Disclaimer: Credit to Jonathan Nolan, Greg Plageman, and the POI writing team. Bolded sections are straight from the episodes.
A/N: I knew what I wanted to happen in this chapter/episode for years, but this ended up being the last one written! And yes, the story is pretty much finished, all the way through the end of the show. I'll be posting new chapters every Sunday — you know, the day Reese and Elena always run into each other at the park.
QUEENSBRIDGE PARK
Chapter 20: before Lethe
John Reese drifts in and out of consciousness for the next two weeks.
He knows he's in the safehouse. Bear is a constant presence at his side. He's vaguely aware of a doctor coming and going. Finch and Shaw.
During a hazy bout of semi-consciousness, he hears them talking in low voices about Simmons being killed by Elias. And then, he finally lets himself rest.
Elena Cassidy drifts through what's left of her life for the next two weeks.
There had been Ken's funeral, of course. But his family had taken care of everything. They had been kind, but distant, as they had always been.
Thankfully, Ken had a number of relatives who wanted to speak at his funeral. Elena isn't sure what she would have said.
She knows it should bother her, that she wouldn't have been able to talk at length about the man she'd dated for five years, the man she was engaged to, the man she had planned to spend the rest of her life with. That she wouldn't have been able to say anything much different from what everyone else said. That Ken was passionate, principled, dedicated to his career. He was bright and had a promising future ahead of him, tragically cut short.
She wouldn't have been able to say that all the newspaper articles about his heroism and bravery working with Detective Carter to secretly bring down HR was all just a lie.
But that he'd died trying to save her in the end.
In the end, all she really had of Ken's was an old NYU sweatshirt and the engagement ring he'd given her that his family insisted she keep as a remembrance.
And she doesn't know if she's guilty or sad or just tired, but after the funeral, after the thank you cards had been sent out, she feels herself wavering on the dark edge of some sort of emotional abyss.
Then she gets a call from an unknown number.
Normally, she would let the call go to voicemail. But that was before she'd found out John and Harold from the park are even more interesting than insurance company co-workers who own a dog together.
"Hello?"
"Cassidy."
"… Sameen?" she says in surprise.
"I knew there was a brain inside of that pretty little head."
"Is something wrong? Is John —?"
"I need more of your blood."
"I thought you sucked souls, not blood."
There's a moment of surprised silence on both sides of the call.
"I'm so sorry!" Elena exclaims, shocked at herself. "I don't know what —"
"You are starting to grow on me, Cassidy," Shaw decides. "Blood's not for me this time. Sleeping Beauty's looking a little pale."
"Of course. I'm on my way."
"Make sure you eat something. You remember how to get here?"
"Yes."
"Why don't you bring your little dog, too?"
Elena feels a smile coming on for the first time in two weeks. "Are you a dementor, a vampire, or the Wicked Witch of the West, Sameen?"
"What's a dementor?"
Elena actually smiles at that. "Never mind. I thought you're supposed to be one of the good guys?"
"Oh, Dorothy, you're not in Kansas anymore.
John is looking a bit pale, but it's not that deathly pallor like the last time she'd seen him, Elena decides as Shaw pokes her arm, trying to find a vein.
Shaw scoffs at the still-fading bruise from the first transfusion. "Ugh, you bruise like a peach, Cassidy. We're gonna have to toughen you up."
Elena feels an almost distressing urge to smile again at the implication that this isn't just a one-off thing.
There's a commotion at the door as Finch arrives with Bear, and Bailey greets him enthusiastically. Shaw takes advantage of Elena's distraction to stab her with the needle.
"Ow!" Elena drops her voice to a whisper when Reese twitches at her exclamation. "Give a girl a little warning next time, Sameen."
"Warnings are for losers. There's a reason I never became a doctor."
"The 'do no harm' thing?"
Shaw smirks. "Yeah, something like that."
"Good afternoon, Miss Cassidy," Harold greets pleasantly. His gaze at Sameen is a little less warm. "Miss Shaw?"
"You don't like it when I steal from hospitals, so I found a willing blood bag."
"The key word is 'willing', Miss Shaw," Harold stresses.
