Fic: Hell, High Water and Amnesia Chapter 3A
Title: Hell, High Water and Amnesia: Chapter 3A
Author: maekala
Fandom:Person of Interest
Rating: Mature for violence and descriptions of injuries
Word Count: ~37K
Warning: violence and descriptions of injuries and treatments
Spoilers: all of season 1
Summary: Following an explosion, Reese loses parts of memory including everything to do with Finch and the Machine. Not sure who to trust, John evades the FBI, CIA and Carter as he attempts to remember who he's become and why he's drawn to this strange man with a limp.
Author's Note: So this fic was originally started as part of pod_together, but then it kept getting longer...and longer...and longer. And then I saw the announcement for PoI Big Bang and decided that would work better. This fic would never have been written without the initial cheerleading from podcath. I'd also like to thank togsos for her awesome, awesome art. She captured the scene exactly as I'd pictured it in my head. Final thanks go to sevencorvus for letting me participate in the Big Bang at the last minute.
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Carter sat down next to Finch, watching his face carefully. It had been two days since John's pharmacy run and she'd spent most of it watching an FBI/CIA pissing contest over who would collar John. The FBI insisted that he was wanted for multiple crimes across state lines while the CIA insisted that, since he was one of theirs, he was their responsibility. She honestly wasn't sure why they'd included her in the conversations except maybe to serve as referee. When the break in hadn't produced any tangible leads, the agents had eventually disappeared, though she had noticed she had a CIA fan club again.
Slipping them had become child's play to her. She wondered what Finch thought of the battle for his friend. She wasn't sure what the two men meant to each other, but she could tell that they'd become close, even since the first time she'd watched them interact during the evidence locker break in.
“Any news?” she asked, hoping Finch had had better luck than she.
Finch looked up and she was surprised to see that he had circles around his eyes, like he'd spent the last week staring at screens and forgetting to sleep.
“Nothing,” he said and his voice was gravelly. Was he even eating, she wondered.
“You look like hell,” she stated, deciding for the direct approach. He raised an eyebrow, pushing his glasses up his face. “You know you won't do John any good if you make yourself sick looking for him. He'd want you to take care of yourself.”
“Thank you for your concern, Detective, but I'm fine.”
She snorted. “Right. Whatever you say.” She waited for a moment, expecting him to push a photograph across the table. “Is there anything else?”
He blinked and looked up from where he'd been staring into space. She frowned, genuinely worried about the man. He shook his head and stood.
“My resources are surprisingly quiet right now. I'll let you know if I hear anything more.”
Finch stood and Carter wanted to pull him back down, to insist that he talk to her about this. She may have started out trying to arrest John, but he had become her friend now, too. God knew these two seemed to need as many friends as they could get. Instead, she watched him leave the small diner and disappear in the crowd of people.
Her attention drifted, wandering over the crowd outside and across the street. Eight million people living in the city and they were looking for just one. She watched as a man with John's build pushed off the side of the building opposite the diner and started down the street in the opposite direction Finch had gone. He was wearing a faded old hoodie and he desperately needed a shower and a shave but he could have been John.
Carter sat straighter, staring hard at the man. No, it was John. She stood suddenly, pulling out her phone and calling Finch. She was outside in a heartbeat, looking in the direction she'd seen John walk, but he was gone. She knew better than to try and follow. He was CIA trained to dodge a tail and was much better than the ones who'd been assigned to follow her.
Finch answered on the second ring. “Detective,” he started, sounding as tired as he'd looked.
“Finch, come back now. I saw him.”
There was a pause and then the line was dead. In less than a minute, the shorter man was standing next to her, looking in the same direction she was.
“Where?”
His face had lit up and the exhaustion was gone. Carter moved a few steps over so they were out of the way of the pedestrians and pointed where she'd seen John.
“There. He was watching us,” she said. “He walked away after you left.”
“Did he see you watching him?”
Carter closed her eyes. Of course. “Probably. Or he thought I was watching him. Damn, Finch, I just barely saw him. I wasn't really watching anything, but he must have thought I made him.”
Finch smiled up at her. “This is good news, Detective. If he's following us, he may be remembering. Tell me everything you saw and I'll see what I can find.”
***
Harold wanted to run up the stairs in his excitement of the news about John, but slowed his pace in deference to his injury. He'd never wished for an elevator in the building as much as he did now. Once he was there his system seemed to take forever to boot up and he found himself fiddling with things on his desk and looking around the room distractedly, almost expecting John to materialize in his chair and smile at Harold with a sly comment about not having faith.
He shook his head at the image and turned back to the screens. A few minutes of typing pulled up all of the cameras on the street by the diner and Harold had them all cued to run simultaneously beginning when he'd sat down. He stared intently from screen to screen, searching for the familiar figure but saw nothing for a long moment.
He noted Detective Carter arriving and searched harder, thinking John may have followed her. As he was about to give up, he saw the hint of movement by the corner Carter had pointed out. His eyes started to sting as he kept his gaze glued to the image, not even daring to blink. John's face peeked from behind the corner, his attention on Harold's back as computer-Harold limped slowly down the street.
John glanced back at the diner, then suddenly turned and began walking calmly in the other direction, his head bowed slightly and his hands stuffed in the pockets of a faded black sweatshirt.
“John,” whispered Harold, his hand reaching for the screen without thought. Harold started when his fingers touched the screen and he pulled it back, looking around an empty room in embarrassment.
He started typing furiously, pulling up camera feeds and putting a search program together to try to follow John's path. Time passed as he continued to add data points and his excitement grew that he might actually be able to find his friend.
He watched the man double back on himself once, twice and a third time until he suddenly turned a corner and was gone. Harold just barely stopped himself from shouting at the screen as his fingers moved faster across the keyboard, looking for something-anything-that would tell him where John had disappeared to. When he had searched all of the cameras within four blocks of the spot he'd last seen John, he pulled up city planning for the entire area.
The answer stared him in the face and he wanted to bang his head onto the desk. There was utility access between two buildings that he was quite sure John would have found his way into. He pushed away from the desk, disgusted with himself that it had taken him this long to figure that out, especially knowing John's proclivities for forbidden access points when he was hiding. He'd run into the exact same problems when he'd been tracking John before their first meeting.
He was back to square one. He sat back up. Or was he? John had clearly found Detective Carter. Why? Was he starting to remember? Harold's presence had certainly caught his attention, though whether that was recognition of their friendship or their run in at the hospital, Harold couldn't say. He knew which option he hoped for, but he had to be realistic.
