malcolm looks up from the register to follow her gaze down the length of the counter.

"Ah, yes, they are, aren't they?" he agrees happily, upon seeing what caught her attention. "They're handmade as well."

"By you?" Liz assumes, drifting down the counter to pick up a deep blue journal the color of sapphire, running her fingers over the soft, buttery leather cover.

"By my daughter," Malcolm corrects and Liz glances up in surprise.

"You have a daughter?"

"Aye," Malcolm nods, pride clear in his voice. "Elsie."

(And Liz realizes then, observing the familiar look on his face of which she's seen hints since she first walked into his store days ago, that she must remind him in some small capacity of his daughter, a thought that makes her happy because something about the way his eyes crinkle at the corners reminds her heart-wrenchingly of Sam.)

Liz flips through the journal in her hands, taking in the neat stitching and thick, cream-colored, blank pages inside, before she carefully puts it back on the display. She reaches for one with a seafoam-like cover instead, her eyes attracted to the complex swirls of color that look gray in some light and green in others, weighing it in her hands before impulsively taking it back to Malcolm at the register.

"I'll take this one," she says softly, adding it to her pile of new supplies.

(And she tries to ignore the truth echoing in her heart of hearts that the color of the journal appeals to her so much because it's the same stormy shades as Red's eyes, forever changing, imprinted in the back of her mind and captured on the canvases in her room.)

Once her items are bagged, Liz thanks Malcolm profusely and - promising to visit again soon - takes her leave and heads back through the manageable heat to her house. Once there, she deposits her new supplies on her desk and heads straight to bed without unpacking them, suddenly exhausted as she curls up underneath the covers, tugging them halfway over her head to block out the afternoon sunlight peeking through the curtains and falling into a fitful sleep.

She dreams of Agnes.

Tossing and turning, Liz is tormented by visions of her tearful little girl asking why she left, her baby crying out for her in the dark, always just out of reach but never quite out of sight or earshot, distraught and alone.

Mommy, why did you leave me? she demands, her little brow furrowed and eyes overflowing.

Because I had to, because I must keep you safe, because I love you! Liz wants to cry back, her mouth forming the words, but no sound comes out and Agnes recedes into the darkness, crying anew, all alone.

When Liz finally wrenches herself out of her nightmares, the sun has long since set, the darkness of nighttime smothering her bedroom and the chill of the empty house drying the salty tears on her cheeks.

(She can't bear this.)

Over the next few miserable days, Liz spends her time experimenting with her new paints, drawing, and thinking.

If only she could see her daughter again, just a glimpse to be sure that she's safe and happy, then maybe the aching hole inside her could start to heal just a little. But Liz knows that's a slippery slope. That one glimpse would turn into another and another and soon she simply wouldn't be able to stay away.

Which is not what's best for Agnes.

As Liz continues to float listlessly around the house, always ending up back in her room with a paintbrush or a pencil in her hand, she wishes she could at least hear Agnes's voice. Even that would be better than nothing and the chance to tell her how much Liz misses her, wishes they could be together, and has only ever wanted the best for her would mean everything to Liz. But typical electronic devices and messaging accounts are far too easy to trace and her little girl is far too young to conspicuously handle a cell phone or computer. Perhaps that would be an option once Agnes is a little older…

But the thought of going even another day without contact with her daughter just about kills Liz all over again.

(And, as much as it breaks her heart, Liz knows from personal experience that there's a distinct possibility that the older Agnes gets, the less likely it is she would even want to talk to the mother that abandoned her.)

Her depressed musings find her once again curled up in her bed sketching Agnes, unable to stop herself, drawing her baby as she loves most to picture her, smiling and holding one of her favorite princess dolls.

If there were just some safe, non-traceable, anonymous method with which to communicate with Agnes, one where she would be the only one aware of Liz's continued existence, a feat that is surely impossible…

Liz's hand slowly glides to a stop on the paper, still in the middle of absentmindedly adding flowery details to the princess doll's dress, clutched firmly in Agnes's graphite hand.

…there may be a way.

For her fifth birthday, Agnes was gifted a subscription to a children's mail service that sends monthly letters from make-believe princesses around the world, all containing educational facts and photos of their respective countries. It was a present from Harold, as a matter of fact, something his own daughter enjoyed when she was Agnes's age and something he thought Liz's daughter would like, given her age-appropriate obsession with all things princess.

As he suspected, Agnes has been joyfully receiving the letters for the two years since then, always crowing with delight when a new one arrived in the mailbox, and Liz remembers distinctly that the letters always come from the same PO box, a fact that was obvious to her adult eyes but Agnes was innocently oblivious to. The company is based in England and the journey to their D.C. apartment left overseas postage on the thick, cream-colored envelope, which was always addressed to 'Princess Agnes' in fancy, curly writing with an intricate seal on the back flap.

One that Liz thinks she can recreate.

Her heart starting to pound eagerly, Liz puts aside her sketchbook and pencil and starts pacing the room, her mind moving a mile a minute as she tries to work out a feasible plan.

(And, god, does it feel good to stretch her analytical, problem-solving mind after such a long period of numbing stasis and, oh, she should have known Agnes would be the one to save her.)

The cover of a princess letter may very well work for the outside camouflage, but Liz needs some kind of disguise for the contents as well, if only for the first letter, to establish the importance of secrecy with Agnes and instruct her on how to write back. It's only a few minutes and a handful of passes up and down her L-shaped bedroom before Liz thinks of something, almost cracking a smile at the convenience of it all.

This could actually work.

She recalls another one of Agnes's recent interests, not as undying as princesses, of course, but definitely something more than a passing fancy…

Codes and ciphers.

It's not an unusual interest for a seven-year-old - Liz remembers going through a similar phase herself, perhaps when she was slightly older than her daughter is now - and Agnes's curious mind was quick to develop a fascination with secret messages. Liz has lovely memories of reading books with her on different kinds of codes, relatively simple ones meant for children, and then tucking encrypted notes into her lunchbox for her to crack at school, always having a lollipop or sticker ready for her when she arrived home with the decoded message.

Rubbing her scar and glancing out at the loch each time she passes the window, Liz finalizes her plan, energized and anxious to begin.

If she's very, very careful, she could write in code to Agnes under the guise of a princess letter so that the communication will make it past Harold's sharp gaze and into her daughter's hands. Liz can tell her the truth - that she's alive and in hiding for Agnes's safety - and give her directions on how to write back. Once Liz is sure that Agnes understands and can maintain the secrecy, they can cease writing the bodies of their letters in code and merely use the external princess letter disguise.

Liz's scar aches and her palms itch at the same time and she stuffs her hands in her pockets to stop herself fidgeting, pausing her pacing in front of the window and chewing her lip anxiously as she stares out at the water.

It might be a lot to expect of a seven-year-old, but Liz can only try and hope for the best. Agnes reads and writes so well for her age. And her baby is smart.

She'll figure it out.

(She has to.)

Not wanting to waste any more time now that she's decided on her course, Liz glances at the clock. Seeing that it's too late to go out for what she needs today, she mutters a quiet curse to herself and turns to her desk instead, grabbing her sketchbook as she goes. She sits at her desk, hurriedly tearing a sheet out of the book and sharpening a pencil, before taking a deep breath and starting her letter.

Dear Princess Agnes…

Liz writes what she really wants to say first, scrawling rough draft after rough draft of her feelings, before working on cutting it down to the most essential things, knowing she'll only have so much room for her secret message amidst the body of the fake letter.

I am alive.

I am far away.

I left to keep you safe.

This is our secret.

Tell no one.

Respond to this address.

I love you.

It hurts her to have to take out everything else she wants to say, but Liz consoles herself with the fact that only this first communication has to make it through Harold's watchful gaze and into Agnes's hands. Liz doesn't think Harold will open and read Agnes's mail, not with the familiar princess seal on the outside, but she wants to be sure. After this first one, she'll feel more comfortable writing freely.

That is, assuming she even gets anything back.

(Because she wouldn't blame Agnes for a second if she saw the letter was from her thought-dead mother and threw it away without a second thought.)

After she's decided on her brief but imperative secret message, Liz starts to translate it. Agnes's favorite code is the caesar cipher and the one they used the most often in their notes to each other. It's simple enough, just rotating the alphabet by a certain number, and the two of them always used Agnes's favorite: eight.

With a practiced hand, Liz quickly rewrites the message with the adjusted letters. Then, she starts drafting the princess letter itself, modeling it off of the ones she remembers Agnes receiving. She keeps it simple, picking a random country and listing all the facts she can think of about it, all the while keeping her message by her elbow and working the code into the body of the letter, finding each letter of her secret message in order in the newly written text and highlighting it, darkening it just enough that she knows it will stick out to Agnes's sharp eye, just as it did in her coded lunch notes.

Once it's completely constructed, Liz writes the letter several times, minutely adjusting the format of the text and slant of the font, trying to perfect it and disguise her own handwriting, until she tells herself that it's not going to get any better. She thinks the final product is a passable imitation of one of the original letters, so she sets it aside on the desk, and gets to work practicing the princess seal from memory.

