primary_asset | (no subject)

(no subject)

He probably shouldn't have gone through the breach, but after the newspaper article Karen had found on him, he hadn't been able to help himself. It was a risk, but it was one he was willing to take just to find out what was on the other side, to see the world another John Reese had lived and died in, the man who had never been found by Finch, who had never been saved.

It hadn't seemed all that much different than this one. He hadn't felt the need for a disguise, expecting anyone who had known this world's John Reese would have known him at the man he'd died as. Homeless, bearded, his hair long and unwashed. No one would recognize him as he was now. He'd wandered through, observed the people who lived here, stopped in at the library to find himself a copy of the newspaper Karen had shown him, then headed out to pick up a coffee before returning to the Darrow where he'd found himself months ago.

Carrying the newspaper with him is perhaps a little dangerous, but there's a part of him that wants to show it to Finch. Everything he'd told Karen about Finch's role in his life had been the entire truth, but he knows he's never been particularly good at expressing his appreciation right to Finch's face, and he thinks the article might encompass everything he doesn't know he has the right words to say.

Without Finch he would be dead. He's long since thought so, but now he has all the evidence he'll ever need.

He's back in the Darrow he's been living in these past few months, reluctant it to call it his Darrow or the regular Darrow as he's heard others refer to it as. John wouldn't call himself settled, he'd been disappointed to find he wasn't able to orchestrate a way for him and Harold to head home through the breach, but he's more comfortable here. This is a city he's investigated, one he's searched, it's a city he's come to know. There's comfort in that.

John might be reluctant to say he's made friends, having never been very good at friendship before Finch, but at the sight of a familiar face ahead, he smiles and lifts one hand in a wave.

"Afternoon," he says when he's close. "How are you?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Well, I could've told you that," Karen says, laughing, both at how he's chosen to phrase it and the image on the coffee cup. "But that's definitely a worthwhile experiment to conduct. You went over there?" It's not really that surprising, all things considered. She can't imagine that there's anyone who would have recognized him as a dead homeless man, not least because the other Darrow seems to be like this one in that there are and can be people who look like each other, and most don't pay much attention to that sort of thing anyway. Still, she can't help being curious. For all the time she's spent there herself, maybe he'll have found out something that she hasn't, something that goes beyond coffee.

He nods, a slow dip of his chin as he considers the reasons why. There's the newspaper, of course, but it's more than that. And as the only person who has seen the newspaper article, he thinks if he tells Karen the honest truth, she might just understand.

"I think I had to," he says finally. "I wanted to see what it was like."

Where he died, the world where he'd suffered and been without Finch, the world that hadn't let him go. He'd gone to the beach, spent a little time there, wondered where, exactly, it was he'd ended up in the water and where it was he washed up on the shore. It hadn't bothered him as much as he had thought it might. He's going to die eventually, probably in action, sooner rather than later, but he had still wanted to see.

Karen doesn't need to hear more than that to at least have a guess at why that might be the case. All things considered, he'd taken the news she brought back to him a lot better than most people probably would have, but even if it weren't for her innate curiosity, she thinks she would have needed to see it, too, if she were in his position. As it is, she's been spending as much time there as not anyway, unable to resist the pull of finding out just as much as she can. She just counts herself lucky that she doesn't stand out too much, the clothes she already wears making it fairly easy to blend in.

"And what'd you think?" she asks, her voice softening just a little. She's not going to make too much of it if he isn't, but she can't pretend like it didn't happen, either, like she doesn't have a newspaper from another world in her drawer containing the obituary of a homeless man named John Reese. For reasons she hasn't quite figured out, she can't bring herself to get rid of it.

"Similar enough to this place," he says. "With the exception of the clothing and the architecture." But beyond that, he isn't entirely sure what he thinks or feels, not yet. He hasn't had time to digest what he'd seen, what he'd felt when standing on the beach. It's impossible to speculate about what life would have been like for the John Reese who lived there, if he had been especially sad, if maybe he'd felt as safe on the streets of Darrow as he had on the streets of New York.

It's not worth imagining. Not worth spending too much time dwelling on it.

"I expect Harold would like it over there," he says with a small smile. "He already dresses like he belongs there. Too bad I can't convince him to cross over or maybe it's too bad that world doesn't have a Harold of their own."

