Les Neiges d'Antan: Three times Mark Snow told the truth about John Reese and one time he didn't
Author's Note: The quotes are from the speech Snow makes to Carter when he confronts her on the steps of the precinct house in "Blue Code."
"John has a tendency to use people, and then, well, discard them."
The first day of training, Mark's efforts to impart his years of scholarship, experience, and discipline foundered on the brash optimism of John Reese. Quietly, perhaps unconsciously, the doppelganger undermined Mark's instruction, diverting the newbies' fickle attention, winning a battle Mark did not yet realize had been joined. Mark was as enchanted as the rest of the recruits, if he were perfectly honest with himself. When John moved on, restless and voracious in his appetite for an entourage, he easily turned his laser focus on a new target. Left to shrivel in the wintry shadow that remained, Mark felt bereft, mocked, yet still hopeful somehow.
"I remember his old partner's funeral like it was yesterday."
Standing in the mud-streaked drifts left by the previous night's storm, Mark surveyed the cemetery and regretted he had not worn the rubber boots. He hated the inane jokes about his name - "Hey, Snow, what's the forecast?" had worn thin by the end of middle school - and as a result he often ignored the weather reports to his private chagrin. He ground his teeth together to prevent them chattering and slogged closer to the grave site. The mourners had separated into three sections as they left the funeral home and maintained that unspoken division when they lined up around the grave: ignorant family and friends from her home town; Agency colleagues who carried a special burden of guilt; lovers still shocked that her ardent flame could be extinguished so easily. Bareheaded, standing apart, Mark watched fretfully to see with which group John aligned himself.
"Good, pretty woman, like you."
Whether she was good was a matter of opinion, best debated at the end of a night of drained bourbon bottles and tinny jukebox music. Ethics were a sometime thing with Colette, but John seemed to bring out the best in her flexible moral system. She was pretty, everyone agreed on that. Like a sultry blonde version of a Hepburn, but which of the Hepburns best fit was up for dispute: Rangy and brittle like Kate, or catlike and fragile like Audrey; lancet-tongued like Kate, or winsome like Audrey. The boozy discussions went on and on without resolution. Mark often wondered how much John knew back then, how much he might have cared even if he did know. Now, the twinge of desire Mark felt rising once again with this pretty cop in front of him brought back all the old challenges, the buried rivalry. He needed to probe further, test the edges, find the weakest spot.
"After he was done with her, not so much."
Afterwards, she was disposable, compromised, contaminated. The Agency's interest was clear and indisputable. Mark had only a moment's remorse that gray dawn in his Sofia flat. He regretted that Colette had to die; he regretted he couldn't assign someone else to do the wet work. He regretted John wasn't present to suffer the loss in person. In death she looked smaller, softer, more alluring than during any of the one hundred nights he had loved her. He would make sure John paid for this somehow.