Person Of Interest: Breath
Author's Note: I cried while I was writing this. So maybe you might need tissues too. Might turn into a novel also, eventually, set in current/present continuity-but I don't know at this point, the John and Joss living in my head are working overtime on cranking out ideas!
EDIT 2/19/14: Song lyrics removed from story for content compliance.
"…and the weatherman said the windchill is below zero right now, like in the minus three or four, so that's why it feels so cold…"
John ignored the snatch of half-heard conversation as he meandered along the sidewalk around the perimeter of the park at One Police Plaza. At just a bit after midnight, the normally busy, bustling city building was closed, and because of the frigid temperatures, there weren't that many people out. Literally no one, in fact. The couple that had just walked past him commenting on the weather had been heavily bundled into thick, bulky winter coats, hats pulled low down over their ears, scarves wrapped around necks, gloved hands shoved deeply into pockets. They'd spared enough time for one disbelieving glance at him, strolling along in below-zero weather wearing a leather motorcycle jacket that seemed too light for the arctic temps, and hurried on their business with a deprecating headshake.
He barely noticed their exit from the park. A distant part of his mind had registered their presence, catalogued their conversation, assessed their threat level and dismissed them as being of no importance, all without him being consciously aware of the fact. It was something he did automatically now, the whole process barely even requiring conscious thought.
The biting wind blowing into his face took his breath away. He registered the sting, welcomed it with a bitter melancholy. He'd come out here tonight for solitude, deliberately wanting to be alone, in this one place that had so many memories of her.
It was right here at the One PP park that he'd had his first serious conversation with Joss Carter. She'd stood on top of the steps with her radio, and he'd been watching her from a cluster of park benches across the park. She hadn't seen him, but he'd seen her. In fact, as he raised his head now and looked across the square, he could still almost see her, standing at that top step, dark hair pulled neatly back in a ponytail, a tan leather jacket hugging her curvy figure. At the time, she'd been…well, not exactly an enemy, though she'd been determined to hunt him down; he'd liked her, even that far back; had known he liked her since she stepped into the precinct witness room that night after his subway fight with Anton. He respected her; she was tough, capable, had a strict sense of honor and ethics that she never compromised. Not even for him. Yes, she'd compromised the rules dictated by her job, her career, but she'd never once compromised her own internal code.
It was one of the things he'd admired about her. And admiration had…turned into something deeper. Something he'd only vaguely thought about, to himself, but hadn't given serious thought to—and then when she'd started going out with Cal Beecher, he'd firmly tamped it down, forced himself not to think about it. He was an outsider, a criminal, a wanted man; he didn't have a chance, a prayer, a hope. He'd never once thought that she would compromise the code dictated by her job to even consider dating a wanted man.
He abruptly turned away from the park. Yes, this park held memories of her, like so many other places around Lower Manhattan where they both lived and worked, but there was somewhere else he wanted to go, now, somewhere else that held more memories of her. He didn't care that the roar of his motorcycle shattered the night; didn't care that the few people who were out and about after midnight on a cold January night stared after him, riding away on his motorcycle.
He pulled up in the street outside what used to be Joss and Taylor's apartment. The landlord hadn't rented it out yet; it was still dark and silent. He had changed the locks, but since when had a simple door lock stopped a man like John Reese?
He let himself in his usual way, a pick slipped into the door, tumblers clicking as pins fell into place, and stepped in. It was warmer inside the apartment than outside, probably due to the presence of the upstairs tenant, who John certainly didn't want to disturb. Taylor had packed up his things and gone to live with his father for the year or so still remaining until he turned eighteen; he was a Junior, now, in high school, and anguish stabbed John's heart as he realized that Joss would never see her precious son ask a girl to senior prom, wouldn't watch him graduate, go off to college…
Much of the furniture still remained; Taylor couldn't take it with him, his father had his own place; and apparently the landlord had decided to keep some of it and rent the apartment as partially furnished. Her couch was still here; so were a few of the pictures on the walls, although the framed pictures of Joss and Taylor that sat on the mantelpiece above the non-working fireplace were gone. It hurt to think of someone else living here, using the furniture Joss had selected; he could still remember letting himself in the back door for clandestine meetings with her here in the dark; still remember coming over on the odd night when Taylor wasn't here and inviting her out on a stakeout while they worked on one of Finch's numbers; waiting here in her living room while she got dressed.
He climbed the stairs silently, as only a stealth-trained black ops operative could do, and stepped into her bedroom. If he could almost see her on the steps of One PP, here in her bedroom her presence was a living thing, and he half-expected her to walk into the room at any time. Her bed was still here, although the covers were gone; the dresser, mirror, nightstand were all still here, though the drawers would have been emptied; and the empty closet stood open. But he could still feel her here, could almost smell her perfume, the shampoo in her hair, the softness of her skin the night he'd finally gotten up the courage to touch her, that one brief moment in the morgue, in the eye of the storm; the softness of her cheek under his fingertips and against his palm as he caressed her face had inspired a sudden impulse to lean in and kiss her, and at the time he'd truly thought he would die doing this, that he would never see her again. And so he'd obeyed that impulse and kissed her.