She works through the night, feverishly trying to perfect the seal in her sketchbook, ignoring her stomach's desperate call for dinner and only stopping to turn on the lamp to illuminate her work surface. The sun is just beginning to rise as Liz starts to paint a few practice seals, covering her pencils lines with the lightest coats she can manage so that they dry quickly. It only takes a few tries to get it right - thankfully skilled with recreations as she is - and Liz soon has what she needs, pleased with herself. She puts the page of seals next to her letter to dry, making a note to purchase scissors and glue from Malcolm tomorrow.

Which is actually later today.

Glancing at the clock again, Liz sees that it's still in the early hours of the morning and the businesses she needs to visit won't yet be open for several hours. Rubbing her sore eyes, Liz stumbles over to her bed and falls in, deciding to get a few hours of much-needed sleep before she leaves.

Exhausted as she is, Liz's sleep is deep, dreamless, and short.

(The best kind.)

When she wakes, suddenly and for no discernable reason, Liz still has a half hour to kill but rises anyway, anxiety and excitement to send her letter driving her out of bed. She showers, dresses, and nearly scalds her mouth on the fried eggs she cooks and makes herself eat before she's half-heartedly cleaning the pan and then hurrying out the door with her letter, her paper of seals, her fake passport, and some cash safe in the pocket of her hoodie.

Her first stop is the post office.

Liz pushes open the door just a few minutes after the sign says their hours begin, clearly surprising the young man behind the counter.

"Good morning, miss, may I help you?" he inquires, his eyebrows high on his forehead.

"Yes," Liz says simply. "I'd like to purchase a P.O. box."

"Certainly, miss," the man answers, still looking a little bemused, but thankfully not questioning her determination. "I just need this application filled out, as well as a form of identification. There are pens for your convenience at that table over there."

Liz nods in thanks and takes the application, making her way to the indicated table that holds an assortment of different forms, a cup of pens, and scraps of paper. She makes quick work of the application, having to inquire for the date - somehow the end of July already - and writing down most of the requested information as Lyla Thompson, fibbing her way through what she doesn't feel comfortable sharing.

She doubts they'll be checking anything.

When she's finished, Liz brings the form back to the young man at the counter - who's sipping gratefully on a hot coffee, Liz still his only customer - and fishes her passport out of her pocket. The man glances quickly at both documents, about as thorough as Liz expected him to be, and nods to himself, handing back her fake passport.

"Everything looks to be in order, Miss Thompson. What size box would you like?"

Liz hesitates, glancing at the large array of boxes on the wall to her left, knowing the only mail she has any reason to expect would arrive in standard-size envelopes. "The smallest is fine."

"Certainly, miss. Just one moment, I'll fetch your key."

Liz waits, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet, as he wanders into the back room, but luckily he returns almost right away holding a little gold key.

"Here you are, Miss Thompson," he tells her, handing over the key, which Liz tucks safely in her pants pocket. "You have box seventy-one. And that'll be fifteen pounds for three months."

Liz quickly hands over the cash before remembering what else she needs. "Oh, I almost forgot - do you sell envelopes? And I'm in need of some stamps, as well."

"Aye, miss, we do. Which kind would you like?" he asks, pointing to a display to the right of the counter with a sample of each type of envelope they offer, all clearly labeled.

Liz considers them all before picking out a large, thick, cream-colored envelope most like the ones in which she remembers the princess letters arriving and the man pulls a box of them out from behind the counter, as well as a small book of stamps. He rings up her additional purchases and gives her the adjusted total, accepting her extra cash to cover the cost, before he puts her items in a small bag while her receipt prints from the old, noisy machine.

"Thanks very much," Liz tells him, as he tucks the receipt in the bag and hands it to her, before she turns to head for the door, only pausing when a small wrinkle in her plan occurs to her.

Taking a breath to try and slow her swift heartbeat, Liz considers her next step. She has every item she needs now to send her letter to Agnes, except for one thing. She needs to somehow match the fancy, curly script that was always on the outside of Agnes's princess letters. And - as competent as she is with a brush - she doesn't think she can do it herself.

But she knows someone who can.

With a solution to her problem devised, Liz quickly steps up to the little table of forms and pens again, grabbing a piece of scrap paper and writing out Harold's address. Unsure of what to write for the return address, Liz quickly hurries back to the counter.

"Sorry, one more thing," she asks the slightly exasperated man. "If I wanted to give someone my P.O. box address so I can receive mail from them, how would I write that?"

The young man rattles off the correct address and Liz scribbles it down underneath Harold's on her piece of paper, reading it back to double check it, before thanking him once again and hurrying out the door.

She doesn't stop walking until she's once again tugging open the door of Malcolm's shop.

The store appears empty at first glance, but the ringing of the little bell above her summons Malcolm from the back room, looking curious and holding a steaming mug of coffee.

"Well, good morning, lass!" he says, smiling kindly at her. "This is an early morning surprise. Need more paints already, do you?"

Liz laughs softly, approaching the counter timidly. "No, not yet. Actually, I came to ask you a favor…I sort of need your help with something."

Malcolm raises his eyebrows in interest. "Oh, aye? And how can I help, Miss Lyla?"

Liz takes a deep breath before responding. "Well, I couldn't help but notice how skilled you are at calligraphy," she begins, pulling the box of envelopes out of her bag and the scrawled addresses out of her pocket. "I wondered if you could address this envelope for me. It's for…someone very dear to me. And I want it to be special."

She hesitantly puts the box and the paper on the very edge of the counter and Malcolm blinks owlishly at them for a moment before laughing loudly, taking her by surprise.

"Is that all?" he laughs, smiling broadly. "That's not a favor, lass, I'd be happy to!"

Liz lets out a breathy laugh of relief. "Oh, thank you, Malcolm. You have no idea what this means to me."

His smile slowly fades as he takes in her sincere expression - as well as the slight shine to her eyes - but he seems to sense the sensitive nature of Liz's comment and politely moves on.

"Not at all, Miss Lyla," he murmurs. "It will take me a few minutes. Would you like a cup of coffee while you wait? I've just brewed a pot."

Coffee sounds unexpectedly heavenly. "If it's not too much trouble, coffee would be lovely," she answers honestly. "Can I watch you write? I'd love to see how you do it…"

Malcolm happily consents and disappears into the back room to pour her a mug of coffee, calling back into the store to ask how she likes it before reappearing with a steaming green mug, perfectly prepared with two creams and one sugar just as she sheepishly requested. He leaves her once more to retrieve the appropriate pen and ink before he comes back to pull his stool up to the counter and get to work. He practices both addresses first on a thick pad of paper he produces from behind the counter, explaining all the different strokes of his pen as Liz leans against the counter to watch carefully, trying not to block the natural light shining in through the storefront. She quickly becomes mesmerized by the smooth movements of his pen leaving gorgeous lines and intricate curls in its wake.

"That's amazing," she murmurs in awe as he writes out Harold's zip code, his numbers just as tidy and picturesque as his letters. "You're so talented!"

"Oh, it's nothing, lass," he rumbles modestly. "I've had years and years of practice."

Satisfied with his preparation, Malcolm plucks an envelope from the box and flawlessly replicates both addresses - 'Princess Agnes' with Harold's address in large letters on the front and Liz's P.O. box address in smaller script on the back flap - as she watches, sipping her coffee gratefully.

"There we are!" he announces with a flourish of the envelope. "All done! Though we should leave it to dry for a few minutes."

He props the envelope against the cash register to dry and, with a start, Liz remembers the final things she needs for it to finally be ready to send.

"Well, that's perfect," she tells him, setting her empty coffee mug aside and replacing her box of envelopes and address paper in her bag. "Because I need to buy scissors and glue for the finishing touches."

Looking curious once again, Malcolm emerges from behind the counter to lead her to the aisle with the supplies she needs, and Liz makes quick work of picking out a sharp pair of scissors and a high quality glue stick. They take them back to the register and Liz quickly tallies up the total in her head from the labels she saw in the aisle. Before Malcolm can ring up the amount - which comes to well under ten pounds - she slides a twenty across the counter.

It takes her a moment to realize that Malcolm isn't touching the bill, instead glaring up at her from under his bushy eyebrows, one of them raised imperiously. "And what's this, Miss Lyla?"

Liz blinks at him innocently. "Money?" she says slowly. "For the scissors and the glue and the calligraphy -"

But he's already shaking his head. "I'm not charging you for that, lass," he says simply.

"Of course you are!" protests Liz, surprised. "You did such beautiful work!"

"I'm glad you think so," he says primly. "But it isn't worth any money, Miss Lyla. It was nothing. Besides, I was happy to do it for you."

"But your time is worth something, if nothing else!" Liz cries.

"Ten whole minutes? With no other customers in the shop?" he asks dryly. "I assure you, it's not that valuable. At any rate, this is far too much for all those things put together, and this isn't the first time. Don't think I haven't noticed your little habit of over-paying me, Miss Lyla. All of this is on the house and I'm sure I still owe you."

Liz gapes at his tenaciousness, although she's quietly impressed with his sharp eye. Not much gets past him. She sighs, tapping her fingers on the counter and considering her options.

"I won't take these for free," she begins to bargain, gesturing to the scissors and glue. "Will you at least accept the exact change?"

He narrows his eyes at her, debating, before heaving a sigh and giving in. "All right, I can see you won't accept anything less. Exact change, Miss Lyla, and not a penny more."

Liz smiles in victory and quickly subtracts to reach the correct amount.

(For all his good-natured griping, she can tell he's fond of her and it hasn't taken her long to feel exactly the same way in return.)

