Reese found a spot on a roof across the street from the apartment and watched through his camera while the young men moved through their evening routine. Hart had insisted, with gestures and arm pulling, that his brother search the apartment. Finally satisfied, he returned to his closet and scribbled happily on his stack of papers. Dylan didn't make any attempt to close the door on him. Reese got the impression that they both considered the closet to be Hart's little office, his retreat. Not his cell or his prison. It was clear to him that Dylan didn't know about his neighbor's treatment of his brother. But it was also clear that Hart didn't really mind being locked in there. He was perfectly happy with his desk and his sketches or math problems or whatever he was doing.

Dylan put some music on, classic Foreigner, and made supper. Mac and cheese from a box, smoked sausage, canned pineapple. Glasses of milk. He told Hart to wash up and the older boy did so without protest. They sat together at the little dinette table and ate. "So how was the shop today?" Dylan asked.

Hart shrugged, didn't answer.

"Not talking tonight, huh?"

Hart shook his head.

"Something bad happen? Are you upset about something?"

Hart shook his head again.

"Just don't want to talk?"

A nod.

Dylan sighed. "Okay. Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me."

After a long pause, Hart said, very quietly, "You talk."

They were the first words Reese had heard the young man say.

"You always want me to talk," Dylan chided, but very gently. "Okay. So I went in to work and put together little tiny electronic pieces. And then we had a coffee break, and I got a cup of vending machine coffee, which was really awful. Some days it's just regular awful, but today it was really awful. And then I put together some more little tiny electronic pieces, and then I had lunch …"

"Ellie?" Hart asked, still quietly.

Dylan grinned briefly. "Yes, I saw Ellie, but she didn't sit with me."

"Ask?"

"No, I didn't ask her."

"Should ask."

Dylan sighed. "Yeah, I should. Maybe I'll make some brownies or something Sunday and take extras Monday and ask her to share. Girls like chocolate, right?"

Hart ducked his head, grinning. "Guess so."

"Anyhow, after lunch I went back to the line and guess what? More little tiny electronic pieces …"

He went on talking, about his day, his co-workers, people he'd seen on the bus on the way home, things he'd read in the paper in the break room. Nothing he said suggested why anyone would want to kill him. He was just filling the room with words, giving his brother a share of his world. Talking to talk, because Hart had asked him to.

Reese tapped his earpiece. "Finch?"

"I'm here, Mr. Reese," Finch answered. "Dylan apparently takes his responsibility for his brother very seriously."

"It doesn't look like much of a life, Finch."

"Friday night pizza and an occasional weekend visit to the Red Box appear to be the highlights."

"Dylan can't leave Hart alone. So he can't go out, can't see his friends. Can't date anyone."

"Even if he could afford to, which he really can't."

"Is it possible," Reese asked carefully, "that he's tired of the responsibility?"

"It's possible," Finch allowed. From his tone, he didn't think it any more likely than Reese did. "He dropped out of college in order to care for him. The disability funds that Hart receives barely cover the cost of his adult daycare."

"And there's no end in sight." Reese sighed. He didn't want to believe that the caring young man he was listening to was plotting to murder his brother. If anything, he seemed more likely to be contemplating a murder-suicide. But Dylan didn't sound hopeless.

Not yet, anyhow. "What about his job?" he asked.

"He works on the assembly line," Finch reported. "Nothing sensitive or secretive. His attendance record is a bit spotty; specifically, he has a problem with tardiness. It's gotten much worse in the past few months. One more incident and he's likely to be terminated."

"He has to wait for Hart to get picked up before he leaves," Reese guessed.

"Yes. He doesn't have any other disciplinary problems. His reviews are fine. No indication that he has any problems with any of his co-workers."

"And Ellie?"

There was a pause, some keystrokes. "Eleanor Barkley. Twenty-three. Works in the accounting department; she's been there for the past two years."

"Boyfriend?"

"Not according to her Facebook account. And she is quite diligent about keeping it updated."

Reese shook his head. "We're missing something. I think I need to go to work with Dylan tomorrow."

"I'm inclined to agree, Mr. Reese."

"You'll keep an eye on Hart for me?"

"Of course."

Reese glanced down at his suit. "I'm going to need a change of clothes."

"Do you want me to bring you something?" Finch offered.

"No. I've got a few things to do." He looked through the camera again. The young men were washing dishes together. Dylan said something to his brother about getting in the shower. They clearly weren't going out again. "I think they're settled in for the night. I'll have Lionel come and watch them."

"I'm sure he'll be delighted," Finch said drily.

"I'm sure he will."

1974

Johnny didn't go out for recess the next day. After lunch his attendant pushed him back up to the classroom and put him behind his desk again.

