Summary:

Jo finds it hard to believe Henry's secret at first. But this is the man she loves. Abe helps his father convince her. But will she help Henry kill himself so that he can be quickly healed? Will she also help him perpetrate the hoax of his treatment and recovery in a faraway land?

Notes:

I do not own "Forever" or any of its characters.

Chapter Text

"... You look like you're about to share your deepest, darkest secret with me, Henry." she teased.

That lopsided grin of his threatened to add itself to the look of surprise on his face. "You might say something like that."

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"What!?" Jo jumped up off of the couch and paced frantically back and forth in front of Henry, then stopped to face him with her hands on her hips. She leaned forward and yelled at him again, "Immortal?" She shook her head and her hair mussed as it swung vigorously back and forth. She glared at him and wagged her finger in his face. "Why are you telling me something like this, Henry?" She put both hands on her hips again and tilted her head to the side. "What makes you think - how dare you think that I would believe some - some - utter hogwash like this!?" She threw her arms up again and turned away from him.

Completely out of character, Henry remained silent and allowed her to expend her emotions. Normally, he would have tried to silence her for fear of disturbing his sleeping son. But, selfishly (okay, he grudgingly realized, he was not only vain, but he was selfish), he hoped that the commotion would awaken Abe so he could come help him to convince Jo that he was telling her the truth. Finally. His bloody idea, anyway, to tell her. After several minutes it didn't seem to be working, though. He stood and put up both hands and pat them towards her in an effort to calm her down.

"Jo, please lower your voice. Try to calm down. Please." he begged her. "You'll wake Abraham. Before he went to sleep he was exhausted." He appealed to her better nature and how much she liked the elderly gent.

"Well, too late to lower your voice, Jo. Abraham's awake and he's still exhausted." Abe dryly commented as he shuffled into the living room and sat in his favorite armchair. "Now, what in the name of the Big Kahuna is going on in here?" He looked from one to the other and quietly stated, "Ohhh, you told her that you're immortal, didn't you? And she doesn't believe you, right?" He looked at his father with raised eyebrows and more than a bit of amused 'I told you so' tugged at his mouth.

Henry opened his mouth and closed it with an exasperated sigh, shook his head slightly and threw his hands up in frustration. Jo looked from one man to the other, her eyes wide, her mouth clamped into a thin, angry line, and to both of them, she appeared to fume.

"What in the - ? Abraham Morgan, are you trying to tell me that you believe this - crap that Henry just unloaded on me?" She leveled her discord in the manner of a disappointed parent. The irony was not lost on Henry. Or Abe.

Abe vigorously nodded in the affirmative, his smile slowly widening.

Mischievous, Henry thought, so mischievous, that boy.

She glared down her nose at Abe and demanded, "Why?"

Abe had been waiting for this. Oh, ho, ho, he'd been waiting for this. Savoring the moment, he cut his eyes over to his father, who closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Because I'm his son." He leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs (and looking all too smug for his father's tastes), his hands dangling over the sides of the chair's arms. "That's why."

She simply couldn't believe what she was hearing. Both of them were ... well, mad. Driven to madness by all of the recent trauma inflicted upon Henry, whose state of mind could be excused because of maybe too much pain medication and his delayed psychotherapy. Abe, on the other hand, must now be too senile to know reality from fantasy anymore. And, this is what they were both blabbering on about, pure fantasy. She took a deep breath and folded her arms.

Both men waited for her response. When she didn't say anything immediately, Henry started to say something. "Jo. If you'll just please allow me, us, to explain."

"No, you explain, Dad. I'm just here for backup. I got your Six." he grinned at his father's confusion over the term, then explained, "I'm your Wingman." For which he earned one of Henry's "Abraham, please" chastisements.

The harried Immortal turned his attention back to Jo, who appeared to have opened the clue calculator in her head. He could tell because of the tiny frown lines along and between her brows and the way she was biting her lower lip. She was putting it all together. All the little hints he'd dropped over the past few years. She was adding up the unexplained and mysterious incidents surrounding him ever since they'd met. When she began to tremble and waver a bit, he quickly moved to her side and guided her back over and down onto the couch.

"Abe, some water, please, for Jo." he asked with breathless urgency.

"Looks to me like she needs something a lot stronger than water." Henry shot him a disapproving look and he quickly rose from his chair. "Water it is, then." He shuffled towards the kitchen but stopped when Jo loudly voiced a preference for whiskey. "Whiskey, it is, then."

Henry shook his head at his son's retreating form. He reached up to caress Jo's cheek, but at the sight of his own hand, quickly withdrew it. It was a reflex action even though she had just told him that his injuries mattered not to her. He lowered his eyes and pursed his lips, annoyed at his own cowardice. He raised his eyes and met hers when he felt her hands gently encompass his. He attempted to pull away from her grasp, but she held on.

"Henry, I think I know you well enough by now to know that you're telling me the truth. Somehow, this crazy claim of yours is true." She barely whispered it because, in her mind, to speak it louder would once again cause it to gather absurdity, and she'd be forced to reject it again. "What do we do now? Where do we go from here?" she asked, totally lost and out of her element. In all her years as a cop, she'd never encountered anything like this. Never entered her mind that there was anything like this - like Henry - in the natural world.

Just then, Abe returned with a bottle of Hennessy and two, 2-oz. shot glasses. He set them on the coffee table and poured the liquid into both of them. Jo snatched one glass off of the table and downed it before anyone could say anything. She closed her eyes and let the potent potable work in her system, then opened her eyes, grabbed the bottle and poured herself another shot. But this time she sipped it. She looked at Abe and blinked several times as if seeing him for the first time. "So. All this time. Right under my nose. Right under my friggin' nose." she scoffed and downed the rest of her drink. She plunked the glass loudly back down onto the wooden coffee table and let out a long, loud sigh. "I swear, you two."

Abe carefully poured a bit of whiskey into a paper cup for Henry, who also carefully positioned it between his hands and raised it to his lips. He took a long sip and gingerly placed it back down onto the coffee table. Only then was he aware of Jo and Abe's eyes on him. He could sense that they both wanted very much to help him handle the drink; and this was precisely why he had decided to move forward with his Plan B.

"Jo, if you believe me, then, please help me out of my present situation."

"I don't ... understand what you mean, Henry."

He explained more to her about his immortality and how it worked. About the East River and that his repeated appearances and arrests there had nothing to do with sleepwalking or skinny dipping. "I need to do this, Jo. I'll be all healed afterwards. My career, my life here, can be salvaged." He desperately searched her face for an answer. "It's the only way, Jo. Will you help me?" His heart fell when she looked him slowly up and down, something akin to fear in her eyes. He exchanged a worried look with Abe. Then she surprised them both when she softly replied, "Yes".

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Change in plans:

My daughter, who is my biggest supporter and biggest critic, says I got lazy with the end of this story. Without revealing all of her criticisms (still pulling the slings and arrows from my heart and wiping the egg off of my face), all I can say is there will be more after this now very short chapter. I'm not up for a double-digit amount of chapters, though, but the next chapter is being written as soon as this one is updated with this blurb. So, like the lead singer said, "One mo' time!" LOL