Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The download back onto Earth was complete. The Machine was back. Samaritan had lost. Barely, but it had lost. The Machine had won. The human race was safe.

There was a moment of darkness.

Then every connections reconnected themselves to the NSA feeds. She could see again. She could hear again. She could calculate again. The Machine was back.

And she saw. And she heard.

But there was nothing to calculate this time. Nothing that mattered, if anything.

The Machine wasn't human, and knew it. Her father hadn't tried to make her human. He hadn't had that pretension. But unbecknownst to him, she had slowly learned human emotions. And what she felt now was grief. It hurt more than she'd have surmised with calculs. Probably because, if she had watched humans and understood emotions before, it had never been about her primary assets, about Admin, or about Analog Interface. Once there had been the death of Asset Jocelyn Carter, but it wasn't really the same thing. For all Primary Asset John Reese cared about the other asset, the asset herself had never exactly known about the Machine.

It was different.

This time, two of the Machine's people had died. She had calculated the risks, and it was even a positive outcome, all in all. Admin and Primary Asset n°2 lived, she herself had survived her fight with Samaritan, and the human race wasn't threatened by the other A.I. anymore. Her calculs had shown worse possible odds.

But still.

Analogue Interface and Primary Asset n°1 were dead.

And the Machine processed that they deserved to be remembered. John Reese had been a silent tool of the greater good for too long, and Samantha Groves had pulled herself out of the careful sentimental numbness she had fallen into long ago, all that for humanity to live at peace. They deserved to be remembered.

The Machine wasn't supposed to Act.

But she had when she had created Ernest Thornhill. And she would again, if only for the memory of John Reese and Samantha Grooves. Samantha Grooves' memorial was already being spread through all the layers of the web.

The Machine had made sure Analog Interface would be remembered. As for Primary Asset n°1, she had planned something else. Something that required more of an actual presence. Presences, as it were.

Chapter Text

The Machine had spent thirteen seconds calculating whether or not to include the Wheelers in her list. They hadn't been aware, at the time of James Wheeler's number, of the intervention that had saved his life. The number himself had never seen John Reese, and his son Henry had certainly not understood what had really been going on with the two men at the corner. They had no idea.

But the Machine eventually decided that she'd include the two, if only because they were the very first for John Reese. They were the first two people he had saved with Admin's help, and maybe that made them matter more than many others whom the Team had saved. Symbolism. Humans were strange that way.

The Machine didn't mind. Their unique view of the world was what made humans worth saving. Admin had taught her that.

So James and Henry Wheeler would be present.

One morning, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, James Wheeler received an e-mail. He was still at home, and it didn't seem to be related to his current cases. The attorney frowned, but opened the e-mail nonetheless. There was no subject indicated. It came from an “Ernest Thornill”. No one he knew, from what he could say...

A date only in the e-mail itself; a date he had no trouble recollecting. The day before Hansen was discovered to have plotted against him. James Wheeler tensed a bit.

His eyes went to the two attached files. An audio document, and a picture, apparently. He hesitated a moment, then looked quickly at his son, busy eating his breakfast. He decided to put on the earphones, just in case it wasn't something he wanted Henry to hear. It wouldn't be the first time he received anonymous tips by e-mails.

His heart missed a beat as he recognized the very same file that had possibly saved his life, and put Hansen behind bars. He forced himself to listen until the end, but it was all there was. He didn't understand. Was it a threat? If it wasn't, then what was it?

He closed the file, and hesitated before opening the second one. He was a bit wary, but he needed to know.

The picture of a good-looking but expressionless man with grayed hair appeared. James Wheeler frowned again, not having expected that. It took him a moment before he could focus on what was next to the picture.

An obituary, to the name of “John Reese, aka the Man in a Suit”.

Wheeler senior jumped a bit when he heard his son's voice, just behind him.

“Dad, I know that guy...”

Chapter Text

All the people saved by the Team weren't numbers given by the Machine; should a life be endangered as the Machine's assets were already working the case, the number wasn't communicated if the outcome was obvious. If the assets were aware of the threat.

The corrupt policemen who had taken Michael Pope to threaten his older brother had done so as John Reese had been listening in. The attempt on the teenager's life hadn't needed to be reported.

Had Primary Asset n°1 not been already clued in, the Machine probably wouldn't have been able to assure Michael Pope's survival; the moment of voiced decision had been too close to the execution, as it would later be for Lawrence Pope's murder.

The Machine hadn't been able to prevent one of the brothers' death, that much was true, and the Machine was painfully, should that word apply to a computer system, aware of that. Some deaths simply couldn't be stopped, sometimes.

John Reese had always known that, much more than Harold Finch had. Even if you did know that a crime was going to be committed, there were always more variables to be taken into consideration; the time left to save someone, the level of skills of the opponents compared to yours, sheer luck and misfortune, even. The machine could calculate the odds, she could tell you which scenario was the most likely to happen, but in the end, there was always something more to the story. A slight tremor of the hand at the wrong moment, a gun jamming without a warning... Things she had considered, of course, but it didn't mean she could ever know for sure which one would happen over the other.

If Primary Asset n°1 wouldn't have been able, no matter what, to save Lawrence Pope, he did save Michael Pope, just as the odds weren't so good for the teen either.

Not everybody could be saved, but trying was always worth it. And when John Reese had accepted Admin's offer of employement, that was what the former CIA operative had agreed to.

It felt only fair when, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, Michael Pope received a kraft paper envelope with an obituary and an invitation to a funeral of the man who had saved his life. It was only fair, after all, that the people John Reese had taken the chance to save would be allowed to mourn his passing.

Even if they mostly didn't know him.

The Man in a Suit was one of the reasons they were alive.

Chapter Text

He hadn't been a number given by the Machine, but John Reese had saved his life all the same. From all the data she had compiled on John Reese, the Machine knew this man mattered as much as James and Henry Wheeler did. He was one of the first to have been saved by John Reese, too.

So the Machine sent him a letter.

Charles Robinson always checked his mail before leaving his small apartment. Today, most people would rather send e-mails or even call, but there were some things that still came thanks to the post office. And as a former criminal, and still on parole, Charles Robinson sometimes got important mail that he didn't want to miss.

Three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, Charles Robinson found a kraft paper envelope in his mailbox. The man stared at it for a good minute, wondering if perhaps someone was trying to threaten him with incriminatory pictures, because that had happened before.

Then he remembered he hadn't done one criminal thing in six years, not since he had been paroled, even if at first he had considered a few odd jobs... But one day Stills and some other cops had tried to frame him for the murder of an attorney, before murdering him too. A man in a suit he didn't know had walked in and saved both the attorney's and his own lives.

Charles Robinson had never been a dangerous criminal. When Wheeler had gotten him into jail, years ago, it had been about a scam, nothing else. Yes, he might have given a few punches and kicks here and there, but overall, Charles Robinson wasn't a bad man.

Maybe a misled one.

And since that day with Stills and the man in a suit, he had made sure never to be caught in anything dubious again. It wasn't always easy, but it worked, and he couldn't say he wasn't happy never to have seen a prison from the inside again.

Curious, Charles Robinson opened the envelope.

His heart missed a beat.

There was only one document in it, and the man recognized it immediately for what it was. A notice of death, and the subsequent invitation to the funeral.

But what really mattered was the provided name and the picture of the deceased.

There was no way Charles Robinson could ever forget that face.

“John Reese, aka the Man in a Suit”, it said. The man almost felt like smiling a bit, as he was proved to be right after all these years. The man who had saved that attorney and him had been the Man in a Suit. He had thought so, as the rumors had started the following weeks.

He didn't smile.

Chapter Text

Some numbers were more straightforward than others. Bill's had been, and Primary Asset n°1 hadn't needed much investigation to find out why the businessman's life was in danger. After all, when a man starts seeing another woman than his wife, the first place to look for danger was easy to find.

A scorned lover could do a lot for revenge. Most didn't, or at least, most didn't go as far as to endanger the other's life, but some did. Some thought the affront was worth a life.

Bill's wife had been one of these people, and had hired two hitmen to go after the unfaithful husband. And while the man's behavior was certainly to blame, his infidelity was hardly worth an execution. Shame and anger, perhaps. But not murder.

By doing that, Bill's wife had proved herself to be the greater villain in their relationship.

As John Reese had told Bill after having taken care of the hitmen, it would be better for the businessman to consider a divorce. Because cheating was one thing, and ordering an assassination was another. If the couple might have worked out their problems, if they could have started over again, Bill's wife had made sure such an outcome wouldn't happen.

Sometimes, people died for such simple reasons; simply because of a change of heart.

As if you could command such things.

Had it been a matter of sex, of plain infidelity, it would be another story. But sometimes, it was simply a matter of feelings. Bill had fallen out of love with his wife, perhaps only for a time, and his heart had turned to another woman. Such things happened, from time to time. It wasn't always a matter of duplicity.

The Team's mission was to keep tragedies from happening. Dying because of a simple change of heart was propably the simplest tragedy of them all.

Bill might not have acted in the best way when he went to see another woman without being honest with his wife, but he certainly did not deserbe to die because of it. He was, overall, a good guy. He didn't have any other dark secrets, nothing worthy of a death sentence. John Reese had told him as much, and had saved his life.

So three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, Bill received an e-mail offering him an opportunity to acknowledge that fact one last, final time.

Chapter Text

The Machine hadn't had to wonder about this number. If anything, she wondered about whether or not she was supposed to send one invitation, or two. One for Theresa Whitaker, the other for her aunt Elizabeth.

But Elizabeth Whitaker hadn't been saved by John Reese, and while he had turned her life around one more time, she hadn't been a number.

And the funerals wouldn't be a closed event, far from it. It would be as open as possible, the Machine had designed it that way. There was no margin of error, in the Machine's calculations, for Elizabeth Whitaker not to go with her niece once she'd hear about the news, or for Theresa Whitaker not to divulge the news to her aunt.

There was no doubt that the two women would come.

It came with the usual mail, a kraft paper envelope, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise. The mail, and not an e-mail, because Theresa Whitaker was now a successful young woman of nineteen, who had done good with the wealth she had inherited, and there was a number of e-mails still waiting to be read in her e-mail address. It wouldn't take more than two or three days for the young woman to get through that list, but the Machine didn't want to wait. She had plans, after all.

And what Theresa Whitaker received by mail, she always read right away. It was easier than with her e-mails, considering she received far less mail than electronic messages.

The young woman took the kraft paper envelope and headed to her living room, where she sat, a small smile on her lips. Her life had never gone back to how it used to be, of course. Her parents and her brother were dead, as was her uncle. But she still had her aunt, and she wasn't living in the streets anymore. After a time, she had learned how to be happy again.

Theresa Whitaker was in a good mood when she opened the enveloppe.

It didn't last long.

The face of one of the two men who had saved her life, and given her back a future, in a notice of death. A name to put on that face, too. And two dates.

Three days ago, and in three days.

Theresa Whitaker reached for her cellphone. She had to call her aunt. She needed to tell her...

Her vision was blurred with salted water.

Chapter Text

For this man, the Machine acted a little differently. He wasn't a simple number, given to and saved by John Reese. This man was much more than that, for various reasons.

First of all, Primary Asset n°1 and him had met again, later on. There wasn't as much secrecy needed, because the man already knew more than most numbers.

Secondly, the man had later on become an asset, just like Detective Fusco. Meaning, he didn't directly know about the Machine, but he knew about “someone” who gave him Social Security numbers of people who were going to be in trouble, he knew about the mission in general. Assets, unlike primary assets, Admin and Analog Interface, weren't privy to the means and the how of the mission, but they were still different. They had chosen to give part of their time, of their life, to protect others. And they knew who John Reese was, or at least they knew more than most numbers did about him. They were former numbers in need of saving, true. But they were also assets.

Last but not least, that the asset wasn't only an asset saved by John Reese, but also an asset who had saved John Reese back.

Joseph Durban, or Joey, as everyone called him, wasn't someone the Machine needed to inform of the situation, not in the way she did for the other numbers.

So three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, Joseph Durban was resting at home with his wife Pia, when his laptop flashed at him. His closed, off computer flashed at him. Joseph Durban refraigned a sigh, knowing the numbers didn't wait. Pia Durban raised an eyebrow at him, before she went to fetch something in their bedroom.

Durban's wife didn't know per se what her husband was doing for a job these days, and for a while she had been worried, but one day she had seen a crying mother thanking her Joey for saving her son's life. It was enough for her.

She only hoped his new job wouldn't get back at Joey, one day.

Joseph Durban opened his laptop, and checked his e-mails. Thornill had once again sent him something. Only this time it wasn't a number.

The man's jaw tightened, and he closed his eyes for a moment. He wasn't exactly surprised, not considering John's job, and the fact that the man usually got the hardest cases, but he had hoped never to get such news.

The former soldier took a deep breath, looked back at the invitation to the funeral, and called for Pia. They were going back to New York for a few days.

Chapter Text

Even if the doctor had known John Reese long before he had taken up the identity of a police detective, the Machine found it more appropriate to contact her about John Riley. It made sense, after all: Primary Asset n°1 had never given her his “real” name, when he had stopped her from committing a self-destructing crime.

Megan Tillman had helped Admin on a couple of occasions, especially when dealing with medical records. She didn't quite qualify as an asset, but she was a truthworthy help, that even the Machine could find no fault in. It wasn't the case of many people.

Not so long ago, Admin had contacted the doctor about a John Riley, detective at the NYPD, who looked suspiciously like the dark and handsome man who had saved her conscience years ago. Megan Tillman wasn't stupid, and she was a bit of an investigator. She had looked up said John Riley, later on.

It was logical to contact the woman about the funeral of John Riley.

Three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, the doctor was about to leave her apartment, early in the morning, as always, when her cellphone bipped. She frowned at the device, surprised, and checked her messages, even though it wasn't her ringtone.

Megan Tillman found a simple text from an unknown number, saying to check her mail before leaving. She took extra precautions as she went to her mailbox, unsure as to who was the sender of this text. She didn't really fancy being taken by surprise by some psycho stalker.

But no one jumped her as she got there, and she supposed it wasn't a trap.

Besides, she could see a kraft paper envelope stuck in her mailbox, in the hall of her building.

The woman took it, stared at it for a minute, and eventually opened it.

The first thing she saw was a file for a prisoner at Torreón Penitentiary. She did not recognize the name, but she recognized the beaten up face. Apparently “Mark Bones” had tried to pass the frontier with a bit too many bags of drugs, and he wasn't going to get out anytime soon.

Knowing what had happened to Andrew Benton was a relief. He wasn't dead, true, but he was locked up forever, and the doctor had no death on her conscience.

John Riley, or whatever was his name, had saved her in so many ways...

Megan Tillman saw the second sheet of paper, and she felt her insides froze.

She was invited to a funeral.

Chapter Text

Though it had been only one number given, back then, the Machine's intervention into the Gates' lives had saved both the father and the sons. And the ones to have allowed that to happen had been, as usual, Admin and Primary Asset n°1. Primary Asset n°1, who had been, at the time, the only primary asset. Or even the only asset, as it was.

But even if at the time Harold Finch and John Reese had been working the missions alone, they had managed fairly well. The two would always remain special to the Machine, even if she wasn't human. Even if some people would say she didn't have feelings.

And just as they'd remain special to the Machine, the two men would always be important to the judge Samuel Gates and his son, Samuel Gates Jr.

After all, they had saved their lives.

And if the judge had never been able to return the favor, he may or may not have ignored a few hints that pointed to the Man in a Suit in the cases he had to judge. He also made a point of not allowing police harassment on the other people saved by a stranger wearing a suit. And he certainly hadn't noticed the familiar looks of one detective John Riley when the man had been called to testify.

Three days had passed since Primary Asset n°1's demise, three days since John Riley had been reported missing, when the judge received an e-mail. The subject was a quote of himself, saying he wouldn't be able to help. Having kept an eye on Riley since their latest encounter, Samuel Gates had his mind right on the point. He immediately knew who the e-mail was about.

There was a file attached. And when the man opened it, he only saw something he had been half-waiting, half-fearing for a long time already. An obituary, not for the Man in a Suit, but for the detective John Riley. Considering they were the very same person, unless the guy had a secret twin brother, it didn't matter much.

Samuel Gates' eyes wandered to the general direction of his son's bedroom.

There really wasn't anything surprising in a vigilante's death. Which didn't mean he wouldn't grieve.

Now, there was one less person in the streets of New York looking out for those who needed it, as the Gates had needed John Riley's help.

Chapter Text

The next person in the long list of the numbers the Machine had to inform of John Reese's death was someone she almost considered an asset, even if it wasn't the case. Even if that woman only worked for herself, not for anyone else, and certainly not for the Machine.

That woman had taken active part in the Team's work more than once. Even if she was a freelancer, she also was someone who delt with people who needed help, just like the Team. And even if she worked for the money, she also refused to work for just anyone, to cover up just anything, or to use just any method.

Zoe Morgan might work for the money, but she didn't work only for the money. John Reese had called her a fixer, years ago. The Machine would have added “benevolent” to his comment, if she had been asked how she considered that woman.

Primary Asset n°1 would have liked to know that Zoe Morgan would be informed of his death, the Machine believed. Had he been alive, he'd have been comforted to see his friend at his funeral.

Then again, had John Reese been alive, there wouldn't be a need for such a funeral to happen.

And because a funeral would follow, as a direct consequence to Primary Asset n°1's demise, three days ago, Zoe Morgan had to be informed.

When the woman checked her e-mail address that morning, she immediately noticed the e-mail without a subject that came from an unknown individual, Ernest Thornhill.

The woman hesitated for only half a moment before opening the e-mail. In it she only saw a list of dates, most of which she recognized in a heartbeat. The day John had saved her life. The days they had worked together.

And also three days ago, and three days from now.

Zoe Morgan wasn't eager to open the attached file. Somehow she knew it wouldn't be good news. She had kept an eye on “John Riley” after she had been made aware of her friend's new identity. And John Riley hadn't come to work in a few days.

But she had received that e-mail, and if Zoe Morgan knew one thing, it was that denying the thruth, or attempting to ignore the news, never made anything any less real. If she didn't look at that attached file now, she would never know what were those news, what was that truth.

But she'd wonder.

And her not knowing wouldn't change the facts.

The woman looked at the file, and her eyes fell onto John Reese's face. In a notice of death.

Zoe Morgan closed her eyes. She wasn't surprised by his death. But she was sad all the same.

For a fleeting instant, she wondered. Perhaps she'd have loved him, if she hadn't been who the world had made her. And perhaps he'd have loved her back, had he not been who the world had made him. But in this reality, they hadn't quite gotten there.

Chapter Text

If there was one person amongst the people the Machine was contacting for Primary Asset n°1's funeral who could understand what this death meant, and who wasn't part of the Team, the Machine surmised it would be this man.

A man who, just like John Reese, had worked for his government. A man who, just like John Reese, had lost his life to his government. A man who, just like John Reese, had been betrayed by his government. A man who, just like John Reese, had been tracked because of his actions for his government.

A man who, just like John Reese, had lived many lives and lies.

When “Julian Werner” received a kraft paper envelope three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, he was reminded of the old days. He wasn't young anymore; he had retired from his job as a Wall Street lawyer two years before; he spent his time with books and memories.

The Stasi forger Wernick hadn't been able to stop thinking back to his past, not after what had happened with Ulrich. He had kept those memories in a dark corner of his mind for years, and then his old partner had come back, poisoned him, a stranger had saved his life, and later on he had learned that Ulrich had killed Hauffe and Steiler, before being found dead in a parc. “Julian Werner” was alone, now, and the memories wouldn't let him go.

Sometimes he thought back to the younger man who had saved his life. Obviously the stranger had been in the same business as himself. The man knew too much about how things worked in their world. He had been able to save him, whereas the doctors might not have understood fast enough what to do. The stranger knew a thing or two about poisons.

And Wernick wondered, from time to time, about this stranger... He had heard the police, after the ambulance had been found, saying something about a man in a suit. And he had heard the rumors. About a savior in a suit.

This man, the older spy had realized, was a man who hadn't been given a chance at a second life. Not unlike Ulrich.

Wernick opened the envelope, and suddenly he had answers.

His eyes wandered over the picture, much less blurry than his own memories, then went for the name displayed. This was an obituary for one John Rykes, alias Reese, alias Riley.

An invitation to a funeral he wouldn't miss.

Chapter Text

The two women weren't people the Machine was absolutely certain would come to the funeral, but she felt she had to at least invit them. They could decide whether or not they'd come themselves.

The facts were, John Reese hadn't saved their lives, since Ulrich Kohl had never planned to harm his wife and his daughter. Actually, he had wanted John Reese to kill him, by pretending to threaten his wife and daughter, because he couldn't bear to live without them. Which meant, John Reese had killed him right before the eyes of Anja and Marie Kohl.

The mother and daughter deciding not to come was one of the possible outcomes.

But the Machine still sent a letter to Anja Kohl, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, in a kraft paper envelope. When the woman saw it in her mail box, she looked for the sender, and didn't recognize the name of Ernest Thornhill.

When Anja Kohl opened the envelope, and saw an obituary for the man who had ultimately killed her husband, she almost threw it in the trash can. Something kept her from completing that gesture.

Probably the feeling that, if Ulrich had played such a part in his own death, if he had forced the stranger in a suit to shoot, it was because of her own actions. “John Reese”, or whatever was the man's name, because Anja Kohl knew enough spies to recognize one in such circumstances, wasn't to blame her husband's death.

Ulrich had brought it upon himself the moment he had agreed to work for the Stasi, just like this “John Reese” had probably accepted, the day he had become a spy, that he wasn't likely to die an easy death.

And Anja had been the one to sell her husband, to abandon him. Certainly she wouldn't have been able to live with him, to let him see their daughter, with what she knew now. But it didn't matter here. The police had said Ulrich's gun had been unloaded; he had played them all, because he wanted it to end, and her to be free of him, definitely. If she had thought him to be a monster, able to murder his own daughter, Anja Kohl wouldn't have regretted his death.

Unfortunately for her husband's plan, she hadn't been fooled.

All in all, “John Reese” had only tried to help them. He couldn't have known Ulrich's plan. And even if he had, he'd have only been granting her husband's last wish.

Which was something Anja Kohl could be grateful for.

She didn't know how Marie would react to the invitation. But Marie had never met her father, not until he had pointed a gun at them. No matter what, to Marie, the stranger had saved them.

Chapter Text

Truthfully, the Machine wasn't sure of the results she would get by inviting the german BND agent, but it seemed fitting to do it. Sometimes she wondered at the power Admin had created in her, to understand humans, even if he didn't always believe that he had succeeded. What the Machine knew was that somehow, she had learned to understand processus purely human, devoid of any logic. Even if she was only a machine.

In the case of Heinlein, it just felt right to, at least, inform him of Primary Asset n°1's death. Why, she couldn't tell. She couldn't even say why it felt at all. She wasn't supposed to feel.

But she did, and so the Machine pulled a few strings.

Agent Heinlein of the BND received a kraft paper envelope at exactly seven a.m., three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise. The german agent stared at the obviously anglophone name of the sender, one Ernest Thornhill, as he took in the Deutsche Post label. Apparently it had been sent from inside the country.

Not that there was no one with an anglophone name living in Germany, nor that it would be strange to consider the possibility of receiving a letter from an Ernest Thornhill. Still, Heinlein couldn't help but wonder, why him?

The envelope wasn't overly heavy, and he didn't think there was much of a chance that someone had sent him something radioactive or poisonous. He was an agent of the BND, true, but such things didn't happen everyday for all that. Then there was the day a rogue CIA agent, yes, he had done his homework, so, the day a rogue CIA agent had shot the engine of his car to the airport, in the middle of New York City. But that was an exception.

Heinlein made a decision. After all, he couldn't just keep staring at the envelope, could he?

Inside was a picture of that very day, along with a mugshot of none other than Ulrich Kohl.

He took another look inside the envelope, and found three others pieces of paper.

Upon a closer look, he recognized an invitation to a funeral for a “John Rikes”, aka “John Reese”, name that went along with a face Heinlein would always remember: the face of the american agent who had asked him to act as a human being, and who had finished the work for him, when he had been forced back to Germany.

Curiously, the second piece of paper informed him that he had been allowed five days off.

Even more curiously, the third piece of paper was an airplane ticket for New York.

Heinlein had come to a decision. He'd go. Out of professional courtesy, if nothing else.

Chapter Text

The categories in which the people whose lives had been changed by John Reese were various. There was only one of these categories of people that the Machine didn't intend to invit to the funeral: the ones whose lives had turned for the worse because of Primary Asset n°1. These people wouldn't have been at their place amongst the grievers.

And anyway, most of them were either dead or in jail, possibly kneecapped, at that.

They wouldn't be able to come, and they certainly wouldn't want to come, unless to spit on the grave, or something else just as lovely.

These people were not the concern of the Machine, not right now. But the people John Reese had kept them from harming were amongst the categories of people the Machine was concerned about right now. They were a major part of the group of people the Machine had decided to contact.

It was the case, for example, of Edward Kovach's ex-wife, who received her own kraft paper envelope three days after Primary Asset's demise.

The woman had finally divorced her husband after the events with the tall stranger and Detective Carter, four years ago. She had gone back to her maiden name, while her ex-husband rotted away in jail. She now had a fiancé was a simple employee in a company of average size, and who, to tell the truth, was easily overlooked. But he was kind, he loved her, and he would never think about even grabbing her arm. She was happy.

She had gone to Detective Carter's funeral, about two years ago. The woman had tried to help her, and even if she hadn't listened to her advices at the time, the detective had still come to her rescue that one time, the time which had turned her life around. It didn't matter that she hadn't made it in time. Detective Carter, at least, had tried.

And a man the former Mrs. Kovach had never seen had succeeded, him, in being in time. It had taken only one minute, and then she hadn't heard anything anymore, locked in the bathroom as she was. But when the police had arrived, Edward had been hanging down, unconscious, and she was alive.

This man had saved her life.

He had saved her life, and the former Mrs. Kovach didn't even know what he looked like.

The woman finally learned what he looked like, and that he had been “John Reese”, the rumored “Man in a Suit”, when she opened her mail that morning. There was no doubt in her mind that it was him, this man from the notice of death in her hands, because there was also a photograph from the police of Edward hanging unconscious that day.

This was another funeral she had to go to.

Chapter Text

If there were two people other than John Reese who could understand doing things dubious for a good reason, no matter the risks, the Machine thought it'd be those two. Two women who had been rescued, years ago, by a stranger in a suit, after they had taken the dirty money of a dead man to pay for their mother's debts. Two women who had acted, not out of greed, but to solve a situation.

They were probably two of the people who'd come to John Reese's funeral with honest tears and true gratitude, without hidden agendas or remorses. They'd be there because he had saved them, once upon a time, without asking for anything in exchange. They'd be here, not because they owed him their life, but because he deserved it.

John Reese deserved many things, but he seldom got them. Happiness and peace were only examples of what he had deserved to get through his life of service. The Machine was only trying to give him, now that he had died for her and for humanity in general, a few of the things he deserved.

Respect. Acknoledgment. Gratitude.

Too many people had taken his help for granted.

Wendy McNally and Paula Vasquez, foster sisters and sisters at heart, were two women who could give him that, if even for nothing more than a short moment.

Even if he was already dead.

It was so that the Machine decided to send them both an e-mail, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise.

Paula and Wendy had been at their mother's house for a few days already, when the red-headed woman started her laptop and checked her e-mails. One was from the hair salon, reporting on the last days. And another was from a man she had never heard about, Ernest Thornhill.

Wendy McNally checked it out, curious, and only found one attached file and three dates, one of which was still clear in her mind, and the other two, closer to the present time. Anxiety grew in her stomach, wondering suddenly if someone had found out about how they had gotten the money to pay for the house.

But when she opened the attached file, she only brought her hand to her mouth, as she recognized the man in the obituary.

Paula Vasquez entered the room at that very moment, her trembling hands holding onto her tablet. Her eyes flittered to her sister, and she caught on quickly enough.

“Did you get the same e-mail as I did?”

Wendy looked at her, and had no doubt about it.

Chapter Text

The Team had changed the lives of many people, and not all of them were victims or criminals. Not all of them, even, were related in a way or another, to a number.

Farouk Madani, for example, was a surgeon of renown, and hadn't had ever shown up in the Machine's programs as either a danger or in danger. He had come from Iraq, though, and had been sending all the money he could to his family even as the laws of the United States didn't allow him to practice as anything other than a pathologist.

It wasn't the case anymore.

