Title: Phoenix on the Sound
Author: ForestLark
E-mail:
Rating: M
Spoilers: Through Ep. 17, "Baby Blue;" set sometime shortly after that ep but before Ep. 18.
Disclaimer: Person of Interest is owned by CBS, and its characters are not mine. I'm just borrowing them, and not making any profit by it.
Prologue
As she did almost every night, Lisa Williams poured herself a glass of wine and carried it out to her deck to watch the sun set over Long Island Sound. It was a lonely way to spend her evenings, but Lisa's life was a lonely one, and it had been for some years. It was a life that moved at a slow pace, one where sunsets could be appreciated on a nightly basis. One where one of the few people she was on a first-name basis with was the elderly owner of the local used bookstore. One where it was no trouble to walk to the farmer's market to buy the ingredients to cook elaborate meals for one.
A chilly gust of fall air hit her when she opened the door, and she considered going back inside for a blanket, but decided against it. She could smell the rain coming, and knew she'd have to go back in soon enough. Stepping up to the railing, she watched the wind buffet the waves on the Sound, and thought about an evening like this one, when she'd first moved here and thought about ending it all. She'd struggled, at first, to downgrade everything she'd expected of life, to accept that this was all there was, all there might ever be, for the rest of her life.
It was a thought, nothing more, nothing she'd ever acted on. As soon as she thought of Nathan and everything he'd done for her, she knew she couldn't. He would have been so disappointed. She'd moved here because she wanted to stay close to him, although she knew she could never attempt to contact him unless she was in danger again. There was something of a comfort in looking toward the city and knowing he was there, the man who'd saved her life.
She'd had no idea the man was in her house. It was a Wednesday evening and she'd picked up a Dover Sole at the market. Dropped the paper-wrapped fish and her purse on the kitchen counter, and felt a gloved hand close around her throat. She'd struggled, tried to throw her elbow into the man's gut, to reach one of the knives in the block on the kitchen counter, but she could feel herself growing increasingly dizzy.
It was at that point that she realized why the man was there, why she was about to die. Three days ago, she'd walked into her boss' office at Fuller Avionics and threatened to go to the government over tests the company had falsified, hiding the failure rates of its newest engine. That engine was meant to go into specialized variations of the Black Hawk helicopter, and she'd be damned if she would put anyone in a combat zone at additional risk. She told herself anyone, but when she thought of the engines failing, she always thought of him in a falling helicopter, its engine in flames as it spiraled down behind enemy lines.
"Do you think the government doesn't know already? Do you think I haven't been lining the right pockets to make sure we fulfill our contract?" her boss had responded, and she'd felt a chill go through her. But she hadn't thought they'd go this far. And now they had, and there was blackness at the edges of her vision, which only made her panic more, trying to breathe in oxygen that wasn't there. She heard the gunshot just before she lost consciousness.
She came to in the front passenger seat of a BMW, parked in a dim, empty lot. Her first thought was to flee the car; she was a fast runner, perhaps there was a chance she could get away. But then the man in the driver's seat told her she was safe, now, and his eyes were kind.
"I'm Nathan," he said. "I had reason to believe your life was in danger."
"Did John send you?" A little flutter of hope in her chest. Maybe, somehow —
"No. I'm sorry, I can't tell you why I thought you might be in danger," Nathan said, and sighed. "I'm only glad I got here in time."
"Where are we?" She could feel the bruising on her throat as she spoke.
"Outside a medical research facility. To purchase a cadaver."
When he'd said that, she felt certain he was someone from John's world, even if he denied knowing him. It was only later, as she helped him drag a pale, stiff woman of about her height into the house, as she watched him fumble with the safety on his gun before shooting the corpse twice in the head, that she'd realized he had no more idea of what he was doing than she did.
In the end, it was effective, though. He'd cut the gas line and let the gas fill the house for awhile before lighting part of the day's newspaper on fire and flinging it through the front door. The explosion came as they were driving away in the BMW, a shattering noise she could feel even in the car.
Nathan drove the car to an abandoned factory lot in Hoboken, the body of the man who'd attacked her still in the trunk, and they'd cut the fuel line to the car as well, lit a section of newspaper they'd saved, tossed it near the dripping gasoline, and run. It took more than five minutes before the car finally caught fire and blew up, though, and they stood, panting, at the edge of the parking lot, and they laughed. It was a hysterical laughter, born out of the absurdity and horror of the situation, but it was still laughter, and it was refreshing.
Nathan stopped laughing, first, and his face grew haggard as the heat from the car rippled in the early morning sunlight. His hands were shaking at his sides.
"You've never taken a life before, have you?"
"No. This isn't my usual line of work."
"I don't — I have no idea how to thank you for everything you've done for me. You saved my life."
"I had to do something," he'd said, simply, and turned to start walking back towards the city.
They'd checked into the first hotel they could find, a musty room with two faded double beds, and he'd stayed with her until they worked through the details of creating her new life. The bank account in the Caymans he'd had no trouble with, but a forged passport, birth certificate and social security card were more difficult.
Early on, he'd asked her if she wanted her husband to join her in this new life. They could get word to him, he said. She shook her head no. She and Peter had been separated for three months, and although he might still be temporarily devastated when the police knocked on the door to his apartment in Queens, it was for the best. He'd asked her to marry him too soon, but she hadn't been able to say no, and eventually he'd worn her down into a yes. She'd thought she could settle with a man she liked but didn't love, settle and have the house and kids and all the things she'd thought she wanted, but she had been wrong. Better to cut Peter loose. She couldn't ask a man she didn't love to go into hiding with her.
Nathan hadn't told her how much money was in the Caymans account. But he'd handed her a wad of hundred dollar bills to use until she could access it, when he'd finally hugged her goodbye and she'd choked out yet another thank you through her tears, knowing that nothing she could ever say would be adequate for a stranger who had taken a life to save hers.
Two weeks later, she was on her fifth cheap hotel, always moving, afraid to stay in one place for too long. But she'd sucked up her fear long enough to pay cash for a cheap laptop at Radio Shack, and sit at a coffee shop long enough to look up the account on wifi. He'd put a million dollars in there, like it was nothing.
It had been enough to buy the little house on the Sound and still have enough to live on for the rest of her quiet life. And then last year, another million had been deposited there, three months before she'd received a shock in her New York Times. There, on the third page, a picture of him, looking far more put together than when she'd first met him, but it was clear the Nathan who'd saved her life was Nathan Ingram, multi-billionaire software CEO, and he'd died in a hit-and-run car accident.
She'd wondered how a software executive came to know her life was in danger, wondered what had prompted him to seek her out and try to help her. But mostly, she'd felt more lonely on that day than any other. The only person who knew Jessica Arndt was still alive was gone.