Chapter Text
The whistle of the tea kettle roused Henry from slumber, and he smiled. He was alive, he'd neatly dispatched his nemesis, and Jo was none the wiser. He fairly bounced out of bed, though it was just six a.m., pulling on a blue button-down and a comfortable but fitted pair of trousers and one of his favorite scarves—the blue paisley that people often said brought out his eyes. He needed to look his best, after all. He had an important errand to run.
When he entered the kitchen, Abe was already there, as expected, sipping a cup of coffee while reading the paper. Henry helped himself to the tea in the center of the table, warm in its cozy. "What are you up for this morning?" Abe asked, not looking up. "Eggs? Toast? A full English breakfast?"
Henry lifted his head with surprise. "I haven't eaten one of those in many years, Abraham. I'm not sure I'm in the mood for baked beans or back bacon, at any rate."
Abe set down his cup. "Eh, no skin off my back. You just came in humming and happy and I figured you might be hungry, too." He rose from his seat and headed for the stove.
"Humming?" He hadn't realized it. Whatever song it was had already faded from memory. "Hmm. But I'm not particularly hungry. Toast will be fine this morning."
Abe nodded absently and popped a couple of slices into the toaster. "Going to visit Adam?" His voice was carefully devoid of tone, and Henry chose to ignore it. They'd already had words about his choice on the banks of the East River.
"I've narrowed it down to two possible hospitals that received John Does yesterday evening. Once I discover his current condition, I can determine my next steps." Henry glanced at the clock. It was still early, but he was feeling impatient. As if the toaster knew his thoughts, the slices of bread popped up. Henry swigged down the last of his tea, rose from the table and plucked a hot slice from over Abe's shoulder. "I think I'll take this to go this morning." Better to avoid the sidelong looks.
He'd guessed the hospital correctly on the first try. He'd pretended to be a concerned bystander who had seen the man collapse on the street. He wouldn't identify Adam as Lewis Farber—the wife and kids from the photos might be real enough to know the truth as Abe did. Adam might be back on the street to torment Henry before the day was out. As he watched Adam's face for signs of playacting, he listened to the doctor describe locked-in syndrome, reacting with mild surprise and concern. And when the doctor had left, he'd sarcastically promised Adam an eternity together.
He caught himself humming again when he was leaving the hospital. What was the tune? Something from the nineteenth century? Perhaps a symphonic melody or an opera aria… No, it was gone again. No matter, the day was young. Later, Jo would call with a new case and he could go on with his twenty-first century life without the specter of Adam's threats hanging over him.
So to find himself an hour later face to face with Jo holding a photo of Henry, Abigail and little Abe from the 1940s was quite disconcerting. "I was hoping you could explain it to me," she had said.
The floor beneath him seemed to drop away, and his face went slack. After everything he'd done to prevent Adam from revealing his secret to Jo—somehow she was on its trail after all. He meant to tell her someday, maybe soon, she deserved that. She had crept into his heart, and she meant more to him than just a colleague, more than just a friend. But he wasn't ready. He needed time to tell her, the right way.
And where had she gotten the photo? From Adam? Was it his backup plan in case the pistol had failed? He took the photo from her, at a loss for words. What could he say?
Suddenly Abe was there at his elbow. "Tell her." Unspoken was the argument they'd had at the river. "If Jo knows, then Adam has nothing to hold over you. You keep him a prisoner in his own body, then who knows what he'll do when he eventually escapes!"
He turned to look at Abe, who nodded. He was so sure that Jo was ready to hear the truth.
But was she? Trapped between Abe's encouragement and Jo's expectant face, he found himself saying, "It's a long story."
He gestured for Jo to step into the shop, mind whirling. What could he say? Should he really tell her the truth? Just when he'd decided it could wait? He took another glance at Abe, who had gone ahead to pull out a chair for Jo. "Get you some coffee? Tea?" Abe certainly thought it was time.
