"You can put your jacket over there, I'll be right with you", Danielle pointed at her kitchen counter before she headed in the direction of the bathroom.
John looked around the small apartment he had visited earlier today, when woman was on duty. Unlike himself, she seemed keen to maintain the appearance of a personal living environment. While the gray and white furniture radiated a pleasant neutrality, it was the two framed photos of the seaside that suggested a relaxed atmosphere. In addition to a few decorative items that seemed to have been chosen without any specific intention, some green plants created a feeling of homely feeling.
An apartment, that could be found at any furnishing catalogue, friendly, but saying just as little about the tenant. A kind of apartment that, in an an case of emergency, could be left behind without extensive preparation or emotional ties, he thought. His gaze crossed the only photo that showed he woman at approximately age eight beside her parents. Aside from a few books on the subjects of nature.
"If you don't have an idea to make the cut some kind of street chic trend, I am afraid that your jackett won´t make it", she pulled him out of his thoughts while examining the gray fabric.
Not being able to suppress a grin, John raised one of his eyebrows. "I will think about it."
"Fine, let me know when it's worth getting into the business. But first I'll clean your wound. Can you remove the shirt from your arm?"
Hesitant to comply, he looked down at the cut.
"Thanks to her pressure bandage, the bleeding has almost stopped. You don't have to bother."
For a moment, an unwavering silence filled the room, before his counterpart suddenly shook her head in amusement.
"What's so funny?", he asked honestly confused.
"Don´t worry. This isn't some weird attempt to hook you up if that's what you're afraid of. I don't count myself among those who fall madly in love with their savior in this fabled complex. However, I don´t want to be responsible of a possible blood poisoning and thus a pretty nasty death... so...?"
John frowned. "I also could imagine nicer things", he valited her thought.
Undoing the top buttons of his shirt, he watched as his counterpart prepared the necessary items from a professional first aid kit before she assessed his wound.
"You were lucky. The cut is only a few millimeters deep. I think we can fix that with some disinfectant and a bandage. To be on the safe side, I will seal the wound with fibrin glue. It will hinder new bacteria from getting in and stops the rest of the bleeding", she let him know.
"You own fibrin glue?"
"Does anyone not?"
The brief grin that crossed her face made him smile too.
"Nowadays you can buy stuff like that at every pharmacy. A spray patch is no different in that sense, just in liquid form", she explained.
Soaking a sterile pad in disinfectant, she warned him: "This is going to sting now."
"You seem to know what you're doing", John remarked about her confidence in performing the procedure.
"And you seem to be able to take a beating. Just a little wink where others are already whining at a paper cut desinfection."
Watching Danielle focussedly work the length of the cut, he tried to keep the conversation going.
"Let's say I'm used to worse."
"I´m not going to doubt that. At least, it didn't look like you'd had a fight with guys like that for the first time."
"You could say it like that."
"And yet you don't belong to the police, nor do you to the FBI."
Remaining silent about her assumption he had to admit that she, too, seemed to be a good observer.
"But who are you then?", she went on verbalizing her thoughts more to herself than to him.
„Based on their fighting style, I'd guess for military, but how could I have landed on their radar?", she continued her thoughts without looking up.
Equally impressed as well as cautioned by the woman's deduction, who now unerringly reached for the tube with the glue, John took a moment before answering.
"Let's say I'm self-employed", he eventually confirmed the first part of her guess. "You know your way around?"
Shaking her head, she began applying the two-component adhesive to his wound.
"Not really. Occasionally I watch the documentary channel before going to bed. It may sound strange, but the neutral reports help me to relax when my mind is working overtime."
Putting the tube of fibrin glue aside, she nodded toward the wound.
I think that´s it. With a bandage around, you're good as new."
John looked down at the cut, which seemed to have stopped bleeding completely.
"Where did you learn that?", he asked with sincere interest.
"In the past I've taken some evening classes as well as I performed two unpaid internships at hospitals between jobs. I don't know about you, but my job isn't what I would call fulfilling."
Taking the bandage out of the sterile packaging, she seemed to consider her next words.
