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Jennifer left. She left and the apartment felt empty.
Liz was fine being alone. Before.
All of those weeks up in Alaska. She secretly enjoyed it. Thrived on it.
The independence. A solitary existence. Reliant on no one. Just her five senses and her dog.
But after coming back and meeting Jennifer, they became friends. And Liz invited her to stay while they sorted out the whole “what to do about Reddington who actually is not Reddington at all” plan.
It was nice. Having someone to talk to at the end of the day again. Laugh with. Watch mindless tv sitcoms with.
Having a friend. A sister. Instant family. She got used to it.
Now, standing in the living room of her too quiet apartment, Liz knew exactly whose voice she wanted to hear fill up the silence. Who she wanted to see. Who she wanted to talk to about what happened with Jennifer.
But after the weekend they’d had, Liz was certain she had already overstayed her welcome at Ressler’s apartment, in the passenger seat of his car. Liz guessed she was probably the last person he was interested in hearing from.
She looked at the clock on her microwave. 9:37pm
They’d be at the office in less than twelve hours. Surely she could survive being alone until then.
They would talk in the morning. Plan. Next steps. He was her partner. Now her partner-in-crime, whether or not he wanted to be.
but she didn’t want to wait.
Liz reached into her back pocket and pulled out her phone. Then hesitated.
he doesn’t need anymore of your mess, she told herself. But her thumbs didn’t seem to listen, already tapping out a message.
An apology.
Liz often thought she could spend the rest of her life apologizing to him for all of the mixed signals and selfish choices and bad decisions she had made over the years, and still it would never be enough.
“Sorry for taking over your weekend. I’ll buy you breakfast.”
Across town in his equally empty apartment, Ressler was just locking the front door. His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he read her message.
He should be upset with her. Liz was unequivocally the reason that things went south with Hannah. Except that it wasn’t all her fault. Not really.
Her bloody hands at his door. The all nighter at the post office. A dead woman in his living room. Yeah, that was on her.
But really… really… Ressler knew he was already pulling away from Hannah. Finding his mind wandering when they were together.
Ever since Liz’s teary plea for him to keep her secret about the ethicist. That she just needed him to trust her. He could feel himself getting sucked back into the mysterious world of Elizabeth Keen.
how many times had this happened to him already? how often had he found himself in exactly this same place?
Single, once again. Feeling too many things for his partner, once again. Thinking ‘maybe this time’, once again.
Ressler sighed. He would never learn.
He wrote back. An open-ended comment. Open to her interpretation.
“I could use a drink.”
Liz paused as she read his response. Fingertips over her mouth. A small smile forming on her lips.
To someone else it might just be a simple statement. A comment on how he was feeling. But she knew Ressler. This was an invitation.
It wasn’t what she expected. She thought he was probably busy. That he might not even see her message until much later. Or the next morning. His phone tucked away somewhere else while his hands were busy making up with Hannah.
But there he was. Opening the door for her. Giving her another chance.
“Want some company?” she tapped back.
It was silly. This light-headed nervous anticipation Liz felt as she watched the three little dots dancing on her screen.
How many late nights after long days had they spent together over the years? Sometimes just the two of them. Sometimes Samar and Aram joined them. Laughing at the tragedies. Drinking to forget.
This is what they did. No reason tonight would be any different.
“Sure, but no dead bodies this time,” Ressler quipped.
Liz laughed to herself.
“Be there in 30.”
Glancing around his place, Ressler wondered what he should do before Liz arrived. She had been there just the day before, but that was a very different situation.
He settled on unloading the dishwasher, brushing his teeth, and putting fresh sheets on his bed. It was highly unlikely that he’d be ending up there in any situation besides entirely alone, but what was that Boy Scout motto? always be prepared…
Back in her bedroom, Liz stood in front of her closet. Everything black and grey and brown.
When she came back from Alaska, Liz got rid of most things in her apartment, including a lot of her old clothing.
Blouses printed with cheerful flowers, bright scarves she used to wear over blazers, dainty heels. They felt like relics from a different lifetime. A life where she hadn’t lost her husband. Hadn’t sent her daughter away or lost ten fucking months of her life.
