Memento Mori et Vivere (Remember, You Must Die and Live)
Disclaimer: The concept, canon, and canon characters belong to Forever creator Matt Miller and Warner Bros. Studios. All other characters, the plot for the story, and Henry's flashbacks are my own creation. I have posted my story here, and I don't profit from it.
Author's Note: This is my first fanfic of any sort. I hope that you'll enjoy my story. Please feel free to comment in the "Reviews" section. I want to hear from you.
Chapter 1
"This is ridiculous."
New York City Police Officer Rick Hannigan looked over at his shivering junior partner as they rounded another corner of East River Park. Although the calendar read spring, winter had kept its stiff grip on the city. The sun tried to pierce the slate-gray sky. The choppy river threatened to come over any barrier in its way, including the one separating the river from the park. The cold winds coming off the river pierced straight through the patrolman's coat and uniform to his bones.
"Why are we even doing this? We should be sitting in a patrol car, all nice and warm." The junior officer's thick Southern accent evoked visions of him sitting on a front porch in Texas or Georgia after a long day of work as a high school football coach, not as a rookie NYPD officer.
Officer Hannigan softly chuckled. Ordinarily, he and his partner would be patrolling a different part of the 11th Precinct by car. The East River Park area really did not have a lot of crime to speak of. Maybe an occasional purse snatching, a complaint about a homeless person sleeping on a park bench—that sort of thing. No murders, drug deals, or other violent crimes that would justify this walk.
The police commissioner, however, ordered an extra patrol of the area near the East River years ago. People had been complaining about a man in the area exposing himself in public. The first time that the officer had seen the suspect, it was a cold early spring day, just like today. He and his partner were patrolling the East River Bikeway near Catherine Slip. The man in question walked down the path from the Brooklyn Bridge toward the city. He was dripping wet—and naked. He held his hands over his privates to shield them from public view. His wet hair laid straight on his head. His chest had an odd scar, almost like a buckshot, on his left breast. Naturally, the two police officers ordered the man to put his hands up where they can see them. That, in Officer Hannigan's opinion, contributed to the charge of indecent exposure. Fortunately, the man went with them without resisting arrest and even tried to make a joke out of the situation.
Officer Hannigan later learned that the man who he and his partner picked up was none other than New York City medical examiner Dr. Henry Morgan. Different senior patrol officers in the 11th Precinct had the same type of encounter with the doctor over the years, but no one knew why the encounters happened. Everyone seemed to be concerned about the idea of Dr. Morgan being arrested near the East River and not his nakedness. Every officer the patrolman spoke with suspected that Dr. Morgan tried to swim in the river. Others have tried it—and died in its swift currents. Yet, Dr. Morgan somehow always looked like he survived the swim at the time of his arrests.
Each officer in patrol had his or her own theory as to why Dr. Morgan would place himself in that type of situation. Some thought that he wanted to escape the pressures of being a medical examiner. Others felt that he could not handle seeing crime scenes firsthand, as medical examiners from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner typically did not mingle with the NYPD. Others believed that he worried about his future for some reason. A couple of female officers even suggested that he should dump his girlfriend as their relationship was on the rocks. Officer Hannigan did not know what to believe. All he knew was that Dr. Morgan had the right to do what he wanted with his life without comment from others.
After another incident about nine months after Officer Hannigan's encounter with the eccentric medical examiner, the homicide division discovered that Dr. Morgan had a history of naked sleepwalking. Officer Hannigan learned about it when one of the detectives—Hanson, if memory served correctly—approached him for a donation that would go toward swim trunks and goggles for the doctor. Officer Hannigan fished his wallet out of his pocket and contributed five dollars, hoping that the doctor would sleep in the trunks in case of another incident.
All that occurred a few years ago. It seemed that Dr. Morgan's work with the homicide division was working wonders for the naked sleepwalking. It still happened; Dr. Morgan had another incident about two days before, with a different team arresting him. The incidents just weren't as frequent. In fact, Officer Hannigan was sure that he would not be seeing the medical examiner in that condition again for a long period of time. Still, the senior officer knew that, sooner or later, he would need to tell his partner about the doctor's eccentric habit.
A sudden blast of cold wind from the river snapped the officer out of his memories. He turned his attention to his junior colleague, a Florida native apparently experiencing his first New York winter.
"It doesn't get this cold in Florida?" Officer Hannigan and his partner swerved to avoid a jogger passing between them.
"Not in Key West," the young man replied. "Up in Gainesville, it can get pretty cold. One time, I nearly froze my butt off trying to cross campus."
"You were late to class?" Officer Hannigan rubbed his gloved hands across his face in an attempt to keep it from freezing.
"Nah. My frat brothers decided that it would be cool if I streaked across the campus." The officer laughed at the memory. "My saving grace was that a campus preacher and a campus police officer in Turlington Plaza saw me walking very slowly through the area. If they hadn't talked me into going inside Turlington Hall and getting warm,…" The young man's voice trailed off at the thought of not being around because of a stupid hazing incident.
"Oh, man. I'm sorry to hear that." Officer Hannigan decided that telling the young cop about Dr. Morgan's naked sleepwalking would have to wait until later. "They should not have done that."
"I know." The officer rubbed his gloved hands together and stopped to tap his right foot on the sidewalk to thaw it.
"What came of it?"
