Chapter Text
John Reese weakly smiled as he watched Harold open the door to the rooftop across the way from the one John would be making his last stand. This was the right thing to do. Harold Finch had already given too much of himself to a world that would never know the sacrifices the genius had made for it. It didn’t need his very life as the final immolation. Harold deserved more than his death in recompense.
Maybe the world could never repay Harold for all he had done to save it, but John sure could. Harold had saved him, gave him a purpose, helped him become the hero he always wanted to be and fixed the broken man John had become. If John had to give up his life to repay that debt, then so be it.
Only as the door closed behind Harold, John’s conviction wavered. The finality of cutting the ties that for five years had bound them together with his death shook him to his core when the last thing John saw was the defeated slump of Harold’s shoulders. John had been so focused on repaying his debt and keeping Finch alive, knowing that with Harold gone he wouldn’t last a year, that he’d hadn’t given any thought that Harold could possibly feel the same way. Oh god! What if Harold can’t live in a world without me in it?
Harold had begged him to let the upload take care of itself and get out of there. But, John was being too noble to listen. Now he had to get the hell down off this roof; get to Harold. John’s sacrifice would be for naught if Harold just gave up and let himself die from his wound.
So far Reese had been quick enough to down the first handful of Samaritan’s soldiers, but the next three spread out. One nailed him in the shoulder of his gun hand making it hard for John to aim accurately; another fired a round into John’s leg breaking the bone, thereby taking John to the ground effectively and making him an easy target.
They moved in for the kill. If not for the Kevlar vest he’d put on when his only mission for the day had been to keep Harold safe while he used his hacking skills to defeat once and for all the hard to kill AI, the multiple rounds they fired into his chest would have been overkill; he would have been dead from the first shot in seconds.
The vest took the brunt of the bullets being fired at him, their impact probably breaking some ribs under the body armor, except one of the three agents was using armor piercing rounds. More than one tore through the Kevlar, none hitting anything vital, except it hurt like hell and John clenched his eyes shut with the pain. The three stopped firing when they saw the blood flowing freely from John’s chest staining his pristine white shirt and John’s eyes closing. John could sense the three assassins moving in without seeing them and he cursed his damn stubbornness. He was going to die, Harold too, despite John’s grand gesture.
John waited for them to come close, his gun ready; he was going to take one or two of the assholes with him. Only seconds passed and nothing, then he heard the sound of boots on the concrete running away from him. John opened his eyes, thinking for a split second that he had been hurt worse than this and he would get down off this roof, get to Finch if he had to crawl to do it.
Then he looked eastward, “Fuck!” Sorry for the language, Harold.
~ * ~
John was no longer on the roof; he was standing on the street a short distance away watching the burning building collapse to the ground into a pile of rubble. How can he be standing with a broken leg, on the street no less? He looked away from the disaster scene and down at himself; his suit was as immaculate as it had been when he had donned it the earlier that day. He waggled his shoulder and then ran his hands over his chest and stomach, no bullet holes anywhere.
What the hell?
Only before John could figure that out, emergency vehicles began arriving at the scene of the missile strike with the exception of an ambulance that stopped in front of the building adjacent, Harold’s building. He saw some paramedics going through the double glass doors. Maybe someone had found the injured man and called them. He made to walk towards the building, yet without taking a step he was inside the lobby.
The paramedics were already tending to a wounded man wearing the black garb of a Samaritan operative lying on the white tiled floor; one medic was using a manual resuscitator, another doing chest compressions, while a third injected various medications into an IV line already running into the injured man’s arm.
It wasn’t Finch, so John turned away and went to search the building. He entered the elevator, but his hand went through the panel not connecting with anything solid as he tried to hit the top floor button. John jerked his hand back before tentatively reaching for the panel again, with the same result, as well as when he touched the elevator walls; his hand would disappear into the solid objects. Giving up using the elevator, he took the stairs, actually walking and ascending the stairs one step at a time. But it seemed more like he was above the floor his feet not really making contact with the tile or carpeting.
Floor by floor he searched for Harold until he found him sitting in a chair in the lobby of the twelfth floor, shoulder and head leaning against the wall as his pain-filled eyes stared out the window at the smoke billowing up from the burning remnants of John’s destroyed building. “It was supposed to be me, John,” Harold kept repeating over and over brokenly as he labored to breathe.
