Near Death Experience – Chapter 4

A/N: The next several chapters I will be posting in pairs – one chapter from the past and then the following chapter in the present. The chapter from the past will provide some of the background information on what led to the drastic change in Reese and Carter's relationship; the chapter in the present will detail the effects of the change and how they are dealing, or as we already know, not dealing with it.

This chapter takes place at Rikers Island and is from Reese's POV. I have included some of the dialog from the interrogation scenes between Reese and Carter. Thanks to the wonderful folks at the Person of Interest Discussion Forum, and specifically blacktop, who very generously compiled and posted a transcript of those intense encounters.

Guilty men sleep.

It was one of those myths good people cling to, that a guilty man will sleep peacefully in his cell, while an innocent man will stay wide awake in his, night after night, pacing back and forth, trying to remember the one thing that will set him free.

During those days at Rikers, John Reese didn't sleep, but it wasn't because he was innocent – far from it.

He knew the guards were watching, and in his guise as a Wall Street type who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, not being able to sleep and pacing in his cell seemed normal. They expected him to be terrified by the close conditions, the noise, the danger.

Of course he wasn't; he'd been imprisoned before. Reese couldn't sleep and he paced because it was too isolated, too quiet, too safe.

Reese was used to harsh conditions, beatings and torture when he was in captivity. In fact, he welcomed them.

You stayed sharp because you had to focus on so many things – what insects to eat, managing the pain, not divulging any critical information. You found water under rocks, closed wounds with thorns, devised ways to send messages. You formed alliances, eliminated threats, looked for weaknesses.

And you engaged your captors.

You let them know that when they starved you, when they beat you, when they tortured you for hours just to get your name, that they had already lost by sinking to that level, that they were weak and stupid, that it was only a matter of time before their superiors recognized their ineptitude and reassigned them – permanently - with a bullet.

You changed the balance of power as they forgot about the information they were supposed to get from you – they focused on trying to prove you wrong, so that now they divulged the information you needed – and then you killed them and escaped.

Here of course, there was none of that.

Three hots and a cot, a private cell, even help from an adversary. A few members of the Aryan Brotherhood and a suspected government operative were on his radar, but not a priority for now.

Here there was just time.

Time to think about how stupid he had been, how he had jeopardized everything on a rash decision to help that young couple.

Time to think about how he jeopardized the mission - how many people might die because someone won't be able to be there in time.

Time to think about how he jeopardized the team - whether he'd left any evidence behind in that bank basement that could lead the authorities to them.

Time to think about how he jeopardized his friends - with their focus divided as they worked the numbers and tried to help him escape, they might make a mistake that could cost them their freedom, or even their lives.

Time, time, time.

So he stayed awake, and he paced, and he fretted, and he worried and he cursed and he berated himself.

If only his captors knew what a perfect torture this was.

Reese had eviscerated himself mentally and emotionally so thoroughly, his mind was so cluttered with wouldashouldacoulda and how he should have duckeditshuckedittuckedit, that if they decided to question him, he wasn't sure any more that he might not give up that tiniest bit of information, that one small clue that could bring everything, and more importantly everyone, tumbling down.

When told that that he wasn't a match, his face was blank, but inwardly Reese breathed a huge sigh of relief. Finch said that he had a plan and it must have worked.

Just keep it together and in a few hours he'd be processed and out of here.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXX

What did it say about you when the most intimate conversation you've ever had with someone was when you were behind bars?

What if that person was tasked with breaking you?

What if that person was your friend?

What if you wanted her safe, but you also wanted her here?

What if one syllable, one gesture, one look could expose it all?

And what if you started dreaming - even though you were wide awake?

XXX

Reese was surprised that Donnelly hadn't caught on.

The little nod he gave Joss in the bank basement, telling her it was alright to give him up.

The way he turned his head, searching for her when they swabbed him for a DNA sample.

The searing gaze he gave her when Donnelly returned them to their cells.

