Terra Incognita Continuatio

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Disclaimer: The characters of Person of Interest don't belong to me. I'm just borrowing them with no intention of gaining any profit.

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Acknowledgements: Huge thanks to BullDemon for the beta. All mistakes left are all my own.

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Author's note:I think I wasn't the only one who felt that the ending of that episode was just way too abrupt. Well, I guess this is what I think happened after the episode ended - or at least what I would have loved to see. Enjoy.

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Part One

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Fusco had been sitting at his desk at the precinct for the last hour and a half with his eyes alternating between staring at the empty desk of his partner and checking the face of his wrist watch. Tapping out a soft, nervous rhythm with his fingers on his desk, he eventually made up his mind, got up and went over to Riley's desk. He knew he'd be in a world of trouble if Mr. Pleasant were to make an appearance now while he was snooping through his desk. However during the last couple of hours with no word from his partner and an increasingly worried-sounding Professor, Fusco had all but convinced himself that Reese had managed to get into trouble. Serious trouble.

After a cursory glance over the neatly kept desktop hadn't revealed any clues to his partner's whereabouts, he sat down and started to open and browse through John's desk drawers. He hit paydirt on the last one. Extracting the brown file folder form the depths of the drawer, Lionel laid it on the desk in front of him. Even though he hadn't worked the Patterson homicide back in 2009 he still remembered some bits and pieces of it, but not much. He regarded the folder's cover for a few moments, his eyes hovering over his dead partner's name. An unwelcomed sense of foreboding made a shiver run down Fusco's spine. He knew that it could take hours to catch up and sort through all of the information, and something told him John didn't have that much time. Still he opened the folder and leafed through its contents, hoping that something would jump out at him.

Fusco didn't know how long he had been engrossed in the file when his cell phone rang. Taking it out of his coat pocket, he put it to his ear without checking to see who was calling. He already knew.

"You heard from him?" Fusco asked, forgoing any greeting.

"I'm afraid not," Finch replied with a somber tone. Lionel leaned into the chair's backrest, exhaling heavily. Damn.

"However I was able to locate the cell tower that last pinged John's cell signal. I was hoping you may have an idea where he might have been headed."

At first Lionel had not the faintest idea what Reese had been up to in such a remote area when Finch told him the position of the tower. But then something in the detective's mind clicked. "Wait," he said and started to leaf through the stack of papers in the folder again. He knew there was something he had read not too long ago that would help them connect the dots. There. He vigorously tapped a spot on the paper in front of him. "The Pattersons - they own a cabin about 20 miles north of that tower." Fusco heard a sharp intake of breath and he knew that the Professor and he were thinking the same thing. He was already out of the chair and briskly walking towards the exit when Finch asked, "You think that's where John went?"

"I would bet my pension on it. I'm heading out there right now."

There was a rustling on the line, then the sound of muffled voices. After a few seconds Finch was back on with determination in his voice. "I'm coming with you, Detective."

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The majority of the drive towards the Patterson's cabin was spent in tense silence, except for Finch giving occasional directions. Even Cuckoo Puffs, who shared the backseat with Bear, was quietly staring out the car window. Usually she seemed to never miss an opportunity to belittle Reese, and her silence now only disconcerted Lionel even more.

They had been driving through the middle of nowhere for more than half an hour and Fusco was beginning to worry that they were getting lost. The forest around them was so dark that without the lights of the Crown Vic's high beams reflecting off the snow, you wouldn't be able to see your own hand in front of your face.

"There should be a road branching off to the right in a few hundred yards," Finch said from the passenger seat with his eyes glued to his laptop screen. "The Patterson's cabin should be at the end of it."

"You sure?" Fusco asked, throwing a quick glance sideways before concentrating back on the icy roads. The dashboard's temperature indicator read a 'snug' -13 °F outside temperature and he hoped to God that Reese wasn't wandering around out there somewhere - for both their sakes.

Finch threw him a look. "Yes, I'm sure. Did you think we were lost, Detective?"

"No," Lionel lied. "It just feels like this road is going to end any second now. Why would anyone want to build a house so far off the beaten track that not even the tax collector would find it?"

"I think you've just answered your own question, Lionel," came Root's voice from the backseat. Fusco's eyes cut to the rear view mirror. She was still staring out the window and what was going through her head was anyone's guess. "It's so remote not even She can hear or see."

Finch stiffly twisted his upper body to look at Root with an unreadable expression and Lionel's eyebrows wrinkled in confusion, but he had long ago given up trying to make sense of anything that came out of Fruit Loop's mouth. His eyes went back to the road and indeed they were approaching a road branching off to the right.

"How far to the house?" Lionel asked after he'd taken the turn.