Finally completing the transaction, Malcolm closes the register, gives her the receipt, and leans against the counter. "Now, what exactly do you need with these things anyway?"

Liz just smiles and pulls her carefully folded letter and page of painted seals out of her pocket to put them on the counter, before attempting to wrestle her new scissors out of their packaging. As she struggles, Malcolm peers curiously at the seals, pulling the sheet across the counter to get a better look at them.

"Miss Lyla," he asks slowly, in an odd tone of voice. "Did you paint these, lass?"

Liz glances up at him, finally freeing the scissors from their packaging, to see him looking at her with his mouth slightly agape. "Yes," she confirms. "It's just a recreation of the real thing, I had to do it from memory…"

She trails off as his bushy eyebrows raise higher and higher. "They're very good, lass," he murmurs, picking up the sheet and bringing it closer to inspect it. "The detail alone…this is with my paints?"

Liz chuckles to herself, feeling a slight blush creep up her cheeks. "Yes, just the thinnest possible coat. I told you they're lovely."

Malcolm shakes his head slowly, finally putting the seals carefully back down on the counter. "The paints are only as good as the painter, lass. I can't take any credit here. You're quite skilled."

Liz smiles self-consciously and thanks him quietly, setting to work carefully cutting out her best seal as he watches with interest, taking his turn to observe her.

(It's odd to share her art - however mundane the seals are - with anyone other than her father and her slightly embarrassed blush lingers, tickling, at the back of her neck. But she thinks if anyone was going to see it, then this kind, Sam-like man is the one person she would trust the most. And she has to admit that the long absent and sorely missed praise of her work feels good.

And she likes to think she can feel Sam nodding approvingly from somewhere high above.)

Once she has her seal cut as finely as she can manage, a feat made easy with the high quality scissors, Liz quickly tucks her folded letter into the envelope - the fancy script now dry - and opens her glue to seal the flap on the back. Once it's pressed firmly down, Liz adds copious layers of glue to the back of her small, circular seal and flips it over to cover the point of the flap, straightening it minutely, working quickly to perfect it before the glue sets.

Malcolm watches the whole thing quietly, still looking impressed, until Liz finally holds the finished product up for inspection, flipping it repeatedly to scrutinize both the front and back.

"All done!" she says, satisfied with her work, before tucking away the page of unused seals in her pocket and adding her new scissors and glue to her bag. "It just needs postage."

She whips the little book of stamps she bought out of her bag triumphantly and Malcolm chuckles at her resourcefulness.

"I'm impressed, Miss Lyla," he tells her warmly. "That looks truly lovely. It must be for someone very special indeed."

Liz smooths a stamp in the upper right corner of the envelope, her hands slowing as Malcolm speaks, and her fingers drift longingly over Agnes's name.

"Yes, it is…"

Liz thanks Malcolm profusely once again and promises to come back in a few days before taking her leave with her beautiful envelope in hand, heading back toward the post office. She doesn't bother going inside again, quite able to see from the sidewalk that the place has become busy and crowded while she was at Malcolm's shop. Instead, she simply goes to the red collection box in front of the building and, pressing a fervent kiss to the envelope, Liz slides it into the slot with shaking hands.

"I love you, Agnes…" she murmurs quietly to the letter before taking a deep breath, wiping a stray tear from her cheek, and heading back to her empty house.

---

Unfortunately, she doesn't feel much better now that the letter is sent.

Rather, the heavy despair and gaping hole inside her have lessened very slightly, only to be replaced by alternating bouts of empty depression and an uncomfortable, prickling, anxious impatience.

(The dueling sensations are torturous and inescapable.)

Liz knows that she's done all she can do for Agnes - short of giving up and returning to bring back the cloud of danger that follows wherever she goes - and the only thing she can do now is wait however long it takes for a reply, even if that ends up being forever, and her impatience won't make time move any faster.

But it's easier said than done.

Trying desperately to resign herself to potentially endless waiting, Liz throws herself into the same banal excuse for a routine that she occupied before: eating minimally, sleeping at odd hours, painting endlessly, and overall simply existing. The only change from before is that, in trying not to think about Agnes, her thoughts turn in the only other feasible direction…

Red.

She thinks about him constantly; what she knows of his past, how they used to be, their happier days, what they've been through, how she's wronged him, how she feels about him…

It's an all-consuming business.

And while the phrase 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' may objectively be true, Liz knows that the distance now separating them has nothing to do with how she feels.

(Because, with all her newfound time and space, she's finally prepared to admit to herself that she fell in love with Red long before the plane that brought her here ever left the ground.)

Liz wishes more than anything that she could apologize to Red for the events that lead them to the sidewalk that night, events that were inarguably of her own making. While she knows her mindset was different at the time, she regrets her reaction when he killed who she then believed to be her mother. She still maintains that he's not always behaved correctly over the years - something with which she has a feeling he would agree - and that there are things for which he owes her an apology as well, but she also recognizes that she was far too quick to trust the stranger that claimed Katarina's name.

Because if there's anything she's learned over the years of working with Red, it's that trust should be a closely guarded thing and that the label of 'family' and those who masquerade under it don't by any means deserve the privilege.

(And, now she comes to think of it, it's the people with which she shares blood who have turned out to be the most deceitful in her life, while her truest, most precious relationships have been with people who chose of their own free will to stand at her side.)

Regardless of the reason, Liz knows she should never have turned against Red so fully, citing all their differences as thin justifications for trying to destroy him. While they could certainly have benefitted from some clearer communication, Liz chose not to remember that Red has never given her a reason to think she couldn't trust him with her life.

(And her heart.)

She wonders belatedly exactly when her many years of psychological education so wholly abandoned her, the very training that so thoroughly instructed her to look at the entirety of a person and their behavior when creating a profile, and she wishes not for the first time that the once-honed instincts hadn't so completely deserted her.

If she'd only been able to recall them sooner, her and Red could very well be in a much happier place right now.

But, unable to make amends or find any meaningful closure, Liz instead sits in her room, looks out at the loch, and thinks back on their years together, remembering the good times they enjoyed - their halcyon days - as well as some of the less rosy ones, draped in dim sadness and sparking tension in her mind's eye.

And she paints.

She paints Red as he lives in her mind, an amalgamation and culmination of every time she's ever seen him, in all the moments they've shared together over the years, whether they were elated or vehement or depairing or fearful or packed to the brim with peace or nearly bubbling over with sexual tension.

She paints them all.

Liz paints him cuffed to a chair in a box as he was when she first saw him, all dark eyes and mysterious allure, his gaze beckoning her forward through her haze of confusion and fear to come close and approach the man who was restrained at the mere mention of his name, a volatile danger to everyone but her. She paints him on a black background with the blurry red outline of the box behind him, adds highlights to both his metal restraints and his flashing eyes, and gives him the small, knowing smirk she clearly remembers quirking his lips. She looks at the painting for a long time when she's done, remembering how she felt when she saw him there for the first time and how things changed between them from there.

(Because while they know each other better now and the air of compelling mystery has dissipated with familiarity, he is still an endless puzzle that Liz wants so desperately to solve, and that intense attraction that sparked to life right away has never left, constantly arcing between their warring bodies and minds.)

Liz paints him as she remembers seeing him when he saved her from the Stewmaker, his face warm, gentle, relieved, open, and adoring, a faint stubble on his cheeks and chin, proof of his determination to save her, and she can still remember the way his voice rumbled her name. She paints a wide view of him, including her own legs and lap to show his full crouching form and his hands on her knees, peering up at her with love and concern.

(She recalls that instance as her first undeniable indication of his devotion to her, the lengths he would go to keep her safe, and she recoils from the memory of her fear, the obvious depth and power of his feelings frightening her to the core, as well as her buried realization that she was enthralled by it.)

Liz paints him on the couch in Frederick Hempstead's house, gazing pensively out the window bathed in the golden afternoon sunlight, a tumbler of murky liquid held loosely in a long-fingered hand with the top few buttons of his dress shirt casually undone and his vest unbuttoned, his legs crossed leisurely. She takes her time painting the long rays of light streaming into the room and illuminating the tan planes of his face, adding extra highlights to his long blonde eyelashes. She takes care with the folds of fabric on his clothes, making an effort to paint him as the picture of ease and carelessness, a brief respite of relaxation in an otherwise tumultuous life.

(And Liz remembers entering the room to find him there looking just like that, inhaling the scent of old books and dust, feeling like her life and marriage were falling apart around her ears, wanting so helplessly to just escape the chaos of her thoughts. She can still recall the warm glide of his fingers over hers as he'd handed her a glass of mystery alcohol and turned back to the window, simply letting her sink down onto the couch and exist with him in peace. And she wonders now what she wouldn't give to step into the canvas on her easel, walk right back in time to his idyllic hideaway and lay down on the couch, rest her head gently on his lap, and bask with him in the warm sun.)

Liz paints him on his knees in the park during their hunt for Berlin, surrendering to her with his hands laced behind his head and the FBI surrounding them, their angry yells and harsh directions falling on deaf ears as they looked only at each other. She paints the wide breadth of his shoulders, pulling his blue windbreaker taut over his perfectly pressed suit, his amber sunglasses barely shielding the blinding trust and devotion she had seen shining up at her as clear as day.

