Chapter 3

In the morning, Red wakes from his heavy slumber to the early morning sunlight bouncing off the waves of the ocean and into the main room of the inn, traveling slowly across the floor to the blanket nest, the only sounds in the otherwise silent room the crashing waves and Lizzie's soft breathing.

She's still sleeping in his arms.

Red lies perfectly still even once he's awoken, content to simply look at Lizzie's peaceful face, raising a hand to block the beams of sunlight from shining on her closed eyes when they reach them, waiting for her to stir and wake naturally instead.

(And he'd happily watch her sleep forever, pleased that she's getting some rest after all the trauma and fear she's been going through all alone, and he easily ignores his aching arm, raised in the air to protect her sleeping face.)

When Lizzie does start to wake, Red watches the process with bated breath, trying to memorize the way her nose scrunches, the little frown that appears between her eyebrows, and the way she stretches languidly against him, all before her eyes actually open and landing at once on his face.

"Good morning," he murmurs, his voice deep and rumbling.

"Morning," she whispers, her voice scratchy as she blinks at him.

"Do you want to sleep longer?" he asks her quietly.

Lizzie's nose wrinkles again as she shakes her head. "No, but I'd love to get cleaned up though. I feel like my eyes are cemented shut."

Red chuckles breathily and nods. "I should be able to find you some towels in the hall closet if you'd like to shower. I can make breakfast while you freshen up."

Lizzie raises her eyebrows, looking slightly skeptical. "Is there actually food in this place? I thought you chose it because it's abandoned."

Red shakes his head, sadness and grief curling through his veins at the truth of why exactly he chose this place. "It's not abandoned, just…closed. It's the off season."

"Oh," Lizzie murmurs, frowning slightly. "Well…do you know the owners?"

"No," Red admits. "But I've been here before."

Lizzie's frown deepens, looking very much like she wants to ask more questions, but Red quickly changes the subject, unwilling to sour this lovely morning with the exact truth of how he knows this place.

"And I do happen to know that the shower in the room at the top of the stairs works just fine."

Lizzie lets him deflect, the mention of a shower apparently too good for her to resist. "And the food?"

"Dembe's not far," Red simply says, and Lizzie smiles faintly.

"He never is."

Red rises stiffly to his feet, feeling a little too old to be sleeping on the floor as his knees crack loudly, but he quickly decides it worth the struggle as he Lizzie takes his proffered hand, allowing him to help her up off the floor with a shy word of thanks. He procures her some towels and directs her to the upstairs bathroom before calling Dembe, updating him and asking him to bring some supplies so Red can make them food while they wait for the neurologist to arrive from his practice in D.C.

(Dembe tells him the doctor bemoaned the short notice on the phone last night, but it was a complaint that was quickly forgotten when Dembe told him exactly how thoroughly he'll be compensated for his prompt arrival.)

By the time Lizzie comes down, looking much fresher with damp hair still drying from her shower, Red is just plating up scrambled eggs and bacon in the small, slightly dusty kitchen, with Dembe sitting expectantly at the table drinking take-out coffee and reading the newspaper he brought with him.

Lizzie pauses in the doorway when she sees Dembe, her eyes skittering uneasily to Red, but Dembe has a way of putting people at ease when he wants to, and Red knows that - despite everything - he is very fond of Lizzie.

"Good morning, Elizabeth," he says quietly, a warm smile on his face that has the tension melting from Lizzie's shoulders as quickly as it appeared.

She returns the greeting and comes to the table, and all three of them enjoy a pleasant - if initially tentative - seaside breakfast, Lizzie picking slightly at her food until Red makes a show of telling as many entertaining stories as he can think of - Dembe filling in with the less raucous details - because Red notices how the food disappears more quickly from Lizzie's plate when she's laughing.

(And he'll gladly be laughed at by her for as long as it takes to get some real meals in her. She's gotten far too thin while on the run.)

Lizzie's just managed to finish off her second plate of bacon and eggs when there's a knock at the door. She quickly goes pale, the smile dropping off her face in an instant.

Red reaches quickly for her hand. "It's okay, Lizzie, he's here to help you. All you have to do is answer his questions. Would you prefer to be alone with him?"

Surprisingly, Lizzie shakes her head. "No, I…would you stay? I think it'll be easier to talk about it with you here."

Touched, Red squeezes her hand. "Of course, Lizzie. Whatever you want."

At Red's subsequent nod, Dembe rises to answer the door.

Red quickly clears away the breakfast dishes to make room for the doctor at the table and Dembe shows him in moments later. Red greets him with a firm handshake and emphatic thanks for coming on such short notice, guiding him into the seat across the table from Lizzie, who also shakes his hand, albeit a little shyly. Red takes one last glance at Lizzie's vulnerable eyes and, with a small nod of permission from her, he takes a seat at her side across from the doctor, who opens his briefcase.

And so they begin.

