This chapter covers 2PiR and Prisoner's Dilemma.

For 2PiR, I have added two scenes that were not in the episode. The first scene is where Joss deletes John's fingerprints from the system, which was mentioned in the show but not shown. I wanted to show how far Joss's "moral compass" had progressed to allow for shades of gray and how she had come to accept that sometimes the legal thing and the right thing were not the same thing.

The second scene deals with how John felt about being locked up, and how he felt about possibly losing the life he had built. We never saw his side, he barely appeared in the episode, so I wanted to touch on that.

In Prisoner's Dilemma, I rewrote the interrogation scene between John and Joss to touch on their shared history in Iraq. Joss reveals almost as much as John does during the interrogation in my version.

2PiR

(added scene where Joss deletes John's fingerprints from the system. In reality a detective cannot do this, the database is maintained by the FBI, but this is such a key moment I'm going to ignore that...)

Joss paused for just a few seconds with her finger on the Delete key. She was about to remove John's fingerprints from the system.

She knew what she was about to do was not just illegal; it was a gross violation of the trust placed in her by Donnelly and the NYPD. She didn't like the idea of stabbing Donnelly in the back, but she liked the idea of Donnelly throwing John in jail for being an enemy combatant even less. John was guilty of a lot of things, but being an enemy combatant was not one of them.

Donnelly had no idea what kind of man, a good man, he was wrongly pursuing. John operated in the gray area and his methods were illegal, but ultimately they were the right thing to do. Joss mentally counted the number of lives he and Finch had saved that she knew about and the number was quite impressive. She also had a feeling there were probably quite a few she didn't know about on top of that. The world needed relentless warriors for the light like John in it. She was not going to let him go without a fight. She had made that mistake before.

Her mind drifted back to the moment she first saw John in her captain's office in Iraq nearly ten years ago. Never in her wildest dreams did she think they would wind up like this. She closed her eyes and wondered for probably the millionth time how things would be different if she had kissed him in that damned cave. So many regrets…

But, she hadn't kissed him and now here they were. She had to deal with the consequences of that fateful decision. A decision that now had Joss trying to decide if she should push this button and betray everything she had sworn to uphold.

If there was one thing Joss had learned in the year and a half she'd been working with "The Man in the Suit" and his nerdy employer, it was that the world was not black and white and things were not very simple. Sometimes the best thing you could do was to do the illegal thing; John and Finch understood this fact and acted on it. Now it was her turn.

She pushed the button. She was rather surprised by how easy it was to do the illegal thing when she knew it was the right thing. She smiled a tiny smile; John was having a definite effect on her.

"Action complete," the computer responded.

"Yeah tell me about it," she said. Now all she had to do was break into the FBI lab…

(added scene where John thinks he might never see Joss or work the numbers again.)

John stretched out on the cot in his cell, stared up at the ceiling, and sighed. He had been incarcerated before, in worse places than this. He had been in some pretty grim third world holes; places where meals were infrequent, mattress on the floor, and his cellmates had been rodents not much smaller than Bear. He had endured it all, but for some reason this time he was really depressed.

And he knew why. Before, when working for the CIA, he hadn't cared if he lived or died. Death would have been a relief; but now he had a purpose with Finch and the numbers. He had friends and he had Joss… whatever this is.

Joss. He closed his eyes and his lips disappeared into a thin line. The thought of never seeing her again was killing him. He opened his eyes and blinked away the tears that pooled. It was probably better this way, that she didn't know he thought she had hung the moon. She could go on with her life without having to worry about him. She could move on, probably with Beecher. He hoped Beecher would take good care of her; she shouldn't be alone. She deserved a good man. Someone who wasn't John Reese.

"Goodbye, Joss," he said softly to himself, his voice breaking.

Prisoner's Dilemma

(rewrite of the interrogation scene since they have so much shared history in this version)

John faced Joss across the table and forced himself to remain calm. The last thing he wanted was for her to go down with him, and yet here she was, fighting for him like no one ever had before.

