Chapter Text
Laura Siggens had been hiding very well for the past six months. She worked as a waitress in an old dinner in Brooklyn, she requested to be paid in cash only, with the excuse of saving her a trip to the bank. Considering her pregnant state, that only later they found out about, it was easy to understand why her boss had accepted her wish without arguing. She kept herself away from the internet, social media and even phones. Her small apartment didn't have a computer and her cellphone was an outdated one. She bought things in cash and paid her rent the same way. Almost no tracks to follow.
Fortunately, John and Shaw knew how to track someone without Harold's gears and skills. It was harder and took longer than usual, but the job still got done briefly.
They tracked her down using the information they had from the six months prior to her new life. They were not sure if she was a perpetrator even after her fingerprints showed up on AFIS for possession of drugs two years ago. The girl was only 23 years old, possibly she just didn't want people checking her status as an ex-con, making easier to get a new job and move on with her new life.
Once they found her apartment, small and in an old building, they also found the baby clothes and other baby's stuff that corroborated to the idea they had that she was just trying to change her life, trying to get away from her past. Her old associates were all dead or in jail or still living in Oklahoma. They couldn't figure out who would want to kill her or who she would want to kill.
Things became clearer when they found out about her ex-boyfriend and father of the child she was carrying. She never pressed charges against him, but it was obvious to the team that he had abused her. No woman would try to disappear for no reason. She was there along with the number of many other women that came almost every week to them. It made even Shaw's feel sadden by them, as much as she could feel at least.
Things became more complicated when they couldn't locate her one afternoon after her shift ended. The girl was smart and lost her tail, even with her eight-months pregnant self receiving more attention than usual. Her cellphone was a burner one that they hadn't manage to pair.
Abusing of his hacker's skills, Finch managed to get a hold of her location and told with apprehension that Mr. Reese and Ms. Shaw should hurry because her ex-boyfriend had found her, too. They stole a car and Shaw drove as fast as she could, she didn't want another lost on her hands. Her job was to be the best possible, to achieve the goals there were set to her. She would not admit failure.
John had his jaw clenched during the whole affair. He was very sensitive towards abusive men hurting their wives, girlfriends, and daughters. He was also very sensitive when cases were about children, no matter how old or how young, he had a sweet spot for them that Shaw would usually make fun of, calling him a "mother hen". John pretended to be annoyed, but he enjoyed the title more than he would ever let anyone know.
All of these, together with their training as deadly spies, were the reason they shot the man without a second thought as soon as they saw young Laura laying on the dirty floor of that dark alley with her eyes wide in terror and blood around her throat and face, while her body got colder by the minute. She was dead. Even from a distance, they could see she was still wearing her work attire, a mustard colored dress that used to go to her knees and wasn't capable of hiding her swollen abdomen.
Now, he was dead too. Two bullet wounds on his head.
Reese was about to turn around and leave the place when Shaw went almost running to the girl's body on the floor, stopping briefly to retrieve the knife the man had on his hands before, in a dark alley in a bad place of the town. One that no one would call the cops after hearing shots being fired, but most likely they'd lock their doors and hide.
"Call 911." She said emotionless.
"What for, Shaw? She's dead." His voice was tired, hiding the anger he felt.
"The baby, John. The baby must still be alive. That asshole was just leaving the place when we got here, he couldn't have killed her more than two minutes ago. It must be at least eight months old now, that's old enough to survive after birth."
As she was speaking, she tore the woman's dress apart using the knife, exposing her belly. She touched it in a few places, making sure the kid was in a proper position for a C-section. She had only done that two times before, one of those when still in medical school. Even so, her hands weren't shaking and her heartbeats were slowing down after the adrenaline spike of moments ago. John was going to reach for his phone when Finch's voice came through his earpiece.
"Already called 911, Mr. Reese. It must take them at least fifteen minutes, thought."
