The next morning at the precinct ...

Mike and Jo had just settled in behind their respective desks, and had begun surveying their individual paperwork landscapes, when Lt. Reece's voice rang out.

"Ten Hut!"

They, and all other personnel in the room stood to attention and saluted Police Commissioner Frank Reagan as he appeared at the entrance of the bullpen and walked in and stopped just short of midway. Even 15 years after trading in his detective's desk for the stately Commissioner's office, he had to fight the habit of stalking eagerly over to his old desk, now occupied by a lovely, dark-haired, Latina detective, Jo Martinez.

"As you were," he uneasily instructed them, and, equally uneasily returned their salutes. This was one part of his job that he did not relish: subordinates saluting him. And he didn't particularly like that word subordinates, either. To refer to them as such, as his Deputy Commissioner of Public Information, Garrett Moore, insisted they were, was to imply that they were beneath him ... and they weren't. He greatly appreciated and admired them all for their hard work, sacrifices, and devotion to their duties. With the exception of some bad eggs, the majority of them were dedicated men and women of New York's finest. So, if an expected salute from them meant that he would be expected to return it, so be it.

"Commissioner Reagan. Welcome to the 11th," Lt. Reece greeted him.

"Thank you, Lieutenant. And nice to see you again." He smiled warmly at her.

Reece raised an eyebrow in Martinez's direction and said, "Come to visit your old desk."

He chuckled and lowered his head. "No. No. Not today. But it's good to see that it's in good hands." He schooled his features and turned his attention to Mike.

"Mike?" Reece caught his eye and motioned for him to join them, which he did, sweaty palms and dry throat and all.

An anguished thought ran through his mind as he neared the towering Top Cop again. What had he done wrong now?

Reece turned around and patted Mike on the shoulder, saying, "I leave you in good hands. Watch the language." She playfully pointed a finger at him and retreated backwards a few steps.

Mike did his best to appear calm as he looked up at the Commissioner. This must be what it felt like to go to the guillotine, he woefully thought to himself. Finally, he managed to croak out, "Commissioner."

Frank softly but firmly instructed him, "Walk with me." He turned around and began walking out of the bullpen as Lt. Reece rang out another "Ten Hut" to signal the Commissioner's exit.

Mike haltingly saluted the Commissioner's back, bobbed his head up and down and said, "Yes, Sir." He frowned helplessly over his shoulder at Jo, who, with raised eyebrows, clasped both hands over her mouth, then lowered them to offer him a weak smile of encouragement. The forlorn, minor chords of the old Russian work song played in his head (dah dah dah DAH dahhhh, dee dah dah DAH dahhhh) as he followed Frank into a nearby conference room.

"Have a seat, Detective," Frank instructed him.

Mike complied, all the while keeping his eyes glued to the Commissioner. Frank eyed him for a second or two, then sat down, naturally, at the head of the table, Mike to his immediate left. He seemed to be fighting an inner battle and finally inhaled and exhaled, looking Mike squarely in the eye.

"I considered myself to be a pretty good detective back in the day." He paused to smile as he realized he'd echoed his father's words of the night before. "And I know a smoke screen when I see it. Like that bull crap that you and Dr. Morgan blew in my face the other day in my office. Normally, I would have shown you the door to the street. Permanently. And, after a call to Morgan's superiors with some choice words, I'm sure that he, also, would have been rushed out of the OCME so fast, his head would have spun." His gaze dropped to his clasped hands in front of him, then, back up to Mike. "That being said ... this is your opportunity to set things straight by telling me exactly what happened the night that those two men were shot with your weapon, Detective."

Mike visibly stiffened and barely breathed for several moments. Caught in a lie. By the Commissioner, himself, no less. And he wasn't asking for his head on a platter? Just wanted the whole truth and nothing but the truth? He finally began to breathe in and out normally again, then cleared his throat to make sure his response was strong and clear. Well ... as much as he could muster, anyway.

"With all due respect, Sir, I did tell you the truth." He paused and licked his lips so suddenly dry. "Except ... for a few things." The words rushed out of him on the tail wind of a sigh of relief. It might spell the end of his career, after all, but it was a weight off of him. The heaviness of which he hadn't fully been aware of until just now. He went on to tell about the seriousness of Henry's wound; the bright light behind him that had lasted only a split second; and Darnell Johnson's utterance of Henry having disappeared.

