POI fic: Terra Incognita

[clodia_metelli]

Title: Terra Incognita
Rating: G
Source: Person of Interest
Characters: Iris Campbell, Lionel Fusco, Dani Silva
Summary: One of these days, Iris is going to have to deal with the fact that what she doesn't know about John Riley is just as important as what she does know. It'll probably have to wait until after he gets out of hospital, though.

Comments

[clodia_metelli]

Thanksssssssssss. <3 I am resigned to the fact that no one else is ever going to read this, because Iris, but eh. I felt the need to write it anyway. I've more or less settled down to being exasperated with John for being so irresponsible and with Iris for screwing up some perfectly good therapy, which god knows John needs, but I can't help feeling a bit sorry for Iris anyway. Getting involved with John Reese is a bad idea; getting secretly involved with John Reese's cover identity is a terrible idea and bound to lead to far too many nasty surprises.

//Aaaand Fusco's unfair workplace antagonism--what an harmful case of jealousy.//

That was a sentence that really should have been hooked up to six gifs of John threatening Fusco, unless we could find one for every letter. Oh, Iris. "There's nothing you could tell me that would make me run," indeed. It parallels Grace's "No! don't tell me about your secret life!" so neatly that I still have hope the show is going to crash this, if only on the general principle of NO HAPPINESS FOR PROTAGONISTS (and also the ongoing theme of DON'T TRUST THERAPISTS, THEY ARE TRAPS OR CHARLATANS), but I am concerned. These are the people who brought us "Harold And Grace: A Love For The Ages", after all. Still, if you look at that final John/Iris scene in S4 in the right light, it does look rather like John going "Whoops, probably about to burn this cover, well it was nice while it lasted, doesn't really matter what I say now," in which case I hope it comes back to bite him. I would suggest he leads with "My file does not accurately portray my work history because I spent several years doing highly classified stuff and making dangerous enemies, before I parted from my shadowy government organisation on quite bad terms, following which I hit a rough patch before meeting some good people, including Joss Carter, which is when I went undercover in New York." If Iris has trouble with that, we'll know she's not ready for "former government hitman and urban legend hiding out from all-seeing AI with its own private army".

//1993. 1993.//

Turns out Iris and Dani are the same age, actress-wise, although this is at least an appropriate age for Dani, I think. There were moments when S4 felt like a string of pretty young women lining up to ask John out for a drink. At least Dani can cope with an unexpected firefight, though, and I think we all know this is an important character trait in anyone who might spend any length of time hanging out with John Reese.

//Root would be so flattered! P-possibly.//

Inside: three sentences on the theme of HOW DARE YOU SCARE HARRY LIKE THIS, DOESN'T HE HAVE ENOUGH TO WORRY ABOUT, followed by "I'm sorry I told Harry you could handle yourself, clearly I was WRONG. P.S. I hope you get well soon. Did you forget we have a war to fight?"

Sometimes a lot of the fun of characters like John is in how other people react to them. I rather miss John from S1-2: he spent a lot of time being an unapologetic creepy jerk and seemed to be having a lot of fun doing it. I guess the bomb vest incident was a sobering experience.