A/N: Hello. New story, new fan. I've started watching Person of Interest recently, only had seen the pilot but never had the opportunity to continue. Now, I did, and wanted to make something with it. Hope you will like it. Attention, though, this is going to have a Female!Fusco. It won't be the same character in the show, apparently, but more like "Plus ça Change", the more things change, the more they are the same. The same thing applies to the show, as well.

Enjoy.

PROLOGUE: Catharsis

May, 2015

In the dark, Lauren Fusco dreamed of the sea.

The coast was white, dark was mystical as it always was before the break of dawn. Barefoot, she walked along the shore, the soft cotton white dress's hem billowing around her ankles with each step. Small flawless pebbles crunched under her feet as gentle waves created a murmured wordless song in her ear. She didn't know where it was or how long she walked or how much time had passed, and she didn't care. It was peaceful, serene, so much so that the things that would normally have consumed her utmost interest failed to grasp her attention. The time seemed like it had stopped, frozen in a scene, a lone white figure standing up in a shore, waiting for something she alone could know.

Then the tides rose, carrying the water toward her. First she felt it at her feet, slowing but decisively rising up, splashing around her ankles. She bowed her head, and watched little bubbles around her feet, and a smile appeared on her lips.

Slowly she bent down and passed a hand through the water, then watched as it slipped through her fingers in slow motion, each drop bringing up a memento from the past, frozen inside a bubble. Snapshots rose; some were nice, some were bad, some simply melancholic; She and Bran splashed water at each other in seashore, with laughter and smiles, their legs and hands only dirty with wet sand, not with blood. The bubble stopped and hung in the air, turning into crystal, then fell on the surface, broken into million pieces. A scream echoed in the dark, inhumane in pain, and for a split of second she couldn't understand she was the source of pain. Her eyes welled, tears followed, then tides rose even further, beating her. She tumbled down in the water, struggling through the sudden waves that were swallowing her further in the depths...water slipped into her mouth, her lungs fired, she couldn't breathe, no breath left... No breath left... And if only she could close her eyes, and accept her fate, accept the fact that she couldn't win...That no one could ever win...

Why do you insist, Lauren? Why don't you let it go? You know you can't win.

And someday they were all going to die...

Her eyes snapped open, but for a moment all she saw was light, the oppressive beams of sunlight blinding all the other senses. Her heart beating a staccato in her chest, Lauren closed her eyes again and understood that a new day had just begun.

And that she had fallen asleep in John's bed, once again. And again, it had ended with the same dream; her drowning into the sea just before the break of dawn, then jerking into consciousness just when the new day began. The options were still same, too, either going back to sleep, or carefully but swiftly sliding herself out of his grip and slipping out of his house like a ghost. The next day they would pretend like nothing had happened, like nothing had changed, snap at each other, trade a few barbs, all while getting shot at. It was a game that they had crafted to perfection, the skills honed with perfect precision.

Except that she had made a rookie mistake. No, falling asleep wasn't the first mistake. No, the first mistake was actually going to the bed. For the first two month they hadn't managed to make that far, even before they crossed the threshold, clothes shifted, bodies tangled, they had been already at the second base, or the third... she hadn't been surely counting. And perhaps that had been her first mistake. A rather small tactical one, but she had become accustomed to John Reese's life enough to know that they were the worst kinds.

It had started like how it could have been; as an act of desperation, or simply for reaching out for some mercy. One night, two strangers in the night, no plans for tomorrow.

He had pulled her close to him and kissed her, without a word, both knew they had passed the talking stage long time ago. His mouth was hungry, and persistent, like the rest of his body, almost in a frenzy, but they weren't just fucking. Though they weren't making love either; they were somewhere in the middle, hovering above the line, just grasping to take whatever they could get, not caring what they could give up in the meantime. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

She silently laughed, acerbic in bitter irony. That had been what it was, not a simple fuck or making love, but a desperate measure for a desperate time. And it should have ended there, just after right they had finished and she had walked out, not looking back, it should have ended there. That was the window of opportunity, the last exit before the bridge, but they hadn't taken it, and now they were drifting through repercussions.

Giving out a silent breath, slowly she held the arm across her waist before she did her usual gig, and left before the sun up in the sky. She half twisted herself to one side carefully, her fingers still holding his arm then something happened. Actually two things happened; first he slid closer to her back then tightened his arm around her waist.

Her heart stopped, her thoughts coming to a halt. He didn't speak, not even a word, though the gesture didn't leave anything to any deliberation. She knew he wasn't asleep, despite everything John Reese wasn't simply a man who could do something like this unconsciously in his sleep. He wasn't speaking but in his way he was asking her to stay.

And that was a terrible, a terrible idea. A bigger mistake than those they had already foolishly committed. That was the crossing the line, the point of no return. As long as it was night, even at the break of the dawn, they were still safe; two strangers in the night, no plans for tomorrow. But if tomorrow would come, who would know what they would become?

Surely it wasn't the first time she had asked that question; she had asked to herself many times who they were now, what they had become, but she could never manage to answer those questions and this time was no exception.

At first, she had thought of him like in that old man in the story, a new sea star rescued each day, and she was the youngling that helped him. Soon she had understood neither of them had ever been that naïve. With Carter, and his platonic feelings, she had thought of him like Odysseus, trying to find his own Ithaca, but then she had understood there wasn't any Ithaca for them, no happily-ever-afters, and even though he might have been Odysseus, Carter was never Penelope, who couldn't even recognize Odysseus when he was back. No, Jocelyn Carter had recognized each of them, and she got killed because of that.

Still, John wasn't Odysseus. The only persona he could be was Sisyphus, who rolled his boulder up in the mountain only to watch it tumble back down, struggling forever in his infinite cruel damnation. And that was John, and his endless tragedy, struggling forever for a fight that they never—ever could win.

Why do you insist, Lauren? Why don't you let it go? You know you can't win.