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Joss's alarm clock is beeping, telling her to wake-up, but for some reason her eyes don't want to open. Trying to struggle to consciousness is a bit like swimming through thick soup; she's aware of her limbs but they don't seem to be working when she tries to move them and her mouth is dry, her tongue a sticky thing adhered to the roof of her mouth. For a moment she's eighteen again, waking up hungover and nauseous after drinking half a bottle of tequila at a friend's birthday party. But that was long ago, and teenage follies are lessons long since learned. When eventually she manages to crack open her eyes she winces at the bright light that sears her retinas and promptly closes them again.

"Mom?" That's Taylor's voice. Rough with tiredness and concern, but blessedly familiar. Joss forces her eyes open again and turns her head towards the teenager sat by her bed. He looks older she thinks. He might still have her eyes but there is an echo of his father in the line of his jaw now, the width of his shoulders. There's a firm resolve beneath the worry that is anything but childish. She's not sure what she thinks about that. Wincing, she tries to sit up before her body tells her in no uncertain terms that is a very bad idea, and forces her to drop her head back onto the pillow. Not an alarm clock but a heart monitor had woken her, and she doesn't need the strange antiseptic smell of the bedlinen or the scratchy cotton of her hospital gown to work out where she is. She's woken up in similar institutions before, although this is the first time that Taylor has been by her bedside.

"Hey you." Her voice comes out scratchy and low. "You okay?"

Her son fumbles with a plastic cup, poking a straw through the lid. "It's water," he says offering it to her. "You're allowed that right? Or should I ask a nurse or something..."

Carter solves his dilemma by placing the hand that actually seems to be working on his wrist and finding the straw with her lips. The cool liquid sliding down her throat is heavenly, but she forces herself to stop after a few sips. She knows what response her body will give if she takes too much water when she's obviously dehydrated.

"Thanks Tay." She gives him as decent a smile as she can muster. The events of the past... how long has she been out of it? Were coming back and Joss makes a quick inventory of herself. She can move her legs and her right arm. The left is strapped across her chest, the corner of a piece of gauze taped to her shoulder peeking out from under the neckline of her gown. She can wiggle her fingers though so she doesn't think that either her collarbone or scapula can have been broken by the bullet that hit her at her apartment. The dreamy wooziness from painkillers is an indicator that pain is merely being kept at bay, but she'll take the respite while she can. Allowing her mind to drift back into tempting sleep isn't an option though – she's been shot, she's in a hospital and there will be someone asking questions as soon as they are aware that she's awake. She hunts for a memory of how she came to be here, but comes up with nothing but John Reese, his grey eyes achingly tender as he stroked her cheek and told her to hang on in a cold room with iron bars on the windows. It seems too real to be a dream and yet somewhat unreal too – a ghost she had conjured to keep herself sane.

"John saved you." Taylor is obviously psychic or maybe her confusion is just that easy to read upon her face, Joss thinks. "I mean me and Data, I mean Finch helped, but it was mostly John. He took out the bad guys at that place where you were being held and Fusco and his SWAT people went in after and found you." He reaches out and grabs her hand. "I was so scared Mom. I thought..." He looks away, those beautiful dark eyes liquid with tears.

"Hey." She squeezes his fingers, rubbing her thumb over his palm. "I'm ok, we're ok. I'm so sorry you had to go through that baby." A sudden chill runs through her. "You said Detective Fusco was there? Were there any other prisoners found with me?"

Taylor shakes his head. "No." Realizing what his mother is thinking he gives a small smile. "Did they tell you about trying to kidnap Fusco's son? They really messed up there. John got the guy out first – he got intel from him too about where you were. I think the kid and his mom are in a safe house or something."

Reese to the rescue once again, the thought is both reassuring and troubling. She knows that he has Finch to look out for him, but a voice in an earpiece won't save him from a bullet. Would she even know if he died, and if he did what name if any he would be buried under? The thought makes her sick, and she feels the water in her stomach churn uncomfortably.

"Mom?" Taylor looks at her worriedly, but Joss is saved from having to answer by a soft knock on the door. Lionel Fusco enters looking utterly exhausted but gives her a smile before putting a somewhat battered bunch of tulips on the bedside table.

"How're you doing?" Taylor gets up, ostensibly to get a vase from the windowsill, but nudging the plastic chair towards the detective as he does so. The older man sinks into it with a groan, and with the benefit of ten hours of unconsciousness and some heavy duty painkillers his partner can't help smiling.

"Better than you I reckon, you look like sh..." Suddenly remembering that her son is in the room, she hurriedly amends her language. "You look like you haven't slept in a week."

