Joe's secret
All belongs to CBS.
Spoilers for the 7th season episode "The one that got away." And possibly others.
This story may be confusing, but I swear it will make sense in the end.
Rated T for scene with sex innuendo.
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No man is an island entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, part of the main… Any man's death diminishes me for I am involved in mankind. Therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee. – John Dunne
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With one hand, he dropped the key into the envelope before sealing it. Turning it to the front, he wrote is father's name in his neat handwriting before he picked it up and examined it. He slid it into the bottom of his girlfriend's jewelry box—the one filled with her grandmother's jewelry that she rarely wore—and closed it before putting it back on its shelf.
Ten years later…
Angela Ferraro was happier than she had been in years—since her former boyfriend, Joe Reagan, had been killed in the line of duty—and just a little nervous. She had invited Joe's family to the wedding.
Looking for the something old, she dug into her grandmother's jewelry box, left to her 12 years ago upon her death, only to find a sealed envelope. It was just starting to yellow with age so Angie thought that perhaps her grandmother had left her some loving message—until she turned it over. On the front of the envelope was written Commish Frank Reagan. It was in Joe's handwriting.
Tomorrow, she would be marrying another man in the presence of Joe's much loved family and here was a tangible reminder that he had existed in her life. He had put it there for a reason, but Angie had no time to find that reason. It would be up to Frank and his family to find it.
Seven years before…
Lena Morgan gripped the hand of Elizabeth, her fourteen-year-old daughter, as tears ran down her face and the bagpipes played "Amazing Grace." In the front of St Patrick's Catholic Church, her husband Andrew lay in repose as mourners passed by, saying goodbye before turning to her and offering their condolences. One man, sporting a full beard and wearing a black fedora touched Andrew's hand before turning to her and offering a bouquet of purple and white flowers to Elizabeth.
"I'm sorry for your loss," the man told her in a raspy voice.
"Thank you," she said softly.
"Lizard," Lena spoke softly to her daughter, using the nickname she had gone by since she was a toddler. Lizard took the cap her mother offered, her father's spare uniform cap, and put it on her head.
The music ended and one of the workers from the funeral home closed the casket, rearranging the Police flag and array of flowers and returning to a chair just out of sight at the front of the church. Lena and Lizard and the rest of the assembled sat in their designated pews as New York Commissioner Francis Reagan took a place at the podium.
He cleared his throat before he began. "As someone who has been to far too many police funerals, it is not often that I speak at the funeral of someone who I knew personally. Detective Andrew was a great friend to my son, Joe, as well as a good NYPD officer and most importantly, husband to Lena and father to Elizabeth."
"Lizard," Lena's daughter corrected with a whisper.
Lena gripped her daughter's shoulder with a tight smile as Frank went on.
"I had the distinct pleasure of getting to know Detective Morgan and his family on many occasions and have been privy to just how good a man he was." Frank paused to look down at Lena as if asking her permission to release a well guarded secret. "Some of you may not know that Elizabeth," he leaned forward to address the child in question. "Who everyone calls Lizard," he straightened back up with a light smile. "Was not his child…" He stopped to let that sink in and took a breath. "Although, he adopted her and was her daddy in every way that really mattered."
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January 17, 2001
Lena would always remember the exact date she met him in person. Andrew had flown out from New York to meet her and the daughter she called Lizard. He drove to the small town in Wyoming from the Billings airport to meet them. They had met in a chat room of single parents looking for partners. Lena was a single mother, and Andrew desperately wanted to be a father, but couldn't due to a serious accident when he was a teen.
Lena had trouble trusting, but something about Andrew compelled her to do so. After two weeks of meeting her family and answering their numerous questions and threats of, "If you hurt her…" she was sure she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.
Snuggled up together on the couch in her tiny house with Andrew on one side and Lizard on the other with her head in her mother's lap, Lena spoke. "You're gonna marry me, right?"
"You want me to?" Andrew asked.
Lena turned her head up to him and smiled. "You know my mom asked my dad to marry her, too," she told him. "They were married after only a month and have been married over 30 years."
"Even though I'm a cop?"
"I'd marry you if you were a frog."
Andrew reached into his pocket. "I hope it's OK if I give you a ring," he said as he handed her an old ring box. "Even though you were the one to do the asking."
Lena smiled and opened the box. "Was it your mom's?"
He nodded as he slipped it on her left hand. "My mom's, my grandma's and my great-grandma's."
Lena looked at the ring as it sparkled in the dim light from the TV. She liked the antique and the great tradition behind it. "It'll do," she said.
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Angie finally caught Frank alone as he was saying goodbye at the end of her reception. "I found this in my grandmother's jewelry box," she told him as she handed him the envelope. "Joe put it there, but I don't know when or why." She paused to kiss his cheek then wiped away the smear of lipstick she had left.