"Quite willing," Elena assures him, watching in fascination as blood begins to travel from her arm to John's.
A few minutes later, Harold's voice seems to come from far away. "Miss Shaw, don't you think … ?"
"That's enough," John rasps.
The shock of hearing his voice is enough to pull Elena out of the haze that has settled over her.
"John!" she exclaims softly, leaning forward.
"Shaw," he growls.
She reaches out just in time to stop Elena from tipping out of the chair. Keeping a firm hand on her, Shaw quickly cuts off the transfusion line.
"I told you to eat before you got here, didn't I?"
"I did."
"When?"
Elena thinks back. "Yesterday."
"This self-sacrificing thing is getting lame, Peaches," Shaw grumbles, thrusting a half-eaten package of cookies into Elena's hands. "Here, eat these."
Bear watches the exchange curiously, because Hammer Lady never shares her treats with anyone, not even him.
When Reese wakes a few days later, there's a warm weight resting against his right hand. He looks down and sees Bear's head resting on him.
He moves his other hand to pet the faithful watchdog, but there's a similar weight resting on his left hand. When he tilts his head in that direction, he finds another dog there.
Bailey.
Feeling more awake and alert than he has in weeks, he sits up slightly and sees Elena curled up in a nearby armchair, fast asleep. Someone, he presumes Finch, had tucked a blanket around her. There's no sign of Shaw or Finch anywhere.
Moving slowly, carefully, he manages to remove his IV and all the sensors attached to him. Bear and Bailey whine worriedly, but fall silent at his raspy command.
He slides out of bed, and it takes a long moment and several deep breaths to get the room to stay steady. Then he staggers to the bathroom by holding onto any available piece of furniture along the way. He gives his reflection a cursory look, barely recognizing the gaunt man who stares back at him.
He emerges just as Elena wakes with a gasp, sitting upright in panic when she notices he's gone.
"El."
She finally spots him across the room, but she looks even more alarmed at the sight of him.
"What are you doing up?" she asks in concern, hurrying over. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," he grits out, then proves it by taking a step and nearly falling.
She's a few inches taller than Shaw, which makes her just the right height to pull his arm around her shoulders and steady him as he wavers.
She proves less sturdy than Shaw, however, so when a wave of dizziness crashes over him, it nearly sends both of them to the floor. Luckily he manages to catch the edge of a table.
"Sorry!" she squeaks, planting her feet more firmly on the floor and getting a better grip around his waist, remaining mindful of the wound at his side. "Here, lean on me."
He's fairly certain if he does that, he'll crush her.
"Elena, I don't need ..." he starts, only the room swims again, and she does manage to keep him upright this time.
"You were saying?" she prompts, and he concentrates instead on trying not to lean his entire weight on her as they finally make it back to the bed.
"What are you doing here?" he demands as she hooks him back up to all the monitors. He thinks about protesting, but ends up letting her do it anyway. His short trip to the bathroom was a good test of what he's capable of. In another few days, he would be strong enough to leave.
"Keeping Bear company," she says as the canine comes bounding over in a frenzy because Tall Man is awake! "Zit!" Elena orders when Bear makes a move like he's about to leap on the bed.
The dog immediately sits. Bear is extremely well-trained, but Reese thinks he's never seen him obey a command so quickly and perfectly.
With another command, she lets Bear approach the bed, and he immediately comes over and plants his head over Reese's right hand. More shy, Bailey quietly pads over and ends up doing the same at Reese's left.
"Sorry, they like watching you when you sleep," she explains with a small smile, running her hand through Bailey's fur.
"Harold's making you watch me," he realizes. "I don't need watching."
"I volunteered."
"Go home, Elena."
A look of panic crosses her face. It's momentary, but he catches it.
"What is it?"
"I just ... can't go home right now. Please don't make me go home," she requests quietly. "We don't have to talk. I'll even go sit over there," she says, waving to the other side of the room. "But please don't send me away." She swallows hard. "I don't think I can be alone right now," she admits.
Reese wants to think it's just masterful manipulation on Finch's part, since there's no way he's going to send Elena Cassidy away in this state. Not even at his angriest and most bitter.