(She can recall the way he held her hand in both of his, just a brief moment of prolonged contact, before pressing his gun into her palm and lowering himself to his knees in the ultimate gesture of surrender, and even looking at the painting gives Liz the suggestible twinge of arousal she always feels when he gazes up at her in submission.)

Liz paints him in the boiler room of The Factory where they fought Luther Braxton's men, his face fierce and formidable in the light of gunfire as they worked together to overheat the boilers, his stance both textbook perfect and completely relaxed as he shoots to kill those who would harm them. Liz paints him as the only light object in the otherwise dark room, adding striking red highlights of the emergency lights she remembers flashing and beeping around them, the haunting effect adding to the sheer power of him.

(And she will forever remember that day for not only their instinctive and seamless teamwork, but for the heavily coded declaration of his feelings, one she had not been willing to see the truth of at the time, but that tugs mercilessly at her heartstrings now, his low opinion of himself and his clear idealization of her breaking her already wounded heart.)

Liz paints him in the back of an FBI van after the King auction, his tortured face awash in throbbing red and blue lights from outside their tense, emotional backseat, both of them reeling after another close brush with death, as Red asks for a promise she can't possibly make and Liz stands up to him in a way she never had before. It takes her a long time to get his expression just right, the tears in his eyes and the unhappy furrow between his brows making her heart ache under the wound in her chest, remembering the texture of the scratchy gown that wasn't hers against her skin and the cologne that wasn't his permeating the air between them.

(And she recalls that night as one of revelations, the revelation of exactly how far she was willing to go to save him, the revelation of how little he thought of his own self worth, and the revelation of how much that hurt her, and - most of all - she remembers how it took every ounce of her tenuous self-control not to shatter the icy silence and throw herself toward his side of the car, to this day not exactly sure what she would have done then.)

Liz paints him after he was shot in the street in front of her, furiously yelling at him for his sins with Tom in one moment and rushing him into a mobile surgery suite in the next, depicting him lying on the stretcher, unbuttoned and bleeding, gasping the name 'Leonard Caul' into her ear as her blood-stained fingers pressed desperately into the bare skin of his chest. She finds it difficult to paint the bright red blood all over his exposed body and dripping from his mouth, the memory somehow still far too visceral to bear, her pulse quickening as she relives the crippling fear and urgency when his life was not guaranteed.

(If she concentrates hard enough, she's just able to imagine the phantom feel of his skin on her fingers once again, and she stares at the painful image on the canvas, lamenting just how few times she touched him in a way that mattered, an intimacy that she would give anything to experience right now.)

Liz paints him on the windy deck of the shipping container in the middle of the ocean, the starry night sky surrounding him as he stares up at the heavens, the fabric of his beige vest almost appearing in motion from the ceaseless gusts that howled in her ears and stung salty in her nose. Liz's throat clenches as she scatters pure white stars in the black night sky with flicks of her brush, his voice echoing clearly in her head - phrases like 'north star' and 'way home' - and she has to fend off tears.

(Because she can almost feel the wild thrill that soared inside her on the deck of that ship, knowing that the uncharacteristically clear declaration of his feelings left him vulnerable and unable to meet her eyes, as she could only gaze up at him in wonder and feel utterly unworthy of his love.)

Liz paints him from afar, standing with his hands clasped in front of his trademark black Mercedes, waiting - patient and steadfast - to meet her as she was released from prison, the vast, empty street surrounding her as she stepped outside almost as frightening as the claustrophobic confines of her cell, until a bus passed and she saw him standing there, sentinel and reliable as always. She paints the surrounding street plain and uninteresting as it was before he appeared there, making him - standing against the black background of the car - the focal point of the painting, as he is in her memory.

(And she viscerally recalls how it felt like her world centered once again when she saw him, a rediscovered purpose in her stride as she crossed the street to fall into his arms, his scent enveloping her soothingly, and she wishes more than anything that she could feel his hands warm against her back and smoothing over her hair once more.)

Liz paints him close-up and holding her as they danced by the pool at a run-of-the-mill motel, the otherwise pedestrian location feeling like the fanciest of ballrooms as he spun and twirled her, the inane chattering of the other residents fading into nothing, and the beaming smile on his face matching her own in one of her most precious memories. She paints this scene sparkling and bright, contrasting the overwhelming majority of dark scenes accumulating around her, enjoying the process of highlighting the sunlight reflecting off the surface of the pool and shining in their eyes.

(And she can almost feel his phantom arms around her, reveling in the imagined sensation of their bodies pressed together as they so rarely were, missing his blinding smile in that moment more than anything else in the world, except perhaps for the feeling of his hands holding hers.)

Liz paints him on a winding staircase in a pumpkin-colored shirt, a blue blazer, and a straw hat, his expression half playfully offended at her good-natured teasing and half open admiration of the grin she knows was firmly on her face, and she can recall the feel of her dress floating around her knees, feeling free and unencumbered with him. She's thankful for her foresight in purchasing a tube of orange paint from Malcolm, needing copious amounts to mix and blend to carefully recreate the 'Tuscan sunset' shade she had so enjoyed ribbing him for, remembering the sheer fun she had galavanting around with him, not a care in the world beyond their little undercover games.

(And she knows in her heart of hearts that she never believed they were related, even then, when he was going along with her supposed assumption, reluctance clear in his countenance each and every time it came up, and she doesn't let the fake and untruthful circumstances mar the joyful memory of feeling like a team.)

Liz paints him as she remembers seeing him when she awoke from her coma, knowing instinctively he was there with her before she even opened her eyes, reaching out to brush a hand over his back in a gentle touch that made him whirl, startled and awed to see her eyes open and looking at him. She patiently applies paint to the canvas to create his stunned expression, his eyes wide and watery as he struggled to take in the sight of her awake and responding, so grateful that she came back to him after so many long months asleep.

(And Liz can vividly recall the feeling of her cold, weak hands clasped in his fervent, warm ones as he touched her fleetingly all over, disbelieving and distraught, and how the awful feeling and disgusting sterile taste of the tube in her throat were nothing compared to the love he painted over her skin with his fingertips.)

Liz paints him when he saved her from the hands of Sutton Ross, rescuing her from what he thought was a vicious beating, his eyes fierce and deadly toward those who had harmed her, but his hands gentle and reverent as they cradled her bloodied face. Through her own choking guilt, she painstakingly recreates his unique expression, a mix of tenderness and vengefulness, painting the shadows onto his face with a careful brush, as she remembers with shame the coppery taste of blood and the burning of self-inflicted bruises littering her skin.

(And she'll never forget how she gazed up at him as he crowded close, protective and snarling, only gentling when he put his hands on her, assessing her injuries and ignoring Harold's pleas for him to leave, remembering her guilt and shame as she'd stared in his eyes knowing it was all a ruse, while at the same time marveling at his undying need to protect her.)

Liz paints his face when she told him she loved him, sitting on uncomfortable stools in a little white room moments before he was whisked away to come within an inch of death, the truth pouring out of her in an unstoppable rush, desperate to make the long journey from her lips to his ears when he needed to hear it most. She hates painting the harsh, bright orange of his jumpsuit and instead revels in the recreation of the look on his face, completely shocked and utterly stunned, his mouth slack and open as he struggled to accept her words and the unassailable feeling behind them, his small intake of breath the only sound in the thundering silence left in their wake.

(And she won't ever forget how her heart squeezed so painfully at the pure, childlike awe on his face, wondering exactly how long it's been since he heard those words spoken to him and really believed them, wanting nothing more than to say them again and again until he understood how she felt, and how utterly bereft she was when they took him away from her - for what she feared would be forever - before he even had the chance to say the words back.)

Liz paints his face as they walked in the park on the last day of her old life, basking in the way the dappled sunlight had filtered down through the tree leaves to touch his face, his trademark hat and sunglasses in place as they'd walked, happy together, if only for a moment. Her hand starts to shake as she paints his mouth open in speech and his hand raised in some grand gesture, telling a story of which she barely remembers the details, the feeling of laughing for the first time in what felt like years overpowering whatever unimportant tall tale he was recounting in an effort to make her smile.

(And Liz has to put down her paintbrush for several long minutes as she remembers very clearly the feeling of his hand clutching hers, their fingers entwined in a new and wonderful way, and why - oh, why - did they wait until then to do that, because she's known for a long time how much he likes to hold hands.)

Liz paints him in the park once again, this time far away and crouching at the sloshing water's edge with Agnes, pointing and laughing with her, and Liz can barely finish the painting through the tears that start falling rapidly as she paints both her daughter and Red, together for the first time on canvas. She focuses on the surroundings instead, keeping the two forms clear and identifiable but simple, finding that the only thing she can safely detail is the light bouncing off the water and the trees swathing both figures in green.

(And Liz aches and aches inside, remembering that deep-seated joy and sense of rightness as she watched them play together from a bench, and she wishes fervently that she'd followed that instinct then and there and let Red whisk them all away to another life as he's wanted to for years.)

Liz paints him when he first turned and saw her that deathly quiet night on the sidewalk, illuminated by streetlamps and starlight as he gazed at her, expectant and trusting, and she told him the last words she remembers speaking to him. She lovingly paints his cream suit and his expression as he processed her words, loving and a little bit relieved, and she has to stop again for the tears obscuring her vision.

