Jo ran. A stitch cramped her side and forced a limp to her step. She pushed the pain down and tried to channel it into just a little more speed. Somewhere ahead of her, the perp she chased also had to be running out of steam. A little bit more and she'd catch him. She had to stop him before he got away.

Lighting flickered along the alley walls and strobed the sky above. Where thunder should have been, human screams rent the air.

She rounded a corner, then another, the stitch consuming her. Doubling over, she pressed her hands to her ribs and sucked air. She couldn't go any farther; it was too much. How wrong she was to think she could catch up. And what would she have done if she'd succeeded?

A man stepped into view, black Oxfords first. A blue surgical mask covered a face that Jo didn't recognize, though she sensed she was supposed to. She crossed paths with so many people that it was hard to remember them all. Yes, this one was definitely someone she was supposed to know.

The man crossed his blue-latex gloved hands in front of him, and drew in a serious breath. "He's gone," he announced. A significant pause followed, like there was something she was supposed to say before he could continue. When she didn't, the doctor pulled down the mask and Henry peered out at her. His eyes were creased in concentration and the tip of his tongue flicked out to moisten his lips before he clarified, "He fought hard. I'm sorry; he didn't make it."

I know, Jo wanted to scream. I was there! Her voice stuck in her throat. It didn't matter how much she protested; nothing she said could change what happened. He'd died.

He'd died, and she hadn't been able to do anything to stop it.

He'd died.

Jo came awake with a start, the echo of her own gasp hitting her ears a second later. Your fault, she heard from the malleable borders of the darkness. The bed next to her was empty with only a swath of white sheet, an undented pillow, and a blanket bunched where feet should be. A surge of grief rose hard in her chest and she rolled away, turning her back on the vacancy. She couldn't deal with this. Not tonight.

In the daytime, when she could cocoon herself in the obligations of her job, it was easy to believe she had her life under control. Now, out of nowhere, her subconscious had chosen to throw all her trauma back at her and remind her how weak she was. She hadn't been quick enough; she hadn't been careful enough; she hadn't seen the warning signs until it was too late.

Didn't see? she caught herself wondering, or didn't understand what she had seen?

Would it have mattered?

She stared absently at the outline of the window in front of her, the light of the city outside glimmering through, neither the blinds nor the drapes sufficient to keep it all out, yet not illuminated enough for her to see anything clearly. In the distance, thunder rumbled.

She didn't know what time it was, and didn't want to check. These late hours, these small hours didn't pass any faster for the knowing. All she could do was wait them out, letting tears fall if they would come. Tonight, they didn't want to. Her chest ached, pressure built behind her eyes, and all she could do was watch the window, and wait.

The toilet flushed, jerking Jo out of her fugue.

She sat up. A searing burst of pain in her side knocked the last of the sleep from her mind.

"Henry?"

It wasn't him. It couldn't be him. He'd died. She'd knelt in his blood as it spilled from the fatal wound. She'd heard him take his final, rattling breath. She'd seen him.

She'd seen him.

She'd seen him emerge from the river, wet, whole, alive.

Hadn't she?

The bathroom door opened, flooding the bedroom with light that blinded Jo in the instant before it was shut off. She kept her face pointed in the direction where she'd caught a glimpse of a male form in the brilliance, while her fingers curled into the sheets and she steeled herself in preparation for the inevitable polite correction that the figure couldn't belong to the person she wanted to be. This wouldn't be the first time she'd imagined seeing someone who couldn't be there. Nor would it be the first time she had to face the painful truth that it wasn't.

A footstep sounded, and she stiffened more.

"Jo? Are you awake? I didn't disturb you, did I? Those painkillers you took should have allowed you to sleep through an earthquake. A risk, I'll grant, though one I deemed acceptable given that the last significant earthquake to strike New York City was in 1884."

The voice was Henry's.

The useless trivia was Henry's.

She blinked, trying to focus on the figure.

The outline was tall and broad-shouldered, and wrapped in a bathrobe. A robe she could only imagine one person ever wearing. The figure pulled the robe's belt tight and tied it effortlessly into a careful knot.

The tears she'd been denying sprung to the corners of her eyes and she sobbed in relief.

He was here. Henry was here.

"I'm fine," she managed, somehow. Inside, her heart pounded with a force that reverberated in her toes. She could barely hear herself speak over it as she added, "Just a nightmare."

Another roll of thunder, louder, rumbled through the room, as if questioning the truth in her words.

The mattress sank as Henry climbed back into bed, and then his warmth was next to her again, his weight pulling her toward him. Each detail confirmed his realness. "Considering all that happened, a nightmare is not surprising." He slipped his arm around her shoulders, somehow managing to not pull her in any way that would cause her injury further distress. "Would you prefer to try to piece it back together and tell me about it, or is a distraction more in order?"

"A distraction?" she echoed. What could possibly stop her from thinking about everything that had happened?

"Well, since we both appear to be awake and unlikely to return to sleep any time soon, I believe a nice cup of tea is called for. We keep a number of excellent blends on hand."

