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"I just wish we had more time."

John is dying, Carter is right about that. He can feel it happening now, although he couldn't before, too caught up in the lie of seeing her, too confused by the heat, her voice, the music. The car is cold, too cold to keep him alive until morning, and no one is coming for him. He's going to die here.

"Yeah, well." She sounds sad as she shakes her head. "That's something we never get enough of."

"You're right." She always is. He's known that for a very long time and he thinks this is the first time he's said it, but it's possible he just doesn't remember. There's so much he wishes he'd said to her, so many things she'll never hear because he couldn't tell her. "I don't let people in. It's not why I didn't tell anyone about the case. I wanted to close this one myself. Just me."

"Why?"

"It was a chance to be close to you again. I didn't... wanna share that with anyone else." Everything is cold except for his face. His face is warm, tears cutting through the chill against his skin and he wishes he could lift his hand, wipe his cheek, but his hands are too cold and his shoulder hurts too much. He misses her.

"There's another reason why I kept that photo," she says, then smiles. "It was a side of you I hadn't seen. Happy. Hopeful. In love. You can feel that way again, John, you just gotta hold on. There are people who care about you. Who could love you. Just gotta let them in. Just like you told me before. Whether I liked it or not, I wasn't alone. Neither are you."

She's right. But he's alone now.

It's his own doing, she's right about that, too. Carter always did see through him better than almost anyone. With Finch it's different. Finch does his research, finds the files no one else can find, cracks them open and reads every last sentence. Finch knows him, of course he does, he's the best friend John has ever had, and he huffs out a soft laugh as he realizes the absurdity of that truth. Harold Finch is the best friend he's ever had and John doesn't even know his real name.

But while Finch knows him, Carter can see through him. She doesn't bother with files or hacking computers, all she's ever had to do is look at him and she can see everything.

Could see everything. She's dead now.

But she's beside him here in the car and John twists his head, wincing at the pain that races down his arms, and looks at her. God, how he misses her. She's looking right back at him, her face soft, worried, and a shudder goes through him as he realizes she has every right to be angry with him, but she isn't. She's only sad. He'd cared about her so much, wanted to do right by her, make her proud of him, he'd wanted to protect her even in the moments when he knew she didn't need protecting, he'd wanted to stand by her and watch her climb the ranks and feel the pride he had known he would feel as she conquered every obstacle in her way and he hadn't said a damn word about it.

Whether or not it had been love, John has never let himself examine for fear of what the answer might be, but he does know he hasn't felt what he'd felt for Joss Carter in a very long time. Not since Jessica.

It doesn't matter now. She had died in his arms and now he'll die alone, trapped here in this freezing car, bleeding sluggishly from the gunshot wound he'd sustained because he'd had to go this alone. Because he had needed so desperately to be close to her one last time.

"Will you stay with me? Just for a little bit?" he asks.

"Yes, of course. Just hold on, John."

If he closes his eyes, maybe she'll take pity on him. Maybe she'll put a hand on the back of his neck and let him feel some of her warmth as he goes, so he leans forward against the steering wheel, puts his good arm up against it to support his head and finds suddenly there's nothing to lean against. He goes tumbling forward off the seat of the car, rolling at the last second and still landing painfully on his shoulder, only just barely protecting the gunshot wound. The car is gone and he grits his teeth against the pain, the prickling in his limbs, and lies still for a moment, willing himself the strength to move.

As he turns, his cheek scrapes against a rock and he opens his eyes, squinting up at the terribly bright sun, a shiver of pain and cold wracking his body as he suddenly realizes the weather is warm. Somehow, in the middle of winter, the weather is warm. There's sand under his cheek and somewhere not far from here is the sound of crashing waves and he would swear he can hear Jessica's voice. John closes his eyes again and waits for the punchline, because men like him don't die and get heaven. They don't get to go back to their happiest memory, they don't ease back into the hotel room with the love of their life, the sound of waves pounding on the beach.

They just stop. They wink out of existence and the world gets a little bit better for their loss.

So he keeps his eyes closed and he waits for it to end, because he'd meant every word he'd said to Carter in the car earlier. He missed her and he'd wanted to let her in and he regrets every single day that he hadn't, but he was always going to end up here. Dying alone, no one there to hold him at the end of it all.

A child laughs and John thinks, as hallucinations go, that's not the worst one he could die hearing. He would rather it be Carter. He would rather it be Jessica, but there are worse things to see and hear at the end than a happy child.

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There's a body on the beach.

