Notes: Beta for this was PJTL156. She is beautiful. Mistakes are my own. SEASON TWO PLEASE GET HERE. Seriously.
Another Mountain to Climb
John fell into love when he was five years old, when his name wasn't Reese. She was tall, and had a caring smile and bright red hair that matched her lipstick and gave him apple slices while she taught his class at church on Sundays. He can't remember her name now, but she was the first woman he had felt love for that wasn't related to him. He moved before he turned six, but he still slices his apples when he eats them, and the green ones all ways make him think of red. The tartness reminds him of other Sundays spent in other churches, where the nuns weren't as compassionate.
At fourteen he met a girl at the water fountain by his biology class. Her name was Sarah, and she had freckles dusting her nose and cheeks. She was the most amazing person he had met to date, and he was gone for her before he could even realize it. High school romances don't last though, and your first is rarely your last. Besides, it's not like a freshman can compete with a car or a ticket to the prom.
He found safety in the love he had for his mother, for a while—but then it's hard to tell a teenager that no one is to blame for death.
He found hollow peace shortly after in the structure he was provided by enlisting.
And then he shoots his first living, breathing human. But that was war and he couldn't help it, and so it didn't bother him.
It was a woman that made him regret the service—the institution that had given him a home when his mother passed. Her name was Jessica and she had beautiful eyes. Jessica gave John hope. She loved him, and was fine with him loving her, and when John though about it he didn't mind the thought of settling down so much—so long as she was there to ground him. She made him new.
John knew not to trust it, knew it would break him in the end. He had tried too many times, gotten too many bad endings. So he left her to serve his country when the towers fell.
His cowardice killed her.
His guilt was an odd thing. It was heavy, and yet it was hollow. A hole in him that weighed heavily in the pit of his stomach, leaving a gaping wound in his upper torso. It hurt and it ached and it was his fault. Then a man with a limp and a private past began to pick at the hole. He dressed the wound, knowing it would likely never heal, and simply hoped it would keep John breathing for a while longer.
He felt purpose now, and it was Finch that saved him. One day he woke up and realized he was in love; it snuck up on him much as it had with Sarah. He couldn't love Finch, even if Finch felt the same. Gender wasn't the problem—Finch wasn't the first man to catch John's eye. That wasn't it at all. It was that it would lead to disaster, as that path always did. There were still days, though. Days that he wouldn't mind being tethered down by a domestic lifestyle. He still thought a child with freckles and blonde hair, that was all pouty smiles, wouldn't be so bad. Leila hadn't made it any easier, and Finch holding that baby made for a very nostalgic picture that John didn't allow himself to linger on for long.
Then Finch was gone. John knew this would happen, eventually, from the moment he admitted his feelings to himself. Finch was gone and John had to find him, but he was terrified. These things never went well, and he prayed this time would be different.