Hannah probably wore light, happy blouses and girlish heels, she imagined. what kind of a dress had she worn to the wedding? did he fuck her that first night?
Liz took a deep breath. That is not where her head should be at right now. And it probably, definitely was none of her business. There was nothing to be jealous of she reminded herself.
Ultimately, she reached for a black vneck sweater. Not remarkably different from what she already had on. What she had been wearing all weekend.
But this was cut lower. Clung to her body a little tighter. Slipped off of her shoulder when she leaned a certain way. A little too sexy for the office.
Assessing herself in the mirror she thought, what the hell am I doing?
What was the right cliché for what she was feeling? What she had been feeling since discovering Hannah and this side of Ressler’s life that she knew absolutely nothing about…
‘The grass is always greener’?
No, that wasn’t quite right.
Maybe it was that thing… why toddlers always want the toy another child is holding, why women go after married men, Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit…
That wasn’t it either though. Not really. Hannah may have been a wake up call, but the idea of Ressler, of being with Ressler… that was something she had been sleeping on for years.
Lately though, she’d been so focused on the hunt for Tom’s killers, the truth about those bones, about Reddington. So obsessed with finding out the why behind it all.
She hadn’t even noticed the way Ressler had crept back into her heart.
Also, a part of her always kind of thought she could just… sort of… have him… whenever. That he would just be there. That the ball was in her court and whenever she was finally ready to make a play, he would be there, arms open, waiting.
Liz realized now how selfish and arrogant and narcissistic that all was. She felt like an idiot. And an asshole. And a little bit heart broken.
Too sexy sweater slipped on. Unnecessary lipstick applied. Liz combed through the cabinet above her refrigerator and pulled out an expensive bottle of scotch that Reddington had gifted her.
She shouldn’t show up empty-handed for whatever this night was going to be. One more look in the mirror and she was off.
…
The last time Liz was at his door, her hands were sticky with the blood of a stranger she had killed in the street. This time, her hands were clean, but fidgety, nervous.
She knocked.
“Hey,” he said opening the door with a smile. Ressler was always happy to see her. Even if she almost always brought chaos with her wherever she went.
“Hey,” she replied, smiling back, handing him the bottle she’d brought with her.
Stepping inside, taking off her coat, her shoes, Liz joined Ressler in his kitchen.
“I thought you’d be with Hannah,” she said, watching him grab two glasses from a shelf.
“I thought you’d be with Jennifer,” he replied, opening the bottle.
“She left,” Liz said, trying to ignore the way he skipped over her implied question.
“We broke up,” he replied, looking up, handing her a glass.
And just like that, the night suddenly got much more interesting. Maybe her too sexy sweater and unnecessary lipstick weren’t completely out of place.
Ressler clinked his glass to hers, grabbed the bottle, and gestured toward his couch.
They sat down.
“I’m sorry,” Liz said a moment later, staring down into her drink.
He shook his head. “Liz, it’s…” he started.
“It’s not fine. And it is my fault,” she interrupted, meeting his eyes.
“Maybe,” he agreed with a quirked eyebrow, seemingly unbothered by the idea. “What happened to Jennifer?”
“This,” she said waving her hand, gesturing vaguely at her herself, at him, “was too much.”
“What about Hannah?” she asked, cautiously. The same way she’d asked about her in the car yesterday.
He shrugged. “Same.”
Liz nodded. She reached for the scotch and refilled her glass and, without asking, his too.
“Trying to get me drunk?” Ressler asked.
Liz smirked. “Should I be?”
“You don’t need to.”
“What exactly are you implying?” she laughed.
Ressler didn’t answer. Just grinned at her and took a drink.
Liz liked this. This was a good night.
She reached over to set her drink down on the coffee table beside them, but somehow her hand slipped. The glass tumbled to the floor and shattered.
“Shit,” she said. “Sorry.”
Liz slid off the couch to pick up the broken glass, promptly cutting her finger in the process.