(And as she paints, it unlocks little snatches of memory before everything went to hell, that disbelieving wonder at his total trust in her, the choking relief that he wouldn't force her to do what she knew she couldn't, and the very beginnings of hope, just starting to saturate her heart when it was interrupted by a godforsaken bullet and why is life so supremely unfair?)

And Liz paints him as she last remembers seeing him, scared and desperate and utterly broken, hearing his gasping breaths and pleading words whispered in her ear, the sacred touch of his hands on her face as he tried to will her back to life, and she can barely paint the damn thing through her grief, far too fresh and smothering, but she doesn't think it will ever be anything but.

(Because he thinks she's dead when her love for him has never been more alive.)

She paints until her room is covered with canvases of him on nearly every surface, his face looking at her from a hundred different moments in time, and she doesn't mind. She likes the feeling of him here in this empty house with her, as artificial as it is, after so long of keeping him at arm's length. Her paintings are a way of holding him close to her when she can't have the reality of him near ever again.

It's better than nothing…

And it's all she has.

When Liz isn't painting, she sleeps. And when she sleeps, she dreams, vivid, frightening things filled with enough smoke and fire that tells her they may actually be memories instead. So, when she wakes up - just like she did when she was small - she rises and paints her nightmares.

They're more concrete than they were when she was a child or perhaps she just has the context, awareness, and maturity to make sense of them now. They mostly confirm the things she learned a few days before her death, as well as the bits and pieces she's been gathering and holding close to her for years. Her mother and father fought on the night of the fire for custody of her and possession of the fulcrum, she somehow got ahold of a gun and shot her father, her mother perished in the flames trying to save her, she hid out of fear in a closet with her stuffed bunny…and Red came to save her.

It's the memory of that, never before seen in her mind's eye - awake or asleep - that has her painting in a fever, trying to capture the image of Red, younger and different but still him, leading her from a burning house, the back of his coat smoldering like her wrist, into the snowy night.

(And the painting is rather haunting when it's finished, the flames red, orange, and yellow, his young face frightened and in pain, and her tiny hand clutched firmly in his.)

Luckily, she gets it on the first try but she needn't have worried; the dream reoccurs. It's from a slightly different angle every time and she takes the opportunity to paint different views of the same scene, depicting the moment when they met - and saved each other - for the very first time, in a memory she doesn't really remember, but can still bring to life on a canvas.

It's an odd, out-of-body experience.

Liz's continuous dreams of a young Red bring into sharp relief that the only part of her past that's missing: his story. She knows that her father - the actual Raymond Reddington - had a wife and daughter, her half-sister Jennifer, before she was born and that her Red took his identity after the night of the fire when Liz accidentally shot her father. But it's with a heavy heart that Liz realizes she knows nothing about her Red's life prior to her birth. She imagines he may have had a family that tragically died, very possibly because of Liz and her double-crossing family, and that's why he took her father's name. He likely had a similar backstory to the real Raymond Reddington and nothing left to live for in his old life. But at least he and the young girl he saved that night had common enemies he could work towards destroying with the resources of his new identity, all while the child grew up in the safety and anonymity of Sam's home.

So that's what Red did.

He stepped fully into his role and built his new life around the goal of protecting Liz.

And for reasons she can't understand…he's never stopped.

(Because she's the child that never should have been born, the product of a passionate and two-faced love affair at best, the one who killed both her parents - intentionally or otherwise - and likely caused the death of Red's family. And when she considers all that together, the devotion and admiration she so often observed in Red's eyes when he looked at her makes no sense at all. How in the world could he stand her presence when she's only brought death and destruction to everyone around her, most of all to him?)

But at the end of the day, it's all rampant speculation and her heart weeps and bleeds at the fact that all the blanks in their story - in his story - and all the time between the fire and the day he surrendered to the FBI will remain unfilled, not because she cares about answers anymore, but because it means she will never know him the way she really wants to.

(But she knows that she loves him. And that will have to be enough.)

As she paints the flames of her childhood surrounding the man that's long since taken up residence in her heart, her recreations so much more skilled than her childish, colored pencil doodles, Liz finds that she doesn't really care if her dreams are memories or simply visions her brain has seen fit to torture her with in her isolation. Over the past few years, she had managed to convince herself that the only thing she needed to feel whole was the truth, and went to foolish and dangerous lengths to obtain it. But here - where the consequences of her actions have finally caught up with her - she can see that the only thing she really needed was the love and acceptance of the man who's been there through it all.

And, worst of all, she has a sneaking suspicion that it was there all along.

She just needed to trust him.

(But she couldn't.)

So, when she wakes up from her fire-filled dreams, a yell in the shape of Red's name trapped in her throat and reaching blindly for her paints, she doesn't care if it's real or not.

Because, after all, what does her past matter when she doesn't have a future?

---

More than two weeks of endless painting later finds her back in Malcolm's shop.

Liz was effectively forced out of her house for more paint and to replenish her meager supply of food - most of it having gone bad before she could bother consuming it - but, additionally, she had finally worked up enough courage to check her P.O. box.

(Because while she's desperate for a response from her baby, she knows she's much more likely not to receive one, and two weeks of not checking allowed her a certain freedom to hope.)

The post office had been her first stop, her stomach twisting and turning with nerves all the way there in the intense August heat, made humid and smothering by the loch, but when she turned the key and opened the little door with a shaking hand, she was greeted with only the cold steel of an empty box.

So - after stopping at the grocery store for a few unappealing items - Liz had gone to Malcolm's as a consolation prize, thinking it was past time to drop in and say hello, not to mention replenish her crucial supplies. When she got there, pushing open the door with a rare smile on her face, she saw that he was busy helping another customer at the counter, so they'd simply exchanged a wave and Liz had wandered further into the store, deciding to spend a little time browsing his non-painting merchandise for a change until he was available.

Now inspecting the selection of calligraphy pens, Liz hears the bell above the door jingle merrily once again. The back of her neck prickles in alertness as she hears heavy footsteps enter the store, pause, and then head in her direction. Giving nothing away, she plucks a set of pens off the rack and flips it over to read the back of the package, listening carefully at the same time.

The footsteps stop beside her.

"Hello, there."

Liz turns reluctantly to see a young man, looking to be in his late twenties with an unkept beard and an untucked, sleeveless, flannel-patterned shirt, grinning at her in a way that he probably thinks is charming.

Ugh.

She gives him a vague smile of acknowledgement but says nothing, trying to convey that she's not interested in talking - or anything else - and wants to be left alone, by turning pointedly back to the pens in her hand.

The polite hint flies straight over his head.

"I'm Ewan. I don't believe I've seen you around here before," he continues in a light Scottish accent, oblivious to her intense disinterest. "Are you new in town? Visiting, perhaps?"

Heaving an irritated sigh, Liz puts the pens back on the rack. "Yes, I am," she responds shortly, turning abruptly to advance down the aisle, and only stopping at the other end in front of a large display of watercolors.

He follows her down the aisle persistently, stopping too far in her personal space and leaning his shoulder nonchalantly against the shelf, narrowing avoiding knocking several beautiful pans of watercolors to the floor.

Liz's skin crawls warningly.

(She refuses to give him the time of day by looking him in the face, but she's getting an uncomfortably familiar impression from her peripherals, the sideways glance informing her of his self-assured posture, unappealing appearance, and slimy, condescending way of speaking down to her.

He reminds her disgustingly of Tom.)

"Ah, American!" he announces, sounding stupidly proud of himself to have figured that out from so few words. "Perhaps you need a local to show you around town, I could -"

She narrowly refrains from rolling her eyes to the heavens as he blathers on, lamenting the fact that she no longer has a gun to flash and scare him off.

"No, thank you," she interrupts firmly, running her fingers speculatively over different sizes of soft-bristle brushes and continuing around the corner and far into the next aisle, her unwelcome shadow still hot in pursuit.

"But you haven't even heard me out yet!" he protests, his would-be persuasive tone crossing the line into a whine that's truly starting to piss her off. "There's the loveliest little pub down the road where we could go for a drink, and then -"

(And it's a real shame that she's going to have to beat the shit out of him, and she's a little disappointed that she's not as strong as she used to be, but she's more than confident she can get the message across, perhaps by breaking that rather large nose of his that he can't seem to keep out of her business -)

"I believe the lady said she's not interested, Ewan," a welcome voice interrupts, and they both turn to see Malcolm looming imperiously at the head of the aisle, his arms crossed and brow lowered threateningly.

Predictably, Ewan immediately backs off, respecting the presence of a fellow male far more than a woman's clear signals. "Easy there, Malcolm, I was only asking!" he defends himself quickly, raising his hands in surrender and taking a few steps back. "You can't blame a lad for trying, eh, lass?"

He winks at Liz and she can't stop her mouth from twisting in disgust.

"You're to blame when your attention is clearly not welcome!" barks Malcolm. "Now, were you looking to buy anything today, Ewan, or are you simply here to bother this young lady?"

"Well - I - uh," he stutters stupidly, clearly intimidated by Malcolm's glowering gaze. "It's nothing that cannae wait til another day, of course -"

"Then, I suggest you take your leave," Malcolm says sternly, jerking his chin toward the door. "And I'd best not catch you in here harassing this young lady or any of my customers again! Do I make myself clear?"

"Aye, aye!" Ewan agrees earnestly, abruptly spinning on his heel and heading quickly for the door, the normally pleasant jingle of the bell sounding more like a crash as it swings shut behind him.

