primary_asset | (no subject)

Entry tags:

karen page

(no subject)

Technically they're working, but on a day as nice as today, John doesn't think he can be blamed for enjoying himself more than he usually does when he's undercover. Nearly everything in his life is far more enjoyable when Karen is there with him, but work is still work, and he would always rather just be spending time with her than working.

Today, though, it's better than it usually is, because it really is just like spending quality time with her. They're in the park, the sun is high, the air is warm, and the man they're keeping under surveillance hasn't actually done anything wrong, which might be a first for John in Darrow. They're here to keep an eye on him because John has heard there are some people, some criminals, who have an idea to go after this man's young son. The rumour is that the attack would be for ransom and John has a strong feeling that's most likely.

The man and his pretty young wife clearly have money, though they're not over the top about it. They're still here, after all, playing in the park with their son, the little boy squealing as he goes down the small, toddler sized slide. He's cute and happy, the family is clearly enjoying their time together, and John hates the idea that anyone might want to hurt them over a bit of money. They're well dressed, the car they drive is expensive without being flashy, and John knows this man has not only earned every cent he has, but puts a significant amount of his income back into the community.

He's a good man who doesn't even know he's a target. This is good work.

Leaning toward Karen, John is about to ask her if she's noticed the green car idling across the street from the park, but just as he does, there's a loud pop from nearby. His hand is on his gun in an instant, but before he draws it, he sees where the sound has come from. A couple not far away are opening champagne, sitting on a blanket with a picnic spread out, the both of them laughing and kissing, even as they try to pour their drinks.

Between them on the blanket is a ring box, a simple diamond set in rose gold resting inside. The sight of it makes him smile, even as his chest tightens.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sometimes, their job is a difficult one. Karen has never minded the fact of that — her life back in New York was difficult, too — but it's nice to have a brief sort of reprieve from that. Although she obviously wouldn't take the threat against this man's son anything less than seriously, for the time being, their work is just a little less dismal than is so often the case. Besides, while it could change at a moment's notice, it's nice just to have a fairly casual afternoon out with her boyfriend. They aren't pretending to be other people or sneaking around or in any sort of imminent danger. They can relax a bit and enjoy themselves, just while still remaining aware.

Abruptly, that seems like it might be about to change; she's as conscious of the way he moves as she is of the sound, the source of which quickly becomes apparent. She huffs out a quiet laugh, shaking her head. "Well, there are worse things to be interrupted by," she says, half-teasing. There may yet be trouble, but there isn't right now. The couple on the blanket look so happy that she can't help but smile in turn.

With a soft laugh, John relaxes back onto the bench beside Karen, then lets out a long breath. He had been reaching for his gun, he knows she knows it, and he's just relieved he had been able to properly work out the situation before he had actually pulled it out of its holster. While it wouldn't necessarily cause any trouble, being that it's a legitimately registered weapon and he has his detective's badge with him today, he'd hate to have interrupted the happiness of the couple.

"There are," he agrees with a gentle smile of his own. "Lucky I didn't interrupt them in return."

Even though he's no longer touching his gun, he thinks Karen will understand what he means. By this point, she knows him better than he thinks anyone ever has. She knows his movements and his gestures and the way he'd reached for his gun wouldn't go unnoticed by her.

"Yeah, I think that would be the wrong sort of memorable for the occasion," Karen says wryly, glancing from the couple again back over to him. At least any interruption would have been short-lived, but she imagines it would have killed the mood regardless, not what either of the newly engaged pair would want from such a moment. She hasn't thought much abut how, hypothetically speaking, she would ever want to be proposed to, but she does know that she wouldn't want a stranger pulling a gun on her to be part of the equation.

Then again, given the lives she and John lead, maybe it wouldn't be too out of place. She doesn't know if that's in the cards for them, if it ever will be, but she wouldn't exactly be imagining herself winding up with anyone else.

"A good story for them later, maybe, but probably not worth it."

"No," he agrees. "This is better."

He's quiet for a moment, looking across the park for the green car he'd noticed earlier. It's no longer idling and the driver has gotten out and is leaning against the hood, smoking and watching the park. John is about to draw Karen's attention to it when the driver suddenly waves and breaks into a smile. He tosses away the cigarette, then holds his arms out for the young girl who jogs carefully across the street to meet him. His daughter, clearly. They look alike.

