Chapter Text
Never in his wildest imagination, his lowest, most terrifying nightmares, would he ever have believed he would bring shame upon his uniform.
His navy dress whites.
His jacket on the filthy floor.
His white slacks down to mid thighs, writhing against the handcuffs that chained him so securely to the bed.
Raymond Reddington wakes sweating and thrashing from the nightmare come true, again and again.
***
Her blue eyes, empty, contemptuous.
His orders were to keep her indoors. Her husband would be arrested as he arrived at the home that evening. The secrets vital to national security would be recovered.
She claimed her daughter was sleeping. Blew smoke rings at him when he expressed his concern.
Red believed she was flattered by his attentions. That he could fob her off with kisses, caresses.
He was a happily married man. But she demanded they play a very different game.
***
"Help me!"
The little girl is screaming, and someone is moaning so loudly as Red tries to focus on the handcuff key on the nightstand. Too far.
"Help me!" he cries out again, and the screaming comes closer, dissolves into a red-faced little girl with long loose hair, a stuffed toy clutched to her chest.
"The key," Red begs her, the flames eating at his back as the ceiling tiles covering him are consumed. The bed is on fire now, like the still figure on the floor. The dead woman who had once been her mother. "The key."
The little girl takes the key and struggles to open the lock, crying pitifully as the heated metal burns her palm, her wrist, at every incautious touch.
Her small fingers fumble again and again until at last the handcuffs release.
Red gathers her up in his arms, toy and all, and rushes from the burning bedroom, wishing all the while that the noise, that horrible wet moaning, would quiet or stop.
They're in a snowbank beneath some evergreen shrubbery, cowering as men with guns converge on the house, before Red realizes that he's the one making those sounds.
***
Her father died in a hail of bullets, running from the house after shooting his wife and Red, then setting the room alight. Unaware, or more likely uncaring, that his young daughter was still in the building.
Red botched the mission. The secrets were lost or destroyed or stolen, no way to confirm their fate.
The price of his failure was the loss of his reputation, his family, his career.
There was no Christmas drive through the snow.
Either he accepted his fate, vowed never to see them again, or Red would be cashiered and left out in the cold for their enemies to find and pick apart. Along with his family. They left him no choice. They didn't quite trust him, although nothing could be proven.
***
It's a grim story, humiliating, and Red is no less ashamed for the many years since he's even alluded to the truth around someone he cares for.
Cares for. So cautious, even in the depths of his own private mind. Even the morning after.
Liz sits facing him on the bed, the morning light slanting beneath the bottom edge of the cheap motel drapes. The room is littered with their clothing, towels from their late night shower, clear plastic cups containing the dark dregs of some truly remarkable French wines.
She's still naked, but he's pulled one edge of the disordered top sheet over his lap as he tells her the story. Looking down, not meeting her eyes.
"So both my father and mother are dead? And you blame yourself?"
He nods, struggling to find the courage to raise his eyes to her face.
Red assumed she knew at least some of the story. She didn't react to the horrific scars on his back, just held him and caressed him until he felt a narrow cord unwinding slowly from around his heart. Her every word tugs at what remains.
"Red, I still have one question."
Anything. Nothing.
"If my father is dead, then why can't I know his name?"
That analytical mind, beautiful as her slim, strong body.
Red looks up at her in despair, hoping against hope that his next words won't spur her to send him away. From her bed, from her room, from her life.
"Because it would lead you to your grandfather."