To those who have found their way to Archive of Our Own and know me over there as Dark Wolf Moon, you may have already read this. This was written for the Tumblr user, imaginaryashes, in a holiday exchange. Sorry that my audience on this site has had to wait three weeks from its original posting to read this story. I got a little caught up in the beginning of my final semester in college.

Jo Martinez was a successful homicide detective with the New York Police Department and she prided herself on her ability to think clearly under stress. She had been through a lot in the past year and the death of her husband had threatened to destroy her. As a homicide detective, she thought that she'd seen every kind of crazy and eccentric the world had to offer—and then she met Dr. Henry Morgan. The Chief Medical Examiner had more unusual tendencies than a cellblock of drug addicts, though half as many of the bad habits

But Henry was as intuitive as he was eccentric and had been helping on her cases for a while now. Then she found out why he was as mysterious as he appeared to everyone: Henry Morgan was immortal.

She had kind of forced him to reveal his secret, especially since she had found the picture of him and Abigail and a very, very young Abe. It was still difficult for Jo to wrap her mind around the fact that Abe was Henry's son since it looked like the other way around. If Abe had had Henry later in life.

In the meantime, they were still working cases together. So whenever Henry made an observation about the cause of death, Jo had to wonder if he had experienced that death and what it must have felt like.

The question burst out of her on the way to a crime scene. "Henry, how many times have you died?"

The immortal glanced her way with the slightest amused smile crossing his face. "I lost count of that a long time ago, though I have the notes somewhere if you truly want to know."

"Why a medical examiner? You have had 200 years to gain whatever skills you could ever want. Why did you decide to go into forensic science?"

For a moment, it seemed as if Henry was considering his answer—which he might have been. But was he considering a lie or how to frame the truth? "I wish I could say that it's just a hobby, but it's more of an obsession. I have been trying to find a way to end my immortality. Adam was—is—the same way."

"Your whole reason for studying medicine is to find an effective way to die? That's terrible!"

"Says someone who has not lived for two hundred years and been through both World Wars. I don't want to live so long that I become like Adam." Henry sighed. "One of the things that he told me was that he is what happens to a good man after two thousand years. If I ever become cynical to the point of indifference, I'd rather be dead."

Adam. Henry had told Jo a lot about the other immortal—most of it cautioning her against getting involved with him, should he ever actually die from the injury that Henry gave him and come back. She knew that he was the one actually stalking Henry, the one who set the other man on him. The one Henry had been forced to kill in self-defense.

Jo parked the car about half a block up from the bright yellow crime scene tape, which encompassed the whole intersection, reinforced by several squad cars. Hanson was already standing over the body, taking his own notes on the scene. It was a kind of a competition with him to see if he could see the same things that Henry saw.

"Good morning, Detective Hanson," Henry said, as he crouched beside the body and pulled his gloves on.

"Well, it's not a very good morning for this guy. He got up to go to work and got shot in the head."

"The people I encounter in my line of work are rarely, if ever, having good days if they end up in my morgue," Henry pointed out. "You said he was off to work. Did he have a briefcase?"

"Yeah. Evidence took it because it turns out that he was packing."

Some of the pieces were starting to come together. "So he knew that someone was going to kill him."

"Presumably," the immortal medical examiner replied. "And judging from the angle of the wound, it was someone with the funds to hire an assassin."

"A sniper. Seriously?" Jo couldn't keep the tone of incredulity out of her voice.

"It seems the most likely. The angle of the shot came from above and judging from the position of the body, I believe that we'll find something in this building." Immediately, he started for the front door.

"Hanson?" If they didn't hurry up, there was no telling what kind of trouble Henry might get into, or what useful information he might learn without them.

"Coming."

They started on the fifth floor because Henry pointed out that the angle of the entry wound was too severe to have been anything lower than that. Searching all the room that faced into the street, they ran into a lot of people who said that they didn't see or hear anything.

"It's as if we always find the apartment buildings populated by the deaf and blind," Hanson whined as they encountered the fourth door slammed in their face.