She'd looked so surprised when he leaned in—and then she'd kissed him back, her lips softening against his. And when he broke it off, when he'd left her there, he'd been sure that he would die happy having finally been able to kiss her.
And then they'd both made it out, okay; his heart had leaped in his chest when she strolled into the witness room at the precinct, an eerily similar parody to their very first meeting. And she'd seen the irony too, had cracked a smile just before she'd said, "I'm Carter. You didn't give us a name."
And he'd seen the humor in the situation too—and had responded in kind. "Seems like the only time you need a name now is when you're in trouble. So am I in trouble?" But he'd said it with a smile—and the answering smile that dawned on her face heralded a new beginning. For both of them. A beginning that seemed filled with the promise of more happiness than he'd dreamed possible after he'd lost Jessica.
And then Simmons had taken it all away with a single gunshot.
Alone in the darkness of the apartment, he felt tears roll down his cheeks. Frozen in his memory now was the memory of the brief eternity he'd spent huddled on the concrete of the sidewalk as Joss bled out in his arms, her last words and thoughts not for herself, but for her son…and him. "Don't let this change you," she'd said. And died.
In the days following that terrible, heartbreaking moment, he'd been lost in a haze of grief, of anguish, of pain, not just physical pain from Simmons' gunshot, but emotional and mental pain. He'd thought, as they left the precinct back door that night, that it really was a new beginning; although he'd never told her he loved her, he hadn't, at that moment, felt he needed to; his impulsive kiss in the morgue had been returned, and something deeper than words had passed between them that night, a promise made in the touch of their lips that needed no words. And although the haze of grief and pain had ended in his collapse in front of the man who'd orchestrated Joss' death—Alonzo Quinn, the head of HR—anger had followed, as he fled New York, fled across the country, running, trying to escape the pain, the anguish, the guilt and remorse that dogged his footsteps and haunted his every moment, waking and sleeping. She had taken that bullet for him. Simmons had been aiming for him. And had taken Joss, his Joss, away from him. And it was his fault.
But Fusco had dogged his footsteps, hadn't let him run. If Fusco hadn't been there, reminding John that links still remained between himself and humanity, he would have lost himself again, like he'd lost himself after he'd lost Jessica. But on the transatlantic flight as he was unwittingly and unwillingly drawn into what he now believed was The Machine's crusade—Harold was certainly no longer in control of it, and John wasn't even sure if it was talking to Harold the same way it talked to Root—he'd gradually been drawn back into the stream of humanity, back to the life he'd known. He simply hadn't been allowed to lose himself again.
And at the little café table in Paris, John had heard Harold say, very simply, "I miss her dearly, too," and he'd been reminded that he was not the only one who had suffered a loss. Everyone who had known Joss Carter, loved her, every person whose life had been so profoundly affected by this one unique woman, had suffered a loss too. And he was reminded in that moment, watching Harold, that life did go on…but hearing those simple words also told him that as long as he remembered her, he too would never lose her.
And that had reminded him of something else, too. That he had made a promise to her, that he would watch over her son, her precious boy, the boy she had cheated death to give birth to, and raise. And so, while returning to New York had meant a return to the dance of life, of humanity, the dance that Joss had drawn him back into, it had also been a silent, unshakable reaffirmation of his promise to her. He'd promised to keep her safe. And he'd failed.
He would not break his promise to her to watch over her son—the last link John had to her. Wouldn't break this last promise to her. She would forgive his not keeping her safe—he sensed that instinctively—but she would not forgive his breaking his promise to keep her son safe.
And as the days without her turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into—several months, now—he could still feel her with him, could still feel her presence there beside him. It was that feeling that had prompted him, that night at the Library after they'd saved the art thief's daughter, to push an empty glass toward an empty chair and splash a couple fingers of whiskey into the crystal glass.
He deeply regretted, now, that he hadn't had the courage to tell her he loved her, before she'd died—wished he'd said the words. Although he felt, somewhere deep down, that words hadn't been necessary, that she'd understood what was in his heart—and he, in turn, understood what had been in hers that night at the morgue—he still wished, with all his heart, that he'd had the courage to say those three little words before she'd died on that cold, dark sidewalk that fateful, rainy night.
He reached into his pocket now for that small, hard, cold metal object. The bullet, with his name scratched on it. Finch had just enough presence of mind to call Lionel as John half-lay on the sidewalk, curled around Joss's body, crying in grief, and Lionel had arrived. John hazily remembered seeing tears in the other Detective's eyes as he took Joss's body from John, had taken over as Harold took John away before ambulances and cops and backup had arrived. And somewhere in the middle of that, Lionel had found the bullet, with John's name scratched on it, in Joss's pocket. Had kept it, not knowing its true significance, and had given it to Harold later. By the time Harold had the courage to approach John about it, he too not understanding the significance of that small chunk of metal, John had been over that first storm of grief. The bullet had passed from Harold's hand back into John's in front of an abstract painting in an Italian art museum, but when John had looked at it, had understood what it was and where it had been found, it had acquired a far different meaning and purpose than it had when he'd first painstakingly scratched his name on the bullet's casing.