It really is too bad, Karen thinks, though she has the sense not to say so out loud. If there were a Harold over there, though, then maybe that John would still be alive instead of having washed up on the beach. It shouldn't really matter when that isn't the John she knows, the one standing in front of her, whom she's come to consider a friend, maybe her closest one here. As close as she can really let anyone get, anyway. Still, there's a part of her that can't help feeling sad anyway for the man who was there and died.

"You don't think you could talk him into going with you?" she asks instead, keeping her voice light. "Or we could all three go, really have some fun with it. I... God, I think I'm spending about as much time over there as I am over here at this point."

"I don't know. Harold isn't usually the leap before looking and looking and looking sort," John answers with a small, teasing grin. Of course, he's learned some surprising things about Harold Finch over the years and he thinks if someone was able to convince him there was value in visiting the other city, he might just be willing to give it a shot.

John, however, isn't sure what that value might be. At the moment it does seem to be a little more dangerous than it's worth.

"Maybe if I convince him the breach itself is worth studying so that he can figure out a way out of here," he says thoughtfully. "But I'm not sure even Harold is up to that task."

"I think it's gonna take a lot more than one person to figure that out, anyway," Karen says with a slight shake of her head, not wanting to admit to how she really feels about the subject. With the kind of people who occupy this place and how smart they are, though, if there were a way out, she thinks they would have found it by now. For this long to have passed — years, from what she's gathered, since people are on record as having shown up here from places outside of Darrow — and no one to have a clue says a lot about the plausibility of it. She's not one to give up easy, but she'd be surprised if anything else turned out to be the case. "That's not a bad idea, though. There's got to be something to find out from it one way or the other. From what I can tell, nothing quite like this has happened here ever."

"If it happens at all," John replies, because he's met a fair few people who seem to be easily as brilliant as Finch, and none of them seem to have the slightest idea how to explain Darrow or the things that happen. He's met people, too, who have been here for years, and the combination of brains and time should have inevitably led to someone working out how to get home.

And yet they're all still here.

"Nothing quite like this has happened, but there isn't much reporting on it being done," he comments. "Have you noticed that? Stories here and there, but generally, for something of this magnitude, the media seems relatively quiet."

"I have noticed, yeah," Karen says, brow raising as she nods. "I'd think maybe people just don't know what to say, but I've seen one too many coverups for that. Not that there's any hiding this, but..." But she gets the distinct impression that people are trying to downplay this, though she doesn't know why. It's times like this she can't help but thank God for social media. If the news won't talk about it, then at least everyone else will, herself among them.

She gestures down at the bag that's slung over her shoulder, adding, "I've been working on something — I don't really know what it's going to be yet, but something — but even if I manage to figure that out, I don't know what I'll do with it."

John's gaze drops down to the bag and then back up to Karen's face before he says, "Someone will want it." Of that he's absolutely certain. There will always be media outlets that will want to publish the sort of information others aren't in possession of, information only one person knows or something they can advertise as being brand new and available only in that one area.

That's what makes it dangerous, but John has a good feeling Karen knows that already. She doesn't need him telling her.

"Have you pieced anything together yet?" he asks. "I sure haven't." She certainly far more capable than he is, however, and he won't be surprised to find she knows significantly more than he does.

Edited 2016-10-08 16:45 (UTC)

"A little," Karen says, not bothering to hide the fact that it doesn't feel like nearly enough. "Mostly I've just been trying to get as much information as I can — I figure if I do that, something is bound to start coming together out of it — but their government especially seems... worth looking into." She's seen that kind of corruption before. Maybe on the surface, it's easy to overlook it or pretend it isn't there, but the more she finds out, the more apparent it becomes that a lot of the people in charge there shouldn't be. She doesn't really expect to be able to do anything about that herself, but if things stay as they are, people should at least know what's going on. "I don't know. I just know that it's not something I can leave alone."

That isn't something he's particularly excited to hear, not with his own experience with corruption. It worries him and his mouth tightens a little as he looks over at Karen, wondering if she would at least allow him to help her. Having fought side by side with Root and Shaw and Carter, he knows better than to ever suggest she might need his protection, but with two people on the same team, at least there's less of a chance of someone simply disappearing.

"Keep me updated," he says. "Please. If someone knows where you are when you're there, if someone knows what you're looking into..." He doubts he needs to say it. Karen had been through enough that she won't be surprised by where his thoughts have gone. He's only being realistic. Corruption that goes that far up will do anything to keep itself hidden and that includes getting rid of someone asking the wrong questions.

"It's safer that way," he finishes.