Karen almost doesn't notice it, at first. There are families spread out all over, parents and children, groups of teenagers, spread out on towels and under umbrellas, splashing in the water at the edge of the shore. For her part, she's mostly just observing, shoes dangling from her fingers as she walks along the sand. She's not much for sunbathing, for one; she burns far too easily for that. What's more, even after a few weeks here, she can't really get used to the pace of things here, the fact that there isn't some crisis to focus on, some case requiring her attention. Though she's started looking into work, everything just feels slow, weirdly calm. There's far too much she can't get out of her head for that to be the case.

She only happens to glance off towards the rocks, and even then, she doesn't think much of someone lying there at first. Then she catches a glimpse of the red on his shirt, unmistakably blood, and she's running over, breath caught in her throat, wondering why no one else is seeing it. Maybe they're just too caught up in their own lives. Maybe it's a good thing that she hasn't been able to fall into the same rhythm that things seem to be in Darrow.

"Hello?" she says when she gets close, resting a hand gingerly against the arm that doesn't seem to be injured. He really doesn't look good; she just hopes it's not too late. "Can you hear me? I'm going to call for help, okay?" Her cell phone is already out of her pocket, her thumb dialing one-handed. It's all too apparent that they need an ambulance here as soon as they can get it.

It's the indication she's calling someone for help that jerks John awake, tears him cruelly away from the dream he's been slipping deeper into -- Dying, Carter whispers in his head, you're not dreaming, John, you're dying. -- and has him reaching for her, for her phone. He's in too much pain and he can't do more than make a few jerking gestures with his good hand before he lies back on the sand and squints up into the sun, at the woman, watching the way her hair shifts lazily in the summer breeze.

This has to be a dream, too.

"No phone calls," he manages to force out, his voice a hoarse croak. If she calls someone, Samaritan will be listening. He doesn't quite believe he's not about to die, but on the off chance he lives through this, whatever it is, he knows Finch won't be very pleased if he blows his cover.

"Just..." He plants his good hand in the warm sand, feeling prickling back into his fingers, then forces himself into a sitting position. His jacket falls open when he moves and there's more blood than he would like, but at least his badge is still pinned to his belt, visible now that he's sitting. "My phone is in my jacket pocket. Can you call Detective Fusco?"

For a moment, Karen is more focused on the blood than what he says, more than she'd expected, enough for her to be sure that this really is something serious. At least he's conscious, able to speak; that has to be a good sign. Everything else, though, doesn't seem so promising at all, and she would wonder how she found herself in this position if it didn't seem like the sort of thing that happens to her far too often. Hell, she's been in worse situations than this. She can manage to take care of an injured man on the beach until help gets here.

An injured cop, that is, light glinting off his badge when it comes into view. Karen wishes that didn't give her a moment's pause, but even with Fisk locked up, it's hard to know who she can trust besides Brett, and she doesn't know what difference it will make if she uses her own phone or his. Still, she can't really argue with him, not when she can't be sure how much time he has left. She doesn't want to waste it disputing over who to call or with whose cell phone.

"I — alright," she says, reaching carefully for the phone in his jacket pocket, trying not to do anything that might cause him any more pain. Gesturing uselessly, almost frantically in front of her, she adds, "You just — lie back down, alright? Try to keep still. Help will be here soon."

She says so, but she's not sure it will be here soon enough, the name he'd asked for showing up in his contacts, but with no signal to speak of, not even when she tries to call in spite of what the display says. Her frown deepens, expression stricken with worry. "I'm not getting any reception."

It doesn't surprise John much that she can't reach Lionel; he hadn't had any reception in the car either and the more he takes in his surroundings, the more he realizes he either having an incredibly detailed hallucination -- which is not out of the realm of possibility -- or he's been taken somewhere else in his unconscious state. The woman in front of him is slight, not nearly strong enough to have carried him and he doesn't detect any dishonesty in her voice or the way she's looking at him, but he's admittedly not at his best.

A shiver races through him, followed by another, and he knows that's a good sign, if he's shivering, the hypothermia isn't as bad as he might have thought, but the contracting of his muscles drives pain deeper into his shoulder and he grits his teeth, jaw tensing for a moment. He doesn't want to lie back down, doesn't want to put himself in that position when he might need to drag himself to his feet at any given moment, but the pain is immense and for a moment he wants to close his eyes against it.

"My phone isn't getting reception, but yours is." It isn't a question, she's already offered to call help for him. "Who are you? Where are we?"

And who brought him here? John doesn't think he was unconscious long enough to be taken far enough that the snow would be gone, but he'd been hallucinating Carter for what felt like hours, so he can't be certain of anything.

