Red's Love

Chapter 1

Elise's POV: Raymond and I are on Dembe's trail. Reason being? Dembe was framed for his attempted murder, framed by Mr Kaplan, his cleaner. And Liz's caretaker when she was young.

I am Elise Storm. I started out working as a FBI profiler, trained by Liz. I worked in the same task force as Donald Ressler, Aram Mojtabai, and Samar Navabi. Harold Cooper was my boss. But, this happened.

..............Red's secret flat.....................

Dembe uncorked a bottle of Scotch "Raymond, are you sure about this? Bringing them all together to one location. It's dangerous." Dembe poured the Scotch into a glass and I handed the glass to Red.

Red spoke "One of our most trusted confidantes intends to do irrevocable damage to the organization. This needs to be confronted swiftly." 

I sighed "It's dangerous, Raymond."

Red swallowed the Scotch and exhaled "There's a traitor in the family, Elise. I intend to find them."

"And if something goes wrong?"   

............................

Red's POV third person

Dembe brought Red to the hospital "Hurry, please! He can't breathe!"  

He then drove away.

------

Red was in a hospital bed in a mobile surgical unit. He was struggling for breath as a doctor held a ventilator mask to his face.

Red gasped, coughing loudly. A doctor spoke to him "Hold on. Hold on. No, just-hold on."

"Where am I?" Elise jumped from her chair "Doctor! He's awake!"

"Keep breathing. Keep-Slow. Good." Red groaned "What's going on?"

"Mr. Reddington, my name is Doctor Haverkamp. I'm an on-call specialist on your code 77 team, and you had an emergency."

Red gasped "Why can't-why can't I breathe?"

"Give the medication a minute. Just give it a minute." Red gasped. The doctor looked at him "Mr. Reddington, I need you to listen to me. Do you know where you are? What do you remember?"

Red was gasping for breath "Dinner, restaurant." he gasped "What's wrong with me?"

The doctor replied "We're not quite sure. We thought at first, you may have had a series of mini strokes. But the MRI's, the EEG's, they ruled out that possibility."

Red gasped "Where's Dembe? Dembe will know."

"I don't know who that is, but the man that brought you here left as soon as you woke up."

Red sighed "I don't remember."

"Mr. Reddington, I was told that you insist on a frank, unvarnished assessment of the situation. So here it is. You're dying." Red exhaled sharply "How?"

"We believe you've been poisoned. We're not sure how. But your symptoms are severe and are progressing at an alarming rate. The cocktail of steroids will stave off the symptoms for a short time, but unless we know how you were poisoned-"

 "Doctor, how long can you keep me alive?"

"It's hard to say. Uh, a day? Maybe two." Red began ripping off the blood pressure cuff. The doctor widened his eyes "Mr. Reddington, what are you doing??"

"Your cellphone."

Red has his suit on and he walks away from the medical setup. The doctor tries to stop him  "Please, Mr. Reddington. You need medical attention. Your condition is critical. Where- are you going?"

Red speaks into Dr. Haverkamp's phone "Elizabeth. Gather the task force. I need your help - to solve a murder."