Return O: Six Months After

by Badgergater

"What the man had been once, before he found another way, that wasn't what mattered nearly as much as what he became" - an epilogue to the series finale

Return O: Six Months After

By Badgergater

Epilogue to the S5 series finale, Return O

Summary: What the man had been once wasn't what mattered nearly as much as what he became

Warning: I had to find something positive in that sad ending, inevitable as it was; Here be an excess of sappiness and schmaltz; thanks to Scully for the beta.

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They were meeting in a small Manhattan coffee shop on a gloomy gray afternoon, months after the chaotic days following the cyber Armageddon. He was there to answer her questions, help her find what closure was possible, and yet keep his - and others' - secrets.

Not that there was a whole lot of information to share. Week after week, Lionel had waited for Glasses and Wonder Boy to reappear. That was their standard MO – somehow manage to survive the impossible and live to fight another day. But this time his phone didn't ring, no snarky shadow appeared at his shoulder, and despite keeping his eyes and ears wide open, there was nothing. He snooped cautiously, but with his characteristic persistence, digging through police files, hoping to find some clue of his colleagues' fate.

And then one day there it was - in a thin folder, buried amid a mountain of reports on terrorism, homicide cases, and missing persons (which had actually taken a sharp nosedive in the last six months.) He almost missed the few lines on the double-spaced pages of the terse report that gave surprisingly few details regarding the missile strike - strange in and of itself, considering that a large Manhattan building had been reduced to a pile of rubble - destruction of a sort the city hadn't seen since 9/11.

Several eyewitness accounts of the final frantic moments before the disaster noted encounters with a tall, handsome man, graying at the temples, clad in a tailored suit. Calm and intense, the man had flashed an NYPD detective's badge and ordered everyone evacuated from the building. "He warned us about that attack. He saved the lives of everyone in the building," read the statement of the security guard.

"The last I saw of the man in the suit," her co-worker was quoted, "he was headed for the stairwell." Several other evacuees reported sightings of the same man, climbing up the stairs against the streaming flood of the terrified human tide. They were bent on escaping the doomed structure while he was heading for the top floor.

Lionel sipped his coffee and studied the woman while she digested what he had told her. She looked tired and worn. Sad, too. He might not have told her any of what he'd learned, except for the obvious. He wouldn't tell her all he'd discovered, of course - the other accounts, reported by people in several nearby buildings, of a prolonged gun battle on the rooftop just before the explosion. A firefight was certainly the big guy's style, Fusco thought sadly, going out in a blaze of glory, taking as many bad guys with him as he could.

And buying time for Harold's plan to save the world. Though of Harold he'd learned nothing.

"John went into that building and made sure everyone got out," Lionel told her.

"No one saw him leave? Or saw him after?"

He could confidently, and honestly, answer that question. "No."

"That's all? That's all you know?"

It was all he would tell her. She had cared for John and he for her, Lionel knew that for sure; he wished he could tell her more. She deserved to know something of John's life, so he settled for telling her the most important thing.

"What you should know is that he helped a lot of people, a whole lot of people." More than you'll ever know, he added silently - way more, because it seemed that Samaritan had gone dark. All the… weirdness… had ended that day. "Sometimes he was a schmuck, but John had a real knack for showing up at the right place and right time to save lives."

The woman seated across from him nodded sadly. "I was afraid it was something like that. I always knew about his hero complex." Tears welled in her eyes. "Since he… disappeared… I've been trying to find out more, who he really was."

Lionel peered intently at her, suddenly worried about who such an investigation might bring to her doorstep. "You know who he was. He was John Riley."

She shook her head, her gaze rising to meet his, her expression filled with a knowing sadness.

"We both know that wasn't his real name. And that he wasn't really a cop, though he tried hard to be." She twisted her hands around her coffee cup. "I was hoping you could help me. I need to know."

Fusco's heart tripped. "There might be things you don't want to know."

She leaned forward. "You know something." Her expression was hopeful and slightly desperate. "Tell me, Detective. Please."

Fusco considered his answer carefully, but if anyone deserved the truth - or what little he knew of it that he could reveal - she did. And she clearly had to be warned. In his experience, it was always best to start at the beginning. "What do you know about him?"

