Liz answered her phone with a sleep-rough, "Keen," even though her first instinct was to chuck the damn thing across the room and hope Hudson would have his way with it.

She and Red had spent the better part of a week learning how they fit together in this new and terrifying sort of partnership, and up until this morning they had been uninterrupted by the vagaries of their normal, everyday lives.

If she tried, she could almost imagine they were just an average couple playing hooky from their obligations for a few days. It was frightening just how easy it was to imagine that, how months of irritation and fear and animosity could be wiped away with a single word, how her feelings for him blossomed and grew once she let go of the tight rein she kept on them.

Of course the real world was bound to catch up to them eventually. Life was rarely that considerate of her.

"Hey, Keen," came the voice on the phone. "Did I wake you?"

Ressler. Liz bit back an aggravated groan. Bastard sounded too amused for his own good.

"What the hell do you want? It's 6 AM."

"Someone's sounding chipper this morning."

"Go to hell, Ressler."

"Nice," he said, chuckling. "You know, Keen, I realize you get time off for having to shoot someone, but no one expected you to really take this much of it."

"Good to know my mental health is worth less to you guys than a pile of paperwork."

"Oh, come on. What if Reddington brings us a new blacklister?"

"Well, he hasn't done that, has he? At least he's being considerate of my well-being."

"Shit, Keen, it'd be the least he could do after you literally killed a man for him. But chances are he's just living it up on some tropical island and we won't see him for another week minimum. Which is a shame, 'cause I could use some information on a couple of cases tied to his old blacklisters. It feels like we might've opened a can of worms with these guys and I don't want any surprises. Which would mean I'd have to be able to get ahold of him," he said, obviously angling for a favor. "Which is why I called."

"Sorry, Ressler, that's not really something I can help you with."

"Reddington didn't tell you how to contact him?"

"This may come as a shock to you, but he rarely tells me more than he tells you."

"But he said he'd keep you in the loop. It's been five days. Why aren't you pissed at him?"

"Who says I'm not?"

"Oh, please. When you've got him in the doghouse, you have this tone in your voice. Sorta like he forgot your anniversary…" He trailed off, absently. "But, really, what business is it of mine if you've kissed and made up? All I care about is whether you can convince him to take a look at these cases. It's kinda time sensitive."

"Ressler, I don't know what you expect from me, but…" She sighed and closed her eyes, counting to ten. "Do you think it's a matter of life and death?"

"Could be. We can't know for sure without knowing what Red knows."

"Fine. If you really need to talk to him, he's with me."

"Why on earth would he be with you at six in the…" He went dead silent for an uncomfortable amount of time. "Oh."

"Ressler, whatever you're thinking—"

"No, forget it, never mind. Text me the address and I'll be there in an hour."

"Alone?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Keen. Yes, alone." The line went dead.

Liz dropped her phone into the bed linens carelessly and rolled over, tucking herself in to Red's broad, scarred back. She wrapped her arms around his middle and pressed a lingering kiss to the back of his neck.

Red stirred, humming his appreciation with a low rumble. "Good morning," he said, in that deep, sleepy voice that twisted pleasantly in her stomach.

"Not likely," she said quietly, her lips brushing against his skin.

"Did my ears deceive me or did I hear the dulcet tones of Donald Ressler on the other end of your phone call?"

"Mmm, unfortunately."

"What did he want?"

"He wanted to know where you were," she said, tentative but steady. "I told him."

Red stiffened. "You might have just made your life a hell of a lot more complicated."

"He already thought we were hiding something from him. I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb."

"Nice place." Ressler stood just inside the door with his hands in his coat pockets, taking in the room. "Guess Reddington didn't really have to twist your arm to get you out of your motel to come here at the crack of dawn."

"I don't see why I shouldn't be here at this time of day, considering the fact that it's my apartment."

"Come on, Liz," he scoffed. "No way you can afford a place like this on an FBI salary. Not unless Reddington wrote some bizarre clause into his immunity deal that you get paid quadruple to work with him."

Liz snorted. "I wish. No. It was a gift."

"A gift."

"Yes."

"A gift from number four on the Most Wanted list, that you accepted without feeling the need to inform us about."

"Geez, give me a break, I haven't even spoken to you since I moved in."

"Did he give it to you because you saved his life?" he asked. He picked up a framed photo of her and Sam on the table nearest him and examined it.

"No. He gave me the key weeks ago."

He put the frame down again carefully, shaking his head. "You're not making a good case for yourself here, you know that, right?"