When John came in, he asked him why. "Didn't want to," Johnny answered simply.

The next day it rained and all the kids had indoor recess, which pretty much meant board games and talking in the cafeteria. John sucked up all his courage and approached Mrs. Stupak. "Can I go back up to the classroom with Johnny?"

She scowled at him. "Why?"

"So he won't be lonely."

She looked at him like he'd lost his mind. Then she just shrugged. "Sure. Go ahead."

John happily trotted after the wheelchair.

Back in the empty classroom, he pulled his chair around to the front of Johnny's desk. "So what do you like to play?"

The boy smiled. "Cards. Checkers."

"Checkers." John went and got the board and set it up. "Red or black?"

"Red."

He swiveled the board around.

Johnny reached for a piece. His hand jerked violently, and he nearly knocked the board over. "Sorry."

"It's okay," John said. "You want me to move for you?"

"Sure."

"This one?"

"Yes."

"One square or two?"

"Two.

It took them the entire recess period to play one game. But John didn't mind. It was more fun than hanging out in the noisy lunchroom. Mrs. McGill came back in about halfway through the game. She looked surprised, and John thought she might yell at him. Then she just went to her desk and did teacher things.

"If you want to come outside tomorrow," John said, "I'll make sure Tony doesn't bother you."

Johnny shook his head. "It's okay."

"No, really. He's just a big jerk. I'll take care of him."

"They'll call you names."

"I don't care."

Johnny smiled at him. "Why?"

"I dunno." John shrugged. "Just 'cause."

Johnny pointed to a piece. "This. Jump. King me."

"I was hoping you wouldn't see that." But he moved the piece and crowned it, and three moves later Johnny won the game. John hadn't let the boy in the wheelchair win. He'd beaten him fair and square. "I'll win tomorrow, I bet," John said.

"We'll see," Johnny answered.

Then the bell rang and they put the board away.

2013

As it turned out, Detective Fusco was actually working a case when Reese called. By the time he showed up, the Roth brothers were getting ready to turn in.

"What the heck is he doing?" Fusco asked, staring through his binoculars.

Reese raised his camera. Hart Roth had brought out a stepladder and was moving it around the apartment, climbing up to touch the 'test' button on every single smoke detector. "Most of his family was killed in a house fire," he explained briefly.

"Jesus. That why they're in trouble?"

"We have no idea why they're in trouble," Finch told him over the com.

"We have audio and visual in the apartment," Reese said. "You can sit in your car in you want. Finch can wake you if there's trouble."

Fusco smirked. "Nice of you. Maybe in a while. So I'm going to be here all night, I take it."

"I'll be back in a couple hours."

"'Cause, you know, it's not like I have a day job or anything."

"Lionel," John answered pointedly, "you should be glad your day job isn't pushing up dandelions at Oyster Bay."

There was a time when the detective would have been offended. Now he just smirked again. "Yeah, yeah. Get outta here. I got these guys."

Reese watched a minute more, while Hart put the ladder away and went to brush his teeth. Every single night, he realized. The young man must climb up on that ladder every single night, and perhaps he would for the rest of his life. He shook his head. Hart wouldn't survive without his brother. If Dylan was a victim, he had to be saved. If he was the perpetrator, he had to be stopped before he could commit the crime. Either way, the Machine might has well have given them two Numbers, because there were certainly two lives at stake.

"Back in a while," he promised Fusco, and made his way out of the building.

The third time Smokey walked over his keyboard, Finch stood up. "You are impossible," he told her.

The cat looked at him, through eyes exactly the color of John Reese's, and with the same utterly unimpressed look the ex-operative sometimes wore. Then she sprawled languidly in the three inches of space between the keyboard and the edge of the desk.

Finch looked at the dog. "Can't you do anything with her?"

Bear thumped his tail on the ground gently. He didn't even bother to get up.

The billionaire genius looked around, at his rare books and his expensive equipment. He had done a bit of browsing in their sparse down time and found a tip for feline management that had seemed so unlikely to work that he'd disregarded it. But much like Bear had provoked minor surgery on his beloved squeaky toy, Smokey had now pushed her foster-owner to desperate measures.

Finch went into the little side room and found what he was looking for: A cardboard which contained a brand new pair of dress shoes, black leather, in Reese's size, a back-up pair. He took the shoes out and left them on the shelf, but took the shoe box with him. Though, he reflected, the application of a shoe might be just as effective as the box was likely to be, and possibly a great deal more so …

He carried the empty box back to his computer desk and set it down just to the left of the keyboard.

Smokey opened one eye and looked at him. She raised and lowered her tail, just once. If she's possessed the dexterity, Finch was sure she would have made an obscene gesture. Then she closed her eye again.