He's not wrong. Karen may be no stranger to looking into potentially dangerous situations, never one to shy away from it even when the risks have been great, but there are still situations she's been in that she very much wouldn't want to be again. It helps, at least, being able to come back here at the end of the day, the fact of being in a different universe, however easy it is to access, helping her sleep a little easier at night. It might at least make her a little harder to track down. Still, she can't pretend like it doesn't make a certain kind of sense to have someone know where she is or what she's doing. At least he isn't trying to force it on her or telling her that she's in over her head and putting herself in too much danger. She's seen worse. She's been through worse.

"What, you worried about me now?" she asks with a smile, hair falling over her shoulder when she tips her head to the side. Her expression softens just a little after a moment, though, and she nods. "I will keep you posted. I'm sure it'll be fine, but, you know, just in case."

"Can't I be?" he asks in return, watching the curtain of her hair sliding over her shoulder, the curve of her smile, the tilt of her head. John knows better, he's known better for years, he isn't meant for the sort of relationship women like Karen deserve. He'd been wrong for Jessica, he'd been wrong for Carter, wrong for Iris.

Zoe, however, is something else entirely.

Knowing that, knowing what an association with him can do to these women, he still hadn't let it stop him. And now two of them are dead.

"We don't know anything about this place," he says, shifting his gaze finally, though his smile doesn't fade. "So I worry. A little."

"Alright, I guess I'll allow it, then," Karen says, half-teasing, her own smile still in place as her shoulders lift in a shrug. If he's going to worry, she'd much rather it be like this than overbearing and trying to control what she does or doesn't do. She's never had much patience for that, nor has she ever let it make that much difference. Her choices are her own, and if they're dangerous ones, well, it will neither be the first nor last time that's the case. The risk tends to be worth the outcome. There are things she regrets, sure, she won't pretend otherwise — it was her bright idea that got Ben killed, one more person's blood on her hands — but everything has a cost, getting to the truth especially. If that means putting herself at risk, it'll be worth it. "You don't have to worry now, at least. I'm back for the day. I'm guessing you are, too?"

"Unless Harold wants me to head back over, I think I'm done back from over there entirely," he admits, although he thinks he might be persuaded to go back over if Karen were to ask him. Maybe she doesn't need him to protect her, but he might feel a little better if he's there to make sure no one gets any ideas about how they can treat her.

Or maybe he can convince her it's best to carry a firearm.

"Would you be interested in getting some lunch?" he asks. There's still a part of his brain trying to talk himself out of this, but a larger and much louder piece is telling him there's no harm. It's only lunch, it isn't as if he's asked her on a date, though he has a feeling that's coming. Maybe there's a chance Darrow can be different.

The question comes as a surprise, and Karen's smile warms a little for it, less teasing, more genuine. "Yeah, I could go for lunch," she says. With as wrapped up in her work — as much as it even is work at this point — as she tends to get, things like eating and sleeping tend to fall by the wayside, though she spares a moment's thought to be grateful that she took a shower before she left for the other Darrow this morning. She's not stupid, she doesn't think lunch means anything more than lunch, but still, she'd like to look at least a little put together if she's going to be eating with someone else, rather than just on her own while she compiles her notes.

And, okay, maybe it wouldn't matter as much if it were anyone else, but it isn't like she has many friends here in the first place, and most of the others she does have are people she met the night she arrived, recovering from a car accident and bleeding from the head. However rumpled she might look under more normal circumstances, it wouldn't begin to compare to that. It's different with John.

"That sounds really nice, actually."

"Do you feel like anything in particular?" he asks. John hadn't really expected her to say no, they're friends, after all, and he's only asked her to lunch, but he still can't help that little flash of pleasure he feels when she agrees to go with him.

Finch would probably tell him it's a good thing. Carter certainly would. He isn't entirely sure of that, he still worries anyone who gets involved with him might be put in the line of danger, but at least they're fairly certain they're out of Samaritan's field of vision at the moment. That's something and he intends to take advantage of it for the moment.

"I saw one of those places that promise to have the best pizza you'll ever taste not far from here," he suggests. "We can test that claim as two New Yorkers."

"Oh, I think we definitely have to find that out for ourselves," Karen says, laughing. There's a lot of good food in Darrow, sure — it continues to be one of the perks of living in an actual city — but having gotten used to New York pizza, she's sure there's nothing that could compare, no matter how good the people here say it is. She couldn't even determine what makes the difference, when it comes down to it, but as far as she's concerned, everything people say about the pizza in New York is entirely true. "You know, it's funny, growing up, I thought I'd had good pizza before, but after moving to New York... There's nothing like it, is there?"