"Should I be?" she challenged. He studied her in awkward, tense silence for a long moment before she rolled her eyes and ushered him into the living room just as Red walked in, trailing muggy air from the bathroom with him.

"Did you shower here?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but yes, Donald, I did. Obviously."

Ressler's eyes bounced back and forth between them. "Both of you have been here since you left the Post Office?" he asked, frowning slightly.

"Didn't you say those cases were time sensitive?"

"Jesus. How is this my life now?" He pulled a stack of files out of his briefcase and handed them to Red, who flipped through one nonchalantly.

"Well, I, for one, can't give this my full attention on an empty stomach. Either of you want breakfast?"

Ressler looked at Liz with his eyebrows raised. "He cooks?"

"Shouldn't you know that already?"

"Hey, I was only his case agent, I was never—"

"If you know what's good for you, you won't finish that sentence."

Once they were settled into the kitchen, Liz read the case files out loud while Red cooked and Ressler sat on the far side of the small table, just observing the two of them. They didn't act differently around each other in any significant way, and they could tell the wheels were turning in his head as he tried to decipher if that meant they had been doing whatever they had been doing with each other much longer than he might have guessed.

They bantered back and forth, bouncing ideas off each other, Liz's more clinical perspective versus Red's emotional, experiential one. She loved listening to his reasoning, learning the ins and outs of how his mind worked, and she knew he felt the same about her. By the time the food was cooked and eaten, they managed to form a pretty solid, workable theory that even Ressler had to admit had promise.

Ressler packed up the case files slowly and stood; he hesitated in the hall when they followed to walk him out.

"Call me crazy, but that was actually… sorta pleasant."

"I'm delighted to have such a rousing endorsement from you, Donald."

"You do good work together," Ressler said, earnest. "I almost get how you would…" He shook his head. "Never mind. I may have the flimsiest excuse for plausible deniability known to man, but hell if I'm not gonna take advantage of it. See you on Monday. Or whenever."

Liz plopped herself down next to Red on the sofa.

"I guess that wasn't so bad," she said. "Like ripping off a band-aid. Kinda makes it seem like maybe we can move on from this. We just have to get back into the swing of things."

"I agree." He searched her face, thoughtful. "Hopefully, Ressler won't still decide to make your life complicated the next time working with us isn't quite so easy."

She shrugged. "When has my life ever been simple?"

Red put his arm around her, brushed her loose hair back from her face, and pressed a kiss against her temple. "Someday," he said haltingly, searching desperately for the right way to phrase what he wanted to say, "if a simple life is what you want. I hope I can give it to you."

"Only if it's what you want. What you want matters to me. You matter to me. Don't go planning my future without you." She took his free hand in hers and squeezed. "Promise me that. All those contingency plans of yours, God forbid, if they're needed, they're needed. Otherwise, I want you to be part of my life. If you want that too, then—"

"I do want that. I do. For as long as—"

"—both of us are alive," she finished, before he could say something foolish implying she would tire of him. What they ended up saying bore an unmistakable resemblance to a vow they'd each made once upon a time, to different people. When they were different people themselves.

In Liz's experience, romantic love had always been fickle or fleeting or false. It involved too much ego stroking and accommodating and compromise—mostly on her part—for her liking. It had been true with Nick and it had certainly been true with Tom. Even before she knew the truth about Tom, their relationship didn't quite live up to her expectations. Not that she would have admitted that out loud to anyone. The love she offered her partners wasn't conditional even when theirs seemed to be. Sure, she wasn't the most effusive person on the planet and she had a tendency to withdraw into herself, but at least she could say when she loved, she loved with her whole heart. To her own detriment, at times.

What Red felt for her, though… Love was too trite a concept to describe it. He worshipped her—with every fiber of his being, every broken shard of his shattered soul. He showed her, freely, now that she'd given him the chance to do so. She didn't know what to do other than sit back and bask in it, try to understand and absorb this thing, this wonderful beautiful thing that truly had been missing in her life, and try even a little to reflect some of it back to him. Because whether he believed it or not, he deserved to feel this way too; she suspected the kind of devotion he offered her had been missing from his life for far too long as well.

If she was his light, then he was hers. Light wasn't always a pleasant thing; it could be blinding before your eyes got a chance to adjust. You might not even realize you're living in darkness until those first harsh, revealing rays shine through and chances are you'll reject that truth outright before you're even able to come to terms with it. Liz certainly had, or at least she tried to. But light is persistent. It's always there, whether you open your eyes to it or not, and Liz had finally opened hers.

She would tell him that. Someday. Until then, she would show him.