Chapter 47: Fractured

Every word hit him like a blow. A punch to the gut.

The bad thing about it was that he should have seen it. Everyone else had seen it but him.

Zoe had seen it. I don't know if you even know what you're looking for.

No, he hadn't known what he was looking for. He'd known, somewhere, that he wasn't going to find it with Zoe; and maybe, somewhere deep inside, he'd known that he could find it in Joss. But he hadn't expected her to lay it all out for him; hit him with it like this. Hadn't expected such bluntness—no, honesty. Because he could feel it deep in his gut; every word she'd said was true.

Stunned and reeling, he barely processed it when she climbed off the bed, disappeared in her bathroom, and came back out dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. Barely processed it when she handed him clean underwear, a fresh set of clothes; he put them on robotically. Barely processed when she handed him a cardboard box with his casual clothes in it, the contents of the bottom drawer of her dresser. Barely understood when she brought out a zippered suit bag from the back of her closet, the suits that had become a sort of uniform when he was working with Finch's numbers.

She shrugged on a jacket, walked him out of the apartment, helped him put the box of clothes in the trunk, neither of them speaking. He was still stunned, she walked beside him in what he knew was silent sympathy but an unyielding firmness. He knew it was useless to argue with her; there would be no 'them' until he made a decision about himself, one way or another.

She understood that he was stunned by what she'd told him. He never really was good at examining his own feelings. Give him something to shoot at, a concrete goal, he was good with that. He was going to wrestle with this for a little while.

She stood barefooted on the sidewalk outside her apartment, barely feeing the cold of the concrete sidewalk in December seeping into her feet, barely noticing the tiny icy drops of rain starting to fall. She watched the taillights of the GTO heading off down the block. Just as it made the turn at the end of her street the bright crimson light blurred for a moment, and she felt hot tears sliding down her cheek. Jesus, but she missed him already.

The single tear started a flood and she retreated back to her apartment, already crying bitterly. There was a chance she would never see him again. She knew that, had known that as soon as she'd known that there was no way that just showing him she loved him was going to make a difference in the way he saw himself. Since they'd come back from the Catskills—since that first night, after dinner at Ettienne's, actually—she'd seen the walls he built up around himself, between the various parts of his personality. It had never been more evident than the night Aleksa had drugged him. He'd been unable to hold back the wild side of himself, the wild side of his personality, but he'd been so ashamed of that part of himself, ashamed and afraid of 'Reese' and what he was capable of doing, that he hadn't once realized she'd wanted it too.

She'd seen the question in his eyes that night at the gym. Can you love me as I am? Even knowing this is what's in me, can you love me the way I am? The question he didn't even know he was asking, the one thing he'd been looking for and never found. The reason why it wouldn't have worked with Jessica, the reason why he'd broken it off with Zoe. The reason why he was so drawn to her.

It was the same question she'd silently asked Paul through the years of their marriage. And his answer had, over and over, been 'no'.

Her answer to John Reese had been 'yes'. Hell yes. God damn, she loved the man.

But he had to love himself first. He had to be whole. She needed him whole. And even though he might not realize it, he needed himself whole, too. She'd hoped that he'd eventually understand, hoped, through the last few months since they came back from the Catskills and they'd built the beginnings of a real relationship, that he'd see this, understand this. Understand how much she needed him to be just who he was. She'd hoped her love for him would help him break down that wall between 'John' and 'Reese', that his relationship with both her and Taylor would help him grow emotionally. But she finally had to admit it wasn't going to happen unless he decided to do it.

But she'd taken a chance when she let him go. He might be too afraid of the wild stranger named Reese inside himself; oh, he embraced Reese's talents, skills; didn't hesitate to use them when working on Finch's numbers, and especially in defense of the people he cared about, the people he loved—like her—but he was afraid of that part of himself. Afraid of the skills that 'Reese' had even when he used those skills. He couldn't see that he didn't need to be afraid of Reese, didn't need to be afraid of what Reese would do around those he loved, because John was there to balance Reese.

And because he was afraid, he might choose to stay fractured. And she would lose the man she loved.

The thought was unbearable. She retreated to her room, gulping down sobs, and the first thing her eyes landed on was the teddy bear John had brought her in the hospital, the bear with burgundy fur. She grabbed the bear off her dresser, lay down in bed with it, curled around it.

Come back to me, John. Find yourself and come back to me. Please. I love you.


He paced.

The Baxter street apartment no longer felt like home. He'd been gone three days. It felt like a lifetime.

But really, he hadn't called the place 'home' for a while. Home, for him, had come to mean Joss's apartment. Home, for him, was wherever she was. Except now it wasn't.

