Three days later, Carter was just making her way to her desk at the precinct when she spotted ADA James Wornick, the prosecutor who was supposed to handle the case against Kovach, chatting with Fusco at his desk. It had been two weeks since Kovach's "disappearance" and she knew he was here to discuss it. Normally, she wouldn't mind talking with him. At all. He was always professional, respectful, courteous, good at his job, and looked like Morris Chestnut's twin brother. But none of that mattered at the moment because she hadn't yet had a real cup of coffee this morning and was already being forced to put on her front and start lying.

She plastered a smile on her face, cursed John yet again under her breath, and started to play her role. "Morning." She ignored whatever look Fusco was shooting her way and rounded her desk, setting her bag down.

"Carter. How's it going?"

"Not too bad. What brings you down here?"

Wornick rose from his perch on Fusco's desk and stood at the corner of her desk. "I just spoke with Berger and wanted to touch base with you."

"Last I heard they haven't found him yet. Has something changed?" She watched as Wornick shook his head briefly in frustration.

"It doesn't make sense. He's low-level. Doesn't even have any friends. Two weeks and no money withdrawals, no credit card purchases. He hasn't tried to worm his way back in with his ex-wife. Family swears he hasn't been in touch with them either and from the look of things, they're not exactly rolling in dough. They couldn't hire anyone even if they wanted to. And yet some guy in a ski mask breaks him out of the prison van and, according to witnesses, drags Kovach along like he didn't know what the hell was happening either."

Carter nodded, not finding much she had to lie about. Omission was the name of the game now. They had pretty much figured it out. Only they'd never have confirmation because they'd never find his body. And she knew she'd never tell them that. "Berger says it's probably vigilante justice."

"His guess is as good as mine. The guy had a lot of enemies and he must have pissed off one too many. Guy who took him had a lot of skills. Broad daylight, in front of witnesses, yet he and Kovach disappear into thin air." He sighed. "He's probably right, Carter. Guy's in the wind. Unfortunately, so is our case. Indefinitely." An apologetic look crossed his features. "I'm sorry this happened, Joss."

Carter nodded. He had no idea. "Me, too." She watched as he stepped closer to her, so no prying ears beyond Fusco's would hear.

"If somebody did take him out, I'm thinking he probably did the world a favor." He patted her arm gently before making his exit. "I'll be in touch."

She turned and looked at Fusco. The shrug and I told you so look on his face had her grabbing her bag again and heading for the door.

She needed some real coffee.

That evening, Joss went to her front door at the sound of the doorbell, quickly opening it to welcome her cousin inside. Janet was about to start a new job where the attire was stricter than business casual, and she needed to borrow some dress slacks to tide her over until she went shopping. Joss had chuckled to herself when she'd been asked, realizing everybody knew she was the go-to person for such a thing. Her whole damn closet was full of slacks in every cut and color known to man. "Hey."

"Hey, girl. How was your day?" Janet walked through the door and immediately set her purse and keys on the couch.

"Not bad. Yours?" Carter laughed as her cousin released a long-suffering sigh before she answered.

"I'm this close to strangling that woman."

"That bad? Still?" Carter's face softened in sympathy. Her Aunt Rochelle was ill and, quite frankly, driving her children crazy as they struggled to take care of her.

"Girl, I know she can't help it, and she's my mama so I shouldn't complain, but….."

"I know, girl….." She headed toward her bedroom, signaling her cousin to follow her.

"Where's T?"

"In his room. Where else?" Joss headed toward her closet. "I laid some of them out already." She indicated her bed covered in five pairs of dress slacks. "Wasn't sure what you wanted. I got plenty more in here." She went rummaging through her clothes while her cousin scrutinized the offerings set out on the bed.

"These are good. I only need a few. Dark colors'll work for now….."

"Okay. I got some dark brown ones in here, too….." She proceeded to look for them. "How's Rick doing?"

"Oh. He's fine….."

Carter noticed her cousin's voice trailing off, like her question had just reminded her of something. But when nothing else came, she shrugged to herself, finding the brown pair while remembering she had a navy blue pair Janet might be interested in as well. "Okay, good. He hear back about that promotion yet?"

"Girl, not yet. It's driving him crazy, too."

"I don't blame him. It's been, what, a month by now?"

"Yeah. It's okay, though. They wanna act funny, he can just go somewhere else."

"I heard that." She did. Janet's fiance, Rick, had a Ph.D in neurobiology.

