A/N: Thank you for all your kind birthday wishes and reviews for the last chapter, especially the Guest reviewers to whom I can't reply personally. As promised, this is a largely CaReese centred chapter. It's technically a tag to 2x22 "God Mode", but of course it makes reference to 2x21 "Zero Day" as well. I plotted and re-plotted this at least half a dozen times, then wrote it down in one sitting before I could change my mind again. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything except for my OCs and my imagination. Don't make any money from this either – the best things in life are free anyway!

A New Chapter

Halfway home after safely delivering Harold, Root and Shaw to their respective destinations, John's mobile buzzed with an incoming text message. With a quiet groan, John pulled the device from his pocket, sincerely hoping it wasn't a new number but, given the recent hiccups with the Machine, secretly dreading the possibility that the numbers stopped coming altogether. When he read the text, however, his pulse rate doubled instantly and he told the cab driver to step on it.

"10-13* my place, ASAP". Since he had agreed on specific individual distress codes with Ben and Hannah, he knew that his sister's message had nothing to do with herself or her fiancé. In his mind, that left a very limited number of scenarios, but all of them involved one single person – a person he didn't want to see in any kind of distress, ever.

Ten minutes later he knocked on Hannah's door, just barely resisting the urge to draw his gun. She opened almost immediately. "It's Joss," she whispered in his ear while giving him a firm hug and staying his hand that had reflexively strayed to his gun again.

With three long strides, John was in the kitchen where he had spotted Joss sitting at the table, a cup of – judging by the aroma that pervaded Hannah's apartment – cardamom tea in front of her. She looked distressed ... no, devastated. Then she looked up at him, and her pain hit him like a punch in the solar plexus.

"Joss ...," the tall man whispered, taking another step towards her, his arms at his side, palms turned upwards in a slightly helpless gesture. "What happened?"

Instead of an answer, the petite woman covered her eyes with one hand while reaching out for him with the other.

Without hesitation, John closed the small gap between them and wrapped her in a gentle, protective embrace. He felt her sagging against him, burying her face in the folds of his dress shirt and clinging to his arm as if he were the only thing keeping her from drowning in her raging emotions.

Joss was crying very quietly, John noticed. He shot an unsure look over his shoulder to where he presumed Hannah was standing, but she just gave him a smile that was both encouraging and sad, mouthed the words "You've got this", and soundlessly left the room.

*POI*POI*POI*POI*POI*

John waited patiently for Joss to calm down, just tightening his embrace the slightest bit and cradling her head in his hand. Eventually her breathing evened out and he felt some of the previous tension leave her body. "I'm sorry," she whispered but made no attempt to get away from him.

"Don't be," John replied, bending over to drop a gentle kiss to the top of her head like he had done with Hannah countless times. "Would you like to tell me what happened?" he asked after a moment.

"HR screwed me over big time," she said, sounding mostly weary and despondent. "They framed me for shooting a supposedly unarmed suspect. Threatened to harm my kid if I don't play along."

With a burning rage building up inside him, John listened to Joss telling him about the events of the past few days in starts and stops.

"What can I do, Joss?" he asked when she was finished, the tiniest bit of his fury bleeding into his voice. "Just say the word and I'll do it."

The policewoman shook her head and slightly pulled away for the first time in order to be able to look the tall man in the eyes. "No, John. Don't. Nothing like that."

The former CIA agent frowned. "Are you telling me you're going to take this lying down?"

With a small smile, Joss tugged at his elbow, and John complied with her silent request by crouching beside her chair so they were more on eye level. She put a hand to his shoulder and lightly smoothed her thumb along his collarbone. "Of course not. But if I'm going against HR, I'll need to come up with a plan that is a heck of a lot more detailed than what I did with Elias."

John nodded. Some part of him still felt queasy about the stunt she had pulled. For a straight-laced cop like Joss Carter to resort to such extreme measures, things had to be really bad. "All right. But if you need me, for anything ..."

Suddenly their conversation from a few days back during the case with Dr Nelson flashed up in his mind and he grimaced at the memory. He still had a fair bit of apologising to do, and it was now or never.

"John? What is it?" Joss asked, sensing his sudden change in mood.

He looked at her sincerely for a long moment before he stood up. With a slight wince he was forced to acknowledge each of his forty-five years due to the fact that his bones had been slightly battered the day before when Shaw was forced to take the unofficial highway exit.

"John?" Joss repeated, a decidedly worried expression in her dark eyes.

"It's nothing. Just ... let's move this to the living room. Hannah's couch is much more comfortable than her kitchen chairs, you know?" He topped up Joss' tea mug and poured one for himself before leading her to the spacious living area.

They both plopped down on the large, cosy sofa, close to each other but not touching. After taking a sip from his tea, John curled his fingers around the mug and turned slightly to fully face Joss. The open expression was back in his eyes as he began to speak in a low, sincere voice. "I've been a crappy friend recently. I was neither in nor out, and I let you down when you needed me. For that, I am more sorry than I can say."

Joss studied his face. She didn't pretend not to know what he was talking about, so she acknowledged his words with a slight nod.

"I know who I am, and I know who you are. I guess I never expected to call someone like you my friend," he continued, sounding more and more unsure by the second. "Are we ... friends?"

A tender smile crossed Joss' face. She reached for John's tea mug, took it from his hands and placed it on the coffee table before taking both of his hands in her. "Yes, John," she said gently, "we are friends. And while we're at it, I'm sorry, too. What you said about being neither in nor out applies to me as well. Since I became a cop, I've become used to things being black-and-white, either legal or illegal. It's just hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that what you do may not always be strictly legal, but mostly gets justice served in ways that aren't accessible to me."

At this, a small smirk played around John's lips. "Are you saying you envy me?"

That earned him a tiny giggle and a playful punch in the shoulder before Joss turned serious again. "I'm saying that it's complicated. But this whole HR thing ... let's just say I think I'll have to re-evaluate my concept of integrity."

John pondered this for a moment. Then he asked, quietly, almost timidly: "And where does that leave us?"

Again, Joss studied his face – something she loved to do, even though she could not quite admit that to herself, not yet. She had never seen him so open, so vulnerable as in this moment. It tugged at her heart, sparking a sense of deep affection and fierce protectiveness. She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him, holding him close and at the same time drawing comfort and strength from his unconditional loyalty and support. "We'll find out," she whispered. "I promise."

*according to several internet sources, this is the NYPD radio code for "police officer in need of assistance"