Sam pushed her still damp hair back over her shoulder as she walked in the early morning light. She wandered as she thought. She wandered, allowing her feet to go where they wanted.

It was still early yet; a little before people began leaving their homes to start the day, so the streets were close to empty. There were the usual joggers and cyclists, and other wanderers like Sam. All of them kept to themselves as they passed her by. Sam had spent about a week of her time away in Italy. She could never take a walk there without someone stopping her. People were friendly, open over there. But, Sam found that she missed some of the privacy her own country gave her as it did when she was walking that morning.

She had missed the city. She missed the sounds and the constant feel of busyness around her while she herself stayed calm and alone in her own thoughts – almost as if she was the still, quiet center of a swirling, chaotic galaxy.

What would be the worst thing that would happen if she went back to the way things were? The main motivation for her leaving in the first place was mostly the fact that she had nearly become just like the monsters who murdered her parents. She'd had the gun in her hand, and was looking down at them over the top of the weapon. She pulled the trigger once and missed. That was nearly three months ago, and Sam still couldn't be sure if she'd missed on purpose or not.

What had stopped her from pulling that trigger again and hitting her mark? John. His voice, his words. She remembered them clearly. He'd said that she was more than a friend to him, something he believed didn't exist for him anymore. If she had pulled the trigger, would she have remained the same in his eyes?

She'd left John, she'd left that life. What had she been hoping for in leaving? To forget? Sam shook her head. She couldn't remember what she'd wanted when she left. Now, she knew that she just wanted some peace, or some happiness, or just something to stop the constantly circulating thoughts running around in her head.

Sam found herself walking through a section of the park. She knew where she was going even though she hadn't originally chosen the path. She turned a corner, and just as expected a large apartment building loomed to her left; to her right, a section of the park with stone benches and gaming tables. Sam sat down next to one of the tables, the game pieces set on the board. She looked up at the building to the second floor, where John's apartment was.

Never in her life had she felt more like a stalker, sitting there, outside someone's home, partially hoping to catch a glimpse of them. But somehow, she already knew that he wasn't there.

Sam rested her elbow on the table and knocked one of the game pieces onto the grass.

"Oops," she said to herself and picked it up.

"If you sit down, you play."

Sam looked up, setting the piece back on the board. An old, Asian man sat down across from her. He heaved a sigh, and set his cane down next to his seat. His hair was gray and wispy, and his eyes were dark, but had a milky sheen over them, making them look just barely out of focus.

"I'm sorry, I don't know how to play. I'll open up the seat for someone else," Sam moved to get up.

"Do not leave so quickly," he said, smiling. "Even if we do not play, it is rare that I am in the company of a lovely woman." He smiled and slightly bowed his head respectfully.

His eyes never focused on her, they just seemed to look, as if he was watching something no one else could see. Sam laughed a little at the compliment. "I beg your pardon, but how do you know if I'm lovely or not?"

"Beauty is not only in the appearance of things," he said wisely. "The sound of a person's voice gives away more about the person than their words."

"What does mine give away?" Sam asked, curious.

"You speak with the weight of many things, and yet your tone remains light, attractive, like you are smiling even when you're not. The words you use are kind, intelligent. All together it makes the woman a lovely woman."

"Thank you," Sam said.

"Lovely woman has a name, I think." It wasn't a question.

"Samantha – well, Sam."

"Samantha." He pronounced the t separately, giving it a crisp sound. "I am Han."

"Nice to meet you, Han."

"Your smile is still there, Samantha. I can hear it."

"Because you made me smile."

"A lovely woman should always be smiling."

"To please others?" Sam asked.

"Perhaps," Han nodded. "It pleases me to hear your smile."

"Sometimes it's hard to smile," Sam looked away from him, absently fiddling with one of the game pieces as she looked back to John's apartment.

"Tell me."

"It's a long story, Han."

"Look at me," he laughed. "Do I have anywhere to go right now?"

Sam sighed and looked at Han. His eyes rested somewhere near her elbow as he waited for her. Strangely, his presence, and the fact that he couldn't see her was comforting.

"I just got back into town. I needed a break, I guess. I left everything, my friends, my life. But all it got me was jet lag and a bunch of pictures of stuff."

"You traveled, Samantha. Most people take pictures when they travel."

"Yeah, but I was alone," Sam leaned forward on the table. "So my pictures are all just of stuff. It seems like such a waste of time when you could go on the internet and find pictures of the exact same stuff, and say that you took them."

Han laughed at her sarcasm. "But you are back now."

"Yes. I'm back," Sam sighed. "I came over here maybe… hoping that I'd run into a friend of mine. I haven't seen him for a while."

"He knows you're back?"

Sam thought on it for a moment. Finch knew for damn sure. "I don't know, actually. He might. But I left him and I left my job because of some new… demons I gained. There were some things I learned about myself that I didn't like. I guess I was trying to outrun everything."

"Demons have to be faced, Samantha, or they will always chase you," Han said. "Are you afraid your friend will see those demons in you now?"

"No," Sam said slowly as she thought. "He... he would help me fight them." Even as she said it she knew it was true. "He knows what it's like, to have demons. In fact," Sam felt as though she discovered the code to a vault as the realization came to her, "I think he believes that he is a demon."

Han nodded and appeared to look down at the game board for a moment, lost in a complicated thought. He lifted his head and nearly met Sam's eyes. "A man who believes that of himself usually has a reason for doing so."

Sam nodded as well, though she knew Han couldn't see it. John had a past, most of which she knew nothing about, some of which she could imagine though, if she tried. "That's why," she breathed.

"Why what?"

"John, my friend, thinks he is past redemption, that he's not worth saving or waiting for because of the things he's done," Sam's words spilled over each other as the thought came together in her head, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle falling perfectly into place. "It's almost as if he somehow thinks that maybe, just maybe, if he helps enough people for the rest of his life, it will make up for at least a little bit of what he's already done. Because that's all he's really wanted – to help." The vault opened just a crack.

"You are smiling again, Samantha," Han said with a smile of his own.

"He is the best man I've ever known," Sam admitted. "And he thinks he's the worst."

"The truth about yourself is the usually the most difficult to see," Han said. "Yet you can see it."

"I can - I do see it," Sam admitted eagerly.

"But you left," Han reminded her.

"I did. I left," Sam deflated a little. "I thought it was the best thing, that it would help. But I just figured out something within the last five minutes that I couldn't grasp in the three months I spent trying to figure things out!"

Han chuckled. "Perhaps you should run into your friend John sooner rather than later. Hm?"

"I don't know how he'll react, or if he'll react. I'm just... scared," Sam admitted.

"Think Samantha that he has been scared all this time."

Sam laughed a little and rolled her eyes. "Why should he be scared?"

"That you may never return."

Sam stared at Han who seemed to stare back with that permanent, slightly amused smile on his kind face. They blinked at each other for a long moment – well, Sam blinked at Han. She couldn't be sure where Han was looking exactly - her phone rang from her pocket.

Sam jolted back to herself and pulled out her phone. The ID listed the caller as an Unknown Number.

Han seemed to sense her hesitation. "Is that John calling now?"

"I don't know."

"Answer. Do not be afraid, Samantha."

"Thank you, Han," Sam said as she stood and answered the phone.

"Hello?"

"I'm afraid we don't have time for the usual pleasantries, Miss Watts," Finch said hurriedly.

Sam's brain seemed to jam its gears when she heard his voice.

"Harold."

"We need your help. John's gotten himself… a little in over his head."