“Goddamnit,” she exclaimed putting her now bleeding thumb into her mouth.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine. I just need a bandaid,” Liz muttered around her thumb, standing up carefully, avoiding the mess.
jesus christ. how many more messes could she bring to this poor man? she thought.
“Should be in the medicine cabinet. If not, check my nightstand,” he answered back. “I’ll clean this up.”
Liz wandered down the hallway to his bathroom. It was just like Ressler. Just like his whole apartment really. Tidy, masculine, utilitarian.
Crisp white towels folded uniformly, shaving supplies neatly organized at the sink.
Opening his medicine cabinet felt a bit like crossing some kind of line. Stepping into some personal space of his. But, opening the door, she found nothing surprising.
Deodorant. Cologne. Hair gel. Tylenol. Dental floss. Nail clippers.
No bandaids.
Liz turned and crossed the threshold into his bedroom.
If opening the medicine cabinet felt like crossing a line, opening up the drawer to his nightstand felt like erasing it. Much more personal. Intimate.
The drawer was not very full and she spotted the box of bandaids immediately. She took one out and knew she shouldn’t snoop any further. But her slightly scotch-muddled brain convinced her that a quick glance at the contents wouldn’t hurt…
There was a pen and some note paper. A phone charger. Eye drops. A few double A batteries. And a box of condoms.
She closed the drawer and tried to swallow her feelings.
Ressler had sex. Obviously.
They didn’t ever talk about his romantic life, but there had been enough off-hand comments from Aram over the years that she knew Ressler often had company in his bed.
And of course she’d thought about it before. Fantasized about it. What he would be like.
That’s all it was though… a fantasy, an imagining, a daydream… alone in the dark of her bedroom or maybe on occasion in their dim office when he made her laugh and she looked over to find him staring at her mouth.
But here in his bedroom, sitting on his bed, his bed. It all felt real and immediate. Her cheeks flushed.
“Hey,” Ressler said, entering the room, startling her. “I thought maybe you got lost.”
Liz was sitting on his bed, bandaid in one hand, thumb still in her mouth. Ressler tried not to stare too closely at her lips wrapped around her finger, taking his mind somewhere it probably shouldn’t go.
“Sorry, I um…” words escaped her as she stood up quickly. “They were in your nightstand.”
Ressler nodded and walked over, reaching out gesturing for the bandaid. She handed it over and watched his hands.
Watched him opening the wrapper of the bandaid. She bit her lip as she pictured a different situation, of him unwrapping something else that she had discovered in his drawer.
Ressler gestured again for her to give him her hand. He wrapped the bandaid around her thumb, but instead of letting go, he clasped her hand lightly, running his thumb over the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrist.
“Thanks,” Liz said. She was sure he could feel her pulse quicken.
He did.
Ressler glanced over at the clock by his bedside. “It’s late.”
It was. Almost eleven. She should go.
But then Ressler did something.
He couldn’t say exactly why, would never be able to explain it out loud, but he just knew. It was finally the right moment.
Still holding her hand gently, he leaned down and kissed the inside of her wrist.
Liz nearly gasped.
“Should I go?” she asked, voice barely above a whisper.
He shrugged slightly, meeting her eyes, voice equally quiet, extra deep. “Probably.”
Another non-invitation invitation.
Liz began to smile, happy to accept.
She let Ressler pull her forward, closer, until they were just a breath apart. Then her eyes were closed, their lips collided, and she stopped thinking.
The only thing Liz was really conscious of for the next hour were his hands.
Brushing over the bare skin at her lower back. Tangling up in her hair. Slipping her sweater off over her head. Tugging her jeans down past her thighs. Cupping her breasts. Squeezing her hips so tightly she thought he’d probably leave fingerprints.
Later, his hands were still on her, one holding her hand in place over his heart, the other gently running over her back. Liz nestled into the crook of his neck, sporadically kissing his collar bone, the corner of his jaw.
“Do I still owe you breakfast?” she mumbled against his skin.
Ressler laughed in the dark.
Liz fell asleep on his shoulder, happy to be very wonderfully not alone.