Chapter 7: The Picture
Please note: In the Works Cited portion of Chapter 1 there are suggested music pieces to accompany this and other Chapters to enhance your experience of reading. I hope you enjoy them...
Manhattan, November, 2014
Raw and rainy, drizzling really, today. Just the kind of weather to make you want to curl up with something hot or something strong to chase the chill.
It seems like this kind of weather made everything hurt: all the old stuff he walked around with: from sports, from tramping around in the mountains as a kid in Colorado, from all the days and nights of training and fighting in the Rangers, and some tough injuries through the years. It felt like they were all catching up with him today.
He was achy, and after lunch time, standing in the rain, he had started to get chills. He was shivering inside his coat. Shaw took one look at him when he got back to the office, and she pointed to the door.
"Get out! Go home, Reese! Take your germs with you and don't come back until you're over whatever you've got – " And so, he left early today and headed back home. He'd missed lunch, but he really wasn't hungry anyway, just cold.
He stopped at the deli down the street for some soup, and then headed up the front steps to his apartment. Shivering in wet clothes, he dropped the keys twice trying to get the door open, and almost dropped the bag with his soup in it. But, finally, he was inside, and he leaned back against the door, pushing it closed with his shoulder.
The light was rainy-gray from the high windows in the living room and it made the small alcove by the front door nearly dark. He stood there for a minute, waiting, and took notice of the subtle things he always checked for, when he got home. It was a little test he did with himself at the front door. The air had to be just right. It layered out during the time he was away, and there was a certain feel and smell to it – when no one had been there all day.
Paying attention to things like that had saved his butt a couple of times. He had gone into a tight space one time with his men, back in Afghanistan, and he knew right away that it wasn't empty. Someone was hiding in there – from the body heat and even the smell of the air currents, disturbed by someone walking through – it was different than when it was empty. Saved their lives that time.
His buddies stopped making fun of him after that, and they always wanted him to go in first to "check the air" for them after that. Reese smiled, thinking about them, all their faces. Bunch of knuckleheads...
A bad chill came on, and he started into the kitchen with the bag of hot soup. He almost stepped on a manila envelope on the floor, and side-stepped it at the last moment. He looked down at it first, on the floor, before he picked it up. Nothing on the side facing up at him; no name, address, return address. Blank. It looked like it might have had a single sheet of paper inside it. No bulge, nothing that looked suspicious. Maybe someone had pushed it under his door after he'd left this morning.
He turned it over and opened the prongs. It wasn't taped or glued closed, so he lifted the flap and looked inside. It was a photograph. He walked over to his couch and sat down, another bad chill coming on, and pulled the picture up from the envelope in the rain-light.
It hit him right in the chest. Carter. It was an eight-by-ten of Carter. A little fuzzy, like it was from a cheap surveillance camera. Reese could see she was in the squad room, just standing up from her desk, with that little smile she had when she was on to something and couldn't wait to get going.
He remembered that look. He'd seen that one so many times on her. He smiled to himself as he remembered her with that little half-smile.
And then, he saw that there was someone else in the picture, too, in the background; it was him. He was looking at Carter; and the shot had captured a certain look in his eyes.
He was looking at her like he'd been waiting to say something, like he'd wanted to tell her something, but then didn't. And wished that she already knew...
Ah, this hurt. He never realized. He didn't know until just that moment how he had felt then. But he could see it in his eyes, in the picture, the way he was looking at her.
He started shaking, and his breath was ragged all of a sudden. He leaned back on the couch, lying down, shivering - cold, but he was sweating, and every muscle was aching.
Reese was too cold to get up and go get a blanket, but too cold to stay there without one. He pulled off his wet coat, and swung it around as fast as he could, in front, like a blanket over him and curled up in a ball underneath it. Of course, he didn't fit. The cold air was hitting him in the back, and on his legs.
The soup was right there, and he reached out for it and pulled off the cover, spilling hot broth on his hands. It felt good, the heat. And then he brought the lip of the carton up and drank in almost half of it in one shot, heating the core of him as it ran down inside, but making him shiver even more.
This was not good. He couldn't get warm. Reese huddled under his coat, shivering, shaking bad, waiting it out for the soup to work...
He wanted to see her face again. The picture was on the coffee table in front of him, and his eyes went to it again, while he was lying there, shivering and sweating, on the leather couch. He looked at her face in the picture again. Clear eyes. He was thinking about those eyes. Honest. She always told it like it was. No sugar-coating. It was her way or no way.
Only once had he seen her not in charge, uncertain. When Elias took her son.
Carter and Fusco were in one of the safe-houses with the dons from the New York mob, and Elias had taken her son, from school. He told Carter that she only had to walk away, and she could get her son back; he'd be safe.
But she told him no. She wouldn't do it.
Reese remembered the look in her eyes when he'd brought her son back, safe, to her. He'd gotten him out of Elias' hide-out, and brought him back to her, on the street-corner.
In her eyes, that look, that feeling for him – Reese wanted that again.
He was shaking again, but not from the cold this time. He reached out for the picture and pulled it under his coat against his chest – but it was cold, lifeless.
It made him remember the time he had finally said something to her; in the morgue, just before he left her, to draw fire away from her there.
He'd thought it might be the last time he'd ever see her, and he wanted her to know, before he left. He told her that she'd saved his life, that first day, when he was arrested and showed up at her precinct.
She'd reached him, just when he'd given up on people, on himself. She'd caught him when he was falling.
He remembered his hands on her face there, and she was looking up, into his eyes. That look was in her eyes again, like on the street corner with her son.
He wanted that. He wanted her.
He pulled her in closer, touching him in his chest – and then, their lips. Softly. Gently.
So much tenderness in her, behind the fire. He felt it. In her lips; in her body against him. Ah, this was hurting him again.
He wanted that kiss to last so much longer...
Reese was hearing music. Soft music all around him. It was a guitar. And he opened his eyes.
Carter was there, sitting next to him on the edge of the couch, smiling. He sat up, heart racing. He couldn't let her get away this time. He had to tell her.
"John, you're sick. You have a fever. Lay back down and rest," she said, her eyes serious, her hands on his chest.
"No, no, Joss. I need to say this. I need you to hear this." He reached up with his hands to her face, and felt her skin, warm in his hands. She was smiling, and that look was in her eyes, again. He loved that look – and yet, it made him ache to see it – so hard to see it like this. He was holding her face in his hands:
"I never told you, never said what I wanted to say. I thought there'd be more time."
She was nodding, knowing, letting him go on. Softly, almost whispering: "You saved me, Joss, when I didn't want to go on. I was lost. Had lost everything – everyone. I needed you to find me, and there you were." Aching, from that look in her eyes.
In a whisper to her face in his hands: "You made me strong again. Gave me something good to do again, to be again."
Her eyes were smiling, shining bright with tears. He pulled her close, touching her lips, just brushing them with his. He could feel her breath. And again; brushing her lips with his. Softly. Gently. Then, pressing his lips to hers. Tears were sliding down his face. Dissolving. He was dissolving in this kiss. Let it last. He didn't want it to end.
He could feel her heartbeat at her throat, so strong against his hand. So real. She was here to give him one more chance. He could tell her everything he never said, show her what she'd meant to him.
He was shivering. The music, singing just for them, so softly. He stood and pulled her up to him, against him – laid her head against him, his lips brushing her face. Don't let it end this time. Don't let it end. He needed her. Tell her. Say it to her.
"Joss, I need you. Stay. Stay here with me," he whispered and brushed her face with his lips. She was so warm there in his arms. Precious. He couldn't bear to lose her again. He wanted this to last. If he kept her here like this, in his arms, she couldn't leave, wouldn't leave him. And that pain from losing her would go away. His heart would stop breaking and mend.
His arms surrounded her, held her closer, jealous of the Time that had stolen her away from him.
He would keep her here with him, this time. Or go with her, this time...
"John?" He heard a voice. Shivering. He was so cold.
He opened his eyes. Shaw was there.
"I've been calling you, John, to check on you. You look like Hell. You're burning up..."
