Title: Not Alone
Fandom: Person of Interest
Rating: K+
Warning(s): Spoilers for 1x09
Summary: Something that popped into my head as I was watching. Weather it really happened or not is irrelevant. You can take as Carter/Reese but I didn't mean it to come across that way.
Carter had missed out on saving someone. They had lied to her when they said she was dead. He was young then, not as naive as he appeared, but still naive to the world's cruelties and that feeling of being alone. He knew it far too well by now, so familiar that he wasn't quite sure how to comfort someone - to tell them they weren't alone - and mean it.
Oh, he knew how to talk and pretend at words and at love and at loyalty - after all, it had been a job at some point.
He wanted to find the right thing to say from a deep place within himself so he could properly tell her.
That's why he didn't want Finch in his ear, distorting his thoughts. He knew she would know if it was 'just talk', so it had to come from a little deeper than he often cared to go.
Finch was his partner, not his conscience.
He hadn't died - as they wanted her to think. He had only been tapped for a mission and then captured. They didn't want to lose a good soldier, defiant though she was to her superiors when it came to saving life at all costs. And they didn't want her nose in where it didn't belong. At least she'd cared when no one else did, or no one knew they were supposed to be worried about him.
That's what makes her such a good police officer. He knew that well. They both thought themselves as being alone. Reese did even with Finch constantly telling him where to go and who to save - nothing would fill that void that all seemed to want to hide from everyone.
She had no right to trust him, but he was glad that she had. Maybe someday she would stop chasing him, though he would never stop running.