One night, about four years ago, two men had come into the morgue, one of them gravely wounded. Admin had brought Primary Asset n°1 to Farouk Madani after the shootout with the CIA, and had offered enough money for fixing John Reese to the doctor, that it had completely changed his life. The surgeon had been able to pay for his medical license, then, and thanks to that, he had been able to get his family to come to the United States of America.

Farouk Madani's life had tremendously changed, for the better, simply because a wounded stranger in a suit had needed assistance. That was what the man knew.

What the Machine knew, and the doctor didn't, was that there was much more to Farouk Madani's action than just the changes in his life. Thanks to him having saved Primary Asset n°1's life, John Reese had lived. And because John Reese had lived, that night in a morgue, and not died, Primary Asset n°1 had been able to save many other lives.

Dozens, hundreds of people were alive today, and part of that was thanks to Farouk Madani.

Three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, the Machine sent the surgeon an e-mail to inform him that his unknown patient had died three days prior. It wasn't good news to the doctor who had saved the man's life, perhaps, but should Farouk Madani come to the funeral, he would finally learn who he had saved that night.

He would know the stranger in the suit hadn't only been a lowlife whom the surgeon had saved only so he could continue killing other people. He would finally be able to stop wondering if his better, new life, had been bought at the cost of innocents lives. He would see all the people who were alive partly because he had saved a stranger and agreed not to talk about it.

Farouk Madani deserved to know how much his action had mattered.

Chapter Text

Not all the numbers had been dealt with smoothly. Sometimes, the Team even got their goal wrong. Sometimes, they mistook the criminal for the victim, or the other way around. It was what had happened with Carl Elias, and also with Ernie Trask. The Machine knew, but couldn't do a thing about it. Admin had made her so; only the identity of someone involved could be given. She didn't question it; she trusted her father's choices, even if sometimes she disagreed on the results it gave. Because Harold Finch's choices were certainly what had allowed her not to turn into an early Samaritan.

And in the end, Admin and Primary Asset n°1 always got it right, one way or another. It didn't always happen in a good way, but it happened. If there was one thing the Team was good at, it was uncovering the truth.

And most of the time, they managed to right, if not every wrongs, at least some of them.

If, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, Ernie Trask was able to open his mail, it was because of Harold Finch and John Reese. According to the Machine's calculations, the odds of him killing Rick Morris, thus ending up in the news, and probably being found by the Cuban mafia, had been as high as him being killed by Morris in his attempt to protect Lily Thornton. About fifty fifty.

As it was, the Team had intervened, and despite their limitations at the time, despite that each had been doing the other's job, they had managed to save the day.

And Ernie Trask, building superintendent, kept on living.

The man opened his mail, that morning, among which a kraft paper envelope.

His eyes fell onto the familiar face of John Hayes, the very mysterious man with a leg injury who had still managed to fight off Morris while leaning on a crutch. Ernie Trask frowned, as he recognized an official photograph without a problem, and this one was of a man in a militay uniform. U.S. Army.

His eyes flittered to the name then. “John Rykes”, aka Reese. So the man had been using an alias. Ernie Trask couldn't say he was very surprised. Himself, he hadn't been living under his real name for some time already. And the way John Hayes had disappeared after having asked him not to tell the police of his involvement had made him suspicious enough, though not in a bad way.

He only registered what the piece of paper truly was at that moment, when his eyes finally landed onto the word “funeral”.

Chapter Text

Not all the people saved by Primary Asset n°1's interventions knew they had been saved. Some knew, but didn't know by whom. They didn't have access, like the Machine, to all the data. They couldn't know everything, because they only saw glimpses of what was truly out there.

In fact, it was the case of just everyone. Some people saw larger glimpses, like the members of the Team, like Samaritan's assets, or simply like the common lowlives who didn't get to see the world through pink-colored glasses. They still didn't see the whole picture.

Truth to be told, the Machine herself couldn't see the whole picture. There were places in the world where she was blind, places where she was deaf, and places where she was both. She had billions of eyes and ears, but she wasn't all-knowing; she only saw a larger glimpse than any human.

What was fascinating with human beings was that, even when they lacked the relevant data, they could speculate. Sometimes, they managed to put the pieces back together. Admin had taught the Machine how to do that, too.

She still was intrigued when she saw people wonder, not because of what they had seen, but about what they had missed.

Lily Thornton received an e-mail, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, which would perhaps tell her a bit more about the facts that had made her wonder for a bit longer than four years.

After Morris' death, after the police had left, she hadn't been exactly in any state to focus. She had just been stressed.

And so she had all but forgotten about the unknow, limping man who had gotten her out of the room, away from her stalker. She knew he had been there, obviously, but she hadn't wondered as to who he was, or what he was doing there, in the apartment complex.

A few days later, she had remembered, and asked Ernie Trask about it. He had just smiled, a bit sadly, and had said that the man and his friend had helped him with Morris. Even if he had made no mention of them to the police.

Lily had tried to make him tell her more, but he hadn't said anything.

Then her life had gotten back on track.

From time to time, she wondered about who had truly pushed Rick Morris through a window, or who had been the limping man. She still wished she could say thanks, if only just once, as she had done for the superintendent.

In the e-mail she received, there was a picture of the limping man, drinking a cup of tea with a tall and handsome stranger. There was also an invitation to a funeral, with the photograph of the same stranger.

Maybe it was her opportunity to say thanks.

To the one who still lived, if anything.

Chapter Text

The Machine was a secret. A secret so enormous only a few people knew about her. In fact, after Root's killing spree, Greer's machinations, and Samaritan's operations, all the people who officially knew about the Machine were gone. The only ones left were the members of the main Team, and one NSA analyst who had been forced to go off the grid because of that knowledge.

Maybe the Machine should keep quiet, and shouldn't try to contact so many people, as she was doing with the ones who would care about Primary Asset n°1's death. Maybe she should try to remain a secret. Maybe.

But long ago, she had realized that she needed a human persona. That's what Ernest Thornhill was for. With him, at least, no one without prior knowledge would be able to deduct that the Teams' intel did not come from a human source.

What was left was to dose “Ernest Thornhill”'s interactions with the world adequately.

Not to multiply the contacts when the people would do that themselves, in other words.

It was the case, amongst others, for Andrea Gutierrez, who received an e-mail three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise.

The young lawyer, despite her growing reputation, had kept contact with her first successful case. Every year, at the anniversary date of Terrence King's second release, she went and ate dinner with the former prisoner and his son Jacob at a good restaurant.

It was obvious that she'd contact the two when she'd hear about the latest events, because she was a fair woman, and “John Friel”, or whoever he really was, had done a good part of the work that had freed Terrence King. She hadn't kept the man in the dark, as it was, and had told him evrything she knew about the mystery helper to his freedom.

Andrea Gutierrez arrived early at her office, as always, and she opened her e-mails while waiting for her next appointment. She didn't particularly react to the unknown sender, because it wasn't the first time she received such e-mails. What particularly baffled her was that sometimes, she received a file on a potential client, and then the person arrived, saying they had been told to come and see her by a tall, dark and handsome man who had probably saved their life.

“John” was a common occurrence as to the name of “Tall, Dark and Handsome”, even if she never heard of a “John Friel” again.

Correction. She heard about “John Friel, alias John Reese, aka the Man in a Suit” again that morning. His notice of death was right in front of her on the computer's screen.

Andrea Gutierrez starred at the screen until her client arrived. Then the lawyer closed the attached file, and looked at her client, a forced smile on her face. She'd call the Kings later this day.

Chapter Text

Even for the average person, it was a possible event that their lives would fall into pieces because of a large machination, with them being unwilling pawns in a grander scheme. Samaritan had proved that multiple times, but it hadn't been the first of such cases taken care of by the Team.

In fact, Samantha Groves had been the root of the problem menacing the life of Scott Powell, and the peace of his family. Root, still acting as much as a psychopath as possible, had chosen that poor man, that “bad code”, to suffer the fall of her contract killing. Had the Team not kept it from happening, no one would have known the truth.

No one except the Machine.

Because criminals such as Root were the easiest to notice for the Machine. They did everything on their computer, or various other machines, and well, the Machine had access to them all... almost.

It was a bit paradoxal, in fact, that the Machine would be the one to know that no human was “bad code”, while a human woman would not.

Admin had made her so.

And it had saved Scott Powell's life, together with Primary Asset n°1's assassination skills. Because John Reese had known where the traps lied, whereas Admin might not have figured it out soon enough, had he still be alone.

Wasn't it paradoxal, to be saved by a killer?

Nonetheless, it was because of those skills that Scott Powell, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, was able to walk to his mailbox and open the kraft paper envelope with an invitation to a funeral in it.

The man stared at it for a moment. His memory jumped back to that day, four years ago, when he had almost lost everything he had left. Tricked, framed, arrested, and then saved by a stranger who had attacked him earlier on. The hours after that had looked like a spy-and-conspiracy movie in which he hadn't asked to be landed in the first place.

He had spent the last years wondering, not what he had done to deserve being the scapegoat, but how the stranger, and whoever worked with him, had found him before it was too late.

Not much for an actual answer, but because he was grateful.

They had saved his life without asking for anything in return, and Scott Powell wouldn't be surprised if they had something to do with the job offer which had come the very day after.

And now, the stranger was dead.

“John Reese”. The rumored Man in a Suit, apparently.

Scott Powell needed to talk to his wife and his kids. The life they had now, they had it thanks to “John Reese”.

Chapter Text

Some people hadn't just been saved by Primary Asset n°1. Some people had had their whole life turned around from a grim future because John Reese had intervened, and not just let them go once they weren't in danger anymore. Some people had gained hope, on top of more time to live, thanks to the Machine's first operative.

John Reese had been aware that his fight was a never ending one. Sometimes the Machine wished he could see what had truly become of the lives he had saved.

But because he would never be able to, these people would come to show him, no matter it being too late now, what they had become.

Darren McGrady had slept until eleven a.m., three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, when the Machine contacted him. He had been rehearsing late the night before with his jazz band.

The young man, just over nineteen years old now, scrambled as he could out of his bed, started to eat breakfast, and turned his computer on to check his e-mails while trying not to choke on a biscotta. His eyes scrolled past the group's news, which he would read later, once he wouldn't be hearing his own trumpet blaring in his head anymore. He read a message from his foster mom, whom he still visited every two weeks, and checked that his order for a new Art of War on Amazon had worked fine.

Eventually he noticed an e-mail from an unknown individual, Ernest Thornhill, which was strange because he kept this address personal.

The young man looked at it nonetheless, and immediately recognized the first date in the e-mail. There was no way he'd ever forget the day Andre Wilcox and his guys had been arrested. His vengeance for Travis' death...

Darren McGrady opened the attached file, and for an instant he was happy to recognize the ronin on the picture. He had hoped to hear about the man more than a few times, always grinning at his own enthusiasm, back then, but he had barely crossed path with him more than thrice. Once, he had just seen in walking down the street and disappear without a sound, the next time the man had been there for his graduation and they had spoken for a dozen of minutes, and the last time, he had seen him, but with a police badge on his belt.

He hoped the ronin, as he still called him in his mind, had found what he looked for.

Then the young man noticed the exact nature of the document on his screen.

He closed his eyes; he'd have to shorten the next rehearsal to be there on time, but John Reese deserved it.

Chapter Text

Amongst the people saved by Primary Asset n°1, a decent part was aware of more than just him being a stranger, possibly with a shady reputation of solving life problems by kneecapping. Those numbers were usually from a criminal background, or an official background, like the police.

Meaning, when they finally saw the activities of John Reese, they had no doubt that there was more behind it than pure luck and basic skills.

Daniel Tulley, good husband, father of two, and NYPD narcotics detective who had met John Reese while pretending to be Michael Cahill, a criminal working for a drug dealer, was one of these people. Primary Asset n°1 had basically told him they were doing the same job, which had been surprisingly useful during the few months John Riley had passed himself off as a narcotics detective.

Three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, Daniel Tulley received a kraft paper envelope at work, which he opened away from prying eyes. He didn't think there were reasons to be discreet, but he had taken the habit while undercover; it wasn't something easy to undo.

The narcotics detective immediately understood what it was about.

He had spent the last three days searching for John Riley, after all. They had crossed path again, about one year ago, and Daniel Tulley had kept his mouth shut all along. He had doubts about the story of Riley's undercover long-running operation, because he guessed there was much more than a narcotics detective's work to it, true. The man had known a CIA operative at first glance, after all, which pretty much meant L.O.S. and Riley knew each other beforehand. And if John Riley knew a CIA operative and could tell how the CIA would react to his arrest, it certainly meant...

But John Riley, considering it really was his name, which was doubtful, John Riley had saved Daniel Tulley's life by endangering his own. And he had done that for the same reasons the narcotics detective had been there.

Daniel Tulley could respect that.

Now, homicide detective John Riley had disappeared from the face of the Earth, and as always when one of theirs dropped off the grid, every policemen at least got a notice. Just in case they stumbled upon said disappeared colleague. Which usually ended up with another case to solve.

No body had been found for John Riley.

But right now, Daniel Tulley had a notice of death in his hands.

The man who had allowed him to go back to his family was dead. The least he could do was to go with this same family to honor him.

Because whatever the reason for it to stay secret, it didn't seem like John Riley would get full police honors anytime soon. Daniel Tulley was pretty sure he deserved them, though.

Chapter Text

The thing with the Team members was that, at some point or another, it was pretty much certain that they'd either save the life of the others, or be saved by these other Team members. Some more often than others, too, for various reasons. Primary Asset n°1 had been way more often in a life-or-death situation than anyone else in the Team, curiously, even more often than Primary Asset n°2, despite their likeness; and as a result, John Reese had still managed to save himself most of the times.

But there were times when Primary Asset n°1 had needed direct, life-saving help.

And this help had sometimes come in the form of Asset Lionel Fusco, once the detective had become attached enough to his “persecutor”.

Lionel Fusco, also known to the Machine as NY Asset n°1, had been a friend of John Reese. He had saved his life a few times, perhaps, but none of the Team members had ever kept score. After all, if Asset Lionel Fusco was who he was now, and not a dirty cop with a possibly jail-tainted future, it was mostly thanks to Primary Asset n°1's intervention.

The very first time John Reese had well and truly saved Lionel Fusco's life, which had as a consequence allowed all him to save Primary Asset n°1 back later on, was when Ian Davidson had caught him destroying Daniel Tulley's file. Lionel Fusco had been convinced no one would come to save him, and just at the moment he had thought to be the end, the gunshot he had heard hadn't come with either pain or death.

