Love Me Twice: Chapter Three
FFN II AO3
Chapter Summary: Red discovers that Tom is missing and tracks him down to St Regis while Tom looks for any answers he can find.
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Chapter Three
No one met him at the door. Not Benny, the guard who was always looking for his first chance to grab a morning smoke or Lomay who you could set a clock by the last weeks. Reddington risked a glance back at Dembe only to find the younger man brushing past him and taking the lead. It was clear something was off, even if he didn't have his gun drawn yet.
That changed for both of them as soon as they rounded into the hallway to see a figure laid out, white sheet covering him. They moved with a synchronicity that spoke of their years working together, Red clearing the rest of the hall and pressing the up button on the elevator at the other end before moving past to where Dembe had his cell phone pressed to his ear. "Dr Lomay isn't answering and Dr Chen's phone rolls straight to voicemail."
"Elizabeth," Reddington breathed, her name rolling off his tongue with no small amount of desperation in it. If she'd been saved only to lose her here, he didn't think he could bear it. Not again.
Dembe cleared the stairwell, Red following at his heels, and then to the second floor hallway once they reached it. It was there that any restraint dissipated and the Concierge of Crime tore past him with the single goal of reaching Elizabeth's room. The door stood slightly ajar, movement barely visible, and he swung into the room with his gun raised. Melissa Lomay let out a startled sound and dropped the bag of fluids she'd been replacing on Elizabeth's IV rack.
Reddington instantly lowered his weapon. "Why didn't you answer your phone?"
"I've been a little busy," the doctor snapped, reaching to check the bag. Once she was convinced it was undamaged, she continued replacing the depleted one.
"What happened?"
She shot him a look, but answered. "Best I can tell Mr Keen finally had enough of the secrets."
"What?"
"He's gone. Daniel has a concussion from where Keen attacked him in the stairwell and Benny, as I'm sure you saw, is dead. His gun is missing."
"And Elizabeth?"
"Slept through it all."
Red finally loosed a breath, but turned a sharp glare on the doctor half a second later. "He was supposed to be sedated."
"He was. Steadily. Apparently he found a way around that on top of the typical limitations of someone with injuries like his. It was a move of a desperate man. We warned you that what you were attempting with Andrei was -"
"Yes, you've said as much," Reddington grumbled, waving her off. That was neither here nor there at this point. The key was finding Tom before he hurt himself further. Red had seen the blood stains against the wall like a man trying to keep himself on his feet as he stumbled towards the door. He just hadn't known it was Elizabeth's husband that had left them there.
"I have the footage," Dembe said from behind and Red turned. He hadn't even heard him leave.
He took the offered tablet and watched the four squares of recorded footage. Tom making his way down the hall from his room to Elizabeth's and then out again just a handful of moments later. The second box showed him exiting into the hallway below and the third box showing him stumbling into the street just outside of the building, a phone pressed to his ear. Chen's, Reddington suspected. It was likely in pieces now and impossible to trace. The last box showed a steady stream of the back alley, Tom never making it around that way.
"Get this footage to Glen. Have him trace Tom's path."
"Of course."
"If we don't find him soon, we won't find him at all."
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He thought he remembered someone ushering him into a car. Someone greeting him by name, hands on him to guide him, and then stretches of nothing. He thought he might have woken up here and there, but it was all interwoven with shadows of faces he couldn't quite see and voices he couldn't quite hear. There was one that was a little louder, a little more clear, and she called his name even if it wasn't Jacob. Somehow he knew it was his name, but even she faded eventually.
By the time Jacob's eyes slid open again, the sound of medical equipment all around, the dreams were gone. He knew he'd had them, but they were lost to the fog of his mind. Everything was by the time he pried his eyes open again.
"Welcome back, Mr Phelps."
"Hank," Jacob croaked, his throat dry and scratchy as he looked up at a familiar face. Hank Rogers had been over St Regis' medical facilities since before even Jacob had arrived years before. The man had patched him up more times than he could remember and if his surroundings were anything to go by he'd done it yet again. "What happened?"
There was a moment of hesitation and a flash of uncertainty. "You called for… an extraction. Do you remember what happened?"
Jacob grimaced and forced himself to think through the pain medication. "I woke up in this building."
"A hospital?"
"Sort of. Not public. I think they told me I'd been working a job, but I can't remember. Everything's fuzzy." He turned blue eyes to meet a set of dark brown. "Was I working a job? Hell, Bud's gonna kill me. How bad did I botch it?"
