Disclaimer: Credit to Jonathan Nolan, Greg Plageman, and the POI writing team for these lovely characters (though Elena is mine). Any bolded sections come straight from the episodes.
THE DETECTIVE AND MRS. RILEY
Birthday Boy
Timeline
• Brief Encounters (ch 30-36)
• Queensbridge Park
• The Night Watch (ch 29)
• Elena Cassidy's Home for Retired Assassins (ch 3)
• Fusco Meets the Rileys (ch 4)
• Little Mistress Normal (ch 5)
• Drinks (ch 10)
• Detective Darkness and Little Miss Sunshine (ch 12)
• Bear's Collection (ch 2)
• Home Safe Home (ch 9)
• BIRTHDAY BOY
• Hell in the Hamptons (ch 13-16)
• Risque Business (ch 20)
• Detective Cassidy (ch 21)
• Bets on Broadway (ch 11)
• Toast (ch 19)
• Friendsgiving (ch 24)
• Shootin' Around the Christmas Tree (ch 25)
• Nicknames (ch 22)
• Man in the Suit and Wife (ch 26)
• We Wish You a Merry Reesemas (ch 28)
• To Each His Own (ch 27)
• To See and Be Seen (ch 39)
• Little Mrs. Not-So-Normal (ch 37)
• In or Out (ch 40)
• Kneecappily Ever After (ch 38)
• Swingers Cruise (ch 6)
• Knockout (ch 8)
• Ellie with the Pink Hair (ch 18)
• Queen E (ch 1)
• Toxic (ch 17)
• Get to the Chopper! (ch 7)
• Meat Me in St. Louis (ch 23)
• Queensbridge Park epilogue
"John?"
"Yeah?"
Elena's been meaning to ask this question for a while. She's run through about a half dozen ways to ask it. But now, in the moment of truth, she hesitates.
Reese turns to look at her. "What?" he asks, bemused.
Oh, this is even worse. But it's too late to back out now.
"Your birthday's in a week."
He hums in the affirmative.
"... How many candles should I put on your cake?"
"Come on, El, we both know you can't bake."
She rolls her eyes. "The cake I'm going to buy you, from that French bakery on the West Side, the one on Columbus." [1]
"They use too much butter."
"We've been through this before, John. There's no such thing as too much butter."
Reese knows she practices what she preaches, based on the butter she slathers on her toast in the morning.
"I'm really not a blow-out-the-candles type of guy."
She smiles, but it can't hide the hurt as he continues to sidestep the question. "Of course not. Silly me. Forget I asked."
His heart sinks. "El —"
She's saved by the ding of her phone, and she hops out of bed to check her next work placement, managing to evade the hand that reaches out for her.
"Oh, I need to straighten my hair today," she frets, glancing at the time. "Can I use the bathroom first?"
When it's his turn, he slips into the bathroom while Elena hurries around, towel-drying her hair and asking Bear's opinion about which dress she should wear today.
True Army man, Reese can get ready in five minutes flat. He's never seen Elena finish her toilette in under an hour when she's getting ready to be Miss Clark. Yet, when he steps out of the shower, she's already gone.
Elena is amazing at avoiding him.
"All right, Reese, what'd you do?" Shaw finally asks a few days later.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he says, in a tone that says he knows exactly what she's talking about.
"Usually you and the Little Mrs. are joined at the hip, but she's barely been in the same room as you for the past three days. What. Did. You. Do?" she asks again, each word laced with threat.
He isn't really in the mood to spar with Shaw, verbally or physically. "She asked my age, and I didn't tell her."
Shaw gives him a look of disbelief. "That's it?"
"Yup."
"Uh ... why didn't you just tell her?"
He doesn't answer.
"Oh my God, you're insecure about it! Why, are you old?" she taunts.
He narrows his eyes. "I'm older than you."
"And I'm older than Pixie," she gloats. "So what's the plan here, Moses? You just going to avoid the question until your teeth fall out?"
Reese shrugs. "Maybe she'll forget."
Shaw laughs. "Yeah, right." She gives Reese a funny look. "It matters to you that much?"
"It might matter to her," he points out.
"Like, you're so old she's gonna dump your ass?"
He can't tell if she's just joking or serious.
"Well, think about it this way, Reese. What if she thinks you're older than you actually are?"
"Forty-five," he finally tells Elena the next morning.
She's still half-asleep, and she blinks up at him in confusion, then realization dawns and she smiles brightly. "There! That wasn't so bad. Now, do you want chocolate or vanilla for your cake?"
He stares at her. "That's it?"
"Well, I'm sure they have other flavors. I've always wanted to try strawberry and champagne, but that doesn't really seem your style —"
"I don't care about the damn cake, Elena. Doesn't it bother you that I'm so much older than you?"
She snorts. "Calm down, Grandpa. You're not so much older than me." She pauses. "Does it bother you that I'm younger than you?" she counters.
"That's different —"
"No, it's not. It's the same thing. It's just a matter of perspective."
"Well, I suppose I should know better than to argue about perspective with an art major," Reese says, though he still sounds uncertain.
"Art history." She leans over and pecks him on the lips. "But for the record, no, I don't mind, you silly old man."
She almost makes it out of the bed before an arm wraps around her waist and pulls her back down.
"Old man?" he repeats dangerously.
"Silly old man," she corrects.
He pauses as he looms over her. "You thought I was older," he realizes.
Oh, Elena's a terrible liar, even when she doesn't say a word.
"How much older did you think I was?"
"Good Lord, John Reese, you are secretly the most vain man ever. No wonder the Machine shaved two years off Detective Riley's age."
"I'll show you old," he vows.
"Careful, don't throw out your hip."
He glares. "You like flirting with danger, don't you?"
She smiles. "Of course. I like flirting with you."