"My name is Karen Page," she says, trying to sound as reassuring as she can, though it's difficult to do when she's so worried about this stranger bleeding out in front of her. "And you're on a beach in a city called Darrow." If his phone isn't picking up a signal, her guess is that he came from somewhere else, and, God, if she thought the way she showed up here was fairly traumatic, this seems a hell of a lot worse. At least she'd only had some bruises and a cut on her forehead, one that's almost fully healed by now, only a faint pink mark left in its wake. "I know what I'm saying probably doesn't make much sense to you, and I can explain it all, I promise. But first, please, please, let me call for an ambulance. I'll tell them whatever you want me to tell them, I just—"

She just doesn't want him to die here in front of her. That she doesn't know him doesn't matter; being here, she's involved already, and she hardly cares about what she's getting involved in or why he might not have wanted her to call for help. The important thing right now is keeping him alive. The rest can wait. Carefully tucking his phone back into his jacket pocket, mostly so she can free her hands, she looks at him pleadingly, and thinks that maybe if he says no, she'll just go ahead and fucking do it anyway.

If he ends up in the hospital, there's a good chance Samaritan might be able to track him, but it's just as possible his cover will hold. Detectives are injured in the line of duty often enough, it isn't as if he'll stick out from the others, and there may be a bit more paperwork, the Machine might have to work a little harder to keep him out of the spotlight, but she isn't wrong. He needs to see a doctor. The gunshot wound isn't the worst he's had, but the hypothermia could still kill him.

If he isn't dead already. He doesn't know of any city called Darrow and he's spent the better part of his adult life traveling the world.

"Karen, I'm John," he says. "I'm a detective with the NYPD and I..." He pauses, jaw tensing again as another wave of pain washes over him, a fresh round of shivers that threaten to make his teeth chatter, but he holds himself as still as he possibly can until it passes. "The gunshot wound is fine, I won't die from it, but I think I have hypothermia."

Which is as close to giving her permission to call as he can get. He still needs to be careful about what he says, especially here, wherever they are. Over time New York had gotten a little easier to navigate, he'd been able to find ways around the cameras, but Darrow is new to him. He has no idea what the surveillance might be like.

It's strange to think of someone having hypothermia with the weather they've been having lately, but she doesn't know where he was before this, doesn't know how he wound up in this state at all. Either way, now isn't the time to question it. Karen just nods instead, and moves a little more slowly at first as she lifts her phone again, so he can stop her if he needs to, but once she dials, she does so rapidly. He may have said that he won't die from the gunshot wound, but even here in the sun and the heat, he's obviously not in good shape, and the sooner she can get help here, the better. She can figure out what she's going to say once she's got an ambulance on the way.

"Hello?" she says into the phone once there's an answer. "Hi, yes, I need an ambulance. I'm on the beach by—" She pauses only briefly, glancing over her shoulder to try to gauge the approximate cross street before she continues. "There's a man here who's been shot and he has hypothermia. Please hurry." She can hear the confusion of the call responder, but she doesn't think she needs to give any more information than that, not least because there isn't much to give.

Once she's hung up, she lets out a breath like she's been holding it, slipping her phone into her purse and, on a whim, reaches for John's hand. "Help will be here soon," she promises. "You're going to be okay." She pauses, just a moment, and frowning, asks, "Is there anything you want me to say when they get here?"

The last person to hold his hand was Carter.

He lets out a long breath and closes his eyes against the shivers that are wracking his body now, corrects himself internally, because that isn't true. Carter has been dead for far too long now and there has been Iris since then, their tentative feeling out of each other progressing bit by bit each time they see one another. She'd held his hand just last week, smiling through it, her cheeks an appealing pink. And there's still Zoe every now and then, although Zoe is very rarely interested in holding John's hand, a thought that makes him smile, even through the pain.

It's nice, actually, having someone's hand on his. His fingers must feel so cold to her.

There isn't anything in particular he can warn her not to say, not when he doesn't know if Samaritan is listening, so he shakes his head. "I'm John Riley, NYPD, although I have a feeling that might not mean much here." His voice is low, still a little hoarse, but his tone is dry and his head feels as if it's clearing a little. None of this makes sense and he still doesn't know how he got here, but he's come to accept that here isn't New York. He doesn't recognize the cross streets she'd given when calling for the ambulance.

He takes a slow breath, then looks at her, wills himself to see deception in her eyes, but there's none. "How did I get here?" he asks, then waits, still holding her gaze. Waiting. Watching. He needs to see if she lies.