Hank's bushy brows drew together and the corners of his lips dipped low in a frown. "Let's worry about getting you well before we worry about… that, shall we?"
The door behind him slid open and Jacob struggled to see who was making their way in.
"He needs to rest," Hank greeted the person and finally shifted enough for Jacob to see Gina Zanetakos.
"How is he?"
"Confused, just like you said," the doctor murmured very softly, but not so much that Jacob couldn't make the words out.
"I'm right here," he grumbled and Gina's gaze snapped to meet his.
"What happened?" Her tone was strange. Cautious. Like she was waiting for him to take the lead so she knew which direction to lean.
"I don't know."
"You said you lost time."
"Yeah."
"How much?"
"I don't know."
"There's a lot you don't know."
"Gina," Hank snapped softly and turned his attention back to Jacob. "What year is it?"
A memory flashed through the fog. "The doctors that were holding me kept asking me the same thing."
Gina crossed her arms across her chest, impatience written in every line of her pretty features. "Did you give them an answer or jerk them around too?"
"'08," Jacob growled, matching her level of irritation, but just like that hers vanished and was replaced with surprise.
"2008?"
"No. Nineteen. Of course two-thousand."
"Jacob, look at me," Hank instructed, but as Jacob did he didn't like the older man's expression. "It's 2017. December."
Even with the firm mattress of the bed beneath him, Jacob felt his world shift. "What?"
"Two-thousand-seventeen," Gina stressed. Hank shot her a warning look.
"No. No… that's not…"
"It's alright," Hank promised, his voice soothing. "We did a pretty thorough exam when you came in, but we'll get to the bottom of this." He reached over to one of the many machines off to the side and Jacob heard a familiar woosh. Great. He'd made it out, made it back to St Regis, but nothing had changed. No answers and medication. Apparently that was everyone's answer to everything, he thought bitterly as he slipped under again.
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"You said there was no sign of head trauma," Gina growled as she blew through the door to her office. McCready's old office. The one she'd taken over after she'd put a bullet in his chest to save Jacob's life. Thankless bastard.
"We're still running tests," Rogers said, his tone holding a calculated level of patience. "Right now he needs rest. If he's staying, that is."
Gina turned and shot him an irritated look. "Find out what happened, how much time he's lost, and if he'll get it back." There was a stretch of silence and she could practically feel the disapproval rolling off of him even if the doctor kept his expression even. He would have made a fair operative if that had been the path he had chosen. He was also one of the only people left on the St Regis campus that survived her restructuring after she had taken McCready's place. He had earned it and he'd proven loyal, but he'd always been much more loyal to the individual operatives in his care than the institute on whole. "What?"
"May I speak freely?"
"Won't you anyway?"
A soft sound might have been a chuckle if not for the frown that had finally broken through. "I see what you're thinking."
"Do you now?"
"And I know how close you two were. I'm sure you've missed him -" she snorted at the statement and he shot her a pointed look - "even if you won't admit it. But Jacob made his choice, even if you and I are the only ones left here that remember it."
"A choice The Major put a price on his head for. Are you suggesting I finish it?"
"I'm suggesting you get word to his wife."
"She's a fed."
"She's his wife. Not a mark, not a job. A woman that, of all people, Jacob Phelps broke ranks for. She must be special."
Gina's gaze swept over him, taking every inch of his expression in. He was good. Careful. He didn't push on things unless he felt it down to his soul. On most days she found a strange sort of respect in that. Not today.
She leaned in, her words enunciated as she spoke. "I don't care."
"And if he remembers?"
"Find out if he will."
"And if he doesn't, what? You'll just keep him here?"
She shrugged, idly picking up a paperweight from her desk. "If he doesn't, he'll make us a lot of money just like he did before."
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Glen Carter was one of the more obnoxious individuals that Red had ever come across. The man riled him up for sport, jerking him around with his pathological lies and wild excuses, but in the end he was still the most talented tracker that Reddington knew.
He had uncovered footage of a man that had parked a block down from the building that Red had been using to keep the Keens safely hidden away. The man had gotten out and moved out of the camera's line of sight, but when he returned he was supporting a familiar figure all the way to the passenger's side.
The camera had only caught one usable angle of their mystery man, Glen had argued, and that's why it had taken time. Even so, nearly two weeks after Tom had managed his messy escape - and Reddington had moved Elizabeth, not willing to risk underestimating him again - Glen had found the location of the man that had picked him up. Not Tom himself, but it was a start.
Brimley was sitting in a chair outside of a closed door when Reddington arrived, breathing deeply from his oxygen tank, and his focus on the task was absolute.