But Abe hadn't lived through rejections and sanitariums and jails and witchcraft trials… he was a child of the twentieth century, and had fully embraced the twenty-first. Jo sat in the proffered chair, expectant and aggressively curious, much as she often looked while sitting across the table from suspects in a case. Henry could feel a sweat coming on, and he wasn't even sitting yet.
"This photo," he began, not waiting for Abe to return, "it looks like it came from the 1940s, yes?"
"It does." She held out her hand for the photo again. "But that's impossible, isn't it?" It was the sort of question that invited further explanation.
Henry chuckled and asked a question in return, a habit he'd long learned to use to deflect suspicion. "How could I possibly be in a photo that old?"
She didn't back down. "And with Abe's mother, no less?"
Henry caught himself before he could react. Of course Jo knew that was Abigail. Abe and he had never hidden her photos around the shop, and Jo had been privy to the recent inquiry into Abigail's death in the 1980s (though she still didn't know the shocking parts of it).
"Is that Abe in the photo? The little boy?" she asked.
"Sure is," Abe said, walking in with a tray and setting it on a table. Henry kept his disappointment from showing. He'd been hoping to come up with a logical explanation without Abe frowning his disapproval. "Mom and Pop looked so happy in that photo. It's one of my favorites."
Jo nodded as if pieces of a puzzle were clicking together in her mind. "So this,"—she pointed at Henry—"is your father?"
Abe opened his mouth, suddenly seeming to realize that maybe the truth wasn't completely out yet. "Uh," he began, rubbing the back of his head with a hand. "Yeah. Just after we moved to New York."
"Hmm," she said. eyes still on the photo. "That makes a lot of sense."
Henry waited, not willing to help her revelation along. If she came up with the truth, Abe would support it. But there was a chance that she would not…
"Of course she took to you, Henry. You look so much like her late husband." Jo set down the photo. "I've heard of doppelgangers before, but that is just uncanny."
Henry relaxed and Abe frowned behind Jo's shoulder. "They say everyone has one," Henry agreed mildly.
Jo picked up the cup Abe had poured for her and sipped, completely oblivious to the thunderstorm brewing on her host's face. "Do you have any more photos, Abe? I'd love to see how far the similarity runs."
The clouds cleared from Abe's face and he started to smile, a wicked smile that promised nothing good. "I've got a whole box full of 'em," he said, standing. "But it's a little heavy. You want to help me carry it down, Henry?"
That couldn't have been a clearer we're-going-to-have-words-Pop if Abe had said it aloud. Henry cleared his throat. "Well, certainly, I would be happy to, but—"
Jo's cell phone rang in her pocket.
She grimaced and answered it with a short, "Martinez." Henry couldn't hear what was being said, and to be frank, couldn't really pay attention to her reactions because of the series of massively annoyed faces Abe was pulling behind her back. She ended the call. "There's a body. Washed up at the river. Henry, you in? We can look at the photos later."
"Yes, I'd love to come." He walked a couple of steps to the coat rack to grab his overcoat and scarf. "There's plenty of time to look at old photos."
"All the time in the world," Abe said, tone flat and sarcastic. Henry avoided catching his eyes. He'd catch hell enough when he got home this evening.
"Great," Jo said, not picking up on it. "My car is just around the corner."
Henry was never so glad for the sound of the shop bell ringing behind him.
The whistle of the tea kettle roused Henry from slumber, and he cringed. Normally, it was nice to have that familiar sound as his alarm clock, Abe up before him at six a.m. as usual. But Abe would be quite unhappy with him this morning. It was going to be a tense breakfast.
Yesterday's case had taken the rest of the day, with he and Jo working angles until late in the evening. By the time he came home, Abe was already in bed, a note about leftovers in the refrigerator if Henry wanted them. He was happy that Abe wasn't awake—but he wasn't proud of that. He'd pushed a little harder on the case than usual, and they'd solved it by midnight. Apparent suicide by jumping from a bridge turned out to be poison, which led back to a disgruntled coworker.
So though he'd gone to bed relieved and feeling content at not having to tell the truth another day, he found himself tiptoeing down the hall to the kitchen. Get a hold of yourself, Henry. Abraham is your son, and you are a grown man, capable of making your own decisions. He will have to accept that. He took a deep breath, and strode into the kitchen.