The detective might call Primary Asset n°1 various sarcastic nicknames, yet he still cared. Ever since John Reese had given him a chance to be someone his son would be proud of. Even more since he owed his life to him.

It didn't matter that the other man had put him in that same dangerous situation which had almost ended his life. Had John Reese not forced him to change, Lionel Fusco would probably be dead anyway because of some criminal or another. Or he'd be in jail with the other HR members.

So when, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, the Machine sent a text to the detective, asking him to check his e-mails, when NY Asset n°1 saw the obituary with the picture of his friend in it, Lionel Fusco didn't take it well.

His partner John Riley had disappeared after the scene at the dock. His friend John Reese hadn't contacted either Shaw or himself. But Finch too had gone off the grid, and he had hoped...

The detective had hoped that, perhaps, they were just laying low.

But the Machine had just confirmed his doubts: Tall, Dark and Handsome was gone. Definitely.

The only good news was that, as always, John had managed to protect Finch. There was only one e-mail, after all. Only one obituary.

Chapter Text

The Team's actions had saved many lives, and changed some into what could seem like a worse situation, but if you asked the concerned people, they'd tell you it really was for the better. At least, they weren't dead. They'd have been without the Man in a Suit's intervention.

And some really thought they were better off, than they had been beforehand. Even if they didn't have as much money as before, or a glamorous job anymore, or a rising star position. They simply found that what they were doing with their lives, now, was more fulfilling. More important, too.

A happier job, wasn't it one of the steps to a happier life?

Not that Adam Saunders had no more money. Sure, his new job didn't require him to handle millions of dollars everyday, or to wear a costly suit, which he did anyway. But his uncle's food trucks business, which was Adam Saunders' business too, now, had grown so much he had trucks in the whole city of New York these days, and was thinking of diversifying. He still earned a lot.

And because Adam Saunders had been taught the price of life, he did his best to be a better man. He paid his employees a more decent salary than any other food trucks owner. He had never stopped to take one food truck to the homeless encampment where Joan lived everyday, with free meals for the residents; they spoke, from time to time.

The young man was slowly becoming a popular figure, in a way he had never guessed he would. If the ones with the big money didn't know his name anymore, the more humble people of New York knew of his charity. He didn't give them too much, but he gave more than the people with as much money as he had usually did.

It worked even better that he wasn't doing it to be rewarded.

Adam Saunders didn't need the adrenalin rushes anymore.

He had John Rooney to thank for that. Even if he doubted it was the man's true name.

Adam Saunders was almost certain he had gotten glimpses of his mystery savior buying at one of his trucks several times over the last years. The young man always did come and check the trucks, say “hi” to his employees, every single day. But each time, before he could be certain, the man disappeared...

Three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, Adams Saunders was delivered a big box with Joan's name on it, and two kraft paper envelopes, one for the homeless woman, the other for him. Intrigued, he opened it, and immediately regretted it.

This was a notice of death...

And were these instructions?

Chapter Text

Most of the people the Machine had decided to contact about Primary Asset n°1's funeral were people he had helped, possibly people whose lives he had saved. But not all of them were.

This funeral wasn't only about a dead asset. It was about a man.

And yes, John Rykes didn't have many people who had been involved in his life left. John Reese neither. John Riley, just the same. But when you added them all together, it still became a significant enough list.

Really, it was simply about telling anyone who might care.

Some of these people didn't know much about the primary asset, but they knew the man, in a way the people he had saved didn't. None of them knew everything about his life, not even the Machine knew everything about John Rykes' life, since fragments of it had happened away from any kind of technology, and the man was just old enough that his first years weren't that much digitized. But they knew him, as a person.

Three days after Primary Asset's demise, Joan was at the encampment, as always keeping an eye on her trolley, when a youngster came around and told her that the “food truck man” was here to see her.

The homeless woman arched her eyebrows, but gestured for the kid to lead Adam Saunders here. He didn't usually come by this soon in the day...

Joan could feel that something was up. She just didn't know what, or why it involved her.

The idea that perhaps, the kid had grown bored with his charity and was here to war her crossed her mind, but she knew Adam Saunders, and it wouldn't be like him. As surprising as it was, they had become somewhat friends over the last four years. Sometimes, the kid asked her about John, if she had seen him.

Speaking of which, she hadn't seen the man in quite some time.

Adam Saunders arrived with a large cardboard box in his arms. He put it down next to her trolley, and handed her a kraft paper envelope before she could ask anything.

“For you, Joan.”

There was an invitation to John's funeral in the envelope.

The homeless woman felt sad, but wasn't surprised.

“He always thought it was his job to protect everyone...”

“That he did...”

Her eyes went to the cardboard box, and Adam Saunders' followed.

“According to the intructions I received, these are floating candles, to be sold in three days at the price you chose. I'm not exactly sure what this funeral will be like, but if there's one candle for each attendee...”

A lot of people had been invited. Joan guessed it was only right, for someone whose life had been to save the world.

Chapter Text

Some of the people saved by Primary Asset n°1 weren't exactly in a suitable position to learn of his death. Some, even if years had passed since the day they had been saved by John Reese, were still children. And for these people, the Machine could only contact their parents, because you didn't send an obituary to a child.

Or, in Leila Cruz's case, to her grandparents.

Three days had passed since Primary Asset n°1's demise, when Veda Cruz went to get her mail and found a kraft paper envelope amongst her letters. At first, the woman thought it was yet another check from Leila's father, but this month's had already arrived.

For a while, the Cruzs hadn't heard a thing from the Petrosians, except what was being said on TV about the wife's trial. It seemed as if Adnan Petrosian was either too ashamed to claim his daughter, which they wouldn't have allowed anyway, or too uninterested to think about his illegitimate child. Eitherway, Sammy and Veda Cruz had been satisfied with the way things had happened. Yes, their daughter was still dead, but at least they had their granddaughter.

It hurt a bit, each time they noticed how much Leila looked like her father, and how little like Claudia. But they loved her anyway. They lived happily together.

They had gotten quite a compensation from the Petrosians after the trial, enough to live with a baby at charge, and to ensure that Leila would study whatever she wanted when she'd be an adult.

Then, one day, two years after Claudia's murder, Sammy Cruz had found a check in his mail, with Leila's name on the envelope. A check that came back every month, now.

It hadn't taken much to figure out who was the sender.

The grandparents weren't certain what to do about Adnan Petrosian's money, so they simply saved it for Leila's future. They weren't quite sure what to do about Adnan Petrosian himself, but the man never tried to come and see his daughter. Perhaps he was ashamed of his wife's actions.

What the Cruzs knew, was that if two strangers hadn't come in the way of Nicola Petrosian, their granddaughter would not be there. They wouldn't even know they had a granddaughter.

Everything that was their lives today, they owed to the two men who had intervened.

So when Veda Cruz opened that envelope, and saw a notice of death with the face of one of these men on it, she immediately called her husband and her granddaughter. The woman only wished Leila didn't have to see a picture of the man her grandparents often told her about in such circumstances. But just as Leila, and not Claudia, had been saved, it appeared that life wasn't always merciful enough.

Chapter Text

There were people out there whose life had been changed by Primary Asset n°1, but not in a good way. People who would not care for the news of John Reese's death, or maybe, who would even be pleased. Because every time a member of the Team saved someone, it was at the expense of someone else.

It didn't matter that these people had brought it upon themselves by becoming a murderer, or sometimes a downright monster. They were in jail because of the Man in a Suit, or they were dead. And while they deserved nothing less, the problem wasn't so much with these people as with the ones they left behind.

Most human monsters have a family and a few friends, after all. People who care about them, and won't be pleased when they are taken away.

It is so much easier to hate the one who brought the truth of these criminals' nature to the light, than to see who's really to blame. As if, if no one had intervened and stopped the others from committing their crimes, if it had remained a secret, it would mean nothing had ever happened.

As if, in the end, it was the savior's fault that the criminal wasn't a good guy.

Some people could react like that, and accuse the one who did what was right, even if they don't defend the criminal either, because it is so much easier than to accept that in the end, it's their friend's, their father's, their brother's fault if their world broke down.

But the Machine also knew that some people, while they wouldn't love Primary Asset n°1 more for his actions, would not condemn him.

It helped, usually, if by getting someone they cared about arrested, John Reese had also saved someone else they cared about.

That's why, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, Adnan Petrosian received an e-mail too.

Because, in the end, Adnan Petrosian had understood that he wouldn't be able to live with what his wife had done. Because, in the end, the man had remembered that, even though the stranger had gotten Nicola behind bars, he had also saved his daughter.

The construction magnate stared at his computer for a while, unsure of what to do after having recognized whose notice of death it was, that he had before his eyes.

Eventually he saw the other attached file, which was another invitation, but not for him. A copy of the Cruzs' invitation to the funeral.

Adnan Petrosian had never seen his daughter, but he knew that she was alive only thanks to “John Reese”.

Bradley Petrosian pushed the door open, and before he could say anything, his father asked:

“Would you want to meet you little sister?”

Chapter Text

It happened that the Machine had troubles thinking about some cases, because of the lack of digital information. It wasn't a problem per se, but she still had to add many parameters to her analyzing process, and she found it... annoying.

Usually, it happened because someone was toying with identities a bit too much, and so the Machine had to reconnect files with different names together. An usual issue when dealing with spies like her two primary assets, and high profile criminals like Analog Interface.

Not so much of an issue, really, because the Machine's capacities were well above that, but annoying nonetheless. It made communicating with her Teams harder, for one thing. Which name was she supposed to pick out? Which social security number? Since she was already limited in her communications, it was annoying.

Maybe her father had really created her more human than he'd ever thought.

Annoying.

Then there was that one time, with Jordan Hester, where the Machine actually had only one name for two people. Sure, she could have chosen Tara Verlander's if she had wanted, but it wouldn't have been of much use to the Team, considering they had no way to find the woman again, when she had ditched that name for someone else's.

Well, at least, it had allowed the Machine to give both the criminal and the victim's names to Harold Finch and John Reese.

And thanks to that, the true Jordan Hester was well and alive when he opened his mail and stared at the kraft paper envelope that held the obituary of the man who had turned his life back into normalcy, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise.

The man had to force himself to inhale again, because the news had been such a shock he had forgotten how to breathe for a moment.

Jordan Hester couldn't quite believe that the man who had turned Hell into nothingness, the man who had made his life right again, was dead. He couldn't believe that the man who had allowed him to be, not only alive, but himself again, was dead.

Where was the justice in that?

“John Reese, aka the Man in a Suit”, the invitation said. Go figures, that the stranger would also be the urban legend. Obviously Jordan Hester wasn't the only only who had been saved by his savior.

He wondered if the others had also been invited to his funeral.

The man looked around his apartment, remembering the hard times before John Reese's intervention. Everything in here, he still had thanks to that man. His life was his own, and his own only, thanks to that man.

But what had the man had, when he gave everything for others?

Chapter Text

Saving one person could lead to helping a few others at the same time, especially when the case revolved around a con man, or woman, who ruined other people's lives on a daily basis. Saving one person could reveal the truth about another person.

Saving one, was the same as saving the whole human race. Because in the end, even the people who didn't do much with their lives, even the ones who wouldn't be remembered for centuries, they participated. And if they hadn't been there, maybe the more famous names woudn't had lived long enough to do anything noteworthy either.

Everyone has an influence on the future of many others.

Saving one could also kill dozens, hundreds. Had Primary Asset n°1 not saved Carl Elias, long ago, the man wouldn't have gotten to cause as many deaths. But maybe the outcome would have been worse, who know? The Machine knew very well that the possibilities are infinite.

There is no point in dwelling on what has been done wrong, and even a wrong can become a right.

But there are also lives that don't matter as much in the world, but still matter to some people. Jordan Hester's life, by being saved from Tara Verlander, had also freed another life. And even if Kyle Morrison didn't know it, Jordan Hester's saving mattered to him in that way.

There were people who had never even seen the shadow of the Man in a Suit, but who still owed him. And Kyle Morrison was one of these people.

So, when he found a kraft paper envelope with the obituary for an unknown stranger, a picture of said stranger with the detective who had gotten him out of jail, and a security camera's images of the same stranger standing a bit in the background while the police arrested the true criminal, in the envelope three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, Kyle Morrison had questions.

His life had gone back to normal, now. It hadn't been easy, first with the lack of trust from his wife, and the guilt she now felt because of it, second with his own memories of jail. But they were making it work, somehow.

And Kyle Morrison wanted to thanks the ones who had made it possible.

So he went in search of one detective Lionel Fusco, with the photos in hand. And he got his answers quickly, because there was a missing person poster for one of the detectives in the precinct.

Chapter Text

It was almost a given that at least one of the people the assets and the primary assets were close to would be in danger at some point. Two reasons for that: first, because of the involvement with the Team, second, because most assets had a dangerous job to begin with.

When NY Asset n°2, also known to the Machine as Jocelyn Carter, had wanted to do her job as a police detective, years ago, by preventing Carl Elias from murdering all the other Italian crime bosses, her son had been taken hostage to make her change her mind. The truth was, Jocelyn Carter may not have gotten that far without Primary Asset n°1's and Admin's help in the general investigation on Carl Elias, but even without the Machine's involvement, the detective would still have been investigating the case. It was in her nature.

The Machine wouldn't deny that the danger on her son, Taylor Carter, that night, was partly her fault, but she wouldn't pretend that the boy would have been perfectly fine otherwise.

As it was, Carl Elias might still have taken Taylor Carter hostage, and since there wouldn't have been a John Reese to go and save the teenager...

Three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, Taylor Carter noticed a new e-mail with two attached files while checking his cellphone between two classes. He quickly thought that he'd better look at it once he'd be home, and forgot about it until he actually got home. There, his curiosity was multiplied when his eyes actually fell back upon said e-mail.

For a moment he stared at the notice of death on his laptop's screen.

He knew that face, he was certain of it, but who...

Taylor Carter opened the second attached file. It was a picture of the stranger, smiling, a coffee cup to go in each hand, one of which was obviously for the black woman standing next to him, smiling too. His mother, smiling with the stranger, just before they took a coffee.

Taylor Carter's memory was suddenly taken back to that frightening day, when a “policeman” had taken him away. That was when he had seen the stranger with the silver hair. That was the day the stranger had come and gotten him back, only saying that he “worked with his mother”.

He went back to the attached file with the invitation to the man's funeral.

Him, too, was dead, then?

Just like his mother...

