Disclaimer: Credit to Jonathan Nolan, Greg Plageman, and the POI writing team. Bolded sections are straight from the episodes.
QUEENSBRIDGE PARK
Chapter 53: before & mid Asylum
When Lionel had called her twelve hours ago, Elena couldn't have imagined she would end up here. In a hospital. In the middle of the Catskills.
With John's blood drying on her clothes.
She'd just finished the last day of her Guggenheim fellowship and hadn't quite known what to do with herself. Adam was on a business trip, she'd lost touch with her (Ken's) old friends, and she was just starting to get to know Adam's.
She wasn't on speaking terms with John. Everything had gone sideways since That Night.
So she had been excessively happy when Lionel's name had flashed on her screen.
"Lionel! I was just —"
"Hey, Ellie, you haven't heard from Mr. Tall, Dark, and Dangerous lately, have you?"
Elena sighs. "Define 'lately'."
"Today?"
"Not since I ran into him coming out of a club bathroom with a blonde a few weeks ago, so no."
"Okay, just tell me if he calls or you see him, all right?"
The fact that Lionel doesn't press for details about the club encounter tells her something is wrong. Very wrong.
"Lionel, wait. What's going on?"
"Not sure yet."
"I'll check his apartment," Elena says, and he can hear her already moving to do just that. A few seconds later, she's knocking on his door. "John? John? It's Elena."
After several seconds, Fusco knows Reese isn't home, not if he hadn't come running (silently of course) to answer the door when Elena Cassidy called.
"Ellie —"
"Hang on, let me check through the fire escape."
After about a minute, she says, "He's not in his apartment. Doesn't look like he's been here all day, but it doesn't look like he was planning to be gone for long either."
"How do you know that?"
"He didn't set the trip wire near the front door."
Fusco really wants to ask how she knows he does that, but he feels the uneasiness he's had all day turn into full-blown concern.
"Okay, thanks, Ellie, I've gotta go."
"Lionel, let me help. Please."
He sighs. Reese will kill him for involving Elena, but with Finch at a loss, too, they need all the help they can get.
"All right, why don't you go around to the places nearby that Wonderboy likes to go to? Just to make sure he's not hanging out there before we get our panties in a twist."
There's a moment of silence on the other end. "I ... I've already checked our fire escape, Lionel, and he's not there. This is John we're talking about. He doesn't really have other hangouts."
Damn his partner and his stubborn, death wishing, hero complex.
"I'll keep you posted, Ellie."
Fusco hangs up before she can say anything else, leaving Elena standing in Reese's dark, near-empty apartment. It's the first time she's been inside in months.
She pauses as she begins to crawl out of the window. She steps back into the apartment and opens the refrigerator.
There's a full six-pack of her favorite beer, the fruity one he hates but she loves, sitting in the near-empty fridge.
Waiting for her.
"Oh, John. What have you gotten yourself into now?"
Twelve hours later.
"He's out of danger now. Vitals are improving," the doctor is telling them. "We'd like to keep him under observation for the next 48 hours or so, but things are looking very good for your partner, detective."
"Thanks, doc," Fusco says.
He turns just in time to catch Elena as she wavers and helps her into a nearby chair.
"Hey, you heard the doctor. He's going to be okay."
Elena lets out a laugh that's a little hysterical. "But he nearly wasn't!" she exclaims. "He almost died in the backseat of your car. He almost died in my arms! I could feel him slipping away!"
"Hey, what are you mad at me for?" Lionel snaps back, the strain of the past 24 hours catching up to him as well. "I'm the one who found him, aren't I?"
"You shouldn't have lost him in the first place! You're his partner, Lionel. That means something, or at least it used to. It doesn't stop when you're off the clock! You're supposed to have his back no matter what!"
"Hey, you hear that beeping sound? That's happening because I did have his back. If I didn't, he'd be dead in a snowbank, and we'd still be searching for his body."
Fusco regrets the graphic description almost as soon as he says it. The little color left in Elena's face drains, leaving her as pale as the half-frozen Reese they'd found a few hours ago.
"Ellie -"
"I can't ..." her voice fails her, and she looks up at the ceiling, trying to blink sudden tears away. She tries again. "I can't do this anymore," she says honestly. "He's out of danger ... for now. He's going to be fine ... for now. Until the next time. Or the time after that.
"I can't sit around and wait and worry about him and just hope that one day he'll ..." She throw up his hands in despair. "I don't even know what I want him to do," she admits. "But I know I don't want this. Whatever this is."
"What are you saying?"
She takes a deep breath and lets it out very slowly. "My fellowship's done. It seems like a good time for a fresh start."
"So you're running. Again."
"Maybe I'm running toward something instead of away from it. It just depends on your perspective."
"If you're asking my perspective —"
"I'm not."
The long silence that followed is punctuated only by the beeping of Reese's heart rate monitor.
"Ellie," Lionel finally says. "You mean something to him, you know that. You're his ..."
"His what, Lionel?" she prompts. "His neighbor? His dogsitter? The girl he used to have a drink with when nothing more exciting was going on?"