There's a rather loud beat of silence before Malcolm heaves an exaggerated sigh and Liz turns to look at him. She watches his countenance shift on a dime, his demeanor flipping from imposing defender to the gentle, artistic Scotsman that Liz is so fond of, his arms uncrossing and the frown disappearing from his face as he looks down at Liz.

"Terribly sorry for butting in there, lass," he apologizes, looking slightly sheepish. "But I just couldn't stand him bugging you for a moment more. Not to worry though, Ewan's known to be a bit of an irritating floozy, but he's perfectly harmless. You would have gotten the hint through his thick skull…eventually."

Liz laughs, unable to feel anything but thankful for his intervention. It's certainly not as though she couldn't have gotten rid of him herself, but she appreciates the gesture, knowing it comes from a kind, protective place. Noticing he still looks a little apprehensive about her reaction, Liz reaches out to pat him consolingly on the arm.

"Please, don't apologize, Malcolm," she reassures him. "I appreciate your stepping in. He was starting to bother me and you saved the day!"

Malcolm visibly relaxes, smiling at her praise. "Well, I can't help it, lass. I'm a father to a daughter, after all, and I can't stand the idea of her being bothered by a twit who doesn't know the meaning of the word 'no'."

(And Liz feels a long-forgotten flush of warmth and affection at the confirmation that he sees her as a daughter.)

"And I've taught my sons to respect women as well, you best be sure of that!" Malcolm continues pridefully, and Liz blinks in surprise.

"You have sons, too?" she inquires curiously. "I've only heard about your daughter, Elsie."

"Oh, aye," he nods proudly. "Ian and Connor. Ian is my eldest, Connor is the middle child, and Elsie is the baby, although she's always managed to boss the boys around -" Malcolm stops abruptly, looking a little embarrassed with himself. "I'm ever so sorry, Miss Lyla, I mustn't bore you. You've already been bothered enough today, and I assume you just came to do some shopping?"

"And to talk to you, of course! I'd love to hear about your family," Liz admonishes him warmly. "And you'll be happy to know that I need to completely restock my painting supplies; I've used everything! So, how about I shop and you talk?"

Malcolm beams at her and hurries off to fetch a basket for her merchandise, following her patiently through the aisles as she plucks new paints, brushes, and canvases off the shelves and places them in her basket. She keeps up a steady conversation with him all the while, delighted that he does most of the talking, happy to hear him gush about his family as they walk. She asks all the questions she can think of, truly interested in what he has to say, as well as hoping to avoid any personal questions about herself, and she keeps the things she must answer purposely vague, but as honest as possible.

(And while she's so grateful for the human connection - something she's truly lacking in her pitiful excuse for a life - she has to repress her sadness that she can't reciprocate and tell him all about Agnes.)

Liz learns that Malcolm and his wife married young, had their boys shortly after and their daughter later, but grew apart and filed for an amicable divorce when the boys were in their teens and Elsie was ten. Malcolm retained custody of the children while his ex-wife remarried and moved to England with her second husband. Malcolm's son Ian is a graphic designer in Glasgow, Connor is an architect who's recently moved to Wales with his fiancée, and Elsie is living with her mother and studying art at the University of Oxford.

"It sounds like all your children inherited your love of the arts," Liz comments as they head back to the register with her overflowing basket.

"Oh, aye," Malcolm says happily. "In one form or another. Elsie isn't sure what area she'll focus on, but she's always had a talent for handmade things, like me and my pa. Last we talked, she said she's thinking about coming back home to help me run the shop when she graduates."

"How wonderful!" Liz gushes, feeling genuinely happy for him. It's clear how much he would enjoy having his daughter nearby again.

(She knows the feeling.)

"Aye, it'd be lovely to have her back. Besides, customers always love the things she puts up for sale - like her notebooks - and a little influx of cash is just what this place needs," Malcolm says slightly wistfully. "But, of course, I cannae hold it against her if she wants to stay abroad and live her life. So she should. As my ma used to say: 'Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead'."

He chuckles to himself, smiling fondly at the memory of his mother.

(And Liz ducks her head to hide for a moment, trying to gather her bearings, barely able to manage a smile because where, oh, where, was that advice when she so desperately needed it -)

Liz pulls herself together and waits patiently as Malcolm rings up her items, handing over the appropriate amount of cash when he gives her the total, and it's not until she's watching him bag her items, with the pure white, blank canvases disappearing last, that she remembers something very important.

"Oh!" she exclaims. "I almost forgot: I've brought you something!"

Malcolm simply raises an eyebrow in question, setting her bag of newly bought painting supplies on the counter, as Liz reaches into the bag she brought from her house - a plain, reusable one from one of her grocery trips in case it started to rain on her errands - and pulls out another canvas, this one already covered in paint. She places it gently on the counter to face Malcolm.

"You said that if I painted something for the window…well, you might display it…you know, if it's good enough…"

She trails off self-consciously, still a little apprehensive about sharing her art, even with Malcolm, and she watches - biting her lip - as he stares wide-eyed at the painting. It's something Liz painted last week on a whim, both for a change of pace and to test her long-dormant landscape skills.

(And also because if she painted Red's piercing eyes yet another time without some sort of a break, she was going to go crazy from sheer longing.)

So, she painted the loch.

Liz had sat by the window in her room and worked, glancing outside at intervals and working quickly to beat the sun as it slowly lowered over the vast body of water, casting a luminous orange and yellow glow over the blue and gray surface. She'd been challenged by the unique blending of the complimentary colors, turning the horizon into a mirror with a perfect reflection of clouds and mountains, sharp and crisp in the sky, and ever-so-slightly blurred in the surface of water.

(And something about the unusual combination of orange and blue appealed to Liz's eye and, after a long period of contemplation, she'd signed her alias initials - L.T. - in tiny letters in the bottom right corner.)

Malcolm studies the painting for a long time, his expression inscrutable. Eventually, Liz can't stand the silence any longer.

"…Well?" she prompts tentatively. "What do you think?"

He takes a deep breath and finally tears his eyes away from her painting. "Miss Lyla…" he says quietly. "It's beautiful."

Liz lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding, her shoulders slumping in relief. "Oh," she sighs happily. "Thank you! It's Loch Lomond. It's, uh…quite an inspiration."

"That she is, lass. That she is," he agrees with a warm smile. "And this" - he carefully props the canvas up against the cash register - "will go front and center in the window. And -"

He suddenly turns to the cash register, opening it with the press of a button and fishing out a substantial amount of money, at least half of what Liz has just given him for her large purchase, and handing it to her.

Liz blinks owlishly at the money. "What's this? You don't need to pay me!"

"Nonsense!" Malcolm says firmly. "This is not only a beautiful piece that you deserve to be compensated for, but it's also - as I told you - a priceless advertisement for my paints!"

She gapes at him, her mouth working like a fish in protest. "But it's far too much -"

"I won't hear of it, lass," he says sternly. "Besides, as someone wise once said: 'your time is worth something, if nothing else'."

Liz's jaw snaps shut at the reminder of her own words and Malcolm grins in triumph, placing her money on the counter pointedly, before picking up the painting and heading for the window display without another word, leaving her to follow. Chastised, Liz quickly grabs her bag off the counter and stuffs the cash in her pocket. While she certainly doesn't need the income to survive, it feels good to have done something of monetary value.

At the window, she stands and watches Malcolm rearrange the paintings currently on display, clearing a space right on the middle easel in the front row and carefully placing her painting on it.

"Let's see how it looks, shall we, lass?"

They go outside together, the bell jingling over their heads, and admire the window display, a beautiful and eclectic collection of art with Liz's at the very front and center.

(And it reminds her of standing with Sam in the kitchen, clinging to his elbow as he taped her newest creation to the refrigerator, and Liz smiles warmly at Malcolm - her only friend left in the world - and feels a warm, happy rush in her heart.)

Thanking Malcolm with a heartfelt hug, Liz hefts her bags and heads for home, leaving him standing outside his shop and waving to her until she disappears around the corner. But it only takes about half her walk for the small dose of serotonin to fade and her perpetual cloud of sadness to descend once again.

(And she has to chastise herself when she catches sight of a man in a hat and a young girl with dark hair and pink shoes, each of them carrying ice cream cones to beat the heat and holding hands as they walk, because - stupid, stupid Liz - it's not them.)

When she finally gets home, Liz drops her groceries off in the kitchen and heads upstairs to put away all her new art supplies. When she opens the door to her room, she is welcomed by her paintings of Red staring at her from nearly every surface - her easel, her desk, on the floor propped against the wall - and she feels the tightness in her chest ease.

(Because as unhealthy as it may be, she feels better when she's near the only piece of him she has left.)

She puts away her art supplies in their appointed places, lining her tubes of paint up on the desk, stacking her unused canvases underneath, and adding her new brushes to the others in their cup, bristles pointing up to preserve them. Once she's done all that, Liz looks around at the mess littering the room and sighs. Taking a stray plastic bag left from one of her shopping trips, Liz starts to clean up a little, tossing out crumpled paper towels, one or two brushes that have served their purpose, scatterings of pencil shavings, and loose scrap pieces of paper torn from her sketchbook. Things start to look neater at once and it's only when Liz lifts the last piece of stray paper that she uncovers something forgotten.