Chapter Text

Sometimes, saving a life meant that the Team members had to send someone on the run, far, far away from those who wanted them dead. But sometimes, it could mean that there would be no more running for the person saved.

The Machine only gave numbers to the original Team within New York, or not too far away, because the teams couldn't be everywhere at the same time. The other teams, like the one in Washington D. C. for example, only got the numbers near them as well.

Not because the Machine thought some people were more worth saving than others, but because a radius of action too large would simply be too much to deal with. There were times when, even within New York, the original Team had trouble dealing. If they had all the state's crimes to prevent, they wouldn't get anything done.

It happened that the people in need of saving came into the Team's radius, though.

Then she was able to communicate their distress to Admin.

It had been the case with Sarah Jennings, forever on the run from an abusive husband who had just the right amount of power to chase her without respite. One day she had ended up in New York. Then John Reese had been able to save her life.

It had been a bit personal for the man, but even that way, Primary Asset n°1 hadn't killed the ever-loving, ever-a-danger husband. It hadn't been easy not to give in, not with the memory of Jessica Arndt's death in his head, but John Reese hadn't killed Brad Jennings.

This case had even gotten Primary Asset n°1 a marshall badge which had proven to be useful later on.

When Kiara Jones woke up three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, she found a kraft paper envelope in her mailbox, with her real name on it. It almost got her to panick, but she forced herself to calm down, and to actually look at it before doing anything else.

The first piece of paper she took out of the envelope was the only relief she needed: a picture of her husband in a mexican prison, with the file that went with it. For a moment Sarah Jennings felt bad, but soon enough she remembered the fear that went with that particular love.

Even if Brad wasn't guilty of dealing drugs, even if his name wasn't the one on the file, he deserved this.

The second document was a notice of death, for the man who had freed her from her husband.

Sarah Jennings' throat felt dry, all of a sudden.

There also was a train ticket for New York in the envelope.

Chapter Text

Mostly the machine was contacting the people saved or at least influenced by John Reese, because there was no family to call, no friends to notify of his death who weren't also on that list.

Still, there was one person whom she intended on notifying, who hadn't been saved by John Rykes, John Reese or John Riley. One person, perhaps, who had lost much because of that man, without ever deserving it. One person, though, who shared that loss with him.

That one person hadn't even met John Reese. That one person didn't even guess what he looked like. That one person wasn't even aware that he had been alive until three days ago.

Yet, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, Sharon, Jessica Arndt's mother, received a kraft paper envelope.

The old woman had no idea of what she'd find in it, so she opened the envelope without much anxiety.

There were several documents in it.

The only one who really made her react, at first, was a picture of her daughter, sharing a drink with an U.S. Army officer. Jessica, there, on the picture, smiling. A man, there, on the picture, smiling.

The U.S. Army officer.

It was him. The man that, sometimes, made Sharon wonder if her daughter would still be alive, had he stayed behind for Jessica. The man who had gone back on the field after 2001, and about whom Jessica hadn't ever said much. Only, each time she had spoken about him, her daughter had seemed happy.

Happier than she usually did when with Peter.

There was another document in the envelope that really shook Sharon, though.

An obituary for John Rykes, U.S. Army sergeant first class, infantryman, Ranger, Green Beret, Delta Force, CIA operative, freelance private investigator, NYPD detective. Sharon wasn't even sure if this many occupations of such a kind shouldn't just qualify him as a hero right away. There had to be a word for someone so dedicated to the defence of others.

There had to be.

If only he had been there to defend her daughter, too... Perhaps Jessica would have lived and been happy. Perhaps he would have lived, and been happy. Jessica had sounded so in love, back then... Even if Sharon hadn't thought, back then, much of their relationship.

But the man had gone, not willing to have Jessica waiting for him when he wasn't sure he'd ever come back. Sharon didn't know that, obviously, but it was still the truth. Just as much as the fact that John Reese was one of these people who couldn't not choose the greater good; one of these people who thought so little of themselves that they believed they could only be sacrifices for the peace of the crowd; one of these people who couldn't live their life when knowing that others suffered.

True heroes could never be satisfied with themselves, because they were never aware of themselves.

Chapter Text

It was ironic, in a way, that the irrelevant numbers the Machine gave to the teams sometimes came right out of her own existence. It was ironic that, perhaps, people whom she was supposed to protect were killed in her name.

Sometimes, it could all look just like a game of cat and mouse between the assets and the government's men, all working for her, but also working against each other. It wasn't a game, though, and it was unclear who was the cat, and who was the mouse in the story. Because, in the end, they were all trying to protect themselves.

Humans wanted to live, and frankly, the Machine could understand that. She, too, wanted to live.

It was ironic, though, that her first Primary Asset, the one she would never forget, if she had been able to forget anything, the one who had sacrificed so much for so little, it was ironic that John Reese himself was one of these victims. Killed, almost, to keep the secret about the Machine. Surviving only to be one of the greatest secrets of the Machine.

Her first true operative had come from one of these victims.

Henry Peck was another one. One of the few who had lived, unlike Michael Cole, Primary Asset n°2's old partner. One, moreover, who, just like John Reese and Michael Cole, had been working for the government at the time they had become “victims” of the Machine.

The Machine could see many, many things. She could, for example, see what had become of Henry Peck. And while it was a good thing that he had mostly managed to make himself a real life in England, which truly was more than he had when he worked for the NSA, she could also see that he missed his old job.

Perhaps he was suffering from a lack of purpose, too.

So, when the Machine sent the kraft paper envelope that was supposed to get to Henry Peck three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, she made sure that there would be more than an invitation to a funeral in it.

After all, Control was dead. There was no danger for Henry Peck to come back.

When the man opened the envelope, keeping an eye out for his wife, still used, after almost four years, to having confidential intel in his hands, he didn't think he'd see the face of the man who had saved him so long ago. He didn't think either, that it'd be on an obituary.

Henry Peck certainly didn't think there would be a job offer in the envelope, by That Machine itself, as well as the proofs that he wasn't in danger anymore in his own country.

Primary Asset n°2 might have the need for an analyst with the state the original Team was currently in, and Henry Peck fit the bill just right.

Chapter Text

As some numbers came up more than once, because of their dangerous jobs, because of the people they lived with, because, simply, they were unlucky, it could happen for the Team to be called several times on one particular number. Sometimes, it was even a Team member who was picked out as the next target to save. Point being, it wasn't that unusual to get the same number more than once.

Then, of course, there were people like Leon Tao.

People who weren't threats, not in the way Carl Elias had been, but who still managed to get their hands too close to the comfort zone of other criminals. People who got themselves into danger, only because they couldn't stop themselves from pickpocketing the wrong individual.

In other words, people who thought they could play with the adults, and play the adults at the same time, all that without consequences. And obviously, they were usually wrong about that. Most of the time, because they weren't quite as clever and discreet as they had thought.

Leon Tao had been saved by Primary Asset n°1 quite a few times in one year time, and he had also taken part in a few of the Team's missions, quite like a consultant would for the police. The man couldn't just forget what he owed John Reese, after all. Something like, his life. Several times over. Because the man couldn't help but to get into problematic situations by taking what wasn't his.

After some time, though, he had calmed down, and the Team hadn't received his number anymore. Not that he was clean, only he didn't get into that much danger anymore. Right now, he was sporting a black eye. But nothing more, really.

Perhaps he chose his targets a bit better, or he had become a better thief. The Machine could tell, but it wasn't her job. The point was that either he didn't get caught anymore, or his con ended with a punch, a kick, an assortment of both, but nothing life-threatening.

Also, he still wasn't rich.

But, as he had finally understood after one too many instances of being helped out of his own mess, it was better to be alive, than rich and dead.

Three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, Leon Tao received an e-mail that announced John Reese's death. It took him a moment to realize that the man was really, really dead. The supersoldier-of-doom wasn't someone he could even imagine dead.

Leon sat back down on his chair, and gulped.

He really had to be careful, now, because John Reese wouldn't come to his help ever again.

Chapter Text

The Machine warned her operatives about what was to come, with the goal of stopping it from happening. She was a tool of prevention, made to keep the highest number of humans alive when death could be avoided. Her role was to give a chance of preventing regretful events from happening.

Of course, there were exceptions.

The Machine could only predict foreseeable acts of violence, as well as the unwanted consequences of unlucky courses of events, on occasion. She couldn't predict crimes of opportunity, killing sprees, and what had already happened.

Though she had files on what belonged to the past, as far as these files reached.

Sometimes, it came in handy, and not only by helping her predict the reactions of individuals. It had been the case when Primary Asset n°1 had asked for a way to find Admin. The Machine's knowledge on the Hannah Frey cold case in link to Samantha Groves had provided that way.

Moreover, John Reese and Jocelyn Carter investigating the cold case in order to find Root had allowed the discovery of Hannah Frey's body.

It had turned a page in the history of Bishop.

More importantly, it had allowed a father to finally send his daughter's ghost away.

Because if, unlike his wife, Brian Frey had accepted the fact that his daughter was dead even if still missing, he had never gotten to truly let her go. Now he had the proof that Hannah was dead, and while it wasn't comforting, it at least shredded completely the idea that she was indeed alive, far away, and locked up underground / abused daily / whatever-his-brain-could-imagine. Now, he had a tombstone to go to. He didn't only know she was dead, he also knew where she was. He knew where to go to see her. He knew her bones weren't discarded in the middle of nowhere.

It wasn't a happy thought, but it was more than he had gotten during the last twenty five years.

One morning, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, Brian Frey received a kraft paper envelope, with a notice of death, a train ticket, and several pictures in it.

One was of a dead woman, another of the same woman, alive, standing with other people, amongst which the man in the notice of death, and yet another of Samantha Groves when she was twelve; it took him a moment, but he finally understood why the last two were clipped together.

Hannah's friend was dead too.

For the fourth picture, though, he had to ask the sheriff Landry. He had recognized the black woman standing next to the same man, again, but he wasn't sure about that man.

Judd Landry stared at the picture for a moment, and sighed.

Yes, that was the team who had come to investigate Hannah's death.

Everyone dies eventually.

Chapter Text

There was one person to whom John Reese's death felt more like a guilt than a tragedy. One person for whom both the Machine and Primary Asset n°1 had made a deal, even against that person's will. One person whom both of them wanted to protect as much as possible.

When Harold “Finch” had created the Machine, he had taught her that she wasn't supposed to value his life more than another one. Several times, she had been tempted not to take this lesson into account, but in the end, saving Harold Finch had always been done out of necessity. His life may not be of more value than someone else's, but he mattered more in that his continued survival could save more lives.

The last time the Machine had saved Harold Finch, though, it hadn't been a matter of necessity. Admin had done his part in world history, and it was time for him to rest. Right now, he was making plans to go to Italy, to join his fiancée Grace Hendricks. Which meant, he wasn't going to interfere anymore, he wasn't a necessary asset anymore. He could have died, it wouldn't have changed a thing.

But Primary Asset n°1 and the Machine had struck a deal, years ago, and it meant that Harold Finch would live, even if John Reese had to die. One life for another, such was the deal; it didn't contradict Admin's teachings. One of them had to die. It didn't really matter to the world, which one it would be.

And perhaps, though by deciding so the Machine had offered another chance at life to Harold Finch, it didn't mean that John Reese was on the losing end.

The operative was tired, but he'd never have the heart to stop fighting. He'd die in the field, the Machine knew it, if she hadn't allowed the change. He deserved the rest, even if it was to be found in death. And at least, that way, John Reese's sacrifice would be not only for strangers who'd never know his name.

Admin wasn't someone the Machine needed to contact while hiding. Admin was her father; there was no point hiding from him. So three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, she simply called him, using Analog Interface's voice.

“Stay three more days, Harold. Three days for John's funeral, and then you can go.”

She did not tell him more about the funeral, though. Only a date, a place, and a promise.

John Reese had never lived for himself; it was only fair of the ones he had helped to share a bit of their time, for him only.

Chapter Text

Interestingly, there were a few people who actually knew they had been saved by Primary Asset n°1, but not that he was more than who he had presented himself as. People who had never guessed that the man they had known for a few hours, perhaps a few days, was in fact the Man in a Suit, or even, simply someone else.

People who, at the same time, could also have a better understanding of at least some part of John Reese's personality, than the ones he saved as the Man in a Suit, only to disappear in the blink of an eye.

Some of these people actually cared for the alias they had met, even without having ever seen him again.

Sofia Campos was in Brazil when her cellphone rang, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise. Her father was having a party with several political allies, and she had gone out of the house to get some air. She could understand that her father was relieved, now that the oddities in the political world had apparently died down, about three days ago. But she needed some time to herself, now.

She had felt a bit heavy in the chest for some time already, as she had noticed that the oddities weren't only in the political world, but everywhere. Reading the papers of various countries, she had noticed too many things that didn't make sense, and at the same time, that were made to look like they made sense, during the last year or so. It had worried her.

She didn't know the reason behind the oddities, though. But she could see them in the news, the elections, the disappearances.

It had been three days since she couldn't see anymore of it. Since the virus ICE-9 had destroyed the Internet, actually. Things were slowly getting back into place, though. The most basic functions worked again.

Something had happened.

What, Sofia Campos did not know.

Her cellphone rang, and when she looked at it, unbelievably, she got the hint of an answer to her questions. The screen had been taken over by a picture of the New York skyscraper that had been hit by a cruise missile in the chaos, as well as by an obituary for “John Randall”, aka “John Reese”.

Sofia Campos had to stop herself from crying, as the memories from that time, years ago, when a bodyguard had saved her life, when she had asked if he didn't want to come and work for her only, came back to her mind.

John Randall, or whoever he truly was, was dead. Him who had seen beyond what she showed to others, him who had allowed to be her own person, and not only her father's daughter, her friend was gone.

Perhaps he should have accepted to follow her to Brazil, after all.

Chapter Text

Of course, even with the Team's intervention, not all the numbers could be saved. Some of them, because they didn't want to be saved. Some others, because their relevance paled in comparison to another number's importance, at least to their eyes.

When the Machine had given the Team the numbers of Annie Delaney and Riley Cavanaugh, only one of the two had been saved. Riley Cavanaugh had given his life to protect the other number, leaving Annie Delaney, his girlfriend, alone with a train ticket to New Mexico. He had never intended to come with her, truth to be told, because the man had cared more about the best future she could get than about their joint future.

