It has been more than two years since Henry had revealed the secret of his immortality to Jo after she'd confronted him with the aged, black-and-white photograph of Abigail, baby Abe, and him. And more than two years since a confrontation that resulted in him rendering Adam, the twisted Immortal, helpless by placing him in a waking coma called Locked-in Syndrome.

Although the friendship between the Detective and the Immortal had grown stronger during that time period, it had not blossomed into anything romantic yet, much to the dismay of their co-workers who'd placed bets on when their dating life would begin. It wasn't that Henry hadn't felt romantically towards her. On the contrary, his romantic imaginings had begun to invade his waking moments beyond his dreams and he'd been very close to working up the nerve to ask her out. He'd wanted to make sure, though, that she felt the same about him. And, up until two months ago, he'd been pretty sure that she did. That is, until a certain FBI agent turned up and began to occupy her time both on and off the job. He felt that his position of her unofficial crime-solving partner had been usurped by this Agent Mark Fredrickson.

The FBI automatically investigates the injury or death of one of their agents, Fredrickson had told them when he'd first showed up and flashed his badge. Janeisha Trent had been such an agent. She'd met her demise in a most tragic but mysteriously familiar manner. A relatively healthy young woman in her late 20's, she'd died of a sudden heart attack while jogging in Hudson River Park. The agent's death was eerily similar to that of Sean Moore's, Jo's husband who had suffered a sudden heart attack while on a treadmill in Washington, D.C.

"I dunno, Doc. Agent Mark-ee-Mark didn't seem to make his case, as far as I'm concerned. Do you think their deaths are connected in some way?" Hanson asked Henry while they walked back into Henry's office in the morgue after a short meeting in Lt. Reece's office.

"Mark-ee ... ? Henry frowned and drew in a quick breath and let it out through his nose. How he wished these professionals he worked with would refrain from peppering their language with so much of this modern slang. It was growing more and more difficult to keep up with it and respond intelligently to them.

"I presume you are referring to Agent Mark Fredrickson; he voiced his assumptions in a very convincing manner." He walked behind his desk and stood to face Hanson. He looked over Hanson's shoulder, frowning.

"Where's Jo?" As if he didn't know.

"You're askin' me?" Hanson said, surprised and pointing to himself. "I guess that makes two of us not bein' able to keep tabs on her lately."

"Why, whatever do you mean by that, Detective?" Henry asked as innocently as he could and sat down in his chair.

"Oh, c'mon, Doc," Hanson replied. "Ever since this joker showed up with his deck of cards, Jo's the only one he's been dealin' to."

"Detective ... " More colloquialisms, he woefully told himself, but at least he understood his colleague's frustration. They were the same as his own.

"When was the last time you and she ran down a lead together?" Hanson asked, trying to make his point. "Yeah, that's what I thought," he said, nodding his head when Henry failed to respond.

"In her defense, the Lieutenant did order all of us to cooperate fully with the agent," Henry reminded him. Although it seemed odd that if the two deaths were connected that would mean that Jo should not be involved with either case. He became aware of Hanson's voice mirroring his own thoughts.

"Doesn't make sense," the black-haired Detective began. "Proper procedure is for Jo not to be involved even with the Trent case if it's connected to Sean's."

"I suppose ... if they do uncover anything that connects the two deaths, she will be pulled off the investigation at that point," Henry suggested.

"Why didn't you hold onto her, Doc?" Hanson seemed to plead, spreading his hands. "Thought you guys were kinda ... " He twirled his index fingers around each other. "You know." His hands and his face fell at the same time. "Or, at least, gettin' there."

"Detective ... " Henry sighed, closing his eyes and rubbing his hand across his forehead.

"Mike. Mike," he repeated more forcefully when Henry snapped his head up to look at him.

"You call me Detective all the time. Even Jo and Lucas get a first name outta ya - "

"Right. Right," Henry nodded with a slight smile. "Mike." His smile broadened at Mike's satisfied grin. "And I'm satisfied that you and most everyone else refer to me as 'Doc' instead of 'Henry'."

Mike rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and then shot a piercing glare at Henry. "Gotcha. But Jo, Doc," he virtually whined. "How could you let this creep move you out of her life like that? If it was me and Karen," he said, pointing his thumb back at himself, "I'd have belted him into next week! Movin' in on MY GIRL!"

"Detec - Mike." Henry sighed and motioned for him to sit down in one of the chairs facing his desk, which he did.