She shakes her head. "Or, I don't know, maybe this place will prove us wrong." She's not sure she really cares one way or the other. It's not really about what they eat or where they go or how good it is, but rather the fact that they're doing it at all, stupid as she feels thinking so. All they're doing is getting lunch, something perfectly normal that people do all the time, but still, it's nice.

"There isn't," he says, shaking his head with a smile as he turns them in that direction. He's been all over the world and eaten in some of the nicest restaurants anyone would be able to find, but there's truly nothing like a slice of New York pizza, no matter what anyone else advertises. Kara had made certain they ate the best meals they possibly could whenever they possibly could, but she had been just as comfortable eating rations whenever necessary. Kara Stanton had been a strange and interesting woman.

Dangerous, but interesting.

"New York feels like the centre of the world in a lot of ways," he says. "And I've been to most of the rest of it, but there's still something about that city..." And it's arrogant, perhaps, but that city exists like so few others.

"Well, all I have to compare to is the middle of nowhere, so it's good to know that the same is true even when you've seen the rest of the world," Karen says, her smile wide. In some ways, it's hard to imagine, if only because of the way she grew up. As a child and a teenager, she used to dream about all the different places she could go, the countries she could travel to, the distance she could put between herself and home. Having set out for New York, though — obviously being here has changed that, since she had no say in it, but she can't see herself choosing to be anywhere else, even after all the shit she went through there.

Then again, it's not like it would have taken much to beat being at home.

"But there is, it's... It's hard to say just what it is, but there's something. I'm not sure anywhere else could come close."

"I grew up in the middle of nowhere, too," he tells her. "Colorado. It was beautiful." Even now he misses it, because for all he does love New York and so many of the other cities he's spent time in, his best memories are the ones he has of his childhood.

His parents had been good people. Kind and loving. They'd both died too young, far before John was ready to let them go, but at least he'd had them for a time. He knows that's more than a lot of people can say.

"But it wasn't New York," he adds as they arrive at the pizza place and he opens the door for Karen to go inside ahead of him. "And I certainly couldn't get sushi in the middle of the night or find someone still busking at three in the morning."

"I'd never had sushi at all until I moved to New York," Karen admits, glancing over her shoulder at John as she steps inside, pausing once inside the door. "The town I grew up in had something like four hundred people in it, we didn't exactly have a lot of choice for food. It was one of the best parts of moving to the city, getting to try all these things I'd never had before." There's a lot more to it than that, too, of course, but the opportunity New York provided her, the fresh start, isn't something she wants to dwell on now, especially under the circumstances. It's just lunch, a perfectly normal way for two people to be spending the afternoon, but she doesn't want to cast a shadow over this, either. "It is nice to have all that here, too, at least, even if I doubt it's really going to compare."

"Let's find out," he suggests, touching his fingers to her back without thinking, holding one arm out in the direction of a free table. There's a waitress heading in their direction already, laying menus on the table John is moving toward, pouring water into the glasses already waiting for them and she's pretty, smiling at them both in welcome, but John's focus is on Karen.

It's barely a touch at all, just his fingers against her back, but he can't help but think how nice it is. He should know better, but sometimes he just can't seem to help himself.

"What brought you to New York?" he asks once they're seated, then smiles slightly. "You know I was trying to drink myself to death, but hopefully your draw to the city was a little more cheerful."

The way he touches her, his fingers against her back, seems so easy, so natural, that Karen doesn't fully register it until they're at the table and she's seated across from him, like it takes the absence of his hand there to draw attention to its presence at all. She's not sure why it matters, anyway — just like their being here, there's no reason why it should mean anything — except that it's nice to feel good like this around someone, at ease even in spite of the question he asks and the answer she knows she can't give.

Sometimes she thinks she could tell him everything and he would understand, unlike Matt and Foggy back home, who never would have. With what she knows about John, it almost doesn't seem fair to keep so much to herself. After so long, though, not even discussing with Ben and Ellison what they found out about her, she isn't sure how to, or where to start. Maybe some things are just better kept buried.

"I just needed a fresh start," she says, since it isn't like that's not true. People come to the city for all sorts of reasons, and she'd be willing to bet that that's chief among them. "To get out of the middle of nowhere and set out on my own somewhere. I always knew where I grew up wasn't where I wanted to stay, so... New York seemed like as good a place as any."