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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?"

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"They go hand in hand naturally," Peggy supposes, considering that though she has no badge to hide behind, the SSR developed into a body of investigatory persons. They're really just one step removed from the police, once you add in the spooky and the strange that the regular world isn't equipped to cope with.

"The job transitioned, not me, in my case," she admits. "I served the same agency, but we went from being soldiers to spies, in a manner of speaking."

John nods, looking interested, as if he has no knowledge whatsoever about spies and what that sort of life might mean. What Peggy has done might not be all that different from what John himself has done, but he's still an active spy, even if he's no longer with the CIA. He still serves Harold and, to some extent, the Machine.

"What agency?" he asks, then grins. "Is that something you even can tell me?"

He wouldn't be able to. He's told Karen, but mostly because he had to, because there was no other choice, because she had already seen the article about him. Even here, he doesn't want to put anyone in danger.

"It's called the Strategic Scientific Reserve, that much isn't classified," she's happy to share, given that she knows that there are many things that are and she can't really go on and give much more information, but that ought to do. "We were assigned special projects during and after the war."

She peruses the menu as they speak, thinking that perhaps a little tea will go with whatever she's going to try here today.

It's not a division or an agency John has ever heard of, but given what he's done for a living, that doesn't entirely surprise him. The world carries a good number of secrets and having crossed into a place like Darrow, he's had to accept that number is probably a great deal higher than he'd ever imagined.

"The red curry is nice, though it's a bit spicy," he offers when she looks at the menu. "The green curry would be a bit more mild. And that's which war?" Not any of the ones he's been in, he's sure of that.

It will never cease to be strange to her that people have to ask that question. And yet, at the same time, she doesn't think it should be so odd because it's 2016 here in the future and she's a relic from another age. "It was the second World War," she says, grateful that at least that typically doesn't require more explanation that a name given.

"I don't mind a bit of spice," she says, not really getting the opportunity to have much. "Honestly, some days I think I'll take anything with an overt amount of flavour, to combat all the years with those tasteless things. I still find myself rationing and being conservative from time to time, but I need to remind myself that shaking the war and all the habits are important." Besides, she'd been on that track given Howard's lifestyle and how she had glommed onto it.

John nods his understanding, knowing she'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't know most of what they need to know when she says that. "I was stationed in Iraq," he tells her. "There was an ongoing conflict."

That he's still certain his country didn't really want to end. They wanted to prevent terrorism on their own soil, of course, that's why they created the Machine, but when it came to bringing violence to Iraq and Afghanistan, they certainly never hesitated.

"It is hard, though, isn't it?" he asks. "Shaking the war."

"It leaves a set of scars I'm not entirely sure I know how to cope with," Peggy says cautiously, not wanting to complain. Still, she'd been thrust right back into a pressure cooker of tension that left her always on guard. Colleen's death is proof that when she lets her guard down, terrible things happen. "There are so many things that are better, now that we've put the fighting in the past, but some of them come with new battles."

Especially for her, considering how many jobs and how much respect had dried up when she had returned to the US after the treaty had been signed.

John doesn't believe the human race capable of putting fighting in the past. It's a pessimistic view, perhaps, but Jessica was always the optimist to his occasional misanthropy. It's hard to go to war, to see what people do to one another, to do awful things in the name of protecting your country and not think the worst of people as a whole most of the time.

Individual people, though, that's where John finds real beauty.

"There's always a fight," he says. "Always a conflict. That's what becomes most frustrating. You want to believe you're doing something good, but when you come home and there's still another battle, another enemy... well, that's hard."

"I haven't found one here yet," she points out, though Coulson's stories have left her rather wary about the people here, seeing as it does seem like there might be a rather nefarious side to things that she's simply not seeing. "Have you?" she challenges.

"Yes," John answers simply. "Maybe not a war on the same scale we were working with, but yes, absolutely, there's more conflict here than there seems to be in most cities. In New York you had organized crime, which also exists in Darrow, but here there are also underground organizations who have taken people off the street and experimented on them. I'd call that a conflict."

That's to say nothing of Samaritan's reach potentially infiltrating Darrow. Finch doesn't seem to think that's going to happen, but John doesn't feel quite so sure.

She's not keen to share Coulson's research with him, mainly because it's not hers to offer and she doesn't think it would be appreciated, but that's what she thinks of now as they speak. "So what are you going to do about it?" she challenges as she sips at her water, reclining back in the booth to study him and his reaction.

Whatever it will be, she imagines it will tell her a lot about this man.

It's a challenge if he's ever heard one, but John has long since lost the need to prove himself to anyone and so he shakes his head easily.

"At the moment, nothing. I don't know nearly enough to be trusted not to make things worse." Then he smiles and says, "Besides, I told you, I'm a grunt. I execute plans, I don't create them." Finch is the one with the mind for that, not him.

She likes to have plans, though it's not that she necessarily sits around all day making them. Peggy's as keen as the next person for a moment of true relaxation, which is why she's happy to keep an eye out for trouble, but not go searching for it. "Well, if ever I need some hands on help, I know you'll be the first I call," she assures with a warm smile.

"Not that I'm about to go poke my head in a hornet's nest. Just...in case."

"I'd be happy to help," John answers and he means it sincerely. For such a long time he had felt as if there was no purpose, as if all the light had gone out of the world when Jessica died and without her, without the light, there would be no point to anything. Resorting to the life he had, to homelessness and drunkenness, that had seemed like such an easy, obvious solution, but Finch had reminded him how much good there was left to do.

And he'll continue to do that wherever and whenever he can.

"But it's probably for the best neither of us go looking for trouble," he agrees. "At least not until we know what's out there."

That's a hard sell to Peggy Carter, who doesn't know when to leave well enough alone. In fact, she has the feeling that her tendency to find trouble is only going to be exacerbated here, where boredom wars with every moment and risks tearing her world apart.

"Yes," she lies with a pleasant, cheerful smile on her face. "That does sound sensible."

Somehow John has a feeling she means that as much as Root or Shaw ever would have. He smiles a little and taps his fingers against his water glass, knowing there's a good reason he likes Peggy.

"And if I find out anything worth knowing, I'll loop you in," he tells her. He's going to pass her name along to Finch, of that there's no doubt. He'll be able to find out if there's any reason they can't trust her and then they can go from there.

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