Three months ago.
Joss Carter had been watched. Everything she did during the last few weeks had been monitored by him. He had plans for her. She was important for this solo mission he had created, but now it nearly was too late. Her social security number has come up and he remembered wondering why nobody of her "team" seemed to react.
So he made preparations. Something he wasn't used to do to be quite honest. He even called her, but the stubborn woman did not pay any attention to him. So he was following all her movements today and couldn't detect any danger until he located this crooked cop Simmons armed and hiding in the alley around the precinct she just went in to free that man who was working for HER.
He then realized that the time finally has come now and that the woman who was so important for his mission was left in great danger.
No he won't lose her. Not today. He started to dial all the numbers who mattered. EMT's, Police…and just as he had finished everything he could do Joss Carter had been shot and was lying in the arms of the man working for HER.
He wondered why SHE hadn't called earlier as he listened to the crying sound of HER calling to warn them. Too late it just seemed, but SHE didn't know that he already had been a step ahead of HER.
No, Joss Carter won't die tonight. He had calculated everything as he monitored the EMT's arriving at the scene and the two man working for HER reluctantly leaving Joss Carters body before all hell broke lose around the precinct. He noticed the look of overwhelming pain on the face of the man in a suit. If he actually was able to feel anything, he would have called the man to let him know not to worry, but since he just was a machine he felt no need for that, because right now Joss Carter was his main priority. Without her, he wouldn't be able to save HER.
Back at the hospital.
"Can. You. Hear. Me. Detective. Jocelyn. Carter?" he asked as she finally took the call.
Having spend the entired last hour talking with some kind of machine who called himself "Samaritan" Joss started to wonder if she really was alive or just had been tranferred into some kind of parallel universe.
But she remembered that this voice tried to warn her on that fateful night 2 1/2 month ago. If she just had listened then, but since she just had gotten her badge back that day her mind was somewhere else. It was focussed on John Reese. She remembered she wanted to see him so badly again, the man who had captured her heart by storm.
At least she now knew he was still alive. As a matter of fact she now knew everything. This "Samaritan" had informed her about everything that was going on and she really had a hard time in believing all the things she just heard, but come to think of it. Now it all made sense. The numbers. Their informations. Everything.
Why Samaritan had called her to be the one, well that still made no sense to her, but if it made her escape from this place, she would have no problem with it. She just wanted out of here. It had been too long since she was gone. And now was the time to change that fact.
But before she could leave she had to fulfill a special mission. A mission Samaritan had choosen her for. And Samaritan had indeed come up with a plan.
Since Vigilance, she had learned that this was the group who had saved her life because of Samaritan and hold her captured since then, was completely trusting Samaritan it was easy for the machine to manipulate the group. In fact they thought Joss Carter was important for their current mission.
It was easy for Samaritan setting up wrong numbers. Creating fake missions. Manipulate the monitors in the building. Vigilance simply didn't notice anything.
Nearly two weeks later it was show time.
Joss Carter was once again on a solo mission. She would have lied, if she said she didn't like it. As a matter of fact the more often she was doing this she slowly started to feel that she could get used to it.
"John would be proud of me." she had to giggle to herself "God, Joss stop it or didn't you wanna out of here?" she had to remind herself. "Focus on the mission, soldier."
And with that she left to get the heart of Samaritan. A disk with all the data about this machine. The key to Vigilance. And the only thing able to save Harolds Machine.
John Reese had to smile. Something he wasn't used to anymore. The reason for that smile was Lionel Fusco. The poor guy was trying so hard to be there for him, cheer him up, yell at him that he didn't realize he had slowly turned into a Joss Carter Clone.
John wasn't offended by it, no, in fact he really liked Lionel and his company was comfortable. He just thought to himself that Lionel would make a worse Joss Carter and somehow that put a smile on his face.
"What's so funny Wonderboy? Wanna fill me in"? Fusco shouted out as he was having trouble to keep up the pace with Reese who was busy following their latest number.
"Maybe a little later." Reese was amused. He really liked it to tease the people he cared for. A sudden flashback to his flirty banter with Carter hit him from out of nowhere and he abruptly had to stop, which causes Fusco to run into him.
"So what is that all about now?" he was greeted by his second favorite detective.
"It's nothing." Reese cut him short. "You see this guy over there? That is our new number. A mysterious doctor named Malcolm Ambrose. His number came up last week and so far nothing had happened, which is suppose i guess a good thing, but Finch is worried and something like that never happened before."
"What that Finch gotten worried?" Fusco ironical remarked. It only caused him a deadly stare by Reese.
" Okay i got it. You are once again in some filthy mood. Geez i wished you guys never told me what you do. I used to like hanging around in the precinct and receive annoying phone calls from you. But this here…"
"So you still are afraid of Root? Is that it, Lionel?" John was amused by Fuscos behaviour. This guy wasn't afraid of anyone, but when it comes to Root he was acting like a little child.
