Author's Note: I hope that you will enjoy it.

Chapter 10

Jo's eyes fluttered open as the morning sun shone through the window. She startled at the sight around her and thrusted herself into a sitting position. She wasn't in her bedroom, and she wasn't in New York.

As her mind began to wake up, her body relaxed. With the differences in time zones, she had expected to have a hard time getting to bed last night. Yet, she had slept as readily here as she had during her flight.

The pillow called her name. Wanting a few more minutes of sleep, she started to lay down again. At that moment, her stomach growled and grumbled its protest.

She lifted the cover off her and sighed. "Martinez, it's time to get up."

She rubbed her hands over her face as she began her morning routine. She didn't realize how much her worry about Henry had drained her until the second her head had hit the pillow last night. Maybe that was why she had an easy time sleeping.

She smiled as she finished brushing her hair. Still, she had enjoyed hearing Henry talk about his real work and school experiences last night. With each tale, he had grown more animated…almost as if he was describing a death. For those brief few hours, she had seen a fire of life in his eyes that made her wish she could find some way to keep it alive in him forever.

The moment that he paused before mentioning his experience as a life insurance salesman ran through her mind. She pulled her lips together. He had glossed over the reason he had left the medical profession again. She couldn't help but to feel that, somehow, it was connected to a painful memory.

Her stomach reminded her of its need. She left her room, headed to Henry's door, and rapped on it to see if he was interested in breakfast. As she waited, the bathroom door creaked open, and footsteps quickened. She grinned. For the first time since he had fled, it felt like he would return to New York with her.

The door swung open, and a freshly-shaven Henry appeared in the doorway wearing only his boxer-briefs. She opened and closed her mouth several times as her eyes swept down and back up him. He had just answered two questions that she had never thought of asking.

He shifted his weight, and a lopsided grin grew on his face. "Jo! I didn't think that you would be up this early."

She averted her eyes the moment that his slight blush encouraged her own cheeks to warm. "I've just woken up myself."

They gazed into each other's eyes, hers roaming his brown ones. She stood there absolutely breathless at the sight. She could do this all day.

At that moment, the alarm signaling that the door was ajar sounded. Henry shook himself out of his state and glared at the lock. He turned back to her. "Would you like to come in?"

The beeping reverberated in her head. Nodding, she accepted his offer and joined him in the room. Her eyes travelled to the NYPD t-shirt draped over the foot of the bed. She cocked her head as she took a seat on the sofa across the room. Why…?

"My apologies for being undressed." He removed some clothes from the suitcase sitting on the bed and faced her. "I usually have a shirt on most nights. I find that it tends to minimize questions about my scar if I must answer the door."

She blinked and nodded once his words registered.

As he entered the bathroom, she found herself unable to take her eyes off him. What on earth did he do in those first 35 years to get himself into that shape? Horseback riding, swimming, and walking alone couldn't explain it.

The door closed, pulling her out of her haze. Feeling her cheeks warm even more, she blinked and shook her head. Get a grip on yourself. You've seen him shirtless before. And you're friends, nothing more.

Wanting to kill her embarrassment, Jo glanced down at the clothes in the opened suitcase. She furrowed her eyebrows. She didn't see a vest in it. Where were his three-piece suits?

Her eyes travelled back to the NYPD shirt. She pulled her lips together. "I don't want to pry, but why did you bring only dress shirts and pants with you?"

"I don't know." The frustration in his voice called out to her. "I think that I might have divested myself of anything that made me look conspicuous in public."

"Like a NYPD t-shirt won't?"

He chuckled. "Touché."

A piece of paper shone against the desk's faux wood surface. She eased off the sofa and moved toward it. Her eyes widened at the sight of the black-and-white photograph of Henry and his family from the 1940s.

She picked it up, carried it to the bed, and sat down. She shook her head in amazement as she studied the picture again. Admittedly, she was a little jealous of the woman—and angry at Henry for not saying how he had gained paternal instincts—when she had initially found the photo. Now, knowing that the woman was Abigail, she couldn't fault him for it.

Her eyes traveled to Abe, and they crinkled. Abe looked nothing like either of his parents. Which suggests that he was adopted. How did he become a part of their family?

She eyed the closed bathroom door. "When was this taken?"

"When was what taken?" Henry's slightly muffled voice almost sounded like Sean's when he was shaving.

The image of her and Sean's morning routine when they both were home danced before her, and she averted her eyes to keep herself in the present. "This picture of you, Abigail, and Abe."

"That one." The comment sounded more like a reminder to himself. "November 1945, here in London…Southwark, actually."

Her eyes traveled down to the photo and back to her unseen partner. Abe wasn't born in the United States? How…?

He chuckled. "It was our first family picture. The camera took what felt like an eternity to set up in the late autumn chill. When it was finally ready, I couldn't figure out how to work the timer, and Abigail walked me through it. I had barely stepped into the frame and posed in time for the shutter to close. We were worried that Abe would have grown fussy, but he had seemed quite fascinated by the process."

She smiled. That sounded familiar.

The door opened, and he entered the room, his black shirt highlighting his dirty laundry. He ran a hand over his face.

She swallowed as he found his t-shirt and set it with the rest of his clothes. She wanted to ask him about Abigail and Abe, but she didn't know how…or if she should. Who knew? Maybe Abigail was the source of his reluctance to open up to her.

Jo watched him as he turned around and started back toward her. "How did you meet Abigail and Abe?" The question tumbled out before she could stop it.

Henry sat down next to her and gently took the picture from her hand. "I met them at the same time." He shifted himself until he was face-to-face with her. "It was toward the end of World War II—."

Her jaw dropped. He had never said anything about military service. "Wait. You were in a war?" He was traumatized by his killing Clark Walker in self-defense. She couldn't imagine him being a soldier.

He nodded. "I was drafted as an American army medic. My first taste of action then was on D-Day. An artillery shell had hit me during the landing on Omaha Beach, and I awoke near Sword Beach almost 41 miles away."

She quickly lowered her eyes. That somehow sounded more like him.

A smile grew on his face. "At the time, I had joined another American medic unit. We had arrived just as one of the concentration camps was liberated. I spent part of that evening performing triage." He gazed down at the photo, his eyes growing more distant by the second. "I had finished sending an injured man to the surgeons when I felt that I needed a break. The moment that I turned around, I heard a strong infant's cry. It was rather unusual to hear that; we had frequently discovered weak or deceased infants and children in the camps." His Adam's apple bobbed at whatever thought that he had.

"Anyway, my curiosity got the best of me, and I wandered over to investigate." His eyes glazed over, and another smile crept onto his face. "Abigail stood before me as though she was an angel in the battlefield. I was instantly stricken by her beauty. She asked me if I were a doctor, and she proceeded to tell me that they had found the healthy baby boy in a camp. She placed Abe in my arms, and…" His smile grew wider. "I found myself wanting to do anything for him."

Jo stared at Abe's image. She gaped in amazement at his miraculous survival of the Holocaust. She turned back to her partner, who was full of fatherly affection.

"You adopted him at that moment."

He peered at her. "In my heart, yes, but it took longer for me to admit it to myself." He chuckled and laid his free hand on his knee. "Within a few days, we had set up a temporary hospital, complete with a nursery, in the camp. I volunteered to make rounds in the nursery because of Abe and a certain nurse who had caught my fancy. Abigail and I talked during our joint breaks and our time with Abe, and she noticed my growing affection for both of them. One day, she suggested that we adopt him. I was very hesitant to even consider it. At the time, I felt that I couldn't bear the loss of yet another person in my life, let alone two." He gave her a small smile as his eyes glistened.

He sighed and briefly lowered his eyes. "When we received orders to ship out to Milan, the staff began to relocate the children to the orphanages. Not wanting to lose Abe, I convinced Abigail to pose as my wife to keep him. She quickly agreed, and we found a chaplain who was willing to issue us a marriage license without officially marrying us. The next morning, Dr. Fitzroy, my superior, came for Abe. I forbade him to remove my son from his crib. Needless to say, Dr. Fitzroy wasn't pleased that I had defied his orders to send our Abraham to the orphanage, but he fortunately let us keep him."

Jo gazed into his eyes. "Did you go to Milan?"

He studied her for a moment and nodded. "I was falling deeper in love with Abigail, but I felt that, because of my condition, it was best if we parted before she discovered the truth about me. I wrote her a letter and left both her and Abe in our hotel there."

A gasp escaped from Jo's lips before she had the chance to stop it. What had possessed him to try to abandon the two people closest to him?

He licked his lower lip. "Abigail tracked me down and confronted me about my decision, saying that life is about the journey. She then asked me if I loved her. I finally confessed that I did. Before I knew it, we were returning to the hotel, reveling in our love."

Jo nodded. Now she saw his earlier comment about sharing a room with Abigail while they weren't married.

"After the war ended, we returned to Southwark. One night, after Abe had interrupted us during a moment of passion…"

Jo started to laugh. Henry narrowed his eyes at her, prompting her to wave a hand. "I'm sorry. I'm remembering when he had interrupted us—" she waved a finger between them "–recently."

Henry rapidly joined her laughter, his boisterous one pleasantly surprising her. "He seemingly has had a bad habit of interrupting Abigail's and my intimate moments since he's been in diapers." He held up a finger. "To be fair, I have interrupted my fair share of his as well whenever I find myself the unfortunate victim of an accident during one of his dates."

He soon sobered. "As Abigail rose to tend to him, I learned that her ex-boyfriend Johnny Haywood had abused her. I tracked him to a local bar and warned him not to touch her again. We started fighting outside, and he stabbed me in the stomach. Abigail, figuring out my plan, arrived in time for me to collapse into her arms." He lowered his eyes. "She watched me die and vanish. After I emerged from the Thames, I returned to our house to say goodbye to Abe. She found me in Abe's nursery and embraced me. She then escorted me into the living room, where I had told her the truth."

An unknown pain and a fondness struggled for control in his expression. Jo broke her gaze. If he wanted to stop now, she understood.

He gazed back at her. "We moved to New York shortly after one of the men watching the fight encountered us and asked me how I could still be alive. After Abigail and Abe went through Ellis Island, where I helped them obtain American citizenship, we headed for Brooklyn. For the next ten years, we led a relatively normal life, punctuated by a move to and another one within Manhattan prompted by my paranoia."

He began to clear his throat. He placed the photo on the desk. "I need some water. Do you want anything to drink?"

Jo reviewed her morning and realized that she had forgotten about her breakfast…and her morning coffee. She glanced around the room. There wasn't a single coffee pot in sight. "I'll be fine."

He ducked back into the bathroom and, a moment later, emerged with a cup of water. He positioned it on the end table and joined her on the bed again.

He studied her for a moment. "As the days and years passed, I gradually found myself wanting us to spend the rest of her life together. One night, Abigail talked me into attending the opening of Gloria Carlyle's gallery in the National Museum. We weren't on the list—."

Gloria Carlyle? I knew that he had somehow… Wait. What did he just say?

"You crashed Gloria Carlyle's party?" She gaped at him. It took Lucas a while to convince him to join him, Mike, and her at McSorley's. But party crashing…?

Henry pointed at himself. "In my defense, I protested the idea once we were inside."

That was more like him.

"Abigail walked up to me, told me that I couldn't plan everything, and led me into the gallery." He smiled. "We met Gloria as we admired the artwork. She noticed that we were in love but unmarried. Gloria reminded me that Abigail didn't have eternity for me to let her know how I felt. When the party wound down, Abigail and I were dancing, and I decided that it was time to share my feelings for her. I dropped to one knee and proposed to her. She very quickly said yes."

Jo's eyes moistened with tears. How could she not see the connection to Abigail while she had tried to talk him into entering the museum? Her and Sean's favorite Chinese restaurant was one thing, but this…? She could kick herself. The pain of remembering that good moment was in his eyes the entire time they were working the case.

He sighed happily. "It was Abigail who had noticed Fernando Costa's painting among the Degas and Monets. I remembered it as our investigation into Gloria's death progressed."

Jo smiled at the idea of the other woman being happy to assist them. "How did Abe take the news about your marriage? I mean, he was young at the time, but he must have suspected something wasn't proper with your relationship."

"He asked us why we didn't do it sooner."

She chuckled. Abe had sounded like he was ten going on fifty.

Henry grinned at her. "We were officially married the next year, and Abigail and I went on our honeymoon."

Jo nodded. "The Orient Express."

His eyes widened in pleasant surprise at her memory. "Anyway, we had left Abe with his grandparents on their farm in Oxfordshire. As we passed through Romania, Abigail and I finally got a moment to ourselves…or so we thought. Armen Aronov's guards had learned that we were in the medical community and had ordered us to operate on Armen as he was suffering from appendicitis. Seeing that he reminded us of Abe, we quickly started the surgery."

Her own eyes grew wide at Henry's connection to yet another victim, and she suppressed a laugh at the irony of Lucas having no clue that he had criticized Henry's surgical skills. "That's how you knew that the surgeon had experienced a bump while cutting into him."

He gazed into her eyes, tempting her to get lost in them. "After the surgery, Armen's father brought dinner to our car as his way of thanking us. He later told me that he was sending his son out of the country, and he would face whatever fate awaited him upon his return to Urkesh. The next year, the revolution happened…."

He broke his gaze, and his face fell. Fortunately, for her, she already knew that he was remembering his shock to learn that he had lost another person—this time, an acquaintance—in his life.

Looking for a distraction, she remembered the smile on his face when he had mentioned it. "How was the rest of the honeymoon?"

He returned the same smile that she had seen in the Urkesh consulate. It went that well.

His face then fell, and he rolled his tongue in his mouth. "Do you remember when I told you that fate had other plans for Abigail and me when it came to children?"

"Yeah." She drawled out the word.

He sighed. "We decided to add to our family then. During the trip, Abigail became pregnant, and…" He licked his lower lip as he directed his gaze to the blanket. "She, um, she miscarried a couple of days after we had learned about her condition." Tears welled in his eyes, and she could see him willing himself to not cry.

Jo gasped. "I am so sorry."

He looked back up at her. "It was very painful for Abigail, and we decided to never try again." He offered a slight smile. "Fortunately, for us, Abe was enough."

His gaze veered off a point past her. "For a while, our lives together were happy. Our only true point of contention was when I had decided to leave the medical field." He redirected his attention to her. "On October 8, 1956, I had promised Abe that we would go to a World Series game after school. Abigail and I had to tend to an emergency at the hospital, and I couldn't leave until the fifth inning had started. When I arrived at our car, I noticed a man shooting another man. I went to help the injured man, and I was also shot. When I heard the police nearby, I left my patient and hid myself until my death. Abigail had always contended that I had protected both my family and myself. I, however, felt that, as long as I chose self-preservation over my patients, I was no longer fit to be a doctor. The next day, I quit my job at the hospital and found my job as a life insurance salesman."

Jo cocked her head. She had never thought of his self-preservation instinct working like that.

He started to choke back tears. "About thirty years later, things began to change between us. She was aging, and she was becoming more self-conscious about our apparent age difference. We started to go out less and less." His eyes started to dart back and forth. "One night in 1982, she was mistaken for my mother while we were out for our anniversary, and she became so upset that we returned home early." He sniffled. "We never went out again."