"Impossible beast," he grumbled. He stalked off to the little pantry and made a cup of tea.

When he got back, Smokey was curled up in the cardboard box. Her tail hung over the end, but the rest of her body was comfortably folded inside. She was, quite contentedly, asleep.

"Really?" Finch said with great annoyance. "Literally hundreds of shelves and nooks and windowsills to sleep on, and you wanted a shoe box? Really?"

This time the cat didn't bother to open an eye, though she did indulge him with another tail wave.

Bear thumped his tail, too.

"You were no help at all," Harold told him. He shook his head. "A shoe box. Really."

Almost against his will, he considered the purchase of a cushioned cat bed, perhaps something in velvet or micro-suede. He knew at once that Smokey would ignore any such thing. Like her owner, she was a stubbornly opinionated creature.

He sat down and pulled his keyboard toward him. Smokey twitched her tail one more time, but she didn't wake enough to interfere.

Reese took a quick shower, because he didn't know when he'd get another chance. Then he put on dark slacks and a black t-shirt under a leather jacket. He packed a duffle with two changes of clothes, jeans and polos and a second jacket. They he moved to the kitchen and loaded up some water bottles and portable snacks. Finally he got weapons – a handgun and backup piece, extra clips, an ankle knife, and then a rifle, just in case.

There was no word from Finch, but he could hear the soft white buzz in his ear that said the genius was still with him. As always. The silence meant that nothing had happened to the young men in his absence. He hadn't really expected any trouble. The boys were in for the night; Fusco's presence was just a precaution.

The silence also meant, of course, that Finch hadn't identified the threat to the boys.

Reese added a couple more water bottles.

He took a short detour on his way back out, to drive past Chaos. The café was only half-full, for a change. He stopped his car and looked through the front window, but he didn't see Christine. The windows of her third floor apartment were dark. He drove on, trying to identify exactly what was troubling him. He certainly seemed to be the only one who was worried about the hacker.

There was a single small light visible in the upstairs apartment at the new building. Reese parked his car and looked up at it, considering. Maybe, he thought, some worker or city inspector had left it on accidentally. But more likely Christine was up there in the unfinished space, alone.

He walked around to the back door. The lock was a keypad as hefty as the door itself, and he already knew none of Finch's electronic hacks would work. He could knock, of course, but he wasn't sure she'd hear from the top floor. He could call her, ask her to come down and let him in. At least that wouldn't startle her. But that assumed that she'd answer his call.

He wondered again why he was so sure Christine Fitzgerald wasn't speaking to him.

On a whim, he brushed his thumb along the bottom of the lock. It clunked open immediately.

She might not be speaking to him, but she'd programmed his print into her new locks.

He went quietly down the dark hall, then up the stairs. The new stairs in the center of the first floor had been framed, but the risers weren't in yet. The second floor had been gutted to the support beams. He climbed the old stairs to the third story and stepped out onto the floor. They'd been working on the framing and plumbing here; he could see the outlines of the apartment taking shape.

Christine was sitting on the floor at the far side of the space, with her back against the wall, her legs crossed, her computer open on her lap. The screen's light illuminated her face; the rest of her was in shadow. She watched him calmly; she'd probably been listening since the door lock triggered. "Hey, John."

So maybe she was speaking to him after all. On reflection, she really wasn't the silent-treatment type. "Hey yourself. You here all alone?"

"I was." Her tone was very off-hand, too casual, and he wasn't sure how to read it. "What'cha need?"

Reese paced to the front of the space slowly, looking at the new windows. They were absolutely top of the line ballistic glass, bullet proof, soundproof, largely unbreakable. They'd been installed well, with steel-reinforced frames, caulked and painted already. Tight. "Nothing. Just haven't seen you for a while."

She shrugged. "I've been busy."

"I figured once you knew about the library I'd have to be chasing you out of there with a stick."

"Hmmm."

Reese turned. Christine was bent over her laptop again. She was wearing a navy blue sweatshirt that was much too big; the body came all the way down over her hips, and the sleeves were rolled up several times to clear her hands. There was some kind of writing on the front, something simple, big white letters.

Three letters. She was hunched and they weren't clearly visible, but Reese knew immediately what they were.

John sighed softly. He'd expected fallout from his arrest and Donnelly's death for Carter, for Finch and Fusco, for himself. Even Bear had been uncharacteristically anxious. But somehow Christine had slipped beneath his radar. She'd been missing for weeks before he'd even registered that she was gone.

Although, to be fair, she hadn't gone anywhere. She was still at Chaos, still working around the city. Finch had spoken with her. The only conspicuous sign of her absence was that she wasn't haunting the library.

But that should have sent up a red flag. It should have been as obvious to him as if Finch had abandoned his computers.