Taylor rolls his eyes at her, dumping the wilting flowers into a plastic container. "I'm going to get a soda, you two can talk without scaring the children while I'm not here." Despite the irritated tone of voice he still kisses his mother on the cheek before exiting the room and closing the door behind him.

"What went down?" Joss asks, meeting Fusco's tired eyes. "How'd you find me?"

"How d'ya think?" the Detective runs a hand through his short brown hair. "Our all-seeing man in a suit gives me enough intel to get the Captain on the phone with SWAT. We get there and there's eight men from that asshole militia group either unconscious or bleeding around the place and you passed out in one of the other buildings. You don't want to know the amount of questions I've had to field about it – giving a couple of SWAT teams a mission and a load of weapons and then not letting them shoot anyone? Not good for interdepartmental relations."

"Did they get Owen Banks?"

Fusco is obviously so tired that it takes a moment for him to process the question. "Oh dead, but not dead guy. Nah, at least not yet. He wasn't any of the jackasses that got rounded up at Lewilder anyway. There's NYPD's best chatting to some of his friends – the ones that aren't in surgery, but it looks like he bolted. I don't reckon he'll get far with a face like his; the photo on his fake passport at his wife's house is already being sent to border police, airports, you name it."

"His wife? Is she in custody?" Joss can remember the mad man ranting about the cops answering the phone at his house.

"More like the morgue." Fusco winces. "She and the guy she was banging on the side got a bit knife happy if you get what I mean."

Carter doesn't but she's not actually sure that she wants to know and so doesn't push the issue. "How's your kid?" She asks eventually.

"Good." Relief smooths the wrinkles from Lionel's forehead a little, and the look in his eyes is one that she would probably recognise if she looked in a mirror Joss realises. "He and his mom are a bit shook up but they're safe. They'll be ok."

She nods, a part of her wanting to reach over and touch his hand in understanding. He's sat on the side of her bad arm though and they haven't really gotten close enough to let their guards down that much around each other yet. "I'm glad."

"Yeah. Me too." The silence stretches awkwardly.

"Thanks for helping me Lionel." Carter keeps her voice quiet as though by using his first name he might run away. "I'm lucky to have had you watching my back."

The older man looks uncomfortable, the rubber pegs attached to the chair legs squeaking noisily against the linoleum as he shifts his weight. "I didn't do much. Just followed orders. We didn't know dick about where you were until our mutual friends got in touch."

They both look up when Taylor opens the door and steps into the room, licking the condensation from a can of Pepsi from his fingers.

"Well, yeah, anyway, I'm glad you're going to be alright. I'll make sure you don't miss out on any of the paper work while you're away." Fusco gets up, gives Joss a faint smile and Taylor an awkward but friendly pat on the shoulder before leaving.

When her son offers her another drink of water she accepts it and settles back to listen to what her son has been doing in her absence. Of course none of it will go into the debriefing that she will inevitably have to give to her superiors, but given the circumstances she can live with it.


Cleaning up Joss's apartment didn't take as long as John thought it would. Granted he'd been there before – both to plant and then remove bugs around the place when neither the Detective or her son was there and so he knew his way around the place. Disinfectant, cloths, carpet cleaner was under the sink, paper towels on the sideboard. For a man whose life depended on knowing his enemy it was strange but irresistible to study a friend – intimacy by subterfuge. He knew that Carter washed up the breakfast dishes but didn't dry them until she got home from work, that her bed was made with the neat folds of a military veteran used to inspection, and that there was a small collection of expensive shoes with killer heels at the bottom of her wardrobe that he spent far too much time picturing what she looked like when she was wearing them. Little bits of the puzzle of Joss collected in his mind – fragments really compared to the few moments when she had truly let him see her. The pride and love she had for her son, her fierce loyalty. The look she had given him full of infinite regret when she had slammed the car door shut while he had bled from Snow's bullet in the back seat of Finch's car.

He tackles the blood stain on the wall first. Even if he's not actually in the same room as it he knows it's there. A reminder of how close things had been, how close he came to losing her. Fusco keeps him updated every hour or so – the SWAT team were good, the paramedics better. Carter's going to be fine. People are asking questions but there's no evidence linking him to the scene apart from confused and contradictory witness statements. John's grateful for the information but it can't really calm him. He knows that he can't go to the hospital when it's crawling with both NYPD and SWAT employees, but that doesn't make the knowledge easy to accept. Owen Banks has disappeared off the radar, gone but not forgotten. With no money or soldiers and with most of the New York Police department looking for him he's not an immediate threat and there is no way of finding him unless he reaches out to one of his old contacts or turns up on a security camera. Neither of these scenarios looked likely to happen anytime soon, and after pacing around the library like an ill tempered tiger Finch had eventually tired of him and suggested repairing the Carters' home for their return. That was at least something useful he could do.

