Despite Henry's insistence (a plea, really) the night before in the tech lab that they continue their discussion in his home, Reece had insisted on a 9:00 AM meeting this morning in her office. She'd then had the lab tech, Lacey, email the enhanced surveillance tape images to her.
Large coffee in hand, she walks briskly across the bullpen and nods her morning greetings to both the detectives and uniformed personnel. No time for pleasantries this morning, she's on a mission. A mission of discovery. She understands Henry's need for privacy still, but she also feels it's necessary for her to maintain some control over even his extraordinary situation. The need to anchor his newly disclosed un-reality to her reality might prove impossible, she realizes. What is she to think now? That other supernatural beings exist, as well? Beings that only exist in fairy tales, comic books, and movies?
Once inside her office, she closes the door and settles in behind her desk. A sleep from exhaustion had come late to her in the wee hours of the morning. Memories of her discussion with Henry, the emailed images she'd received from Dr. Barnes, the revelation of Dr. Farber's apparent suicide, and the heart-wrenching details of Valerie Nelson's death had bombarded her senses relentlessly. Her large coffee, now cooled, allows her to take a couple of big gulps. She wishes instead it were laced with alcohol. Or was just straight alcohol. Her computer screen flickers to life and she logs into her email. 'Seventeen more minutes til the big show.' However, she notes, this was not going to be like the "Ed Sullivan Show" but more like "The Twilight Zone". 'Why didn't I listen to my mother and open a nail salon?'
Back at the antique shop...
The flash of light she'd seen on the enhanced surveillance tape plays again in Jo's mind. 'Flash of light, a sudden flash...' She suddenly recalls that there was a bright flash of white light to the right of and behind her as she had searched for Henry on the abandoned subway platform several weeks ago. There'd also been voices raised in anger, their words indistinguishable. In a growing panic, she had turned to the light but as quickly as it had come, it had gone.
'That's when I found his pocketwatch and that old-looking black and white photo of a man who looked like Henry's twin, with a beautiful young woman holding a baby.' She looks at him again as he enjoys the last of his eggs and coffee. 'Incredible. Everything he told me last night and still more to come regarding Farb- Adam'. She shook her head slightly. 'Simply incredible.'
Henry notices Jo staring at him intently. Worry begins to cloud his mind. Was she having second thoughts in the light of day? Was she beginning to doubt the veracity of his long story?
Abe notices his father's body language. He feels the ebullience once evident, now fading away. He clears his throat and loudly announces, "There's plenty more where that came from. Seconds, anyone? How 'bout you, Jo, more eggs? Here," he grabs her plate, "let me get you some -"
"No, thanks, Abe, I'm stuffed." She beams at him. "Everything was delicious." She looks back at Henry but quickly drops her eyes. "I really need to stop by my place for a quick shower and change of clothes." She looks back up at him and manages an uncertain smile. "Big meeting in Lieu's office at 9 o'clock, remember?"
"Yes, of course," Henry says with trepidation. "You're...you're feeling allright, though? I mean, my disclosures last night bordered on the fantastical." He tenses his shoulders as he waits for her response, dreading what he might see in her warm, brown eyes. Rejection. Repulsion. Fear. Disbelief. Pity. He couldn't endure anything like those from her. Not from Jo, the woman he loves. Not again from a woman he loves.
He looks over at Abe, but his chair is empty. Henry hadn't noticed his son slip out but he's sure it was to give him time alone with Jo. "I suppose Abe had to pop downstairs and open up the shop." He attempts a wobbly smile. "But you said that you had to stop off at your place first so you should leave now. Shouldn't be late for the meeting with Lt. Reece." A couple centuries of practice permit him to finally manage a more believable smile. He's used to forging on through heartache, disappointment and even betrayal. Tears burn at the backs of his eyes now. He simply can't believe that after last night, after they'd both professed their love for one another, that she...
"Well, you're coming with me, right?"
He snaps out of his brooding and becomes aware of her smiling face. Her bee-yoo-tee-full smiling face! "Yes, yes, of course." He brushes his misgivings aside, his smile now the familiar dazzling one. As he eagerly manuvers around the table to leave with her, she steps in front of him and places her hands on his chest and, unknowingly, right over the scar from his first death. His breath catches. They gaze into each other's eyes in much the same way as when she had come to the shop on a certain night some time ago to tell him that she hadn't wanted to go to Paris with Isaac Monroe. He'd felt something between them then, that he was uncertain of. He was certain of it now, though. And so was she. Something special; something electrifyingly special.