She looks relieved when he stays silent. She's always been odd like that. Most people are uncomfortable with his silence, and he's used it to intimidate many times. But Elena has never seemed to mind it.
"Come on, boy," she says to Bailey, nudging him off John. "Let's go over —"
"Stay," he says.
And she could think that he was talking to Bailey, only that his hand had reached out to grasp hers at the same time.
He can feel her eyes on him as she slowly lowers herself back into the seat beside his bed. And they both sit there, his hand resting on top of hers, in silence.
A few days later, he makes it to the bathroom without leaning on anything.
Elena is sitting at the dining table when he comes back out. Bear is nosing around her chair, trying to find Bailey, but she hadn't brought the golden retriever with her this time.
"John?"
Maybe it's just the harsh afternoon light coming in through the windows, but there's something different about her. Strained. Brittle. Like a simple touch or loud noise could shatter her.
"John?" she says again, not because she doesn't already have his attention but because she seems to have forgotten she's said his name. "You're going to leave now, aren't you?"
He hasn't said anything, but leaving has been at the forefront of his mind. He can't see the point in staying, continuing to save nameless, faceless Numbers when he couldn't save the most important one that ever came up.
"Would you … could you do me a favor before you go?"
He's always had a hard time refusing anyone who asks for help, but if he's going to stop saving Numbers, he has to learn how to say no.
He's not going to start with her, though. Even from across the room, he can see the fading bruises on her arms from where Shaw had drawn blood for him.
"What is it?" he asks, walking toward her slowly but steadily.
Elena takes a deep breath. Her fingers twist around each other, like they do when she's holding Bailey's leash and is nervous about something. She's determined but uncertain, all wrapped up in an air of defeat. She's turning to him as a last resort.
He stops in front of her. "Elena."
"Will you marry me?" she blurts out.
He blinks, a small burst of surprise shooting through the cocoon he's wrapped himself up in since Carter's death.
Elena hurries to explain. "My grandmother's always wanted to see me get married. She doesn't know Ken's ... dead, or remember what he looks like. He only visited a few of times. She ..." She blinks and looks out the window. "They don't think she's going to be around for much longer, and I thought I'd — I wanted to give her — it won't mean anything. It won't be real, but —"
His hand grasps hers, effectively cutting of the stream of increasingly agitated words.
"All right, Elena," he says, looking at her, truly looking at her, for the first time in a long while. And he sees a mixture of pain and loss and desperation that he knows is mirrored in his own eyes. "I'll marry you."
The Man in the Suit finds himself slipping on his uniform one last time, unwrapping the last new button-down shirt Finch had had made for him, and brushing down the jacket and pants he has on reserve at the safehouse. He even shaves.
Elena watches with detached fascination as John packs a change of clothes with startling efficiency into a small black duffel bag, rolling up a leather jacket and a pair of jeans Elena can't imagine him wearing.
He remembers the box of rings in the drawers where they keep random knickknacks to help with covers, and they find two wedding bands that fit. Elena is grateful he remembers. She and Ken hadn't gotten that far.
They stop at her house on the way to the hospital so she can change into her wedding dress. It's the one she was supposed to wear for her and Ken's courthouse wedding, a '50s style knee-length dress that looks just like the one her grandmother had worn more than a half century ago. She has to ask John to zip her up. He does. She leaves the slip of veil behind.
He buys her a bouquet at the hospital gift shop as she checks them in and talks to her grandmother's doctor. He wants to think that it came about as a burst of inspiration, but it's just reflex, an effort to blend into his role when the receptionist looks at him questioningly.
All the good ones have been taken already, so he settles for some rather tired-looking chrysanthemums for his rather tired-looking bride. She takes one out of the bundle and places it in the buttonhole of his lapel. He lets her.
And as they stand outside her grandmother's room, waiting for the nurse to finish helping her freshen up, Elena catches a glimpse of their reflection in the window across the hall, and for a moment she could truly imagine they were a real couple about to be married.
And her shattered heart crumbles into a few more pieces.
Reese stands in Mrs. Cassidy's room, looking out at the grey waves of the East River. Elena had gone to fetch the chaplain and her grandmother's favorite nurse to act as a second witness.