He hesitated and then started typing again, pulling up everything around the 8th precinct. Detective Carter's GPS tracking data gave him a time frame and he began searching again for that familiar face. It took nearly an hour of searching and he was close to giving up when he saw that familiar form sliding down a fire escape just as Carter was leaving. Harold laughed softly to himself. Of course John had gone up. He always preferred the high vantage when he was tailing a subject and that certainly wouldn't change just because he had forgotten his recent history.
His energy renewed, Harold began typing the code that would search all rooftop cameras for John and take a closer look at anyone who might be coming down from a higher perch.
***
John stared in silence at the grave marker in front of him.
Donald Hayworth
Beloved Son and Brother
b 1956 d 1984
The name and dates meant absolutely nothing to him, but he'd been drawn to this marker as he passed the cemetery in his wanderings. The ground was damp from recent rain but hadn't been disturbed recently. Of course, someone good at hiding their tracks could have been here yesterday and there would be little trace. Knowing his own skill, he could have been here yesterday and no one would have been the wiser if he so desired.
“If it's anything like the ones I used to bury...” he whispered to himself, hearing the words echoed in a memory that felt like a lifetime ago. He cocked his head to the side, considering. He let his mind wander, thinking of those words but was met by his own foggy recollections. He'd said those words to someone he cared for but didn't want to know that he was still burying packages.
Glancing around one last time and finding no one in the area, he bent down and started digging with the shovel he'd borrowed from the maintenance shed he'd passed on his way here. He hadn't known what it was for then, but he was reasonably sure now of what he'd find.
The package wasn't far down and the soft soil made the task all the easier. He didn't care right now about covering his tracks which made it all the faster. Within minutes, the shovel hit something that was too shallow to be a casket and too soft to be a buried grave stone. He paused, looking around again to make sure he was still alone.
He knelt slowly, brushing dirt away from the black plastic until he revealed a sealed silver case wrapped in a black trash bag. Leaving the bag in the ground, he hefted the case to get a feel for what might be in it and then headed back into the city. He wanted to be safely ensconced before he opened it.
Twenty minutes later he was in a dingy hotel room that rented by the hour and didn't check ID. He sat with the case on the bed and inspected the lock. It was unremarkable, but resilient and required a four digit pass code. He closed his eyes and let his hands wander over the device. Off the top of his head, he could think of two dozen possible combinations he might have used not to mention all the random ones.
He blinked when he heard the case click open. A look at the combination was unhelpful. 1409. It could be random digits, a date in September, a street address or...a date in September. The 14th of September. Had something significant happened that day? His eyes drifted shut as he searched with his mental eye what he couldn't see with the physical.
A meeting under the bridge. A limo ride with a couple of hitters. A man with glasses. Fog.
He growled to himself as the ghost of memory drifted into nothing. Returning his attention to his prize, he lifted the lid to find a fairly standard stash kit: a 9mm pistol and a case of bullets; three stacks of cash, two in US currency and another with assorted Euros, pounds sterling and Russian roubles He stared at the roubles Those were not his standard fare, especially since the agency knew he'd sought shelter in Russian communities on more than one occasion.
He turned to the passports to check the names and stopped dead as a smaller man with glasses stared back at him from half of them. Harold Whitworth. David Tanner. Terry Shannon. All aliases, he knew. He thought.
Harold.
Why would he stash ID for this man? No way he was an agent with a limp like that and he was entirely too easy to overpower. A handler? But why would John have cover ID? Handlers rarely needed them and what they did require, they were responsible for stashing. So what did that leave?
He'd spoken John's name in relief and his eyes had shown absolute trust that John wouldn't hurt him in the hallway. Damn the man for getting under his skin. Even today when he'd seen the man with the detective, he'd exposed himself by watching the man leave, concern worming its way into his thoughts when he saw how exhausted he'd looked. He'd needed food, John had thought. And rest. There had been a moment when John wanted only to follow him and surprise him with pad thai and Sencha green tea. Did the man even like tea?
John threw the passports onto the bed and lay back, staring at the ceiling and pushing thoughts of exhausted faces out of his mind.
Following Detective Carter had felt familiar, like he'd done it more than once. He'd had to stop himself from stealing a motorcycle left in the street a few blocks from the station to assist in his surveillance. Her partner, a short, round man with curly hair and a sour expression had also caught John's attention. John had seen the man with a few other cops and their interactions hadn't seemed on the up and up. He hoped the female wasn't working with a crooked cop; she seemed an honest woman who only wanted to help the people of the city who couldn't help themselves.
He scratched idly at his ear, deciding he would make a supply run in the morning. He needed to hear the conversations he was observing but he hated the larger dish microphones the amateurs used. It shouldn't take him long to build a basic bug and he was confident he could place it without Carter recognizing him.
His day decided, he let his eyes drift closed and waited for sleep to claim him.
***
John sat bolt upright and nearly fell off the bed when his ribs screamed in protest. His eyes were wide and his breathing erratic as his body reacted to two phantom gun shots. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he concentrated on slowing his heart rate. His eyes darted around the room as he checked for any threat and he gasped as he took another deep breath.
Throwing his legs back over the side of the bed, he carefully placed his feet on the floor, testing his balance before standing. His steps were slow as he made his way to the little bathroom nook, one hand braced on the wall so his knees didn't give out from under him. Once there, he leaned back heavily against the door and lifted his shirt. There was a recent scar, just under the bandages covering his burn. He'd been injured more than once in his career. Stabbed, shot and broken more bones than he cared to count. The pink puff of tissue just about the size of a small caliber, high velocity sniper round stood as a stark reminder that he was running from the agency for a reason.
He dropped his shirt, still gasping slightly and found his hand rubbing at his thigh where he could feel a similar bunch of scar tissue where he'd taken a second shot. He sat hard on the toilet seat, catching his breath slowly as he searched his memory of the shots. There was something important about this, he knew. Something his mind was trying to tell him.
He remembered talking to Mark, telling his once friend that he wasn't coming back to the agency. Had Carter been there? He thought he saw her on the edge of his memory, but couldn't tell. Then searing pain as the first bullet ripped through his side and had thrown him to the ground. Then his leg was on fire as the second shot landed its mark.
He'd been in a parking structure of some kind. He'd stumbled his way down the stairs, certain that he'd be stopped by a tactical team at any point. He'd reached out, called for someone.
“I just wanted to thank you...for giving me a second chance.”