"In spite of popular opinion that seems to run rampant throughout the 11th Precinct and the Morgue, Jo and I were never romantically involved." Mike opened his mouth to say something but Henry put up a hand, cutting him off.

"We're colleagues. Partners. Friends. Nothing more." He pressed his lips together and raised his eyebrows and more quietly added, "Besides, she moved me out of her life." He took in a breath and blew it out through his mouth.

"Her life ... her choice," he said with more than a bit of resignation in his voice. "Nothing I can do about it."

"Nothing you can ... ? Doc!" Mike nearly yelled. "Have you ever had your neck wrung?!"

Henry stared at Mike for a few moments and fought the urge to reply that actually, he had. About 120 years ago.

"What would you have me do?" His own frustration was creeping into his voice. And more than a little bit of ... jealousy at the thought of Jo and Fredrickson cuddling together 'in a booth, in the back, in the corner, in the dark', as Abe had once proposed.

"Fight for her, that's what you do!" Mike hissed. "Look, Doc, I ain't no matchmaker but if I was," he raised a finger and leaned toward Henry, "you and Jo would be perfect for each other." He straightened up and prepared to stand.

"Well, maybe not perfect, but certainly a great match." He stood up and buttoned the top button on his suit coat.

Henry suppressed a smile, licking the inside of his lower lip. "Not to feed my own ego, but Fredrickson certainly doesn't seem to be her type."

"It's almost like he's got sumpin' on her," Mike grunted.

"Or perhaps she has something on him," Henry countered.

"You mean like she's sniffing out a lead on her own?" Both men's heads were riveted to the voice that came from the office's open door.

"Lucas!" They both shouted.

"Sorry," Lucas apologized, hands up in a defensive posture. He walked further into Henry's office and stopped near Mike. "I couldn't help but hear. A-a-and I totally ship Jenry."

Henry and Mike exchanged looks. Mike's, of amusement; Henry's, of confusion. They then turned their attention back to Lucas.

"A great romantic coupling. Jenry. You squish 'Jo' and 'Henry' together and you get - " Lucas' last words were cut off by Henry.

"Jenry," he finished for him, nodding. He eyed Lucas and wearily replied, "Very clever, Lucas." Inwardly, though, he smiled and couldn't help but feel validated about his thoughts and concerns regarding Jo and the overbearing federal agent. A man she appeared to have fallen for almost immediately after having met him. But had she? Was she baiting the man in for ... for ... for what? Revenge? If he had anything to do with Sean's death, Henry most certainly could understand her want, her need to exact revenge on the person who may have been responsible for her late husband's death. But he knew that she was not a vengeful person, neither was she given to rash behavior that might jeopardize her job as a respected and highly efficient Detective with the NYPD. Henry stood up from his desk and came closer to Mike and Lucas, clasping his hands in front of him.

"Since it seems to be the general consensus that the lady detective and I should be a couple - "

"C'mon, spit it out, Doc," Mike unceremoniously urged him. "Ya gonna fight for her or what?"

Lucas nodded and pointed a finger at Mike as if to show that he was in complete agreement.

"I shall."

Mike and Lucas gave simultaneous whoops from their two-man cheering section but sobered and nodded enthusiastically at Henry's next words.

"But I'm going to need your help," he added, dipping his head to one, then the other.

vvvv

"I'm sorry, could you please repeat that," Abe jokingly asked with one hand bending the back of his ear forward in his father's direction. It was his reaction to having been told that a fight was brewing in the Morgan camp to wrest Jo's affections back from the much disliked FBI Agent Mark Fredrickson.

Henry shook his head and turned, following the waitperson to their table at Ravi's, a new delicatessen reportedly competing with the legendary Katz's. Abe followed closely behind and they sat in one of the booths near the large window with a street view. While they waited to be served, Henry shared what he had discussed with Mike and Lucas earlier that day.

"Grrr-reat!" Abe happily replied. "Sounds like a plan. Uh ... you do have a plan, right? Other than turning on that everlasting charm of yours?" He'd almost let drop 'Immortal charm' but he'd caught himself at the last second, seeing as how they were in a public place.

"Your enthusiastic support pleases me. However ... I haven't the foggiest on how to proceed," he admitted, clenching his teeth and grimacing.

"This is something that I've never had to experience: fighting for the affections of the woman I lo - " He stopped suddenly and looked wide-eyed at his son, blinking, then swallowed.

