Reincarnation Part Five
Reese Comes Home
Reese and Fusco had spent the two hour drive to Denver International Airport in a truce-like silence, Fusco not questioning why Reese had changed his mind and John not offering any explanations. John doubted Lionel would believe him anyways about the knot of fear that twisted in him every time he sensed Harold was in some kind of trouble. Let Fusco come to his own conclusions about why John ended up in the rental car instead of on the run to parts unknown.
They made good time driving through Denver's early morning traffic. They parked in the Avis Rental Car lot. John had offered to get their bags, Reese's duffel and Fusco's leather overnight, out of the trunk while Lionel rushed into the small rental car office to turn in the keys and pay for the car. The shuttle that bused passengers to and from the various car rental lots was due by in fifteen minutes.
John remembered to pull his knife, sheath and all, from his right boot and tossed it in Fusco's overnight. He didn’t think they'd question a N.Y.P.D. detective why he had a boot knife in his bag along with his service revolver. Reese didn't want any hassles trying to board their flight back to New York.
Everything went smoothly, even though John was tense and edgy the whole time, from boarding the shuttle to finally taking their seats in the first class section of the United 278 flight to New York.
Fusco had not been oblivious to John's nervous state and how it intensified after Lionel had tried to call Finch's cell several times to let him know they were returning, each of the calls ended up going to number's in-box. Now that the flight was in the air, he could literally feel John's tenseness every time they'd brush against each other in the still close confines of airline seating, first class or not.
Lionel leaned over quizzing John where only he could hear, “You afraid Harold's not gonna be there when we get back?”
“Something like that.” John leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes hoping Lionel would take the hint that he wasn't saying anything more.
“Okay then.” Lionel got it. “Well I didn't get any sleep last night. Guess I'll catch a few hours before we land.” Fusco leaned back in his own seat and was sound asleep in seconds.
John was mentally and physically exhausted but couldn't fall asleep so easily even though he hadn't slept more than a few hours at a time in the weeks he's been away. Guilt had been eating away at him constantly and now added to that was the foreboding sense that something was horribly wrong.
Harold was okay, John kept telling himself over and over. He had to be.
Needing to believe everything was okay, that Finch was fine, and his gut feeling was wrong this time, John watched out the window going over and over in his mind what he would do when he returned. Harold might not welcome him back with open arms but he wouldn't turn John away either, that's how the man was. They would go back to working the numbers, John was sure of that, he needed that purpose again. But he also needed Harold and not as the friend Finch had offered to be.
John wasn't foolish enough to believe Finch would want to just go back to the way things were between them as lovers. Add to that with John just abandoning the man, Harold may not even want to offer Reese his friendship anymore. No matter how many times John apologized for or tried to explain what happened with Carter, Reese had to accept what he and Harold had would never be like it was.
Nothing could be done to repair the damage he had caused to their personal relationship. There was no going back.
But what could Reese do to assure Finch they could move forward? How could he convince Harold that they should try again when he himself believed he didn't deserve Finch as a friend much less as a lover? Every approach John tried out in his mind seemed doomed for failure.
Three hours later John still had no plan of what to do; Reese had made a decision regardless. If he had to, John was going to actually get on his knees and beg. Even if he had to do it in front of Shaw or Fusco, Reese was going to beg to be allowed into Harold's personal life again--in anyway Harold saw fit. It did seem a little overly dramatic for a man like John Reese but he was just that desperate.
About twenty minutes before they landed John had to hit the head. Once he was finished he washed his hands and made the mistake of looking at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Harold would be mortified when he saw Reese. John's current disheveled appearance alone might make Finch turn Reese away before John could even beg for his job back let alone anything else.
The haggard face looking back at John screamed ‘grieving for Joss’ and would certainly give Finch the impression that John had left to drink himself to death again. If John showed up at The Library looking like the homeless man Finch rescued from the precinct, Harold would be pained and saddened. Finch would think John cared nothing for him beyond friendship. How could John show Harold that leaving was a reaction to hurting Finch, not losing a woman?
Maybe if Reese wore that Glenn Check suit from the Wall Street case, Harold would see that John cared only for him. Finch had painstakingly altered that suit by hand. Each stitch reflected Harold’s pride in John. Reese would only wear it on special occasions to please Finch.
Decision made, John felt lighter. Yes, it was not going to be easy and Reese would have to work hard to regain the trust they had built up. However, John had difficult missions before with little to no chance of success and he marched in with guns blazing to complete the task. The rewards from victory this time were the greatest of his life: Harold.
