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The Purge had been an eventful night, leaving John a little unsettled regarding the way Darrow conducts itself and while he hadn't been particularly worried about the people he cares about, knowing them to be capable of taking care of themselves, it has shifted his attitude regarding their team.

Knowing what he's like, he's still certain he's not meant to be in the role of their leader, and he thinks Karen and Dutch will both accept that. Peggy seems less sure, but he thinks if he has the other two backing him up, he'll be able to avoid that for at least a little while longer. His focus right now is trying to figure out the right way to get back into what they used to do.

And that means finding a way to create something similar to the Machine.

Before he can even begin to consider something like that, however, he needs to tell a few people the whole story of who he is and what he had done in New York. Karen knows everything and Dutch knows more than most, but even she doesn't know about what Finch was capable of or the computer he'd created. It feels like the first step in getting back to what he used to be, telling her the entire truth, and so he's asked her to meet him late one afternoon.

When he sees her, he raises his hand and smiles faintly.

"Coffee or guns?" he asks. "Your choice. I have some things I need to tell you."

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"I asked a few questions but didn't get any good answers as to why this was necessary or even legal," Dutch agrees with a nod. "People talked around the issue, talked about something else or just dismissed me. I'd almost forgotten how much I hate dealing with the government until I tried to get some answers out of the inept idiots who say they run this place."

It had been like beating her head against a very hard wall. The people she'd spoken to were aware of the complaints about the night but they refused to do anything. No one gave a reason why this was needed or could point her to someone who even wanted it.

"I just don't know how you keep going in a place where one night someone beat the hell out of you and took your stuff but the next day, they're in front of you at a coffee shop. Makes no sense."

"They claim it reduces criminal tendencies for the next seven years," John answers, his tone making it clear what he thinks of that idea. "There are no studies that support that idea, that the chance to commit any sort of criminal activity without consequence reduces to desire to do so over time. I know people who have studied things like that."

The CIA has no qualms about conducting questionable experiments, no issue with using people to see what happens when they're allowed certain freedoms. John has seen parts of the studies and he knows they don't end with peace for any length of time.

"I'm doing what I can to find the people who committed the most violent crimes," he admits. "They may not go to prison, but I can find other consequences for them."

"So, shoving a whole bunch of criminal activities into one night just...gets it out of their systems?" Dutch asks dubiously. She shakes her head and rolls her eyes before sighing.

"In a way, I could see their reasoning but they don't seem to understand that if you give someone a inch, they're going to take more and more and more. This city isn't that big and the police force can't be everywhere. Now people know what kind of shit they can do and they know that they'll probably get away with it. The people that run this city are morons."

That's all there is to it. They're idiots. They don't understand how to run a city without causing more and more harm. It's ridiculous.

"No arguments here," John agrees. "I know a lot of the officers I work with disagreed and lent their services to other places for the night. There was a safe house in one of the churches and a few people I work with went there to protect those who gathered. A few helped their neighbours keep their houses safe. Most of the cops I know really tried to do what they could within the restrictions that were handed down to us."

And John had been among them, but he's the only one he knows who's still working to take people down.

"Maybe that ought to be our next mission," he says, looking at Dutch with a faint smile. He's serious, though, and it's clear in how he's looking at her that he isn't joking. "We can start with the people who killed your friend and go from there. We can find other things to do to them even if we can't put them in prison."

"You tell me where to point myself and I'll be there," Dutch tells him with a nod. "I don't really know where to look first since there was a lot of shitty people doing a lot of shitty things that night but I'm sure someone's talked about it or bragged about it."

Not to her, thankfully. She's stuck to her guns when it comes to not killing anyone unless it's absolutely necessary but she can't say definitively that she'd adhere to that if she faced some of the people who'd done horrible things that night.

"Probably the first step is finding the worst offenders," Dutch muses. "I don't really care about the people who broke windows or threw rocks at buildings. That's shitty but small in the grand scheme of things."

"I can do that. There were still reports made, even if we were unable to do anything on the record. I have names of people who lost loved ones, people whose homes were burglarized, people who lost things with significant personal meaning. I even have a few reports from people who said their pets went missing or were abused."

And John puts up with violence toward animals with as little patience as he does toward innocent people.

"Several reports of assault, multiple rapes or attempted rapes. We'll have plenty to start with, if you're interested." It's against every last rule that had been laid out to him as an officer during the Purge and he doesn't care at all.

"I'm interested," Dutch confirms with a nod. "I have a lot of time and an inkling to put my hands on some of those people who thought it was okay to go around hurting people just because the idiot mayor said they could."

She still doesn't plan on killing anyone but no one's going to care if she busts a few chairs over their heads or backs. It's the least they deserve for deciding that they were above the law despite being given permission.

"Forward me whatever you want me to look at and I can keep you in the loop as to what I find."

Dutch's answer doesn't surprise him and he suspects, as with his own plans, she won't be killing anyone. There's no reason they can't put a few people in the hospital, though, and John plans on making sure certain folks are unable to use parts of their bodies they might have otherwise very much liked to keep uninjured.

That's fine with him, though. If someone can't be a respectable member of society, he doesn't have to treat them with respect in return.

"I knew there was a reason I liked you," he teases, his voice dry and his smile small.