"Tea?" Jo asked. It could work, though she wasn't certain she wanted to get out of bed either. Besides the issues her ribs presented with mobility, something about going out to the kitchen felt wrong. "Again? First Liam's pouring tea for everyone, and now you are. I mean, I know I can't have alcohol with the drugs you gave me, but right now I'm not sure I care. Don't you have a beer?"

Henry grinned, the corner of his mouth pulling up in that way he employed when he knew he was getting away with trouble, though he offered no counterpoint, nor any sense that he was going to let her defy his medical orders.

"You know, Henry," Jo concluded, "sometimes you are very English."

"Quite," he responded dryly. "Do you have a preference for flavor, or should I use my best judgment?" He started to twist away, to swing one leg off the edge of the bed enroute to standing up while still talking. "I will have to vet your selection, of course, on the chance that what you choose contains any natural remedy that could also come into conflict with your medication—"

"Wait!" Jo caught at Henry's arm at the last second, stopping him. "Stay here." A sudden fear sprang up like a burst water main that Henry would vanish again, disappearing into the half light of the pre-dawn, this time never to return. "Let's just stay here."

A brief hesitation, then Henry capitulated. Settling himself back against the pillows, he tugged the sheets up over his legs. He wasn't going back to sleep, though. Nor even trying. Her vision had continued to adjust and now she could make out the pale glow of Henry's face in the weak light. A dark line creased the center of his forehead from his frown of concern as he studied her, waited for her to tell him why he needed to stay. When she didn't respond right away, he reached the obvious conclusion: she'd turned down tea, which left only the other option.

"What happened in your nightmare?" His voice was gentle, yet encouraging. "Do you remember?"

She nodded, then shook her head. "Not really." She frowned, trying to pull all the threads of her thoughts together. The adrenaline that had spiked when the toilet flushed was already starting to lose its potency under the pressure of the sedative that still circulated through her body. It was hard to think, and harder still to separate reality from nightmare. "It wasn't anything like I'd imagined."

"It?" Henry prompted.

Jo blinked, turning her gaze slowly toward Henry while she grappled with confusion as to what he didn't understand. How could he not know? He'd been there. He'd warned her. But his brow was knit and the passing seconds didn't do anything to smooth it. "Henry," she said, feeling ridiculous at having to spell it out, "you died."

I'm sorry; he didn't make it.

He nodded, but still didn't show he understood.

"I didn't think it would be like that," Jo murmured toward the mattress.

"That I vanish at the moment of termination has always confounded me," he agreed. "That type of physical teleportation—"

"Nooo!" Jo started to flap a hand in frustration, then forced herself to sit on it instead for fear of becoming more demonstrative than her body was ready for. "I mean, the disappearing is weird. But you died."

The crease between Henry's eyes deepened.

"Tommy, I mean, Kenny. Christ, he really pulled the wool over our eyes. Kenny shot you, and I-I watched you. I saw you bleed. Saw you suffer. I saw it all, not as part of a story you tell or a joke you make, but what really happens. You were mortally wounded and you had to feel every second of it knowing what you would feel, and knowing what it meant. How long did it go on for?" She shook her head, silencing her inappropriate desire for an answer because it didn't matter; any time was too much. "Your heart stopped, your breathing stopped, and you were still conscious." Bile rose in throat as the memory of Henry's death once again played out in her mind. "I … had no idea."

Again, Henry nodded, but this time it was slower, abbreviated. "It was not ideal. Though, being shot is far from the worst way to die, especially when it's a chest wound, as that one was, allowing the onset of terminal mortality to happen rapidly. In this case, the overall timing was inopportune and the circumstances significantly less structured than the demonstration I had planned for you. I am sorry you had to have your first hands-on—as it were—experience in that way."

"Me?! You're the one who died. God, I can't believe I just said that." Jo felt her face begin to burn at her inability to be tactful. She was better than this, had always been the one who knew just what to say to the people she interviewed, and now she… "Wait. Did you just say you'd planned…You were going to…Henry!?"

"I have found that no explanation is as effective as a demonstration."

This time, she couldn't stop herself from moving. Jo grabbed for the lapels of Henry's robe, clutching at the soft cloth with a grip that caused her nails to bite into her flesh. "No! You can't. Do you have any idea what you're talking about?"

Gently, Henry freed her hands. From outside came another rumble of thunder from the storm still trapped on the other side of the river. For a moment, the sound pulled Jo's attention away from what she'd just done, making Henry's escape that much easier. The curtains were drawn on the window and the storm was too far away, hidden behind too many buildings, for her to see anything, yet Jo imagined the sky brightened with a cascade of lightning.

"It doesn't matter what the method of termination is, nor does it matter what the intention behind it was. I'll return, as whole and healthy as if no harm had ever come to me," Henry reminded her.

"I know—"

"Every. Time." He shifted, better shaping the pillows that supported his back. The headboard groaned. "No matter how painful it is—or how drawn out it may seem—the act of dying is only a temporary inconvenience for me, not a traumatic event."