"What are you up for this morning?" Abe asked, not looking up. "Eggs? Toast? A full English breakfast?"
Henry paused on the way to the tea in its cozy. Why had Abraham chosen those exact words? "I'm still not in the mood for an English breakfast today, just like I wasn't yesterday." He didn't mean the words to come out sounding so peevish, but there it was.
Abe put down his newspaper. "Okay…" He frowned and stood, walking slowly toward the stove. "I'm not sure how I was supposed to know that. Sure, we've lived together for a lot of my seventy years, but I've never been a mindreader."
Henry sat, annoyed. Clearly Abe intended to punish him for yesterday. "Make me whatever you want, Abraham." He lifted the teapot and poured a little more quickly than usual, and the brownish liquid sloshed over the side of his china cup. "You'd be much happier if I just did what you wanted, anyway."
Abe turned around then with a huff, leaning against the counter. "Is this about yesterday?" He shook his head. "Sounds like someone's got a guilty conscience."
That was it. He stood, petulant but not caring. "I know you don't agree with my choice. Or many of my choices lately, but they are mine, and I'm sticking with them." He snatched his overcoat and scarf from the rack and started putting them on. "I'll get my own breakfast, thank you."
Just before he reached the stairs, he heard, "Going to visit Adam?"
He stopped. Swiveling slowly to face Abraham, he pierced his son with a narrow look. "Perhaps I am." Then he continued down the stairs, out of the shop, and out onto the street.
Of course, he wasn't. There was no need to go visit Adam, when things were exactly the same as yesterday. He would be dealing with locked-in syndrome until someone decided to release him, which could be decades, considering that hospital staffs turned over employees quickly enough that no one would really notice his never-aging appearance. To visit him again today would be gloating, and even Henry wasn't that unnecessarily cruel.
He didn't really even know where to go for breakfast, since most mornings he ate with Abe. The diner that Abigail and he had often visited after a night shift was long closed. Where did Jo go in the mornings? She often had a to-go cup from one of those ubiquitous coffee and pastry shops. It would probably be in her own neighborhood, or near the precinct…
It was only after raising his hand to flag down a taxi that he stopped himself. Why should he travel for blocks or even miles to get a cup of overpriced coffee and processed-sugar-filled pastry? As much as he wanted to see Jo, there was no rush. He would see Jo the moment there was a case to solve. If he was planning on making himself sick, he could do it somewhere much nearer by. So he began to stroll, humming to himself. There was a coffee shop about a block down, around the corner.
He stopped again. There was that humming. What was the tune? And why was it plaguing him so? He shook his head and kept walking, blessedly tune-free.
She looked up as he walked in. Jo, sitting at a table with a white porcelain cup, not her usual hastily-grabbed paper one. Her eyes went wide in recognition, and after a small pause, she smiled and waved him over. "Henry!"
So he had just considered breakfasting in her neighborhood, but Jo was actually here, in his. He willed his heart to calm. "Jo, what a pleasant surprise. What are you doing in 'our neck of the woods,' as they say?"
"Well, I… was actually coming to visit you." She gestured for him to take a seat, adjusting her personal items on the side of the table, and then went on, "I wasn't sure how early you'd be up and about."
He gave his order to a waitress who appeared and then he removed his overcoat. "If it is about a new case, you could have simply called."
"It's not about a case." She lifted her cup and took a long swallow. "I was hoping to have a little more time to work up my courage, but…" She sighed. "Here goes." She shuffled through her things again and then brought out his pocket watch on her open palm. "I think this is yours."
Henry's mouth opened and closed in confusion. How could he have lost it again so quickly—and without having died first? But he couldn't remember placing it into his waistcoat this morning, he'd been so worried about what Abe was going to say. "You must think me completely absent-minded. I'm sorry. Did I leave it on your desk?"
"No…" she said. "I found it somewhere highly unusual. The subway."