"It's all so - I mean, I'm working on it. You know? Trying to take everything in." She bites her lip and her eyes flutter. "Trying to understand it all." She cups the side of his face with her hand and caresses his cheek. He leans into her touch, the warmth of her hand soothes him. He needs her touch. "Henry, it's so much. You recently buried your wife, Abe's mother. Farber, I mean, Adam was your stalker, not Clarke Walker, whom you had to kill in your own home, and you neither told nor sought assistance from anyone. You endured the pain and uncertainty of that time alone. How I wish you had let me know back then."
"I know, I know, Jo." He pushes a stray strand of hair out of her face, his fingers brush her cheek. The brief contact between them causes her eyes to flutter once more, his heart to skip a beat.
He knew all too well just how much there was to deal with concerning him and his secret. He'd dealt with it alone for so long before he'd met Abigail and Abe. She'd saved him. After their many years together, though, she'd left. And Abe, his wonderful son, had sustained him. But it had been so long since he'd had another woman to share his life with; to share his love with. "You needn't worry about trying to understand it all, darling. It's been my life and I'm still trying to make sense of it."
Her arms snake their way up and around his neck, one of her hands caress the soft curls at the nape. His arms encircle her waist and he pulls her closer in a tight embrace. Their eyes close as their lips meet in a tender, exploring, long overdue kiss. In this moment, the world has stopped for them. There is no one else. Nothing else that matters except to be this close to each other, enjoying the nearness of each other.
It's something they've both needed, longed for, for so long. They've both come out of that cold place of grief, and finally stepped into the warmth of each other's love. After several minutes they break away reluctantly to come up for air. Eyes closed, they hold each other, caress each other's cheeks, and breathe in the uniqueness of each other. Jo: his after shave, the starch of his collar and something woodsy, masculine. Henry: her shampoo, her lip gloss and something that brings to mind the sweetness of honey and the beautiful fragility of butterflies.
"Jo, we have to.." Henry softly reminds her as he presses his forehead against hers.
"I, I know: my place, then meeting." She smiles, steps back and pulls him by his hand. He grins and follows willingly.
During the short drive to her place, they hold hands whenever she doesn't need both on the steering wheel. Like two shy teenagers in the first throws of puppy love (only they both know that this is anything but puppy love) they mostly just exchange smiles and enjoy the new closeness of their relationship. He sits on the top step outside her place while she readies herself for a new work day. He recalls the time when they'd both shared her stoop and hot chocolate amidst snow flurries. The jewelry store robbery case had dredged up sad memories for her of her late husband, Sean. And he'd come over to offer her a bit of company. A shoulder to cry on, really. Even though it was a sad time for her, he'd been grateful that she'd accepted his offer.
A movement out of the corner of his eye catches his attention. A dark grey SUV slowly motors past, much slower than necessary, he thinks. He watches as the vehicle stops at the intersection and slowly turns right. 'Probably just someone unsure of their destination.' But he makes a mental note of the license plate number - ABY 4091 - just to be on the safe side. He sighs and realizes it could also be another person hunting immortals. Hunting him.
Jo steps back outside, showered and changed after only 15 minutes. After another 15 minutes, they enter the precinct with ten minutes to spare before the meeting in Reece's office.
Henry spots Lucas entering the building behind them and calls to him to join them. 'If I'm going to do this, let one time do for all.'
Lucas, a bit surprised at the invitation (considering he's nearly an hour late), willingly accepts. Their expressions tell him that this meeting will be some serious business, though. Great. He hopes he can get through it while nursing his hangover. Still, he's grateful that Henry wants to include him in...whatever this is. He falls in behind them as Hanson joins them once they reach the bullpen.
Hanson knocks on Reece's door and she bids them to enter. As Hanson, Jo, and Lucas seat themselves, Henry remains standing. Reece positions the computer monitor on her desk so that they all can easily view the enhanced surveillance images. "Doctor?" She looks up at Henry.
