By noon Red had laid the majority of the floor down and was now working on installing the new windows. Liz was inside the house, Red was outside. She was in what would eventually become the living room, replacing the pictures on the walls and placing the furniture. They didn't have time or the means to go out and purchase new furniture so they had just taken the furniture that was there; sanded, and stained it to give it new life. Much like the house, the furniture was a representation of their journey. Worn and torn, distressed. But now, they're dusting off their cobwebs, and smoothing out the rough areas.

There was something about the way she looked inside that house as she placed the pictures onto the wall. From where he stood outside, looking in at her...the window framing the most beautiful photograph he had ever seen. Only it wasn't a photograph, it was real. Right there in that moment, everything he had ever wanted was right in front of him. A big beautiful home, a place where he could live a normal life, with the woman he loves. And it just so happens that there is a stream out back where he can sit and watch things float by. So it appears that that someday was today. She looked up for a brief moment and saw him in the window looking in at her. His smile was just as pure as it was innocent. She smiled. Red turned away and stepped down from the ladder and around to the front door, from which he could see her. She stood up straight and waited for him to say or do whatever it was that was on his mind. "How's a walk sound? There's some place I'd like to show you." He said with a shy yet confident smile. She stood there a moment and looked up into the sky, it was cloudy and grey.

"Red, it's going to rain." She said.

"Are you going to melt, Lizzie?" He teased. She scoffed into a smile and shook her hand as she stepped towards the door and out to him where he met her with an elbow extended for her taking. He led them across the distance of the open property and to the wood line where he then proceeded to escort her down a small dirt path into the woods. All around them was nothing but trees and green brush, birds singing and the occasional woodpecker pecking.

"Where are you taking me?" She asked. Red scanned the surrounding area thoroughly, then his eyes stopped on a single tree and he smiled.

"Ahhhhh, there it is." He said relaxed. He walked over to the tree and brushed its bark.

"You brought me here to show me a tree?" She was confused.

"Not just any tree, Lizzie." He ran his fingers across the surface, then began clearing debris from the etched engraving in the wood. Liz stepped closer and ran her fingers across the lettering.

"LP and CR?" She questioned. There was no answer. She looked over to Red who was biting his lip.

"My parents." He paused. "Louise Parker and Clyde Reddington. My father bought this property when he met my mother...he bought it for her."

"So is this where you-"

"No." He cut her off. "I grew up in Massachusetts, but my father did bring me here when I was a boy."

"What were they like? Your parents?"

"My father was a military man. Lived by the book, objected to protocols, but he was also a teacher. A professor in English Literature. He loved to read, always had his nose in a book. He had a stern fist but the kindest of hearts. Never laid a hand on my mother, never cursed." He looked up and smiled. "Growing up, I wanted to be just like him." He suddenly laughed. "I remember, he had this little routine he did when he put his shoes on. He'd put his pants on then sit down in this old rickety chair that sat in the den, then he'd slip his socks on. Oh that's another thing! He always wore mismatched socks." He laughed. "Never once wore two of the same. Never. Anyway, he'd slip on his socks then push up his pant legs to the tops of the socks then put his shoes on. The left first, then the right. But then he tied them right to left. If the laces didn't look right to him on one foot, he'd untie them both and start over. And he wouldn't put his pant legs down until he stood up, he just let gravity take its course on them. And I remember sitting across the room from him as he sat in that chair, and I'd watch him and I'd follow along with him. Doing exactly as he did. And for as many years as I did that, I don't think he ever knew." She didn't know what to say, she'd never heard him talk about his parents, or about his past. She was actually stunned.

"My mother was just the same. She was unbearably kind and sweet. She was a cook. She was always in the kitchen experimenting, trying to create and come up with new things to make. She loved it. It was a science to her, and she was good at it. Every Sunday she made peach cobbler, Wednesday was Apple pie and then on Fridays when I'd come home from school she let me help her make a cake. As you can imagine, being a young boy, that cake was all I thought about that whole week." He smiled and Liz was laughing. "I'd come in the door, rip my shoes off, hang up my bag and go running into the kitchen." Liz could see the happiness in his eyes as he laughed. "We'd have that cake eaten before Saturday afternoon." He paused. "That's how I remember my parents."

"And the house, you've held on to it all these years." She realized.

"I couldn't let it go." He pouted his lip and gave a quick nod before hooking his arm back around hers. "Come on, There's one more place I'd like to show you."