Had he been talking to the same man who now haunted the edge of his memory, there but not? What second chance?
“I'm coming to get you.”
“No. You stay away. Too risky.”
His philosophy had long been to push away that which he cared for most. If he pushed it away, put it to the back of his mind, then maybe he could stop caring as much. It certainly made it easier to hide.
His breathing had returned to normal and the phantom pain of past gun shots was replaced by the very real pain of his current injuries. He pulled a bottle of hydrocodone out of his pocket. He'd broken the pills into doses a fourth of the normal and only took one once a day to minimize the narcotic effect and keep himself from forming any kind of dependency on them. He dry swallowed one of the partials before standing and returning to the bed.
He was still shaky on his feet and his entire body hurt. Worse still, the continued pushing at memories that simply weren't ready to return had left him with a persistent migraine. There was no clock on the bedside table. Someone had either taken it or there had never been one. He stood beside the window and listened to the ambient sounds of the city, considered the skyline that was never completely dark.
He guessed it was a little after midnight. He had paid to keep the room all night. Deciding he needed the rest, he packed his case back up, keeping out only the gun and a loaded magazine and settled onto the bed to attempt a little more sleep. The darkness didn't come as easily this time, his eyes occasionally shooting open at twinges of pain from those scars. Eventually, though, he managed to drop into a fitful sleep. In the end, it was all he could ask for.
***
It took Harold most of the night to write the code that would automatically search for John around Detectives Carter and Fusco. He'd considered adding himself to the equation, but decided to wait. He didn't want to inadvertently give himself up and chase John away before the other man made some kind of contact. He considered telling Detective Carter that John was very likely following her, but decided he didn't want her to alert the CIA agents who were still following her as often as they could to John's presence.
He'd fallen asleep at his desk just after dawn and now startled awake as the monitors began beeping an insistent alarm that they'd found something. He groaned when he tried to push himself up too quickly and wished again that large hands were there to massage out the kinks in his spine. At least, what they could.
Squinting at the screen, he looked for whatever they had found. He had to rub his eyes and clean his glasses before he finally saw the motionless figure half in shadow standing atop the building directly opposite of the 8th precinct. He smiled in relief that he hadn't lost John completely and pulled up the earlier footage to try and determine where he'd come from.
It took Harold longer than he would like to admit, but he finally found the half dozen frames where John's foot was visible climbing a fire escape thirty minutes before. He still had no idea where the other man had appeared from since there were no utility tunnels in the nearby vicinity and there were only a handful of other possibilities, all of which were well covered by cameras. He gave that search up in favour of working out why he'd chosen this particular spot now. He remembered John grousing about how hard Carter was to monitor when they'd first begun surveillance on her after her number had come up.
A section of the screen enlarged automatically as Carter received a call about one of her ongoing cases and grabbed her coat to follow a lead. John shifted and Harold figured he must have a sightline on her outline somehow. Did John remember the layout of the precinct, he wondered. Was he operating on memories or instinct? The urge to call Detective Carter and tell her that John was just outside and ask if she could throw John a phone so he could ask these questions nearly overwhelmed him, but he managed to hold himself in check.
While she headed for the door, John made his way to the street and prepared to track her. Harold spotted the two CIA agents who were doing the same and held his breath. Did John know they were there? Did he even know to look? Harold would never forgive himself if his arrogance and need to watch how John was operating now got his friend arrested and sent back to God knew where.
Detective Carter stopped just outside the precinct, pulled into a conversation with another detective and John took the chance to scan the crowd. He took a sudden step back into the shadows and Harold's hands were suddenly over the keyboard, ready to start typing code to keep track of where John went, but they stilled in the air when John stepped back out, the hood of his sweater pulled up to mask his features.
Harold chuckled dryly. John had seen the other agents, knew what kind of risk he was running by following Detective Carter and he'd chosen to do it anyway. That gave Harold hope that John knew she was their ally, at least on some level.
The detective finished her conversation with her colleague and Harold watched the dance begin. Carter changed how long she would let the agents tail her on any given day. The longest she'd gone before losing them was four hours and that had been spent canvassing a bad part of town and crawling through mud and garbage. Harold suspected that day had been more out of spite than any thing else. Most of the time, though, she gave them between a half hour and two hours.
Today she started her journey relatively easy and both the agents and John were having no trouble keeping up with her. As if sensing his thoughts, she suddenly veered down a side alley, forcing the agents to back peddle sharply or face losing her early in the game. Harold wondered darkly if Agent Snow had taken to assigning this duty to agents who were in some kind of trouble as a training exercise.
John, for his part, had seemed to anticipate the change in course and had taken a parallel side alley just before Carter did. She cut a jagged line across five more blocks and managed to lose the agents halfway through her run of the neighbourhood while John seemed to be moving closer to her.
Harold frowned, concerned. Surely John wouldn't try to hurt Carter? Even when he'd still been on the agency's payroll, he hadn't killed randomly or on a whim. He didn't think the head injury had been enough to knock him into a psychotic break that would make him start now, but he supposed one could never be too careful.
When John adjusted his course so that it would take him directly by Carter, Harold had his phone out and was ready to dial the number but held himself in check. He trusted John, even when he'd lost vital parts of himself like this. John wouldn't have killed Detective Carter even in his agency days, even if they'd ordered him. He had to let this play out.
Harold held his breath as Carter rounded a corner and John brushed past her, his head turned away so she couldn't see his face. An irritated look crossed the detective's face and she glanced back at John, but didn't seem to make the connection. Harold started typing again. There was only one reason John ever got that close to a subject.
He used the connection John had established with Carter's phone all those months ago to scan for any new transmissions and found that there was, indeed, a new signal. John had just bugged Detective Carter, likely with a homemade device he'd thrown together with spare parts he'd found along the way. Small chuckles made it past his concern that John would do something regrettable. It would seem he had nothing to worry about. John was set in his ways and it seemed he'd decided that Detective Carter was this week's person of interest.
***
John followed Detective Carter off and on for two days, biding his time and hoping that something would trigger more of his memory. He traded the hoodie for a suit after he'd planted the bug. When he smoothed the lapels and looked at himself in the mirror, his brain told him that this was right, this was him and he frowned. While he'd certainly spent a fair number of his agency days in a suit, he'd never felt this kind of attachment to the facade he presented. Clothes were clothes. Nothing more.