"So….. by the way…...I saw John today."

Carter immediately tensed up and her heart began pounding. She didn't like how Janet had said that. Shit. Shit. Fortunately, her back was still to her cousin so she had time to gain control over her reaction. Her nerves were immediately on edge, though, so she struggled with getting it together. What had Janet seen John doing? What the hell had he been doing?! Shit!

To her friends and family, including Taylor, he was a bodyguard she'd met via her job. They could have gone with his John Warren persona, ideal since none of her friends and family traveled in investment banker circles, but it wouldn't explain what they would see if they saw him out and about in the city protecting one of his persons of interest. It also wouldn't explain bruises and cuts to his face should any of them see him after a fight in which his opponent somehow got a lick in. So they'd decided to keep it simple and as close to the truth as possible. But now it seemed her avoidance of the "John's job" issue was coming to an end and she'd have to get ready to lie. Again. She wasn't always good at it, the memory of Donnelly seeing right through her hitting her hard. Why was she putting herself through all of this? Why couldn't she just use this separation, what he'd done, to let him go? All of the stress would be gone. All of the lying, overt and by omission, would be done. Why couldn't she just go back to who she was before she met him?

She kept her voice as casual as she could when she answered. "Yeah?"

"Yeah…...At the gas station actually….."

Carter could tell there was something there. Something she was trying to get to. She swallowed but her throat was bone dry. "He see you?" Jesus, Lord, God, what had he been doing? She had found the pants she'd been looking for but kept "searching" anyway.

"No, he was pumping gas. He wasn't looking my way….."

"Okay." She waited. Still. She held her breath. Still.

"He had some pretty little thing in the car, though."

There it was. Relief flowed through her veins like the purest of Xanax. Oh, thank you, God. He hadn't been caught doing his unreal James Bond, superhero thing; he just looked like he was cheating. Her body immediately relaxed and she released the breath she had been holding. She had never been so glad to hear that her man might be stepping out on her in her life. She would think about how fucked up that was later but, for now, she was practically giddy. "It was probably one of his clients." She finally snagged the blue slacks she had found long ago and turned to lay them across her bed with the others.

Janet shrugged, her sisterhood duty having been fulfilled. "Okay. Just letting you know. You know how some of them are."

Carter did know. But John…...was not one of "them." Not ordinary or typical or all that predictable either. Him cheating on her, disrespecting her—that was one thing she knew she never had to worry about. Even though he was too fine for his own damn good. Even though she knew the women he crossed paths with probably wanted him in the worst way. Even though she knew he used his charm and considerable sex appeal to his advantage at times. Even though he was stealthy enough to get away with it if he wanted to.

He may kill people for her but he'd never cheat on her. And she realized, again, that there was something fucked up about that. But she'd ponder that later. "I'm a detective, Jay. And I carry a gun. He knows better."

Janet laughed. "True."

"Besides," she shrugged. To herself mostly, her eyes lowering to nothing in particular. "It's not in him," she finished softly.

"I guess we managed to get two of the good ones then, huh, girl?"

"Yeah." She thought about that. "We did."

"I am so glad the weather cooperated this year," Joss spoke to her son as she pinned her race bib to her shirt.

"I know. Last year was torture. Cold and rainy." Taylor shuddered as he remembered last year's race.

Joss looked up at the sky after she finished. "Sun's out. Not a cloud in the sky. And it's not too hot yet either. Couldn't ask for a better day." She sighed contentedly as she looked around at the other participants and volunteers milling about, getting geared up for the 5K run to benefit The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Taylor had lost his friend, Mike, to leukemia six years ago and had made it his mission to participate in the race every year since. And she always supported her boy by running with him.

She bounced lightly on her toes, doing a little jog in place, realizing she was full of energy and raring to go. It had to be the weather, she figured, that had her in such a great mood. The weather, spending quality time with her kid, and the promise of excellent stress relief during their jog slash run had her absolutely loving life at the moment. She looked around, searching for some of the other regulars amongst the bustling crowd until she saw some of them, waved, tugged at Taylor's elbow, and made her way over to them to chat.

After the announcement that the race would begin in five minutes, she and Taylor ended their conversations and began to make their way over to the starting line.

"Ma."

Carter felt Taylor pull at her upper arm. She turned to look at him and followed his line of sight.

"Isn't that John over there?"