"There was an investigation by the Panhellenic Council and the university, and my fraternity was suspended. It was in all of the papers. I was so grateful for that campus officer's presence that I decided to become a cop. You know, so I can help people."
"Why New York City?"
The pair resumed walking. "It was the only place that I applied to that was hiring. Besides, as the old saying goes, "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere"." A smile lit the young man's face as he thought about his future in NYPD.
Officer Hannigan looked up at the New York City skyline. This was his home. His great-great grandparents on his father's side and his great grandfather migrated here from Ireland at the turn of the 20th century. He could not imagine leaving here and starting over in a new city, or even a new country. No family or friends to support him. No job, at least at first. No sense of the community. No idea of the culture or the history of the place. Maybe even no idea of how to speak the language.
Nor could he imagine holding another job other than the one he had. His father and his grandfather both worked for NYPD. His great-grandfather had first joined after a couple of gangsters tried to injure the manager of the Lower East Side factory where he worked in 1903. From that time on, it seemed to be in the Hannigan men's blood to be cops.
Suddenly, a man with dark brown hair and a bare white chest crossed Officer Hannigan's field of vision. The man was about Dr. Morgan's height and build, and he walked parallel to the river. Officer Hannigan tensed up and quickened his steps. Behind him, the police officer heard his junior colleague's footsteps keeping time with his. He had not expected Dr. Morgan to appear here again so soon after his latest incident.
Officer Hannigan plotted out his course of action as he kept the man in his sights. Maybe he could block his colleague's view of Dr. Morgan's privates to give the doctor some small sense of privacy. The more pressing concern, however, was figuring out a way to tell his colleague about the doctor. In every encounter, the medical examiner proved to be the ideal arrestee: completely submissive and compliant as the officers handcuffed him and escorted him to their car. The officer could not help but to wonder if his partner would suggest sending the doctor to Bellevue for a psychiatric evaluation. If that were to occur, the situation could suddenly turn much more violent than what it had always been.
"Excuse us," came an unfamiliar voice from behind the two men. Officer Hannigan instinctively moved aside as two more men, both with bare chests, jogged beside them. Apparently, the naked sleepwalking seems to be contagious.
The officer watched the two men joined their companion at the end of the path. One bent over to pick something off of the ground. A solid red swim trunk covered the man's exposed rear end. The other two men also wore swim trunks. One had gray hair and a few wrinkles while the second looked like a teenager. Dr. Morgan's "doppelganger", the one with the red swim trunks, wrapped a blanket around himself as he shivered. Officer Hannigan let out his breath and slowed down as he closed the gap between himself and the men. He dropped his arm as he relaxed; he did not even realize that he reached for his gun until that second.
"Excuse me, gentlemen. Do you mind if I ask you what you're doing?" The three men turned their heads toward the two officers at the sound of Officer Hannigan's voice.
"We tried to join the Polar Bear Club in their annual New Year's Day swim this year." The older man picked up a blanket from his bag and wrapped himself in it. "It was so cold for us that we decided that we should train for next year." The man with the swim trunks nodded in agreement while putting on his shirt.
"We've been meeting here every Monday before work walking around the park," the older man continued as he dressed. "With the F Train being serviced this past Monday, we couldn't do it. This is the first time that our work schedules would allow for our training." The older man reached down and picked up his shoes.
Officer Hannigan glanced over the two men's shoulder. The youngest member of the group had disappeared when they were talking.
"What about your friend? Where did he take off to?"
"Oh, Billy?" The man with the red swim trunks now placed his remaining bare leg into his pants. "He's my son," the younger man pointed at the older one, "and his grandson. He rarely leaves my side during these runs."
"Except for now."
"Well,…"
"Officers, over here." All four men looked in the direction of the voice. Billy's voice rang out from the nearby trees. The two officers dashed across the park, being careful of where they stepped in case their toes caught on a tree root.
A pair of bare feet greeted Officer Hannigan as he reached the young man, who was still in his swim trunks. Just above the bare feet was a blue pair of sweatpants. A blue hoodie with a white t-shirt under it covered the person's chest and arms. The seasoned officer could see a blood stain on the hoodie; the person's left hand and forearm laid over the stain. The right arm was raised over the man's head, palm-up.
"I just found him lying like this." Billy's wide eyes and wavering voice indicated that he must have anticipated the officer's question. Officer Hannigan squatted down and saw that the person was barely breathing. A lump caught in the seasoned officer's throat as he looked at the face of the person lying still next to him. Officer Hannigan turned his head toward his partner, in part to steady his emotions. The other two men's heads appeared over his partner's left shoulder.
"Contact Lt. Joanna Reece with 11th Precinct homicide. He's one of hers." Officer Hannigan heard his voice cracking with each word he spoke. His partner showed no signs of panic, just a calm demeanor. He just nodded and stepped away from the men so that he could fulfill his partner's request.
Officer Hannigan turned his attention back to the man beside him and placed his hand on the unconscious man's wrist. The pulse was faint. The man's dry skin, however, showed no signs of a lack of oxygen. The cop knew that it was either a matter of time before either the cold or the cause of his unconsciousness would kill the man. Yet, the man had so much to live for; the officer just could not let the man die.
"Come on, stay with us, Dr. Morgan." Officer Hannigan reached for his radio to summon an ambulance.
