Chapter Text
The road was smooth under the tires of the van. The distant hum of the AC from the drivers seat was the only thing she could focus on. The warmth emanating from his shoulder kept her grounded, and she forced her mind to stay blank, less a stray thought make its way to the forefront of her mind and cause her to break down.
No.
She had made her choice the moment she shot Connelly. A quiet part of her mourned the destruction of her life. Her career as an FBI agent, her co-workers, even the distant ache of Tom Keen and what their life had been. But she couldn’t bring herself to regret pulling the trigger.
Elizabeth had chosen Red. It didn’t even feel like a conscious decision. She hadn’t weighed her options as the Attorney General rambled on about his power. His poisonous sneer as he listed how he’d ruin everyone around her. It had become almost a white noise until-
“We have a little something in mind for all of you, including treason charges and the death penalty for Reddington.”
No.
Grabbing the gun from her waistband wasn’t a choice she made. It was instinct. A primal instinct to protect her most beloved. Her rational mind clawed at her. Cooper’s voice rallied an effort as well. The gun shook in her hand. She gritted her teeth, forcing herself still.
Elizabeth had to protect him. She had to. Because no one else ever did.
He’d engraved himself so deep into her skin. She felt branded, his mark displayed on her for the world to see. A harsh R permanently seared onto her flesh, created by his influence, his persona, his timbre of voice, everything that made him who he was. Sometimes in the quiet hours of the night she’d touch her breastbone, search for the R she was sure he’d left. Once she’d broken out from her dazed stupor, she’d pull back and understand that his mark on her was not physical, only psychological.
It was impossible for others to see how much he had changed her.
This revelation caused such a sharp stab of disappointment in her that she gasped from the intensity of it. Soft glances, his hand at her back, their fingers grazing accidentally. All these mundane instances of touch had manifested into a desire so strong to be held by Red to that she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out.
Then she did the only logical thing. She buried her want so deeply it left only a dull throb in her chest. She reasoned it was better this way, their relationship was already was so off balance, that throwing in another uncontrollable variable would cause them to implode.
This didn’t stop the creature inside her from wailing every time his eyes would crinkle in fondness towards her.
Her stoic routine had been broken by Connelly’s threats. When faced with the impossibility of losing him, she knew it would cause something so irrevocably damaging to her psyche that it would destroy her.
Remembering the last time Red stood near death’s edge, murmuring her name as the barrel of a gun jammed itself into the back of his head. She hadn’t hesitated then either. Her report would state immediate action because he was their CI, but she knew the truth.
“You can never do that again.”
She had to protect him.
“I risked my life for you because I care about you. Deal with that.”
Even from himself.
So really, her finger pressing down on the trigger was the only way this was going to end.
But then the Attorney General’s body crumpled in on itself, her shaky hands dropped the gun and Cooper whispered to her,-
“Run.”
Her mind failed to protect her from her own actions. She remembered. She had killed her father. He was dead because of her.
What had she done?
She ran through the streets of DC, terrified of being caught for a crime she had committed, paralleling a similar crime she was responsible for some 20 odd years ago.
A jolt in the road brought her back to the present. She couldn’t tell if she’d been sleeping or hallucinating past events. It was quite possible she’d somehow done both. Her head still rested on his shoulder and as she looked up she saw he hadn’t slept she quickly picked herself up, embarrassed that he could hold his own in such dire straights and her first instinct had been to seek comfort in his bodily warmth.
When faced with the scrutiny of others, like in the face of Cooper and Ressler, she had no problem holding her own. She knew what they thought of her, their passing remarks and speculation of her relationship with Red. Why had he chosen her? What did their phone calls consist of? In between cases were they still in contact?
That she could deal with.
But this, this new, terrifying experience as a fugitive where her only source of security was Red… She felt exposed and vulnerable, two things he would no doubt recognize soon.
No.
She couldn’t do that to him. She couldn’t force him to take on another unnecessary burden. Red was her guardian of the night. He did not see her that way. This was a man who’s most prominent memory of her was as a young girl, cornered by flames. No matter what her brain sometimes perceived, his feelings for her were protective and nothing more.
“Where are we going?” Her voice came out rougher than she’d expected. She scrubbed her face, willing herself to control her erratic emotions.
“For now, we have to stay under the radar. We leave the state but not the country, because they’ll be expecting that. Our dear friend Donald has probably already contacted Interpol to warn them of any unregistered flights. We’ll be on the road for a few more hours before stopping at a motel. There will be bags waiting there for us to change.”