"Yes." He nervously begins. "Well, first of all, the person identified as Lewis Farber in these images is the psychologist I had one session with around Christmas. The tape shows him as he either fell or jumped from a building to the street below and then appeared to vanish in a burst of light." Despite a dry throat and sweaty palms, he forges on, his hands clasped in front of him. This roundabout way of revealing his secret to Hanson and Lucas (and clarifying it for the Lieutenant) via Adam's secret is not proving to be as easy as he'd thought.
"You're saying that he vanished?" Hanson doesn't buy it. "You mean like some kind of crazy magic trick?" He waves his hands around.
"Not a trick, Detective. Something that happens whenever he dies."
Lucas' eyes grow rounder and rounder as he realizes he's privy to a story more entertaining than in any of his graphic novels. He silently mouths, "Whoa".
Hanson, protests, clearly agitated. "Now, just wait a minute -"
"Whenever he dies, he vanishes in a burst of light..." Jo's voice interrupts but grows softer to just above a whisper. The frown lines indicate she's putting two and two together but coming up with five. And yet...
"So, if he died and vanished - what happened to him after that?" Reece shakes her head and blinks her eyes rapidly at the implausible question she's just asked.
"He most likely reawakens in the nearest large body of water. Naked." He steels himself as his words sink into their psyches. All of them except Jo, look at him as if seeing him for the first time.
Hanson breaks the silence. "You mean like, like, in the - " He finds it hard to complete the impossibe thought.
"Yes, Detective. He most likely reawakens in the East River. Or it could be the Hudson, I'm not sure where, actually, but he does."
"The skinny dipping?" Lucas, awestruck, strokes his chin as the pieces slowly fall into place for him.
"No, Lucas, not skinny dipping." Henry rolls his eyes. "Reawakening. No matter the method of death, he always returns to life with no marks on his body. That is, except for the scar of his very first death."
"How do you know all this?" Hanson demands. He looks around at the others, his eyes beg them to repudiate what he hears as lunacy. "Somebody please tell me you're not buying this. It's some kind of joke, right, Doc? I mean, people don't just die and come back to life! It, it, it, just can't be true." He squints at Henry as if seeing him through a fog. He rises from his chair and walks over to stand face to face with the M.E. "You're telling the truth about this Farber guy, aren't you? Because - "
"Because it's my truth, as well, Detective." He shakes his head and spreads his hands. "Reuben Barnes was right in his assumption that there could be other immortals besides Ben Larson."
"You know for a fact that Larson is immortal?" Reece asks. "How would you know that?"
"Well, you're right, Lieutenant, I know nothing about Larson. But I do know about Adam - that's the name Farber told me to call him, by the way, when he, not Clarke Walker, was stalking me - and he and I do share the same curse, the same affliction." He pauses and gathers the courage to utter the words he's worked more than two centuries to hide from everyone. "I am immortal."
Hanson, his brow knitted, slowly steps away from Henry and sits back down. The two men maintain eye contact the whole time. Henry's seen the look before when others he'd counted as friend turned on him after his secret was revealed. He'd jumped to conclusions earlier that morning when he thought that Jo may have doubted his claim. But...this time there's no mistaking what he sees in Hanson's eyes. 'He's either repulsed by me or he thinks I'm insane.' The pain of a potential broken friendship over his condition is not unbearable. But the sting of it never leaves. He may have more repeat chances at life than most, but only one heart. Then he feels a hand slip into his and he looks down to find that it's Jo's. She stands next to him and smiles as she looks up at him. There to give him moral support. He squeezes her hand then lifts it and presses her fingers to his lips.
Lucas and Reece mirror each other's movements as Henry's declaration sinks in. They slowly shake their heads from side to side, eyes wide, jaws dropped. Reece plants both hands on her desk, palms down and shoots up out of her chair and quietly says, "Well, have mercy."
At the same time, Lucas jumps up out of his chair, a look of unbridled glee on his face and yells to the ceiling, "Yes! Yes! Yes!" His arms pump as he prances around his chair, legs lifting high. "Aw, man, dude! This is awesome." He suddenly looks at the immortal M.E., who feels as helpless as an eagle's prey right now.
"Lucas." Henry puts a hand up in a valiant effort to ward off the inevitable. "Control yourself, now."
Lucas closes in on him, arms open wide. He pounces on Henry and wraps him in a bear hug. "Whoa. Wow. Oh, my God." He pulls back and gleefully blurts out, "And you and Det. Martinez are obviously an item! How cool is that?" He resumes his bear hug even tighter this time.