"A couple of minutes," replied Finch. He closed his laptop and folded his hands on top of it. Sitting ramrod-straight, he stared unblinkingly ahead through the windshield, both eager to finally get to the cabin and afraid of what they might find when they got there.

They followed the curvy road for what that felt like hours. When they finally rounded the last bend, Finch was leaning into the seatbelt, hoping to see signs that his worry had been unfounded. The cabin loomed in front of them - the lights from the inside throwing distorted patterns on the snow around it. The headlights of their car illuminated a silver Mercedes parked in the driveway, and Harold's breath caught in his throat.

He immediately recognized the figure slummed behind the wheel of the Mercedes. He had his door open before the detective had brought the car to a complete standstill and, ignoring both Fusco's and Ms. Grove's pleas to wait, Finch limped as fast as he could towards Mr. Reese.

John didn't seem to move at all and the sense of foreboding that had been plaguing Harold since he first couldn't reach his partner was getting so strong that it made him physically ill. Please no.

The driver's side window looked like it was covered in a spiderweb of cracks, with a circular hole at its center and Finch - with an ever sinking feeling - immediately knew what had caused it. Oh, please no.

"John," he said desperately as he pulled open the door, sounding out of breath even though he had only walked a couple of feet. Finch froze. Reese looked ... dead. The headlights of Fusco's car were illuminating John's face in an eerie light - his skin looked too pale and his lips too blue.

Harold just stood there, still frozen to the spot. His breath was forming thick clouds in the air in front of him. He knew that he should be able to see John's breath, but he couldn't. He kept staring at the still form, thinking, This can't be happening. Not like this. And no matter how much he thought that he'd been preparing himself for the next inevitable loss, he now realized that he wasn't prepared at all. He couldn't lose yet another friend.

"I told her that you would come," John's voice was so soft that over the sound of his heavy breathing and the footsteps of Fusco and Ms. Groves in the snow, Finch almost didn't hear it. He still wasn't sure if he hadn't been imagining it, but then Mr. Reese's head turned slightly and his glassy eyes looked up at him - a ghost of a smile playing on his lips.

"Thank God," Harold breathed, but his joy at finding Mr. Reese alive didn't last long. Why the hell is he sitting out in the freezing cold?

"Is he alright?" Fusco asked from behind Harold with his gun drawn, acting as the Professor's shield. Ms. Groves was standing to the side, also with her gun drawn and taking cover behind a tree, reminding Finch that they were still in a potentially dangerous situation. The hacker swallowed, but refused to allow his mind to focus on anything but his friend in front of him. John didn't look alright.

"Are you injured, Mr. Reese?"

The ex-op's eyes closed and he exhaled heavily before barely nodding his head. He tried moving his left hand, but his strength was rapidly leaving his frozen body. He knew that the cold had so far been his life-saver, as it had slowed down the bleeding. But the signs of his hypothermia reaching life-threatening levels were very rapidly multiplying. Now that help had finally arrived it was just so tempting to stop fighting and just give in to the darkness beckoning at the edges of his vision.

John let his head fall back against the headrest. He felt Finch bending over him, lifting his coat and taking a sharp breath at the sight of the right side of his white dress shirt drenched in blood.

"Dear Lord," Harold whispered, his shaking hands undoing the buttons of John's shirt.

The darkness kept creeping in more and more, and his eyelids got so heavy that it was a struggle for John to keep them open. But there was something he needed to tell them, if only he could remember.

Fusco leaned back in order to be able to look around the Professor and cursed when he saw the state his partner was in. The detective could see that Reese was struggling to stay awake. "How many shooters?" he asked. He knew that answering his questions would most likely sap the injured man's last remaining energy, but Reese was the only one who could provide them with vital information about what happened here.

"One," John rasped, grimacing as Harold pressed down on the hole in his shoulder. Even breathing was starting to get difficult. "He's dead."

Fusco relaxed. He had seen the dead body in the snow a few feet up along the walkway cleared through the snow. "Anyone else?"

Reese started to shake his head. Even though his mind was as foggy as a fall morning he knew that - although Carter's presence had felt real enough and had helped him to make it this far - she had only been a figment of his mind. But then he remembered the Patterson kid. "Chase."

"Chase Patterson?" Fusco asked. He looked around but didn't see any signs of a third person being outside in the snow. And since he apparently hadn't come to help Reese that could only mean he wasn't in any condition to do so. They needed to find him, asap. "He still in the cabin?"

John nodded. "Overdose."

Fusco ordered Bear to stay put with the Professor and Reese, while he and Cuckoo Puffs went up to the cabin in hopes of finding Chase Patterson still among the living.

Using the handkerchief from his breast pocket, Finch did his best to slow the bleeding by pressing it as hard as he could against the hole in John's shoulder. He was having a hard time keeping his panic at bay. There was just so much blood. And John's body felt frigid.