“You really have this planned out don’t you? Since when have you known I was going to shoot Connelly? Would’ve been nice to get a warning.” Her joke fell flat at the face of his serious expression.
“I have several contingencies that are ready for us at a moments notice, but Lizzy, I never wanted this for you.”
She focused on how he’d explained it.
Ready for us
“It’s not your fault Red. I made the choice to pull the trigger, not you.”
He didn’t look convinced.
That was the last thing she said for the next five hours. She couldn’t even sit comfortably in the silence. It felt more forced than anything, like they were both making a conscious effort to stay silent. She gave herself a small reprieve when she refocused her attention from the small string on her pants to his suit. God she couldn’t imagine how uncomfortable he must feel. Endless hours in formal wear must be unbearable, but he gave no indication that he was the least bit bothered, save for the occasional twitch of his eye.
She reached over to his suit jacket and rubbed the fabric between her fingers. She rested her wrist on his leg to perch herself towards him. He pretended not to notice.
“How do you wear these suits all the time? I get hot sometimes just looking at you.” She ignored the double entendre
“Once you develop a habit. It’s almost impossible to break out of it. I didn’t always wear suits. I used to have this old leather jacket if you can believe it. When I was younger and more foolish, I thought the leather gave me a certain edge and I was desperately trying to gain respect amongst my criminal peers. My early days were filled with leather and cigarettes, more to fill up the time than the act of smoking itself-“
His story faded a bit as she imagined him, Raymond Reddington, not notorious crime Lord in his three piece suit, fedora, and scotch, but Raymond Reddington, fledgling criminal who desperately wanted to be taken seriously. She can imagine his boyish face from 25 years ago, stinking of cigarettes and shooting people just to make a point of it.
“- but anyways, that look I had created could only last so long and one day I got a little too in over my head during a deal. The guy pulled out his pistol and shot at me, square in the face. I was so sure, the instant that bullet left the chamber, that my reckless youth had gotten me killed. But not even 5 feet of distance could’ve made this guy a good shot. The bullet nicked the corner of my eye and flew right past me. With fury so righteous it almost felt religious I threw myself on top of him, desperate to regain control of the situation. But his lackeys grabbed me before I could bite into him, and he pulled out a knife, sliced straight through my back, and completely ruining my leather jacket.”
His hands sliced through the air in an effort to animate his story but all she could see was him, his effort to entertain her, to keep her mind busy and away from Connelly, from Tom Keen, from the Post Office.
I could fall in love with a man like this. She thought absentmindedly, not realizing that her feelings were already barreling towards that direction.
“After that incident, the jacket just wasn’t salvageable. I decided it was a sign to try a different approach to crime, hence the suits and the hats. I switched cigarettes for cigars and as you can see,”
He gestured to himself.
“I’d say it worked out pretty well. Suffice to say the point of this story wasn’t to reminisce on my poor jacket, but to drive the point of habit home. These suits are part of the name, and they’re no more removable from the Most Wanted than my own face is.”
“So you’re telling me the bag waiting for us at the motel is filled with suits?”
He chuckled at her.
“The irony of my story is that no, for the foreseeable future I will not be donning my usual clothing. It would make me too noticeable, like I just explained. It’s what l is expected of me, so I must reacquaint myself with what most middle aged men frequently wear.”
Those words sounded too small, too benign, to describe him. She hit him playfully.
“Don’t call yourself that.”
“Lizzy it’s what I am.“
Suddenly, the fear of losing him, not to bullets, wounds, or torture, but to time, gripped her so fiercely she didn’t know what to do with herself.
She didn’t often forget about their age difference, hell, most of her internal battles consisted of her chastising herself for feeling what she did for a man who knew her as a child, who’d never see her as the woman she was now.
What she forgot was the he was human.
“Lizzy.”
She hadn’t even realized he’d been speaking to her. She was too busy trying to come up with a way to protect him, keep him safe from the world, safe from time, where no one but her could reach him.
“Where did you go just then?” Red inquired softly
“I just-“ she desperately grasped at anything, anything but the real answer, anything but her fierce devotion to him.
“I don’t want you to die.” She said simply
He chuckled.
Red would never accept anything from her, which is what made this so hard.
“I’m glad Lizzie.”
Her name sounded like a prayer on his lips.
She returned to her musings by messing with the hem of his jacket and hoped he didn’t read too into her answer.
“I like your suits though, even if they’re too formal for me.”
“That makes two of us.”
After that she leaned into the back of the van and imagined all the scenarios in which their escape could go wrong, and hoped that the reality she lived in would grant her the one in which they both got out of this alive.
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