"Has he given you a location yet?"
Brimley took one more long breath before removing the mask from his nose and mouth. "Took some work, but training only takes ya so far. Hit just the right nerve and he sang like my Aunt Myrtle's yellow canary."
"And?" Red pressed, an uncomfortable feeling tightening his chest at the look he received.
"He's ready for you. Switch is on the right."
Reddington gave him a brief, terse nod before moving into the room. It was quiet inside - eerily so - and pitch black so that the light from outside the door flooded in like a tidal wave, leaving the hunched figure in the corner curling in on himself a little more. Reddington reached over without looking, and even he had to wince as the lights snapped on at top voltage.
Their man - Eric Sneider seemed to be the final consensus, though the man appeared to have his pick of names he chose from on a regular basis - yelped at the sudden illumination. It was a wonder. Teddy had had him five hours at the most. How he did it, Red would never know.
Nor did he care right then.
He moved towards the trembling man, his steps slow and deliberate, and he made sure that the legs of the metal chair scraped loudly across the concrete floor as he pulled it towards him and took a seat. "Mr Sneider. Do you know who I am?"
The man finally uncurled just a little from his ball of fear to turn wide, red-rimmed eyes on him. His jaw dropped a little. "You're Raymond Reddington," he managed, a sense of awe in his tone.
"Yes."
"What do you want with me?"
"Tom Keen."
"I… I don't know who that is."
Red tilted his head to the side, considering. No. He wouldn't, would he. "Jacob Phelps then."
Sneider flinched back. "I don't—"
"I would think long and hard before lying to me, Mr Sneider."
"I can't. She'll kill me if I talk. "
"And I'll kill you if you don't, though I'd say I pose the more immediate threat," Red said as he pulled his gun from the holster and placed it on his knee.
"He… called in an extraction."
"Who did he contact? Who sent you?"
"St Regis." The confession was small, whispered and trembling. Reddington sat for a long moment. It made sense. Tom had asked for a phone and wanted to contact the Major several times after the failed memory procedure. And why wouldn't he? His mind was trapped back in 2008. A time long before he'd left the organization. Long before he'd considered it an option.
"That's it. I swear," Sneider half sobbed and Reddington turned his nose up.
"You're going to put me in touch with the person that gave you the order to come for him."
He held the other man's gaze for a long moment before he received a slow nod of confirmation.
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He was going stir crazy. After being drugged into a stupor and held hostage only to break out and make his way back, Hank had all but locked him in the medical ward and demanded bed rest. Jacob had complied, grumbling the whole way, and he certainly would never admit to feeling better for it. The pain had lessened, his strength was coming back in spurts, and even the knife wound in his side that he'd managed to reopen in his escape was finally starting to show real signs of healing. It was slow going - much slower than he was accustomed to - but Hank had reminded him that the body at thirty-three didn't bounce back quite as quickly as one did at twenty-three. Even if he didn't remember getting to those limits, he'd have to respect them if he was going to make a full recovery.
They still didn't know why he was missing time. Hank had put him through a gauntlet of tests and no head trauma was evident. The stab wounds and gunshot to the shoulder seemed to be the worst of it, but hardly explained anything. What was worse, Hank seemed hesitant to give him any details about what he was missing. Jobs taken, injuries dealt out. Jacob has scars from injuries he couldn't remember, and each time he tried to ask the old surgeon about it Hank sidestepped the answer.
That led him to where he was.
Bud's office door stood large and imposing. Operatives didn't just invite themselves over to it, or at least normal operatives. Jacob has never been normal and he'd never been good at waiting for answers. He wrapped his knuckles against the door hard.
There was a stretch of silence before shuffling and finally the door was opened by an irritated Gina from the other side. She stared at him, surprised, and Jacob was pretty sure he had at least one answer. "He's dead, isn't he?"
"What are you doing here? Rogers said you should—"
"Rest. Yeah. Been doing alot of that. You gonna let me in or leave me hanging in the hallway?"
Gina's lips twitched down but she stepped back, clearing the way for him to enter. The room was different. Same desk - damn thing was so large that it might have been more trouble than it was worth to move - but other than that there was nothing left of Bud. From the books to the type of liquor set up on the shelf. He'd been gone a while.
"How long?"
She knew what he was asking. "Best anyone can guess, a couple years."
"How?"
Gina shrugged, turning back to her desk and the files that were piled there. "We don't know. The body has never been found. I went with him for an op he wanted to oversee himself, but he never showed at the rendezvous. There was nothing after that."