She tried to ignore the butterflies that instantly filled her stomach at the mention of his name and possible presence. After all this time and drama, why did that man still have the power to do this to her? She had to squint behind her sunglasses to tell but her son was right. John was here in shorts, t-shirt, and running shoes with a race bib attached to his front. "Yeah, it is. I didn't know he did this race."

"I told him about it, remember? When we signed up. He said he would come if he could but he never mentioned it again and you never said anything either so…." Taylor shrugged. As his mother was fond of saying, it was "grown folks' business," so he still had no idea what was up between his mom and John. All he knew was that something went down a few days after that asshole attacked his mother. They obviously weren't speaking but John always came in late, slept on the couch, and left before he got up.

Taylor wanted to go over and say hi, or at least catch his eye and wave before the race started but he hesitated. His allegiance was and would always be with his mother, and if she wasn't speaking to him, he didn't know if he should either. There was no telling what John might have said or done to get on his mom's bad side. He never quite bought the bodyguard story they told everybody, but "grown folks' business" and all that. He figured it wasn't anything too shady since his mother, the detective, was with him. Or was.

He decided to stop thinking about it. He caught John's eye and waved, surprised to see his mother emulate the gesture. John's smile and wave in return was genuine. And he wasn't quite sure any of it was for him.

Joss spent the entire race distracted, thinking about him. She was so lost in her own thoughts the race was over before she knew it. Taylor had left her to sprint ahead about a quarter of the way through like he always did but she felt John's presence behind her the entire time. She was sure he could have passed her up at any time but he never did. And even though she made a conscious effort not to look for him after the race started, she knew he was behind them, keeping them in his sights, watching over them just in case. Like he always did.

She couldn't stop missing him. And as the days and now weeks went by, she was struggling to hold on to the worst of her anger. Time was doing what it always did, assuaging and mellowing. The part of her that had what she thought were mostly upstanding morals didn't like it. How could she ever be okay with what he had done? Avenging something that didn't happen to her? But the part of her that loved him, needed him, was beginning to dominate. And that was wrong, wasn't it? She was a homicide detective. A homicide detective hopelessly and helplessly in love with a murderer.

She wanted to scream and pull her hair out. Rehashing this over and over again was making her crazy. So much for this run relieving her stress. She crossed the finish line, her chest heaving as she struggled to draw in oxygen, looking around for her son who was probably nearby, and a damn bottle of water. She walked along, getting out of the way of the other finishers, and was handed one of the medals they gave to everybody who finished before finding her way to a volunteer handing out ice cold bottles of water. She thanked the young woman, unscrewed the lid, and immediately started gulping the water down.

"You kept up a pretty brisk pace, Detective." Reese stood next to her, sipping at his own bottle of water.

Still trying to catch her breath, she cut her eye at him. He was panting but not nearly as hard as she was. The little extreme stamina-having bastard. She felt herself smiling in spite of herself. "Struggled to keep up, huh?" She managed to get the teasing question out between heaving breaths and watched as he shrugged his right shoulder.

"You're faster than you look."

She watched him pointedly look at her shorter legs. "Uh huh." She wanted to jump him. She really, truly did. He was sweaty and slightly out of breath and her mind immediately conjured up images of them having sex, which they hadn't had in a long while. But now wasn't the place. And she was supposed to be disgusted with him. Ridding herself of her freaky thoughts, she resumed her search for Taylor. "You see T?"

Reese pointed to his left. "He's over there trying not to be obvious about giving us some space."

She nodded and silence fell between them for a moment as they continued to catch their breaths. "Thank you. For coming for T. This has always been important to him."

"He's important to me." He turned to look at her, eyes sweeping across her flushed face, before taking his leave of her.

She watched as he made his way over to her son. They spoke for about a minute. And then John was gone.

It was Sunday afternoon, the day after the 5K race, and Joss grimaced as she seated herself on the uncomfortable bench. She was sore as all hell and rueing the day 5K races were invented. And she hadn't slept much. Her thoughts had been heavy, harsh, and intrusive, and they had chased her relentlessly last night. And she was tired of it all. Tired of running around in circles and being miserable the entire time.

She pulled her phone out of her bag and set it in front of her on the table to keep herself occupied while she waited for John in front of his building. His friend, Han, hadn't been here when she arrived so she decided to wait for him in their spot. She caught the time on her phone. If he hadn't decided to switch up his schedule, he should be walking past in the next five to ten minutes. He usually did some yoga and got a haircut late Sunday mornings into early afternoon, if he didn't have a case he was working. And, according to what she had gathered on the sly from Finch, he didn't.