"I know his father was ex-military, and that he died in some kind of an accident when John was just a boy, somewhere out west. He died a hero, saving people. He inspired John's own hero complex, his… pathological… need to try to save everyone around him." She looked up at Lionel. "I've been searching - I know the story is out there somewhere. It's the kind of thing that would have drawn attention, made headlines. Some newspaper would have reported on a man who heroically rescued others, only to tragically lose his own life." She sighed. "If only I'd started looking sooner… before the big computer failure… it would have easier. I waited too long. So much of what was accessible on the web was lost in the crash. They say it will take years to restore it all. If ever."

She was certainly and frighteningly on the right track, with just enough knowledge - and more than enough determination - to get herself into a mess. Lionel thought back to that bar in Colorado and the photo he'd seen on the wall - at least one of the answers she sought could be found right there, right out in the open. If she dug into John's past, it was likely she wouldn't like what she would find. Or who might find her.

"I've been thinking, maybe," she looked down, then back up at Fusco, "maybe after… I'll go west to look. I'm sure the answers are there."

"Don't."

"You do know something!"

What could he say? "I don't know much. Not even his real name." Okay, so that was an outright lie. He did know the big guy's actual last name, thanks to that photo. But he wouldn't ever tell her that, because it could lead her places it was far too dangerous for her to go. Above all else, Wonder Boy would want her to be safe. Lionel knew he had to dissuade her from searching further. "John Riley was the name he chose. It's the one you should remember him by."

"I need more, Detective."

"No, you don't."

"I do." She suddenly sounded determined. "I'll find it myself, then." She started to rise. "I'll keep looking."

He reached out a hand, taking hold of her arm, and she sat back down, perched on the edge of her seat, ready to flee. Lionel took another sip of his coffee, contemplating his words carefully; he wasn't sure how much of those old records had actually disappeared, or what data might have been scrubbed by Harold's machine.

How dangerous would it still be to hunt for the story behind John Riley? Damn dangerous, he suspected. Hell, he'd been afraid to type that name into a computer. Far too many red flags would be raised if she started seriously exploring Wonder Boy's hidden past, no matter how much right she had to do just that. He didn't know exactly who Reese had been, but Lionel knew with complete certainty that the man had been deep into the darkest depths of the U.S. government. You didn't acquire his kind of skills anywhere else. And while Greer and Samaritan were dead and gone, the likes of the CIA and the NSA and all the other alphabet agencies - true denizens of the dark - were still around.

And still extremely dangerous.

"There's not much I can tell you about him. John wasn't exactly an open book."

She gifted him with a shadow of a smile. "As if I didn't know that."

"Okay, so we both know John Riley wasn't real." Lionel tiptoed carefully around the truth. "All I ever learned was that he was doing some kind of hush-hush undercover work inside the NYPD."

There, that was an honest answer.

"Working for whom?"

He had hoped she wouldn't ask that. "I'm not sure," Lionel hedged. "I suspect the group he worked for didn't really have a name."

Now that was fact. Harold's team hadn't been an orthodox one and it certainly didn't have any acronym other than WACKY. And the name Finch was as much an alias as Riley had been.

"All I know is that it was one of those off-the-books things. Way, way off-the-books," he continued. "You know, one of those organizations that can't tolerate sunlight. Or scrutiny."

There were certainly plenty of those. And John had without doubt once been part of one of them.

She nodded.

"Those groups hide what they are and what they do." More truth, that. "And they're people you should definitely stay far away from, because they don't like questions."

"He was a…spook, then."

He sure had been spooky, that was true. "That's one way of putting it." What the man had been once, before he found another way, that wasn't what mattered nearly as much as what he became and the good he left behind him. Fusco hoped she wouldn't see through all the half-truths and outright lies, but would accept the limits of what he was telling her.

Lionel smiled. "The one thing I do know is that John only ever wanted to protect his country. And that he would do whatever needed to be done to help people, regardless of the cost to himself."

"He paid a terrible price for that."

"Yes, he did."

Lionel had glimpsed firsthand the darkness lurking inside the big guy - the ruthlessness, the unbearable need to right the wrongs of the world, to do whatever it required to get the job done. Fusco knew he would never really understand what could put that kind of blackness into a man's soul. John had surely traded his to save the world. But he's also managed - somehow - to redeem it, too. Lionel was certain of that.

"No matter what it was that he did for the sake of his country, he was a good man. That's what you should remember about him- that he did good, helped people, saved lives." He spoke sternly to her, insistent. "Don't go looking for anything else."

She took a deep breath. "It's not enough."

"It has to be enough," Lionel insisted, leaning forward. "What mattered about him wasn't where he was born or what name he was born with. What mattered was that he was a man who made a difference in the world. He had people he cared about, and who cared about him. He found a purpose, and lived it. We should all do as well, in the end."

