The Ocean Between Us

A/N: This is the first time that I dip my toe (or should I say keyboard) in the Blacklist fandom so I hope I got Liz and Red right, but most of all I hope that you enjoy this story.

What I really lacked in the last episode (2.15 – The Major) was interaction – any interaction – between Red and Liz, especially after Liz's admission in the King episode. Red was being Red, moving heaven and earth to help Liz, but I would have really liked to see them together even for a while, and so this is how this ficlet came to be. It takes place after Liz leaves judge Denner's office and just before Red leaves for Germany to retrieve Tom. I am not really a Lizzington shipper but this could be equally read as such - you decide for yourselves how you want to interpret this:)

Disclaimer: The Blacklist belongs to Jon Bokenkamp. I am not Jon Bokenkamp. Therefore, I do not own the Blacklist. I'm just a fangirl who can't resist playing with his wonderful creations:)

Usually Liz was oh so easy to read for him, she knew it well. Whether it was her hiding Tom on that godforsaken boat or hiding the Fulcrum, he always seemed to be able to see right through her. This time, however, she made every effort to not show her feelings. It was enough that she had admitted – both to him and to herself – what had been lurking in the darkest recesses of her heart and mind for far longer than she cared to remember. But she had already lost so much of what she was supposed to remember that she did not want to give up anything more.

So as she watched him in the hangar preparing to board his private jet, she concealed her anger, fear and disappointment. Her hearing before judge Denner had left her shaken but at the same time curiously numb. Not really cathartic, it still gave her an inner sort of peace she hadn't felt ever since Raymond Reddington stepped into her life. Even though it might as well cost her career and freedom, there was something liberating about finally telling someone completely unconnected to her the truth. Or parts of it. For another thing that her hearing had made painfully clear to her was how little she actually knew. Her story sounded hollow even to her own ears and what made it even sadder was that it wasn't any tall tale but an honest account of her real life.

She had been so naïve as to think that Red would ever tell her anything that could help answer any of the million questions about her past. Instead, he had kept her in the dark, vowing never to lie to her but at the same time not giving away anything that would not serve his interests. His words from months back that he was never really telling her everything rang in her ears. Never were they truer than today when she sat in front of a judge and tried to make sense of the last eighteen months of her life.

"Hello, Lizzie. What can I do for you today?" Red's voice brought her out of her stupor.

As she looked at him standing a couple of feet away, she suddenly remembered why when sitting mindlessly in her office after the hearing, there was one thing she could not shake. Why finally she had reached for her phone and called Dembe.

"I thought you might be interested to know before you fly off god knows where that the Kings were probably the last Blacklisters with me on the task force."

She knew she sounded somewhat childish but she wanted to get some - any - reaction out of him. Ever since she had said she cared about him, he seemed to move away and keep his distance.

In response, he gave her a half-smile. "We will see about that," he said, his piercing gaze on her.

She narrowed her eyes a little, a feeling of foreboding suddenly creeping up her back. "Where exactly are you going?"

He did not reply.

"Reddington, where are you going?"

"My grandmother used to say that it doesn't matter where you are going but who you are going with. Or was it the other way round?" he let out a laugh, shaking his head slightly. "I never could really understand the woman. She was a vaudevillian singer with a penchant for dramatizing and a dreadful French accent."

Liz would not let herself be deterred. Not this time. "Where are you going," she repeated, her voice shaking from the effort not to scream.

A muscle in his cheek twitched almost imperceptibly before he answered, "Just your run-of-the-mill business trip."

"You said you would never lie to me. I may be young and inexperienced but I am not stupid, Red."

"Good heavens, the thought never crossed my mind!" he said, letting out another one of his laughs that masked his real reaction so well to an untrained eye. Her eye, however, had been trained on him for long enough to discern among many of Raymond Reddington's genuine and fake laughs.

"I am not playing this game with you today," she said sternly. "Either you tell me or I am going back to the court and telling judge Denner I shot Eugene Ames."

He measured her with a sharp glance. If she didn't know better she could swear there was a flicker of desperation in his eyes as if he realized he could protect her from the world all he wanted but if she so chose, she could destroy herself in the blink of an eye and he would be left to watch helplessly. That was, she realized, the only power she had ever held over him. And as cruel and self-destructive as it was, she was pushed far enough to use it. He seemed to know it as well, she could see it in the dissatisfied pursing of his lips and the slow, thoughtful bite of his cheek, a tic she had to come to associate with him as much as his fedoras.

"I believe I told you once that nothing could be worse than losing you," he finally said. "Right now there is only one person in the world who can prevent that."

She blinked as sudden realization hit her with the force of a well-aimed punch. "Tom," she uttered. "You know where he is."

