Disclaimer: Credit to Jonathan Nolan, Greg Plageman, and the POI writing team. Bolded sections are straight from the episodes.


QUEENSBRIDGE PARK

Chapter 41: after The Devil You Know


Bear whimpers as he watches a tranquilized Shaw sleep.

"How much did Root give her?" Reese asks Finch.

"Enough to stop a bull, apparently."

"She's gonna be madder than one when she comes to," Reese warns.

"I'm afraid we had no choice," Finch murmurs. "Ms. Shaw's cover is blown. Our survival depends on her seclusion."

A Samaritan operative had shown up at the department store that morning and did her best to turn Shaw into Swiss cheese, civilian casualties be damned. Shaw had gotten away with help from Root, but her insistence on helping with their most recent Number (Carl Elias) had forced Root to sedate her to bring her back to the subway.

Reese turns to Finch. "So how do we proceed now, Harold?"

"With extreme caution, Mr. Reese," Finch says ominously. "The events of the past few days have made our world more dangerous than ever before. Perhaps we should let her sleep."

Bear whines again, and Reese calls him away from Shaw.

"Perhaps you and Miss Cassidy can entertain Bear while Miss Shaw rests?" Finch suggests.

Reese gives Finch a sidelong glance, but Finch looks the picture of innocence. "If you want to deal with Shaw alone when she wakes up, be my guest," he says as he texts Elena.

"I'm sure Miss Groves will return shortly."

While Reese waits for Elena's reply, he sets the weapons stash in order, updating his mental catalog of what they could use more of ... in the off chance they can raid someone else's illegal stash, of course.

He checks his phone. The text sits delivered, but not seen. It's only been twenty minutes, but Reese can't shake the feeling that something's wrong. He dials Elena's number. The call goes straight to voicemail.

"Harold? Have you heard from Elena lately?"

Finch pauses, thinking back to when he'd last spoken with her. "Yesterday she said she was going to be busy working the next few days and wouldn't be able to take Bear."

"Busy working?" Reese's heart begins to beat a little quicker. "Busy working where, Harold?" he asks, a steelier edge to his voice. "At the museum?"

Surely not at the store.

Finch is already typing quickly at his computer. After getting Elena's voicemail once more, Reese stalks over to Shaw's cot and shakes her by the shoulder.

"Shaw. Shaw, wake up."

He takes a quick step back and blocks the punch that comes flying at his face as Shaw wakes.

"Wha—?" She glances around the subway, her sluggishness quickly melting away. "How'd I end up here?"

"Your cover's been blown. Root drugged you and took you back here to stop you from getting killed."

"I'm going to kill that —!"

"You can in a minute. Now focus: Was Elena working at the department store?"

She thinks for a moment, trying to remember the boring hellhole of the beauty counter before Samaritan's hit lady blew it up. "No."

"You sure about that?"

"Yeah, we work the same counter, John. She would've been standing right next to me ... unless she was covering for Natalie again ..."

"Found it," Finch declares. Despite the minimal security surrounding the department store's internal computer system, locating Elena's timecard had taken longer due to a dodgy filing system. "John? Miss Cassidy was there. She clocked in at 10 a.m. and ... never clocked out."

"That doesn't mean anything," Shaw snaps. "I didn't clock out. Who would remember to swipe their timecard after what happened?"

"She's not answering her phone. I'm going to look for her," Reese says, heading for the stairs.

His phone rings. His work phone. He closes his eyes momentarily, hoping he's not needed at the precinct now.

"Riley," he answers.

"Detective Riley? NYPD?" an unknown voice asks on the other end.

"That's right."

"This is Nurse Harrison at New York General. I'm calling about Elena Cassidy?"

The world grinds to a halt. Finch and Shaw exchange disbelieving looks. Reese just manages not to lose his grip on his phone.

Somehow, he finds the words to answer, in a voice that sounds nothing like his own. "Elena. She's ...?"

"Elena was seriously injured in a shooting downtown earlier today. She's stable now. She got out of surgery a few hours ago."

Relief doesn't begin to describe what he's feeling.

"We couldn't find an emergency contact since her phone was broken during the shooting." The nurse is still talking. "You're a hard man to find, Detective Riley. Do you know how many people named Riley work for the NYPD?"

"How ... did you know to look for me?"