"What's your name, young man?"
Reese turns. He can't remember the last time someone called him 'young man'.
"Ken. Uh, Parker."
"That idiot boyfriend of Ellie's could never stand to be in the same room with me. So what's your real name?"
The older woman's hair is snow white, her shoulders thin and frail. But the blue eyes gazing at him are sharp, and have a familiar twinkle in them.
Being a good operative means knowing when you've been made. "My name's John," he admits.
"The idiot's gotten himself killed, hasn't he?"
Reese's eyes flick to the newspaper the nurse had tossed in the trash bin when she was tidying up the room. "Elena wanted you to see her get married. She just didn't want to disappoint you, Mrs. Cassidy."
"The only thing Ellie could have done to disappoint me was throw away her life with that boy. She said she was in love with him, but now I've seen the way she looks at you."
There's no time to try to understand what Elena's grandmother has just said, because Elena arrives just then with the nurse.
And five minutes later, Elena Cassidy and John Reese are married, with just the chaplain, her grandmother, and a nurse in attendance.
They celebrate with Coca-Cola and dessert from the hallway vending machine.
The nurses conveniently forget when visiting hours are over, so Elena and Reese stay long past when the sun has gone down.
"Today was a good day," her grandmother sighs. Reese and Elena had ended up on either side of her, each holding one of her hands.
"It was, Grandmama," Elena agrees, just a slight waver in her voice.
"I think I'd rather remember this day," Mrs. Cassidy says carefully, "than live a hundred more only to forget them."
"Grandma ..."
"Ellie, I've lived a long life. It felt longer without your grandfather, then without your father. Time passes so slowly without someone at your side."
"I'm sorry I haven't been visiting as much as I should have," Elena says in guilt-stricken distress. "Just, there's a lot that's been going on —"
Mrs. Cassidy laughs softly. "Oh, Elliebelle, you always think everything's your fault. None of this is your fault. You've wasted enough of your life at my bedside. And I've wasted enough of my life in this bed," she adds. "Hand me my knitting, please."
Used to sudden changes of subject when talking to her grandmother, Elena sets the basket on the side of the bed. Mrs. Cassidy gives Reese a significant look, and he takes a peek. There, buried underneath knitting needles and yarn, is an unused syringe and a vial.
For the second time that day, Reese feels a prickle of surprise. "How did you get these?" he asks.
Mrs. Cassidy smiles. It's not the same as Elena's, but the twinkle in her eyes is identical. "A girl's got to have some secrets."
Elena looks from John to her grandmother. "But ... but ..." No, this is happening too quickly. She's not prepared. She thought she'd have more time — that they'd have a little more time together.
"Breathe, Elliebelle," her grandmother says, and for the first time in a long time, the wrinkled hand that squeezes hers is warm, warmer than hers. "You're going to be all right. And now, I am, too."
"Grandma ..."
"Say it, Ellie. Promise me you'll be all right."
Elena looks at her grandmother for a long moment, eyes tracing over the familiar lines and wrinkles and faded blue eyes.
"I'll be all right," Elena finally whispers.
Mrs. Cassidy turns to face Reese, and blue eyes meet blue.
"Take care of her," she requests, squeezing Reese's hand with surprising strength.
"I will," he promises, and Elena's eyes widen at the sincerity in his voice.
"Wait until midnight, please," Mrs. Cassidy requests. "Today is a good day, your wedding day. It will be your anniversary. I won't ruin that."
Guilt crashes over Elena. "Grand—"
Reese reaches across the bed and places a hand on Elena's. He shakes his head ever so slightly.
She gives him a look of despair, but then he looks at her grandmother. She sees a something on her grandmother's face that she hasn't seen in a very long time.
Peace.
So at 11:59, Reese uncaps the syringe and draws the lethal dose from the vial. At midnight, Elena kisses her grandmother one last time. And at 12:01, he presses the needle into paper-thin skin and depresses the plunger.
Mrs. Cassidy gives him a last grateful look as her eyes drift closed, her chest rising slower and slower as the minutes pass. The blips of the machine grow further and further apart until it becomes one long beep, and Reese and Elena feel her grandmother's grasp on their hands slacken to nothingness.