"The subway?" Henry sat back, flummoxed. He hadn't been near the subway yesterday. How was that possible? Had someone stolen it and then dropped it there? "I'm afraid I don't know how it got there, Detective. Perhaps I should dust it for prints…"
Jo shook her head. "That's not necessary. Only yours—and mine, now—are on it." Curious that she knew that without a doubt. "I also…" She reached into her breast pocket and pulled out a photo. "...found this."
As she passed it over, Henry was struck with a powerful sense of déjà vu. It was the same photo as yesterday, the one he swore was now safely hidden in the keepsake box in the back of his closet. Had she made a copy of it before bringing it yesterday morning? And then somehow distressed and aged it? To what purpose? He found himself at a complete loss for words.
"I was hoping you could explain it to me."
When he finally recovered enough to look at her, she was sitting patiently, tapping a finger on the side of her coffee cup. "I… I don't understand," he said. "I thought I explained…"
"Explained what?" She frowned. "I've only had this photo a little while, and I think I'd remember if you explained why an exact duplicate of you is in a photo with Abe's mother."
"But…" He looked into her face. Was it possible that she had been knocked on the head sometime last night after he went home? It rarely happened as much as movies and television made it out to happen, but short-term amnesia was a real condition. He would just have to pretend like this was the first time, and then insist that she visit the hospital. "I'm sorry, I thought you'd seen that photo in the shop, and we'd talked about it. I must have been thinking of someone else. The man in the photo is Abe's father." He set the photo between them on the table. "He and I could be twins, yes?"
"Huh." She moved the photo closer. "That makes a lot of sense. Of course she took to you, if you look so much like her late husband."
"Yes, she treated me as if she'd always known me."
"Crazy," Jo said, as Henry's food arrived. "I've heard of doppelgangers before, but that is just uncanny."
How odd that Jo was using the exact words she had yesterday morning, but in a different setting. He'd only treated a few patients with true amnesia, and he hadn't been privy to the effects quite this personally. He took a bite of his chocolate croissant. "I have more photos back at the shop, if you're interested… but first?" He checked the pocket watch on the table. "I have an errand to run at the hospital. Would you like to come with me?" Once they got there, he could convince her to get checked out.
She checked her phone. "Sure. No calls from the precinct yet. Maybe it'll be a slow day. Let me just text Hanson that I'll be in late…"
They hadn't made it all the way to the hospital in a cab—he insisted, unsure how her brain injury might present itself—when her phone rang. "Looks like I spoke too soon. Martinez." He waited, but her words after ending the call threw him. "There's a body. Washed up at the river. Henry, you in?"
"The river?" Again? What were the odds? He refrained from saying so out loud, since she seemed to have lost an entire day.
"Yeah, looks like a jumper, but they still want us to check it out." He tried to hide his reaction, but Jo picked up on it anyway. "I mean, if you aren't up for it, I can have him drop you by the hospital first."
"No no, I'm fine, the hospital can wait." In fact, going to a crime scene might be good—its similarity to yesterday's case might trigger some recall for her. And if not, then he wouldn't allow anything else to sidetrack them.
"Okay." Jo gave the driver the new address, which was the same as yesterday's as well. Not so strange, given that this time of year the current might wash bodies up along the same stretch, but not expected, either.
But when they arrived, everything was the same. The position, the location, the… victim, down to the workout clothing he'd been wearing. Another case of doppelgangers? For real? Henry took a step back, grabbing onto Jo's shoulder for support.
She was instantly concerned. "Henry? What's wrong? Are you feeling all right?"
He didn't answer, his mind cataloguing all the details. Everything, down to the CSU team's hair and shoes, was identical to yesterday. Even Jo was wearing the same clothing, had her hair styled the same. How had he missed it, even before he had decided she was suffering from amnesia?
He swallowed. "I'm… uh. May I borrow your phone for a moment?" She nodded, face tense with worry, but passed it over. He pressed the button to turn on the screen and just stared for a moment at the time and date. It wasn't possible. But somehow it was. The date was exactly the same as yesterday's.
May 5, 2015.
"I—I think I need to sit down."