The change meant he had to be more careful about allowing the detective to see his face, but he was confident that wouldn't be a problem. He'd followed her most of the day before and she hadn't noticed his quiet presence. More importantly, her CIA detail hadn't noticed him either. He wasn't sure if they simply weren't looking for him so didn't expect to see him or if they were just that bad. Honestly, if this is what Mark had to work with, John didn't think he'd left much behind at the CIA. Either that or Mark had fallen from favour and was only getting the wash outs.
John took a careful step back into the alley as he watched Carter enter a small, dimly lit diner and take a seat at a window booth. She glanced around discreetly before checking her phone. She was meeting someone. John scanned the outside crowd of pedestrians and then the patrons and saw nothing. They waited, John gone completely still so as to blend in with the brick of the building and Carter with an occasional impatient tap on the table. A waitress offered her coffee and she gratefully accepted.
John's gaze focused suddenly as a small man with glasses and a limp rounded the corner. He was carrying a book and keeping his head down, the picture of the shy reclusive genius. John's muscles tensed as he held himself steady, not crossing the street and shaking the man for answers like his instincts demanded. He eased himself back another step, pushing himself away from temptation and slowly flexed the tension out of his hands. His right hand moved to the side of his head and he scratched at his ear, wishing for...something.
The man...Harold? He wasn't sure of his name, but the passport listing his name as Harold kept making its way to the top of the stack and John decided it was as good a name as any. Harold entered the establishment, smiled at the woman behind the counter and made his way to Carter's booth. Carter's face moved in recognition and then she glanced around again.
John pulled his small speaker out of his pocket and placed it near his ear.
“Any news?” asked Carter, her voice tinny and John wished for better equipment.
Harold shook his head, but seemed to pause. “Nothing.” Carter groaned in frustration and Harold seemed to be considering his words. “He hasn't done anything overt since the drug store robbery,” he added. So they knew him, were searching for him. But why? Were they friends? Enemies?
“The FBI and CIA both figured out what he was really after pretty quick,” said Carter, screwing her face in disgust. “Agent Snow was actually excited that he was injured. If he finds John before we do, I really think he'll kill him this time.”
“Have faith in John. He knows when to keep his head down, even if his memory is clouded.” Harold glanced out the window and John stared hard at him. Did he know John was here? Did he know John had planted a bug? The words sounded genuine, giving credence to the theory that these two were friends. Then again, they could both be very good actors working with either agency tracking him.
“They started looking at recent hospital admissions. I don't suppose you can do something to make sure they don't see that he was admitted? All it'll take is one conversation with any of the staff and they'll know that I'm helping you two. And that you exist.”
Harold cocked his head and the expression was so familiar, John wanted to reach out and touch it, to make sure it was real and not from his dreams. “There are no records for them to find. The hospital servers suffered some unexpected downtime, during which time some patient records were lost.”
Carter sighed. “And the hard copies?”
Harold continued to feign innocence. “What hard copies?”
She shook her head in exasperation. “One of these days, that cocky attitude of yours is gonna get you in trouble,” she stated. She slumped slightly in her seat. “So there's nothing? And you haven't found any trace of him? What about your mysterious resources? The ones that tell you when someone is in trouble? Can't they help us find him?”
John frowned at the mention of “mysterious resources.” There was more to that, he knew. Something Harold was keeping from Detective Carter. He closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to remember. He knew what it was, had a vision of a board filled with numbers, faces and news clippings. An ache started behind his temple and he shook the image away. He needed to pay attention or he might miss something important.
“Believe me, I've been checking with them. Unfortunately, Mr. Reese is very good at what he does. He knows how to avoid detection.”
John had to hold himself again from crossing the street and barging in on their conversation. How the hell did this man know that name? Granted, it was the name he'd most come to associate with himself, but that didn't mean he used it with just anyone. He'd taken that name when with the CIA and it could be easily traced back to his time with the agency. Unless Mark had given it up to Detective Carter during his investigation? But that didn't fit. Mark would have used whatever alias John was using at the time. And if he didn't have one, Mark was trained to use vague statements that didn't point to any one alias.
“Don't worry, Mr. Reese. I won't tell anyone about you.”
“You don't know anything about me.”
John took a step further back into the alley, rubbing at his temple where the ache had spiked into something sharper. He saw flashes of a park beneath the bridge. Harold standing at a bench, turning his whole body to look back at John. Two men behind John, ostensibly Harold's security. The little one would be easy to subdue, though there was always the chance he was carrying a gun. John didn't see one, but there could be one in the hand that was hidden from his view.
It was gone suddenly and John gasped at how clear it had been, like he was there talking to the man. He took a moment to collect himself, taking deep cleansing breaths. He glanced across the street where Carter and Harold were still talking.
“She's a widowed mother of two,” Harold was saying and Carter was looking down at something. A picture, John thought. “She has no criminal history, per se, but her brother put her in contact with a loan shark when she couldn't pay her husband's medical bills...cancer.”
John leaned his head against the brick, listening to the facts as Harold laid them out. The woman was in trouble. Someone was going to try to cause her harm in the next day or so. Or she was planning to harm someone else. John could help. Tap her phone, follow her, learn where the threat might be coming from and intervene. But John didn't know where she lived, what her name was.
Tara Spencer, his mind supplied and he smiled. He may not have been listening, but he had heard what Harold said. Unfortunately, he hadn't said her address. That was probably on the back of the photo.
Carter slipped the picture into her jacket and was giving Harold an odd expression. Harold simply nodded and looked expectant. Finally, Carter threw her hands up in surrender. John turned his full attention back to them. He'd missed something in that exchange and he wasn't sure what.
“Let me know if you hear anything about John,” she said, standing and throwing some cash down to cover the cost of the coffee. “I'm worried about him.”
“As am I,” said Harold, his attention wandering back out to the street. John stayed very carefully still. “As am I.”
Carter patted his shoulder and left the diner. John considered his options for a moment. He could follow Carter, figure out who this woman was who was in trouble. He could help her stop whatever bad thing was about to happen. But then he would run the risk of revealing himself to her. And if she knew he'd been tailing her, then she might give him the slip or even arrest him.
He shifted his weight, feeling the tightness in his arm where he'd been burned and wincing as his ribs protested. He could defend himself if it came down to it, but looking for a fight was not the best plan. Watching her walk down the street, hands in her pockets and head held high, John decided that she could handle this on her own. Besides, he'd had more apparent flashbacks in the few minutes he'd been listening to Harold then the two days he'd been following Carter. Maybe the man could offer some additional insights into the man John had become since leaving the CIA.
