A Man whose Name Was John*

"Where are you headed, Mr. Reese?" asked Harold Finch when his employee, instead of turning back to the safe house, walked away from the scene where the ambulance with Rick Morris had just left.

John Reese had said that he was ready for the next number, but that was only half the truth.
He felt like a bicycle in March, locked up for too long. "I need some fresh air. There's a deli just around the corner. I'll be back in a minute. Want a sandwich?"
Reese didn't want a sandwich. He didn't want to eat anything. His stomach was still queasy after the blows he had taken in the fight with Morris. But walking to the deli was as good a reason to get away as any.

"Shouldn't you be resting?" thought Harold Finch. John's wincing when he'd made a wrong movement hadn't escaped him. The fistfight couldn't have done any good to his stomach wound, and his way of walking with the crutch looked rather clumsy. "If you want to start working on the new number tomorrow…"
He didn't say anything though. He would have sounded like an over-protective mother reminding her five-year-old to put on his jacket. His employee would not have listened anyway.
"Ok, I could do with a sandwich as well," he stated instead. Maybe seeing him eat would rise the younger man's appetite as well. Absorbed in thought he walked back to the safe apartment.

The deli wasn't far away, but when Reese approached the corner, he wasn't convinced anymore whether going there was really a good idea. Yet he had promised to get Finch a sandwich, and get him a sandwich he would - although with every step a soft bed sounded more attractive. Why couldn't gunshot wounds heal a little faster? By a hair today's adventures would have ended in a disaster, because he wasn't fit enough to keep up with an ordinary scoundrel. Sending Finch, who abhorred weapons, to the front, as he'd had to do in this case, was a bad idea anyway, that much had become rather evident by now. Finch was the most intelligent man he had ever met, and he had preserved a strange kind of an innocent heart. Or had he – by bad experience - found back to the exemplary moral standards he was now insisting on? Reese didn't know. Anyway, having to deal with the crooks face to face was another matter. This was his, Reese's part of the job.

His train of thought got interrupted. An old blue Ford Fiesta was approaching at high speed. Was the driver drunk? He wouldn't be able to slow down sufficiently to control the vehicle. It would mount the sidewalk…
A woman in a brown wool coat stopped like frozen, staring into the headlights of the car. Reese tackled her, pushing her out of harm's way. Usually he was extremely agile, but now, weakened from his injuries and the previous fight, he stumbled over his own crutch. The car hit him hard, twirling him around, flinging him against a fire hydrant. Reese hit it with his still healing stomach wound. The world exploded in pain.

Lying on the ground he hardly noticed the people jumping out of the car.
"… so much blood…"
"… what if he dies…"
"… fuzz find the snow in the trunk…"
"… probation…"

He was grabbed under his armpits and by his legs and pulled roughly over the pavement. When his tall frame was folded in half to fit into the back of the small car between two other people he lost consciousness.

* This title is an homage to the wonderful 1973 TV-movie "Portrait: A Man whose Name was John" about the later Pope John XXIII. You can watch it on youtube. Original: Gospel of John 1:6

Author's Note:

I have only recently discovered POI, and have only seen S1 and 2 so far. This is my first POI fanfic and probably not worthy of being published on this site, particularly as English is not my native language. If it is too much "olden times" for you, that's ok with me.

Thanks for reading anyway, and thanks Briroch for correcting the worst mistakes.