A/N: There's actually no way to explain this, except for it's a noir AU that got serious. I'm trying this multi-chapter fic, with a (relatively) fleshed out plot and everything. As normal for me, it's late, and this is unbeta'd. Any grammatical mistakes/implausibility within this plot are completely of my own doing.

Don't forget to leave your thoughts/opinions at the ends. I appreciate any and all feedback. Enjoy.

...

It was a dark and stormy night when it all started. Or, at least, it was when she first met him.

…

New York: a while back

She's sitting at a bar. It's got dim lights and small dimensions, and Carter can feel only constrained within the small proportions of the joint. All and all, she's not quite sure what she's doing here, and she's not quite sure why she stays, but there's something about being beautiful just for the sake of it is somehow refreshing. Her bangs swirl out over her forehead, dark lashes peeking out from the shadow of her cheek. Outside, the rain roars down as if it can clean the street (but that's impossible, it'd take years and years of constant, thundering rain to wash the streets of the grime and the filth and the decay and death that cakes the fractured sidewalks). So, tonight, inside of going straight home, she's come to this place were no one knows her name.

...except for maybe the bartender ―in the vast depths of her memory she thinks she might remember him, and she somehow feels like she's interrogated him at some point in her career, which is entirely possible, after all, there are only so many felons in this great city ―and those guys in the corner there. Yeah, they look mildly recognizable, in the way that dangerous men often do.

They all jumpstart the irritable twitch of the hair on the back of her neck, the audible clench of her gut, the wave of wrongness that suddenly threatens to choke her, the gradual, tangible unease that rests in her bones. Her eyes shift to them every now and then, just to make sure they aren't breaking any major laws, but she's pretty sure those joints they're smoking are laced with pot. Maybe heroin. That vague sense of imminent danger, remnants of the army life she left behind is haunting. (Most days its like she never left, and she's starting to think you never really leave the army, just like you never stop being a solider. It just doesn't work that way). It's your imagine, Joss, she tells herself. Leave it be.

Hard liquor doesn't brighten the dimmed lights of the bar, but oh does it help bring her down. Relaxing is something she never really learned, or, she hasn't had the luxury of doing so. Not since Taylor, not since the army, not since being a cop.

"Another, Detective?" The bartender rubs at the cups with a filthy cloth that just serves to make the cup dirtier (really, why does he bother, this place probably breaks every health code violation in the damn rule book), and he eyes her with a stunned sort of reverence. Carter takes a hard swing again because she sort of hates it, that trembling, doe-eyed gaze infused with lurid fascination. Just as she's getting ready to depart, (her phone buzzes in her coat pocket, breaking her her gentle reverie), a voice breaks through the silence she's wrapped herself in.

"Having a good evening, Detective?" This guy, he slides up next to her, forearms flat on the table, fingers laced together, and speaks as if they are old friends. Carter's eyes are first draw to his hat, silk lined, glistening with drops of rain. Not many men can rock one of those type of hats, in the way not many men can rock a pinstriped suit, but he's devastatingly handsome, suit perfectly immaculate and wrinkle free, teal collar peaking out. He removes his hat just as she thinks how ridiculous he looks (a man can rock a teal collared shirt, a pinstriped suit, or a fedora, but not three at the same time. that is an actual crime) but immediately, Carter wishes he hadn't.

He's less conspicuous, and more striking, gazing aloofly and coolly like he's got the secrets of the world at his fingertips. There's an edge of grace in his movements, sharp and controlled, like it takes a conscious effort to restrain himself. For whose sake though, she wonders. A minute passes. Then two or three, but it's only when he murmurs something inconsequential, something about the weather maybe, that she realizes that he isn't going anywhere.

Carter gives him a hard look, like she's running his face through her memory, trying to put in it place, but she's been in the game too long. She can't place him, not in all the guys she's put away, or the ones she's saved. She'd have a feeling she'd remember those eyes, though, like clear cut crystal shining in streetlight, all glittering and vivid and cold.

"You new here?" She finally says, because, hell, she's curious now. He's got her inquisitive and snooping non-too subtly in her brass ex-interrogator way. He lifts up his shoulder in an easy shrug. Carter just rolls her eyes at that, cause it's a non-answer if she's ever seen one, so it must be true, and taps her fingers on the bar. His eyes are drawn to that steady tap, tap, tap of her unpolished nails on the countertop.

"You could say that." He says, his voice purposefully smooth and soft and seductive. His charm must work on other girls. Carter swivels round in her seat, starting up at him boldly.

"Don't think I've seen your face 'round here before. Where you from?"

"Pretty ladies like you shouldn't make a habit of talking to strange men." He manages to sound both gently amused and dismissive all at once. That irritates her more than his slick mannerisms and smooth charm, this wolf rollin' up in her joint, already holding himself above the rest.

"Pimp? Politician? Pistol for hire? What's your game?"

"I help people." He says shortly, giving her a hard look, not unkind per say, but still, her skin slinks at the sheer intensity of under his scrutiny. Those grey eyes seem to strip away at her skin, peeling the outer layers as if he's trying look deeper into her. Like he's seeing her for the first time that night.

Carter hums softly, leg knocking accidentally against his. "That's what they all say, right before the bodies start dropping. Freelance pistol, then." She casts him up with her dark eyes, turning her head back to the simmering crowd. His eyes are still on her, burning a hole in the back of her neck, but Carter's not some blushing broad and pretends that his gaze doesn't make her blood sing.