Frank looked at the envelope for a bit before slipping it in his jacket pocket. "Thank you," he said. "And good luck."
Angie nodded to him and turned to the next person who was leaving.
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"… It was then that the boat capsized and all four of them ended up in the pond," Frank finished the story for the assembled funeral. "Joe and Andrew helped the girls back to shore, but the girls were furious with them and from what I heard, gave them the silent treatment for several days." He paused as Lena wiped away a tear. "That was just the kind of friend Andrew was. Fun-loving, supportive and most of all loyal. To the only family he had left—his wife, their daughter, his friends, and the NYPD." He cleared his throat. "I'm sure all who knew him will remember him fondly."
He stepped from behind the podium and down the steps to stand next to the coffin. He placed a hand on it. "Say hey to Joe for me when you get there," he said softly before turning to face his widow and child. His breath caught as Lizard stepped forward and he saw not the diminutive fourteen-year-old, but a miniature version of Joe.
Frank blinked, but the image didn't change. Lena stepped forward and broke the spell as she reached forward to shake his hand.
"Thank you for your kind words," Lena told him. "I'm glad you could speak."
"You're welcome," Frank replied with a smile.
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"I'm starting at John Jay College in the fall," Joe told the girl beside him as they sat on the dock, feet hanging in the water. Summer was just beginning and he had met a girl he wanted to get to know better. "But for now, I'm just corralling kids around here." He threw the rock he had been holding in his hand into the reflective surface of the water and watched the rings it made spread out.
She nodded. "I haven't been to New York City since I was a kid," she said. "We moved back to Wyoming when I was six because my grandma got sick. I went to Black Hills University last year and hope I am still going back this fall." She shrugged. "I failed a couple of classes because all I wanted to do was study sign language."
"Why don't you major in that?" Joe asked. "Then find someone else to tutor you in your other classes using sign language."
"That is a good idea," she said with a shake of her head. "I can be so stupid sometimes."
"I don't think you're stupid," Joe said pleasantly. "Just intense."
"What's your name?" she asked.
Joe hesitated. It hadn't been that long since his grandfather had been forced out as the NYPD commissioner and the name might be familiar to her or someone else at the New Jersey summer camp. He focused back on her and gave her his name. "Joe Conor," he said. "My name's Joe Conor." He paused for her to give her name.
"Lena," she said. "Lena O'Brian."
"Nice to meet you," Joe said and he reached out to shake her hand. His hand tingled when he pulled it back and he smiled at the lake before him.
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Lena hadn't quite finished filling out her daughter's birth certificate when the pain came on. Her scream of pain brought the nurses running. She clutched at her head as one of the nurses took the crying baby from her arms and another shone a light in her eyes. "You better get the doctor," she told nurse with the baby as Lena collapsed into her bed.
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Three-year old Adam Rey was the apple of his mom's eye, but tended to be a handful. When he slipped from the restraints of his stroller, his mom, talking to a friend, didn't notice. Joe, however, did. But when the boy ran into the street in front of a car, Joe knew he wouldn't be able to get there in time. Someone else, however, was.
Lena O'Brian Morgan ran out and grabbed the boy, tossing him to Joe, who caught him as easily as he might have caught a fastball at a baseball game. The tires of the cab screeched to a stop, but not before the car struck her, tossing her several feet where she rolled to a stop. Adam's mother, crying and hysterical about her son's almost demise took the boy from Joe and followed him to see if Lena was OK.
Lena was barely holding to consciousness and she felt the hands grip her face.
"Don't move," Joe ordered.
Lena gripped her left arm to her side with her right as she looked up into Joe's face. She recognized the older face and lower voice and smiled. "I know you, Joe Conor," she said. "You're my baby daddy!"
Her eyes slipped closed and she fell into unconsciousness as Joe gripped her face, afraid her spine was injured. In a moment of clarity, he suddenly remembered her too.
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He kissed her one last time, their sweat-washed bodies pressed into one another on the cool sand under the dock where they had exchanged names at the beginning of the summer. "I wish I didn't have to go," Lena said.
"Me too," Joe replied, his mouth hovering over hers. "I've never felt like this before."
"Me either," she replied. She breathed in. "I'll write if you will."
"Every day," Joe replied and kissed her again.
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Lena licked the stamp and placed it on the corner of the letter. Addressed to the address Joe gave her before she left the camp in New Jersey, it was ready to be sent and contained the very important news that Joe was going to be a father. She had only received one letter from him since they parted, but she figured that he was as busy as she was and had little time for letters. She told him of the baby then promised to write after said baby was born with the gender and name. If he didn't want them, she was sure she would be devastated.
