Dream Date


At the end of episode 1.18 "Identity Crisis," Tara is arrested around 22:08 but Reese doesn't bring Finch back to the library until 00:58. What did they DO for three hours? Fluffy Rinch slash, of course!


Reese approached Fusco's squad car warily since it was parked right under a street light, making it easy to see Finch typing away on a laptop, presumably the detective's. He rapped on the window with his knuckles, hoping he wouldn't startle Finch. The older man glanced up and beamed at him through the glass.

"Johhhn! I've missed you!" Finch cried as he fumbled with the door handle. Reese opened it for him and helped him out, but was startled when Finch threw his arms around him in an exuberant hug. Frozen in place, Reese's arms were suspended in mid-air on either side of his partner. His first instinct – the result of years of training – had been to push the other man away, but in the split second before he acted upon that response, he had realized that of all the eight million inhabitants of New York, Finch was the last person who would ever harm him. Physically, at least.

"Oh, John... I'm so glad to see you." Finch's muffled voice was filtered through Reese's overcoat. The former operative swallowed and deliberately wrapped his arms around the smaller man's back.

"I'm glad to see you, too," he responded, hoping that there were no security cameras trained on them.

"Mmm," Finch moaned, shifting against his chest. "You smell good, John..."

Reese's jaw hung down uselessly for a moment before he answered. "I... I do?"

"Mmm-hmm... What kind of cologne are you wearing?"

"Nothing. It must be the soap. Just whatever the hotel has..."

"I like it," Finch drawled, taking another deep breath with his nose pressed against Reese's bare chest. "Did you know, perfumes smell different depending on who's wearing them? They react with each person's body chemistry... and your body chemistry smells... yummy..."

His mind reeling at Finch's words, Reese was a little slow in reacting to Finch's fingers, which were scrabbling to unbutton his shirt.

"Finch... Harold, let's get you back to the library, okay?" he said, prying Finch's hands away.

"Okay..."

Docile as a lamb, Finch allowed Reese to lead him down the sidewalk.

"Did Fusco take good care of you?"

"Oh, yeah! He was so nice – he let me turn on the sirens, and they went wooo..." Finch said delightedly. "He was so nice to me, I decided to give him a raise."

"A raise?" Reese echoed in alarm.

"Uh-huh. I hacked into the NYPD's payroll account," he told him, unconcerned. "It's sad, really, what they pay our law enforcement officers..."

"Finch, did you do that with his computer?" Reese demanded. "You could get him in a lot of trouble if they trace it back—"

"Ohhh, don't be silly!" Finch replied. "They'll never trace it back to his laptop! I routed it through India, Algeria, Egypt, and Pakistan, and then... I think it was Norway and then Japan. Besides, they probably won't even notice the change."

"I sure hope you're right," Reese muttered under his breath.

"Wanna know what else I was doing until you came?" Finch asked with a conspiratorial smile that did nothing to ease Reese's nerves.

"What were you doing?"

"I got into the phone company's database and switched all the numbers for the New York taxi companies." Finch laughed so hard that he had to stop walking, and doubled over to slap his good knee. "It'll take them days to sort it all out!" he gasped. "And there's no way... they can explain it away as 'technical difficulties,' because... if it were just a random malfunction, it would have mixed up a bunch of different businesses, right?" He wheezed as tears leaked out from the corners of his eyes.

"Are you sure they won't be able to trace that back to Fusco's laptop, either?" Reese asked, genuine concern turning his expression somber.

"Of course not! I'm not an amateur at this, y'know – not some teenage kid," Finch giggled, grabbing Reese's lapels and tugging on them for emphasis. "Awww... don't look so worried, John! I could hack into that system in my sleep. Now, the Pentagon... that would take some better equipment, of course – the detective's department-issue laptop really wouldn't cut it. Although I wanted to give it a try, but Mr. Fusco chickened out. Maybe some other time, I'll show him how it's done..."

"I'm sure you will," Reese soothed, turning him around to get him walking again. Finch complied, but only after latching on to his taller companion's arm.

"Where are we going? Are we going to catch some bad guys?" Finch babbled. "Y'know, we're a great team... just like Batman and Robin. You can be Batman 'cuz you're taller." The beautiful, carefree smile on Finch's face made Reese's expression soften somewhat as well.

"Thanks. And you can be Robin because that's a bird name, too," Reese pointed out.

"OH!" Finch cried out suddenly. "You're right! I never thought of that... what a perfect name!" Grinning in beatific satisfaction, Finch clutched Reese's arm even tighter. "I'll be Harold Robinson. Or Robin Haroldson. And we can get matching costumes for Halloween... with capes, so we can fly!"

"That's a great plan, Harold," Reese said, humoring him. They were finally approaching his car. "Just don't go jumping off of tall buildings without me, okay?"

"Okaaay," Finch drawled happily.

Reese managed to get him into the car, then headed for the library. He was mostly ignoring Finch's prattle – which consisted of a running commentary on whatever caught his eye on the street, his train of thought often interrupted by and abandoned in favor of the next fascinating thing – until Finch suddenly cried out at a particular intersection.

"STOP! I have to get out! It's in there!" he shouted incoherently.

"What? What's in where?" Reese asked, startled.

"My BOOK! The one I saw with Jordan! It's a first edition – I have to have it!"

Reese rubbed his furrowed brow. "Can't it wait until tomorrow?"

"But it might not be there tomorrow! Someone else might buy it," Finch whined. "Pleeease? I have my own money. Pleeease can we stop and get it?"

