Chapter Text
They say that everyone has a limit. A ceiling of how much physical and emotional abuse they can take before they finally snap. Raymond Reddington had never reached that point over the course of his fifty-six years on this planet. Until now.
“You have no idea what it feels like; to feel like you’re life isn’t your own anymore.”
Her words sliced through him, perforating the calm, hardened exterior he had built to project onto the world. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t intended for him to hear them. She had said them. She had thought them.
He retreated from the doorway of Tom’s hospital room and escaped into the hallway. It would be impossible for him to save her if she truly did not want to be saved.
There were things that he needed to tell her, things that he needed to explain, but none of that mattered if she refused to listen. He would never be able to protect her from herself.
Red leaned his back against the cold tile of the wall and closed his eyes. How many times must he show her? How many times must he practically shove the evidence down her throat? At first, he had been able to handle all her anger and hurt, to absorb the venom-filled words she hurled at him, certain in the knowledge that, someday, she would come around; that, someday, she would learn to see reason. Apparently, he had been wrong.
A part of him needed to make her see the truth, no matter the personal cost. There would always be a section of his heart devoted to preserving the fragile secrets of her life, but she seemed determined to drive him away, to refuse his help. He was tired, so very tired, of fighting her, of bearing the weight of her blame, of being the target of her own selfish, petty rage. He would continue to bear it all, though, if it meant that she would have the chance to live her life in relative safety.
She insisted, however, on maintaining her faith in the wrong person; this was his last chance to save her from herself. But she doesn’t want you to, the voice of reason whispered in his head. He came to the realization that he would never be all the things that she needed and the awareness broke his heart, leaving him breathless, holding himself up against the wall.
He would have to leave her. With him in her life, she would never be able to fully move on and he wanted that, needed that for her. If she wouldn’t allow him to protect her, to save her from herself, the least he could do would be to let her move on from him in peace, to truly have the life he wished for her. And the rest of the world would have to believe it as well.
He sighed as he pushed himself away from the wall, making his way down the hallway without even one last glance back at her. The sight of her holding Tom’s hand would have been too much for his tattered heart to bear. His stride sped up as he pulled the burner phone from his jacket pocket and dialed the familiar number.
“Kate, I’m going to need an exit strategy.”