Title: On the Fence
Author: blacktop
Characters: John Reese, Detective Carter
Rating: G
Summary: A calm moment before things turn hectic gives Reese time for reflection and resolve
Notes: This is written as a thought piece set in the few minutes before Reese joins Carter at the start of "Baby Blue." Not a romance really, but a partnership for certain.
On the Fence
For early March, the wind wasn't so bad. Gusting around his popped up collar, the chilly air ruffled the hem of his coat, insinuating its way into his sleeves as he waited beside the country road.
Most people looked at a daytrip to the farmlands and small towns north of New York as a welcome escape, an excuse for dawdling or covert play. A vacation in miniature. But for Reese, being away from the city's constantly humming crowds and the vivid energy pulsing through its streets was disconcerting. He felt a tremor of unease at the engulfing silence and the exposure of this wooded lane in particular.
Reese eyed the gray block of the prison in the distance. Through the barbed wire laced around it, he could make out the plain grill work on the gate that separated the convicted from the free and he could see several guards in gray wool overcoats and shiny black shoes walking from one side of the opening to the other.
Waiting was never his strong suit and the chill made it worse.
He was not happy when Finch gave him this new number. The fate of ageing don Gianni Moretti was not a question that troubled him in the least. As far as Reese was concerned, the idea of gangsters wiping out each other in a family feud was to be cheered, not prevented.
But Finch noted that this wasn't simply a matter of two mob bosses bumping each other off in a modern day re-enactment of the Hamilton-Burr duel. Many lives, innocent lives, could be destroyed in the gangland war that would ignite if Elias took out his father Moretti.
And Carter was on the case. Stopping Elias' murder plot, securing Moretti's return to the city, defusing a mob war was of fierce interest to her.
When they spoke by phone the previous night, her excitement about throwing a wrench in Elias' takeover of her city was stirring to him. Reese listened closely to the rising timbre of her voice, the catch and plunge of her breath, the tumble of her words as she outlined the risky idea. It was dangerous, bold, even fool-hardy in Reese's opinion. He didn't try to talk her out of it, only listened and felt the thrill rise in him. He wanted to be there with her.
Shifting between annoyed and charmed was a constant feature of his meetings with Carter now. Since he'd first recruited her as an asset, she had been so rigid with all the regulations, policies, and laws he was not supposed to break. There were so many damn rules, he figured she had to be making up some of them on the spot. Her rebukes were tart and predictable. Reese accepted them now as the familiar wallpaper in the background of their arrangement. Her scolding amused him.
But if her complaints were predictable, Carter's courage and toughness were equally reliable. When she said she would come, she did. When she promised answers, she delivered.
Reese trusted her with his life, because he knew she would never again ask him to give it up. Their bond was doubly sealed in blood: the blood of the man Reese had killed for her, the blood he himself had shed because of her.
Carter never surprised him, and Reese was comforted by that.
With Finch steering him, Carter backing him, and Fusco taking orders with a grumble, Reese had built a tiny bureaucracy, a little company that gave him the structure and purpose he needed to heal.
He looked out at the imposing gate across the field. Those featureless walls established order and defined who was free and who was not. But Reese wasn't sure that being free was such a blessing, if it meant trembling through nights without boundaries or connections, drifting in a cold haze of threats. Always waiting for the damned loneliness to lift.
Being known was a kind of conviction, sure. Being known by people you trusted was a sacrifice worth embracing.
As Reese watched, Carter's blue sedan stopped several yards away from the fence where he waited. She hadn't seen him yet, did she expect him there? She didn't scan the landscape as if she did.
Finch had given Reese the new number, but Carter's mission was independent. When Moretti got out of prison, she planned to follow him by herself, tailing his limo to make sure he got back to the city in one piece. Her intense gaze was focused on the prison in the distance.
From his perch, Reese studied her soft profile; her hair strictly parted and tied in a low ponytail, the usual silver hoop glinting at her ear. He saw her brow furrow as she analyzed the movements at the prison gate. He thought she might be nearsighted, but he knew that suggesting glasses would not be appreciated. Maybe she was vain about her looks or just determined to ignore her failing senses. Maybe she preferred to see things with crystal clarity when they were near to her, keeping the distant things in a manageable haze of memories and hopes.
Reese wanted to know so much about her. He wanted to know what it was like to be a woman in the overwhelmingly male police force. Did a little black girl from southern Virginia feel scared arriving in the Bronx for high school? Was it hard to raise a son alone? Had the rapid string of promotions fueled resentment among her brother cops? How tough was her tour of duty in Iraq? How many people had she seen die? How many had she killed?
If his little company held together, if their bureaucracy of four remained intact, Reese might have a chance to ask her these questions someday. Protecting this fragile agency seemed worth working for.
He slipped away from the fence, touching the gun holstered in the waistband at his back. The field, thawing at the tail end of an unusually warm winter, was soft and silent beneath his boots as he approached her car.
The dread that had clamped down on him in this small town solitude started to relax its grip.
As the unease burned off, Reese felt his heart beat pick up. The familiar quickening, a fresh anticipation revved in him.
The waiting was over.
This time he would slide into the front seat instead of the back. He would be at her side before she spotted him. He wanted to surprise her, to please her, to make her gasp and scold him with a click of her tongue and widen her eyes and see him as he was.
They would take on this job together.
There was no way that Elias was going to get a chance to murder his own father today.