NO GOOD DEED

Lionel Fusco: "Yeah, well, unless you got an address, I'd say that we're both striking out, huh?"

He'll let that one pass, because John knows how it is to be told you haven't tried hard enough by someone who has yet to even try. By someone who thinks they can do so much better, without actually having done anything yet. And, if he does find something that Fusco missed, then he'll rub it in the detective's face.

Harold Finch: "We need to meet, Mr Reese. We've just received another number."

He can see that, yes. He's, after all, right behind Finch, spying on him for more intel. He saw what just happened. And what happened is that Finch got a phone call on a public phone. Which makes him wonder if someone else receives the numbers and relays them to Finch. But that doesn't sound like Finch's paranoia when it comes to the Machine. So he wonders what that was all about.

Harold Finch: "Well, they can't all be babies and mafia dons."

What about baby mafia dons? Or mafia dons' babies? That would be interesting, for sure...

John Reese: "That nice young lady had a .45 pointed at me under her desk. There's a guard and a spin lock on the main door. This isn't a financial firm. It's a SCIF. Sensitive compartmented information facility. Secret government installation designed to protect classified data. Peck's no financial analyst either. He's a NOC, some kind of spy."

Peck's no ordinary guy, then – boring, maybe, but certainly not ordinary.

John Reese: "So how do we spy on a spy?"

He has enough experience dealing with active agents to say it's a hassle, but analysts...?

Harold Finch: "And since every office runs on caffeine, all we have to do is hide a camera and transceiver inside a shiny new coffee maker, wire it to send data out through the electrical system, then wait for them to plug it in."

Death of secrecy by coffee maker. Now he's truly seen everything.

John Reese: "Peck's an intelligence analyst, and from the sound of it, a damn good one."

Sometimes he really appreciates that Finch doesn't ask him how exactly he can do some things, like, say, evaluate the performance of an analyst, when he's supposed to be a field operative – meaning, no expert on the subject of data analysis. Perhaps the man truly does know more than he lets on about his past, or Finch thinks it's common knowledge and / or that John's cleverer than he lets on.

John Reese: "Not calling it 'human interaction' might help."

Not that John is very good at it either, but he, at least, can manage a normal conversation. It's deeper connections that he has trouble dealing with.

Joss Carter: "It was 'the principle of the thing.' At least, that's what Peck said in his meticulous, 78-page brief he sent the judge."

John can do obsessed, too, but he still thinks it's somewhat more... normal, to obsess about revenge or saving lives, than about a speeding ticket. Maybe not healthier, but certainly more normal.

Ed Johnson: "Under executive order 13526, your security clearance is suspended, pending investigation. You're hereby placed on administrative leave, effective immediately."

He can understand the prudence of such a decision, he truly can. They can't let a possibly unreliable person work for the NSA. But as someone who got shot and almost bombed after having been accused of treason because someone wanted him – and Kara – silent, John can also tell what's going on here, and it's not good – or fair – for Henry Peck.

John Reese: "Finch, I know a government-trained assassin when I see one."

The problem being that said government-trained assassin probably figured him out too, for the exact same reason.

Joss Carter: "One of Peck's neighbors called 911, said they saw two men fighting in his apartment. Is everything okay?"

Well, no one died yet, so John guesses it's not so bad, for now.

Harold Finch: "But as I found out myself, the people I've entrusted it to are more... ruthless than I anticipated."

Which is why Finch needs someone like John – not only for the physical aspect of the job, but also because the former CIA operative knows how far people can go, without necessarily assuming that they will go that far. Because John Reese has been part of it. Finch, on the other hand, knows that – and at the same time, doesn't know that. Even now, he doesn't fully realize. Paranoid, and an idealist at the same time. An odd combination.

Harold Finch: "I believe Mr Peck is planning to break into the NSA."

And people call John impulsive – not that he wouldn't do it, if he were in Peck's shoes, except he, unlike the analyst, has the experience and the knowledge necessary not to get himself killed in the process.

John Reese: "Finch? You're not gonna like this."

Going to the police is not so bad a choice... Except in this case. In this case, it'll keep Henry Peck alive for a time, but not in the long run. After all, it's the system he's trying to fight, even if he doesn't realize that fully yet – and the police is part of the system.

Harold Finch: "I suppose we can count our blessings Detective Fusco isn't the inquisitive type."

Had Carter been the one in that interrogation room, she'd actually have listened, and probably understood – she may not have believed it all, but she'd have understood enough, about the Machine, about John and Finch's secret. John had thought, at the beginning of all this, that she wouldn't want to believe if he told her the truth... But if the information came from someone else, someone unrelated to Finch and him, then it'd be another story altogether.

Fox: "Never asked."

Of course he hasn't – and even if he had, what are the odds that he would have been told the truth?

John Reese: "Okay, Peck, let's get you out of –"

...And the guy's gone. Obviously.

Grace Hendricks: "Um, that's Harold, my fiancé."

He's not entirely sure of what all this means, but he can already tell it won't be pleasant. Because if there's one thing John doesn't doubt about all that Finch has told him, it's that everyone believes the older man dead.

Harold Finch: "People – well, people other than Grace – have always been a mystery to me. I failed to recognize the lengths to which they would go to protect the Machine, to control it."

John doesn't have that problem, really, but in a way he can understand. He has stopped expecting anything out of people a long time ago. Not that he doesn't believe they can't do good things, nor that he doesn't hope that they will do the right thing – but he's just not surprised anymore when they don't. He doesn't expect anything – the bad as much as the good – out of anyone. He just goes with it once it happens, whatever "it" is.

To be clear, the thing about John knowing a good deal of things that you might not expect from a field agent... It's just that in my headcanon (crossoverish) he spent some time undercover as an analyst (see The Prisoner, 2009) for a mission, which had him learn a few things (he's still no expert, obviously).

And because I find John does know a lot of things (even when Finch is the genius in this partnership, though it's still visible), and is probably very intelligent, if not in the same way ( or as much ) as Finch. Things that Finch sometimes takes for granted, while he arches an eyebrow when John knows obvious-assassination-things...

... Was that clear?