Reese knew that she was a good interrogator. Even in their brief conversation in the police station over a year ago, Joss had sparked something in him, awakened that little bit of humanity still clinging to life inside. She saw something there – broken and battered and damn near dead – but she saw it.

He had already decided not to say a word to her, but when she introduced herself as Carter, not Detective Carter – asserting her authority, or Jocelyn – trying to be a friend, but just Carter, he spoke.

Of course Reese didn't give her his name and he answered her question with a question, but he spoke to her, and he supposed that was where it began, the push and pull, cat and mouse, call and response between the two of them, even though neither one was aware of it at the time.

Reese wasn't sure that if he hadn't spoken to her first, whether he would have taken Finch up on his offer, or if he did, would he have been little more than another one of Finch's tools, deadly and efficient, but with no feeling or compassion.

Even after they completed the case and Harold told him that he would give him money to leave if he wanted, he decided to stay – because now he had a purpose and a chance to do some good after all the terrible things he'd done.

And he also wanted to continue the conversation with her.

So they talked. On the phone and in person, on rooftops and in cars, sipping coffee and slugging back booze. They talked as enemies, reluctant allies, teammates and increasingly, they talked as friends.

It seemed fitting that she interrogate him today, that if she was at the beginning, she should be at what could be the end as well.

XXX

"So…let's start with your name." Joss said.

Reese paused for a moment.

It wasn't that he was trying to remember that he was John Warren - he had reviewed and memorized for hours the facts about the persona he and Finch had created in preparation for something like this – Reese paused because he made that final decision that he was going through with it, that he wouldn't give up, that he would let Joss interrogate him and try to get out of here.

He wanted to go on with the mission. He wanted to deepen his partnership and increasingly, his friendship, with Harold. He wanted to harass Fusco.

He wanted to continue the conversation with her.

"John Warren – just like it says on my license."

XXX

At first the room was very crowded. In addition to the former army interrogator and the suspect, there was the cop, the vigilante, the man in a suit, the lawyer, the spy, the single mom, the bum, the wife, the assassin and the two soldiers, all in that tiny room, clustered around that table as the FBI agent, the warden, the guards, the other prisoners and extraneous staffers watched, listened and speculated, trying to figure out what was really going on here.

Slowly, they all faded away, and it didn't matter that anyone was watching or listening in, Reese thought. It didn't matter who they had been, who they were now, who they were pretending to be in this room.

It was just two people, talking.

XXX

"What's your middle name?" Joss asked.

"Benjamin."

He kept seeing flashes of red on Joss. She had all black on, but little things would turn red – her earrings, the buttons on her blouse, the edge of her jacket lining inside her sleeve when she raised her arm. It was though his mind was searching for something, or better yet, someplace where that red should be, like when you lose your keys – you mentally retrace your steps, thinking about all the places they could be, but nothing seems right. When she left the room, he kept thinking about where that red should be, treating it like a game, using it to stay sharp, stay focused, while he waited for her to return.

XXX

Reese ran his finger slowly along his temple.

"You have any enemies?" Joss asked.

"Well, I'm pretty sure the guy behind that mirror isn't a fan."

They found the little girl hours outside of the city. She shrank back when she saw Reese – it was men who had kidnapped her and taken her away from her family, men who were going to kill her even after the ransom had been paid – but then shyly held her hand out to Joss.

While Reese drove, Joss sat with the little girl in the back of the car, talking to her, gradually getting her trust. They stopped for food on the way and Joss displayed that perfect combination of firmness and caring when she told the little girl that she would have milk instead of soda and an apple instead of fries.

Finally the little girl slid into Joss' lap and put her arms around her neck, half asleep as she played with Joss' hair. Joss sang softly to her, her eyes occasionally meeting Reese's in the rear view mirror.

They had gotten there in time.