Red says nothing for the duration of the session, simply holding Lizzie's hand, stroking the back with his thumb when she has to take a moment to gather herself, trying desperately to be of support and comfort, and above all not to visibly react when she describes the detail of her hallucinations, the fact that she stood in empty rooms and sat in vacant cars but for herself and talked out loud to no one, using the visage of Kate to reason her way through difficult decisions, as an excuse to commit wrong deeds, and as a coping mechanism for her trauma and grief.

(And Red doesn't think he's ever hated himself more than in the moments when he hears the lengths to which he unintentionally drove Lizzie.)

It's only when the doctor nods calmly, takes his prescription pad out of his briefcase, scribbles something on it, and hands it to Lizzie, along with a small orange bottle of pills.

"Here's something to get you started, Miss Keen," he says. "And this is a prescription for more when you need it."

Lizzie takes both, looking anxiously at the label on the bottle. "So…these will help? I'll be okay?"

The doctor smiles kindly. "You'll be just fine, Miss Keen," he assures her. "From what you've described, this seems a fairly standard case of trauma and stress-induced hallucinations. The pills should help prevent them."

The doctor imparts the last of his information and Lizzie asks her final questions of him before he packs his briefcase and stands, shaking both their hands and accepting their profuse thanks with a nod. Dembe silently reappears to show him out and he goes with a final goodbye. When he's finally gone, Red turns to Lizzie with a smile ready on his face.

"You did wonder- oof."

Red's sentence is cut off as Lizzie throws herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck with a breathless gasp, trembling a little against him, although thankfully not as violently as last night.

"Lizzie?" Red asks, sounding unsure, but putting his arms around her without hesitation.

"Thank you, Red," she breathes into his neck, sincerity evident in her voice. "Thank you for saving me…again."

(And Red bites back his instinctive words of devotion with difficulty, knowing that's not what she needs right now, and settles for holding them close to his heart, where he's kept them for quite some time.)

He presses a fervent kiss to her hair. "You did wonderfully, Lizzie," he says simply. "Things will be better now. I promise."

Lizzie nods shakily against him, taking deep breaths as he rubs his hands soothingly over her back. "Do you think…do you think we could get Agnes now?" she murmurs uncertainly. "I miss her…Maybe Dembe could bring her here?"

Red stiffens against her, not out of any lack of faith in Lizzie or any reluctance to see Agnes, the joy surging through him at the very thought of seeing the dear little girl again proves the very opposite. His anxiety instead stems from having both Lizzie and her daughter in this place, this inn, at Cape May, where he had suffered so much thinking he lost them both.

(And in all the ways that matter, things are so much better now than they were then. Lizzie is alive and in his arms, he can see his sweet Agnes again, and he doesn't need the help of drugs just to get through the day. It's time that they move on from this place - all of them - on to happier places and happier times.)

Lizzie, however, hearing only his silence, misinterprets his hesitation. "Unless…" she mutters, pulling back and looking up at him. "You don't think I'm ready to see her yet?"

And she looks so broken-hearted that he hurries to answer her. "No! No, that's not it at all, Lizzie. I would just rather that we leave here and go get Agnes ourselves instead. We can go anywhere you like, just…not here."

Lizzie's brow creases as she looks up at him, confused and curious. "Why?" she asks quietly, not demanding or desparate as she has been in the past, simply asking a gentle question. "Why don't you like it here?"

Red swallows anxiously, taking a moment to rally himself. He knows she would drop it if he asked her to, but he also knows that she deserves the truth, the sad truth about himself that he has always been unwilling to share with her.

(Because Lizzie has shared her suffering with him, here at this place, and now he knows he can trust her with his.)

"I came here after Agnes was born," he tells her quietly, avoiding her eyes, focusing instead on her hair and how it frames her face so beautifully. "After you…after I thought you'd died. It was…not easy. I was high, using drugs, unable to cope, and…seeing things. Not unlike you are, as a matter of fact. Except instead of Kate…it was your mother I saw, and she helped me attempt to come to peace with things when it felt like…like there was nothing left to live for."

He musters his courage and meets Lizzie's eyes, only to see them filled with tears, looking so desperately sad for him that he almost can't stand it. "Oh, Red," she breathes.

And she puts her hands on either side of his face and pulls him in for the sweetest kiss he's ever received, a blissful first meeting of their lips, soft and gentle, and it feels like a balm to his soul. When she pulls back, he can only smile at her, brushing a lock of hair out of her face with reverent fingers.

"So," he murmurs, his tone lighter now, trying to push away the darkness his words brought to the room with his newfound happiness. "We'll get Agnes and go somewhere else. A different place, a different beach, one with no bad memories."

Lizzie nods in agreement. "Somewhere far away from Cape May."

"Yes," Red hums, drawing her in to press a kiss to her forehead as he imagines it, peaceful in the knowledge that they have no more need for Katarina or Kate, and they're ready to leave those particular ghosts behind them, so it can finally be…

"Just the three of us."

As it should be.