He was confused; he wasn't worth losing everything for. She had a good career, her son, and her life yet she was risking it all for a man she knew was a killer. She knew he was a monster so why was she jeopardizing everything for him? He didn't deserve this; he wasn't worth it.

He forced such thoughts from his mind. She was here and she was risking it all for him so he had to perform. They had to convince Donnelly that he was John Warren, not 'The Man in the Suit'. He allowed his mind to briefly return to the interrogation in Iraq. They had been a good team back then. They had completely fooled the prisoner into giving them the information they needed, but Donnelly is a lot smarter and experienced than Rashad was.

Joss was relaxed. Her back was to Donnelly, as well as the camera that was focused on John's face, so while she kept her voice professional and calm, she smiled at him frequently. She was letting him know that he was not alone.

He took advantage of the circumstances to flirt with her. If he failed, he wanted her to know him, to understand him, at least somewhat. The back story he and Finch had concocted for this eventuality was very close to his real story, so she would at least know the highlights of his life. That made him happy. Even if he got sent to prison or got a black hood with a bullet in his head, she would truly know him.

"Ever been married?" She asked.

"No."

"Ever live with anyone?"

"Why, you interested?" John's eyes twinkled at her.

Joss giggled. You have no idea, she thought.

Then there was Donnelly's voice in her ear, pulling her out of the moment as he ordered her to ask about a girlfriend, anyone John may have been in a relationship with. Mentally Joss swore; interrogating someone she knew as well as she knew John was proving to be one of her toughest tests yet.

At this point Finch broke in and asked her to wait. They had not anticipated Donnelly being so thorough and tenacious, and Finch needed a moment to create whole new person out of thin air.

Joss hesitated a second and John ─ sensing that something was going down even if he couldn't hear Donnelly or Finch ─ broke in. "I'm sorry, how many more questions do I have to answer?" he asked in a tired and confused tone of voice, playing the part of the innocent financial manager perfectly.

That gave Joss the time she needed to think. She decided to answer a question that John had asked her earlier, playing her part as the interrogator who was building a rapport with her prisoner.

"Tell you what, I'll answer one of your questions and then you answer mine," she said. John cocked his head to the side and nodded.

"You asked if I ever killed anyone. Interrogators don't spend a lot of time in combat; we spend our time behind the lines, questioning prisoners that are brought to us. I've only been in combat once. I was sent to a forward base to question a prisoner there. There was Sergeant with me, an Army Ranger. I was told he was the best. He was supposed to watch my six and keep me out of trouble.

"We got the intel we needed from the prisoner and we were riding in a convoy headed back to Camp Liberty. The convoy had to drive through territory that was heavy with insurgent activity. We were ambushed. I would have died there except for that Sergeant."

Joss paused and looked over at John. His eyes were locked on her, listening to her and she could tell he was remembering the fight with along with her.

She took a deep breath and went on. "He dragged me out of our transport just before it was hit with a RPG. Thanks to him we were the only survivors. I'll never forget that I owe my life to that man.

"He was busy firing on the insurgents. I took a rifle from a dead man and I covered his back. He had just saved my life. I wasn't going to let anything happen to him, so I killed a few guys who were going to kill him." Joss looked John straight in the eye. "I would do it again in a heartbeat." She saw John look away and blink back a few tears. Message received she thought with satisfaction.

Joss nearly jumped as she heard Donnelly's impatient voice in her ear, "Ask about the girlfriend!" Joss ground her teeth together in frustration over the fact the moment had been destroyed, but gave no outward sign she was unhappy. She didn't want John to get the wrong impression since he couldn't hear Donnelly. Fortunately Finch chose the moment to break in, "I'm ready, Detective. Go ahead."

Joss looked at John smiled. "Now it's your turn again. Ever been in love?" she asked.

John considered the question for moment. He would tell her about Jessica of course, but would he tell her about his feelings for her?

