Henry hails a cab as Jo observes his casual and relaxed manner. "How do you do it, Henry?" she marvels. "I mean...you were...killed, murdered today." He drops his hand and turns to her just as a cab pulls up. He opens the door for her and they climb in. The shop's address given to the driver, the cab pulls off.
They ride in silence but Henry reaches over and covers her small slender hand with his much larger one. Gentle hand, she observes. She looks up at him and smiles to let him know his answer can wait until they have more privacy.
"Did you enjoy the movie?" She asks in an attempt at casual conversation.
"Well, I'm sure that hobbits don't exist, but it was still an enjoyable story."
"Are you sure they don't exist?" She smiles and raises an eyebrow towards him.
He lowers his head and grins. "Quite sure." He looks at her and erupts in laughter as he shakes his head.
"How do you know?" Her voice now has a sing-song manner to it.
'Mischievious little vixen.' He thinks to himself. 'Bad enough that I've always had Abe's sly remarks and mischievious manner to deal with.' He looks at her again but can't help but smile. 'Et tu, Brute?' The last thought meant in jest starkly reminds him of Adam and how he'd reported his first death. Death from being stabbed in the stomach by a Roman soldier most likely on the Ides of March, the same date as Julius Caesars' death. It startles him back to reality and drains the good humor from him.
Jo senses the sudden change in his demeanor; the sudden fade of his smile and the icy look in his eyes. "Hey." she says quietly as she squeezes his hand and tries to draw his attention back to the conversation.
"Sorry." he says as he offers her a weak smile that quickly fades away again. He raises their hands and presses her fingers to his lips and keeps them there. He closes his eyes and adjusts and re-adjusts his grip around her hand as if to soothe himself.
She's moved almost to tears but she doesn't know why. Doesn't know what brought on this sudden change in him. She aches for him to share his obviously troubling thoughts with her so that she can comfort him. The cab driver interrupts both their reveries.
"We're here." the middle-aged man, a recent Syrian immigrant, informs them. He smiles at their reflection in the rearview mirror and reports the fare charge. All of a sudden he frowns at Henry's reflection as he states in broken English, "I pick you up from East River once and bring you to this place." He leans out of his window and looks up at the sign. "Yes, Abe's Antiques." He looks over his shoulder at Henry with a twinkle in his eye. "Was chilly night then, eh, my friend?" He accepts the proffered money and winks as Henry's face drains of all color.
"Keep the change." Henry grunts as he and Jo hurriedly exit the cab and enter the shop. As he locks the door he feels safe again. The outside world seems to be closing in on him lately, more than usual. The cab's tail lights disappear down the block into the now dusky evening shade and he squints resentfully at it as he recalls the cab driver's disconcerting remarks. Jo's hand tugs his and gently leads him away from the door and up the stairs. Things would be so much bleaker without this wonderful woman in his life, he realizes. Against his will, the corners of his mouth tug upward into a reluctant smile.
"That's more like it." Jo says, relieved to see the twinkle return to his sexy brown eyes. As they approach their now familiar perch in the living area, the couch, she seats herself and then pulls him down next to her. He puts his arm around her and they pull in for a warm kiss.
"So tell me about these rules of courtship." she says as she rests her head on his shoulder and gently rubs his chest, dangerously close to that most sensitive spot, his scar from his original death.
He gives a short laugh. "Well, in my courtship days, known as the Regency Era-"
"Why was it called the Regency Era?" she interrupts.
"Uh, well, King George III was deemed unfit to rule and he was replaced by his son, Prince George, who later became King George IV, after his father's death. But during the Regency Era from 1811 to 1820, he ruled by proxy and was called the Prince Regent."
"Oh, okay. You guys had it all figured out back then, didn't you?"
He chuckles. "Or so we thought."
"Anyway, there were many prohibitions put upon the unmarried. For instance, prior to an engagement, a couple could not converse privately or be alone together in a room."
"Well, rule ONE violated BIG time already." She sits up and stares wide-eyed at him.
"Quite so." he happily acknowledges and continues. "An unmarried couple could not travel unchaperoned in a carriage."
"A car." She points out. 'Rule TWO scratched, as well."
He chuckles and continues. "They could not address each other by their Christian names."