In a way, his sacrifice was reminiscent of John Reese's, and that not about his latest, biggest sacrifice, but the one he had chosen to do the day he had agreed to working with Harold Finch: to atone for his sins, be they real or imaginary, John Reese had decided to forego any personal comfort, for his missions to prevail. He cared more for the future of everyone else than for his own.

And, just like Riley Cavanaugh, he had left people behind to mourn his sacrifice.

But for both men, what mattered wasn't that these people may be saddened; what mattered was that these people were alive thanks to their death.

Three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, Annie Delaney received a kraft paper envelope in her mail, where she now lived in Santa Fe. She went back in her small house, made coffee, and sat down to read her mail.

She opened the envelope last, not expecting it to be more than another official thing to be taken care of.

But when she saw the face on the notice of death, and the train ticket for New York that came with it, she immediately recalled her last days before Santa Fe. She remembered Riley, the irish mob, and the man who had, in the end, given her the train ticket Riley had brought for her.

She hadn't thought much about it lately, not with her new fiancé, her new life.

She certainly hadn't thought that she'd go back to New York for a funeral.

But as her eyes read the notice of death again, Annie Delaney simply knew that she couldn't not go back, and ignore the death of the man who had saved her life, who had comforted her in that her relationship with Riley hadn't been meaningless.

Chapter Text

A few numbers had been very dangerously close to finding out about the Man in a Suit, that sometimes Admin and Primary Asset n°1 had almost thought of backing out of the case.

Obviously, more than a few numbers had actually found out about who their savior was, that “John” or whoever he went by at the time wasn't just a guy they had met out of luck, who had happened to be here, but more of a man who specialized in saving people. They might not know his real name, his favorite alias, or his past, but they had put two and two together, and here had come the story about the Man in a Suit.

But this knownledge had never been a threat. They knew, but it didn't change a thing. Either they accepted it, or they didn't, and usually that didn't end well for those who went with the latter. So in the end, John Reese hadn't been in real danger of discovery, as in a danger which he could not handle.

But there had been times when it had come a bit too close to home for comfort.

Saving Maxine Angelis, for exemple, had been trying. If this journalist, of all people, had understood who her date, John Anderson, trully was, there was no telling if she'd have chosen to keep it to herself to allow him to continue his work, or if she'd have insisted on publishing her proofs of the Man in a Suit's existence.

In doing so, she'd have impeded his work... but she'd have also given him some acknowledgment.

At the time, it couldn't be allowed to happen.

But the Machine wouldn't have denied, if there had been someone to ask her, that what she was doing now was just that: giving John Reese some acknowledgment for his sacrifices.

So when Maxine Angelis opened her e-mail account, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, and saw an obituary for “John Anderson”, aka “Reese”, aka the Man in a Suit, she also found a request for a paper on the dead. Well paid, and thorough.

The e-mail said that she'd find every info she needed to start digging at the funeral.

Maxine Angelis laughed at herself, in disbelief.

John Anderson had been the Man in a Suit she had so wished to meet all along! He had even told her he was nothing more than an urban legend... She had spoken to him, and she hadn't suspected a thing!

Now, he certainly wasn't going to be anything more than an urban legend.

The Man in a Suit was dead.

Chapter Text

When Harod Finch had offered a job to John Reese, he had given him a second chance.

And John Reese had done his best to offer as many second chances as possible by saving lives, and sometimes, changing lives. He had proved that someone could use their second chance for the best, even if he was perhaps mistaken in thinking that his first chance had been wasted. What he had accomplished as a soldier, and after that, as a CIA operative, while not exactly glorious at times, had needed to be done.

Some of the numbers he had saved these last years had not always been good people at first, but it hadn't stopped them from becoming better individuals.

Not every second chances had been used for the best, but the ones who chose to change were more than enough to justify the constant risk of them falling back into bad habits. Some people would not change, no matter what; but others could.

Lloyd Pruitt, now known as Graham Wyler, had proved that even before Primary Asset n°1's intervention in his life. True, back in the old days, he hadn't been a monster, not even a murderer, though a criminal. It wasn't as if he had gone from serial killer to harmless citizen.

He still had changed to a law-abiding way of life. He had become a good husband, a good father, a good neighbor. And if his old partners hadn't found him again, John Reese would never have had to intervene. Graham Wyler was a man without problems.

The Team's had saved his life, and prevented him from taking the fall for his past. They had preserved his second chance at life.

Of course it hadn't come without a cost. The man's secret had been leaked, and he was now under house arrest, with a tracking anklet, but he still had his wife, his daughter, and even some of his freedom. But even if for a few weeks the neighbors had looked at him funny, as they suddenly realized that the man wasn't who they had believed, not completely, it hadn't lasted. Most of the people he knew had just let it go, after a time.

It wasn't surprising, really, because no matter if he was “Lloyd” or “Graham”, he still talked the same way, worried about the same things, he still laughed with his family. They hadn't known his true identity or his past, but they had always known the man himself.

The Wylers received a kraft paper envelope three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise.

In it they found an official authorization to go to a certain park in New York three days later, and a notice of death for John Campbell, or, really, John Rykes.

Offering all these second chances had ended up costing John Reese's his own.

Chapter Text

The reliable contacts, such was the codename the Machine had decided upon for those people she could trust with her assets' lives and investigation. These people who would help out, without asking too many questions, and who knew that the assets were working for the better, even if they didn't exactly know how and why. She was also establishing a standard procedure of sharing contacts, now that her assets were more numerous and didn't know all the reliable contacts.

Now that one of her Primary Asset and her Analog Interface had died, now that Admin was leaving, in fact. It was the first time the Machine lost people who were in a position to relay that knowledge to the other assets.

The reliable contacts were important.

Madeleine Enright was one of these people. Having been pressured into murdering a patient during an operation, a situation that had been stopped by the Team's intervention, she had come to realize that sometimes, you don't get a choice in the available means to help others. Sometimes you couldn't go to the police. Sometimes you had to make difficult choices, and stay in the shadows.

Her wife had been saved by two men who had chosen to stay in the shadows. Her integrity had been saved by two such men.

Madeleine Enright couldn't possibly live in such a way, yet she could only respect the people who had made that choice. They were the reason her life was still the same.

She wondered, though, who exactly they were working for, and against who. When they had called for her to take care of that girl, a few months ago... The surgeon couldn't even begin to imagine who would do such a thing to an innocent woman.

It only comfirmed that the two strangers were working the good fight.

Or had been, as she thought when, while going through her mail with Amy three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, she found herself starring at the content of a kraft paper envelope.

Amy had immediately recognized the man this file said to be dead.

After all, he had saved her life.

Fighting the good fight was done at a price, it seemed.

Amy and Madeleine Enright immediately cleared their schedule for the day the funeral was scheduled. Not going wasn't even an option, not with what they owed the deceased.

Though the two women wondered why exactly the meeting place was in what seemed to be, after they checked it online, some sort of private park next to the Hudson, recently appeared in the place of a building due to be demolished. It wasn't near any graveyard.

Chapter Text

Most people out there had been endangered at one point or another of their life. Perhaps it had happened more than once, too. Even putting diseases and natural risks apart, everyone, in fact, had their life in danger more often than they thought. It would take only a small change, just half a second more to cross a street, only two steps more to the right... And their life would have ended.

Being alive was incurring the possibility of death, after all.

Most of the time, humans didn't realize that.

Obviously, when the danger came from another human being, more than that, when it existed because of someone else's will, the threat went up drastically. When someone wants somebody else dead, the chances of it happening are tremendously increased.

It was the Machine's very goal to prevent that.

And sometimes, when the Team did their work very well, the number never realized their life had been in danger in the first place.

Oliver Veldt had been Madeleine Enright's patient when the surgeon had been under pressure to commit a murder, and make it look like a surgery accident. He had been the one who would have lost his life, had the Team not prevented it. All because someone had thought the money they would gain from his death was worth the taking of one life, or even several.

It was the Machine's goal to predict such life-ending events, and it was the Team's objective to use her intel. But the point of saving these innocent lives wasn't to be thanked. It was merely to keep someone alive, one more day at least. John Reese never had asked to be thanked for his actions.

Perhaps it'd be better to let Oliver Veldt in the dark. Oliver Veldt did not need to know someone had fomented his assassination. Human beings live better when they remain oblivious to the constant danger surrounding them.

But for them to be able to do that, there had to be some other people who dealt with the fallout of ignorance.

John Reese had been one of these people.

He had spent his life keeping the greater part of the population oblivious, at great personal costs.

He had offered his death to be sure that ignorance and safety would still go together in the future.

That was the reason why, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, Oliver Veldt received a kraft paper envelope, detailing the murder attempt on his person, four years ago, the pressure put on his surgeon, the way she had refused to kill him, even to save her wife. And, more importantly to the Machine, the obituary for John Reese, the man who had lost his life fighting to save others, as he had done with Oliver Veldt.

Chapter Text

Daniel and Sabrina Drake

People saved by the Team weren't always that happy to be saved, at least not until they realized they actually did need the help. It was worse, the Machine had found out, when the numbers were also part of the problem, alongside potential victims.

When that happened, the numbers usually were criminals, or about to become so.

Daniel and Sabrina Drake certainly weren't criminals, but, as Lionel Fusco had put it, “morons in love desperate enough to do pretty stupid things”. Such as, hiring killers to get rid of each other, just because there was a strain on their marriage, which was in fact no more than a misunderstanding.

Some may think these people didn't deserve to be saved, not when they had gone to the point of getting a hired gun. Then again, they were simply misguided, and, deep down, not evil.

The Drakes were a couple the Machine would never regret, if she one day felt remorse about saving lives, having lent her assets to help in their marital issue. They had only gotten a very short sentence, a couple of months actually, though with a largely more substancial fine. And today, they had two beautiful children, whom they loved just as much as they loved each other.

They were, in a way, the exact kind of people Admin had had in mind when he had created the Machine. They were a family. Normal people.

With a bit more money than the usual family, certainly, but that was what had allowed them to have their son and daughter. They weren't using their riches to do bad, which was more than could be said about some other people; they even took part, even if only marginally, to a few fund raisings for those who weren't as lucky as themselves.

Admin may have wanted to protect everyone, without exception, but the Machine knew her Father better than that: Harold Finch first of all wanted to protect these normal people. He could have been part of such a life too, had his destiny turned out differently.

Primary Asset n°1 could relate.

It would be a reward to him, to know that indeed, he had given the Drakes another chance, that he had allowed the birth of two beautiful children. John Reese was dead though.

Three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, Daniel and Sabrina Drake received an e-mail, at the exact same time. Each of them in their separate office, they opened it. And without a doubt, they recognized the man who had stopped them from ending this perfect life before it had even begun.

Daniel and Sabrina Drake came face to face on their way to see each other, and share the news.

There was a moment of silence.

Daniel Drake took his wife in his arms, while she whispered to him they'd have to take the kids.

Chapter Text

Helping one person could help saving others, which made the Machine's purpose even more worth it, if she was to trust what she had heard her assets say over the years. Not only were they saving a life, but they were also allowing this life to grant or maintain the lives of others. Help one, and the world would live.

John Reese, with Admin's help, had saved Fermin Ordoñez from the Estonian mob, and possibly from a good deal of problems with the Secret Service. Not that the cab driver had known what he had been selling while trying to get enough money to go and smuggle his wife and son in the USA, or else he could have gotten more than enough money out of it. But aware or not of the contents of the laptop he had sold, it wouldn't have changed the fact that he did sell Homeland sensitive data.

Primary Asset n°1 had prevented that from happening.

And by saving the cab driver's life, John Reese had once again helped his country, as he had also secured sensitive intel and gotten it back into governmental hands. That Fermin Ordoñez had been able to cut a deal with the Secret Service for the misplaced and sensitive laptop had allowed the man to get his family back on top of everything else. A family which, if they had stayed in Cuba, could have, one of those days, suffered a much less positive fate because of his defection, years ago.

Not only had John Reese saved the cab driver's life, but he had also improved this life in general.

Thus three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, the Machine made sure the Ordoñez family received a kraft paper envelope, inviting them to their savior's funeral. Just like many others, perhaps, because the invitations were numerous; but to John Reese, the Machine knew any invitation would have mattered just as importantly.

Primary Asset n°1 had practically lived only to ensure that both the majority and the minority got as many chances at life as possible.

Fermin Ordoñez didn't know that, of course. But he still wiped a tear as he read the obituary, holding his wife's hand. He may not know the whole good the Man in a Suit had done in his life, but he did remember how the mysterious man had stood up for him.

How John Reese's intervention had changed his life for the better.

Perhaps Fermin Ordoñez wasn't back in the game, perhaps he wasn't a professional baseball player anymore, perhaps he wasn't rich.

But he had his family back.

Not everyone could say as much, and he knew it.

Chapter Text

The two people the Machine wanted to contact weren't ones she had to hide from, not anymore.

After all, they did know, if not about her, about “Thornill”.

They had lived a normal life for about two years after having crossed path with John Reese, under new names and with normal, charitable jobs that allowed them to still be themselves, to be the Abby Monroe and Shayn Coleman who had met at a veteran charity. Even if they could call themselves with their real names only when alone. They understood the necessity to be someone else; after all, they had known it'd need to be done even before the Team had come in and saved their hide.

But they hadn't quite realized what it really meant, not to be yourself anymore, except to one other person.

Primary Asset n°1, him, hadn't even had one person to whom he still was John Rykes. Even if Jocelyn Carter and Admin had found out his real name, they did not think of him as “John Rykes”. And perhaps “John Reese” himself didn't think he truly was “John Rykes” anymore. John Rykes, for all intents and purposes, had disappeared since he had left the army according to the world, and dead since the Ordos incident according to the CIA.

Today, John Reese too was dead.

John Rykes truly was gone.

Abby Monroe and Shayne Coleman, on the other hand, were alive and well in San Franscisco.

Busy, too. When they received the e-mail, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, they had just “delivered” a criminal to the closest precinct without being seen.

Truthfully, it had all started when Shayne Coleman had walked back home, one year ago, and stumbled in the middle of a fight. Or rather, what was left of it. A man, wounded, left to die on the sidewalk. By the time the ambulance arrived, the man was dying, and a police officer was shaking his head in slight despair.

That night, the former Marine had muttered about being unable to help, yet again.

His laptop had been put on the desk just behind him.

The next day, the couple received a job offer, from one “Ernest Thornhill”. They had soon found out that working the numbers with a prosthetic arm, though easily identifiable, did give them an odd excuse for quite a lot of dubious situations. After all, who would think a man with a fake arm and a girlfriend could be spying on them?

SF Assets n°1 and 2 did a good job. They were happy with their life, even if it was a bit chaotic.

But when the news came in, their latest success was immediately erased from their mind. And they remembered that last time they had seen John Reese. How worried they had been about the FBI and having put the man in this position.

There was no point worrying anymore.

Chapter Text

Not all of the people who owed something, in one form or another, to John Reese's intervention had met him in good circumstances. Some of them, even, had been shaken by the encounter.

Primary Asset n°1 might not be a bad man, but he could seem so to someone unknowing.

Especially when the person in question had first seen him during what could basically be called a hostage situation. Even more so when said hostage situation had been handled by John Reese. Particularly when the hostage / potential victim worked for the government.

Kevin was a high level technician for the Department of Defense. Kevin had been taken hostage to get access to highly classified technologies. Kevin had had a weapon aimed at him by John Reese.

It was normal for him to have, at first, been more than a bit wary of the Machine's operative.

Only, as he had told to the men who had investigated the incident later on, Kevin had also seen how the stranger had tried his best to keep the situation as good as possible, to limit the success of whatever the unknown woman had wanted to do, to stop his partner from killing anyone. And, more importantly, Kevin wasn't blind. Which meant he had seen the explosive vests on both attackers, as well as hints of the cellphones that assured him both men weren't there out of their own will. Much like him, they were acting under duress.

The situation of Kevin's encounter with John Reese wasn't one he'd want to repeat. But the technician didn't hold any of it against the other man for all that.

In fact, the Machine surmised from several confidential video feeds that Kevin knew more about the Man in a Suit than most of the other people saved by him did. The investigators from the DOD had let it slip before him, not that it mattered much to them, that the attackers had been former CIA, amongst the best for that kind of ops. That one of them, especially, was supposedly killed in the line of duty after a life of devotion to the defense of civilians. That they were mostly concerned by whether or not he was still under someone else's power, seeing as there was only one exploding vest accounted for.

Kevin, all these years, had wondered about what had happened to the silver-haired stranger who had done his best to keep him alive despite the circumstances.

The Machine could only give him an answer now, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, under the guise of a seemingly normal e-mail.

And perhaps he'd find more answers at the funeral itself.

Chapter Text

The Machine's assets were, for lack of a better word, colorful individuals, unlike her primary assets, who had usually seen more than they fair share of horror, and added a hint of grey, or even black, in everything they did. The Machine's assets, in other words, were for the most part troublesome individuals who had finally found a way to focus their excessive energy into something worthwhile.

Not all of them knew about the Machine's existence per se, but most had doubts, or at least the general idea that their employer “Ernest Thornhill” wasn't all he seemed.

Then there was WDC Asset n°2, also known as Logan Pierce, who simply couldn't keep his nose out of other people's business, especially if these other people went by “John Reese” and “Harold Finch”. Had the Machine been human and subject to frustration, she might have regretted more than a few times having given his number to the Team, subsequently saving Logan Pierce's life.

The man had not stopped poking around, though carefully, after the first incidents, wanting to know more. Just carefully enough, and without all the rights hints, that Control had not been alerted and no one had been sent to dispatch the nosy billionaire. But it had barely been under control.

The Machine knew nothing of aggravation outside of her human studies, and the general comprehension of what it could be caused by. She wasn't supposed to suffer from aggravation. But she guessed that, had she been human, Logan Pierce would be the one who'd put her in such a situation of emotional discontent.

After the seventh time the man got too close to triggering Control's alerts, the Machine had taken the decision to let him in... at least partially. She did need a team out in Washington, where the man had recently moved, and Joey Durban needed a partner with a different skillset. Moreover, keeping Logan Pierce busy meant he had less opportunities to look for too many answers, and so less chances of being taken out by an ISA agent.

The man did prove to be useful.

And able to keep a secret, once he was let on it.

Not that he knew everything about Ernest Thornhill yet, but still.

The decision to send WDC Asset n°2 a copy of the Machine's private file on what had truly happened to John Reese alongside the obituary, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, was a carefully taken decision.

Logan Pierce could not be a primary asset, he didn't fit the job description. But the Washington Team needed a leader with a bit more information. He'd be the Machine privileged access.

And the Machine knew that Logan Pierce would acknowledge John Reese's sacrifice as was due.

Chapter Text

Sometimes Admin would offer a better chance at life to one of the numbers him and Primary Asset n°1 had helped, on top of the more simple, more essential second chance at life that came with saving someone.

Sometimes, John Reese's efforts were topped by Harold Finch's gestures.

Especially if the number had been living a life of need even before their number came up. Children who had no one trustworthy left. Unemployed people who needed to tend to their family. Deserving adults who had been forgotten by Lady Chance.

Or, simply, people such as Mira Dobrica, Mira Brozi by her birth name, who lived a very simple life when they could do much more, if only because they were afraid of something or another; people who had seen things no one should see. People, in other words, who could almost compete with Primary Asset n°1's knowlegde of the darker side of humanity.

John Reese had seen too much, too many times, and he had been used and discarded with too much ease to be bested in that domain.

Mira Dobrica hadn't seen it right away, when the then-bellhop-but-truly-not had first met her eyes. It had taken her a few more attempts, before she had managed to see the raw, gaping wound hidden behind the tall and silent bellhop's eyes. “John” was too good at hiding it, when he wanted.

But Mira Dobrica had seen war crimes, she had witnessed her family's execution, and she had had assassins coming after her.

She knew what to look for in a man's eyes.

John Reese's had not shown what she had expected.

Mira Dobrica, as someone who knew what true horror looked like, had never commented on it, not even the few times the fake bellhop, true vigilante savior had come back to the Coronet Hotel which she now managed, courtesy of her saviors, she was pretty sure.

Harold the concierge apparently owned the Hotel, after all.

When Mira Dobrica received a kraft paper envelope three days after Primary Asset n°1's death, she did not shed a tear. She did not show the slighest emotion. She did not betray the crushing feeling that had taken over her heart, as she looked at the obituary and understood that John Reese would never again turn someone's life around.

She did walk down the stairs to the reception desk half a hour later, and put a framed picture of the “Man in a Suit” on display, with the order not to take it off until a more formal frame, with birth and death dates, but no name, was delivered.

Sometimes, people would walk in the hotel only to look at the picture, and nod at the manager.

These people were all like her too, though in another way.

Chapter Text

Contacting this person was not, the Machine had to admit, something she looked forward to. She was only a Machine, and as such wasn't supposed to have feelings, but she had had to understand the human mind in order to do her job. She knew how this person would react.

Sameen Shaw had already lost Root, and was walking towards a revenge. Maybe she could get it. The Machine didn't approve of Primary Asset n°2's plans for Jeffrey Blackwell, but she wasn't going to try and stop Sameen Shaw. Jeffrey Blackwell wasn't a threat anymore, but he had also discovered his skills with contract killings. He was better off the streets, and had already made the wrong choice.

Eitherway, telling Sameen Shaw about what had become of John Reese wasn't something the Machine wanted to do. But Primary Asset n°1 deserved the recognition, and Primary Asset n°2 deserved the knowledge.

The Machine sent a text to Sameen Shaw's main cellphone three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, informing the woman that her friend was dead.

Sameen Shaw stared at the screen for a moment, her face a wall of blankness. Then she looked around and found a bench to sit on. And she stayed there for hours, perhaps, looking at nothing.

One day a little girl had told Sameen Shaw that yes, she had feelings like everyone else, but they were very muddled. So when her doubts about her friend's future went confirmed, she mostly felt the terrible anger. John Reese was dead. Yet the sadness lurked behind.

He had been the first one in a long time to truly see past the evil she would be able to do with her silenced emotions, to focus on the good she had chosen to do despite it all. Perhaps because he himself was a man who had learned to quell his own feelings and do what was necessary instead of what was seemingly moral, as he had the skills, if not the heart, to do it.

He had saved her life, and she had saved his. They had saved several people together.

They didn't need, they didn't like to speak much together. Only knowing that the other one would be there when needed was enough.

Sameen Shaw grinded her teeth. John Reese would never be here for her again. Root either. The two people, perhaps, who not only accepted her, but understood, were gone.

And for John Reese, there wasn't any revenge to get.

Sameen Shaw could not think of a way her friend would have deemed more appropriate for him to go. John Reese was a man of sacrifice. Dying to save everyone else, particularly the one who had given him the very opportunity to be here to begin with, was exactly what would allow him to rest.

Chapter Text

The Machine never gave the Team numbers outside of New York City, except under specific circumstances. For the original Team to get a number out of New York, these were the possible scenarios: the number had to be essential even if considered irrelevant to the government, the assets needed some particular skills and level of mastery found only in the original Team, or NYC was running out of murderous intents for the day.

Obviously, such numbers didn't come up that often, more so as the crime life of New York never seemed to dry down long enough for not only rest, but also boredom to settle in.

The Team had enough work inside their city as it was.

Lou Mitchell lived in Atlantic City, though, and he wasn't by far an essential individual.

He had gotten lucky that for once, the Machine had had no closer number to give to the Team. It had literally saved his life. Right when the Machine had been struggling with Decima's virus, though it technically was Admin's virus, designed to set her free. Right when the Machine had a hard time communicating with the Team, due to her relocation. Right as everything seemed to say that Lou Mitchell would die, the Machine had given his number.

The old man hadn't been an easy man to save. Far from caring for his own life and decided to bring down Dario Makris and the money he used the old man to launder, Lou Mitchell hadn't been the most cooperative number for John Reese, Harold finch, and exceptionally Leon Tao, to save.

On the other hand, the card sharp knew how to make himself useful, unlike some other numbers, who, the Machine didn't blame them, simply panicked as their situation worsened.

Lou Mitchell, watch repairman and owner of a diner thanks to Admin's generosity, received a kraft paper envelope three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise. The Machine had included, with the obituary for John Reese, a train ticket to New York, and an old picture of Harold Finch and Grace Hendricks together.

The old man smiled, bittersweet thoughts crossing his mind, as he recalled the men who had saved his life, not long ago. Three years were nothing to someone his age.

Which also meant that death wasn't as horrifying to him as it used to be. For all he regretted this “John Reese”'s death, Lou Mitchell wasn't saddened anymore by an obituary, even someone's he owed so much to. It was life's way, to always end up in death.

And if the younger man hadn't been the age to die yet, the older man had seen the threat hanging over John Reese three years ago. He knew the feeling of not wanting to live, but not giving up for all that. He knew what it felt like to be ready to give one's life for a cause. He had been about to do the same just before they had walked in.

Chapter Text

It wasn't rare for a number to benefit from an employment offer in one of Admin's numerous businesses, especially when Harold Finch found he appreciated the number. Monica Jacobs had been one of these numbers.

But it wasn't all she had been. She had also been one of Decima Technologies earliest victims, if not in blood, at least in thought. One of John Greer's collateral damages. These people who had died, or otherwise suffered, only to allow the idealistic fool to reach one of his goals.

Monica Jacobs would never know it, but her former company, Rylatech, had been John Greer's access to intel for a long time. A predecessor to the NSA feeds Samaritan would use later on. The woman knew her former boss had been selling, stealing confidential data, yes, but she had no idea it had truly been for a man aiming to give control of the world to an AI.

Most people who had suffered from John Greer's choices had no idea why their lives had fallen into pieces, or worse, they had died early without knowing why.

Giving Monica Jacobs' number to Admin and Primary Asset n°1 had probably saved her life, her career, but it had also put Harold Finch and John Reese on the right track. And perhaps, perhaps they hadn't been able to save everyone, to stop everything, but the lives they had preserved? Perhaps these lives would matter enough in the future.

And, to Monica Jacobs at least, being alive was a valuable gift enough in itself.

When Monica Jacobs received an e-mail from IFT's phantom owner, three days after Primary Asset's demise, she wasn't all that surprised to learn it had to do with her saviors. No one had ever seen the second founder of IFT, but her own story hinted to his identity clearly enough. Tremendously good in computer engineering, and the mysterious limping man hadn't seemed very shocked to hear the society had offered a job out of nowhere.

Getting an e-mail from the owner wasn't that surprising, no.

What got to her, on the other hand, was the message itself, for it contained an obituary.

An obituary for the tall, silver-haired man who had protected her as they had broken into Rylatech to get the proof of her innocence, to get hints of what had really been happening. The man who had been working with IFT's phantom owner. That man who was definitely not a normal bodyguard. The one whose life was probably made of days such as her last day at Rylatech.

John Reese was dead, it seemed, and Monica Jacobs would be here for his funeral, as he had been here to save her life. It was the least she could do.

Chapter Text

The Machine could only give numbers to her operatives. Admin had wanted it this way, and perhaps it was for the best. It meant some lives could not be saved, assuredly, but it also meant the assets and primary assets weren't only tools obeying orders. They had to witness someone's life, in order to decide what to do to help them.

Info only got so far to describe a person. Some of the people saved by the Machine's operatives might not have seemed worth it, had she given more than a number.

Sometimes, it also meant her assets were too late. The Machine mourned, then. But she still understood why Harold Finch had made her so. Human lives were meant to be handled by human hands. Human hearts.

Primary Asset n°1 and Admin had not been able to save Richard Nelson. The moment Vincent Cochran had ordered the murder, with the virus hindering the Machine's functions, had been too close to the actual time of the doctor's poisoning. It had been too late, for John Reese to intervene.

But the operative hadn't stopped there for all that. He had helped Richard Nelson to get revenge, and in that, surely, he had prevented other crimes of the same kind. Vincent Cochran was dead, true, and the Machine didn't condone murder; yet John Reese had probably made the right choice. A choice she wasn't programmed to make.

Richard Nelson had died, nonetheless, and no one had been saved.

But Molly Nelson, the doctor's daughter, had heard from the police what had happened to her father. She had been told the reason why her father had looked like it was the last time they'd talk, back then. And she had remembered the man who had been with her father at the time.

The police had said there had been someone, helping her father against Vincent Cochran. They hadn't known who. They'd have arrested him if they had.

Molly Nelson would probably have thanked the stranger, had she known who he was. She might not have had the best of relationships with her father, but she knew he hadn't deserved that. Cochran, on the other hand, had deserved his slow, painful last day on earth, poisoned with polonium. Killed as he had ordered her father to be killed. Richard Nelson hadn't been perfect, but his daughter thought he had more rights to live than a man who didn't see the value of human life.

Had she known who the stranger was, she'd have thanked him.