Unable to remain still, unable to bear the confines of the apartment, he stuffed his feet into running shoes, hit the pavement. He barely noticed the cold December air, the biting winter wind; he didn't care that he didn't have a coat on.

He wanted to be angry with Aleksa Nikolaevna. Her drugs had set loose the wild stranger named Reese; had set in motion the whole chain of events that had lost him the best thing he'd ever had in his life. But as he continued to run, the cold air burning his lungs, he knew he couldn't even really blame it on her.

A small, spiteful voice deep inside him wanted to blame it on Joss. Why couldn't she just take what he handed her instead of wanting more? Jessica had been happy with what he offered. Zoe had been happy with what he offered. Neither had asked for anything more; they didn't accept all of him, but they didn't ask for more than he wanted to give. Why couldn't Joss accept him the way he was?

But as he ran, breath laboring in his chest, he dismissed that. He couldn't blame it on her. She had a dark side, too—and his stride faltered as he remembered her in that purple-red nightdress. The black lace cups had covered her breasts even while they accented her cleavage; just fanning the flames of his desire. He wanted her. Loved her. God, how he loved her.

But she had been hurt by someone she loved. Someone she'd loved enough to marry, someone she'd loved enough to have made a commitment to spend the rest of her life with. Someone she'd loved enough to trust completely. And Paul Carter had betrayed her trust, her love, in the worst way possible by not accepting her for who she was, by cutting her feelings open, by hurting her in the worst way a woman could be hurt. And yet, she'd had the courage to open her heart again, to admit to John that she loved him, to put aside the hurt and pain and anger and fear that Paul had caused, and try again. With him. She'd laid her heart open for him. She'd trusted him enough to be completely honest with him. She'd promised she'd never lie to him about anything he'd needed to know.

No, he couldn't blame her for this, because he'd needed to know this.

And she had been right, he thought as he dashed his arm across his forehead, wiping away the cold icy drops of freezing rain that had started to fall as he ran. He'd loved Jessica, had thought that he could be happy with her for the rest of his life. But now he could see where he'd held back with her, had kept certain parts of him private because she didn't understand why he wanted to do certain things. Like go to the firing range with his service weapon. Making sure he kept his skills honed. Why he went out some nights, just looking for trouble; why she'd had to come to the police station every so often and bail him out after he'd gotten into a fight with someone at a bar who'd had too much to drink.

She'd even asked him, once, after bailing him out yet again, why he kept going and looking for trouble. Wasn't being with her enough? Why did he keep looking for something more? And his answer to her had been 'You wouldn't understand.' In fact, a lot of his answers to her questions had been 'you wouldn't understand'. Because she didn't. She didn't want to understand the wild side of him, and so when he did things that appealed to that side of him, it mystified, exasperated, and annoyed her.

And thinking about it…Joss was right. Jessica had done him a favor, although she hadn't done herself a favor by running off with Peter. Anyone but him would have been better…John shook his head, distantly realizing his hair was soaked from the hard freezing rain that was now pouring down. The streets were nearly deserted; he was running with his own thoughts. Joss was right, eventually compartmentalizing himself would have soured his relationship with Jessica. Keeping parts of himself hidden hadn't done either himself or Jessica any favors.

And Zoe. John's lips curved in a tiny smile. Zoe wasn't looking for anything deeper or more meaningful than a brief fling. Momentary gratification. Independent, and proud of her independence, she was a free spirit, going where she wanted to, doing exactly what she wanted to, when she wanted to. She would never be married, have kids, settle down. Heck, she would never even have a permanent address.

At one point that had appealed to Reese. Carefree and uncomplicated, no strings attached, their relationship had been one of bubbles. Each of them in their own little world, touching sometimes, and when they touched they melded, stuck together for a short time, then drifted back apart. Uncomplicated. No strings, no commitments. And Reese liked it that way. John couldn't remember a time when he'd been able to be 'John' with Zoe. Especially not in bed.

But…Joss. Oh, Joss.

Something cold touched his face, stuck to his eyelashes; when he dropped his arm, he saw the single bright snowflake that had landed there. He paused for a moment in his run, looking at that snowflake. Six sides. Symmetrical. Large enough that he could see its delicate beauty, the different lines that swept out from the center. Unique—hadn't he heard, once, that each snowflake was unique, had its own pattern? Joss was like the snowflake. You didn't even have to look that deep to see her uniqueness, her distinct, delicate beauty. Paul Carter had been a blind, stupid fool not to see what he had when he had it.

But wasn't he being blind and stupid right now? Joss was offering him something precious; herself. And all he had to do was be himself, accept himself. Stop compartmentalizing. Stop splitting himself off, being Reese one minute John the next.

Just be John Reese.