"Is that why you called me Detective for so long?"
"Mmm, partly, yes. But you were - are - entitled to be addressed by your proper title, are you not? I mean you've worked hard to achieve the status you now hold, right?"
"Yes, I understand." She frowns. "Did I always call you - hmm, no, I stopped calling you Dr. Morgan early on, didn't I?" she sheepishly asks. He sighs and smiles but chooses not to respond. "I started calling you Henry almost right off the bat."
"You needn't worry about that, Jo. You are as much a product of your generation as I am of mine. As Abe has relentlessly pointed out to me over the past several decades, I've got to learn to swing with the times." He raises and shakes the index finger of each hand. "Go with the flow, as Lucas likes to say." He lolls his head from side to side as he windmills his hands around each other. "
She snickers at his animations.
"Therefore, I have never taken any offense at your familiar address of me. As a matter of fact, your particular pronunciation of my given name has elevated my blood pressure in the most delightful manner on many an occasion." He smiles down at her as he hugs her closer.
She shakes her head and rolls her eyes. "Continue, kind sir."
"Yes. Oh, they - we - were not permitted to either correspond with, or give gifts to, one another."
"Sucks." She sighs. "Rule Three violated, somewhat, but most definitely, Rule Four."
"Technically, yes, but unavoidable given the nature of our jobs."
She nods in agreement, her eyebrows raised. "But Rule Five, the gift giving. Does that include meals?" She looks at him in mock apprehension.
"Ahhh, I won't tell if you won't. And, again, technically, those meals you've shared here were chaperoned by Abe and/or could be construed as gifts from Abe."
"You're right!" She gleefully nods.
"Okay, the dancing."
"Dancing? Henry, I mean, Dr. Morgan, you and I have never danced together."
"Yes, well, it was not allowed for us back then to dance more than two sets together on any evening or to touch each other intimately; including handshakes."
She blows a mock sigh of defeat through her mouth. "Okay, um, how many broken rules is that so far?"
He shakes his head and frowns.
She counts in her head. "Looks like we're totally fine as far as Rule Six but Rule Seven - the touching." She looks up at him sorrowfully. "We've totally blown it on that, wouldn't you say?" They both nod vigorously and laugh loudly.
Henry calms himself. "And, um, greetings."
"Greetings." She echoes more as a statement than a question.
"Yes. Whether coming into, or taking leave of, one another's presence, it was to be acknowledged with a slight bow of the gentleman's head or the woman's curtsy."
"I am NOT-" she indignantly announces.
"No, no, of course not, Jo-" He puts up a hand and laughs.
"I mean, you do that head bowing all the time and it's real cute and everything, but I am NOT-"
"Jo, Jo," he laughs louder, "I don't expect you to curtsy to me." He brings his laughter under control. "I deemed it painful to watch even then. And if no one was watching," he leans in closer to whisper, "they didn't curtsy. Kind of bent their knees and bounced back up really quick."
"Well, yeah." She calms down and shifts her position on the cushiony seats. "But I'm not doing that, either, buddy."
"Jo. Calm down. No curtsying required. It's agreed."
She sighs and rests her head back onto his chest. "So since we've already blown so many of the rules, is the courtship off?"
He looks up thoughtfully, then peers down at her, then quickly back up as he blinks rapidly.
"Oh, you!" She leans back and playfully smacks him on the arm.
His face breaks out into that dazzling ear-to-ear smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes and just spirals her into a fangirl swoon. She thanks whatever power responsible for having made and sent such an impossibly beautiful man, inside and out, to come into her life. 'And I don't have to hide the fact that I swoon anymore.' She leans in and plants a big sloppy one on him.
"Oh, my, Detective. It occurs to me that we may as well break all the rules of courtship." He kisses her again and his hand strays (accidentally? intentionally?) closer to previously forbidden areas just above her waistline and just below her neckline.
As she breathlessly enjoys and allows his slight indiscretion, he murmurs something in her ear.
"Of course, it was most unexpected and enjoyable to see these (he lightly grazes the aforementioned forbidden body parts) react in kind as the woman bounced up down quickly in the modified curtsy."
"Well, Dr. Morgan. Your 'Mr. Darcy' is blushing a mile a minute."