"Of the ... wo-man ... you ... " Abe prompted him, slowly circling his hand, beckoning the end of the sentence from Henry's lips.

"Abe," Henry chided him, slightly embarrassed. "You're impossible sometimes."

Their sandwich orders with delicious-looking pastrami piled high between soft, sourdough buns were placed in front of them by their server. They waited until the server left before resuming their conversation.

"Spank me later," Abe deadpanned. "The sooner you say it, the better."

Henry knew that Abe was right. He was always right concerning these matters of the heart. He gave in with a deep but quick sigh.

"I love her. I do."

"Good," Abe said. He cut his sandwich in half and muttered that it should have been served that way in the first place. "Now. Got the first three words out in the open, gotta get you and Jo to those last two words."

Henry stopped chewing, momentarily, on the first bite of his sandwich, then continued. After swallowing, he said, "I take it back that you are sometimes impossible. You're incorrigible!"

"OK, that's me. We're talking about you and Jo, though." He ignored his father's reproof and asked for more details on how or if the death of Sean Moore was connected to Janeisha Trent.

vvvv

Two months before ...

The lifeless body of a young, African-American woman lay sprawled face up and eyes open at the base of a street light near the end of Pier 25 in Hudson River Park. The anguished grimace on her face was still showing and her right hand lay across her chest as if she'd been clutching it through her blue hoodie right before dying.

"Name's Janeisha Trent, FBI Agent. We've notified them, they're sending their people over, and someone will meet us at the precinct."

"Not a robbery," Mike continued. "Jewelry, money, credit cards, cell phone not taken." He held the items up packed in smaller plastic bags inside of a larger one. He then squatted down and pointed to her expensive running shoes.

"Burberry; $375." He stood back up. "I know because my wife's sister, Gayle, has a pair just like 'em. And she's been buggin' me ever since she saw 'em for me to get her a pair. On my salary," he scoffed.

"There's always layaway," Jo smirked.

"You're not helpin'," he replied dryly.

"So good to see that you two can still find the humor in all of this." Henry approached and exchanged greetings with them while putting on a pair of blue, latex gloves. He then knelt down on one knee and braced his arm on his other knee as he examined the woman's body.

"Witnesses say she runs here couple times a week. Today, she just seemed to crumple all of a sudden and fall here. Heart attack, right, Doc?" Mike asked hopefully.

"All I can tell you, Detective, is that I see the results of a myocardial event." He tilted his head to the side, his eyes roaming over her body. "Not any detrimental physical evidence of what may have led up to it."

"So, murder?" Jo asked, glancing at Mike, then back at Henry.

"I must examine the body further before answering that question, Detective."

Just then, the dead woman's cell phone buzzed.

"Still on," Mike said, holding up the plastic bag. He fished it out of the bag with a glove and swiped it to open it but it didn't work.

"One of those new phones with facial recognition." Mike huffed out a sigh of defeat. He caught Jo's drift, though, when she motioned to the phone and then down to the woman's body on the ground.

"Yeah, worth a try." Mike bent down and placed the phone directly in front of the corpse's face and that did the trick. Laughing with an a-ha-ha, he was able to get into the phone and retrieve her text messages.

"Last text was from someone using the name StrangerDanger." Mike read the text: "Hv u tkn ur vits 2day?" Mike and Henry both frowned at the message but Jo quickly tensed and stared off into the river waters.

"Maybe somebody reminding her to take her vitamins?" Mike speculated.

"Or maybe somebody making sure that she already had," Henry offered. Not having heard anything from Jo, he looked over to see her turned away from them, apparently trying to hide the fact that she was visibly shaken. Before he could say anything to her, Mike asked if she was all right.

"Um, yeah, yeah, fine." But she didn't look fine to either of them. She looked pale and upset; reminiscent of when she'd viewed a videotape of her late husband, Sean, interrogating Aaron Brown before he'd wound up as a murder victim. She quickly walked away and told Mike that she would meet him back in the bullpen. The two men exchanged looks of concern then Mike left to head back to the bullpen, too. Luckily, he had driven his own assigned police car over. Henry watched their retreating forms and then supervised the transport of the woman's body to the morgue. He wondered what could have caused Jo to suddenly appear so unsettled. One puzzle at a time, he told himself, as the van pulled up to the morgue and into a parking space.

vvvv

Notes:

References to "Forever TV show episode "Diamonds Are Forever".

Information about cell phones with facial recognition and Hudson River Park found on YouTube.