Everything is back to normal. Elena isn't avoiding him any longer, but he can't help but feel like she's hiding something from him. Strangely, she doesn't mention his birthday any more.
He's coming down with a basket full of laundry and a rifle that needs cleaning when he hears a hushed voice from the basement.
"Ace, I told you not to call. Yes, yes, I'll see you tomorrow."
He pauses, trying to come up with a valid reason why Elena would be secretly talking to her ex Adam Saunders and arranging to meet him tomorrow.
It doesn't help when Shaw's voice speaks up. "Reese is going to kill you, Pixie."
Elena sounds uncertain. "You think?"
"I know."
"Oh, maybe this wasn't such a good idea," Elena frets.
Shaw pauses. "Why don't you just ask him? He's standing at the top of the stairs."
Elena whirls around, and Reese steps into view.
"Something you want to tell me, El?"
"I ... I ... um ..."
"Ugh, Cassidy, remind us to teach you counter-interrogation tactics," Shaw groans. "Pixie's ordering a birthday lunch for you tomorrow from her ex's diner. She's going to surprise you at the precinct."
"Well, it's not a surprise anymore," Elena mutters.
"It was either ruin your surprise or Saunders mysteriously goes missing, so ..."
Reese doesn't let his relief show. Even though he knows without a doubt that Elena wouldn't be sneaking around behind his back, the confirmation is appreciated.
"I can pretend to be surprised," he offers.
"Never mind, let's just call it a date then," Elena sighs. "Noon?"
He nods. "I generally don't like surprises," he admits. "Usually someone ends up getting shot."
Elena looks uneasily at Shaw, who grins and begins planning to tap into the precinct's surveillance network around lunchtime tomorrow.
"Detective," Officer Carson stops Reese on his way to an interrogation room. "Mrs. Riley is waiting for you at your desk. Just thought you should know."
Reese glances across the station and sees another officer, a rookie, approaching Elena as she sits in the chair beside his desk. She's placed a picnic basket on top of his tall stack of open homicide cases.
Reese hands the file he's holding to Fusco. "You take this one," he says.
"Hey, go easy on the rook, okay?" Fusco says.
"I hope you're not in some sort of trouble, miss," the rookie is saying to Elena. "Anything I can help with?"
"Oh no, I'm just waiting for my husband," Elena explains. "Detect—"
"Hi, honey," Reese greets, coming up behind Elena. "I see you've met Officer —" he makes a show of having to check the tag. "Russo?"
The officer backs up so quickly he nearly trips over his own feet and then does trip over Reese's chair. "Detective Riley. I was just ... I didn't know ... nice to meet you, ma'am," he stutters, righting the chair before backtracking out of the bullpen.
Elena blinks up at Reese. "I don't think I've ever been called 'ma'am' in my life." She gives him a sidelong glance. "I mean, outside of our bedroom."
She's gratified to see a tinge of pink appear on Reese's cheeks.
"Still," she continues, standing, "I would like to be able to talk to people without putting them in danger of being kneecapped by you."
"Rookies aren't people." Reese picks up the picnic basket as he follows her out of the bullpen. "Besides, you promised me a birthday lunch, not a lecture."
"Oh, the disciplinary stuff comes later, birthday boy."
Elena tries to keep a straight face but fails miserably, and the rest of the precinct goes silent in shock as Detective Riley laughs, too.
"Well, someone's in a good mood," Detective Dani Silva observes as she exits another interrogation room and meets Fusco at his desk. "So there's a chance he's not going to kill you for this."
"There's always a chance he's going to kill me," Fusco retorts. "Ellie'll save me."
He raises his voice so it carries across the bullpen. "All right, everyone, he'll be back in an hour. Let's get ready."
Very few things scare John Reese.
Small, enclosed spaces. [2] Elena getting hurt. And what's happening right now:
The entire precinct surprising him and singing "Happy Birthday" to him.
"Happy birthday, partner!" Fusco says with a big grin as he hand-delivers him a large slice of cake.
Reese glares at him, promising very unpleasant things in the detective's future. He wishes he could hand-deliver a punch to knock the grin off his face.
Elena places her hand on his arm just in time and pushes him into his chair, shooing off other well-wishers so he can enjoy his cake in peace.
"I'm sorry, I tried to get Lionel to reconsider, but he was determined to give you the whole cake and candle experience."
"He's going to die."
She gives him a Look.
"All right, he's going to get hurt. Very badly," he amends.
"I'll make it up to you later, Birthday Boy," she whispers in his ear.
"El."
He gives her a Look this time, both a warning and a promise.
With a smile, she perches herself on the edge of his desk, crosses her legs, leans over to take a piece of his cake, and flutters her eyelashes innocently at him.
"Cake's good," he comments mildly, though his gaze doesn't lose any of its smolder as she makes quite a show of licking the spoon clean of icing.
"Even if it's strawberries and champagne and too much butter? Good Lord, what have I done to Detective Riley?"
"Better question is, what you going to do to him later?"
He says it in the same mild undertone, but there's nothing mild about the look they exchange.
"Why don't we find out now?" she suggests. "You wanna get out of here?"
"I thought you'd never ask."
[1] Too much butter
REESE: Amy, we don't have a lot of time, so I need you to listen. I know your wife, Maddy. She's a great surgeon. I know you love each other, and you love pastries from a bakery on the West Side. Personally, I think they use too much butter.
—Critical (s2e07)
[2] Small, enclosed spaces
SHAW [to Reese]: Burn bag chutes for classified docs, empties out into a churning vat. Well, if we're gonna get to Finch, that's our way in. Come on.
[Reese doesn't move, gives her a Look]
SHAW: What, you're claustrophobic?
REESE: Just remember what happened to that fat German kid in "Willy Wonka".
—.exe (s5e12)