A man, a woman, a warm fall night, cold brews, soft hands and even softer words…a talk between two friends, or perhaps something more?
This story contains dialog from the episode Razgovor. I had originally planned this as a Translations tale, but it wasn't working, so I changed it into a more conventional story.
XXX
John Reese was ashamed to admit it.
A grown man, in his forties, and he had never initiated an adult relationship with a woman.
He'd never had to.
Women had always started, and ended, things with him.
Kara, Zoe, some he remembered fondly, while others were lost in the heat of after battle adrenaline and the cold of calmly executed assassinations, their lips and hands and cunts curling around his cock, sucking and tugging and pulling him deep inside, but never quite touching him, not really.
As much as Reese had loved Jess, she had been the one who approached him, the one who took him into her bed, the one who suggested the trip to Mexico.
The only time Reese had initiated anything with Jessica was when he left her.
Years later, he realized that his guilt had started there.
But with Joss, it had been different, right from the start.
He had chosen to watch her in that old precinct, to answer her questions, to put his fingerprints on the plastic cups she offered him.
Reese had taken the second cup with him, making up ridiculous reasons why he did so, but the truth was he wanted it, he wanted something to remind him of the woman who stared unflinchingly into his eyes, who looked past the filth and the stink and the snark in his voice, who saw him, truly saw him, despite everything he had done to bury himself alive.
The cup had sat on the dresser across from the bed in the flea bag hotel he'd checked into.
He went back to get it after Finch's men kidnapped him, but of course it was gone.
Reese had initiated everything with Joss, the calls, the dangling of perps like piñatas across the city, handing the phone to her in the Lyric Café.
Telling her she wasn't alone.
He'd dragged Finch into his schemes, asking him to look after her, barely able to contain his glee when he reported to his friend that Joss said that she'd help them, telling Harold that she wasn't talking to 'us', when it was his actions that had caused Szymanski to be almost killed, wheedling and cajoling and pushing his partner into seeing her as more than a tool, a resource or an asset, into seeing her as a trusted ally.
Into seeing her, as a friend.
Reese had silently thanked Harold for reaching out to Joss during those long weeks after the events around Rikers, when he broke countless phones, trying and failing to call her, raging at himself for everything he had done to her, his guilt and fear and terror at almost losing Joss draining everything out of him, until he was little more than a walking automaton, unable to connect with anyone, including the people that he and Finch had pledged their lives to save.
When he waved that hotel key card at Zoe, it was the final step, her body like dry ice, freezing and burning him at the same time as she writhed beneath him.
For the first time, Reese didn't go by Joss' apartment that night to check on her.
But in the early morning darkness, he'd slipped out of the Presidential Suite, and watched Joss as she left her place for her daily run.
It wasn't until two men were dead that Reese finally reached out to her, in another dark alleyway.
As Joss stood there, shoulders hunched, shivering against the cold, her big brown eyes brimming with tears, all the words Reese had rehearsed so carefully vanished like the weak snowflakes swirling around them.
He stood there, floundering, half turned away from her, as if he was about to flee.
John Reese was fluent in several languages, conversant in others, had been trained to get people's confidence, to know their worst fears and to extract their deepest secrets, but all he could finally croak out to Joss were three words.
"You okay, Carter?"
Reese had been saying those three words to her ever since, rearranging the order as though the right combination would finally get her to open up to him, as if she would yell, or cry, or beat her fists at him in frustration and everything would come spilling out and they would go back to the way things were before.
But before when, asshole, he thought?
Before you smugly looked at her profile on Angler, convinced Ian Murphy would never choose a cop and a parent?
Before you saw Joss in that leather dress?
Before Murphy breezed past Zoe and Shaw as if they didn't exist?
Before you wanted to shoot Finch for asking Joss to agree to a suspected serial killer's dinner invitation?
Before you selfishly and unashamedly hoped that Murphy would try to attack her outside the club, so that you could beat him to a pulp?
Before you held Joss in your arms, felt her soft skin, touched her incredible curves?
Before you stood there flatfooted, staring stupidly at her, hands trembling, cock twitching, brain saying 'Joss, Joss, Joss' over and over again?
Before you spent the rest of that night and the next day with her, memorizing the way she sighed when sipped her first coffee of the morning, how her fingers caressed fresh flowers at the farmer's market, her delighted grin when you handed her Shaw's Nano at the firing range?
Before you watched Joss laugh and joke and open herself up to another man?
Before you recklessly violated the rookie level basics of surveillance protocol, swearing that you and Joss were 'just friends' to Shaw, but showing with every word, every facial expression, every twitch of your body on that rooftop and at the safe house, that you were a fucking liar?
Before you wanted to snap that little punk Murphy's neck for somehow knowing that you had never 'gone above and beyond'?
Before you realized that you loved her?
XXX
Reese went for a long walk after he left a prosecutor and her defense attorney husband to their fate.
He wanted back into Joss' life again.
He wanted to be a part of her life.
But most importantly, Reese wanted Joss to want him to be a part of her life.
Reese knew he couldn't do the things he had done in the past to get and keep Joss' attention – he had moved on from that, and he wanted her to see their relationship differently now, to realize that they had both changed, not just as people, but in the way they saw each other.
He had always asked for her trust, and Joss had given him that, even when she was chasing him.
And while Reese trusted her, he knew that Joss didn't really believe it, not just because of the secrets he and Harold kept from her, but from his constant prying and snooping into her life, his total disregard of any sort of boundaries she'd set, his arrogant assertion that he was protecting her, as if she hadn't been taking care of herself for a very long time.
Joss had secrets, Reese knew – he suspected very big and dangerous secrets besides what he and Harold had already discovered – and while it chafed and gnawed at him that she refused to share them with him, he had to let her play it her way, to let her decide if and when she was going to tell him.
And after a blistering hot phone call on a frozen winter's night months ago, Reese wouldn't blame her if she never shared anything with him again.
That was something they would have to talk about one day.
But for now, Reese had to let Joss know that he trusted her, even if that meant her excluding him.
And so on a moonless October evening, Reese stood quietly in the darkness, a Stage Door Johnny, waiting for his leading lady to finish tonight's performance.
XXX
Quiet please, there's a lady on stage.*
Reese smiled softly in admiration.
He watched Joss as she moved almost silently across the field, weaving sinuously and elegantly between the bridge supports as she left from her surveillance of the meeting between Simmons, Terney and the Russians. Joss knew exactly what she was doing, her departure in sync with theirs, so that any stray movements or noise on her part would be dismissed by her targets as they scurried away into the night.
He slipped around the side of her SUV, noting that she had switched license plates with a similar vehicle belonging to a high ranking member of the police force, currently attending an all-night poker game at a social club not far from here. Anyone seeing the car would pointedly ignore it, allowing Joss to slip in and out of the neighborhood undetected.
Reese picked up two bottles of Joss' favorite beer that he had brought, clinked them softly to get her attention, and then leaned against her car, as though he hadn't been watching her.
He heard Joss draw her weapon, then sigh and holster her gun when she realized it was him.
"John…one of these days I'm just gonna shoot you."
As Joss came forward and stood beside him, Reese heard a resigned exasperation in her voice, but there was also something in her eyes for a moment, as if she didn't mind him being here.
"I get that a lot." Reese picked up a beer and took off the cap, handing it to Joss, careful not to touch her skin. He gestured with his other hand for the camera.
Joss huffed as she handed it to him. "Busted, huh?"
Reese scanned through the photos. As he expected they were good, not only establishing the players, but Joss had been able to capture the familiarity between Simmons, Terney and Yogorov and his henchmen; despite the tough guy talk and posturing, you got the clear sense that they all knew each other and had met before.
Out of the corner of his eye, Reese saw Joss pause, and then take a sip of beer, her stance still alert, but slowly relaxing.
Reese let his gaze sweep up Joss' body. Her simple, sleek outfit, designed to help her blend into her surroundings, emphasized her long legs, small waist and full breasts. Even in the darkness, her skin glowed and he longed to gently push back a lock of her hair, which had drifted over her forehead.
He took a deep breath, forcing himself to focus. "Finch and I have known about your side project for a while." Reese put the camera on the hood of the car, picked up and opened his own beer. "From what we've seen, you've got enough to bring down half the organization."
Reese turned to her, his voice soft and entreating, "You could bust them, make deals to bring down the rest," but as he spoke, he could see Joss' body become rigid and she shook her head as she faced him.
"Special Agent Donnelly tried that. But HR rebuilt itself from the ashes, 'cause we didn't cut off the head." She turned away from him. "If we had, Cal might still be alive."
Reese's eyelashes fluttered as he turned away from her. She was right – even if they hadn't gotten the head of HR, if he had been paying attention and worked with Joss and Fusco, instead of ignoring them, they might have been able to save the Narcotics detective's life, and Joss would have achieved some sort of closure to her relationship with him.
Cal Beecher would remain a specter, haunting Joss until she took down HR, not because she loved him, but because she didn't.
Joss took a long pull on her bottle. "I'm playing by different rules now. No deals. And I won't make a move until I can bring down the boss. They're running some joint operation with the Russians."
As she turned back to him, Reese saw the crusader, the warrior inside her. "If I can just get eyes on that meeting, I might finally I.D. the head of HR."
Reese smiled to himself. This was something that people like Simmons and Yogorov and Elias would never understand, that Joss wasn't about rage, or revenge or ego, that even though HR had threatened, framed and humiliated her, had gotten her busted down to a street cop, had forced her to go to work every day where she faced the scorn and pity of her colleagues, they hadn't broken her.
She walked into that precinct every day, her head held high.
Joss wanted her shield back, but she wanted justice more.
"Need help?"
"No." For the first time that evening, there was a hint of a smile in Joss' voice. "But if I do, you'll be my first call."
Reese tipped his bottle towards hers and they clinked them together.
They sipped quietly for a while and then Joss stepped away from the SUV, and Reese knew that she had to leave.
He handed her back her camera, then reached out for her beer bottle.
Joss raised an eyebrow. "Recycling, John?"
Reese smirked at her. "When I can…but some things just belong in the trash, Detective."
Her lips quirked, but she said nothing. As Reese took the bottle from her, he let his large hand engulf her small one, the touch of her skin sending tremors through his body that it took all his training in the CIA to hide.
He looked into her eyes, wanting her to understand why he had come here tonight.
"Joss…"
There was a softness in her eyes as she nodded at him.
Joss walked past him, got into her SUV and drove away.
Reese looked at the bottle in his hand, warm from her touch. There was still some beer in it and as he lifted the bottle to his lips, Reese could make out the faint mark of Joss' lipstick on the glass.
He turned the bottle around carefully, covering where her lips had been with his own and drank the rest.
*Quiet Please, There's a Lady On Stage (1976)- the opening lyrics of this song, by the late Peter Allen, written in tribute to his former mother-in-law, Judy Garland, reminded me of Joss' current situation with her demotion: Quiet please, there's a lady on stage/She may not be the latest rage/But she's singing and she means it
A/N: As far as we know, Reese does not know about the deal Joss stuck with Elias, so there's a certain irony in his assertion that the mobster does not understand Joss. We have seen in the past that Elias understands people very well, and as we saw in the episode Liberty, Elias knows Joss better than Reese might think.