She stared at him. He was humoring her; he had to be. Was she supposed to believe he meant this? He sounded confident, yet she'd heard enough of his death stories to wonder if telling them wasn't some kind of coping mechanism. But, that wasn't an argument she wanted to have, especially right now. The pain meds still fuzzed the edges of her thinking, and maybe she wasn't making as much sense as she thought. "Fine," she capitulated. "Just don't do it again."

"Pardon?"

She drew a breath in, careful not to strain any stitches. "What I mean is, I don't wanna watch you die. It's not—I don't—" She stopped, suddenly unable to put into words a thought that had seemed so clear just a second before. "I've never been squeamish around bodies. Or, if I was, I got over it so fast in Academy that I don't remember. You know I don't even remember the first autopsy they took us to observe? I see homicides every day, and I feel for the people who died and the family they left behind. I really do. But it's done, and nothing's going to change that."

Henry made a non-committal humming noise as he tried to work out what her point was.

"God, I don't know!" Jo pulled back, frustrated at her own muddling.

If she could have leapt up and paced around the room, she would have. The bed suddenly felt too small for the tumult inside her. Instead, she shoved at the lump of quilt that lay folded across the base of the bed. "But it still changes things. Everything that happened last night changes… everything. What am I supposed to tell Rhonda?" she asked. "She's going to spend the rest of her life believing Kenny is still out there and that he might come back at any time to finish the job. How can I look at her and lie to her? How can I just let her believe he's still alive?

"And Reece? What am I supposed to say to her? I haven't checked my phone for hours—" Her eyes widened with the implication of what she'd just said. She'd turned her phone off after getting in the car with Richie and it hadn't occurred to her since to change that. She was supposed to always have it on, always have it within reach. What if she'd missed another call from Reece? What if Rhonda had taken a turn for the worse? What if there'd been another homicide—the kind that didn't involve people with supernatural secrets—and she'd been needed on the scene? Jo twisted toward the nightstand—too fast. A grunt escaped at the searing pain that sliced up her rib cage.

Before she could react further, Henry retrieved the phone—her phone—from where it had been charging on his side of the bed and handed it to her with a rueful smile. It was already powered up. "I could not in good conscience disturb your rest, and have already taken the liberty of calling Reece and informing her you won't be in for the rest of the week."

"You what?" Anger surged in her; he had no right. He hadn't even asked her…

In response, Henry touched a spot on her abdomen outside the edge of the bandage. Jo glanced down toward her ribs which were now properly stitched, bandaged, and salved, yet throbbed through her pain medicine with a constant reminder that she wasn't going to be able to lift anything heavier than a milk jug for some time. It took Jo a beat to realize he was indicating where the bullet would have entered if she hadn't reacted so quickly. A few centimeters to the right, and they wouldn't be having this conversation at all. Henry would've gotten back up from that, but she wouldn't. Maybe everything hadn't changed.

"Oh." She slumped, the fight receding as fast as it had emerged. "Sorry."

"The circumstances required me to make certain decisions without your knowledge," he explained. Of course he hadn't checked with her before calling Reece; she'd been unconscious and he'd made the best decision in the moment he could make. He was looking out for her, taking care of her when she needed it the most. The same as she would with him, because that's what couples did for each other. "I don't believe you've missed any communications of importance."

"Well, I didn't miss any calls," Jo confirmed, at the sight of the phone icon without any red message numbers on it. She'd take that as a good sign about Rhonda.

Henry gave a sharp nod, as if they'd both just said the same thing.

"But I did miss something." She opened the text messaging: a couple from Hanson, wanting to know where she was and if she'd heard; one from Susan, updating her on the menu plans for an upcoming family dinner; and two from an unknown sender. She turned the phone to Henry so he could read them with her.

The first rounds on you, it said. The seconds on me. Thx.

A few seconds later, an addendum—as if she needed one to know who the sender was.

My phones toast. M says hi.

"So now we're going to become drinking buddies," Jo commented.

"I hardly think two drinks constitutes 'drinking buddies'…"

"I watched him kill someone last night, Henry. You and me, we stood there and watched him. And, I don't know about you, but I rooted for him. I wanted him to kill that ki-guy." Her gaze flicked toward the window where a burst of lightning lit up the sky, so much like the earlier storm and yet not at all the same. "Is this who I am now?"

"Jo, needless to say yesterday's events were a shock in a number of ways—for both of us. As you will not be returning to work until next week, and I'm owed a day or two of sick leave, and we still have several days until Abraham is due to return from his excursion, we have plenty of time to engage in some introspection and decision making." Henry's expression gentled. "Though it seems to me, we've already recognized the important lessons."

"Is this your way of telling me I should stop asking the hard questions and go back to sleep?"

"As your doctor, I cannot make a stronger recommendation. As your…partner…, allow me to remind you that I'll be right here when you wake up."

"Promise?"

Guiding her finger, Henry used it to sketch a cross over his heart, over the scar from the bullet wound that had killed him the first time. His body heat radiated warm and oh so alive through the cloth. That was all Jo needed to stop fighting the pain medication and to allow them to pull her back under where, this time, she had nothing to escape from.