Shaw's movements were excellent, her technique was perfect. She inserted the knife in the higher pelvis, just below her abdomen and linea negra, cutting through skin, fat and muscle with easy. The easiness came from the many deaths she caused before, cutting through the same layers. In the back of her mind, she was satisfied with herself and pointing out how her lack of empathy wasn't something negative, as one of the board members of the hospital she used to be an intern had once said to her.
Shaw put her hands in and felt the uterus muscle. She cut through it carefully to not hurt the being inside. Then she put the knife to her side and took the baby out even more carefully. The baby was covered in its mother blood, but the ex-doctor still could see it was starting to get cyanotic. She took the knife again, holding the baby with just one hand and supporting it - she! - against her chest. Shaw cut the last connection between mother and child, the umbilical cord.
"I need your jacket." She ordered.
John has always been very good at following orders, now wasn't different, he did what he was told without questioning.
"Put it on the floor here." She pointed to a place on the cement floor next to her and he did as he was told again.
She placed the newborn gently, a very unusual characteristic for her. She tied a knot using the rest of the umbilical cord and put her ear close to the baby's chest, closer to the left nipple. She made compressions on the small baby's chest. She breathed air into his airways, then made more compressions. Suddenly, the small child started to cry out loud, the face turning redder by the second. John and Harold let out a relief breath.
"Good work, Ms. Shaw," Harold said and the woman shrugged, secretly pleased that her skills were able to guarantee her a compliment from her demanding boss.
"It needs to be held." She told John, obviously not willing to participate in this particular task. One that John was more than willing to do.
He took the baby along with the jacket, folding the newborn girl tightly with it and in his arms, making a cozy place for her. She still kept on crying and Shaw said it was a normal thing, she wasn't crying because she was unhappy, but because her lungs were getting used to breathing.
Five minutes later, the paramedics arrived. Shaw and John invented an elaborate story with help from Harold about they walking down the street and hearing a scream, then gunshots. John told he was ex-military and Shaw was an army doctor ("always hide a lie inside the truth", Harold told them), which is why they both rushed into danger instead of running away from it. Shaw informed she performed an emergency c-section, something she was supposedly used to do in the field.
The paramedics didn't question them much, seemed like the female paramedic used to be in the army and, according to Harold, it made her less likely to act against the orders of someone of John's rank. The bastard really did think of everything. She simply asked for her partner to call the police and Harold called first, requesting for Fusco and Carter to take the case before anyone else.
Against his better judgment and Harold's advice, John asked to go in the ambulance with the little baby. The two paramedics were not very willing to let it, but once John promised that his sister would stay there to give a statement to the police and when they saw the protective way he was holding the baby girl, they let him join them in the ambulance. Shaw was unhappy. She didn't want to wait for Fusco and Carter. She wasn't happy that she was left behind and about being John's fake sister either.
~#~#~#~#~
"Mr. Logan?" Carter called as she walked towards Reese, pretending not to know him. "I'm detective Carter, I'm the one dealing with the murders of Laura Siggens and Nicholas Bulkens."
She played her part nicely, avoiding anything that might give way any sort of friendship between them. She was used to this game by now, it came as second nature to her. John was never her friend in public, but always someone else. She thought that perhaps she would never be the Joss she knew in public either, always putting one or other mask to be able to accomplish her goals.
Only when they were in a more desert part of the hospital that she spoke to him again. Not bothering with the camera that probably was spying on them or how Harold must be listening to their conversation through their phones. She wasn't fond of this lack of privacy, but she was unfazed by it nowadays.
"Shaw made an emergency C-section on a dark alley with a kitchen knife?" She was stuck between wonder and surprise. Every time she thought these people couldn't surprise her anymore, they did something that did.
"She went to med school." Reese deadpanned. Carter knew this but didn't think it made the whole affair less impressive and... crazy.
"Have you find anything on the mother yet? Relatives? Close friends? Social service will be moving the girl as soon as she's stable and I need to know if there's someone that we can take the girl to."
"Finch didn't find anything yet. She was a foster kid. Parents died at young age, her only friends were other addicts and drug dealers. The people from the restaurant she worked for didn't know her that well, said she mostly kept to herself. They had no idea she was hiding from something."