That his hand is cold in hers isn't a surprise when he's already said he must have hypothermia, nor does it serve as any kind of deterrent. Karen doesn't know this man, not beyond the name and occupation she's just given him; she doesn't know how he came to be in this state or if he's even someone who should be trusted. Right now, it doesn't matter. Hopefully, the ambulance will be here sooner rather than later, but until then, she doesn't want him to be alone. A small gesture like this seems like the least she can do for him, so she keeps her hand curled gently around his, figuring it's better than nothing.

"It doesn't really mean much here, no," she says, shaking her head, her smile small, rueful. "But I'm from Hell's Kitchen, so it means something to me." It also means she has to be careful, but she can ignore that for the time being. He's hurt, he's barely hanging on; what his allegiances might be aren't important. Besides, they're in a different world now, something she has to try to tell him as carefully as she can.

Taking a deep breath, she continues, "As for how you got here... I don't really know." It's an unsatisfactory answer, but it's the only one she's got. Even for all the explanations people have shared about this place, none of them explain how anyone got here, something that bothers her all the more for the fact that it makes it so hard to describe to someone else. "I turned up out of nowhere. It sounds like it's the same for a lot of people. Which seems crazy, I know, but..."

Edited 2016-07-28 04:49 (UTC)

She's from New York, which means, at some point, her number might have come up, and John continues to look at her, tries to determine if he's ever seen her before along with searching for a lie, but both his attempts at catching any dishonesty and his memory come up empty. She's a stranger to him.

An honest one, as far as he can tell, which is something.

What she's telling him seems impossible, but there's no hint of a lie in her eyes. A few years, the Machine would have seemed impossible, Samaritan would have seemed impossible, but John trusts Harold, he trusts the Machine, and it seems it's time for him to trust Karen. At least until he can get in touch with someone, Lionel or Finch or even Root at this point.

"Darrow," he says to confirm what he's been told. "I've come from New York in the middle of winter to a city I've never heard of in the middle of summer. And no one knows how." It occurs to him this is a Samaritan's doing, that she might be an agent, one of Greer's, but if that's the case his cover is long blown. He'll do what he can to fight his way out when it becomes necessary.

"Pretty much, yeah," Karen says, her expression apologetic, if warm. In the event that this goes wrong — if the ambulance doesn't get here in time, if there are complications later — she wants him to have something nice to hold onto, some kindness, even if it is from a stranger. For the time being, that's all she can really do for him, set her own worry aside to offer him something nice near the end. Being here now, she's invested anyway. That she doesn't know him, that she doesn't know what happened to him or why, those aren't things to get hung up on right now. He's a person, and one who needs help, and she can do that for him, be that. "Like I said, it sounds crazy. If it helps, I got here maybe a month ago and it was December back home, so I know how weird it is."

That's putting it mildly, of course. He's still talking, though, and that's a good thing, nor does he seem as fazed as she might have expected, which is helpful, too. For him to be panicking now doesn't seem like it would be helpful for either of them, not least with the physical condition he's in, the blood from the gunshot wound hard to look at. She's seen so many bodies lately. Stranger or not, she doesn't want his to be another. "Whatever questions you have, I can try to answer, but I have to warn you, I don't know if it'll be all that satisfactory."

Even in this state, John can think of at least a dozen questions, most of them ones he can't ask, not without running the risk of blowing his cover or alerting Samaritan. Someone else might tell him he's being paranoid, but he knows Finch and if Finch thinks their situation is as serious as he's led them to believe, John trusts that. He knows better than to do anything that might cause him to lose this second chance he has. There's still so much work to do, they still need to find Shaw, and if he isn't dead, if this is really some plot to get him off the grid and out of New York, what he needs to do is get through this so he can get back out and find her.

Where is Finch? Where is Shaw? Does she know Root? None of them are appropriate questions to ask out in the open like this and even if she does know, she isn't going to tell him.

"The hospital," he says finally. "The doctors there, can they be trusted?"

She can't possibly know the extent of what he's really asking, maybe any answer she gives won't be satisfactory, just like she's said, but he still has to ask. He needs to know he isn't going to walk into a trap. A hospital in New York would be one thing, a place of general anonymity, the Machine helped him with his cover, but if he's not in New York anymore, he isn't sure who or what he can trust. Without the Machine, he might not even have a cover any longer.