Chapter 3B
Author: maekala
Fandom:Person of Interest
Rating: Mature for violence and descriptions of injuries
Word Count: ~37K
Warning: violence and descriptions of injuries and treatments
Spoilers: all of season 1
Summary: Following an explosion, Reese loses parts of memory including everything to do with Finch and the Machine. Not sure who to trust, John evades the FBI, CIA and Carter as he attempts to remember who he's become and why he's drawn to this strange man with a limp.
Author's Note: So this fic was originally started as part of pod_together, but then it kept getting longer...and longer...and longer. And then I saw the announcement for PoI Big Bang and decided that would work better. This fic would never have been written without the initial cheerleading from podcath. I'd also like to thank togsos for her awesome, awesome art. She captured the scene exactly as I'd pictured it in my head. Final thanks go to sevencorvus for letting me participate in the Big Bang at the last minute.
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Carter sat down next to Finch, watching his face carefully. It had been two days since John's pharmacy run and she'd spent most of it watching an FBI/CIA pissing contest over who would collar John. The FBI insisted that he was wanted for multiple crimes across state lines while the CIA insisted that, since he was one of theirs, he was their responsibility. She honestly wasn't sure why they'd included her in the conversations except maybe to serve as referee. When the break in hadn't produced any tangible leads, the agents had eventually disappeared, though she had noticed she had a CIA fan club again.
Slipping them had become child's play to her. She wondered what Finch thought of the battle for his friend. She wasn't sure what the two men meant to each other, but she could tell that they'd become close, even since the first time she'd watched them interact during the evidence locker break in.
“Any news?” she asked, hoping Finch had had better luck than she.
Finch looked up and she was surprised to see that he had circles around his eyes, like he'd spent the last week staring at screens and forgetting to sleep.
“Nothing,” he said and his voice was gravelly. Was he even eating, she wondered.
“You look like hell,” she stated, deciding for the direct approach. He raised an eyebrow, pushing his glasses up his face. “You know you won't do John any good if you make yourself sick looking for him. He'd want you to take care of yourself.”
“Thank you for your concern, Detective, but I'm fine.”
She snorted. “Right. Whatever you say.” She waited for a moment, expecting him to push a photograph across the table. “Is there anything else?”
He blinked and looked up from where he'd been staring into space. She frowned, genuinely worried about the man. He shook his head and stood.
“My resources are surprisingly quiet right now. I'll let you know if I hear anything more.”
Finch stood and Carter wanted to pull him back down, to insist that he talk to her about this. She may have started out trying to arrest John, but he had become her friend now, too. God knew these two seemed to need as many friends as they could get. Instead, she watched him leave the small diner and disappear in the crowd of people.
Her attention drifted, wandering over the crowd outside and across the street. Eight million people living in the city and they were looking for just one. She watched as a man with John's build pushed off the side of the building opposite the diner and started down the street in the opposite direction Finch had gone. He was wearing a faded old hoodie and he desperately needed a shower and a shave but he could have been John.
Carter sat straighter, staring hard at the man. No, it was John. She stood suddenly, pulling out her phone and calling Finch. She was outside in a heartbeat, looking in the direction she'd seen John walk, but he was gone. She knew better than to try and follow. He was CIA trained to dodge a tail and was much better than the ones who'd been assigned to follow her.
Finch answered on the second ring. “Detective,” he started, sounding as tired as he'd looked.
“Finch, come back now. I saw him.”
There was a pause and then the line was dead. In less than a minute, the shorter man was standing next to her, looking in the same direction she was.
“Where?”
His face had lit up and the exhaustion was gone. Carter moved a few steps over so they were out of the way of the pedestrians and pointed where she'd seen John.
“There. He was watching us,” she said. “He walked away after you left.”
“Did he see you watching him?”
Carter closed her eyes. Of course. “Probably. Or he thought I was watching him. Damn, Finch, I just barely saw him. I wasn't really watching anything, but he must have thought I made him.”
Finch smiled up at her. “This is good news, Detective. If he's following us, he may be remembering. Tell me everything you saw and I'll see what I can find.”
***
Harold wanted to run up the stairs in his excitement of the news about John, but slowed his pace in deference to his injury. He'd never wished for an elevator in the building as much as he did now. Once he was there his system seemed to take forever to boot up and he found himself fiddling with things on his desk and looking around the room distractedly, almost expecting John to materialize in his chair and smile at Harold with a sly comment about not having faith.
He shook his head at the image and turned back to the screens. A few minutes of typing pulled up all of the cameras on the street by the diner and Harold had them all cued to run simultaneously beginning when he'd sat down. He stared intently from screen to screen, searching for the familiar figure but saw nothing for a long moment.
He noted Detective Carter arriving and searched harder, thinking John may have followed her. As he was about to give up, he saw the hint of movement by the corner Carter had pointed out. His eyes started to sting as he kept his gaze glued to the image, not even daring to blink. John's face peeked from behind the corner, his attention on Harold's back as computer-Harold limped slowly down the street.
John glanced back at the diner, then suddenly turned and began walking calmly in the other direction, his head bowed slightly and his hands stuffed in the pockets of a faded black sweatshirt.
“John,” whispered Harold, his hand reaching for the screen without thought. Harold started when his fingers touched the screen and he pulled it back, looking around an empty room in embarrassment.
He started typing furiously, pulling up camera feeds and putting a search program together to try to follow John's path. Time passed as he continued to add data points and his excitement grew that he might actually be able to find his friend.
He watched the man double back on himself once, twice and a third time until he suddenly turned a corner and was gone. Harold just barely stopped himself from shouting at the screen as his fingers moved faster across the keyboard, looking for something-anything-that would tell him where John had disappeared to. When he had searched all of the cameras within four blocks of the spot he'd last seen John, he pulled up city planning for the entire area.
The answer stared him in the face and he wanted to bang his head onto the desk. There was utility access between two buildings that he was quite sure John would have found his way into. He pushed away from the desk, disgusted with himself that it had taken him this long to figure that out, especially knowing John's proclivities for forbidden access points when he was hiding. He'd run into the exact same problems when he'd been tracking John before their first meeting.
He was back to square one. He sat back up. Or was he? John had clearly found Detective Carter. Why? Was he starting to remember? Harold's presence had certainly caught his attention, though whether that was recognition of their friendship or their run in at the hospital, Harold couldn't say. He knew which option he hoped for, but he had to be realistic.