"Looks like her daughter won't have a much different future," Carter stated sadly, thinking of her own child growing up without a father and how it affected him.
After listening to her words, Reese made a decision, a very important one that would affect everything. However, at the time, she didn't know this. If she had known, Carter would have said many things, maybe she would've even tried to dissuade him from such a decision. Many months later, she would be very glad that she didn't know and wasn't able to stop John from acting as his usual reckless, crazy self.
"Excuse me, detective. I've got something to do."
She nodded and watched him go, wondering what she'd write on her report to explain the mess that this case was.
~#~#~#~#~
"Finch." He called while entering the computer room in the library.
"Yes, Mr. Reese?" Harold only arched an eyebrow, the rest of his face impassive. He didn't even turn to look at John.
"Did you find any relatives?" He didn't need to give further explanations about who he was talking about.
"Sadly, no. The girl was not only a ghost but, besides her new daughter, there's no one to miss her."
As soon as Harold finished saying this, he looked at John and saw the look in his eyes. He knew that look, it was the same look he would use when going to a difficult mission. The determination was written all over his face, no chance for failures, no chance for people stopping him from whatever he had set his mind to do. Harold braced himself for the aftermath of whatever decision Reese had made.
"We should adopt her."
"We? Adopt her?"
"You already brought me, Shaw and Root under your wings. Even Genrika is your protégée. Carter and Fusco and their kids are not very far, don't think I don't know about the College funds you made for their kids."
"Your point, Mr. Reese?"
"We should adopt her. She's like us, all alone in the world."
"Are you saying I should bring a newborn to the middle of our lives? Our very chaotic and dangerous lives, I must add." He arched an eyebrow while the determined look remained in Reese's face.
Upon seeing the lack of response from John, he kept talking, trying to put some sense into the man's mind. He knew this battle was lost, he just refused to let it go without a fight, without making Reese understand the full responsibilities and implications of it.
"Where should we raise her? In your flat next to Bear's bed I suppose? In my decoy houses that are a decoy for good reasons? Here, in the library, in the cage where we put Root, a murderer? In Shaw's apartment, where I'm sure no mother care will be provided? Tell me, Mr. Reese, do you ever think through or you just make things as you go?"
The last question was unnecessarily harsh, Harold knew, yet it didn't even make Reese flinch. He kept staring at Harold, waiting to see if he was going to say anything else. When he noticed that the hacker was done, he began to talk.
"Two years ago," He began to say and Harold knew where this was going. "We saved a baby. You kidnapped her, so she wouldn't be murdered. I sacrificed a man's life in order to save her. And everything we lost along the way of trying to save her was worth it because, in the end, she was safe in the arms of her grandparents. A whole life of happiness and normal things waiting for her."
John stopped talking for a few seconds, the memories of that particular number running through his mind. He could still remember the cold he felt while locked inside that trunk and - worst of all - he could remember the despair he felt when the little girl ceased to cry and move altogether. He would've killed the whole world to just save that little girl at the time. Right now, the same instincts were there to guarantee he'd help this little girl that had nothing and no one.
"This kid? This little girl in the hospital that we saved? Nothing of what happened was worth it. She doesn't have a mother, or a father, or anyone else that cares for her in this world. No one. She's going to go to foster home after foster home and no one will want her because she is the daughter of that awful couple whose bodies were found near a dumpster on a bad part of town. They will always wonder if she's a killer like her father or a drug addict as her mother. No one normal will ever want her, Finch. We are her best chance of a normal life, even if normal is one of the words that can't describe us. But we are family and we are willing to protect each other no matter the cost. That's what she deserves. A chance to survive and be loved, be cared for. Otherwise, we'll just be sitting here waiting for her number to show up sooner rather than later."
Finch sighed.
"Alright, Mr. Reese. You won. I'll arrange the paperwork. But she's yours to nurse and care."
Harold wished for nothing more than to be able to say no to John Reese.