It's not the sort of question that Karen is expecting, and the fact that he has to ask makes part of her wary. For most people, she imagines, that wouldn't be one of the first things to come to mind, which means there's probably a reason, and under other circumstances, she'd ask — probably insist on finding out — what it is. Right now, it doesn't seem like the time, not least because she doesn't know that she has an answer. She hasn't been to the hospital herself, insisted, in fact, that she didn't need to the night she showed up, despite the accident she'd been in not long before. Once, she might have assumed that any doctors would be trustworthy, but she's seen too much herself now to be able to take that for granted. What happened to Frank Castle would have been enough to convince her of that.

"I don't know any of them," she says, not wanting to lie just as much as she wants to be reassuring. "And I've never been there. But I haven't heard anything otherwise, and like I said, if there's anything you want me to tell them or not tell them..." Trailing off, she nods slightly, the meaning implicit. It's hard to outright say that she'll lie for him, but if that's what it takes, she will. Until she knows more, she doesn't really have any other options. Maybe his worries are warranted. Maybe he's one of the good guys. In spite of all the shit that's happened lately, she can't bring herself to assume otherwise. That's just not who she is.

He's quiet as he considers this, as another bout of shivering wracks his body and makes him grit his teeth, but there seems to be feeling creeping back into his extremities, which means any frostbite he's sustained will be minor. If he loses a finger in the next few days, it won't be because of the cold.

There has to be a way to tell her what he's asking without giving Samaritan anything to hear so he lets out a long, shuddering breath, lets his muscles quake and jump, trying to work heat back through his body, and he makes his decision.

"In New York -- everywhere really -- there are people who work together and they tell themselves it's for the good of the rest of the population." He can't use the word organization without being picked up as having used a keyword, he can't mention either of the ASI and as much as he'd like to see Samaritan turned off for good, he knows he can't risk that without risking the Machine, too, and she needs to stay. "They're... prone to being in the same area where injuries are often sustained." Violence, aggression, two more keywords he can't use.

He smiles then, a grim expression, and says, "They don't like me or my friends very much, but they're everywhere. I'm just hoping not to walk into a situation I won't walk out of."

What he's describing doesn't sound quite like Fisk's people — he'd been too set on running Hell's Kitchen to look beyond New York — but it's what Karen thinks of all the same, and with that being the case, it's not hard to know what to do here. It isn't really hard to find an answer, either. She doesn't know enough about Darrow yet to say anything with certainty, but the things she'd been seeing back home, they don't seem to be happening here now, and she thinks she can, at least, tell him that much without risking it being a lie. If she thought he were going to be in danger, she would tell him that much. There'd be no reason to do otherwise.

"That won't happen," she tells him, a quiet certainty in her voice. "I... I can't promise you that they're not here, but I haven't heard about anything like that, and either way, you won't be getting into something you won't walk away from. I'll make sure of that." She'd lied to protect Grotto from Frank, before she knew Frank Castle the man and not just the Punisher, and if necessary, she'll lie for him, too. It's not much, it may do little to help him if things are as dangerous as he says, but she thinks it might at least be better than nothing.

In the distance, she can hear the sound of sirens and lets out a breath like she's been holding it, relieved. "Alright?"

John looks at her again, doesn't bother to hide the fact that he's looking at her, and he feels nauseated, a wave of it rolling over him, a result of the hypothermia, but he fights that down and tries not to let it show. It's more important he see her and while, in any other circumstance, he thinks he might have been able to asses her in seconds flat, he knows he's not at his best.

He hasn't seen or heard Carter since arriving here, not past that one whispered sentence, a reminder that he's dying, but it's still hard to know what to trust in this moment.

It would be a mistake to underestimate her based on her stature. She's tall, but slim, but John has seen smaller women do incredibly powerful things and so when she tells him she won't let it happen, that she'll make sure of it, he nods. There's still no deception in her gaze, in her voice, and he wants to believe her.

He's tired now like he hasn't been in a very long time and it may be against his nature, but he wants to believe her.

"Alright," he agrees. Carter would be proud of him. He has to trust someone sometime. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it," Karen says, smiling down at him as the sound of sirens gets closer. "Just hold on, okay?" She doesn't need to have any kind of medical training to guess that he's not in good shape, and as strange and unnerving as all of this is, she's glad she found him when she did. A little longer, and she doesn't know if she would have made it in time, if she'd have been able to get him the help he needs. All she can do now is hope that she's right about this place and the hospital, that she'll be able to make good on her promise. That she doesn't know him has no bearing on her not wanting to let him down, and the last thing she'd want to do is lead anyone into danger.

And, God, she can't have anyone else get hurt, or worse, because of her. There's been too much of that already, and it's not something she wants to have had follow her to Darrow.

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