"Twice. First time was a gal named Allison West…" John went on to describe in veiled terms his relationship with Jessica. Joss easily recognized the story, despite the fact that the details were changed.

"When the planes hit the towers I was with Allie in a hotel room in Niagara Falls. I had just gotten out of the service. But as we sat together on that bed watching it all go down, I knew I had to go back. Then I looked at her. She was quiet and trying to be strong. I don't know, maybe I was scared. But when I looked at her I saw this whole other life I knew I would never have if I went back, so I stayed."

Joss' heart ached for the man sitting across from her. She knew the truth of course, that he didn't stay, that he had returned to the service and Jessica had died at the hands of her own husband. She could see the pain in his eyes, but she could not offer him any comfort. All she could do was stay in character and hope she could get him out of here as quickly as possible.

"What happened?" she asked quietly.

John shifted uncomfortably in his eat. "I was an idiot, I let her slip away. Instantly regretted it, but it was too late. It funny how the choices you make change who you become. You pick one path other the other. You hear an explosion at a bank and try to help, suddenly all these years later if I had re-upped when the towers came down, who would I be now?" There was a pause; they both knew the answer to that question.

"You said you had been in love twice. Tell me about the other time."

John smiled. "There was another woman I met after Allie. Her name was Jackie, she was a lawyer. She reached out to me when I was in a very dark place after losing Allie, but it never went anywhere because she was married." He looked directly at her to gauge her reaction. Would she understand what he had just said?

Joss was very glad her back was to Donnelly and she was not being filmed. For a second it seemed like all the air had been sucked out of the room. Jackie? Married? Surely he didn't mean her! She took a breath to steady herself. She blushed. John must be playing with her; that was the only explanation. She had better move on quickly before she gave away the game…

She was incredibly grateful that Donnelly chose that moment to pull her out of the room because one of the other prisoners was ready to talk. Maybe after this was all over she would ask John about 'Jackie'.

(John's feelings when they are caught by Donnelly at the bridge)

After his release, John decided to go to the little bridge where he and Joss had met so many times before. He wanted to go someplace that had a connection to her. He'd been so convinced that he would never see her again that he needed to feed that bond that they shared.

As he approached the bridge, he realized that it was already occupied. His heart soared when he realized that she was here too. He made a decision; it was time to stop running from his feelings. It was time to tell her how he felt, how he's always felt for her, and then he was going to pull her to his body and hold her tight. He was going to kiss her and see where this would take them.

He approached her silently, but she was not startled by his sudden appearance next to her. "Waiting for someone?"

She gave a small half smile and shrug. "No one in particular."

They started strolling down the bridge and John sensed that now was the time. "I couldn't have gotten through this without a friend…" Before he could get to the heart of his speech, Donnelly was there with his gun in their faces. John stared hard at Joss, begging her forgiveness for ruining her life.

"I'm sorry. This is my fault," John nearly choked on his words. He had been such a fool to think they could be together, but now Joss was going to pay the price for his idiocy.

Joss looked at him with those huge eyes of hers. She wasn't angry with him at all, she understood.

The one thing he swore would never happen had just happened. Joss was about to lose everything because of him. His past had caught up with him and was going to destroy her too. He was never going to forgive himself for this, for what he was doing to her. He should have stayed away. He should never have touched her life with his bloody fingers.

John listened with a heavy heart as Donnelly spoke to Joss in voice heavily laced with disappointment and disgust. Joss, the most moral upstanding person he knew, was now officially a dirty cop and it was his fault. Each sneer Donnelly threw at her cut him to his heart. Joss, however, remained calm throughout.

John listened helplessly as Joss defended the work she had done with him. "We're helping people!" she insisted. All John could think was that he would trade all those people he helped to give Joss her life back.

John felt so bleak as Joss insisted he was a good man. No Joss; I was back in Iraq, but not anymore he thought. Then another thought occurred to him. Had Joss helped him because out of misplaced loyalty to the man he used to be? Was she helping John Davis, and not John Reese? He felt sick at the thought.

John never saw the truck coming…