He headed back to the desk and got another drink of water, his eyes trained on the photo. Jo's heart broke within her. Abigail must have left him and moved to Tarrytown shortly afterward.

Jo's eyes darted around the room as Lucas' observation echoed in her mind. Who was with Abigail when she died, and why did she kill herself while the person was trying to save her life? It almost sounded like she was afraid of her companion.

Jo looked back at Henry. She could safely rule him out as a suspect. He wouldn't have been obsessed with trying to find his wife recently if he had known anything about it.

Wanting to take his mind off the unpleasant memory, Jo looked around the room. Her eyes landed back on the photo. "How did Abe find out that you're immortal?"

Henry turned to her and smiled. "A heavy suitcase." His eyes grew distant again as he settled next to her. "I was out of clean laundry, and I needed another shirt. Remembering that I had one in my suitcase, I reached into my and Abigail's closet to get it off the top shelf. As I maneuvered the suitcase closer to the edge, I lost my grip on it, and I was unable to dodge it in time. From what I had gathered later, Abe walked into the room shortly afterward and watched me die. Terrified, he ran to the kitchen and told Abigail what had happened. She had no choice but to take him to the river with her and to explain the basics to him. He warily eyed me come out of hiding among the trees near Catherine Slip. He…"

His voice fell to almost a whisper. "He became quite guarded around me for a few days. I, um, I thought that he didn't want anything to do with me ever again." He looked back up at her. "Eventually, while we were eating dinner, he summoned the courage to ask me what happened, and I was able to tell him the full story…or as much as you can tell a child without upsetting them even more."

"How old was he?"

"Eight." Henry's face fell, and he sniffled as he fought back tears. His gaze dropped to the floor as he folded his hands on his lap. "Just like Nathan Sinclair."

Jo furrowed her eyebrows. "Who?"

A tear escaped its wall. "The victim that I had to tend to when you were at the shop." Henry wiped his eyes. "Lucas has probably told you what had happened at the scene."

She nodded as her eyes drifted to the ground. It was terrible to lose anyone at those ages.

A moment later, she stared back at him. He wasn't fatigued during the autopsies like he had told Lucas. He was being reminded of Abe's mortality.

Tears moistened her eyes at the thought of the Morgan men's future. "No parent should have to lose their child, and, if you could exchange lives with him, you would."

At her words, Henry faced her, his eyes widen in surprise. His eyes roamed her face, almost as if he was trying to decide what to think. After a few moments of silence, he finally nodded. "I don't want to watch Abe die, but…" His voice cracked. "I also don't wish for him to die alone like Abigail had." He huffed. "I don't know what to do. If I go back…."

She reached over and gently rubbed his back. "You don't have to decide now. Not today."

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Every so often, she sneaked a peek at her partner. At first, it looked like he was growing calmer. Then, his eyes drifted to the desk and locked onto the picture.

He finally turned to her, his eyebrows knitted together and his lower lip starting to quiver. "Abigail's really gone, isn't she?"

Jo's heart broke at the same question that she had asked Mike and Karen nearly two years ago after Sean's funeral. His eyes pleaded for confirmation of the truth, that he would never see his beloved wife again.

She swallowed. He had waited thirty years to feel the final rush of denial as he identified her body. Thirty years to decide what to do with her remains. Thirty years to say goodbye to her. Thirty years to finally feel her gaping absence in his life.

Her pain for him overwhelming her, Jo simply nodded as she fought back tears. Those in his own eyes threatened to spill over onto his cheeks. A few seconds later, he leaned over and sobbed into her shoulder. As he convulsed from his grief, she wrapped her arm around his shoulders and held him just as he had when they had sat on her doorsteps.

Jo pushed the nagging thoughts that he wasn't telling her the full story about Abigail's fate aside. She would find out when he was ready. Right now, he needed her.