Chapter Text
CHAPTER 1
Red shook his head silently, his brow’s frowning as he watched Agent Mojtabai attach the nondetectable tracking device to a small silver chain.
“This is a bad idea, Agent Keen.” The worry in Red’s voice replaced the normal calm even tone the man was known to have.
Pacing the small area, Red continued to look on with worry that the new state of the art tracking device would fail.
When Aram looked over and gave the anxious man a questioning look, Raymond stopped and nodded his head towards the door.
Understanding the Red wished to speak to Elizabeth alone, Aram gave Red a half smile and small nod.
“We’ll be able to hear you, but you won’t be able to talk to you. There’s a impact sensor as well, if it detects a violent jolt or fall, it will send an alert.” Aram whispered quietly to the female agent.
Elizabeth wasn’t going to pretend that she wasn’t a little nervous, it was the first time she would be going undercover without backup, without Red.
Giving her fellow agent a encouraging smile, Aram acted as if he had not noticed the anxious look in Liz’s eyes.
“Thank you, Aram.” Liz spoke softly.
Pulling his hat off, Red threw the brow straw fedora on the table as Aram walked by him, rolling his sleeves up his forearms, Red mumbled under his breath as he took his frustration’s out of the cuffs of his shirt, tucking it harshly under itself.
“I don’t like this, Lizzy.” Red huffed, laying his palms flat on the table, hoping the cool metal would calm him in some way.
Spreading his fingers across the smooth surface as he dropped his head and pulled in a deep breath.
Elizabeth watched the man quietly, in the time that she and Red had been partners, she had never seen him so on edge, so conflicted about what it took to do the job.
Sighing, Liz walked over and stood next to Red, turning she pushed herself up onto the table.
A jolt of awareness shot through the man as Liz’s thigh brushed lightly against the side of his hand when she settled herself onto the makeshift seat.
It had only been in the last few weeks that Red had started to notice how his body was reaching to the woman, how his chest tightened when she offered a light touch to his shoulder or arm as she walked by him.
And last week when he had been lucky enough to feel her lips press against his five o’clock shadowed cheek, he had thought for sure Liz would hear how hard his heart was thumbing in his chest.
With a questioning raise of her brow, Liz dipped her head, trying to see Red’s face.
“Raymond?”
Dear God, why did she have to use my first name? Red whimpered inwardly as the sound of his name leaving the woman’s mouth.
Seeing the shaking breath, the man took in when he name was said, the way his eyes fluttered shut and the strong beat of the bloodline on his neck, the profiler was pretty sure she knew what Red’s worked up state was all about.
Liz had noticed a change too when she found herself in the presents of her CI, more then once she had glanced up to find the calming gray-green eyes of the man looking at her, and how she was offering him a smile back when their eyes would meet.
She found herself looking for any reason to touch the man, even a brief slid of her fingertips across Red’s shoulders as she would walk by him.
She had really noticed how warm her body felt and the ache she had at her core when Red had pulled her into a tight embrace last week after she had offered a small kiss to his cheek.
But the thing that got her attention the most, just two nights’ ago after sharing a quiet dinner with Red at her apartment, she saw how much the man was holding back, how he seemed like he was going to kiss her goodnight, but then simply kissed the top of her hand and bid her a goodnight.
And then the lonely feeling that settled over her small high-rise apartment after Red had left and how she missed him already, when he had only been gone a few minutes.
Lifting his head, Red tried to hide any emotions from playing on his face.
“Tell me what’s going on.” Liz asked gently, hoping the tight-lipped man would express something to her.
Opening his mouth to talk, Red only closed it once more when his words failed to find their way out, clinching his jaw tightly.
Red’s lack of communication didn’t surprise Liz and she had long given up on prying at the man or even getting frustrated with him.
“Red, I can’t fix or make right or do anything to change,” Liz waved her hand over the man, “how you are feeling if you wont talk to me.”
Red’s hand pushed harder down on to the smooth table, “The only thing to talk about is, that I don’t like this. There are too many unknowns, we won’t have communications with you, and if something should happen...” Red’s voice cracked as it elevated while he rambled off the number of things he didn’t like about the mission.
Flustered with himself for not being able to keep calm, Red rolled his tongue around his mouth and looked off to the corner of the room.
Startled, Red’s heart did nothing to slow down when he felt the small shift of the knot on his tie, glancing back to see the small intimate gesture of Liz adjusting his tie from side to side, centering it perfectly back to where it belonged.
Liz’s face softened, her heart too pounding a little harder as she too the chance to break through the armor platted walls of Red’s feelings.
The need to lean into the woman’s touch overtook Red as Liz slid her hand up and held the man’s face softly.
“I realize that in your world, talking means nothing, talking can get you hurt, talking could give your enemies the tiniest bit if information to use against you.” Liz rubbed the pad of her thumb across the front of Red’s chin, locking her blue eyes to his.
“But in my world, talking can mean the difference between happiness and loneliness, talking gives our hearts the chance, to tell someone how we feel. Even if we fear what that person might say.”
Red’s eyes played over the woman’s face as she spoke quietly to him, the words being shared no one’s business but their own.
Hearing their names being called from the other room that it was time to go, Elizabeth leaned in and before Red could move, she placed a single kiss to the corner of his mouth. Letting her lips linger long enough o give Red a chance to respond.
Elizabeth tried to hide her disappointment when he felt to reaction from the man, slowly pulling herself back and quickly jumping from her seat on the table.
Pretending to tuck her hair behind her ears, Liz quickly slid her hands along the bottom of her eyes, catching the tears that threatened to fall, “We should go.”
The choked-up sound in Liz’s voice only caused a sharp pain to hit Red’s heart.
Letting out a deep groan as he listened to Elizabeth’s she’s echoing on the hard floor as she left his standing there, Red snatched his hat off the table and flipped it onto his head.