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Mary Reagan took the mail from the mailbox and sifted through it. One, addressed to her son Joe Conor had a postmark from Rapid City, South Dakota.
"Must be from that girl from the camp he worked at last summer," she muttered. She slid it into the drawer of the table where she often put her keys. "I'll give this to him when he comes for Sunday supper," she said.
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"She had a mild stroke," the doctor told Lena's parents. "It seems to have wiped out a lot of her memory for the last two years."
"What caused it?" he father asked. Behind him, Lena's sister bounced her baby niece on her shoulder.
"It sometimes happens after childbirth," the doctor replied. "Except for the memory problems, she should be fine in a couple of weeks."
"Does she remember the baby's father?" Lena's sister asked.
"So far, no," the doctor replied. "She hadn't quite finished filling out the birth certificate when it hit." The doctor shrugged. "All that was written was Conor."
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Joe opened the drawer his mother had placed the letter in and pulled it out. She had been dying when she remembered it and told him where to retrieve it from. The profuse apology she offered had been sadly accepted by her middle son with a kiss to the forehead.
"After all," he told her. "You didn't do it with malicious intent."
Now, standing in the front hall of his parents' house, he held the long-forgotten letter in his hand. He shoved it in the pocket of the raincoat he wore and turned back to the gathering.
It was in that pocket three years later that he retrieved it. He looked at the wrinkled paper for a moment before turning it over and stopping. Did he really want to know what was written in the letter? How could he not?
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Joe opened the flip phone and scrolled down to "ICE Andrew Morgan" and hit the send button.
"Hello," a familiar voice said.
"Danny?" Joe asked.
"How'd you get this number?" Danny asked.
"I'm trying to call Andrew Morgan," Joe replied.
"He's my temporary partner," Danny told him. Joe could hear muffled shouts in the background. "And he's got his hands full at the moment. Just a sec." A muffled, "Freeze, Police!" came over the phone and two gunshots. Joe winced but kept listening in worry. Moments later, a new voice broke through.
"This is Detective Andrew Morgan," the breathless voice came through. "Danny says you're his brother. What do you need with me?"
"I'm actually calling from your wife's phone," Joe told him. "There's been an accident."
"Oh God," Andrew said. "What hospital?"
"Saint Ignacio's," Joe replied.
"I'll be there as soon as I can," Andrew told him. "But do me a favor. Call Sally Dunham, the number's in Lena's phone. Tell her to pick Lizard up from school and bring her there."
"Will do," Joe replied. "Anything else?"
"Can you stay there until I get there? I want to know what happened."
"Will do," Joe said and shut the phone.
"What happened?" Andrew asked Joe upon his arrival at the hospital.
Joe told him the whole story except for the last when she told him he was her baby daddy.
"Her left humerus is broken," Joe told him. "That much I know because of the way her arm was when she came to a stop on the pavement. She probably has a concussion and she was unconscious for awhile…" he was interrupted by a yell from behind him.
"Daddy!" the girl hollered and ran down the hall into Andrew's waiting arms.
Joe had just enough time to recover from his shock before Andrew turned and introduced him to her.
"My name is Lizard," she said. "And I'm eleven."
"Nice to meet you Lizard," Joe said as he shook her tiny hand.
The little girl was just that, little. She swished her blonde hair out of her eyes, which sparkled blue with tears. She looked to be six or seven, but her maturity made him believe her when she said she was eleven.
It was the right age. The letter his mom had neglected to give him years before and lay forgotten in a drawer leapt to mind. Now, it was once again forgotten in his raincoat at home.
"Something wrong?" Danny asked his brother.
Joe looked at him suddenly, remembering that he had followed Andrew into the hospital ER.
"Don't know," Joe replied. "I'll let you know when I do.
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Frank held the unopened envelope as he sat at his desk in his private office on the top floor of 1 PP. He flipped it over and over in his hand, wondering what his son had thought was so important that he had to hide it. So important that he had to hide it, but leave it for Frank to find all these years later.
He picked up a letter opener from his desk and slid it into the end of the opening on the envelope flap. After a moment's hesitation, he slid it across the flap, cutting the envelope open. A single key dropped from the envelope onto the desk. On one side of the key was engraved the number 632, on the other, the name of a bank downtown where Joe had kept his accounts.
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"I've got a secret," Joe told Andrew.
Minutes before, he had burst into Lena's room. She didn't remember the accident, Joe helping or what she had told him. So, Joe made a decision. He led Andrew to the hospital's chapel.
He held up the now opened and long-lost letter Lena had sent over a decade ago. So much water had gone under that bridge, so much time and change. "And now," Joe said. "So do you."
Andrew looked puzzled but took the letter and read it. He read through and looked sharply up at Joe. "You're Conor," he said.