"He was gone. Like the perp - sorry - Johnson, said." He looked the Commissioner square on even though it was one of the hardest things he'd ever done. Snitch on a co-worker and admit that he had lied and falsified a police report. Big time. Never in all his years on the force had he done any of those things.

"I don't ... I don't know where he went or even how because that wound was too serious for him to have stood up, let alone walk. Except he didn't, he, he just ... vanished." He cast his eyes downward and studied the table, no longer able to hold the Commissioner's gaze. "I'm very sorry, Sir. Just didn't know how to put all that into a report without ... "

"Without sounding like a lunatic or a drunk, right?" Frank softly queried.

"Yeah, I mean, it just sounds too crazy." Mike looked at him again. "But that's what happened. All of it. I've been dancing around the truth about this ever since that night."

"You didn't even tell your wife. Or your own partner, did you?" Frank queried again, a faraway but knowing look in his eyes.

Mike frowned. "Well, I told my partner, Martinez, because she and I have already bandied about our suspicions about the Doc; but I didn't tell my wife. Don't want her thinkin' she's married to a nut."

Frank chuckled a bit, his shoulders hunching up and down. "Well, you are a lot braver than I was, Detective. For the past nearly 40 years, I've kept my experience with the good doctor to myself. Not even my dad, the former Commissioner, knows about it."

Mike's eyes widened and his brow furrowed, his mouth worked but no words came out.

"Yes, Detective. Apparently, Henry Morgan has been around a lot longer than any of us suspect. Exactly how long, I don't know, but to describe him as an ancient soul is probably pretty accurate."

"Well, I guess, I, I don't know, but ... you're saying that he pulled that vanishing act on you, too, when you were a cop?"

Frank smiled and said, "Well, not exactly." He related how he'd grown up with stories his father had told him about a young, British doctor who had tended to him when he was a young child. His dad had described the doctor in no small detail because he'd never gotten the chance to really thank him for saving the life of his small son. About a month after little Frank had been discharged from Methodist Hospital, the senior Reagan had finally found time and visited there to shake the doctor's hand and properly thank him. However, he'd been told that the doctor and his wife, who'd also worked there as a nurse, had suddenly not shown up for work one day, three weeks prior. The home that they'd shared with their own young son was abandoned. Young Det. Henry Reagan had tried for years off and on to locate the doctor but to no avail.

Twenty-six years later, a young Det. Frank Reagan, while investigating the case of a man and woman accused of grave robbing, had taken the statement of a gravedigger who'd ironically matched the description of his father's elusive British doctor; the same one who'd saved his own life as a child.

"At first, I had assumed this gravedigger must have been the British doctor's son or something. He was long on theories but short on any answers that made much sense. He'd frustrated me so much that I took a closer look at him and his family. Just to make sure that he wasn't involved with the grave robbers himself. What I found was ... what I found out about him was stuff right out of the Twilight Zone. He was married to a woman named Abigail, a nurse. Marriage certificate had a 1955 date on it, with him at 35 and Abigail at 34." He paused for a moment. "You good at math, Detective?"

Mike nodded, a slight frown on his face, not sure what that had to do with any of this.

"How old would a person be in 1979, if there was documentation showing they were 34 in 1955?"

Mike, still frowning, replied, "Uh, 58, 58 years old. Commissioner, I'm not sure I'm following you."

"His wife, Abigail, still an attractive woman, looked to be in her late 50's when I visited their home to question him some more. Dr. Morgan, however, who should have also been in his late 50's, still looked 35. And, according to when my dad had met the two of them in 1953, they both appeared to be in their early to mid 30's. Now, that washes with her, but not with him."

Mike's frown deepened along with his confusion. It took more than a few moments for the Commissioner's words to sink into his brain. As more and more things began to fall into place regarding the mysterious ME, the small muscles in his face twitched and threatened to form a wild grin. Laughter exploded from him but he didn't know why. The whole idea was just too ludicrous; he felt as though he should have been screaming from the top of his lungs, but instead, he was laughing. Was it possible? Was it even possible that this is the secret Henry had been hiding from all of them all this time? That he somehow exists like everyone else, but unscathed by time, unlike everyone else. "He ... doesn't age." He blinked repeatedly at the Commissioner.