When they arrived at her parents' house, Joss' hair was askew and Reese pulled the red hair elastic free and then ran his finger along her temple, gently pushing an errant strand of hair behind her ear.

Of course it didn't happen that way.

Reese knew that for a brief moment his mind, dying for sleep, had drifted into some sort of dream, even though his eyes were wide open. It was only for a moment and he quickly recalled what really happened, while Donnelly issued some instruction to Joss via her earpiece.

Joss had noticed her hair in the car window as they exited the vehicle and she asked Reese to pull out the hair elastic for her. She shook her head, letting her hair fall into place and then she carried the little girl back to her overjoyed parents while Reese, as always, stayed in the background.

There, he found it, that's where the flash of red came from. It would go away now as that part of his brain focused on something else.

"Why did you leave the military?" Joss asked.

XXX

"Guess I was drifting a bit, job to job, place to place. Damn near broke for a while. Then a good man found me and gave me a purpose."

"Who was that?" Joss asked.

"My current employer, Howard French."

Reese knew that Donnelly was speaking to Joss via the earpiece, that he would be running a background check on his imaginary employer, Howard French, but then Joss' head moved to her right, just a little bit, and he knew that someone else was speaking to her as well – Harold, assuring her that everything would check out.

"How did you and Mr. French meet?"

"He found my resume online, called me in for a meeting. Then he told me who he was, what he did, asked if I wanted to help. You can call Howard and ask him about me. I'm sure he's wondering where I am."

Reese wanted to smile at the look on her face – he knew she was thinking that she'd love to talk to 'Howard French' right now.

"Excuse me." She left the room.

He closed his eyes as he waited for her to return. The flashes of red hadn't gone away, in fact they had multiplied. Reese thought back to that day when he pulled the red hair elastic from Joss' hair:

He didn't know he had still had the accessory until he undressed that night. He still might have it, in fact.

If they got out of this, he'd look for it and give it back to her.

XXX

Joss' hand circled slowly in the air, signaling 'stall'.

"I'm sorry. How many more questions am I going to have to answer?" Reese asked.

"I'll tell you what. I'll answer one of yours, then you answer mine. Have I ever killed anyone? Yeah. First time was the worst."

She had asked him hours ago if he had ever killed anyone and he had answered truthfully – only the location was false. When he had woven it into John Warren's past, he had relayed the facts calmly to Harold, but here the feelings of that night had overtaken him and he'd had to look away to collect himself.

Reese listened to her tell her story and he knew she felt the same way, had been thinking the same things: how quickly it happened, yet how slowly, that desperate realization that they both wanted to live, but that only one would, and at the end how they were all drenched in sweat, that the living and the dead had their mouths wide open, and even though only one could speak, they both silently screamed a sorrowful medley of anguish, relief, terror and regret.

He wanted to ask her if she had done something like he had done afterwards – gotten rip roaring drunk, gone off into the woods with a UN translator who had been eyeing him in the bar all night. After he had fucked her six ways to Sunday, she blurted out that her boyfriend was playing pool in the next room and was probably looking for her. He laughed hysterically, telling her that having his dick out in the words is what had gotten him into trouble in the first place. She thought he was laughing at her and shoved him out of the way, gathering her clothes and the remnants of her dignity as she left.

But, no, he didn't have to ask her. He knew that she had prayed on her knees for hours, written and torn up letters to the family she imagined the man had, asking for forgiveness, answered the chaplain honestly, but never told the truth.

He knew that they had both cried afterwards, he in the woods, she in the latrines.

Her eyes thanked him silently. They kept on talking.

And the room was bathed in a soft red light.

A/N: In the episode Prisoner's Dilemma, there was an extreme close up of Reese's face, when he slowly runs his finger down his temple as he talks to Carter. I call that the beauty shot – an absolutely fantastic example of how gorgeous JC is and how much the camera loves him.

Next: A chapter called Eyes Wide Shut, which takes place at the hotel featured in the episode, Booked Solid.