Chapter Text
Lying on that stretcher, Reese felt everything strangely familiar. This had happened before: the coldly illuminated ceilings, crisp-white walls, the constant buzz in the ear accompanied by a dull pain. He was wounded in the abdomen, physically and mentally fatigued, unable to pick up the lightest object in the world -- he saw his boss's face: lips stretched into a rigid line, shock-wide guilt-filled turquoise eyes.
"I am so sorry. " Finch whispered. He was wearing white, which made him look shorter than usual. Reese couldn't think of a single thing that his boss should be the slightest sorry for.
He wouldn't be surprised if Finch actually had a surgeon identity, but he couldn't possibly be adept enough to perform a surgery on a critically wounded ex-spy could he? '... Maybe he failed the surgery and now I am going to die,' Reese thought dimly, or what else would he be apologizing for?
He managed to crack his eyes open, and saw his boss talking with some stunned-looking doctor. It was quite weird having to look upward to see Finch's face, same for the stern, nervous expression and screechy voice. 'It was not your fault,' Reese tried to tell him, 'even if you killed me on the table.' But the Iraq doctor began to fiddle with his body, and he passed out soon after.
When he finally awoke enough to reexamine what had happened that night, a fierce surge of longing consumed him. He had knew that Finch could risk his own safety to deliver him a warning of danger, but crashing a CIA trap to snatch away an exposed runaway agent of an employee who was also being targeted by a marksman was something entirely different. Not joking about favorite color or restaurant, he did need to know more if he had actually gained another person he could trust. Who was this guy? Why would he believe Reese? Would he do that again? What could become variables? He had once given out his trust completely, and got relentlessly crushed. He would not, and could not let that happen again.
Fusco might think following someone who had just saved your life 24/7 strange, but Reese knew there was nothing more logical than that.
Finch's concept of privacy protection was still on buffing curious snoops. Reese would certainly dig out enough information before he finally realized that his employee's curiosity had way passed 'what the boss did after work.'
But finding out about Will Ingram was nothing to flaunt about. Finch, in his eagerness to act like a good, normal father-figure, had willingly forfeited his devious rote. He stayed at the insurance company signing up papers, waited until the blond boy knocked open his door. Then they went to the same restaurant they ate every time, collaborated on sorting out Ingram's old house, and together they leisurely walked streets chattering and laughing. Whether Finch knew that Reese was secretly following him, it's obvious he wouldn't risk raising suspicion to the son of his deceased friend in order to entertain his employee's bored curiosity. Maybe he would throw away this identity as well when he found out Reese's knowledge of it -- No, he wouldn't, Reese realized. Finch would keep this identity, to wait for the young man to find him again. Unlike other feathery identities like Swift or Crane, Harold Wren the insurance guy existed for a person. He wouldn't disappear lightly.
The man possessed countless fleeting shadows in this world. Maybe only a few had stayed due to someone holding their foot on them, and projected some figments of his silhouette. But those whom he chose to be held by were too few. Most of the people who tried to get near, like the woman in that engineer office, didn't even get a goodbye when he left.
Such idea unsettled Reese. He couldn't help but ponder the possibility that someday Finch would ditch this current one just as easily as he ditched the one he had used for seventeen years. Maybe one day he would arrive at the library just to find the iron door locked, desk empty, and all evidence of Mr. Finch's existence in some trash can down the street, simply because some other person in his other identities snooped him. And Reese could do nothing, left for wild guess at what had happened, just like that poor engineer woman.
He wouldn't be able to bear that, Reese knew. No matter how healthy, carefree, energetic he might look right now, he still lived on the lives he rescued. His past eviscerated him. Only the need of people he had never met before could fill him, propping him up as some John Reese who smiled, walked, and shot a gun. If one day he could no longer get numbers, he might fall to hell faster than last time (considering now he was more experienced).
But finch didn't know this. He had no idea what he had done. He knew he gave Reese a job, some help too, but he had no idea he had handed Reese an invisible rope hanging over the abyss. Reese worried, cautioned, never dared to hold too fast, but he must find out what this was, and then climb for his life towards the lights above.