"You plainclothes cops never know when to stop asking questions." Carter snatches the smile before it spreads to the rest of her face. It's already caught itself in her eyes, and she knows that he's noticed that.

"Your name will do if you wont tell me why you're here."

"Call me John." A pause. He's tense, and speaks with the heavy seriousness of having said something precious and meaningful. This causes Carter to smirk into the rim of her drink. Briefly, she entertains the thought of the name being fake. It's common enough, John. Four letters, like in John Doe. But he's got the open expression of a child sharing a conspiratorial secret. So, irrationally, she's prone to believe him.

"Aren't you going to tell me yours?" John asks, nonplussed.

"Something tells me you already know it." She finishes her drink, and knows by the sudden rush of the alcohol flushing through her system that it's time to go home.

"Let me buy you another." He doesn't look at her as he says it, instead gazing past her to those men loitering in the corner. Their blunts have long since burnt out. And now, she can clearly she how her initial inference was, sans doubt, correct. They are the dangerous, violent types you don't want to meet all alone in a dark alley. One of the men catches Carter's eyes, your stereotypical Irishman with a stiff jaw and an overload of misplaced defiance, and snarls viciously. She smiles tightly in return, drawing her coat around her shoulders tightly.

"Problem, Eddie?" She calls out, more boldly than she feels.

"You really shouldn't go out there Detective." John murmurs, voice low and sultry. Their eyes connect again, and she feels it, that low, sensations of her pulse thrumming with an unknown, inexplicable emotion that she can't quite place. She just knows, with unexpected clarity, that she needs to leave, now.

"I have other obligations to fulfill." Which is a total lie. There's not much else in her life, besides her work and son. Not anything, really. But he doesn't have to know that, and personal information is strictly on a need to know basis. Still, he gazes raptly upon her, and that alone makes her shiver in delight. It's nice to be appreciated.

"Weren't we having a drink?"

"I was," She holds up her drink, swallows down the burn of the scotch, "You weren't." He opens his mouth like he's going to say something, but the words don't come, eyes sliding into unfocusedness, as if distracted by some omnipotent voice only he can hear. Carter takes the moment when his eyes aren't on her and slips away quietly, laying cash on the table. He doesn't seem like the type of wolf to let a lady pay, but it's best not to be presumptuous with people you don't know.

...

The rain beats down harder, now that she's out of the bowls of the bar and is able to feel the full impact of its deluge on her good clothes. Carter throws her collar high to shield herself from the sharp bite of the chill wind, and starts to walk. Here on this side of the Lower East End, the walls are crammed together so tight they brush against her hips as she tries to get by. A shadow at the end of the tunnel blocks her. Unease sets in, only as she steps closer and closer and the shadow doesn't move, just stands there with an immovable girth and palpable malice.

Shit. She thinks. Shit, shit, shit. She goes for her gun at the same moment the man creeping behind her lunges for her waist, nearly tackling to her the ground. The guy in front leers; smiling so wide Carter can see the back row of his yellow teeth.

"Who's comin' for you, little lady?" He says, low and menacing. Carter spits in his face, ramming her elbow against the hollow grove at the base of the man's neck. He lets go with a grunts (she doesn't stop to think or breathe, just moves) and Carter lunges forward, slamming her fist into the snarling mouth of the man in front of her.

A dark shadow passes over her, and Carter watches as a suited knee is thrust against the solar plexus of the barrel chested man with a sickening thud. He goes down, and John, she sees the glinting lights of his diamond eyes, relief spreading through her adrenaline packed limbs, crushes the windpipe of the man under his million-dollar shoe, kicking him once in the kidney, then in the groin. He'll be pissing blood in the morning, that guy.

John draws his foot back, slamming it against the man's face. Blood squirts from the orifices of his face, the grey rain swirling it down the gutter.

"I told you not to come out here, Joss." He doesn't have the decency to be out of breath.

"See. I knew you knew my name." She responds, sassy as she can, because this is really fucking weird and she sort of likes the way he pushes out her name from his lips, even though she's bruised and suspicious and aching to go home.

"You going to call this in, Detective?" He asks, blinking slowly.

"Yeah," Carter takes a breath, "I don't recognize them, though. I might've tried to put them away, but right now..." Right now she can't remember a damn thing about these two guys, and everything's going fuzzy around the edges. She thinks she has enough brainpower left in her to put in a strategic call to Fusco and mumble out directions to her apartment, in that order only.

"No explanation needed." John takes a step closer, holding out an umbrella to her. Joss watches him with hooded, suspicious eyes, not sure if she should thank him or arrest him. He seems to know of the crime, which makes him as good as an accessory as far as she's concerned. But that can wait till tomorrow. There'll be questions asked if she shows up to work like this.

"Were you following me?" His lips quirk up, face impassive but for his eyes. Damn, his eyes, raking over her body, inspecting her.

"I need you to come in. I can't explain," she gestures to the two groaning men, puttering about on the wet pavement, "This. I need to go home."

"You're a smart woman. You'll figure something out." He makes his point with a light touch, leaning in quick to press a searing kiss to her cheek. "You'll be safe now. Have a good night, Joss." He says, voice disembodied, and slips away before she can utter a word. Her fingers tremble as she dials Fusco's number, eyes still searching the shadows. Just in case he comes back. Or someone else. She swallows past the lump in her throat, suddenly afraid.

"Fusco. We have a situation."