For Peanutbutterer. not mine, no profit garnered.
"The evidence is," Jo paused. "This is unbelievable. It is literally unbelievable."
"I agree," Henry said. Jo had tracked down evidence linking his nemesis Adam to a number of murders over the past 100 years. Incontrovertible evidence. He didn't know whether to be afraid or happy or both.
"So how is this guy this old?" She pushed her hair back and looked up at him. "It could be fake. Can you think of a way it could be fake?"
"I am trying," Henry said.
"I shot him," she said. "I saw him up close and felt his pulse and it had stopped and I turned around his body was gone."
"I was there," Henry said. He'd seen Adam's body blink out of existence.
"But the next morning, he turns himself in," Jo said. "Same guy. Not a twin. Not someone who had surgery to look like him. It was him."
"I believe you," Henry said.
"No one else does. We only have evidence to hold him on one of the murders and he will probably get away with that one," Jo said. She shook her head like something had come loose. "I didn't see what I saw."
Henry leaned forward. "Maybe you did see it. You saw it and despite what you believe to be real, this appears also to be real."
"Are you trying to convince me? Do you believe this?"
Henry took a deep breath. "Yes. I've seen it before."
Jo stared at him a long time. Then she left, walking quickly.
xxx
She was banging on his door. She visibly intoxicated and panting. He opened it and said, "Jo, Jo."
"He's after me," she said. She fell into his arms. She smelled like whiskey.
He looked up and saw Adam. "This has to end," Henry said.
"Oh, I agree," Adam said. "Really, Henry. Why don't we settle this little dispute, meet to discuss this again in 50, 60 years? Can you imagine what we'll be using as phones?" He laughed.
"This guy is nuts," Jo whispered.
"How do we settle this?"
Adam grinned. "Let me kill you in front of her."
"No," Henry said. "No. No."
"I'll just kill her, then," Adam said.
Henry did the inevitable, exactly what Adam wanted, and threw himself in front of Jo as he was struck by three, possibly four bullets. They were all incredibly painful.
xxx
He swam to shore and found Jo sitting by the edge, clothes carefully folded next to her. She watched him get dressed. He said, "You're okay, aren't you? Uninjured?"
She shook her head. "No, no, that's not the question. The question is all those stupid things you would say, about living a long life, oh my god, I don't know, were you laughing at me?"
"Never," Henry said. "I was never laughing at you."
"It had to be a little funny," she said.
He sat down next to her. "It was not funny. You were never a figure of ridicule to me, Jo, not in the slightest. Never."
She closed her eyes. "Adam disappeared. He waited for you to blink away even though I still had your blood on me and then he shot himself in the head and then I was standing alone in the door. More like squatting. Falling down. Abraham found me. You raised him," she said.
"Yes," Henry said.
"I can't write any kind of report about any of this. Adam escaped and we'll never find him. And you've been lying to me for nearly a year. Since we met."
"Not, I rarely lied," Henry said.
"Rarely," Jo said. She laughed. It did not sound like she found things funny.
"The emotional truth, the truth was there," Henry said. He reached out to touch her, maybe the first time he had done so like this. He smoothed her hair and she didn't shy away.
"Oh, god," she said. She got up and walked away again. He couldn't blame her.
xxx
Jo called him two days later when she caught a tricky murder. She barely talked to him but she listened to him as he explained the victim's injuries. Jo's partner didn't say anything about the obvious tension.
There was another murder two days later, the same tension, the same lack of progress. He could hardly push her. She hadn't betrayed him to anyone, he knew without asking.
Three murders later, she walked with him out to the street. She said, "Did you ever meet anyone famous? Marilyn Monroe? Abraham Lincoln?"
"Yes," he said, "Though neither of those two."
"Were you really in love with Abe's mother?"
"Absolutely," he said. "Everything I said about her was true."
She looked down. "You use that word a lot, true."
"I apologize," he said.
"Right," she said, and walked away again.
xxx
Abe said to him, "You are being an idiot."
"Well, thank you," Henry said. "About what specifically?"
"I know you. I see right through you. You like Jo. You want to be with her," he said. Abe had stopped putting smear on his bagel for emphasis.
"Even if that is true -"
"Which it is. You look at her like you looked at Mom."
Henry was silent for a moment. He said, "I already know I'll be, I will be losing you someday, why not add one more heartbreak, because after all, I already know how awful it feels. Is this your argument?"
"I am not arguing. Are you saying if you had to do it over you wouldn't be my father?" Abe, the evil child, was looking straight in Henry's eyes as he said it.
"Never," Henry said. "Never once have I even thought that. But I do think I don't want to do it again."
"And I'm back to you're an idiot. You are. Want to turn into Adam? Life's a joke, no connections? It's not immortality that makes him evil, it's who he is."
Henry sipped his tea and ate in silence. After twenty minutes he said, "I understand your perspective. I will think about it."
"Good. Don't be stupid."
So that day, Henry went to Barney's and bought a not too expensive scarf, something to set off Jo's eyes. He went to the station and was going to simply leave it at her desk, thinking of himself as only slightly stupid, but she walked up. She stopped when she saw him. "You bought me a gift."
"I thought it appropriate," he said. "I wanted to say thank you, and that I would like to talk to you and other things and I have lost the thread of this."
Jo smiled. "You're trying to ask me out?"
"That would be very forward of me," he said, feeling very much the idiot.
"Did you not ask me out before because I didn't know you," she looked around. At least a few people were trying to listen, one or two not subtly. She said, "I didn't know you well enough."
"Yes," he said. "Yes, it felt like you should know me truly, before I made a move."
"Did you just say 'made a move?'" Jo was definitely smiling now.
"I try to be up to date to the times," Henry said. "So, how about it?"
She outright laughed. "We can have dinner. And you can pay."
"Excellent," he said. "Excellent."
They went out that night. It was nice place but Jo in her simple black dress and grey cardigan simply seemed to shine.
"This place looks discreet," she said.
"I thought, actually, this would be more of a pre-date. I'm sure you have a lot of questions. And then when you know everything you need to, you can decide if you really want to spend more time with me in this manner."
She had quite a lot of questions. By the second hour, she was at least laughing at some of his more comic answers.
She said, at the end, "Well, now that I know nearly everything, I would, yes, like to see you again. I actually do appreciate you waited. I didn't actually know you were interested."
"Abe said it was obvious," Henry said.
"To him," she said. She laughed again.
She leaned over to kiss him on the cheek at the same time he attempted to do the same. They banged noses, both laughing and were suddenly kissing on the mouth. Tentatively and then passionately. He pulled her close at the waist, her slim body warm against him. She grabbed at his shoulders.
A waiter coughed behind them. They broke apart and stepped outside of the restaurant and out of the doorway they had been blocking. "I feel so rude," Jo said. "Not for the kissing."
"That wasn't rude at all," Henry said.
"No, good move," Jo said.
"I think it was more of your move," he said.
"I'll take credit for this," she said, pulling him by his tie towards her car. "And everything we're about to do back at my place. I expect 200 years will have shown you some excellent moves."
"I hope so," Henry said. "You certainly deserve that."