The car behind them honked, letting them know that the light had changed. With a feeling of dread that he was probably going to regret this decision, tempered by some resignation and justification (Finch was his boss, after all), Reese turned at the corner and found a space not too far down the street. He had barely parked when Finch unbuckled his seatbelt and managed to get out, hobbling single-mindedly down the sidewalk and mumbling as he went.

"It's that store, right there," he panted. "I hope they didn't sell it yet... I wanted to get it when I saw it first, but Jordan started talking to me and I had to go find her. Ohhh, I hope it's still there..."

Reese remembered the conversation he had overhead through their cell phone connection, and was slightly embarrassed at how quickly he had jumped in to distract Finch from talking to the "asset." His gut reaction – that she had "made" Finch tailing her and was checking him out – had been proven accurate, but Reese was honest enough with himself to admit that there had been more than a modicum of jealousy in his motives, right from the moment Finch had first called her "Jordan" rather than "Hester."

Watching Finch now, however, as he made top speed (for him) down the sidewalk in his quest for a book, Reese couldn't help the self-deprecating smirk that twisted his lips. Finch had been blinded by Tara – deceived into believing that she was a nice, well-read, harmless woman – because she had shown an interest in the same book that had caught his eye. She must have noticed how intense his interest was, and had followed up her initial act by saying that she loved "old things, especially books" when he had taken her to that hotel restaurant for afternoon tea. Like any good con artist, she had read her mark well, and he had swallowed her lure – hook, line, and sinker...

At least she would be behind bars for a good long time now, Reese thought with satisfaction, remembering also the sincere look of relief and gratitude on the genuine Jordan Hester's face. And the only reason Finch had been... interested in her, was because she had pretended to like books. Reese chided himself for having misread the situation entirely.

Finch entered the store just ahead of Reese, snapping him back to the present. He hoped, for Finch's sake as well as his own, that the book he so desperately wanted was still available.

Fortunately, the bookstore was one of many in the city open twenty-four hours a day, or it would have been closed at this late hour. The clientele now consisted of grungy artists and a few punk poets out to find inspiration by thumbing through old tomes without having to pay for them. Even the store clerk was a young man with dyed black hair and several piercings through his lips and tongue, who looked up in subdued amazement to see the two older men in suits. However, Finch did not notice him as he made a beeline to the back of the store.

"It's HERE! It's HERE!" he shrieked with unfeigned joy, grabbing the copy of Franz Kafka's "The Trial" and holding it aloft for Reese to see. "It was waiting for me, right here! Oh, I'm so glad it wasn't bought by somebody else already... It's a first edition, in very nice condition, too..."

Reese felt a hollow sort of ache in his chest as he saw Finch lovingly handle the old, brittle dust jacket. All of the young customers in the store had craned their necks to see what the commotion was about, and were now staring openly at Finch as he bounced up and down on his knees like a young child overexcited about a new toy.

"I'm glad you found it, Harold... Let's go pay that nice young man for it, shall we?" Reese coaxed.

"Okaaay," Finch answered, still beaming and with a slight bounce to his steps. "And then I can take it home and read it. Or you can read it to me, like a bedtime story!"

"Uh... yes, of course," Reese mumbled, his cheeks flushing. He could hear the other customers snickering, but Finch had already turned his attention to the clerk.

"How much do you want for this lovely copy of a dystopian classic? Name your price – money is no object!" he crowed triumphantly.

"The price is inside the front flap," the young man replied, unimpressed. "It's $2,950 plus tax."

While the clerk processed his credit card, Finch cradled the book gently against his chest and continued to bounce around, dancing to some unheard melody in his mind. Reese could only watch helplessly, although he did notice a young man (also with multiple piercings in his ears, nose, and lips) who approached his ecstatic partner with purpose.

"Hey, dude – what so good about that book?" he asked, pointing at the object with a many-ringed finger.

"What's good? You mean apart from its near-pristine condition, and the fact that it's one of only six hundred copies printed in America?" Finch asked in return, his mood undampened by the question.

"Yeah."

"It's one of Kafka's greatest, most satirical works – an outcry against the corruption and senselessness of the Law," Finch told him with great enthusiasm. "This man is dragged off to court to stand trial, but he's never told what the charges against him are; he finds out that the court officials are corrupt, and that it doesn't matter if you're innocent or guilty – what counts is who you know and how much influence they have; and the whole process is a farce, but such a horrifying procedure that the man grows more and more disillusioned with the human race, and with the government in particular. You could easily draw parallels to our own times and the flawed judicial system with which we have to cope!"

The young man had listened to Finch's discourse with an intensity that Reese found unnerving, but he did not seem to be threatening the older man in any way.

"That's like... totally awesome," he breathed, "but I ain't got three grand to spend on one book."

"I'm sure you could find a more affordable version," Finch began, and the clerk chimed in, "There's one on the used book cart for two bucks."

"Awesome," the young man responded, "but does it have all the pages?"

"Yeah," the clerk assured him, and Finch added, "Just because there's a disparity in the price doesn't mean that the contents of the books are different. They may be different translations, but the essential story should be the same. I highly recommend it... although, to be honest, rambling discourses on governmental dysfunction is sort of my 'thang'..."

The knowing smirk that Finch shot the young man was lost on him, but Reese's lips twitched at his partner's attempt to mimic the street vernacular. Thankfully, the other customers seemed to have lost interest in the strange (and presumably drunk) older man's rather lengthy summary, so Reese was able to guide him out of the store without calling any more attention to themselves.