The journal she bought from Malcolm's shop, the one handmade by his daughter, Elsie.

(The one with the cover the color of Red's eyes.)

Tying off her bag of trash and kicking it carelessly under her desk, Liz sits heavily in her chair, running a hand over the buttery leather cover. Following the same whim that pushed her to buy it in the first place, she opens the journal to the first blank page, running a hand over the smooth paper, as her eyes stray to a pencil. Picking up her sharpener, Liz slowly and methodically inserts a pencil and rotates it, working the lead into a fine point and thinking.

It's almost a crime to write in the beautifully bound book and Liz is very hesitant to mar the pristine pages with lead, but something tells her that she should. But she's not inclined to draw anything, like she always does in her sketchbook. Instead, she wants to write words - another letter - but not to her daughter. She's already done that and will wait forever, if necessary, for a response before writing again. No, it's not Agnes that she's suddenly bursting to talk to.

It's the painted man that lives in this house with her.

Putting the sharpener down and blowing lightly on the fresh tip of the pencil, Liz leans forward without another thought and starts to write…

Red,

I'm sorry. I'm sorry for never really trusting you. I'm sorry that I survived and then left. I'm sorry that you think I'm dead. I'm sorry for not saying sorry sooner.

I had to leave to protect Agnes. What kind of mother would I be if I let something happen to her? I think you'd understand that. But the hardest thing I've ever had to do was leave her…

And you.

I know you thought I was dead that night on the sidewalk. And I know you had to leave me. I don't blame you. But it still hurt to wake up and realize how completely alone I was. Especially after our day in the park. That's why I couldn't shoot you that night…I thought things might finally be different between us.

I thought I finally might be ready to let it happen.

I should have known fate would have other plans.

I've done a lot of thinking since I ran away and ended up here and…I wish we could talk. Really talk. And I swear this time I would listen. I've been thinking about everything we've been through together over the past few years. All those pivotal moments we've shared that proved how much you care about me…and how much I care about you, no matter how many times I've managed to make myself forget.

And it's funny…we've never been physically further apart from one another…but somehow I've never felt closer to you than I do now.

I wonder…if you were to find me somehow, would you be happy to see me? Would you wrap me up in your arms again and put me back together? Or would you turn away and shun me like you did after Cuba? I would understand if you never wanted to see me again…and I will stay dead for you because it's better, but…

I miss you.

Wiping tears from her cheeks, Liz closes the notebook and climbs into bed to chase the sweet oblivion of sleep.

---

It's in this way that the next few weeks of Liz's life - and the end of the summer - pass her listlessly by.

She simply exists in her small, loch-side house. She sleeps odd, dream-filled hours, restless and unfulfilling, always seeming to wake exhausted. When the emptiness in her stomach becomes unbearable, she forces herself to eat simple, tasteless food, getting by on the bare minimum. Some days - when the rain comes down in vertical sheets and the sun never seems to rise, the gray clouds acting like a chilly blanket that turns the whole house a dim blue no matter how many lights she turns on - she lays in bed, swathed in Sam's hoodie and twisted blankets, the hood pulled over her head as she hugs a pillow tightly to her sore chest and watches the surface of the loch disturbed with millions of tiny, watery bullets.

Always in motion, never resting, strangely captivating.

When she's not struggling to eat or sleep, Liz spends her time doing her only other feasible activity while she holds out hope for a response from Agnes: painting Red. But how she paints him now isn't quite like how she painted him before. Now, she recreates moments that are buried deeper in her memory, hidden for different, more complicated reasons, but no less intense and visceral to her.

Perhaps, they're even more so.

In her first departure from her previous paintings, Liz takes a fresh canvas and starts to cover it with black and gray, not entirely sure what it is she's setting out to create. As she continues - his face taking shape, one she feels she knows better than her own at this point - she's surprised to see she recognizes the setting as the place where Luther Braxton water-boarded her for information and used Dr. Orchard to pick artlessly around in her brain.

But the moment she's painting occurred after the worst of the torture, instead featuring Red's face, blurry and unfocused but undeniably him, swathed in darkness and shadows, so close to hers that she thinks she remembers their noses brushing as she searched aimlessly in her own distant memories with his voice as her guide. With a shiver that forces her to pause her detailing of Red's intensely focused eyes, Liz remembers the feeling of his split and bruised knuckles under her hand and - for the first time in a long time - the feeling of his other hand pushing her hair back, cupping her face, and rubbing her back, comforting her in one of the most intensely physical ways he ever had.

(And - now that she unlocks the tainted memory long enough to paint it - Liz wonders hopelessly if that could be considered their first kiss.)

As she paints, Liz finds herself continuously writing in her journal to him, scrawling her thoughts and feelings and answerless questions to help her stay sane, getting the crippling feelings down onto paper and out of her head where they would otherwise remain tormenting her, much like she does with her paintings.

Why didn't I ask you to take us away, she writes after she puts aside the hypnosis painting, her hand flying across her notebook with the intensity of her wondering. Why didn't we just go - the three of us - and leave it all behind? I wish more than anything that we had. And I wish that you wished that, too.

After looking morosely at her limp, black hair in the mirror, now irritatingly long and constantly tied back in a knot to keep it out of her eyes and her paint, Liz is transported back to when they were on the run and it was instead a brassy blonde, and - before she knows it - she's back at her easel painting the moment Red saw it for the first time.

She remembers his reaction distinctly - doubtful that she could ever forget it - and has to step away from the canvas several times in frustration as she tries to perfect the peculiar movement of his tongue, rolling in his mouth as it had when he'd turned and saw her dyed hair. Even after she finally captures his expression, Liz feels the frustration linger, now directed at her past self as she remembers inquiring if her mother was blonde.

Honestly, what was she thinking?

Liz knew very well that her mother was strawberry blonde at best and, more than that, she was well aware of Red's stifled attraction to her - not her mother - at least in the back of her mind. Liz can only console herself with the fact that she was likely just not ready - what with everything else going on at that time - to acknowledge his blatant appreciation of her yellow hair, and she had simply tried to deflect out of self-preservation.

(But she knows deep down that she couldn't quite manage it completely, remembering well the answering thrill starting in her chest and swooping low into her stomach at the admiring look on his face.)

Finally putting that painting aside with what's left of her pointless frustration, Liz writes more in her journal.

It feels like not only I died that night on the sidewalk, but our future did too. And what I think I mourn most is the possibilities. What do you think could have happened between us with a little comfort and safety? What did you want to happen? Did you ever wonder like I do? Why didn't I ever ask you?

Continuing to reminisce on their time on the run, Liz recalls the moment in their diner hold-up, how she felt completely overwhelmed and tense as a taut bow, having trouble holding in all the fear that had taken up residence inside her and becoming stupidly annoyed by his seemingly endless calm in the face of such disaster. Taking up her paints once again, Liz lays down copious amounts of tan and brown, painting his face as she saw it down the line of her gun when she'd thoughtlessly whirled to point it at him, reacting instinctively to the one instant he'd ever raised his voice to her. She was out of control, but they both knew she would never hurt him, especially not while he was trying so hard to save them both, but he'd still raised his hands in surrender, keeping his fierce gaze locked on her wide, scared eyes, as he'd slowly advanced and taken the firearm easily from her trembling fingers.

(And she can hear his voice as if it happened yesterday and not years ago, the two simple words barked in a harsh order that sent fireworks through her veins in equal parts anxiety and excitement, wondering for a short-lived moment to what lengths he would go to stop her, and how exactly to push him into doing more.)

Why did you save me the night of the fire - and every time since then? Liz writes, dejected and depressed, in her journal. I - and my treacherous excuse for a family - are almost certainly the reason yours is dead. Red, how could you stand to look at me? After everything? After your daughter? God…I bet you wish you never even met me that night, all those years ago, in a house on fire. And now, I can do nothing but thank you - decades too late - for the first gift you ever gave me: my life. And the peaceful and lovely childhood with Sam that followed.

And I'm so sorry that all I ever gave you in return was a battered, bruised, and broken heart.

Thinking about all their other close calls, Liz remembers the incident with Matias Soloman, and the awful helpless feeling of being held down on a table and so crudely threatened, fear flooding her body as the cold knife drifted over her clothes. But more importantly, Liz remembers Red and the way he nearly vibrated with suppressed rage, nearly charging out of his captors' clutches with a roar as he did everything he could to save her. She paints him in motion, halfway out of his chair with his amber sunglasses barely concealing the scorching fire of his eyes, his mouth curled in a snarl as he tried fruitlessly to get to her.

(And Liz flushes a little as she remembers the moment Dembe saved them - not a minute too soon - and the way Red was by her side in an instant, pressed against her and breathing words of comfort and question hotly into her ear, and she wonders with a growing heat inside her how they would have reassured each other had their hands not been bound.)

Feeling in a daze, Liz writes slowly in her journal, thinking about each word as she pens them.