He hesitated and then started typing again, pulling up everything around the 8th precinct. Detective Carter's GPS tracking data gave him a time frame and he began searching again for that familiar face. It took nearly an hour of searching and he was close to giving up when he saw that familiar form sliding down a fire escape just as Carter was leaving. Harold laughed softly to himself. Of course John had gone up. He always preferred the high vantage when he was tailing a subject and that certainly wouldn't change just because he had forgotten his recent history.
His energy renewed, Harold began typing the code that would search all rooftop cameras for John and take a closer look at anyone who might be coming down from a higher perch.
***
John stared in silence at the grave marker in front of him.
Donald Hayworth
Beloved Son and Brother
b 1956 d 1984
The name and dates meant absolutely nothing to him, but he'd been drawn to this marker as he passed the cemetery in his wanderings. The ground was damp from recent rain but hadn't been disturbed recently. Of course, someone good at hiding their tracks could have been here yesterday and there would be little trace. Knowing his own skill, he could have been here yesterday and no one would have been the wiser if he so desired.
“If it's anything like the ones I used to bury...” he whispered to himself, hearing the words echoed in a memory that felt like a lifetime ago. He cocked his head to the side, considering. He let his mind wander, thinking of those words but was met by his own foggy recollections. He'd said those words to someone he cared for but didn't want to know that he was still burying packages.
Glancing around one last time and finding no one in the area, he bent down and started digging with the shovel he'd borrowed from the maintenance shed he'd passed on his way here. He hadn't known what it was for then, but he was reasonably sure now of what he'd find.
The package wasn't far down and the soft soil made the task all the easier. He didn't care right now about covering his tracks which made it all the faster. Within minutes, the shovel hit something that was too shallow to be a casket and too soft to be a buried grave stone. He paused, looking around again to make sure he was still alone.
He knelt slowly, brushing dirt away from the black plastic until he revealed a sealed silver case wrapped in a black trash bag. Leaving the bag in the ground, he hefted the case to get a feel for what might be in it and then headed back into the city. He wanted to be safely ensconced before he opened it.
Twenty minutes later he was in a dingy hotel room that rented by the hour and didn't check ID. He sat with the case on the bed and inspected the lock. It was unremarkable, but resilient and required a four digit pass code. He closed his eyes and let his hands wander over the device. Off the top of his head, he could think of two dozen possible combinations he might have used not to mention all the random ones.
He blinked when he heard the case click open. A look at the combination was unhelpful. 1409. It could be random digits, a date in September, a street address or...a date in September. The 14th of September. Had something significant happened that day? His eyes drifted shut as he searched with his mental eye what he couldn't see with the physical.
A meeting under the bridge. A limo ride with a couple of hitters. A man with glasses. Fog.
He growled to himself as the ghost of memory drifted into nothing. Returning his attention to his prize, he lifted the lid to find a fairly standard stash kit: a 9mm pistol and a case of bullets; three stacks of cash, two in US currency and another with assorted Euros, pounds sterling and Russian roubles He stared at the roubles Those were not his standard fare, especially since the agency knew he'd sought shelter in Russian communities on more than one occasion.
He turned to the passports to check the names and stopped dead as a smaller man with glasses stared back at him from half of them. Harold Whitworth. David Tanner. Terry Shannon. All aliases, he knew. He thought.
Harold.
Why would he stash ID for this man? No way he was an agent with a limp like that and he was entirely too easy to overpower. A handler? But why would John have cover ID? Handlers rarely needed them and what they did require, they were responsible for stashing. So what did that leave?
He'd spoken John's name in relief and his eyes had shown absolute trust that John wouldn't hurt him in the hallway. Damn the man for getting under his skin. Even today when he'd seen the man with the detective, he'd exposed himself by watching the man leave, concern worming its way into his thoughts when he saw how exhausted he'd looked. He'd needed food, John had thought. And rest. There had been a moment when John wanted only to follow him and surprise him with pad thai and Sencha green tea. Did the man even like tea?
John threw the passports onto the bed and lay back, staring at the ceiling and pushing thoughts of exhausted faces out of his mind.
Following Detective Carter had felt familiar, like he'd done it more than once. He'd had to stop himself from stealing a motorcycle left in the street a few blocks from the station to assist in his surveillance. Her partner, a short, round man with curly hair and a sour expression had also caught John's attention. John had seen the man with a few other cops and their interactions hadn't seemed on the up and up. He hoped the female wasn't working with a crooked cop; she seemed an honest woman who only wanted to help the people of the city who couldn't help themselves.
He scratched idly at his ear, deciding he would make a supply run in the morning. He needed to hear the conversations he was observing but he hated the larger dish microphones the amateurs used. It shouldn't take him long to build a basic bug and he was confident he could place it without Carter recognizing him.
His day decided, he let his eyes drift closed and waited for sleep to claim him.
***
John sat bolt upright and nearly fell off the bed when his ribs screamed in protest. His eyes were wide and his breathing erratic as his body reacted to two phantom gun shots. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he concentrated on slowing his heart rate. His eyes darted around the room as he checked for any threat and he gasped as he took another deep breath.
Throwing his legs back over the side of the bed, he carefully placed his feet on the floor, testing his balance before standing. His steps were slow as he made his way to the little bathroom nook, one hand braced on the wall so his knees didn't give out from under him. Once there, he leaned back heavily against the door and lifted his shirt. There was a recent scar, just under the bandages covering his burn. He'd been injured more than once in his career. Stabbed, shot and broken more bones than he cared to count. The pink puff of tissue just about the size of a small caliber, high velocity sniper round stood as a stark reminder that he was running from the agency for a reason.
He dropped his shirt, still gasping slightly and found his hand rubbing at his thigh where he could feel a similar bunch of scar tissue where he'd taken a second shot. He sat hard on the toilet seat, catching his breath slowly as he searched his memory of the shots. There was something important about this, he knew. Something his mind was trying to tell him.
He remembered talking to Mark, telling his once friend that he wasn't coming back to the agency. Had Carter been there? He thought he saw her on the edge of his memory, but couldn't tell. Then searing pain as the first bullet ripped through his side and had thrown him to the ground. Then his leg was on fire as the second shot landed its mark.
He'd been in a parking structure of some kind. He'd stumbled his way down the stairs, certain that he'd be stopped by a tactical team at any point. He'd reached out, called for someone.
“I just wanted to thank you...for giving me a second chance.”
Had he been talking to the same man who now haunted the edge of his memory, there but not? What second chance?
“I'm coming to get you.”
“No. You stay away. Too risky.”
His philosophy had long been to push away that which he cared for most. If he pushed it away, put it to the back of his mind, then maybe he could stop caring as much. It certainly made it easier to hide.
His breathing had returned to normal and the phantom pain of past gun shots was replaced by the very real pain of his current injuries. He pulled a bottle of hydrocodone out of his pocket. He'd broken the pills into doses a fourth of the normal and only took one once a day to minimize the narcotic effect and keep himself from forming any kind of dependency on them. He dry swallowed one of the partials before standing and returning to the bed.
He was still shaky on his feet and his entire body hurt. Worse still, the continued pushing at memories that simply weren't ready to return had left him with a persistent migraine. There was no clock on the bedside table. Someone had either taken it or there had never been one. He stood beside the window and listened to the ambient sounds of the city, considered the skyline that was never completely dark.
He guessed it was a little after midnight. He had paid to keep the room all night. Deciding he needed the rest, he packed his case back up, keeping out only the gun and a loaded magazine and settled onto the bed to attempt a little more sleep. The darkness didn't come as easily this time, his eyes occasionally shooting open at twinges of pain from those scars. Eventually, though, he managed to drop into a fitful sleep. In the end, it was all he could ask for.
***
It took Harold most of the night to write the code that would automatically search for John around Detectives Carter and Fusco. He'd considered adding himself to the equation, but decided to wait. He didn't want to inadvertently give himself up and chase John away before the other man made some kind of contact. He considered telling Detective Carter that John was very likely following her, but decided he didn't want her to alert the CIA agents who were still following her as often as they could to John's presence.
He'd fallen asleep at his desk just after dawn and now startled awake as the monitors began beeping an insistent alarm that they'd found something. He groaned when he tried to push himself up too quickly and wished again that large hands were there to massage out the kinks in his spine. At least, what they could.
Squinting at the screen, he looked for whatever they had found. He had to rub his eyes and clean his glasses before he finally saw the motionless figure half in shadow standing atop the building directly opposite of the 8th precinct. He smiled in relief that he hadn't lost John completely and pulled up the earlier footage to try and determine where he'd come from.
It took Harold longer than he would like to admit, but he finally found the half dozen frames where John's foot was visible climbing a fire escape thirty minutes before. He still had no idea where the other man had appeared from since there were no utility tunnels in the nearby vicinity and there were only a handful of other possibilities, all of which were well covered by cameras. He gave that search up in favour of working out why he'd chosen this particular spot now. He remembered John grousing about how hard Carter was to monitor when they'd first begun surveillance on her after her number had come up.
A section of the screen enlarged automatically as Carter received a call about one of her ongoing cases and grabbed her coat to follow a lead. John shifted and Harold figured he must have a sightline on her outline somehow. Did John remember the layout of the precinct, he wondered. Was he operating on memories or instinct? The urge to call Detective Carter and tell her that John was just outside and ask if she could throw John a phone so he could ask these questions nearly overwhelmed him, but he managed to hold himself in check.
While she headed for the door, John made his way to the street and prepared to track her. Harold spotted the two CIA agents who were doing the same and held his breath. Did John know they were there? Did he even know to look? Harold would never forgive himself if his arrogance and need to watch how John was operating now got his friend arrested and sent back to God knew where.
Detective Carter stopped just outside the precinct, pulled into a conversation with another detective and John took the chance to scan the crowd. He took a sudden step back into the shadows and Harold's hands were suddenly over the keyboard, ready to start typing code to keep track of where John went, but they stilled in the air when John stepped back out, the hood of his sweater pulled up to mask his features.
Harold chuckled dryly. John had seen the other agents, knew what kind of risk he was running by following Detective Carter and he'd chosen to do it anyway. That gave Harold hope that John knew she was their ally, at least on some level.
The detective finished her conversation with her colleague and Harold watched the dance begin. Carter changed how long she would let the agents tail her on any given day. The longest she'd gone before losing them was four hours and that had been spent canvassing a bad part of town and crawling through mud and garbage. Harold suspected that day had been more out of spite than any thing else. Most of the time, though, she gave them between a half hour and two hours.
Today she started her journey relatively easy and both the agents and John were having no trouble keeping up with her. As if sensing his thoughts, she suddenly veered down a side alley, forcing the agents to back peddle sharply or face losing her early in the game. Harold wondered darkly if Agent Snow had taken to assigning this duty to agents who were in some kind of trouble as a training exercise.
John, for his part, had seemed to anticipate the change in course and had taken a parallel side alley just before Carter did. She cut a jagged line across five more blocks and managed to lose the agents halfway through her run of the neighbourhood while John seemed to be moving closer to her.
Harold frowned, concerned. Surely John wouldn't try to hurt Carter? Even when he'd still been on the agency's payroll, he hadn't killed randomly or on a whim. He didn't think the head injury had been enough to knock him into a psychotic break that would make him start now, but he supposed one could never be too careful.
When John adjusted his course so that it would take him directly by Carter, Harold had his phone out and was ready to dial the number but held himself in check. He trusted John, even when he'd lost vital parts of himself like this. John wouldn't have killed Detective Carter even in his agency days, even if they'd ordered him. He had to let this play out.
Harold held his breath as Carter rounded a corner and John brushed past her, his head turned away so she couldn't see his face. An irritated look crossed the detective's face and she glanced back at John, but didn't seem to make the connection. Harold started typing again. There was only one reason John ever got that close to a subject.
He used the connection John had established with Carter's phone all those months ago to scan for any new transmissions and found that there was, indeed, a new signal. John had just bugged Detective Carter, likely with a homemade device he'd thrown together with spare parts he'd found along the way. Small chuckles made it past his concern that John would do something regrettable. It would seem he had nothing to worry about. John was set in his ways and it seemed he'd decided that Detective Carter was this week's person of interest.
***
John followed Detective Carter off and on for two days, biding his time and hoping that something would trigger more of his memory. He traded the hoodie for a suit after he'd planted the bug. When he smoothed the lapels and looked at himself in the mirror, his brain told him that this was right, this was him and he frowned. While he'd certainly spent a fair number of his agency days in a suit, he'd never felt this kind of attachment to the facade he presented. Clothes were clothes. Nothing more.