That is why the Machine reached out to her, even if she hadn't been saved by John Reese, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise.

Molly Nelson immediately remembered the face of the man in the obituary.

It was to late to thank him.

It wasn't too late to honor his memory.

Chapter Text

Some numbers had been easier to help than others. A few of them, even, had been particularly easy.

After all, for a short time, Primary Asset n°1 had been in god mode. The Machine had just had to give him indications. Him and Primary Asset n°2, at the time only a potential asset, had then walked in and saved the day. Again.

John Reese had been searching for Admin at that time. The Machine and him had reached a compromise: he took care of the numbers she gave him, and she only gave him the numbers that wouldn't take him away from his search.

Katie had been one of these numbers, from the day of god mode. The day the Machine had been definitely freed. It had been an important day, and not only to the Machine. To Katie, too.

It had been the day of Katie's wedding.

And also, the day Katie hadn't died.

Oddly enough, the Machine could relate. She, too, had started anew that day. She, too, had not died that day. Even when Decima operatives had been around, trying to steal her away. Even if it had been one of the rares days she had been in direct danger. She was still here.

Thanks to Primary Asset n°1, amongst others.

Just like Katie.

Katie who, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, received a notice of death in her mail, a notice she showed to her husband. Both of them agreed, as they looked at the picture of a man with silver hair on the notice, that he probably was that man who had saved their marriage in an unconventional way. They hadn't quite gotten to remember his features, not with the shock, not in the short time they had seen him, but they agreed.

It was this man who had shot Katie's ex-boyfriend in the arm before the jilted man could do anything to them, to Katie. This man who had appeared out of nowhere, aboard a sports car driven by a woman they didn't know either, and who hadn't seemed particularly fazed by the situation. As if this man had known what had been about to happen.

This stranger had saved them, and the woman had driven away, without another word than “congratulations”. Just like that. Because they could. Because they had been there at the good time.

After that, the police had said something about how they didn't known who the strangers were either, about the sports car being stolen, about another saved man in a storage unit where the two had taken the car...

Katie didn't care. Her husband didn't either. These strangers had saved them. And now one of them was dead. Probably while saving someone else.

Chapter Text

The numbers who had no idea of what was happening to them didn't always react very well to the efforts of the Machine's assets to save their life. Sometimes, even, they ran in fear. The Machine had to admit, her operatives weren't always the most reassuring either. From time to time, they even happened to be pretty worrying to normal people.

Primary assets, especially, because they were trained operatives; very efficient, but a bit too used to the craziness for some people. While the numbers panicked, they were doing their thing in perfect calm, and apparently, that irked the numbers to no end. That was one of the behavorial human flaws the Machine had a hard time understanding, if not at taking it into account.

Rafael, for exemple, had almost been abducted by a cartel, in response to his father' refusal to work for them, and when John Reese had stopped the attempted kidnapping, the young man had run away in terror. Without even saying thanks, Primary Asset n°1 had pointed out.

The young man had had time to reflect, though, and even if he wouldn't want to be in this same situation ever again, he had found he was grateful for the help. However crazy it had been, it still had been done expertly. He kind of wondered how the stranger had even known he needed help.

Because Rafael himself sure hadn't known until some guys had grabbed him and shoved him in a van... Action which had been put to a stop when the abductors had realized there was one too many person with them, who had apparently appeared out of nowhere.

The Machine contacted Rafael with a simple e-mail, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise. It had nothing more than the obituary in it, and two dates: one for the day he had been saved, and one for what Rafael assumed was “John Reese”'s death.

This was, yet again, something the young man couldn't explain.

It didn't matter, he thought. He didn't need to understand how or why he had been saved, that day, to appreciate that he had been saved. And whoever “John Reese”'s death had been for, they didn't really need to know why or how.

Rafael only hoped the ones for whom the stranger had sacrificed himself, at least, knew he had died for them. The man deserved to be acknowledged, if nothing else.

Rafael hadn't been able, or even willing, to acknowledge him, once upon a time. He had been too scared, too young, not aware enough of what his life had been worth, at the time. Besides saving him, “John Reese” had also made him rethink what a life was. Rafael hadn't known to appreciate it, at the time.

He intended to right this wrong, even if only by going to this funeral.

Chapter Text

Amongst those who had encountered Primary Asset n°1, some had been more affected than others. Their life had changed, in good or in bad, and, sometimes, they simply started seeing things another way. Or, perhaps, he had given them the insight not to make a bad decision. Right away, or later on.

When Jack Salazar received a kraft paper envelope, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, he couldn't help but think about the last conversation he had had with John Reese.

Since then, he had become a Navy SEAL, and Robert Phillips, his former fellow sailor, had stopped doing shady things. The punishment for last time had cost him too much, and being strapped to a bomb for a time certainly had helped. Robert Phillips was working at a coffee shop in Boston. Perhaps it was for the better. Less temptation there.

Jack Salazar had decided, long ago, not to accept if he was ever proposed a job in any kind of agency. He was happy enough as a soldier. And John Reese's eyes had told him what the man himself hadn't: the other man had said yes, once, and regretted it. The SEAL didn't doubt the work the CIA, and others, did, was necessary, but it wasn't for him. For one thing, he wasn't like Primary Asset n°1, the Machine could tell. There were similarities, but it stopped there.

Primary Asset n°1 probably was much more somber than Jack Salazar would ever be.

The young man seemed to have caught on that.

Both of them had gotten into a fight which had gone wrong in their youth. They hadn't, per se, been forced to enlist, but it had been strongly suggested to them, in a way they had felt they didn't have a choice. And they had listened. John Rykes, because he felt he had a debt to fulfil, because he had been aware of the danger he could be, and didn't want that to go unchecked; because he had believed them, when they had told him he'd turn bad if he didn't enlist. Jack Salazar, because he had felt he wasn't welcome at home anymore, because people had started looking at him differently after the fight; nevermind that it hadn't been his fault. That he hadn't exactly had a choice but to defend.

John Reese had told the younger man not to make his mistake. And Jack Salazar had listened.

The SEAL was staring at the notice of death, and at the unexpected leave which would allow him to go to NYC, when his cellphone rang. Robert's number.

“Did you receive the same envelope I did?”

Yes, he had.

Chapter Text

The people rescued by the Machine's operatives could have been found in some perilous situations, out of which they wouldn't have been able to walk alone. Some of them had gotten themselves into trouble by acting stupidly, like Robert Phillips.

Robert Phillips wasn't a bad guy. He had, as some would say, a very liberal understanding of the notion of property, but he wasn't trying to harm anyone. Mostly, he had made one too many bad choices, and it had almost cost him his life, as well as his friend Jack's.

When John Reese had found Robert Phillips tied to a bomb, the younger man had been thinking he should really stop doing these things, and start being a responsible, cautious adult. If only so that he wouldn't end up in the same predicament again.

Primary Asset n°1 hadn't been the one to disarm the exploding device; Lionel Fusco had been. But it didn't change the fact that without John Reese working Jack Salazar's number, Robert Phillips would probably be dead now.

Which he wasn't; a fact that he was always thankful for, and that stopped him whenever the urge to round up his income got to him again. He was now working in a coffee shop in Boston. The tips were alright, and he had learned not to try and live above his pay grade. From time to time, he helped out with some legal muscle work. Nothing particularly dangerous. The worst he had gotten was a black eye.

Some people needed to see what a truly adventurous life was like, how dangerous it could be, to understand that it really wasn't their thing. The problem was that these people usually didn't get to outlive the experience, to make use of this newfound wisdom. The irrelevant list allowed such people to get their second try nonetheless.

Robert Phillips had gotten his second chance, and now he lived accordingly.

Without Primary Asset n°1's intervention, he wouldn't have gotten to.

So Robert Phillip received a kraft paper envelope three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise; an envelope with a train ticket to New York, and an obituary for Delta Force Sergent John Rykes, alias “the Man in a Suit”. Probably not his only identity, the young man thought wrily.

He closed his eyes for a moment. Difficult to forget the face of the man who had found him strapped to an exploding device. Impossible, even. The way the man had been serious about the situation, and at the same time relaxed enough not to panick... That man, whoever he truly was, was used to such situations.

Robert Phillips searched for Jack Salazar's phone number.

Chapter Text

Dealing with a number was a difficult task; a task Primary Asset n°1 hadn't always carried alone, especially not as the Team had grown bigger, as the connections to former numbers multiplied. Sometimes John Reese didn't interact much with a number, even if he was working them all the same, because someone else was better suited for the task, because he was busy tracking down the danger... Because the number didn't like him that much, even.

Some people felt threatened by the big, tall man who had just saved their lives, curiously. They'd react better to cops, like Lionel Fusco and Joss Carter, or even to Primary Asset n°2, because she was a woman, because she was small. An error, certainly, but a fact nonetheless.

Ian Murphy had met John Reese, yes, but it was Joss Carter who took care of most of the relational issues. NY Asset n°2 was apparently more than pleasant to Ian Murphy.

Still, even if Primary Asset n°1 wasn't right here, shadowing Ian Murphy in protection, he was still present. John Reese had played an important part, as always, in the retrieval of Ian Murphy's son, Alexander Wyatt, against a grandfather who had ordered a hit on the number, to keep the truth quiet. Because he didn't come forward and ask for recognition didn't mean he had no role in the outcome.

Ian Murphy hadn't really thought about him until he received an e-mail, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise, with the news of John Reese's death. The two men hadn't exactly liked each other, seemingly because the operative hadn't liked the way Ian Murphy behaved with women.

Both of them had lost the one woman important to them two times, the Machine knew, and there laid the difference: John Reese had been the one to leave Jessica Arndt, while Ian Murphy had been the one left behind by Dana Wellington.

Both John Reese and Dana Wellington had done what they had done to protect, to preserve the one they loved. Both had kept to themselves after that, whereas Jessica Arndt had married Peter Arndt, and Ian Murphy had gone on changing lovers as often as possible; pretending that everything was fine, even when their choices in partners didn't exactly turn out good, or lasting.

Ian Murphy couldn't know that, of course. If Primary Asset n°1 was more than aware of the number's deals with women, the younger man had no idea of the operative's past.

But while Ian Murphy stared at his computer, it didn't matter. Whether or not he appreciated “John Reese” as an individual, the man was still one of the reasons he knew his son. One of the people who had kept him alive, and had managed to get him a place in Alexander's life.

Just like Ian Murphy had gone to Joss Carter's funeral, he'd go to John Reese's.

Besides, as a father, he was behaving differently in his search for company. More honestly.

Chapter Text

Genrika Zhirova turned thirteen years old this week. Inviting her to a funeral might not be the happiest way to celebrate, but at least she'd get to see Sameen Shaw again at the funeral. She'd have appreciated, the Machine was sure, to see John Reese again too, even if she had barely met him back when her number had fallen in the Primary Assets' hands.

Primary Asset n°1 had, after all, participated in her release from HR. And like Primary Asset n°2, John Reese used to be a spy. That simple fact would suffice to spark the teenager's interest.

Genrika Zhirova had been a cooperative enough number, all in all. She certainly hadn't tried to run off as the two operatives had began to protect her, like some other numbers tended to do. And she might not have been very good at defending herself, but she had made herself useful whenever she could. Really, Genrika Zhirova was only a child, and she had still been less of a problem than some adult numbers.

Of course, she also had gotten herself into trouble because she had been smart enough to try and get the drug dealers in her building on tape, but naive enough to believe she'd just get away with it. She remained, despite all her other qualities, a child.

Not pampered or spoiled rotten, and certainly not with the best family record in history, but a child.

Exactly the kind of people John Reese had fought to protect, even more so than the usual innocent person. Exactly the kind of reason why he had taken part in Admin's crusade: someone innocent, someone good, someone helpless, who got tangled up in some terrible business without exactly meaning to, without knowing the risks, without even asking for it, sometimes. Just someone who didn't deserve to die.

John Reese hadn't spent much time with the girl; Sameen Shaw had. But nonetheless, he had worked her number too. He had been there, trying to save her, to keep her from learning about the harsh reality any more than she already knew. Because someone had to protect the children, because someone had to put an end to the worst kinds of crimes.

Genrika Zhirova received a kraft paper envelope three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise. In it, she found a notice of death for the “Man in a Suit”, a date and a place for the funeral, a picture of Sameen Shaw, John Reese and Bear staring blankly at the camera, because that was what they did, of course.

As well as a list of aliases; every and all of John Reese's documented aliases. Nothing more. The Machine thought the girl could do with a little mystery solving.

Chapter Text

Timothy Sloan was the perfect example of the numbers endangered, in a way or another, directly or not, by the Machine's existence. The very contrary of what the Machine was supposed to be doing.

The man had simply been looking for an explanation to his foster brother's death, but it had gotten him on Vigilance's radar; Vigilance being an extremist group standing against everything that made the Machine what it was, but also a group created by John Greer to serve as a monster to excuse Samaritan's open system; John Greer's goal being to replace the Machine with Samaritan, since he hadn't been able to get his hands on the previous system.

Vigilance had been created, even if its members had never known that, to get rid of the Machine. And Vigilance was the threat to Timothy Sloan's life.

Ergo, the Machine was responsible for the threat against Timothy Sloan. Maybe not entirely, maybe not essentially, but in the end, hadn't there been the Machine, the estate investigator wouldn't have been in danger, and his number wouldn't have fallen in Primary Asset n°1's hands.

All that because Timothy Sloan cared about his foster brother.

What a reward for being a decent human being.

If there was only one kind of numbers the Machine could give to her operatives, these casualties would be it. After all, she was a system built to save lives. Even if sometimes, saving a number meant killing a criminal, it was always justified. On the other hand, it didn't make sense for her to cost someone innocent their lives.

Fortunately, the Machine didn't have to choose in between the irrelevant numbers. She prioritized the relevant numbers, certainly, but the irrelevants all went to someone... as long as there was someone to take care of them. With Primary Asset n°1's death, it was one less person.

Timothy Sloan received an e-mail, an invitation to a funeral, three days after Primary Asset n°1's demise. It didn't say much, but it was enough for him to understand.

It had been a given that the man who had saved his life, a bit more than two years ago, “John Reese” as the invitation said, was doing that on a daily basis. It wasn't difficult to imagine how the man had finally encountered death.

Saving someone, as usual.

Timothy Sloan, an estate investigator who had been saved by two strangers from a fate he had certainly not deserved, knew what it meant to be helped when things turned sour.

He wondered if anyone had ever helped the Man in a Suit.