"Bud wouldn't have gone down without a fight."
"One he must have lost. It was bound to happen. He had several close calls towards the end. Reddington, the Germans…" She was watching him now, almost like she expected it to jog a memory. Jacob has nothing and she turned back to her paperwork. "Bastard left me to clean everything up."
"Why didn't I help?"
"You do. You will. You've always belonged in the field."
"So do you."
"I've done alright here." She paused, that honey brown gaze sweeping him up and down. "Sit."
"That obvious?" Jacob chuckled, sliding into one of the plusher seats in the room. The walk over to her office had tired him out more than he cared to admit. "I need some answers, Gina."
"I don't know what happened to your memories."
"But you know what job I was working. Maybe if I could retrace my steps I could—"
"Why?"
Jacob blinked hard. "Because I've lost ten years."
"And you may never get them back. Best we can hope for is to get you back to work - back to normal - and who knows? Maybe something will click back into place."
There was something in her tone, in the way she brushed it off. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. Gina had always barreled ahead. She preferred it to looking back and it was one of the reasons they'd worked so well together for so many years, but it was all those years that he'd known her that made him think something was off.
She stood, drawing his attention, and he knew the look she was wearing. That little half smile and the way she held his gaze. She leaned down, hands on either armrest so that she pinned him into his spot in the chair, and she pressed her lips against his. Like her words, there was something strange about the kiss, but his need to feel something that was familiar won out and he reached up to pull her in deeper. He felt her smile into the kiss, settling down into his lap with one arm shaking behind him.
A loud, sharp ringtone shattered the moment and she let out a frustrated growl as she stood back to her feet. "I have to get that. There's an op in Hong Kong that we need to go well."
"You owe me some stories," Jacob said, his voice rough.
"As soon as I finish with this."
It was a dismissal if he had ever heard one, but as Jacob eased himself out of the chair and towards the door, he focused on the fact that he'd received at least one answer. The others would come… or they wouldn't. At least he'd made it home.
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The phone rang again and again, leaving Reddington to shoot his terrified hostage an exasperated look. If he'd been foolish enough to give him the wrong number, no one would be happy by the end of this.
Then it connected, but no one said a word. Well, she had learned her craft from Bill McCready, and the man had always been a fan of having more information than he gave away. Ah well. Reddington had found confidence often made up for what he lacked in concrete information.
"Gina. Raymond Reddington. I hear you found someone I'm looking for."
There was another bout of silence before a snort that might have been a laugh. "So that's where Sneider went."
"It is."
He could almost hear her lean back against some oversized desk and do everything she could to show a man that couldn't see her just how unruffled she really was. "What do you want?"
"A truce."
"I'm not at war with you."
"No, but your former employer was deeply in my debt. So often when a parent dies the children are saddled with all the promises that they couldn't fulfill."
"I'm doing just fine."
"So I hear. Old and new ops alike flourishing and intel coming in from all over the world, I'd imagine, but you and I both know that you will makethe operative of your choosing if I hire them."
"And in return you want Jacob?" she chuckled. "The highest earning operative that this organization has ever had… for what? One job? Anyone can see it's a bad business deal."
Red felt the small muscles in his cheek twitch with irritation. "You may try to make this about the money, Gina, but we are both well aware that it's not. It's the same reason that you took the fall for him in the Angel Station assassination, the same reason you hired him on when he came running to you after Bill put out a burn notice, and the same reason you put a bullet in McCready just a few weeks later: you can't let him go."
"He came back."
"Because he can't remember what he has here."
"And you think you can fix that? Give your pet fed her precious Tom Keen back?"
"I have the resources. The connections to give him a chance. If you truly care for him, Gina, you'll give me the chance to try."
There was a long, tense moment before: "He's made his choice."
And that was it. The line went dead and Reddington was left holding the phone, the truth oppressively heavy in the air around him. Tom was gone. Even with all of his resources, he needed Gina's help now that the younger man was hidden behind St Regis' wall of protection and she had made it clear that he wouldn't get that help.
"What are you going to tell Elizabeth when she wakes up?" Dembe asked softly from behind as Reddington snapped the flip phone shut with more force than was warranted.
"The truth," he breathed after a moment. "Her husband is dead."
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TBC
Notes: And so it's set. We're about to jump ahead to present day (aka, just after the S7 finale) in the next chapter and things are about to start ramping up. I hope you guys are still enjoying the story. Please feel free to drop a comment and let me know :D
Next Time: An op pits Jacob against an old enemy, but when a client will only take the best, Gina volunteers him for the job.
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