But that was Jessica. He'd had nothing, and no one, to hold him when she'd left. He'd been lost and drifting, in a fog of anguish and loss and self-pity and loathing until he'd met Joss. Now the bullet wasn't a promise of an end, but a promise of a beginning. A mission, to keep the last promise he'd made to her—to watch over the son she'd loved more than anything and anyone else in the world.
And one other promise, a promise he'd forgotten in the days of wild grief following her death—don't let this change you. Somewhere in those last agony-filled moments of her life, when she must have known she was going to die, must have been terrified, she'd loved him enough to extract one last promise from him—to stay the same person she'd fallen in love with, to not let her death drive him into the same fog he'd been when he lost Jessica.
In the days and weeks following his return from Italy with Harold, he'd felt almost as if she were right there, next to him, walking beside him on a cold day, almost hear her voice in his ear, could have sworn he'd heard her laugh at him the night he, Harold and Shaw had gone to the art museum in search of a number and he'd seen Shaw in that extremely low-cut white satin dress.
And strangely enough, at odd, random times he'd smell her perfume—a whiff in a crowd, a hint of fragrance in even the most noisome alley as he chased bad guys, even in the silence and darkness of his apartment when there was absolutely no way he could have been smelling her perfume. It didn't feel like she was gone; she was now his guardian angel, just as he'd appointed himself hers the day the Machine had given them her number the first time all those years ago. Years ago, and yet so brief, and he wished now that he could turn the clock back, take back every single minute of those years he'd wasted when he could have enjoyed just being with her.
Blinded by tears, he got up off her bed, in her cold, dark, silent apartment, and started to stumble toward the door. And he ran into something—or his foot caught on something invisible, on the floor, and sent him off-balance. He grabbed wildly for something to break his fall, and his flailing hands found her night table, which went over with a crash, its light weight no barrier to his fall.
He froze for a long moment, wondering f he'd made too much noise, wondering if the upstairs tenant had heard the crash—but after a couple of minutes, when no sounds of alarm were raised, he picked himself up off the floor, pushed the night table upright, and grabbed the lamp, putting it back on the tabletop. As he did so, he realized the single shallow drawer, the drawer she'd always put her gun in when she went to sleep at night, had fallen out of the table, and he crossed the few quick steps across the room to retrieve it where it had fallen, bottom-up, on the carpet.
And then froze as he saw his own face looking up at him.
An old photo, yellowed at the edges. Him and Jessica, sitting at a café table, holding hands. He was younger, no trace of gray in his dark hair'; Jessica still had the blindingly-bright smile he remembered, the smile that made his heart stop whenever he saw it.
It was taped to the underside of Joss's night table drawer, must not have been found when Taylor and Paul Carter had emptied the apartment of Joss and Taylor's things. John reached out with shaking fingers, pulled it off the wood. Joss had found this, somewhere, had kept it. He didn't know how, or why, but he had no photos of Jessica now except what he carried in his mind, so having this was like a small piece of his past given back to him.
And then he turned it over, and he got another shock. Another picture of him, taped to the back of that old photo. Him, earlier this year; and he remembered this one. He had been in the park with Bear, throwing a ball for the big dog to fetch; he'd turned and seen Joss holding her cellphone up. "Just got a text from work," she'd said innocently, but now he realized she must have taken a clandestine photo of him as he'd laughed at Bear's antics. That was how she'd remembered him—that was how she'd wanted to remember him…and the picture blurred as his eyes filled with tears again.
And, suddenly strong, that whiff of her perfume again. So strong that he looked up again, startled, almost half-expecting to see her standing in front of him. "Joss?" he asked the air.
Only silence answered him, but a breeze stirred the filmy curtain in the window. He went over to see if the window was open, but it wasn't—and as he turned to find the source of the breeze, he saw the moon illuminate something in the back of the empty, open closet.
Another photo. But of her this time. So small, tiny, something that must have been missed when her closet had been cleaned out. It looked like a picture cut from a strip of photos, a strip like the kind you would get from a picture booth at a local mall. Joss and Taylor must have climbed into one of those photo booths, and Taylor looked the same way he'd looked when John had first seen him, three years ago when he'd been a high school freshman. Joss looked the same as she'd looked that night in the station after the subway fight with Anton.
A photo of her, and Taylor. Likely the only one he'd ever have.
"Thank you," he whispered, without quite knowing why. He'd never been one to think aloud, talk to himself—he spoke when others were there. But there was no one here but himself.
And then that scent of her perfume again, and a random movement of the curtains by window again, and John swallowed hard. He'd never been one to believe in ghosts, but if Joss was here, guiding him to these pictures… "Thank you, Joss. I won't forget my promise to you. Both my promises."
The scent of her perfume wafted past him, then dimmed, diminished, fading away until there was only the smell of a dusty, empty apartment. But somehow this comforted him, and he tucked the three photos into his coat as he made his way down the front walk. He was suddenly really feeling the cold, and he shivered as he swung astride his motorcycle, put on his helmet, and rode away.