The plane landed without incident. They had claimed their bags and walked to Fusco's personal vehicle left in passenger parking. Fusco had already tried several times to reach Finch by cell phone but yet again was met with the same results. Fusco apologized that as much as he wanted to help Reese find Harold the detective had to be at work in twelve hours. Lionel needed to get some sleep as well as check on his son, so at John’s suggestion he dropped Reese off a couple of blocks south of his loft.
It hadn’t even been three weeks since Reese had been here last but it seemed like a lifetime ago when John unlocked the door and went in. The day he had left his apartment with only the clothes on his back, his old duffel crammed with whatever he grabbed in his haste to leave and his emergency stash of cash was just as surreal in remembrance as it had felt at the time.
When John turned on the light and looked around he was puzzled to find the apartment not in the complete disarray he had left it but seemingly not a thing out of place. Even the bed he’d left unmade the last time he’d slept here was straightened up.
It didn’t take long for Reese to figure out who had been there when he found one of Harold’s favorite books on the coffee table, an extra pair of Finch’s glasses on the stand next to the bed and even Finch’s favorite silk pajamas laying on top the folded blankets at the foot of the bed.
It didn’t take a trained ex spy like himself or a seasoned detective like Lionel to figure out that Harold had been sleeping at the loft, apparently since the day John had left. The only thing Reese couldn’t understand was why. Finch had his bedroom at the safe-house and in the dozens of bolt holes John knew Finch had. He’d tracked Harold to enough of them via the glasses' bug in the months following Root’s first kidnapping.
John dropped the old army duffel on the floor and sat down for a few moments on the bed. He reached over and picked up the Harold’s pajama top and brought it up to his face, the scent of his cologne and of Finch himself, still heady in the cloth.
Reese felt like a lovesick fool; he actually laughed to himself, ‘Yes John that’s what you are.’ He went to replace the top right where he’d found it when John noticed his own undershirt folded amongst Finch’s night clothes. It was the one he’d last wore; the one he had tossed on the floor while changing into his street clothes before running away.
John put his head in his hands. Of course, Harold was doing for himself what he had done for Bear. John remembered what Finch had told him about their dog and what Harold finally had to do to calm the bereft canine while John had been incarcerated and then held captive by his revenge minded ex CIA partner.
Harold had been living in John’s loft, amongst John’s possessions, sleeping in John’s bed even, to feel close to Reese. Like John had just been doing, like with their dog even... just the scent of who they loved most brought them some kind of comfort.
And John was ashamed he had doubted Harold still loved him. Even after all the pain John had caused the man, given him reason to think John had loved someone else and then left without a goodbye, Harold was here in the loft amongst the belongings of the one he loved most.
If John hadn’t already felt like the biggest imbecile on the planet, he was feeling it now. So what if Harold had never said it in words but once, Finch had showed him a thousand different times in a thousand different ways how much he had loved him, still loved him.
But not once had John told Harold or even showed him that his love was returned. Harold might be one of the smartest men on the planet, if not the smartest, but Harold wasn’t a mind reader. John had spent four long hours on the flight home trying to think of something to do to prove to Finch that they could start over. The answer was staring him in the face all along. Show Harold you love him, that you always have and you always will.
Forty-five minutes later, John freshly showered, shaved, smelling of citrusy soap and the exotic scent of the cologne Harold had given him, smartly dressed in the Glenn Check suit Reese nervously climbed the Library steps. The whole drive over John had practiced his, ‘Forgive me Harold, I love you’ speech.
John was hopefully expecting to find Harold sitting in front his monitors maybe researching a number he and Shaw could be working on. Never in a hundred years did he expect Root to be out of her cage and of all things working on something at Finch’s computer station. Thankfully he hadn’t brought a gun of any kind because at the moment he was tempted to shoot first, ask questions later.
When Root noticed his presence in the room, she sneered at him, “Well look. If it isn’t the prodigal pet come home.” John was sorry then that he wasn’t armed. He wanted to shoot her and not in the shoulder like Shaw did once.
Root dug in once more with, “Why aren’t you at the hospital with your master?”
The gut feeling that something was wrong and John had been trying to ignore the past twelve hours came back full force almost making John double over in pain from the intensity.
Root’s malicious taunting surprisingly turned to mild concern and she actually sounded like she cared when she asked John, “You don’t know, do you?”
John only asked “What hospital?” And was down the steps on his way to New York City General not even asking why or what had even happened. John knew the something stupid he never thought Harold would do had happened.
~*~
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue