Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of NBC and its related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: Liz's already terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad night gets worse even after Red comes to the rescue. Character death. Three-shot…potentially in five parts. Only time will tell.

Warnings: mentions of violence and brutality. Some spoilery-ish things.

Author's Notes: A short, final installment to wrap up loose ends! Thank you for the support. I didn't intend for this to take as long as it did, but there ended up being a lot of Liz and Red I wanted to unpack. I hope you've enjoyed the ride!

This chapter is AU-er as of "Lord Baltimore" if Naomi is who Berlin thinks she is. I have Red suggesting that his story to Madeline Pratt wasn't as bogus as he suggested it to be, given who and what the Keres do. Spoilers for that episode then…kind of. Yeesh, this show has such a fuzzy relationship with the truth.

Epilogue

The fog receded to reveal a blanched ceiling intermittently shocked with fluorescent lights. Liz blinked in time with their appearance. Her head was pounding, her ears were ringing, and the sudden flares of light was too much for her to bear at the time.

Ressler bobbed in and out of her sightline, as did a few other, unrecognizable faces wearing masks. Liz closed her eyes to the sound of Ressler's voice. She was in a hospital. Something, something, something blood loss. Shock. The ghost of a handcuff bit at her wrist. Ressler called to her. She would be alright, she was okay. "Okay," Liz decided and passed out cold.

Waking was easier the next time, when the stitches were in place, the unit of blood had transfused, and the handcuffs were off. Ressler was waiting for her. He leaned close to the bed as her eyes opened. "Hey," he said. "How you feeling?"

"Who shot me?"

"Don't look at me: my weapon was lowered," Ressler forced himself to smile. "I can tell you that the agent who did it is very, very sorry and receiving a stern lecture from Harold about trigger-happiness."

Small comfort. Liz's shoulder burned as she tried to move. The bullet had ripped through the outer layer of her muscle, a clean through-and-through, but she would be off-duty and in physio for a while. Such a fitting end for the worst twenty-four hours she'd ever had the displeasure of experiencing. "What's happened?" she had to know.

His sigh told her that perhaps the bullet wouldn't be the worst part of her day. "Not much: the kitchen knife found by the MPD disappeared from lock-up sometime last night." Liz didn't bother mentioning that Red had confiscated it. "However, the MPD has received evidence that you were out of the house when Tom was murdered. You're in the clear, Keen."

Liz focused on the ceiling. Her shoulder throbbed in time with her heart. This whole bloody affair was going to be swept under the rug, and Reddington, under the guise of helping her, was letting those responsible get away with it. And even if he hadn't interfered, the CIA wasn't about to hand over an illicit operative to the FBI. If Coll worked for the CIA. Liz suspected, strictly based on Red's connections that there was a gap in management between the Keres and the Company.

As if he could hear her thoughts, Ressler asked, "Who was that woman you were after?"

Liz shook her head. She didn't want to remember Coll sliding into the black vehicle and disappearing. "No one."

"You said she-"

"Whoever she is, she's long gone now." Coll would disappear; Red would be of no help. Liz was back at the beginning, with the added tragedy of knowing who murdered her husband and not being able to do anything about it.

"With who? Were those Reddington's people?"

Liz didn't speak to that. "She's a contract assassin – loosely affiliated with the CIA."

"Why would the CIA want your husband killed?"

"I don't know," Liz admitted, but the sad truth was she kind of did. An illicit operative spying on a federal agent with ties to one of National Security's newest and most sensitive asset was a no-brainer kind of target for the CIA. Not that Liz wanted to admit that Tom was a secret agent. "When can I get out of here?"

"Whenever you want. You're supposed to lie low for a while. The press is all over this," Ressler considered his next words very carefully. "I've got a spare bedroom, if you need a place to crash."

Liz thought that was sweet. She kind of wanted to say no, but the thought occurred to her that she had nowhere else to go. The house was a crime scene. Red wasn't an option. Still, she felt it only fair to dissuade Ressler, "I don't know: I'm a mess right now. First my dad, then Tom…I'll be a terrible roommate."