"She came to a little while ago and kept saying your name." Something clenches hard in Reese's chest. "You and someone else. A Lionel Futzo? Couldn't find him, but I've been calling Rileys at the NYPD all afternoon."

"I'll be there in five minutes." He turns to Finch and Shaw, his expression carefully blank. "Call Fusco and tell him to meet me at the hospital. Find her chart and tell me about it on the way."

"There's no way he'll make it to General in five minutes," Finch says blankly.

"Oh, he'll make it," Shaw assures him. "Better start hacking the hospital's database so he knows what's waiting for him when he gets there, Harold."

Exactly 2.7 minutes later, Shaw is reading off Elena's chart to Reese.

"She was shot just once, in the leg. But the bullet hit her femoral. Looks like she lost ..." she raises her eyebrows almost admiringly. "A lot of blood. A lot. Like, really, Pixie should be —"

Finch hits the mute button. "Miss Shaw, I really don't think that's helpful," he admonishes.

With a warning look, he reopens the connection.

"She's, uh, the same blood type as you, in case she needs a transfusion," Shaw volunteers. Finch winces. She rolls her eyes. "And, you know, when she wakes up, tell her I'm sorry she got shot," she adds.

Finch looks around his workstation before inspiration strikes. "I'll ensure Miss Cassidy gets transferred to a private room," he says. "And Detective Fusco should be arriving shortly, Mr. Reese."

Reese hangs up without a word. Alone in the subway, Finch and Shaw look at one another, helpless once more.

"Well, this has been a banner day for the team," Shaw says sarcastically. "What else can go wrong?"

"I really don't want to know the answer to that question, Miss Shaw."


The nurse shows Reese to Elena's room, and when he sees her familiar brown waves peeking out from between pillows, wires, and monitors, something that had been tight in his chest since leaving the subway relaxes slightly at the sound of the steady beeping filling the room.

"She'll be out for a while longer, but you can sit with her," Nurse Harrison prompts when she sees him hesitating in the doorway. "The doctor should be by soon to check on her. She can tell you more about her injury." She gives him a look over. "You're her boyfriend?"

"Uh, yeah," Reese agrees, quickly rationalizing there would be fewer questions about his presence.

As the nurse leaves, Reese looks down at Elena. Aside from a small cut on her cheek and the bulky lump the blanket makes over the bandages of her leg, she looks as if she'd just fallen asleep on her couch while watching some mindless television show.

Still, she's so pale. And her chest barely rises and falls with her breathing. His eyes flick to the monitors beside her just to be sure.

He touches her hand. It feels cold. She hates the cold.

"Hello, Nurse Harrison says you're Detective ...?"

The doctor, a former Number, stops short, her eyes widening in recognition.

"Doctor," Reese greets. "Detective John Riley."

"Yes, Detective ... Riley," she says uncertainty. "I'm Dr. Enright. Miss Cassidy is your ...?"

"Uh, girlfriend," he says, since the nurse returns at that moment with Lionel. "This is Fusco, my partner," he adds.

"I've known Ellie since she was a kid, Doc," Fusco says, staring in shock at the still figure in the bed.

"She was very lucky. The bullet struck her femoral artery. We operated to repair the damage, and her leg should heal nicely.

"It was the blood loss that caused problems. The EMTs said she managed to make a tourniquet using an extension cord at the store, but she still lost quite a lot of blood. Her heart stopped once on the way here, and again during surgery, but we were able to restart it quickly. Your girl is a fighter. She'll probably be out of it for another hour or two before the sedatives wear off."

"Thanks, doctor," Reese says, as Lionel moves a few steps closer to Elena. With a last questioning look at Reese, Enright departs.

"She looks like a fairytale princess," Fusco muses, almost to himself. "That's what her dad always called her. Princess. But she's always been Queen E to me." He meets Reese's eyes. "How did this happen to her, of all people?"

"She was just ... at the wrong place at the wrong time, Lionel."

"No," Fusco says, shaking his head. "She should never have been in that store in the first place. Why did she get a job there with Shaw? Why is she your neighbor? Why —?"

"It's such a small world, isn't it? Full of random coincidences?" Root strolls in. She gives Elena a passing glance as she reaches over to turn on the TV.