"Don´t get me wrong. According to my circumstances I'm glad to have a job that allows me to lead a life that appears normal on the outside. As you already pointed out, when I moved here, I lived in constant fear that the little swindle regarding my identity would be noticed at the latest when I filed my tax return. With getting a fake ID card so easily, it only seemed a matter of time until someone would get suspicious. Fortunately for me, informations of any kind seem to be checked only superficially."
After a rhetorical pause, in which she brushed back a strand of hair that had fallen on her forehead, she continued: "In terms of my work, on the other hand, I just feel like I'm making a contribution as important as a refrigerator in the Arctic."
"That actually doesn't sound like the best motivation to get up in the morning", he agreed.
"Honestly, I just want to do something worthwhile that at least feels like I can help people with in some way.
"Hence the internships and the Spanish class. You are looking for a career change", he concluded. "Why have you hesitated until now?"
For a moment his counterpart interrupted her concentrated work. Like only a few times during the previous conversation, she now looked directly into John's eyes.
"I think it's my turn to ask questions again. So far, our two-way approach had worked quite well, dont you think?"
Suspecting that he probably wouldn't be able to answer her questions, he nonetheless kept silent as an agreement to give her the chance anyway.
"Besides knowing everything you know about me for whatever reasons, I wonder why you put yourself in danger for me. You are willing to take a fight; let yourself be cut like a piece of meat at the supermarket counter and I don't even know your name in return."
John couldn't help but chuckle at the butchers metaphor.
"Let's start with the last part of the question", he suggested. "My name is John."
Now it was his counterpart whose forehead wrinkled skeptically.
"Alright, John", she began. Seems like I have no choice but to believe you anyway… so will you also answer me the rest of my question?"
"I'm afraid I can't tell you where I got my information from, but to sum it up, I don't like it when something unjust happens to innocent people."
"Then I would have needed you in my life 16 years ago."
The involuntary mixture of bitterness and irony in her voice made her shake her head.
"Sorry, I didn't mean it the way it sounded", she apologized, looking back at him. "It's just… do you know that feeling of wondering how your life would have been if you had made one different decision? If a certain situation in your life wouldn´t have happened? I mean, while I know that those kind of head games don't change the reality you're trying to make the best of, there's just nothing I can do about those constant questions in my head."
John swallowed. Like his counterpart, he knew the thought that haunted him every time he saw a happy family all too well. In his mind he saw the smiling face Jessica, who was no longer alive.
One other decision, a sentence that could have steered everything in a different direction.
It wasn't that he wouldn´t be passionate about what he was doing. Moreover it was a part of his life for which he was forever grateful to Finch. Instead of a job, he had found his calling in saving innocent people; a point for which he was willing to give everything. Equally, he knew, it was this vocation that separated him from another life for which he would give equally much as well. It was like two hearts beating in his chest - two worlds that, much as he wished, were incompatible.
"I'll make sure you can live the life you want to live", he avoided her actual question with an indispensable conviction in his voice.
"I can't ask that of you. You may have your heart in the right place, but I don't want to hear about you dead on the news because you want to play the lonely avenger."
"Who says I'm alone?", John tried to lighten the situation with a smile.
"As far as I can see it´s only you at my apartment…"
Grabbing for the scissors, Danielle taped the end of the bandage.
"That's it. Almost new."
Inspecting the spot on his arm, John decided it was time to leave.
"Thanks. If I know anything new, I'll get back to you. Since these strangers attacked you on the street, I'm assuming that they don't know where you live. So, for now you should be safe here."
Danielle nodded.
The door handle already in his hand, he turned to her again.
"One more thing."
"What do you want to know?"
"According to the way you responded to me when I approached you first, I'm surprised you brought me here."
The confident smile that indicated a return of her protective shield to the outside world reassured him that she would be fine on her own.
"You took quite a beating for me. Don't think I didn't see the punch in your ribs", she contrasted with a raised eyebrow. "So, let's just say I don't like being indebted to anyone."
Leaving it at that, he had almost pulled the door shut when she stopped him again.
John paused, looking at his counterpart with a questioning expression on his face.
"Do yourself a favor and avoid punches on your arm for the next few days", she let him know with a mixture of medical professionalism and amusement, before turning her back on him to head towards the bathroom.