The change meant he had to be more careful about allowing the detective to see his face, but he was confident that wouldn't be a problem. He'd followed her most of the day before and she hadn't noticed his quiet presence. More importantly, her CIA detail hadn't noticed him either. He wasn't sure if they simply weren't looking for him so didn't expect to see him or if they were just that bad. Honestly, if this is what Mark had to work with, John didn't think he'd left much behind at the CIA. Either that or Mark had fallen from favour and was only getting the wash outs.
John took a careful step back into the alley as he watched Carter enter a small, dimly lit diner and take a seat at a window booth. She glanced around discreetly before checking her phone. She was meeting someone. John scanned the outside crowd of pedestrians and then the patrons and saw nothing. They waited, John gone completely still so as to blend in with the brick of the building and Carter with an occasional impatient tap on the table. A waitress offered her coffee and she gratefully accepted.
John's gaze focused suddenly as a small man with glasses and a limp rounded the corner. He was carrying a book and keeping his head down, the picture of the shy reclusive genius. John's muscles tensed as he held himself steady, not crossing the street and shaking the man for answers like his instincts demanded. He eased himself back another step, pushing himself away from temptation and slowly flexed the tension out of his hands. His right hand moved to the side of his head and he scratched at his ear, wishing for...something.
The man...Harold? He wasn't sure of his name, but the passport listing his name as Harold kept making its way to the top of the stack and John decided it was as good a name as any. Harold entered the establishment, smiled at the woman behind the counter and made his way to Carter's booth. Carter's face moved in recognition and then she glanced around again.
John pulled his small speaker out of his pocket and placed it near his ear.
“Any news?” asked Carter, her voice tinny and John wished for better equipment.
Harold shook his head, but seemed to pause. “Nothing.” Carter groaned in frustration and Harold seemed to be considering his words. “He hasn't done anything overt since the drug store robbery,” he added. So they knew him, were searching for him. But why? Were they friends? Enemies?
“The FBI and CIA both figured out what he was really after pretty quick,” said Carter, screwing her face in disgust. “Agent Snow was actually excited that he was injured. If he finds John before we do, I really think he'll kill him this time.”
“Have faith in John. He knows when to keep his head down, even if his memory is clouded.” Harold glanced out the window and John stared hard at him. Did he know John was here? Did he know John had planted a bug? The words sounded genuine, giving credence to the theory that these two were friends. Then again, they could both be very good actors working with either agency tracking him.
“They started looking at recent hospital admissions. I don't suppose you can do something to make sure they don't see that he was admitted? All it'll take is one conversation with any of the staff and they'll know that I'm helping you two. And that you exist.”
Harold cocked his head and the expression was so familiar, John wanted to reach out and touch it, to make sure it was real and not from his dreams. “There are no records for them to find. The hospital servers suffered some unexpected downtime, during which time some patient records were lost.”
Carter sighed. “And the hard copies?”
Harold continued to feign innocence. “What hard copies?”
She shook her head in exasperation. “One of these days, that cocky attitude of yours is gonna get you in trouble,” she stated. She slumped slightly in her seat. “So there's nothing? And you haven't found any trace of him? What about your mysterious resources? The ones that tell you when someone is in trouble? Can't they help us find him?”
John frowned at the mention of “mysterious resources.” There was more to that, he knew. Something Harold was keeping from Detective Carter. He closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to remember. He knew what it was, had a vision of a board filled with numbers, faces and news clippings. An ache started behind his temple and he shook the image away. He needed to pay attention or he might miss something important.
“Believe me, I've been checking with them. Unfortunately, Mr. Reese is very good at what he does. He knows how to avoid detection.”
John had to hold himself again from crossing the street and barging in on their conversation. How the hell did this man know that name? Granted, it was the name he'd most come to associate with himself, but that didn't mean he used it with just anyone. He'd taken that name when with the CIA and it could be easily traced back to his time with the agency. Unless Mark had given it up to Detective Carter during his investigation? But that didn't fit. Mark would have used whatever alias John was using at the time. And if he didn't have one, Mark was trained to use vague statements that didn't point to any one alias.
“Don't worry, Mr. Reese. I won't tell anyone about you.”
“You don't know anything about me.”
John took a step further back into the alley, rubbing at his temple where the ache had spiked into something sharper. He saw flashes of a park beneath the bridge. Harold standing at a bench, turning his whole body to look back at John. Two men behind John, ostensibly Harold's security. The little one would be easy to subdue, though there was always the chance he was carrying a gun. John didn't see one, but there could be one in the hand that was hidden from his view.
It was gone suddenly and John gasped at how clear it had been, like he was there talking to the man. He took a moment to collect himself, taking deep cleansing breaths. He glanced across the street where Carter and Harold were still talking.
“She's a widowed mother of two,” Harold was saying and Carter was looking down at something. A picture, John thought. “She has no criminal history, per se, but her brother put her in contact with a loan shark when she couldn't pay her husband's medical bills...cancer.”
John leaned his head against the brick, listening to the facts as Harold laid them out. The woman was in trouble. Someone was going to try to cause her harm in the next day or so. Or she was planning to harm someone else. John could help. Tap her phone, follow her, learn where the threat might be coming from and intervene. But John didn't know where she lived, what her name was.
Tara Spencer, his mind supplied and he smiled. He may not have been listening, but he had heard what Harold said. Unfortunately, he hadn't said her address. That was probably on the back of the photo.
Carter slipped the picture into her jacket and was giving Harold an odd expression. Harold simply nodded and looked expectant. Finally, Carter threw her hands up in surrender. John turned his full attention back to them. He'd missed something in that exchange and he wasn't sure what.
“Let me know if you hear anything about John,” she said, standing and throwing some cash down to cover the cost of the coffee. “I'm worried about him.”
“As am I,” said Harold, his attention wandering back out to the street. John stayed very carefully still. “As am I.”
Carter patted his shoulder and left the diner. John considered his options for a moment. He could follow Carter, figure out who this woman was who was in trouble. He could help her stop whatever bad thing was about to happen. But then he would run the risk of revealing himself to her. And if she knew he'd been tailing her, then she might give him the slip or even arrest him.
He shifted his weight, feeling the tightness in his arm where he'd been burned and wincing as his ribs protested. He could defend himself if it came down to it, but looking for a fight was not the best plan. Watching her walk down the street, hands in her pockets and head held high, John decided that she could handle this on her own. Besides, he'd had more apparent flashbacks in the few minutes he'd been listening to Harold then the two days he'd been following Carter. Maybe the man could offer some additional insights into the man John had become since leaving the CIA.
Chapter 3B