She was crying now softly, tear after tear trickling slowly down her cheeks. Angrily, she scrubbed at them with her hand.

Lionel dug the handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her.

She dabbed at her eyes. "I'm sorry. I cry so easily these days."

"That's understandable," he told her kindly. "You know, John Riley was the most frustrating, annoying partner I ever got saddled with. But he helped me to be a better man than I thought I could be. I'll admit it, when I first met him, I didn't like him much. But ya know what? He grew on me. I miss the big lug."

Lionel peered at her earnestly. "Promise me you'll stop looking for who he used to be and accept who he was."

"I don't know if I can do that."

"I didn't say it would be easy." He patted her hand. "Just remember the good man you knew, and let that be enough, huh? That's the bottom line."

She didn't answer.

"I know, I know, why should you listen to the likes of me? Who am I to be giving advice to someone smart as you?"

"Who you are is John's partner, and friend, and I hope mine, too."

She pushed herself to her feet, bracing one hand on the table, holding the other against her aching back, feeling awkward and ungainly as she rose. Upright at last, she patted her swollen belly. "And maybe you could be Uncle Lionel?"

"I'd like that. Yeah, I'd like that a lot."

Walking beside her, he held the coffee shop door as they exited onto the street. He leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek, and they turned and walked their separate ways, neither looking up at the all-seeing surveillance cameras with their blinking red lights.

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Epilogue:

Lionel Fusco finally did collect his pension, after completing a distinguished career with the NYPD, rising to the rank of sergeant in the homicide division. At his retirement party, he raised a glass in toast "to the two people who made me a better crop - to Joss, and John." Unfortunately, none of the fresh-faced young detectives in his precinct had any idea who he was talking about.

Lee Fusco made his father proud. After unexpectedly receiving a generous full-ride scholarship from the Heritage Insurance Company Memorial Fund, he graduated from law school and became an assistant district attorney - one who tackled the toughest cases with an unorthodox, down to earth, and sly yet effective style.

While Bear was fond of Shaw, and lived to the ripe old age of 14 (that would be close to 100 in human years), he remained ever restless. Often, for no reason his owner could ascertain, he would rise from his bed and walk to the door. Looking back at her, he would whine and pace. He was, Sameen was sure, searching for his vanished masters.

Unidentified DNA discovered at the scene of the building destroyed by the rogue missile was preserved in the files of Homeland Security. It was, surprisingly, never linked to anyone listed in any government database.

Walter Dang retired from his day job and wrote a novel about an NYC urban legend, a mysterious vigilante who prowled the city, saving the innocent. The Man in the Suit became a runaway New York Times bestseller, spawned a superhero comic book series, and was made into a smash-hit movie. Despite repeated questions from curious reporters and avid readers, the mild-manner author remained mum about the inspiration for his hero, although adamant that the character had been based on a real person. Not many people believed that "The Man in the Suit" had ever existed, but some few who read the book smiled knowingly to themselves, because they had actually met the man.

Among them were a judge who was eventually appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, a Cuban-refugee cab driver whose son became an all-star baseball player, a female doctor who pioneered new lifesaving protocols in emergency medicine, a couple living in Texas who were raising their granddaughter, and a young man who went to college on another one of those Heritage Insurance scholarships - then followed in his mother's footsteps and became an honest, courageous and determined police officer.

Iris Campbell resigned her job with the NYPD and left the city, in part to escape the judgement of her disappointed parents; they had never approved of her relationship with John Riley. She established a private practice working with soldiers suffering from PTSD. Her son, John Harold Campbell (his middle name was suggested by his 'Uncle' Lionel), loved dogs - she got him a Malinois puppy when he was eight. The boy and his dog were inseparable. John H. Campbell - tall, broad shouldered and athletic - earned a college basketball scholarship but chose instead to attend West Point, becoming a much decorated career U.S. Army officer.

And in Italy, an unassuming man with receding spikey hair, glasses and a limp, lived a quiet existence with his red-haired artist wife. His neighbors assumed he was retired from some routine job; perhaps he had been an insurance salesman, a librarian, or a college professor. He was a studious, erudite man who loved reading books - not the digital kind but real, leather bound printed volumes that could be held in one's hand. It seemed he did have one odd quirk. He refused to so much as touch a computer keyboard. Ever.

- POI POI POI POI -

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