Henry pats Lucas' arm a couple of times. "Yes, yes, well, I'm glad that you derive so much pleasure from all of this, but we must maintain decorum, mustn't we?" 'Lucas, you're breaking my neck!'
Jo and Reece can't help but laugh a little at the sight of Henry's attempts to extricate himself from Lucas' grasp. Even Hanson cracks a little smile. He stands up and goes over to pull Lucas off of Henry. "Hey, Lucas. Lucas! C'mon, give the Doc some air, you're chokin' him."
Lucas finally pulls away from his boss, a smile plastered on his face from ear to ear. "Sorry, sorry." He turns and walks back to his chair with his hands on his hips and shakes his head. "Who'd a thought? Man, who'd a thought?" He sits back down and gazes and grins at Henry.
"Doctor, you have to help us to understand this." Reece's voice is quietly desperate. "You die (she sighs), but you come back to life. Okay." She sits back down. "But this Dr. Farber that you call-"
"Adam." Henry supplies.
"Adam. Okay. He dies, he comes back to life. Then why in the world is he jumping off of a building if he knows that?"
"Either for fun or when he gets bored." He shrugs. "You see, my first death was in 1814, a little more than 200 years ago. However, his first death, according to him, was in 44 B.C., more than 2000 years ago." He feels the others, including Jo, struggle to digest the impossible sounding information he shares with them.
"So, he's presumably lived longer than maybe anyone else alive today," Reece concedes, "but I don't understand why -"
"He once told me that life was a game. He's a person who no longer feels he has a purpose in life. He views mortals as being beneath him, I suppose. Nothing more than mere toys for him to play with."
"But then he found a new toy." Hanson interjects.
Henry, surprised, looks over at Hanson whose features have softened considerably. "Yes, Detective, you're quite right." The two men trade small smiles with each other. Hanson's is one of apology, Henry's is one of gratitude. "He once told me that I was but a child and I suppose he feels - or rather felt - the need to educate me on certain things that pertain only to immortals."He sits down in an empty chair. "Adam, however, began to feel that I was either neglecting him or didn't believe him that he shared my condition. So, he proved it to me one night."
Jo had heard the story from him last night. She nods encouragement to him to continue and he does. Three hours later, he has shared the pertinent details of his life with Abigail, and his son, Abe; of his being stalked by Adam for months leading up to Clarke Walker's death. Finally, of their confrontation in the bowels of the subway system that resulted in Adam's locked-in condition.
"I see why you wanted to continue this discussion in your home, Doctor." Reece blows out a sigh and, aware that it's lunch time, proposes just that. "Let's get lunch and meet at Henry's. We have to map out a plan on how to deal with our newfound reality." She raises an eyebrow towards Henry. "I mean, we were protective of you before but now we know we have a real reason to be."
Henry proposes that they all have lunch at his home in order to save time. He assures them that Abe is an excellent cook and Jo backs him up on that claim. They agree and head out of the building. Jo passengers Henry in her car, Hanson passengers Reece and Lucas in his.
Once at the antique shop, they park and exit the two vehicles. As they approach the shop's entrance, Henry's suddenly aware of a dark grey SUV with tinted windows parked across the street. The others file in past him but he feels as if he's being watched. He turns to look at the SUV again and sees the driver side window roll down. He sees the long barrel of a rifle aimed at him and he ducks but it's too late. The searing pain of the bullet piercing his flesh is unmistakably familiar. It caught him squarely between the shoulders in the back and he knows his spine is shattered. He lies face down and hears the squeal of the SUV's tires as it speeds away. More gunfire but not from a rifle. A police issue revolver. He realizes it must be from Hanson's gun because Jo is kneeling beside him, sobbing. He hears Reece say she's calling 911, then Abe's voice advising her not to. 'Thank you, Abe.' He can't speak or move but is aware that he's now lying in a growing pool of blood. He hears the horror in Hanson's voice as he re-enters the shop and sees Henry's worsening condition.
"What do we do?" Hanson implores of Abe.
"Nothing." They all look at him, disbelief on their faces, then grudgingly accept his meaning. "We wait. He'll be fine. Just - takes some getting used to." He kneels so that Henry can see him. "See ya in a bit, Pops."
Henry's eyes glaze over, he exhales one last time and the kaleidoscope of images from his long life parade before him, then darkness.