Death of Innocence
Day 10
Morning at the Homeless Encampment, November 2013
They were the sounds of people shuffling around, getting ready to leave the camp that brought him out of his dream.
Wanted to stay there with her. There were things to discuss, things left unsaid. Important things. But she'd gone now, and he was left with a sense of unfinished business, and an ache in his heart.
Another loss – stacked on to the one Upstate. How could this be? How could he have failed so badly, twice? Failed to protect those who'd meant so much to him?
Reese was seeing it with such stark clarity now – how he'd been complicit in the losses. But not only that. He'd failed to see what they'd become in his life. How much he'd needed them there. Even a loner, a warrior like himself.
Reese stared at his picture. The one of Jessie and him, dressed in his Ranger uniform. Young kids then, before the event that'd changed their lives. We all could have done without that. He wouldn't have had to go off to war. Jess would have been his wife. Joss would have patched things up at home, raised their son. And Finch wouldn't have had to build the Machine. One event. So many lives – changed.
That singular event. From that, Finch built his Machine. And from that flowed all of the assembly of people and events since. None of it could have existed without Finch, and deciding to build the Machine.
What world was this, now? After Jess, after Joss. Had to get away – from Finch and the rest – maybe mostly from himself. Felt stuck here, stranded, between the world he'd known, and the one he wanted.
Why did it always have to be about death, dying, killing?
He was ready to turn the page. There'd been lighter moments – he remembered one right now:
Finch had looked up from his laptop after Reese'd been grumbling there, at the other end of the library office.
"Problem, Mr. Reese?"
"Phone's broken."
"May I see it?" Reese shrugged but brought it over.
"What are the symptoms?" Reese grinned at him. Symptoms?
"Well, the patient isn't charging. Think it may be fatal."
Finch tipped the phone this way and that, peering at all the surfaces. He got up and went back to his desk, and tried the cord himself, to see if it would work. Nope.
Then Reese watched him lower a large wraparound magnifier over his eyes and light its light. The phone reflected it brightly off its surfaces as Finch tipped it this way and that, inspecting.
"Ah," he said.
Reached into the top middle drawer of his desk and came out with a small set of tweezers. One of them had long tapering arms, that turned 90 degrees at the tips. He reached down to the side of the phone and stuck the tips into a hole on the end. The charging site.
After a couple of attempts, Finch extracted a tiny wad of something gray, which he held up to Reese.
"Common cause of failure to charge. Fuzz in your charging port, Mr. Reese." He lowered the tweezer and lifted the magnifier up on his forehead, then plugged the cord back into the charging port.
"And, voila," he said, holding the phone up to Reese.
"Huh. I'd be lost without you, Finch."
See? It didn't always have to be about death and dying.
Until it was.
He'll never forget the sound. Two shots, a pause, another shot, and then one more. Sounds that'd changed his life.
He'd dragged himself over to her. Breathing labored already. Lifted her into his arms. Their blood in two little streams on the sidewalk, merging and forming one.
If Finch had called out to him, if there were other sounds around them at the time, he never heard them. The moments drew out, silently, in his mind. Fewer and fewer breaths.
Until there were none.
He'd always thought they'd have more time. But there he was, alone.
"I always thought you'd never leave," he whispered.