I love "Ruslan Denisov" but wasn't completely happy with a few things in the following episodes. Therefore, this is a different version of 2/11. In the beginning it goes along with the events in "Ruslan Denisov", (although fictitious), then it will leave the track. I'm acting on the assumption again that there is a connection between the characters in the past, however, this story is independent of my first story, "Another pocket watch". This time the connection is a different one, anyway.

I'm not a native speaker but as it doesn't make any sense to write in my native language in this category I'll do my best to write in English. Editing is appreciated!

Chapter 1 is about the flight to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and fills a gap. (At least I felt it is / was a gap.) Won't tell you anything new in this one but it's important for the rest of the story.

"How are you feeling?" Don asked when they sat side by side in the airplane to Tashkent and tried to kill the time during the long flight. He had read everything about Denisov and Uzbekistan he had been able to find, now he was tired and bored.

Liz looked up from her book, surprised. "I'm fine," she claimed and didn't even know why. She and Ressler had went through lots of ugly stuff together, had grown together in the course of time. Their relationship had changed. But as much as he disliked to talk about his feelings, she wasn't ready to talk about hers. It was ridiculous. He had even lied for her to protect her and the task force. The problem was - she supposed that the task force was more important to him than she was. It was almost the same situation as with Red. She wasn't sure if Ressler really cared about her.

"You don't look fine," Don said. He thought, she looked pale and unsound. "What did Braxton do to you? And why did he want you to remember your childhood?" Both, Red and Liz, had excluded him, and it made him angry. Why she always had to deal with everything on her own and ask him for help when it was almost too late? Don had the apprehension that they would have to deal with Tom again and that there were things Liz hadn't told him yet.

She neither wanted to lie to him nor wanted to tell him everything. "He wanted me to remember where the Fulcrum is hidden," she replied monosyllabically. Maybe he would stop asking. On the other hand, she knew him well enough to know that he wouldn't.

"What is this Fulcrum?"

"Reddington says, it's a blackmail file affecting a clandestine organization."

"And why did Braxton think that you have it?"

"Apparently someone gave it to me in the night of the fire."

"When you were a child?" Don didn't know much about the fire and her family background. Only that she had been adopted with four by Sam, who had been killed by Red later, that her biological father was apparently a criminal and that her mother had died "of weakness and shame" as Red had told it on her first day.

"Yes."

"Did your parents died in that fire?"

"My father. My mother had died before. Maybe. I think." Actually, she didn't know anything. Dr. Orchard had said that her recollections were delusive because someone had tried to delete them, Tom had said, her father was still alive, Red however was sure that he was dead. The feeling that she couldn't rely on anyone or anything was horrible.

"Could you remember anything?"

"Very little, and Dr. Orchard said, it's not worth a lot."

"At least, you obviously remembered that Reddington was there that night." This was the only real information he got. It might be one of the missing pieces in the jigsaw puzzle with the name Reddington. Don had always wondered why Red forsook the flag and committed treason. Being involved in an extortion might be a possible explanation.

"Yes, but I don't know why he was there," Liz admitted. Her first reaction had been to blame Red for everything that had happened that night, but if her recollections were wrong, she couldn't be sure about that. In fact, she was uncertain. About everything.

"And do you have this Fulcrum?" Don asked.

Liz hesitated. But after she had already asked Aram to have a look at it, it was impossible to exclude Ressler. "Yes, but I don't know what it is."

"What do you mean, you don't know what it is?"

"It's a small box with a microchip or something like that inside," she described and showed with her hands how small it was. "I have no idea how it works."

A microchip from that time probably was some beta-technology, something experimental, without any device to gather the information from it, Don assumed. "Will you give it to Reddington?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I think that's what he was after. The whole time. Probably he'll disappear, as soon as he has it." Liz folded her arms and saw to the window.

Don looked at her for a while. If she knew that she looked like a little sulking girl right now? He suppressed a smile. "You fear that he'll disappear before answering all your questions."

"Maybe." She shrugged. Actually, it was the feeling that she had been used. That Red had made her think he cared for her, that she meant something to him, and now it seemed as it had been all about that... thing.

Don deliberated a moment whether he should go on questioning her, then, however, decided not to. For now. "What are you reading?" He asked instead.

Again she gave him a surprised look. Was this some kind of diversionary tactic or was he really interested in what she was reading? "Yodgor Obid, an author from Tashkent. The title of the book is Fate."