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
Some distance away, Reuben Barnes' aqua blue 2002 Ford Taurus exits the Holland Tunnel. He follows the directions given by the female voice of his GPS equipment and eventually arrives at a renovated home on Lucien. He parks, grabs his briefcase and the envelope that contains the mysterious patient's bloodwork information and runs up the short flight of stairs to the house. After a couple of unanswered rings of the doorbell, he steps back to notice that the house is completely dark. He turns to the street to catch any light to help view the time on his watch. Just a little past midnight.
'Where are you, my dear brother David? Getting sloshed in some bar with the money from me that you haven't yet earned? Or, worse yet, buying the attentions of some frilly frump to satisfy your ancient butt's wanton desires?' he sarcastically wonders to himself. He pulls out his cell phone and calls his brother's phone. No answer. Voicemail. In frustration, he abruptly ends the call. After a moment, he dials another number and runs a hand through his thick mane of shoulder-length, brilliantly white hair. His face is remarkably unlined for a man of his advanced years, thanks to a special mixture he'd derived using the healing properties of Ben Larson's remarkable blood.
He'd experimented on himself, not out of vanity, but out of necessity. Using himself as a human guinea pig was not an uncommon practice among scientists and inventors. The fact that the results were successful was gratifying, nonetheless. The fact that Ben Larson had fled his facility in anger, once he'd learned of the experiment and seen the results in a suddenly younger, more vibrant-looking Reuben Barnes, was less gratifying. Dismaying, to say the least. No matter, he vowed to himself. He had made considerable progress in his particular area of genetic research years before ever knowing about Larson. The serum derived from Larson's blood could prove to be groundbreaking in a search for a cure for progeria, and slow the aging process in all humans. Why had Larson not given him a chance to explain that his motives were not selfish?
He recalls how secretive the Morgan family seemed when they lived next door to him and his family while on Lucien. It hadn't taken long for him to realize that during the five years they'd lived next door, Mrs. Morgan added a little weight (midriff bulge, they called it) and a few wrinkles. Her husband, Henry, however, remained the same. Abe grew older along with his brother, David, and they both began to look more like younger brothers of Henry's only because time seemed to have bypassed him in the aging process. Even his own father, a vibrantly healthy man until his untimely death at age 49, showed the normal yearly wear as he'd aged. But not Dr. Henry Morgan. It had seemed that the more the people around him aged, the more reclusive and elusive the doctor became.
How eager he was to share with Dr. Morgan and those who might share a similar unaging condition that there was possibly a remedy that could possibly bring them out of hiding. The reverse serum derived from the blood and tissue of progeria sufferers just might allow a person who could not age to have the appearance of normal aging. He could only imagine what it was like for a person with the doctor's condition. To have what eluded most people, eternal youth, but never be able to enjoy what most people took for granted: the ability to live openly and enjoy their lives without fear of exposure or danger.
Research had uncovered an unsettling pattern regarding the doctor's long life in that he'd lived a rather nomadic life even after his wife, Abigail, and their son, Abe, had entered his life. He recalls that he's liked the doctor and they'd enjoyed several conversations regarding science and academia far above the comprehension of his own father. And, regardless of the growing secrecy that pervaded their household, there was more familial harmony in their household than in his own. Oh, if he could only get in touch with either of the Morgan men-
He sighs and looks at his rapidly beeping phone and grimaces at the "low battery" notification. That explains why the last call did not go through. Dejected, he climbs back into his car. A hotel, he thinks. Check into a hotel and start out fresh in the morning. "That's the ticket." he thinks out loud again. "Good night's sleep, then off to Bellevue in the morning." He starts to pull away from the curb after having programmed the GPS for the nearest unseedy hotel, then he remembers his recent conversation with Lt. Reece of the NYPD's 11th Precinct.
"Of course," he snaps his fingers, "that's it! He works there! I'll just drop by his office tomorrow morning before going to Bellevue. I'm sure he'll be very happy to learn that I may be able to help both him and his unfortunate friend with the locked-in syndrome. Yes, sir, he should be very happy."
Notes: Notes: Information on courtship rules and customs in the Regency Era 1811-1820, were obtained from the following website: