About Last Night

When Liz woke and opened her eyes, she had no idea where she was. The egg-yolk colored ceiling wasn't one she recognized. She sat up slowly, inspecting her surroundings with confusion. She was wrapped up in beige Egyptian cotton sheets. She turned her head and stared at the dresser beside the bed. A dark grey fedora hat rested on top of it near the lamp, along with a pair of colored, amber-lensed sunglasses.

Where the hell was she?

Then something about the style of the hat seemed familiar to her, and her mind began racing. Suddenly she remembered, and she panicked. Raymond Reddington's hat. She couldn't remember everything, of course. But she did remember coming to him after finding out he was right about her husband. Breaking down and weeping to him, while Reddington held her close and offered her the comfort she needed.

Tom. Oh, shit.

She hadn't gone home to him last night. She must have slept over in the luxurious, five-star hotel Red was staying at.

She sat up straighter against the pillows, trying to work everything out without stressing too much. She only remembered coming to Red. Everything else was beyond her recollection. She couldn't even remember getting here. Her eyes fell down to her clothes- her leather jacket, her jeans, her shirt, her socks - that were laying like an accusing pile on the carpet beside the side of the bed where she was sleeping.

Since when did she remove all her clothes last night and decide to hop into bed with Red? What on earth had she been thinking?

Red. She turned and looked behind her shoulder, finding the right side of the bed near her empty. The only sign that told her he had definitely slept there next to her last night, was how crumpled and wrinkled the sheets were. So they had slept together in the same bed. Liz wasn't wearing any clothes... No socks, no shirt, no trousers. Just her undergarments. Did he sleep next to her naked- or what? Did they snuggle? Did they, dare she even think it, have sex last night?

Swallowing down the sense of panic that wouldn't seem to leave her, she climbed out of the covers shakily, and walked over towards the narrow doorway that led into another part of the hotel room.

Where was Red, anyway? She wondered. She considered searching for him, but the air that blew on her from around the room was cold and made her skin break out in goose pimples. Now wasn't the time to walk around clad in just lingerie.

Biting her lip, she looked around the room again, her eyes settling on a white shirt that was draped over an empty armchair near the window. She grabbed it and slid it over her arms, buttoning it all the way up to cover her cleavage modestly. The shirt was too big and long enough that it floated past her knees and that was good enough for her. Wearing clothing made her feel instantly better about the unexpected circumstance she had woken to this morning.

She passed out quietly into the hallway on the balls of her feet against the carpet, and peeked her head in through a doorway. It was the bathroom, and she huffed to herself incredulously under her breath as she slipped inside and closed the door on herself. The bathroom put her one at home with Tom to shame. It was covered in white, sparkling tiles and the claw-foot bathtub was larger than the one they had. It was truly typical of Raymond Reddington to have the best room in a hotel.

She went to the toilet and washed her hands in the sink then caught her reflection in the mirror. She looked... different. Her hair was messy and her lips appeared swollen. Her eyelids were puffy, but that was probably due to crying last night. She ran water under the tap and cupped her hands underneath it, splashing her face. Then she used a white, fluffy towel from the rack to wipe her face dry, her stomach coiled in anxiety.

In order to distract herself, she pulled open the bathroom cabinet curiously and looked inside. Razors, men's cologne- probably belonging to Red. She began to feel a little sick as she closed the cabinet and stared at her reflection again.

"Calm down, Keen," she muttered to herself. She forced a smile at her reflection, but it only came back to her looking like a grimace. "Nothing probably even happened last night. You're getting yourself worked up over nothing."

This reminded her, oddly enough, of one of her wild nights spent at Quantico. First night her dorm mate convinced her to do vodka and tequila shots all throughout the middle of the night. She had woken the next morning with a shocking hangover, not entirely sure what had happened the night before. The only difference now was that she didn't have a hangover, and it had involved possibly sleeping with a middle-aged fugitive who was meant to be her working partner.

Never in her wildest dreams did she predict she would ever be caught in such a crazy situation.