The lamp in the sitting room is broken beyond repair, but it's generic, obviously not an heirloom, it can be replaced easily. John dumps it with the rest of the garbage outside the building waiting to be picked up. The dining room table is of better quality, but thankfully not as damaged. It doesn't take long to wrest the skewed leg back into place and give the whole thing a bit of a polish. Sweeping up the broken glass is easy, as is working out how to use the ancient vacuum cleaner. He hesitates when it comes to Joss's bedroom, eventually deciding not to do much but turn down the comforter ready for when she returns. Slumping down on the couch, utterly exhausted, he looks at his watch. Carter is supposed to be released in the evening so long as she gets the all clear. It's only three o clock; plenty of time to go home, check in with Finch and come back later. The thoughts have barely crossed his mind before he falls asleep.


Joss is tired and sore by the time she's trekked up the stairs to her apartment. There's a plain clothes cop in a car outside the building just incase Owen Banks comes after her, but she can't really see the point in it. She's not answering the door to anyone without her gun handy ever again, even if it does mean scaring the crap out of Jehovah's Witnesses. Taylor has been dropped off at his grandmother's by Fusco, and although she already misses him, Joss knows it's for the best. They're ok, she's proud and a little bewildered at all that he had done to get her home, but he's still just a teenager. Grams's house is comforting, familiar and above all normal. If she lied a little and said that she was needed down the precinct then it was only a little lie. She didn't want him coming home to God knows what state their home was in. She'll get things straight, order pizza and one of those terrible Transformer movies that he likes tomorrow and they can curl up on the couch together. Just mom and cub, the way it's always been. If she can't use her left arm because of the sling then it doesn't matter – Taylor never lets her have the remote anyway.

Turning the key in the lock and pushing the door open she pauses. The sun has almost gone down but the blinds she hadn't closed in the living room let a pattern of yellow gold stripes spill onto the beige carpet and over the couch and easy chairs, the clean table and hallway. Even from the doorway it's clear that the place has been tidied up, and the big figure slumped at the far end of the couch leaves no question of the identity of who had done so. Carter usually moves quietly – stealth has saved her life on more than one occasion both in combat and back home while in the force. This time she's extra vigilant however. The smallest noise will probably wake the man sleeping in her home, and just for a moment she wants him to herself, utterly unguarded. The latch of the door slips back sweetly and silently, and tugging off her boots awkwardly with one hand, she pads over and leans against the side of the chair Taylor usually claims.

When Reese is awake there's usually too much going on to really look at him. Oh yes she knows he's handsome, knows that he knows it and either rolls her eyes at his arrogance or wants to strangle him for pushing her past the black and white of her moral boundaries and into shades of grey that don't fit well with the person she has always thought herself to be. She's not a silly girl who has her head turned by a pretty face. She's not stupid enough to let herself get used. He'll save her life but he won't give her anything but the bare minimum when she asks him questions.

Watching him sleep, curled up and vulnerable on her couch, Joss studies him closely. He's tall, he's well built, he's too thin. Who cooks for him? When does he eat? The question bothers her. He doesn't fit on the couch at all – one leg curled under the other, he's sprawled more than sat on the low leather cushions, one cheek resting on an ugly paisley cushion that Taylor had bought for her a couple of mother's days ago. His imperfection is somehow harder to take in than the dismissive "handsome man, not my type" category she had tried to shove him into. His nose is a little off centre, his forehead a little too high. Those long black lashes brush his cheekbones, his chest rising and falling in a quiet, steady rhythm. She wonders when he last got any sleep. She wonders what the cost to him is for saving people like her and her son. Waking him would be a good idea – he'll be stiff as hell in the morning and probably has other places to be. Instead of shaking his shoulder Joss goes to the closet and pulls out one of Taylor's old camping blankets. John doesn't stir until she tucks the fabric around his shoulders. His brow furrows and he mutters something in his sleep, one hand gripping the edge of the couch, lost in a dream she dares not wake him from. Joss runs her fingers through John's cropped hair giving quiet words of reassurance, kissing him gently on the cheek. When he turns towards her obviously still mostly asleep she lets him take her good hand and curls up next to him, resting her head upon his shoulder and letting him tuck an arm around her waist. She can always blame it on the meds in the morning if she has to.

A/N thanks kind readers and reviewing people – really appreciated.

(a bit of a quiet chapter, but no, we haven't heard the last of Owen Banks.)