He continued to lead her down the small pathway for several more minutes when suddenly the quiet wood was filled with the sound of rippling water. The brush began to clear and there, off to the right of the trail was a creek. Red released her arm and bent down to brush off a log that sat a few feet from the water's edge. He laid his coat down over top the log and motioned for her to have a seat. He sat down beside her and looked at the water. "When I was seventeen I got a summer job working for this little old man named Jon Caprinski. He owned a tackle shop just down the road from us and he had offered me a job giving fishing lessons to the kids. I wasn't exactly a fisherman myself, I mean I knew how to tie a lure and bait a hook, but I wasn't fit to be teaching anyone or anything. But I did it. Every morning I woke up at the crack of dawn and I'd walk down to the tackle shop, gather up the poles and get all the gear ready for when the kids showed up and once they did, I would bring them here." He paused. "I could have been doing a million other things, but instead I spent my entire summer with those kids. From seven in the morning to three or four in the afternoon. It was almost like a summer camp. But the thing of it was, that fall I shipped off to the navy and before I left, I promised them that when I got out I'd come back. I remember it was the third or fourth day of training and we were in the pool doing some cardio...strengthening, aerobic whatever and all I could think about was how much I wanted to be back with those kids fishing in this little creek. The whole time I was there I kept hanging on to the thought of 'as soon as I get out, I'm going to see those kids'." He took a deep breath and swallowed. "Then my life turned out to have different plans for me...and I never made it back. This is the first time I've been here since that summer in '77." He paused. "I promised them that I would come back...and I didn't." He shook his head. "After all these years it still bothers the hell out of me." Liz reached down and took his hand. She was confused almost. She wasn't sure how to take all of this.

"Why are you telling me all of this?" She looked at him and he took a while to meet her eyes and turn away from the water.

"Because I want you to know who I am. Who I was." He paused and twitched his lip. "To show you that I wasn't always this..." Red didn't finish, he just pursed his lips and turned away. Liz was stifled.

"You really do believe you're a monster, don't you?"

"I've done terrible things, Lizzie."

"So have I." Red looked at her. "Am I a monster? Red just because you've done monstrous things doesn't mean you're a monster." The clouds overhead began to turn dark and thunder roared across the sky. Liz looked up to see the clouds for a brief second before ignoring it and focusing back on Red. "All the good things you've done to try and make up for the bad- it certainly doesn't fix what you've done, but it means something that you tried. You could've just seen the wreckage you left behind and walked away. They feel no remorse. That's what a monster does. But you- you stayed to try and clean up the pieces, tried to fix it. That is what a good man does. You're a good man, Red." Red bit the inside of his cheek and his eyes sank as he swallowed the last bit of guilt he held.

"Thank you." Rain drops began to fall on the log between them. Red looked up and squinted his eyes and a droplet splattered onto his cheek. He looked back at Liz and the sky lit up with lightening as the rain suddenly poured down on top of them. "I think that's our cue." Lizzie laughed and nodded her head. He returned a smile and stood, taking Liz's hands and helping her to her feet. He grabbed his coat from the log and threw it over her head, and they began to run. They were laughing and screaming as they sprinted down the slippery path, trying to get back to the house as quickly as they could.

Back at the house they shed their sopping wet clothes and both changed into pajamas. Red got a fire going in the fireplace while Liz mad some hot tea. The furniture wasn't exactly dry from being stained yet so red threw a blanket down on the floor for them to sit on. He grabbed a few books, a puzzle and his chess set and set them down with the blanket. He took a seat and she came in with the tea. Her hair was wrapped up in a towel and she was wearing a button up flannel and matching pants. Her eyes were so blue and her skin was so pale. She just looked, so, beautiful. She was literally breath taking. As soon as he saw her step into the room and hand him the cup, it was like a cool breeze had brushed his cheek. But it was strange because he didn't feel cold- he felt warm. "Thank you." He said taking the cup from her.

"You're welcome"

Liz had never played chess before, so he showed her how and they played for a few hours before they called it quits and set it aside and decided to rest. They both fell asleep but when she woke up, she was alone. She sat up and turned around to find red sitting at the kitchen table disassembling his .45 and cleaning it. She took a seat adjacent to him at the table; She could've said something, could've started a conversation, but she didn't. She didn't want to. She just wanted to sit there and watch him. Watch his hands make the meticulous movements, watch his eyes wander over the parts keenly, watch his teeth clamp down onto his lip. He was focused, and so was she.

And that's how it was going to be. From now on, this is how it would be. Conversations, board games, and long periods of silence. But she wouldn't have it any other way, and neither would he. Because what they both came to realize was that those long periods of silence, those unspoken words, were the best conversations they ever had. For it were the things that were never spoken that screamed the loudest. It was the all the small glances, shy smiles, and little touches that said everything. They both knew, but neither of them ever said. They were on a level of mutual understanding, trust, and knowledge of each other that they would never have with someone else. That was them. And that's how they'd always be.