John doesn't expect anyone would go to such an extent just to look casual. Just to spy on a rich man whose son they want to kidnap.

"When you were younger," he starts, wondering if this it out of left field when it's been on his mind for some time. "Were you the sort to plan your future wedding?"

"Not really," Karen says after just a moment's pause. The question may be an unexpected one, but it makes sense, with what they're looking at. She never was that sort of girl, though. She has no problem with those who were, but she always had to set her sights smaller first. "I more just... planned to get out, however I could. Even from the time I was a little kid, that's all I wanted." They were never happy. Her mother getting sick made them infinitely less so, but it was all always there. And God knows she would never have married anyone from that same small town and gotten herself stuck there all over again.

None of that is a subject worth dwelling on now, though. She cracks a crooked smile. "I'm guessing you weren't either?"

"No, I was," he answers with a low laugh. "I was a romantic, even when I was a kid. I had ideas of sweeping my little girlfriends off their feet."

He's still smiling, but it's gone a touch sad now. John knows he isn't that man any longer and he knows he can't get that back. A part of him still yearns for it, for the normalcy of having a wife and children, a quiet family that is never in any danger. It's not possible, not even here. He's made enemies, he thinks maybe they both have.

"And with Jessica..." He shrugs. "I made plans. I even bought a ring."

Although she may not have expected it, at least not at that early an age, once he says it, Karen can sort of picture it. He must have been adorable, she thinks, planning romantic gestures for the childhood equivalent of girlfriends. Even when she was very young, she wasn't thinking like that. She had crushes on boys, but it always seemed to equate to settling down, and that was never something she could do.

Then as a teenager, she'd just fucked around, and wasn't in a position to think seriously about a relationship until New York. The men she knew there, she'd each loved in a different way, but it was never meant to work out. Matt had his secrets, Foggy had Marci, and Frank was a fugitive. Before John, there was never anyone she could have thought about that way. With him, she would be lying if she said she hadn't considered it on a handful of occasions, but mostly as a hypothetical thing, not wanting to make any assumptions.

If she can't help but wonder now where this might be going, if anywhere at all, well, she hardly thinks she could be blamed for that.

"And then that... went the way it did," she says with a nod, figuring she shouldn't get any more into it than that and risk ruining the mood. "For me, this is the most serious I've ever been, actually."

Even though he had thought he would marry Jessica, had been preparing to ask her when the Towers went down, John still thinks it's safe to say this is the most serious he's ever been, too. With Karen, for the first time in a very long time, he can see a future with someone.

"Harold asked me once if I still ever wanted that kind of life," he admits. "We were watching a family we had helped, happy couple, their kids. We were both so far removed from it and I think- well, we had both wanted it once."

John looks at the playing family, the one they're keeping tabs on, and decides he needs to say it. He and Karen have their secrets and even so, they've built a deep, abiding trust. This is one secret he doesn't think he ought to keep any longer. "I did want it. I still do. I thought it wasn't meant for me, but maybe..."

If only because the subject isn't one that they've discussed before, it takes Karen a moment to parse what he's saying and make sure that she's right about it. Something like this, she doesn't want to take too flippantly, and it would be more than a little awkward, albeit fine, if she misunderstood. Whether it's the family they're watching or the ring display she found herself looking at with a stranger a while ago or just something in her head that's been dormant until recently, though, it isn't as surprising as it could be. She doesn't necessarily know if she would have thought that he would want that, but the subject was probably going to come up sooner or later. It might as well be now, and like this.

"I think we've both had pretty good reasons to think it wasn't meant for us," she says with a small, knowing smile. Glancing towards the newly engaged couple not too far away, the two of them still seemingly oblivious to everyone else nearby, she adds, "But I kind of like the idea of it. Having... that."

One corner of her mouth curls up a little higher. "Plenty of people here already think we're married anyway."

John smiles and looks down at his hands for a moment before he nods and says, "That's true."

That isn't why he wants to marry her, of course, just because plenty of people in Darrow think it's true of them already. He'd pretended to be married to Kara even more often and he'd never wanted his relationship with her to grow deeper or to become any more permanent. Karen is different. Right from the start, Karen has been different from everyone.

