Let us not repeat the easy lies about eternity
and love. We have fallen out of love
before – like children surpassing
the borders of their beds, woken
by gravity, the suddenness of tiles.
So it is we have opened our eyes
in the dark, found ourselves far
from all that was safe and soft.
So it is we have nursed red bruises.
If we are amazed at anything let it be this:
not that we have fallen from love,
but that we were always resurrected
into it, like children who climb sweetly
back into bed.
Kei Miller – "Epilogue"
Jo considered herself a patient woman. She had known for a year that there was something, well, odd about Henry Morgan. He knew things that no ordinary person could possibly know – his breadth of historical knowledge, coupled with his extensive insight into the human body, made no sense. No number of books read or unique facets of life experienced could make him that much of a genius. It just wasn't plausible.
She'd known that for a year, but she had waited, patiently believing that Henry was bound to reveal his secret eventually. He'd made it clear, many times, in crisis and outside it, that he trusted her. He frequently sought her out for companionship. They spent more time together than Jo ever had with anyone but her immediate family, Hanson, and Sean. She genuinely liked Henry Morgan. His quirkiness and hers just fit. She wanted to know him better. In particular, she was interested in how his lips would feel against hers.
But her patience was running out, and God help her, if he didn't tell her what the hell that old picture of him was about soon, she was going to punch something. Possibly him. Probably him.
It had been months. Months, damnit, and he still hadn't told her a thing. Yes, it was true that immediately after she showed up on his doorstep, Hanson had called about a homicide. But Henry had promised to fill her in after the case was closed. Abe had assured her that he would hold Henry to it.
And yet, it was early September, and Henry's secret remained a secret. It was driving her mad.
Mad enough that it was close to eleven p.m., and she was sitting in a borrowed unmarked police car across the street from Abe's Antiques, waiting for Henry to emerge and do... something. Anything. It didn't really matter. She just wanted, needed, some hint of something that would lead her to the truth.
The lights inside the shop flickered out, and Jo sighed. It was going to be another fruitless stakeout, another sleepless night spent feeling guilty about her invasion of her partner's privacy...
Wait.
The door of the shop opened, and Henry appeared. He straightened his scarf, locked the door, and headed down the street.
"Where are you going, Henry?" Jo muttered under her breath, watching him saunter along the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, like he didn't have a care in the world. And maybe he didn't. Maybe that picture was just a stupid prank.
But Henry wouldn't play out a prank like this for months, knowing it was upsetting her. Resolve settled in her gut. Henry was breaking his routine tonight. It meant something.
As quietly as she could, she got out of the car, shut the door, and followed him down the street, keeping to the shadows of the far sidewalk. Knowing Henry's powers of observation – another thing she intended to interrogate him about – she switched up her gait, limping slightly on her left side. She kept her phone in her right hand, playing a game of Candy Crush with about one-eighth of her attention. Her hair was already in a braid down her back, and she'd snagged a pair of glasses from the evidence locker. If Henry recognized her under all of that from across the street in the dark, she'd have to assume that he had enhanced sight on top of everything else.
After a few blocks, Henry turned onto a side street. Jo gave him thirty seconds' head start before she did the same.
Years of detective work kept her from reacting when she saw that Henry was no longer alone. He was walking with a woman she didn't recognize, and they were speaking with their heads close together. She swallowed her dismay at their proximity and forced herself to observe what she could about the woman at this distance. She was tall, taller than Henry by a few inches, although that was at least partially attributed to the heels she was wearing. Her clothing was unremarkable – jeans and a long jacket that reached mid-thigh. She couldn't tell the color of her hair in the dim light, but it appeared to be pulled back in a high ponytail.
What really stuck out to Jo was just how comfortable the two of them seemed together. Henry's hands were still in his pockets, as were the strange woman's, but she could tell from his wry smiles and the way she occasionally nudged his arm that they knew each other well. When Henry took a step in front of her, turned to face her, and stopped, it was like a punch to the gut. Jo didn't know how many times he'd used that move on her when he wanted to tell her something important.
He had never taken her face in his hands and leaned in for a kiss, however.
Jo abruptly turned back the way she'd came, losing her limp and replacing her phone in her pocket. So that was why Henry hadn't told her anything. He was seeing someone else, and she'd been a fool to assume that he was still interested in her. If he was, he would have explained that damn picture already.
Well, that was too bad, Henry Morgan. Detective Jo Martinez wasn't about to be deterred from her mission, and she had other ways to find her answers – ways that didn't require her to stalk her partner's apparent new girlfriend.
Within minutes, she had picked the lock on the antique shop's door and made her way down to his basement lair. Henry would clearly be occupied for a while, and if she was going to find answers anywhere but the horse's mouth, it would be here. Using the light from her cell phone, she began to search through drawers and shelves. She was going to solve this damn mystery if she had to go through everything in this creepy basement piece by piece.
Woo, first story in a long while! Hello again, friends! I hope you enjoy my new take on how that conversation at the end of 1x22 went. I'm still working on the end of this story - I know what I want to happen but I'm having trouble getting there. I'm hoping that posting this will jump-start my creativity. Let me know what you think!
Also, I ran across Kai Miller's poem and decided it fit Jo and Henry perfectly. It quickly became the title and inspiration for my story.