A nurse comes in and turns off the incessant beep of the heart machine. She moves to pull the bedsheet, only Elena is still holding her grandmother's hand. Reese gently but firmly takes her hand into his and leads her away from the bed.
Elena still can hear the endless beep of the machine ringing in her ears as John leads her out of the room. The nurses and the doctor say something to her, and she must reply adequately because they nod, but she's not sure what she's said. All she's sure of is John at her side as they walk out of the hospital and toward her car.
He knows it's a bad idea, but after parking Elena's car in front of her house, he walks her to her door ... and then follows her inside. Something, the rarely wrong sixth sense of his that knows when someone's in trouble, tells him he can't leave her alone right now.
"Where's Bailey?" he asks, when the golden retriever doesn't make an appearance.
"He died last night," she says, her tone flat. "Old age. I've had him since I was 15."
And Reese, who thinks he doesn't have any heart left to break, feels it break a little more.
She makes coffee just for something to do, even though it's much too late for it. She pours sugar and cream into both cups.
"Oh," she realizes, staring down at the steaming mugs. "I'm sorry, I didn't ask how you take it. I can —"
He reaches out and takes both cups, setting them down on the table since her hands are trembling slightly, and he's sure the cups are too hot for her to be holding them like that.
"It's fine," he assures her.
They sit in silence, letting the moment stretch on and on.
"Thank you," Elena finally says. "Just ... thank you. You didn't have to do any of that. I can never repay you for —"
"Stop."
It comes out harsher than he intends, but he can't stand hearing her thanks.
"Coffee's good," he says. Actually, he thinks it's the best cup he's had in a very long time. "But I think we can improve it."
He steps to the liquor cabinet and pulls out a bottle of the best whiskey she has. After a nod from her, he adds a generous pour to each cup.
And strangely, despite the complete destruction of her life as she knows it, she feels calm as she sits at her kitchen table with John, watching raindrops bead on the window.
"I should probably go change out of this before I spill something on it," she says, gesturing vaguely at her wedding dress.
He nods as she stands, but he hears her hesitate at the foot of the stairs.
"I'll be here," he assures her.
Her footsteps continue up the stairs. He continues to sip his coffee, topping it off until it's more whiskey than coffee.
What are you doing here, Mr. Reese?
Of all the times for that voice in his head that sounds like Finch to make itself known.
"Just saving my last Number, Finch," he mutters, pouring just straight whiskey into his empty cup now.
You can lie to me, Mr. Reese. You have lied to nearly everyone else you've ever met. But don't lie to yourself.
He's about to tell Finch to go do something to himself when Elena's voice floats down the stairs.
"Er ... John? Sorry, can you help me with the zipper again? I think it got stuck."
Yes, she is in danger, he realizes. From him.
Reese drains his cup before he heads up the stairs.
Elena is standing in her bedroom, trying to reach the zipper on the back of her dress. If she can just get a hold of it —
She gasps in surprise as a hand gently touches hip, stilling her. John had materialized silently behind her.
"Lift your hair up?"
Elena does as he asks, and a quick tug later, she feels the metal tab slide smoothly down the length of her back, then cool air hit her skin.
The hand on her hip doesn't move.
She lets her hair fall back down around her shoulders. He's silent. She would think he had gone, if it weren't for the hand still resting on her hip.
Slowly, she turns to face him. His hand doesn't move, but it stays in contact with her waist as she moves, until it's resting on her other hip.
She gathers the courage to finally meet his eyes. He's gazing down at her, and mirrored in his eyes are the pain and sadness and desperation she can feel swirling inside her. But there's something else, too. That strange but undeniable connection they've had since almost the first time they met, that unshakable feeling that he gets her in a way no one else ever has ... or ever will.
Reese doesn't know if he moves first, or if she does, or if it's a little bit of both. All he knows is that one moment, he's staring down into brown eyes that have lost their twinkle but none of their pull, and the next moment, he's kissing her.
She's drowning in his kisses, so bruising and relentless she's soon struggling for breath. Oh, but what a way to die.