She looked up when she sensed his imminent arrival. She could always sense his presence within an embarrassingly wide radius. It was a shame really. The way he had made her his. How he commanded her attention, mind, body, and soul. How pitiful her attempts to fight it had been. Shaking her head, she watched as he took his time approaching her, workout bag slung over his shoulder, attire similar to what he'd worn to the race yesterday. Looking every bit the part of a normal New Yorker. Every bit the man she couldn't stop loving. Even though he wasn't normal. And loving him was the most insane thing she would ever do in her entire life.

John's chest constricted as Joss came into view, looking ethereal in her soft yellow tank top, light breeze blowing her hair, sun kissing her skin. He hadn't known why his mood had suddenly improved the moment he'd turned onto his street but he knew why now. It made no sense. How tightly she gripped every part of him. How fate or God or whatever waited until this late in his life, in spite of all his bad deeds, to gift him with her. It was extraordinary and cruel. Having this exceptional woman, this police detective of all people, take all that was left of his heart.

He wondered why she was here, waiting for him outside instead of in his loft. His heart wanted to climb out of his chest at the thought of this being it. At the thought that, after all the space he'd given her, all the space he knew she needed, she had come to the conclusion he absolutely did not think he could handle. Watching her face as he approached, however, he didn't see it, that unspeakable conclusion. And it gave him enough courage to continue to put one foot in front of the other until he was seated across from her.

He set his bag on the ground beside him. "Everything okay?"

She was going to say yes, that everything was fine. But his eyes. The way they engulfed her and exposed her and dared her not to submit to them destroyed all semblance of control she had. She swallowed and found herself fighting with everything in her to keep the sudden moisture pooling in her eyes from running down her face. She shook her head no. Everything wasn't okay.

He saw her struggling and started to rise. "Do you want to go upstairs?" He watched as she rapidly shook her head and stopped his ascent.

"No." She didn't want to go up to his place. She didn't want to be alone with him in a private space. He would have too much control over her there. She wouldn't be able to fight him, her body would betray her, and she'd be naked in his bed before she said what she needed to say.

He lowered himself back to the bench and watched her worriedly. She was refusing to go up to his place to talk in private. Maybe she had come to that conclusion after all. He already felt life seeping from his veins.

She wished he would stop looking at her like that but since she knew he had no intention of doing so, she lowered her eyes to the table to regather the strength his eyes had siphoned. She had to start now or she never would. And she could not deal with all of this another day. "I been wishing this entire time that I'd never met you, that I could do it all over again and not have been in the precinct that day…...because now I can't…...I can't let you go. Now I need you. And I hate that. And I hate that I hate that."

He watched her lowered face. If she'd been watching him, she would have seen that he hated it, too. Hated that a genuinely good person like her had ended up needing someone like him. Hated that he needed her just as much as she needed him. He'd never needed anyone else in his entire adult life. And being faced with the prospect of losing her, when he knew he couldn't be without her, humbled him. Crushed him. He could tell her he was sorry but he hadn't asked for this either. So he said nothing.

"You stress me out so bad. I worry about you. All the lying I have to do. Going against my job. It used to be so simple." She sighed, shaking her head to herself before she looked up. Not at him but just over his shoulder. "I was gonna try to just...leave you….just be done with all of this but….." You won't let me, she wanted to say. Why won't you let me?! she wanted to scream.

She didn't.

"...I can't." She met his eyes then. Saw him not bothering to hide the empathy, the understanding, the love. Because he felt the same. He worried about her. He'd lie, cheat, beg, borrow, steal, and kill to protect her from anyone and anything. He went against everything in the vigilante handbook and trusted an upstanding, by-the-book cop the moment he'd met her. He put his life in her hands every day knowing she could turn him in at any moment. He had wanted to leave her, too, to save her from him, but she wouldn't let him go either.

She went on, feeling just a bit lighter with every word she released, every word she gave him. A small smile made its way to her face. "You're beautiful. Your heart is. Your strength is. You're so sweet, even though you don't show everybody. You're selfless and you're good to me and you put my son before our drama. And I know you love me more than I deserve and that's why you did what you did."