"I'm sorry," Harold said as John pressed his eyes closed and grunted in pain. Reese forced his eyelids open and regarded Finch's face mere inches from his own. There were deep lines of worry on his friend's face and fear radiated off of him in almost palpable waves.

"It's okay," John said, his voice just above a whisper. "I'm okay."

"I beg to differ." The heat of Harold's hand pressed over his wound seeped into John's skin, slowly starting to spread. He shivered. "Just hold on, Mr. Reese. We'll get you out of here."

John just kept looking at Finch with his eyelids drooping and uncontrolled, violent shivers running through his body. They had come for him. Even though he hadn't told them where he was going, they still had gone looking for him. And that's when he realized that Carter had been right and that he had been wrong. He wasn't alone, and even in the end he wouldn't have to be.

John closed his eyes. He wanted to reassure Finch that everything was going to be okay, but he felt the last of his energy rapidly depleting. He couldn't keep the darkness at bay anymore and his head limply fell forward. "Mr. Reese?" Harold asked, his alarm growing. With one hand keeping the pressure on the ex-op's wound, he used his other to slightly shake the man's uninjured shoulder. "Mr. Reese!"

There was no response and Finch's blood-slicked hand lifted John's head to the side and groped along his throat - desperate to find a pulse. He breathed in relief when he found one - weak, but still there. They were running out of time.

He looked up at the sound of footsteps in the snow and saw Fusco and Ms. Groves, carrying an unconscious Chase Patterson between them. Whatever had happened here that night they'd have to find out later. At the moment getting John and Mr. Patterson medical attention was definitely taking priority. And one look at Fusco's and Ms. Groves' faces let him know that he would not have to argue with them.

Within five minutes they had both injured men transferred to the backseat of Fusco's car and were back on their way to civilization as fast as the slippery roads allowed. It was a tight fit, with Root wedged in the middle of the unconscious men, having taken up Harold's job of keeping pressure on John's wound, and Harold sharing the leg space of the passenger front seat with Bear.

Holding out his cell phone with one hand in hopes of seeing the first reception bars to appear on its display, Harold held on to the passenger side door for dear life while Fusco navigated the curvy back roads. He almost cheered when his phone chirped, letting him know that it had finally logged on to the nearest cell tower. He immediately started to dial.

"Who are you calling?" Root asked from the backseat.

"A doctor," Finch replied. "Who hopefully won't mind that I won't be able to pay him as handsomely as before."

Fusco shot the Professor an incredulous glance. "They don't need a doctor. They need an entire trauma team." He returned his eyes to the road. "Besides, we don't need to use your emergency back-up plan. Detective Riley got shot in the line of duty. I'll call it in and I'll be taking him to the nearest hospital. You two, on the other hand, were never here."

Finch was about to object when he realized that the detective was actually right. This improved his calculations about the probabilities of John's and Mr. Patterson's survival immensely. He twisted his upper body to take a look at the men on the backseat. He couldn't see Mr. Patterson as he was sitting right behind his seat. But he had to swallow when he saw his own bloody handprints on John's slack face in stark contrast to his extreme pallor. Now he only needed the confidence that they were going to get them to the hospital in time.

He turned around again, fishing his laptop out from between his legs. There wasn't much he could do for either man at the moment, but he would make sure that Detective Fusco was indeed taking them on the fastest route to the hospital closest to them.

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Twenty minutes later Finch had directed the detective towards the nearest town with a medical institution. He, Bear and Ms. Groves had gotten out of the car at one of the town's gas station and they were now watching the rear lights of the detective's Crown Vic rapidly grow smaller as Fusco sped the last few miles towards the hospital.

Harold didn't like having to leave Mr. Reese out of his sight, but he'd just have to rely on the detective to keep him posted about his condition. Harold sighed. Maybe Mr. Reese getting shot could not have been avoided, but he definitely could have received help a lot sooner if he had only let him know where he was going. They both had always tried to keep their distance - each for their own personal reasons - but when had they stopped actually talking to each other?

Although he couldn't put the blame solely on Mr. Reese. Hadn't he also kept his activities in regards to the Trojan Horse he tried to plant inside Samaritan's system to himself? They were supposed to be a team, but lately their capacity for teamwork seemed to be lacking. He vowed right there that as soon as John was feeling better - and he was going to get better - they would have to have a talk.

Root placed a hand on his shoulder and said, "Don't worry, Harold. He's going to be alright."

Finch looked at her. She had actually sounded sincere, and for once her usually carefree expression was replaced with earnestness. "I thought you didn't really care for him."

Root shrugged, a smile playing around her lips. "I guess he grows on you."

Finch nodded. Indeed he does.

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To be continued...

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Reviews will be highly appreciated!