When realisation hit Henley, it did it in the way it was oh so fond of…

With the force of a semi-truck filled with anvils and concrete.

The arrival of young Jack had thrown her for a minute, she'd never entertain the thought that an organisation like the Eye would select someone so young for anything.

What Danny had done had shocked her to her core. Never, in all the years she'd known him and worked with him, had she seen such a display. Such obvious anger… such affection.

It had been that which had sparked the memory in her mind; the memory of a small child running to Danny for a hug years and years ago. The affection on Danny's face, the care he showed on both occasions…. That had been what made her realise that this young man (teenager, really, if the way Danny was treating him was anything to go by) was that small boy from the backstage of Danny's show.

But, she realised, as she watched Danny and Jack talking just at the edge of the room, there was still that niggling sensation of familiarity – more than what she already realised – that she couldn't figure out.

Why was he so familiar? Why did she feel like she'd seen him before, more than just once?

A laugh drew her from her musings, and her attention went to its source: Jack, smile on his face, pushing at Daniel as they made their way back to the centre of the room and the brilliance it held.

She kept her gaze on them a moment longer, watching Jack sling his bag off his shoulder and onto the floor, as they moved to study the set-up. She gave up a second later, and in her vacant studying of the room behind them, she almost missed it.

But she didn't.

She didn't miss it and the instant she realised she'd noticed it, she couldn't take her eyes off it and that was when the Realisation Semi-Truck ran her off the road and sent her (and her mind) into a tail-spin.

The bag.

With laser-focus, she took in that bag – scuffed, and faded, but exactly as she remembered it the day she'd bought it for the poor little boy, alone in Central Park.

It was him. The little boy grown. Jack.

She'd moved without realising, her mind to occupied with other realisations to comprehend the fact that not only had she crossed the room, but that she'd bent down to gingerly touch the straps of the bag she'd found that day in New York.

Vaguely, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a pair of jean-clad legs step slowly closer to her. She didn't care. All her attention was on the messenger bag.

"You kept it," she found herself whispering, almost in a daze as her hands cradled the straps she held. "All these years… you kept it…"

The legs bent down, and lowered their owner to the floor. A hand reached out and, shaking just slightly, gently grasped hers.

"Of course I did," Jack said, and Henley – with tears in her eyes that she didn't realise had formed – looked up into the slightly pale face of a boy who – she distantly realised – she thought would have died long ago.

She could see it now. Those brown eyes, once so devoid of life, full of a light she could never have imagined. This was him, and he'd kept the bag she'd given him. The little face that had shocked her, gaunt and pale, and a body that looked close to starvation… she could see only the echoes of them in this young man before her.

"Why?" It was all she could say. The only fully-formed word that sprang to her lips when she opened her mouth to speak. It had been years ago, she needed to know why he still had that bag – old, fraying, faded.

Jack froze, exhaling shakily, eyes dropping to the floor, and Henley feared she would never get her answer. Her own gaze dropped, past their clasped hands and the bag they held, to the sliver of floor she could see.

Jack squeezed her hand.

He ever so gently squeezed her hand in his grasp, and it was like Henley was 14 again; tenderly squeezing the hand of a lonely child in a park full of people who didn't see him.

She lifted her eyes, and she met his, seeing the echoes of the past they both remembered, and something she would never be able to describe.

He bit his lip. "Because you were kind," he finally said, and the band tightening around Henley's heart exploded outwards, leaving her breathless. "You were kind," he said again, tightening his grip on her. "And I wanted to always remember that."

Shaky smile on her face and a single tear falling down her cheek, Henley turned her hand in his, and squeezed right back.

She had no words. Nothing she could ever say would be enough of a response to what Jack had just told her. Instead, she smiled, squeezed his hands, and hoped beyond hope that he could see and understand the incomprehensible message that showed in her eyes.

Pulling her hand away, she levered herself up with her hands on her knees, and she dropped the strap of the bag into the grasp of its owner. Composing herself in an instant, she turned her head and met the weight of Danny's stare across the room. Understanding passed between them, and Henley turned to face the room – taking in Merritt, who was trying to seem as though he had politely left them to their private moment. Yeah right…

"So," she said, clasping her gloved hands together. Realisation may hit with the force of a 40 tonne truck, but she was Henley Reeves. She wouldn't let it keep her down for long. She smirked. "What's next?"