John swallowed then. Hard. Hearing what she thought of him was too much. It hurt like a physical blow. But he knew it wasn't supposed to. That was some progress, he figured. One step toward being able to acknowledge and accept something good about himself again. But she couldn't be more wrong. She would always deserve more than the love he could give her. He wanted to show her. Now. He would never be good with his words but he could show her. He could tell her with his eyes and show her. He was bursting at the seams with everything he wanted to express to her. But they were outside. She didn't want to go upstairs. And her eyes said she wasn't finished yet. He'd have to use words. He'd have to try. "Joss, I'm sorry for what I put you through. What this did to you. What I did to you. I'm not sorry I did it, but I'm sorry for the rest of it." He watched as she shook her head.

"John, I knew what you did to Peter Arndt. What you used to do for a living. And I still got involved with you. I guess…..it's just different knowing Kovach's dead because of me."

It was his turn to shake his head. She was blaming herself. He couldn't have that. "He's dead because of me. I killed him. You know this."

"Why did you kill him? Why didn't you do him like you did the marshal?"

Because he tried to hurt YOU, he wanted to say. But that would have fed into her unwarranted guilt. "Would that have made a difference?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"He'd still be alive."

"Would he? I took Jennings down there for a reason."

She swallowed. He had a point. And she had accepted that, hadn't she? She lowered her head.

At that, he felt compelled to continue. "I thought about taking him down there but…..I was angry….." He let his voice trail off, not wanting to say the wrong thing, not wanting to expose too much of the monster he could be. In spite of making it his mission to save people now, he could be a very good killer still. It was something that would always come easy to him. And he had needed to kill Kovach. Slowly. He had itched to do it. The son of a bitch had tried to rape the love of his life with her son down the hall. Right after he'd left them to go work a case. He couldn't let that go. It wouldn't let him go. "He needed to be neutralized…...in case I wasn't there again." He didn't catch the hitch in his voice in time. He took a moment to regain his composure before he said another word. "Anybody ever threatens you or Taylor, Joss, I'm going to take care of it. Even if we're not together anymore. I'm telling you this now. So you know." He studied her carefully as she lifted her eyes to his again. He had probably just gone ahead and said the wrong thing anyway. But he meant what he said.

The man had just given her a pre-murder confession. She wasn't sure she could deal with that. She wasn't sure she could accept that. And considering what she did for a living, they would probably be at this crossroads again. This Kovach situation had already taken too much out of her. "What if I asked you not to?"

He didn't answer her for a long while. Just stared at her, trying to reconcile what she was asking of him. Trying to fathom going against his protective nature. "Then I wouldn't."

His voice was so quiet she barely heard him. But it was what she needed. He might try to find some way around that later if he felt he had to, but his word was his bond. So she was okay with it. She was okay with it for now.

However, something else was weighing heavily on her mind. "I wish you would do something else for me, too." She watched the slight cock of his head and the questioning look cross his handsome face. "I wish you would try to stop feeling so guilty." She noticed it was his turn to avert his eyes and look down at the table. "Will you look at me, please?" She waited until he did. This time, her eyes commanded his. "I know you hate that you weren't there. But Jessica chose Peter instead of someone else. I chose this job. Our choices had nothing to do with you. The only thing you did was choose us."

She reached out across the table and grabbed his hand. "I swear to you, if anything ever happens to me someday and you aren't there, I will never blame you. I will never fault you. I will never hate you. Jessica didn't have the chance to say this to you but I do. And I know she would have. Because you chose her. And you got damn good taste in women." She got one out of him. A smile. She gave him one back.

"You're right. I do." He brought his other hand up to envelope her hand in both of his. "You amaze me everyday, Joss."

She nodded. "I'm pretty amazing," she deadpanned before laughing.

Smile a mile wide, John rose, leaving one hand on hers while reaching with the other to grab his bag from the ground. He rounded the table and watched her wince as she slowly got up with his help. "Sore?"

"Yeah."

They slowly turned toward his building and he released her hand, slipping his arm around her waist instead.

"You're not, are you?" She looked up at him, wanting to wipe that answering smirk off his pretty face. "I hate you."

He looked down at her. "You love me."

"I can still love you and hate you at the same time."

"That something they teach you in law school?"

"Yep."

He chuckled. "Okay."

Fifteen minutes later, he had her relaxing her sore muscles in his Jacuzzi tub while he massaged her feet. Five minutes after that, she coaxed him into the tub with her, where he held her until every ache left her body.

End~

A/N: As always, thank you for reading. :)