And now he feels like that might continue. This is uncharted territory, a world he'd never imagined he might get to enter, but here they are anyway. At the precipice of change.

"This isn't a proposal," he adds a moment later, still smiling as he lifts his gaze to Karen's once more. "When I do this, it's going to be done properly."

"Oh, I expect the works," Karen says, mostly teasing, nodding towards the couple a little ways away from them. "At least a ring and champagne." She wouldn't actually be upset in the absence of either, of course, not least because their lives have a tendency to be, well, a bit weird. However he does propose, if and when that happens, it will be what's right for them and right at the time, and that matters more to her than any sort of ceremony. She's in no rush, anyway. They've never even talked about it before now; knowing that it's what they both want doesn't mean they have to rush into it.

"No flash mobs, though. I draw the line at dancing strangers."

"Where do you stand on fireworks?" he asks and the corners of his mouth twitch very slightly, indicating he's teasing her still.

Despite the more dangerous lives they lead behind the scenes, he and Karen together have been rather quiet as a couple. He likes it that way and he thinks she does as well. They work together, but they can still keep the work separate from their life and their relationship. They can still keep what they have together quiet and peaceful.

However he still wants to give her something meaningful. Something right for the two of them. And maybe a little selfishly, he wants to give her a beautiful ring she loves and a beautiful memory.

"I will definitely accept fireworks," Karen says, barely able to keep from laughing. "Who could turn down something that big and cliché?" That's not either of them, really, which is all the more reason to joke about it. They're both fairly private people by necessity, and maybe out of habit, too. Making a big display out of their engagement doesn't strike her as something either of them would want.

The thought of that brings something else to mind, and her expression softens a little. "When it does happen, and however it happens... I want it to be entirely as ourselves. No jobs going on, no aliases, aside from, you know, the usual, not even anything like this." She nods towards the family they've been watching. "Just us."

She doesn't think he would do otherwise, but it seems important to say anyway, just to make sure. It's the only thing she would be particular about — well, aside from the lack of a flash mob — for a proposal.

Although he doesn't have any specific plans just yet, when Karen says she wants it to be just the two of them, honestly and exactly who they are, he nods before she even finishing saying it. He shifts, draping his arm along the back of the bench behind her, his fingers stroking her shoulder.

"Just us," he agrees.

They've told plenty of lies to other people, pretended to be things they're not, and while John has absolutely no issue doing that for work, he doesn't want it to cross over into their lives like that. It'll be just them. He'll make sure of it.

Karen smiles, then leans in to kiss him quickly. They have a job to be doing, people to be watching, she knows, but it isn't as if she means to be too much of a distraction. Everything has been fine so far; a couple of seconds won't change that. They have no front to be keeping up right now anyway, nothing to be doing but blending in. It's not quite what she wants from a proposal, as she told him, but she likes days like this, when things are relatively calm and they can mostly relax. She likes the work they do, too, but it's nice to have a break.

"I love you," she says. Sometimes it bears repeating. "I'm... glad we both want this."

John smiles, returning the kiss, closing his eyes for a moment and letting them just be who they are in this moment, too. They might be working and he knows they have to avoid any real distraction, but if he's going to kiss her, he's going to do so properly.

"I love you," he echoes in a soft voice, smiling as he presses another kiss to her temple.

A second chance was never meant to be in the cards for him, but he's glad he hadn't been too stupid to take this. Wherever she may be now, Carter never would have forgiven him if he had made a mess of this.

"Nice of that couple to bring this subject up for us," Karen says with a quiet laugh, nodding absently in the direction of the couple who'd gotten engaged a few minutes before. It would have come up at some point, she's sure, especially if they were both already thinking about it. Still, it's an amusing catalyst, too, and a very different turn of events than she expected when they left their apartment today. At the time, she hadn't expected there to be anything out of the ordinary about it. That makes its own sort of sense, though. With their lives and this place, nothing is ever really typical.

She's grateful, too, that nothing has happened to the family they're watching, though that's entirely for their sake. If the two of them had been interrupted just now, it would have been for a good reason. They do good work. It's nice to feel like she can actually help in some way.

"Very convenient, really."

"Very convenient," he agrees. "If Finch were still here, I might accuse him of orchestrating the whole thing."