"That nut job better not call me anymore." Fusco yelled back at Reese.
"I wouldn't bet on that fact Lionel. She seems to like you." Reese couldn't help it. He liked it to piss off Fusco.
"So what's up with that Ambrose guy?" Fusco obviously attempted to change the topic.
"Besides the fact that he is our latest number. Nothing. There isn't much information on him. He seems like a normal person, but he definetely got something to hide and that's why we are here. You take care of Ambrose as long Shaw and i try to find out what it is that he is hiding from us."
That being said John already had disappeared.
"So this is how John and Harold do their magic. After all not so spectacular, if you are getting used to it." She had to grin. Maybe, just maybe John and her could go on a mission together now that she knew everything. But knowing him and his overreaction if it comes to stuff like that and her, maybe that wasn't her brightest idea. "Well time will tell, Detective." and with that she finally got out of the building, who had been her home for three months now.
Joss Carter was a free woman.
Finally.
She took in a deep breath of fresh air as she look upon the tiny disk in her hand. Samaritan guided her well thru her mission. She remembered feeling like a female version of James Bond with all the stuff she had done there in one of Vigilance hideouts.
Nobody really had any clue what was happening to them and she really appreciated her mechanical partner who was aware of simply everything. Just as Samaritan was about to evacuate the building Malcolm Ambrose showed up.
Apparently he was on his own mission too. She didn't had the chance to reach out for him, since she was heading into the opposite direction of the building, but she saw him on a monitor. The same thing Collier must have seen, because she heard sudden gunshots fired.
She wondered what Ambrose mission had been about, since the only thing it got him was a bullet of Collier.
With all the action happening on the opposite of the building, she sadly couldn't do anything about it, except escaping without getting noticed. And that is what she did.
So Joss Carter indeed was free and it felt great.
Now it was finally time for her to rise from the dead. She felt joy and fear at the same time. And she got a special gift for Harold, so everything seemed to be ready for her big return.
But before that she wanted to visit her grave. She didn't understand the urge of that need, but something was drawing her to it.
With one last greeting to the nearby camera monitoring her, she left the scenery. What she didn't know was, that Ambrose was sent by Samaritan for a diversion. His death was anticipated.
The mission had been completed successfully.
They had lost their number.
John felt like he just had let down Joss. And he hated to feel that way. Of course it wasn't his fault. It was more going on with Malcolm Ambrose than they knew. This mysterious doctor was acting like a chameleon and obliterated his tracks very well. It seemed like he had been trained by the best. And it was obvious that he was on a serious mission.
He even managed to get rid of Shaw, an issue she was having a hard time with, but Reese managed to track Ambrose down to what seemed like a private clinic.
By the time Reese and Shaw arrived on the scene all the action had already taken place.
The clinic looked like it had been evacuated in a rush and there was nobody left in the building except their dying number.
Ambrose seemed to recognize John, because he was desperately trying to tell him something. "Vigilance…save…was coming for her…Jo…."…but he wasn't able to get anything coherent out before he died.
Obviously Malcolm Ambrose had something to do with Vigilance. Reese was cursing himself, because this had been their first big trail after weeks of nothing and he just wasn't able to save the man.
Fate and John Reese a bad combination, he was about to drift off in self-pity again, but Shaw called him and he found himself back at what appears now as a secret hideout of Vigilance.
After they found out that there wasn't anything more to find out, Shaw and Reese left the place. Finch called for an emergency meeting in the library and they were on their way.
So after they round up everything about Vigilance and their hideout they could come up with, they were sure that another storm was heading for the machine and its team members. It was then that John decided that he needed to pay a certain someone a visit to put himself at ease.
So he once again left his team to be near her for some final time.
Staring at her own grave was a surreal feeling. She wondered how everyone else was feeling right now. Taylor, her mom, Paul. She just felt guilty, because she had put everyone in so much pain without even knowing. Will her family and friends ever being able to forgive her? What about John? Will he?
"Geez stop it Joss." she told herself. She wasn't a woman of doubt.
Standing just there Joss didn't realize an old lady slowly approaching her.
"Oh. I was expecting to meet the tall sad man here now. It's the time he usually showed up here. He is a little late. I hope everything is okay with him. He seemed so lost. Do you know this Joss Carter who touched his heart in such ways, that he still can't forget her?!" the old lady asked her with a sad smile.
"Well she indeed was kinda special." Joss told her with simple smile.
She suddenly wanted to leave. She wasn't ready to meet John right now. She wasn't prepared to meet his beautiful face, his deep blue eyes, his husky voice. No, she just needed to be on her own for just a little more time and she knew exactly the place she wanted to be right now.
So she put down the bullet he left her in the morgue together with the bullet Dr. Ambrose gave her and left the graveyard.
A few moments later John Reese arrived.