John had been busy, too. And distracted. And wired with explosives part of the time. That was no excuse. "I suppose," he ventured, making his voice stay casual, "you're planning to walk home alone in the dark."

She glanced up again. "You're kidding, right?"

"Just because you used to live on the streets doesn't mean you can't get mugged."

"I have mace."

"That'll work if there's only one of them." He moved closer, glanced over her shoulder. "Electrical?"

"Sound system. If I'm starting with bare studs, I might as well wire in some bangin' speakers."

"Bangin'," he repeated.

"Yep." She smiled briefly, but kept working.

"You shut construction down."

"Reconsidering some architectural choices."

"But you're still going to move, right?"

"When I'm ready."

It was subtle, but he could see the tension in her neck and shoulders. She wasn't ignoring him; she was very aware of his presence. And she didn't like it. Reese circled around in front of her and crouched on his heels. "I didn't kill Donnelly," he said quietly.

That got her to look at him, at least. "I never thought you did," she answered, surprised.

"Then why are you avoiding me?"

"I'm not. I'm just busy." She gestured around. "I'm building a house. I'm going through a dead billionaire's shit ton of documents. And I still have the two businesses and the whole life that I had when I was still on my own to maintain. It takes time."

And flying down to Donnelly's funeral had taken some time, too, Reese thought. Unconvinced, he stood up and resumed his casual inspection of the framing. The fireplace in the living room was going to be very nice.

Christine sighed, closed her laptop, and stood up. "John."

He turned. He could clearly read the 'FBI' stamped on the front of the sweatshirt now. The letters were faded, well-worn and often-washed. It looked cozy and comfortable. And maybe it was just a case of grabbing an old sweatshirt to wear to an unheated, sawdust-laden construction side. But it had obviously been his sweatshirt, and she wore it easily, like a security blanket.

"I know about your being arrested, about Rikers," she said. "I'm sorry you went through all that." He started to answer and she gestured. "I don't think you're the type to dance on Donnelly's grave, but I don't imagine you'll spend much time mourning his loss either. I don't blame you. But he was my friend," she continued quickly. "I don't have many friends. I can't …" She stopped. "I'm not avoiding you. I'm avoiding everyone. I just need a little … space."

Reese nodded solemnly. He didn't like it. But at least he knew what was going on. "So we're good?"

"We're good," she assured him. "I'm here if you need me. Just … try not to for a while, okay?"

"Okay." He picked up her coat. "Come on, I'll drive you home."

"You don't need to."

"Then I'll wait outside until you leave and I'll follow you to make sure you get there safely."

"John …"

"And by the way, it's getting really cold again."

Christine sighed. Then she put her computer in her bag and let him help her into her coat.

They left the building. "You really don't have to do this," she protested again.

John opened the car door for her. "Here's the thing. I don't have many friends, either. And I can't afford to lose one to some stupid street crime that I could have prevented."

She didn't answer, but she didn't argue either.

He drove back to the café and parked out front. "How can I help?" John asked.

Christine sighed. "All your time with Random and he hasn't taught you the secret to caring for a wounded introvert?"

"I might have been late for class that day."

"You leave them alone."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

Reese considered. Maybe insisting that Finch go out for that beer wasn't a good idea, but John didn't regret it. It had helped him. Helped them both. "I don't know. I'm more of a hand-on kind of guy."

"Really? I hadn't noticed." She slipped out of the car. "Good night, John."

"Night." He watched her to the door, then waited until the lights in the upstairs windows came on before he started the car.

He believed what she'd said. She wasn't angry with him, and she didn't blame him for Donnelly's death. But she was hurting, and he felt like an idiot for not even considering that that might be the case.

He was my friend, he remembered bitterly. I don't have many friends. Christine was a lot like Finch in some ways, but those words had been John's own, not very long ago. He could still taste the desperation in them. And for Christine there would be no rescue, no happy ending to take the sting away. Stanton had seen to that.

Reese sighed. A wounded introvert. Another wounded introvert. He'd spent his life with outgoing people. Even the most secretive of them had been, at their core, extroverts. Now he had two unrepentant introverts, and he honestly didn't have a clue how to deal with them.

He was a dog person. He always had been. His friends were dog people, too. But Finch and Fitzgerald were both cats.

Still, his approach with Finch had worked out. If Christine wanted more space, more time, he'd give her that. To a point. But then he was taking her out for a beer. Or expensive brandy. Or Zombies or chocolate martinis or whatever other alcoholic monstrosity she wanted. He'd try to give her a little room, mostly because she'd been straightforward in asking for it. A little room. But not much.

And in the meantime, he decided, he might recruit a little assistance. He knew just where to find it.