"I'm not asking you to move in, Keen," Ressler rolled his eyes, a laugh building in his tone.

She smiled sadly and nodded, "Thanks, Ressler."

Liz woke with a start. The bed was cold. She patted Tom's side feverishly, willing his warmth back into the sheets, but all she felt was the chill of his absence. Tom was gone, and she was at Ressler's. She was a single woman in a double bed. He hadn't just walked away in the night; he was gone.

"Good morning, Lizzie."

She nearly started out of her own skin. The gun under her pillow was gone. Red kept it perched in his lap with the clip removed just in case she managed to snatch it away. Liz scrambled towards the headboard, glowering at him. "Get out," she ordered.

"I'll be leaving soon," he assured her. "Donald will be back with coffee and breakfast soon. I just wanted to check on how you were doing. I wouldn't have abandoned you at the diner, Lizzie, if I knew that one of Harold's agents would fire."

"I'm fine."

"Your dressing needs changing."

"I'll change it. Get out."

"Would it help if I apologized, Lizzie?"

"What, like Coll apologized?" she used the pain from her shoulder to spur the conversation. Her voice went ragged and desperate in a way that she had been happy to ignore for the past two days at Ressler's apartment. "You think that social convention will help me right now. At least Coll was honest. She has no remorse. But you? You still have empathy, Reddington. You still care about me. That's why you didn't tell me about Tom directly and why you didn't want me to be alone after he was murdered. But you aren't sorry. In your own sick, twisted way you're happy that all this has happened. Tom's out of the way and you got the name of his employer, so don't you dare apologize to me."

Red's face bore just the slightest trace of hurt, like he actually needed to recover from what Liz had said. He made the same face after she accosted him at the Stewmaker's cabin, immediately before revealing he'd been Mr. Hyde all along: "By saving your life." Monstrous as he was, Red carried Liz alongside the last of his humanity, so she still had the power to pierce what little remained. "I know what it's like to come home and have your entire world shattered, Lizzie," he began.

She wanted to stop him. Wanted him to go. Wanted to go on believing him a murderer and a monster. The world hadn't made Red this bad; Red had been so bad that the world just had to follow.

Except that wasn't true. Not in the slightest. And Red wasn't going to let her forget that. "I know what it's like to see rooms painted red with the blood of loved ones. I know what it's like to be left alone, wandering, in shock over the cruelty of the world. You are right to call me a monster," he conceded her as much, reveled in his reputation, in fact, "and I am not disappointed that Tom has been eliminated. However, I am deeply sorry for your loss, Lizzie."

The genuineness of the apology bowled her over to the point where Liz almost didn't catch what Red was actually telling her. What he in his usual way was hiding in plain sight. "Christmas 1990," the profile began to construct itself in her mind, unfolding as the details fell into place. "Was that the Keres, Red?"
She knew better than to think that he would answer, but Liz couldn't deny the scenario made sense. Red's family slaughtered by a covert branch of the CIA. Him arriving home to carnage before disappearing into the criminal subterfuge. It explained how he knew about the Keres without ever having hired them, how he understood their methods, and his disdain for the handlers. The killers themselves would be blameless in Red's eyes, victims themselves of an aberrant brain chemistry. But their handlers, their death dealers? Red had special hells reserved for them.

He didn't answer her. He didn't have to…or did he? "You are never going to tell me what happened," Liz said redundantly. "But you are sorry my husband is dead."

"I will never lie to you," Red promised: equally as redundant.

Liz nodded, believing him at an implicit level. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Yes."

He made her ask: "Who was Tom working for?"

Red wasn't inclined to tell her, not at first, so Liz added, "Come on, Red: you owe me."

His eyes grazed over her wounded shoulder, smouldering and softening at the sight of the bandages, and finally, he decided to share. "Berlin," Red said, "Tom was working for Berlin." He handed her back the gun. "We have work to do."

Liz hesitated, half-considering putting a slug in his shoulder for the one in hers. Then they'd be even. She weighed the weapon in her palm and thought better of it. She would have plenty of time to get Red back if she wanted. For now, Liz wanted to know about Tom. She kicked off the blankets. "Let's go."

Happy reading!