"Joe Conor Reagan," Joe said. "I dropped the Reagan that summer because my grandfather had just left the PC's office and I didn't want to be treated differently."
"What happened with this?" Andrew asked as he gestured to the letter.
"Mom got it and put it in a drawer when it came," Joe said. "I was away at school and she intended to give it to me when I came for Sunday dinner, but she forgot. Just before she died, I happened to mention Lena and she remembered the letter. I retrieved it, but left it in my coat pocket and, again, it got forgotten." Joe looked guilty.
"What brought it up now?" Andrew asked.
Joe told him the part of the story he had not relayed when he first met the man the day before.
Andrew rubbed his eyes. "You're kidding," he said. "Do you know why you never got the second letter after Lizard was born?" Joe shook his head no so Andrew told him. "Lena had a stroke about six hours after she was born. They caught it early so the only lasting effect was a memory block." He paced away to the middle of the room before he turned and looked at Joe again. "The accident might have knocked the memory loose or something." He shrugged. "In any case, it's gone now."
"How is she?" Joe asked.
"She has a skull fracture," Andrew replied. "She's awake and alert, but doesn't remember the accident at all."
"And she obviously doesn't remember me," Joe said.
Andrew shook his head. There was silence for several minutes before Joe sat on one of the back pews in the room. Andrew sat next to him.
"What's wrong with her?"
"I just…," Andrew began before Joe held a hand up.
"I'm talking about Lizard," Joe said. "Why is she so small for her age?"
"Hormone imbalance," Andrew replied. "She's been receiving treatment, but they don't think she'll ever grow to more than four feet tall."
Joe nodded. "Otherwise healthy?"
"Yeah," Andrew replied.
"Why Lizard?"
Andrew sniggered. "Her cousin is a couple of years younger and she couldn't say Elizabeth properly. It came out Lizardbeth. Eventually they dropped the beth."
Joe smiled. "You're a good dad," he said. "I could tell by the way she hugged you."
Andrew nodded. "You would be, too, I'm sure. She's a great kid."
"I am going to be a good father," Joe said and he leaned forward to put his elbows on his knees. "Which is why I am about to do what I am about to do." He stood and paced the floor up and down the aisle. "I want a DNA test to prove I am her father."
"Look, if you're about to say you're suing for custody…," Andrew began.
Joe held up his hand to stop him. "You just proved to me that I'm doing the right thing." Andrew looked bewildered. "By being concerned about my motives." He paused. "If I can prove I'm her real father, I can give up my parental rights and you can adopt her."
Andrew was shocked. "Are you sure you want to do that?"
Joe hesitated for two seconds. "Yes."
"What do you think Lena will say about that?" Andrew asked.
"You told me yourself that she doesn't remember me," Joe said. "No sense even telling her."
"She'll have to sign the papers to adopt," Andrew began.
"Tell her you found out you don't need the father's signature if certain conditions are met." Joe looked Andrew in the eye. "Then make something up."
Andrew looked incredulous. "You deserve to know your daughter. And she deserves to know your family. I've met Danny and I like him." He paused. "And I think this is the most generous offer I have ever gotten."
Joe scratched his neck. "You Catholic?"
"Yeah," Andrew replied. "But Lena's not."
"So Lizard isn't baptized?"
"No," Andrew replied. A light went off. "But when I adopt her, we can have her baptized."
"If Lena agrees," Joe put in.
"Would you like to be my daughter's godfather?"
Joe took a deep breath. "I'd be honored."
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Joe held the squirming little girl as the priest poured water over her forehead, saying said a few words in Latin as he did so. "I baptize thee Kira Elizabeth Morgan," he finished. He handed Joe a clean white cloth and he dried her head with it.
"Thank you," Lizard said. "And thank you for saving my Mom."
Joe swallowed the lump in his throat. "You're very welcome," he replied as they were surrounded by friends and family.
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Frank pushed the key into the lock and turned it. He lifted the lid of the box to find a large manila envelope inside. It was full and bursting with papers. Frank pulled it out and thanked the bank attendant for her help.
Back in his private office, he pulled the contents out of the envelope. On top was a photograph of Joe, Angie and the Morgan family after the adoption and subsequent baptism of Kira Elizabeth 'Lizard' Morgan. Frank reflected on it for a moment before setting the photo aside and moving on. Next was a copy of the baptism record, then, the original adoption papers at which Frank briefly wondered why they were included before doing a double take.
Under the official stamp authorizing the adoption was the name and signature of the father. Joseph Conor Reagan. See attached.
He flipped quickly through and found a DNA order sheet with results attached. Joe and Andrew Morgan had requested a paternity test and Joe was found to be the genetic and natural born father of one Kira Elizabeth O'Brian.
"Joe," he whispered. "What have you done?"