If you saw me again…if I came back to life…would you kiss me? I think I would want you to. I think I've wanted you to for a long time. And I wonder a lot if you've really wanted me too…

Skipping ahead in time, her thoughts frazzled and warm, Liz thinks of the time - not too long ago, in fact - when she followed him to China, eager to share with him another meaningless and ultimately misleading discovery, one that confirmed a deeply-held assumption that she so desperately wanted proven true: that they were of no more relation than her and Hudson. She remembers riding the high of her discovery - the beautiful, wonderful truth reverberating pleasantly all over her body - all the way to the restaurant, where she could tell she had taken him by surprise, another of her favorite pastimes. She paints the moment she told him what she'd flown twenty hours to tell him, reveling in the way his brow had lowered in what she'd recognized as barely suppressed anger, reluctant admiration, and desperate exasperation. Liz enjoys painting his dark, glinting eyes and smirking mouth, remembering the newly freed arousal that was singing through her veins as she'd flirted recklessly, playing with his anger and loving it.

(And Liz needs a cold drink of water as her overwhelmed thoughts fly off in different directions, wondering feverishly what would have happened had they acted on the rampant sexual tension between them in that instant and gone back to his hotel room or the bathroom in the back of the restaurant or said damn it all to hell and imploded right there at the table -)

And only when she's cooled down a little can Liz pick up her pencil and write with a shaking hand.

All those times…when I said I was sure you were always handsome…that you looked fantastic…I meant it. I always meant it. You always look fantastic. And I always noticed. Sometimes I would notice too much or when you didn't even see me noticing. And I think I was noticing you - looking at you - admiring you long before I rightfully should have been. Your lips…your chest…your-

Liz hastily scribbles out the word she had started to write.

I wonder if you're seeing someone now. I want you to be happy, in every way you need. But the thought of you with someone else - in any way - hurts me. I know it shouldn't, but it always has. I'm a jealous person, we both know that…And the truth is that I've always wanted all of you, your attention and your body, far before I was willing to accept it. It simmered under the surface of me and burst forth in my dreams and I think you knew that far before I did.

And right now? God…I wish you were close enough to touch.

(And when she lays in bed in the dark of night and listens to the loch, Liz wonders what his hands would feel like on her body, and cries for the intense grief that she'll never know.)

One after another, her canvases are covered and her journal pages are filled in an endless procession of miserable self-expression and - when she can't avoid it any longer - Liz leaves her house. She checks her P.O. box every time, always making it her first stop to get the disappointment out of the way, before she proceeds to the grocery store and Malcolm's shop to say hello. He always cheers her up a little but the feeling never quite lasts the walk home.

So she does it all again.

Her dreams cycle endlessly through her internal catalog of nightmares, memories, or some disconcerting combination thereof. She never knows what it will be until she closes her eyes and succumbs to the mercy of her cruel mind and remembers anything from specific scenes to no more than an off-putting feeling when she wakes.

It's an intensely dislikeable guessing game.

Far too seldom, she is treated to a dreamless sleep, achieving a kind of blackout exhaustion that gives her a few hours of reprieve, and Liz will force her sore, gritty eyes open in front of her sketchbook for as long as possible to try and accomplish this goal.

Only one noteworthy time does Liz have a good dream.

It's a curious blend of memory and fantasy, a scene where she and Red must have existed countless times together, but the surroundings are nondescript enough that Liz can't place a specific time or location. They're in a quiet coffee shop, sitting across from one another at a tiny table by the window, the early morning light shining in and illuminating the little specks of dust in that way that turns an ordinary moment extraordinary. They don't speak to one another, simply sipping coffee and nibbling on pastries in silence, but the things that Liz holds onto into waking is her deep-seated sense of contentment and the vision of Red's smile. He's sunbathed and beautiful and happy as he looks at her in wonder and adoration and the made-up vision tugs ruthlessly at her heartstrings.

The dream is so unlike her trauma-induced visions of the fire or blood-bathed nightmares of her last night, instead something warm and impossibly pleasant that her brain has for some reason decided to gift her with in sleep, and it's a welcome change of pace.

(But it feels more like torture with the way she wakes up yearning, both her wound and her heart aching and aching for him to be there next to her with that smile ready in the sunlight.)

---

It's around a month after Liz has sent her letter when she has to go out once again, in need of bottled waters, bread, pasta, another palette knife, and a new sketchbook. As always, Liz stops at the post office first, as ready as she'll ever be to receive her usual dose of disappointment and heartbreak at the sight of her empty P.O. box.

She supposes it always was a long shot.

Entering the small post office, Liz nods to the now familiar employee working behind the counter and heads straight for the long, metal wall of boxes, fishing her key out of her pocket and finding her number out of rote. Swiftly inserting her key into the lock and turning it, Liz takes a deep breath to steel herself as usual before wrenching open the door in one fell swoop, anticipating nothing but the typical sight of cool, impersonal metal, an empty cube with nothing -

But then Liz stops breathing.

Because it isn't empty.

There, resting diagonally propped against the side of the box, sits a letter.

With a ragged gasp, Liz reaches in and snatches the letter, holding it up and scrutinizing it closely to see her P.O. box's address written in clear, but obviously childish, wonderfully familiar handwriting, with cute little hearts dotting the i's, and a floral stamp sitting adorably crooked in the upper right corner -

(And Liz just knew her smart girl would figure it out.)

Stifling a sob of joy, Liz hastily closes and locks her P.O. box with a shaking hand, before shoving her key back in her pocket and almost running for the door. The grocery store and Malcolm's shop are forgotten in an instant, and Liz instead hurries for her house, desperate to tear into the letter and read what her baby has to say.

She's back and locking the door behind her in record time - even though the short walk felt almost unbearably long after all this time - and Liz paces anxiously around the entrance hall for a nervous moment, unsure of what to do, too much energy trapped inside her after too long without any at all. Liz catches a glimpse of the loch through the back door and, on a whim, hurries toward it, wrenching the stubborn door open for the first time with some difficulty and stepping back outside into the pleasantly warm late August air.

Liz crosses the backyard, the grass - wet from recent rain - giving slightly beneath her feet, to the old wooden lounge chair facing the loch and, after a few seconds of hesitation, sinks down onto it. It's large enough that she can pull her feet up onto the seat and off the damp grass, so she does so, feeling a cool breeze foreshadowing the arrival of fall suddenly blow in off the water and listening to the loch slosh just a few feet away, closer to it than she's ever been.

Unable to wait a second longer, Liz slides a trembling finger carefully under the flap on the back of the envelope and edges it along slowly, unwilling to leave even the tiniest rip or imperfection in Agnes's letter. Once opened, Liz reaches into the envelope and takes out the clumsily folded pieces of paper that make up the letter, unfolding them and gently smoothing them out on her knees to start reading.

Dear Mommy -

Abruptly overcome, Liz bursts into tears from the first two words alone, her aching wound pulsing agonizingly with every beat of her heart, wishing more than anything that she could reach through the letter and hold her baby close to her.

(And never let her go again.)

Taking a shaky breath to try and calm herself, Liz reads on eagerly.

I knew you weren't dead like everyone told me! You said you'd always keep me safe! Don't worry, I didn't tell anyone, even Uncle Harold and Aunt Charlene. I told them we got penpals in school so I could have some paper and envelopes and stamps.

Liz smiles to herself through her tears, pressing her fingers absentmindedly to her upturned lips, wondering if she should be proud or worried that Agnes thought up such a convincing lie to tell Harold and Charlene.

Hm. Both.

Even with such a good cover, Liz will still ask Malcolm to address her envelopes so that Harold won't recognize her handwriting and she'll include a princess seal as well, more for her peace of mind than anything. But, when it comes to the inside of the envelope, Liz revels in her newfound freedom to write whatever she wants to Agnes in her letter. Trying to reign in her excitement for the time being, she continues to read.

School is good. Uncle Harold drives me every day. I have friends who like princesses too! I am having fun in history and reading. Aunt Charlene is really nice to me. She is a great cook! On Fridays we have pizza. I miss you.

That brings on a fresh onslaught of tears, bittersweet and sour, but Liz tries to comfort herself with the fact that Agnes seems fulfilled and comfortable, if not completely happy without her. And she supposes that's the best she could have asked for. She'd certainly never be able to thank Harold and Charlene, even if she had the opportunity to try, which she most certainly does not -

Pinky visits a lot.

Liz's heart skips a beat.

We talk and he tells me stories about you. He also reads to me and helps me with my homework sometimes. He misses you, too. Maybe you can come home soon! Send me more letters, Mommy! I love you!

Love,

Agnes

Liz runs her fingers lovingly over Agnes's slightly uneven signature - now in carefully connected letters, already more grown-up than the simple alphabet Liz taught her - and uncontrollable tears well up in Liz's eyes once again now that she's done the short, precious letter, conflicting emotions swirling wildly inside her, battling it out and hurling themselves against her ribs and making them throb.

Red has been taking care of her baby, too, in all the small, meaningful ways that he can.

Just like she wanted.

(And one by one, she feels distinct emotions bubbling up inside of her…intense sadness, irrational but instinctive jealousy, deep upset, tearful yearnings, and endless, endless gratitude.

Thank god for him.)

Holding the priceless letter clutched in her hands, Liz looks up toward the huge expanse of gray clouds covering the sky, just a hint of sun peeking around the thick edges, and then looks out across the vastness of the loch, the dark water lapping at the shore of her backyard and so many miles beyond. As she stares, emotions still raging inside her as she knows they will be for a long time, something catches her eye. A bird - fast and flighty - races high above her head and out over the loch, perhaps heading for the mountains and forest beyond, its vibrant orange belly and bright blue back standing out against the monotonous landscape around it.

Liz wonders what it feels like to fly.

Captivated, she watches until it disappears from sight.