Harold was dying in front of him and John couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it. The paramedics! He had to find a way to let them know. John just thought about them and there he was in the main lobby watching them still work unsuccessfully on Samaritan’s goon.
As John watched, trying to find a way to get Finch help, one of the EMTs shouted ‘we’re losing him’. The next moment the figure of a man identical to the one lying on the floor was standing next to his body looking down at himself before he turned and walked away into a bright light.
If John could still be startled he would have jumped when someone next to him warned him, “You taking this one you better be quick before someone gets him first.”
“Wait! You can see and hear me?” John asked in disbelief.
“Rookies! The old man groused. “Yes, but we ain’t got time for introductions if you're gonna help your friend upstairs!” John felt himself being pushed towards the fallen Samaritan soldier. “It’s gonna hurt like hell but you just dive right in like you’re jumping into a pool. Now Go! It’s not your time yet John.”
Reese was desperate to save Harold so he did as he was instructed. He dove towards the floor and the body on it. The pain was excruciating as he felt as if he were was floating in a river of fire, then the agony eased as he swam for the glimmering light that was above him.
John opened his eyes, looking up into the face of the female EMT putting away the defibrillator paddles. “Lie still,” she cautioned him when he tried to stir, “We’re going to put this backboard under you now. Then we’re going to get you into the ambulance and to the nearest hospital. You’re going to fine Evan.”
“Evan?’ John croaked, then swallowed and rasped, “My friend’s hurt. Twelfth floor. Please? Please help him. Please help him.”
“You just take it easy. One of us will go to check on your friend. You just relax okay?” The EMT smiled to reassure him.
John tried to stay conscious but it was hard as the drugs and weakness from Evan’s injuries pulled him under. There was a flurry of activity as someone shouted, “We have another gunshot victim on the twelfth floor.”
“What the hell went on here?” was shouted by another.
John didn’t hear anything else.
~ * ~
John, Evan Ardent according to his hospital chart and all the ID in his wallet, stood before the mirror above the sink in the bathroom of his hospital room. It was still a shock to look in the mirror and see a different face. Harder still was separating Evan’s memories – two lives lived inside his head now – from his own, they were so alike.
John had thought Samaritan's soldiers were all evil minded minions of an AI that wanted to be God. In Evan’s case nothing could have been further from the truth. He had been in the Army like John, enlisting because he wanted to serve his country and the people in it. Like John, he had excelled in military skills, except it was the NSA that had recruited him.
Ardent had ended up an agent the same as Shaw, working The Relevant numbers for Research, but he had also been duped into doing some questionable missions by them the same as the CIA had done with John. Evan was still working for the NSA when Samaritan had replaced The Machine. Ardent went on mission after mission for the NSA and Samaritan, some actually did prevent terrorist attacks, but others were nothing more than executions of citizens whose loyalties had come under question.
Evan had already been questioning whether what he was doing was right when he had been dispatched that day he had been shot to eliminate the terrorist who had released the ICE-9 virus. This was something he fully intended to do, kill a terrorist. Who would release a deadly computer virus if not a terrorist? He and his partner had been directed to an older man with a limp who hardly seemed like he could harm a flea let alone release a deadly computer virus.
Evan had balked at killing their disabled target who barely staggered into an elevator when they had entered the building, his partner had turned on him for doing so. They had fired upon one another as the missile struck the building next door. His partner had run away fearing their building might be next. The real Evan had died, as it was his time. Now here John was new identity, new body, and nowhere to go.
Reese was being released tomorrow, only a week after he, Evan, had been shot. John had saved Harold’s life for now by body jumping, but he had no idea what had become of his best friend. When he had asked about the other man, Evan had been told Harold had left the hospital against doctor’s orders.
John didn’t know what to do with himself; Evan had been inexplicably let go by his employers and finding Harold would be nigh impossible if he went off to die alone. Harold thought John and The Machine were gone – their mission had been Finch’s purpose too. What if without TM giving them numbers and John at his side would Harold even want to go on?
The first thing John did was go to a liquor store to buy a bottle and then rent a room in a fleabag hotel. John died, and almost died again as Evan, and still he didn’t know if Harold was alive. He didn’t think anyone would blame him for getting drunk, not even Harold.
~~*~~