"That would seem to be the case, Detective," Frank responded flatly.

"But how ... ?"

"That," the Commissioner replied, as he rose from his chair, "is the million-dollar question, now, isn't it?"

Mike followed Frank with his eyes, as he'd risen from his chair and walked over to gaze out of the window and stretch his back and legs.

"May I ask, Commissioner, why you're so willingly telling me all this? I mean it is Henry's personal business ... right?" It was one thing, he felt, for him and Jo to snoop behind Henry's back, but the Commish just blabbing out somebody else's personal business like this? He didn't get it. "Don't mean to be disrespectful, Sir."

"You're not being disrespectful, Detective, and you're right. This is the doctor's personal business. But he has crossed my family's path more than once before this. This time his life has begun to directly effect the workings of this department, what with his involvement with you and Det. Martinez in your crime solving. That makes his business our business."

He turned to face Mike again. "That makes it my business, because it's my responsibility to make sure that nothing and no one disrupts or hampers this department's ability to maintain the highest level of performance in its main goal of protecting and serving the public." He clasped his hands behind his back and pushed his chin out (much like Henry often did, Mike observed).

Several thoughts raced across Mike's mind as he tried to grasp onto at least one that would adequately voice his feelings. "Am I out, Commissioner?" He didn't ask about Henry, because if he was out, it was given that Henry was, too.

"No, Detective, that's not why I brought you in here and shared this with you." He sat back down. "You keep your job. You did the only thing you could have done when you filed your report. I totally understand that because," he scoffed, "I did something similar when I filed my report back in '79. Had no choice. Who would have believed me? You and the doctor keep your jobs - "

"Thank you, Sir!" Mike blurted out, then realized that he'd interrupted him. "Uh, sorry."

"You both keep your jobs with certain new guidelines that shall be discussed at a later time. In the meantime, the good doctor stays in the morgue until those guidelines are in place."

"Yes, Sir." Mike nodded. He wondered about the new guidelines, and, it was as if the Commissioner had read his mind, with his next statement.

"The new guidelines apply more to Dr. Morgan than to you and Det. Martinez. Jo, isn't it?"

Mike nodded, then realized with embarrassment that he was bobbing his head up and down like his five-year-old instead of using his tongue. He cleared his throat. "Yes, yes, her name is Jo."

"Probably should have brought her in here, too," he muttered to himself. Then, louder, "The doctor will be apprised of these new guidelines that must be in place before his further participation in the crime-solving aspects of field investigations can resume."

"You're gonna pop over to the Doc's after this?" Mike grinned as he asked. His grin faded when he was met with a grim-faced Frank Reagan. "Uh, it's a, a British expression ... pop ... he says it a lot." He sighed and decided to shut up before he talked himself out of his newly re-promised job.

Frank's expression softened a bit. "Dr. Morgan and I will sit down and chew the fat, literally, at Peter Lugar's this Friday." He rose again and Mike knew that this time it signaled the end of their little meeting. Little? Man, is that the wrong word for this; more like explosive fact sharing. Frank paused before the door and looked down at Mike.

"As your Commissioner, I must remind you that this conversation never took place. But as a fellow member of a pretty unique circle of individuals who have uncovered some pretty remarkable information about one of our own, I'll remind you that nothing that we've just discussed about Henry Morgan leaves this room. We take care of our own. Understood?" Frank told Mike.

Mike nodded and smiled appreciatively. "Understood, Sir." He heaved an inward sigh of relief. His and Henry's jobs were safe. "Uh, one question, Sir? Det. Martinez ... ?"

"As long as you feel you can trust her and since she already has her suspicions ... "

"Oh, sure, sure, she can definitely be trusted. In fact, I may not have to update her at all. Ya see, she and the Doc are kinda ... you know ... only everyone else can see it except them."

Frank chuckled. "Ah, yes. They are living in the Land of Denial." He chuckled some more. "Use your best judgment, Detective."

They walked out of the conference room and went their separate ways; Mike, back to his desk, and the Commish, out of the building, his personal entourage in his wake.