"No. We just happen have a lot of homicides in areas that aren't cop friendly."

They finally got lucky on the eleventh floor. The apartment was being renovated after the last tenant had to be evicted and damaged a lot of property before they left. The room smelled of wet plaster and practically every wall had exposed drywall standing out against the chipped and cracked paint.

"You've got to be kidding," Jo muttered under her breath. "Sure, it reads sniper's vantage point, but it's like every one of those spy movies."

"Well," Henry admitted, "there are a few more floors to search, and there are still a couple more rooms on this floor that we haven't seen."

From across the room, Jo heard a small exclamation of "Aha!" Hanson beckoned her over to the window. "I don't think we need to search any farther. Our sniper left a couple shell casings behind."

Detective Martinez took a moment to glance down into the street from the window and saw the little yellow evidence tags set up on the ground. "Looks right," she mumbled to herself.

Vaguely, she heard Henry talking to someone behind her. As she turned to look, she heard a gunshot and watched Henry crumple to the ground. She rushed to his side and Hanson ran past them both. His voice was fading down the hall as he called on the radio, "Suspect is on the run. I need all units to converge on my location. Suspect is armed and wearing blue coveralls…"

Jo could spare no more attention for that and Hanson was too far away for her to hear him anymore anyway. She forced her attention back on Henry, who was bleeding in her arms.

"Jo…"

"You'll be fine, right? I mean, you're immortal—of course you'll be fine." She was babbling. She knew she was babbling, but for some reason, she couldn't stop. "So what? Is the bleeding going to stop in a minute? Is it going to just heal itself? You can't die. Right?"

Jo could feel the doubt creeping into her voice. And with that doubt came panic.

"Jo, I will be fine…"

Steps were coming back in their direction and Jo looked up to see Hanson coming back into the room.

"Call Abe…" Henry whispered.

And then he was gone. There was no sound, no flash, no warning at all. Henry Morgan was just suddenly and violently gone.

"The hell…?" Hanson's confusion echoed Jo's own as she stared at the place that Henry used to be.

"I need to call Abe," Jo muttered, numb and trying to shake the confusion from her head.

"Martinez, please tell me you saw that too. The doc was here and then he wasn't."

"I saw." The phone was ringing in her ear.

"He was bleeding—dying—and then he was gone…And not gone like dead, just, just gone. Disappeared. As if he'd never been there…"

The line connected. "Hello, Abe's Antiques. Abraham Morgan speaking."

"Abe, it's Jo Martinez."

"Something's happened." It wasn't a question. Of course Abe would know what was going on.

"Henry—he—he just disappeared!" Jo let the chaos she was feeling spill out into her voice. "He was bleeding and then he just disappeared."

"Detective, I can assure you that Henry is fine. Now I need you to meet me at the East River." As if it was an afterthought, Abe asked, "Did anyone else see?"

"Hanson saw. Why did he disappear?"

"Better bring him too. If Henry left a body behind every time he died, there would some awkward questions about whether or not he is a quintuplet with the unluckiest family in the universe. Don't worry; Henry can do all the explaining."

The line disconnected, but Jo just stood there for a few moments. Henry's fine. He'll explain everything… "We need to go."

Hanson looked up, not really quite comprehending anything that Jo had said. "Go where? A loony bin? Because I think we need check ourselves in to get treated for the nervous breakdown we have obviously both experienced."

"Henry will explain it."

Hanson ran a hand through his hair, staring at Jo, then the place where Henry had been, then back at Jo. "How? Henry's dead. At least, I'm pretty sure he's dead. At any rate, he's gone!"

It took some convincing, but Jo finally got him to go with her to the river. Abe was already there, and so was Henry. His hair was damp, and Jo remembered that Henry said something about coming back in water. It explained the midnight swims better than sleep walking.

Hanson was practically speechless. Practically. "How…?"

Obviously slightly embarrassed, Henry began as he always began. "It's a long story."

I hope you know how much I love feedback, whether you loved it or you think it needs a lot of work. I am willing to share my process in writing this and consider any ideas you might have to write a better fic next time around.