It does make him a little sad to think his friend won't be here to see the rest of this second chance they both had. All he can do is hope Finch is making the most of his somewhere else, finding his own brand of peace instead of burying himself in the Machine and in his work. John can relate to that, it's why he and Finch had worked as well as they did, but if he can find contentment and still do the work, he likes to believe Finch can, too.

"He loved you, too," he says after a moment. "Harold. He knew we could be good for one another, but he knew a lot of things about me before I ever did. We spoke about it once, before Darrow, about wanting a normal life. I know he wanted me to be able to have one."

"I mean, he basically set us up when we were being stubborn and oblivious," Karen says, biting back a laugh. Part of her thinks maybe she shouldn't make light of it when, at the time, it felt awful having feelings for him that she was sure couldn't be returned, half-convinced they'd almost kissed on New Year's and she'd missed her shot and equally so that she'd imagined the moment they shared that night. It is all pretty amusing in retrospect, though, the two of them foolishly dancing around each other for months, feeling the same way the whole time.

Her expression softens after a moment, though, and she nods a little. It means more to her than she would have expected, knowing she would have had Harold's approval. Normally, she wouldn't give a shit about things like that, but with as important as he is to John, it makes him important to her, too.

"He was a good guy," she says, sure that he'll know as well as she does what an understatement that is. "I'm glad I got to know him while I did."

"So am I," John answers. "And I hope he got to have that life he wanted in going back."

He doesn't know if it would have been possible, not when the only woman Finch ever would have wanted was Grace and when she believed he was dead, but John, in his strange way, is an optimist. If there's a way for Grave and Finch to have found each other again, he likes to think he would have done anything to help make that happen for them.

"Did he ever tell you about Grace?" he asks.

"I don't think so," Karen says, shaking her head. It's been such a long time now, and she never got to know Finch as well as she would have liked. Most of what she knows is from John, and all of that has only made her wish she could have found it out from Finch himself. It's nice, though, to know that he supported this. From the beginning, it's just sort of seemed right, even before they actually became a couple. It would have anyway, but she's sure the time they all had together helped with that, too.

Idly, she laces her fingers through his. "Who's Grace?"

"His fiancée," he says softly. It isn't his story to tell and he doesn't know all the details, but he figures Karen should know. In Darrow, she had certainly been Finch's closest friend besides himself.

"When Finch was working on creating the Machine, it repeatedly directed him to a woman painting in the park. Grace." He smiles faintly. "I think that might have been Finch's first indication the Machine had become more than what he had anticipated. It was trying to set him up."

The smile fades a little and he squeezes Karen's hand. "But the people who wanted the Machine wanted everyone associated with it dead. There was an explosion on a ferry, it's how he was injured, why he limped, and he used the chance to fake his death. To protect her."

Karen nods along slowly. It makes sense with what she knows of Finch, and it makes her a little sad, too. He shouldn't have had to give up the woman he loved because of circumstances like those. But as angry as she knows she's been in the past when other people have tried to decide things for her safety without telling her, she can't blame him for making a decision like that, sacrificing his happiness to try to help as many people as he could. From what she can tell, he helped a lot of them, too.

"No wonder he wanted you to be able to have a normal life," she says thoughtfully, expression a little bittersweet. "Because he gave his up."

Such a thing hadn't been possible in New York and they had both known it. Finch might have wanted it for John, but they never would have taken steps to make something like that happen. Between his assignments and Samaritan coming after them, it had just been too dangerous. Iris was proof enough of that.

But in Darrow, the story is a different one. He can have something here.

He smiles over at Karen and says, "I like to think he'd be pretty pleased with how things have turned out here. He and Carter both." He barely ever speaks of Carter, still pained over her death, but he knows she would be proud of him.

"I hope so," Karen says, smiling in turn. It's nice to consider, even if she only knew Harold, and not as well as she would have liked to. Of the people in her own life, aside from Frank, who makes for less of a hypothetical when he's here in Darrow and acquainted with John himself, aware of their relationship, she can't think of many people whose opinion on the matter would actually have meant something to her. Ellison would have been thrilled just for her to be seriously involved with someone at all. Ben Urich, if he were still alive, would have liked John, probably for the same reasons he liked her.

"I think we've done pretty alright for ourselves, all things considered."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only