They move toward her bed without breaking apart. He lays her down on it, her back hitting the cool sheets. Her hands slide up the front of his shirt, over his chest then over his shoulders, sliding them free of his suit. He shrugs it the rest of the way off, and it falls carelessly to the floor.
He trails kisses down her jaw, then her neck as her fingers run through his short, surprisingly soft hair. His hands run up her back, parting her dress and sliding it off her.
And then she hears a small, gasping voice, seemingly from someone else:
"No."
John freezes above her, then the pressure of his body atop hers, the slight scratch of his cheek against hers, the feel of his lips all disappear, and he's standing across the room, as far as possible from her as the small space allows. And Elena thinks she'd never felt so cold and alone and stupid in her entire life.
He isn't looking at her, at least not directly. His chest rises and falls in the silence, her own breath harsh and rapid, two for every one of his.
"I'm sorry. It's — it's not that I don't want to," she says desperately, clutching her dress to her chest. "I just ... don't think either of us is ready for that yet. And … and the last thing I could stand in the world right now is for you to hate me afterward. I don't think I could take that."
He turns to leave the room. It seems to take great effort, but he pauses in the threshold of her doorway.
"Are you going to be all right?" he asks roughly without turning to face her.
"I ... honestly don't know," she admits.
"Elena. You're going to be all right," he says. It's not a question. "Promise me."
"John ..."
"You promised your grandmother," he reminds her. "Now promise me."
She considers. "Only if you do, too," she insists.
The moment stretches on and on.
"I'll be all right," he finally says in a low voice she has to strain to hear.
"Okay," she accepts. She swallows hard. "I'll be all right, too."
He nods once, an enigmatic movement that could signify understanding or an awful finality or a little bit of both, before striding from the room.
"Where are you going?" she demands, a slight note of panic in her voice as she runs after him. "John —!"
But he's already gone.
Finch's phone rings as he walks Bear down a busy New York street.
"Ms. Shaw," he answers.
"We have a new Number yet?" Shaw demands as she walks along the East River.
"No, not at this time."
"It's been a while," she observes. "Guess the city's scumbags have been behaving.
"We could use a little quiet."
"I don't do quiet. That's why I took this job, and the one before that."
"Not sure I appreciate being associated with your former employers, who tried to kill you," he adds.
"It's not like this job's any safer," she points out. "Speaking of quiet, have you heard from Reese?"
"As soon as he was strong enough to stand, he left without a word."
"Any idea where he went, or when he's coming back?"
"I'm afraid only Mr. Reese can answer those questions. Goodbye, Miss Shaw."
As if on cue, a payphone rings as Finch passes. He stares at it for a moment before resolutely walking past.
But on the next block, a bank of four phones begin to ring as he passes. He walks past those, too.
More than halfway across the country in Colorado, a tall hitchhiker wearing jeans and a leather jacket gets out of a truck as it stops in front of The Roadhouse, a local watering hole.
He walks in. There are a few men playing pool, a few others sitting scattered throughout the place, each minding their own business. He walks up to the bar and scans the photos decorating the wall until he finds the one he's looking for.
"Whiskey," he says to the bartender, throwing some bills down beside the glass. "Just keep 'em coming."
The barkeep's eyes widen at the number of bills, and the numbers on the bills. "Okay."
"What're you trying to pull?" demands one of the pool players. "You think you can hustle me?"
The hitchhiker glances over.
"Come on, man, it's just a lucky shot," says the hustler.
"Well, your luck just ran out, pal!" says the much taller and bigger guy.
He shoves the hustler out of the bar, his friend quickly following.
"Fellas, hey, hey!" protests the hustler. "Hey, come on, somebody help me! Take it easy, guys!"
"Let me know if this is taking it easy!" says the tall pool player, beginning to beat the hustler in the parking lot, in full view of the bar.
Reese stands, and for a moment, it looks like he just might intervene. Then he picks up his drink and walks away, farther into the bar.
A/N: Only reviewer asked if I write Elena with an actress in mind. No, not really. Her general appearance is based on the actress we see briefly at the end of One Percent (s2e14) — brown wavy hair, medium height and build. I think this chapter's the first time I mention she has brown eyes. Are any of you imagining Elena as a particular actress?