Fusco shakes his head. He might not be as fast as Glasses, but he gets to the right words eventually.
"You're his hope."
Elena goes very still as his words sink in, and she can feel the truth of it even if she doesn't fully understand it. Her gaze slides to John and lingers there for a long moment.
The beeping of his heart rate monitor starts to pick up slightly as he begins to stir. Her own heart rate jumps, and she panics. She knows if he asks, she'll stay, at least until he pushes her away again. She springs to her feet and strides from the room.
"Ellie! Hey! Where are you going?" Fusco's steps are following close behind.
She doesn't slow down. "I ... I'm just going, Lionel. I mean it. I can't do this anymore."
"You promised him you'd stay."
Elena stops short, her head dropping down in defeat. Thankful, Fusco stops to catch his breath before he presses on.
"You promised him you wouldn't go anywhere, that you would be there waiting for him to wake up."
Her head comes up. "That's the thing, Lionel. I'm done waiting."
And after a moment, she continues walking away with determined steps.
A few days later
"You look like hell," Fusco greets his partner at the scene of their latest homicide.
"Happy to see you, too, Lionel."
"Maybe next time you decide to take on a psychopath in the frozen tundra, you'll call your partner first," Fusco suggests.
"Hey, you're right," Reese acknowledges. "You're a good detective. And a damn good friend," he adds.
Fusco stares at him. "You have a temperature or something?"
"I'm still standing ..."
As Fusco follows Reese up the steps, he considers trying to find out if his partner knows who else was in the car with them in the Catskills. Reese had made no mention of Ellie when he'd woken up in the hospital, but Fusco isn't sure if that's just Wonderboy being Wonderboy, or if he truly didn't remember.
Ellie had been true to her word so far and left without looking back. She hadn't answered any of Lionel's calls.
"... which is more than I can say for our friends here," Reese says, lifting the sheet off one of the victims inside the building.
"Brotherhood soldier," Fusco says, following his lead and letting him play detective. "Elias's guy came out of nowhere, shot Dominic's boys, and disappeared. It's like deja vu all over again."
"Lionel, tell me this."
For a second, Fusco thinks he's going to ask about Ellie. Why she had been there in the Catskills, and why she hadn't been there when he woke up.
"How did a gunman get through security?" Reese asks, still scrutinizing the crime scene.
"That's a good question, Detective," Fusco says, going over to talk to the security guards.
His partner could be a good cop sometimes, when he wanted to be. When it suited him.
Well, maybe it is better this way, Fusco reasons. Maybe Ellie could have a happier, more normal life without Wonderboy lurking in the shadows around her. He knows Reese thinks she'll be safer without him.
But the thing is, people tended to be safer when Wonderboy is lurking nearby.
Turns out even Wonderboy's presence doesn't save Fusco or Elias or even Reese himself from being tortured by the Brotherood. As a screwdriver is shoved into his still-healing wound, Reese lets his mind drift to a better place.
"Hold on, John."
Carter.
He's back in the car with her, in the middle of the Catskills. He reaches for her hand, but she moves it out of his reach. He looks at her in surprise.
"No, not me, John," Carter scolds. "Her."
"Hold on, John!" Same words, but different voice. The scene changes. He's still in a car, but a different one with different companions. Fusco's at the wheel, and he's in the backseat with —
Elena.
She continues to talk to him, but the words are muffled, like he's underwater. But he knows that she's there, a spot of bright warmth in the bitter cold.
The car comes to a stop. There are more voices. He's being moved. Harsh lights overhead. A hospital.
They're taking him somewhere, moving fast. The warmth is gone. He's cold again. He reaches out and finds her, forcing her to jog alongside his stretcher as they race down the hall.
"Will you stay with me?" he mumbles, holding on tight.
Her other hand wraps around his for a moment. "The doctors are going to help you, John," she says, trying to loosen his hold. "You have to let go."
His grasp tightens even more. "Stay with me."
"I can't, John." He's holding her tight enough to hurt, but she almost welcomes it. It's a sign that he's not done fighting.
"Stay," he insists.
"We're going to need to restrain him!" someone says. Other hands reach out to pull them apart, and it seems to trigger something in John, who begins to lash back without relinquishing his hold on her.
"No! No, please, just wait!" Elena says. "John! John, listen to me."
A warm hand brushes through his hair, calming him.
"I'm here, John," she says in soothing voice as her hand continues to run through his hair. "I'm not going anywhere, I'll just be in the other room waiting, okay?" she promises. "But we have to let go for now. They're going to help you."
"El ..."
A quick kiss is pressed to his temple. "You have to live, John. For me."
And then darkness.
The memory fades, bringing him back to the present.
"You're calmer than normal, John, given the circumstances," Elias observes.
The circumstances they find themselves in is tied up in the basement of the former Lower Manhattan Savings Bank, resting in between torture sessions from the Brotherhood. A thick bloody bandage is tied around Elias' broken left hand.
"I took a trip to the mountains," Reese says, staring off in the distance. "I saw an old friend. She reminded me what I've been missing."
"What is that?"
"Life."