But—and the realization hit him like a brick—he didn't know how to be himself. He'd fractured so long ago, compartmentalized and separated himself, both because his job demanded it and because the people in his private life demanded it, that now he didn't know how to be what he was. He couldn't do what Joss wanted him to do, be what she wanted him to be, because he didn't know how.

"I don't know how," he whispered as he sat down hard, there, in the middle of the sidewalk, then fell over from sheer exhaustion, exhaustion he hadn't even felt until he stopped moving. "I don't know how, Joss, please tell me how!"

"John?" came an incredulous female voice, and he rather vaguely realized someone was standing there. He looked up, squinted against the glare of the street light. The figure was blurry. He couldn't see the face, the features. "John?" the figure asked again. "What are you doing?"

"I don't know how," he whispered. "I don't know."


Sam had been about to get into her car as she left the seedy little dive behind her when she'd seen movement out the corner of her eye. She'd whirled, looking for trouble, but it was only a man collapsing on the sidewalk. But there was something familiar about him, and as she turned to look at him fully, she realized two things. One, his clothes were soaked, it looked like he'd been running for quite some time now through precipitation that had started as rain, turned to freezing rain, and now was snow. Two, he wasn't wearing a coat. And as she stepped a little closer, she recognized who it was and her heart leaped into her throat as she ran toward the figure lying crumpled on the sidewalk. "John? John, what are you doing?"

He looked up at her. "I don't know how," he murmured, sounding dazed. "I don't know."

His eyes were dilated; his cheeks were flushed. But when she reached out to touch his arm, his skin was icy cold. "Jesus, John!" How long had he been out here like this?

She didn't know, and he couldn't stay out here another minute. His skin was so cold that her hand on his arm had raised a burn welt; her normal-temp, ninety-eight-point-six-degree hand had burned his arm. "Come on, John. We gotta get you home." She shrugged out of her coat and threw it over his shoulders, disregarding the snow and rain that fell on her, then got under his arm and heaved him up, heading for her car.


Tony Walker frowned as he saw two uniformed NYPD officers walk into the visiting room at Riker's. "Talk fast," he snapped. "I need to get my sleep. The doctor says I have to have surgery tomorrow." The bullet that the tall man had put in his shoulder had shattered his collarbone, and surgery tomorrow was supposed to put a pin in the bone to straighten it and hold it as it healed.

"I'm Detective Robinson," said the fat, florid guy who looked like he wanted to be somewhere sipping coffee and eating a doughnut. Anywhere but here. "This is Detective Simmons." Walker liked Simmons immediately. Blond, tall, there was a hard ruthless look in his eyes that spoke of a nature like Walker's own. "We'd like to talk about a deal."

Walker waved a hand. "Been there, done that with the DA. No deal."

"Not that kind of deal," Simmons said tightly, leaning forward. "A quid-pro-quo deal. Which I think you're going to like. The cop bitch that you took up to the Catskills…we'd like you to finish the job you started on her."

Walker narrowed his eyes even as his heart leaped. "How the hell do you expect I'm gonna do that sitting in here?" he spread his arms wide, the gesture encompassing the prison around him.

"As I said, a quid-pro-quo deal. We tell everyone you died on the table during the surgery tomorrow. You get to leave the hospital as a free man, with a new identity. And in payment for that, you have to finish the job you started on Carter."

Walker folded his arms. Tempting . Real tempting. "Sounds like a setup to me. You're cops. Why you gonna have someone like me take out one of your own?"

"I'm part of an underground organization here in New York called HR," Simmons leaned forward again. "We have members in some very high places. Police department. Hospital. The Mayor's Office. Customs. We have eyes and ears everywhere. But lately Carter's been sniffing around. She was a danger to our organization even before you did your spectacular kidnap job. If it wasn't for those mercenaries who found her—and the Man-in-the-suit—and got them off the mountain, the problem of Joss Carter would have been eliminated then.

"But now that media attention has wandered on to the next big thing, we can address the problem. We need to take her out before she deals a blow to our organization that we'll have a hard time recovering from. The head of our organization is extremely highly-placed in the Mayor's Office and he can't afford to be uncovered. So she needs to go. And if you can take out the Man-in-the-Suit too, that would be a bonus.

"You go under the knife tomorrow. We'll have our plants at the hospital put out that you died in surgery. When you wake up, you'll have a new identity, and an address here in the city. You take out Carter, and the Man-in-the-Suit too, if possible—and you can go on your way, all debts paid, free and clear." A grim smile. "If you like, we could even arrange for a cross set up at your safehouse so you can crucify her after you get her. Whatever you want, either for her or the Man-in-the-Suit, we can get you."

Walker smiled. He liked that idea. Liked it a lot. "So where do I sign up?"