The Architect. [The Blacklist. Donald Ressler X Oc]

Horoscope.

Ressler.

Shortly after the woman in Paris, we had a debrief, where Liz told us that she'd gone to see her grandfather, who was hospitalized, and there she'd met Reddington, who'd told her that he had seen her get shot and killed on the street.

Everyone seemed relieved that the woman in Paris wasn't going to be a problem for anyone anymore, but I couldn't help to feel bad the second that I, you guessed it, started overthinking it.

Liz had told Cooper, and later us, that the woman in Paris, who'd been living next to her and taking care of Agnes, was Katarina Rostova. She was looking for information about the Townsend Directive, people who were looking to hunt her down and kill her. She hadn't had a better idea than to get this information from Reddington himself, and then from his friend, who I assumed was rescued.

Katarina was looking into the people who were after her because we... I had been digging into her whereabouts. If I hadn't done that, maybe she would be alive today, and maybe we could've gotten real answers about Reddington's identity.

After the debrief, I hadn't had the time to make that whole introspection into my fuckup, because I had something else to worry about.

I was going down the stairs from Cooper's office and into the elevator when I got the call from Tanner, an agent from my other taskforce, the one I was working on when Liz was recovering. I was asked by him to head to that HQ, because he had info he thought I should know.

When I got there, they just let me and the rest of the team know that one of the people who we'd turned against a local drug ring in DC had been found killed after his cover was blown, and when they went to tell the family, who was under federal protection, they found the agents and the family killed.

I was shocked, saddened, but in these cases there was nothing else I could do but to feel sad about the situation.

"Where's James?" I asked Tanner, just as everyone was scrambling back to work once the meeting had ended.

"To be honest, I don't know, and you're probably not going to see him here again"

"Why?"

"He's being demoted after this" I frowned in confusion, Tanner gave me an angry twist of his lips "he should probably explain it to you himself. It was his fuckup after all"

He dodged me and got walking towards the exit. I quickly pulled my phone and dialed. Voicemail. I dialed again, voicemail. With a sigh I started walking towards the exit, and an hour later, I was standing in the front door of his apartment, banging at the door with my fist.

"James, open up" I gave the doorknob a thug to hurry him up.

"Go away" I heard from inside, close enough to the door.

"Not gonna happen, come on" I waited with my hands on my hips, and seeing that he was seriously not going to open up, I banged again with my fist.

"I said go away Ressler" he said, now with more anger on his voice.

"I'm going to stay here until you open this door James. I'm not leaving you like this"

"Like what?" He asked with an obvious angry mock on his tone "I don't need you to coddle me about this, I fucked up"

"I'd like to know how"