Red remained silent.

"You know where he is and what he has done to me and yet you're going to get him and bring him into my life again."

"If there was any other choice, Lizzie-"

"There is!" she shouted, angry tears streaming down her cheeks freely now that she had lost the strength to keep them at bay. "Leave him be and for god's sake just stay when I need you!"

Panic rose inside her at admitting aloud another painful but nonetheless true fact about her feelings towards him. She thought it was herself that her words would unravel but as she chanced a glance at him, she wasn't so sure anymore. It was as if they were back in that car again after arresting the Kings. Red was motionless, his eyes unable to leave hers, and it was as if the ocean that was always there between them, an ocean that she herself diligently cultivated with new waves of mistrust and anger, had suddenly dried out to a small brook, and she could see him. Really see him. The perfectly tailored suits, the long-winded stories and brash smugness were only that. Distractions. But when you dared to come up close enough and stripped it all away, what was left was a diseased man, hurt and damaged by the life he had been made to live. So when she had told him she cared and to deal with that, she realized that he in fact couldn't. She saw that he could not understand how she could have risked her life for him. For him, a man so unworthy, so damaged. Just like right now he could not understand that she would want him at her side just for him. Not because she wanted answers or needed his help but because he mattered.

And then he blinked and like an elusive dream, that glimpse was gone and the ocean was back, heavy with visceral green breakers thundering between them.

"You don't need me, Lizzie. You need Tom Keen," he said and she tried not to feel hurt at the seeming ease with which he appeared to brush over her admission. She was beginning to understand that in reality there was nothing more difficult for him than say this to her but it had to be said nevertheless. To protect her. Always protect her. "And I'm going to get him."

She ground her teeth. "He- that man is not Tom Keen! Tom Keen never existed," her voice caught in her throat. "I don't need him and I do not want to see him ever again," she continued after a moment, feeling a phantom of cold panic scrape over her skin like barbed wire at the very thought of seeing the man again. "I won't forgive you for this, Red."

He looked like a hawk, tensely perched on the edge of a decision already made. "Lizzie, as long as you are free and safe, I can live with that," he spoke in an unrelenting voice, although the sadness in his eyes didn't escape her.

"I should have killed him," she stated. "The one time I should have listened to you."

Her words reverberated in the vast space of the hangar, bouncing off of walls, washing over them in their finality.

"In Africa there is a curious small tribe," Reddington suddenly launched into one of his stories and Elisabeth stiffened. She didn't have the patience for it and yet, as usual, she found herself mesmerised by his voice, "That tribe believes that the only way to end pain and grief is to save a life. If someone is hurt or killed, the mourning ends with a ritual called the drowning man trial. The guilty person is taken out in a boat and thrown into the lake, with his hands and legs bound so he cannot swim. The victim's loved ones have to make a choice. They can save him or they can let him drown. If they let him drown, justice will be served but they will spend the rest of their lives in mourning. But if they save him, if they admit that life isn't always just, that very act could end their sorrow."

As his last word died down in the space between them, Liz exhaled slowly, realizing only then that she had been holding her breath.

"Am I the killer or the victim in this story?" she asked.

"Neither." Red pursed his lips. "The only way to end pain is to spare a life. You are so young, yet you have already arrived at one of the deepest truths, truths that take people lifetimes to fathom. Most never do," he shook his head. "I know I haven't and if it had been up to me, I would have killed him. And I would have been so wrong."

She raised her eyebrows, not entirely believing her ears. He could hardly blame her for being incredulous.

He gave her a small smile wrapped in a bitter sigh. "I may be a monster," he said, "but that doesn't mean I can't still value acts of mercy. And I cannot let yours go to waste. Hate me for this but you will let me do this. I'm sorry, Lizzie."

She wanted to tell him that he didn't have to apologize for wanting to save her. That she was beginning to understand what drove him, and finally coming to realize that she could never really hate him. For all that he was, all that he had done, and all that he kept from her, she could never bring herself to banish him from her life completely. And if she hadn't by now, she probably never would. But then Dembe was there, his presence catching Red's attention.

"We are running out of time, Lizzie," Reddington said, giving Dembe a slight nod. "Unless there is something else, I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave. And if you don't want to see me ever again after this, I will understand."

He waited for her reply and when there was none, he nodded his head slightly. Then he turned and walked towards the jet.

That was the only thing she could do – remain silent, on the verge of saying something irreversible, but too afraid to say it. With every step he took to save her, he moved further away from her, and all Lizzie could do was watch the ocean grow between them again.

I hope you enjoyed this! And now we wait for Thursday…

* Red's African story is inspired by the story told by Nicole Kidman's character in the movie "The Interpreter". If you like political thrillers, I highly recommend it!