Exhaling deeply through her mouth, Liz pulled the hair band out of her hair and attempted to make her hair more decent. Then she realized she couldn't exactly stay shut away in the bathroom all day, avoiding her problems. No, she had to face her problems head-on and deal with them as they came. Straightening her shoulders and wringing her hands at her sides, Liz mustered all her courage into heading out of the bathroom.

Now she just had to find Red and ask him the unavoidable question: Did we, or didn't we last night?

She passed down the narrow hallway and found Red sitting at the dining room table. She couldn't see his face exactly; He was holding the day's addition of the newspaper directly over his face, so she couldn't see him from where she stood, while he read. After a moment of hesitation and her stomach swirling with nerves, she cleared her throat gently.

At the sound, Red lowered the newspaper and plopped it down on the table to look at her. The calmness in his expression was irritating. "Good morning, Lizzie. I take it you slept well?" His eyes ran down the crinkled dress shirt she was wearing and Liz suddenly felt like throwing in the towel and running. Who did the shirt belong to anyway? Surely not him. He pulled up his shirtsleeve to look at his wrist watch. "You were asleep for roughly over nine hours. How impressive."

"What happened last night?" Liz asked, going in for the kill. "I don't remember coming here. Here, as in this fancy hotel you're staying at. In fact, I don't remember... anything at all aside from when I came to you about Tom. Care to fill me in?"

"Oh, it's a long story, Lizzie."

She waited, a hand on her hip, while he leaned forward in the chair and started reading the newspaper again, his lips pursed. It was almost as if she wasn't standing there. She looked down at the page herself, irritated at what seemed to be getting all his attention. A crossword puzzle. He was attempting to do a crossword puzzle. A pen was resting on the table near a cup and saucer of freshly brewed, steaming tea. A pen. It was very tempting for her not to grab the damned thing and wham it into one of his main arteries till he answered her.

"Well?" she pressed. "I'm waiting?"

"Lizzie, I seem to be stuck with this one word." He looked up at her, his expression telling nothing of what had happened last night between the two of them. "Eleven letters. Another term for when two adults engage in sex."

The blood drained from her face and her brows furrowed. Was that meant to mean something to her?

Her heart was beating like a mad thing in her chest. She tried to sound casual, as she supplied, "Uh, intercourse maybe?"

"Intercourse?" Red seemed to mull the word over out loud. Then with a tilt to his head in consideration, he picked up his pen and scribbled it down on the paper. "Well done, Lizzie. Intercourse it is."

"Speaking of, uh... intercourse, do you wanna tell me what happened last night?"

When he ignored her and returned his attention back to his crossword puzzle, his expression focused and contemplative, Liz fell into an embarrassed, blistering silence. What was she doing, really?

"Well, anyway, I'm gonna go get dressed," she said awkwardly, gesturing back towards the bedroom. "Why am I even bothering with this when I know I'm not going to get a direct answer from you anyway?" she muttered, mostly to herself, in agitation.

Red just went on as if he never heard her and picked up his cup of tea peacefully, as if Liz was the intruder in his early morning crossword puzzle ritual.

When Liz returned into the bedroom and started pulling on her clothes, her mind was still restless and unsettled. Had they or hadn't they had sex last night? To her, it was an easy, straight-forward question. So why the hell wasn't he going to answer her and put her mind at ease?

Infuriating son of a bitch...

She was just pulling down her shirt over her head when Red entered the bedroom like a tiger silent on his feet as not to alert his prey. Liz yipped and covered herself, squeezing her legs together. He paid her not one ounce of attention despite her flustered state; He simply made a beeline towards the dresser. Realizing she was being stupid, she ignored his presence with some effort and slipped her trousers on. Who cared if he saw her in her panties? He probably had seen a whole lot more of her than that last night.

And intercourse on a child-friendly crossword puzzle? Really?

A/N: Was this stupid or something I should continue with more chapter? :P Please pardon any mistakes or grammar issues :)