"... bullets flying everywhere," a customer is being interviewed by the local news station outside the store. "A sales lady pulled me behind the counter, and then told me to run when the shooting stopped. She saved my life!"

"Mr. Reese," Finch's voice sounds in his ear. "I was able to find surveillance footage from the store."

Reese pulls out his phone and plays the clip Finch sends over.

Customers flee and cosmetics fly as gunfire rains across the beauty department. Elena crouches behind a counter, trapped with the customer who had just been on the news. There's a momentary lull, and instead of running for safety herself, Elena pulls the customer to her feet and pushes her toward the exit. The second of hesitation, however, is enough, and a bullet hits Elena in the leg.

Elena falls back behind the counter as blood begins pouring down her leg. She manages to yank an extension cord from the floor and pull it tight above the wound, but already the blood has soaked the skirt of her dress. A moment later, her eyes slip closed, and she slumps to the ground.

The video ends, the screen frozen on the image of an unconscious Elena lying amid the debris behind the beauty counter.

"Looks like Little Miss Normal is a hero. Maybe even employee of the month."

"Don't be jealous," Fusco snaps at Root. "You subtract the number of people you've killed from the number you've saved, and I bet you Ellie's now got at least one up on you." He glances at Reese. "Probably one up on all of us," he adds more quietly.

His phone beeps. "Ah, Lee's heard about the shooting. I've gotta go see him. Will you let me know if anything changes with Ellie?" he asks Reese before his eyes flick over to Root. "Or are you going to be too busy?"

"I won't leave her side," Reese promises.

Fusco gives him a long, hard look before he nods and leaves.

"Fine, Romeo," Root sighs. "I'll take the next Number. But with Shaw sidelined, you can't stay here and hold Princess in Distress' hand forever. Try true love's kiss. That's what usually works, right? Though I guess it didn't work out too well for Juliet ..."

"Miss Groves, our Number," Finch reminds, though less out of concern for their latest victim or perpetrator, and more out of concern for what Mr. Reese might do to Root if she keeps talking.

"On my way, Harry."

"Mr. Reese, you needn't concern yourself about the Numbers for now. I'm sure Miss Groves and I can handle anything that comes up."

"Thanks, Finch."

"Please give Miss Cassidy our best when she wakes."


Reese holds Elena's hand as he waits for her to wake.

Partly to keep his cover as her boyfriend, especially since Nurse Harrison keeps checking on them. Partly to remind himself that she's there, not bleeding to death on the department store floor or coding in the back of an ambulance.

"John?"

The whisper of his name is so soft, he thinks he may have imagined it. Then he feels her fingers twitch ever so slightly in his hand.

"Elena." He leans over her so she can see him.

The corners of her mouth twitch upward. "You came."

Something clenches in his chest again. "Of course I did, El."

"Sameen ... the store ... that lady ..."

Oh, Elena. Always so worried about others.

"Shaw's fine," Reese reassures her. "You're the one who's not."

Elena tries to make sense of what he's saying, but her mind is so fuzzy. She moves and is rewarded with a jolting pain that shoots through her leg before Reese swiftly reaches over to keep her still.

"Don't move."

"My leg," Elena realizes.

"You got shot," he explains.

"I got what?"

"Bullet hit your femoral artery."

"That's ... bad, right?"

"It's really bad, El. But you're going to be all right. You saved yourself, along with a customer."

"Should leave saving people for you."

The momentary lightness he'd felt at seeing her awake disappears. His hand tightens around hers.

"I'm sorry."

She looks confused. "For what?"

"Not being there to save you."

"Oh, John, you can't save everyone."

He feels that weight settle in his chest again. No, he can't, but he also somehow manages not to save those most important to him.

He catches the slight furrow in her brow. "Are you in pain?"

"A little."

More than a little, he thinks. She is a terrible liar.

He presses the morphine pump for her and watches as her eyelids get heavy.

"John?" Her fingers reach vaguely in his direction. "Will you stay with me?"

Always.

She feels his hand wrap more tightly around hers. "I'm not going anywhere. I'll be here when you wake up."

And as he sits next to Elena's bed, watching her drift off to sleep, he remembers something Elias had said to Finch just the day before, which feels like a lifetime ago.

The world is a violent place, Harold. It always will be. Best we can hope to do while we're here is protect those closest to us.

And he had failed to do just that.