Elias had to call John's name a number of times before he saw recognition dawn in John's eyes again. He noticed that it seemed to take a lot for John to come back to the present. Perhaps John was in worse shape than he thought. Elias began to be concerned that John was running out of time. He could see that John also looked thinner and flushed as if he was running a fever; he probably hadn't eaten or slept in days. Elias needed to move this along if he was going to reach John and help him fight back to his life. Even though Elias knew he and John would always be at odds, he admired the man's talents and was going to help him - for her. He was truly going to miss Detective Carter and now wished she had taken him up on the same offer that he had given John, to come join his operation. Talented people such as those two were hard to find much less to get them to come to work for him. But as he had expected they both said no. John and the Detective - they seemed to be almost two parts of the same whole. What a team they would have made. Thinking back on Carter's rescue of him and the look on her face after he took off his hood made Elias chuckle.

The fog in John's eyes lifted when he heard Elias chuckle. "Glad to see you're back with me John." Elias said with a slight incline of his head in John's direction. Elias continued.

"Detective Carter, just your ordinary single mother, worker bee at a rundown precinct with a dirty cop as a partner living her life or so I thought. You John, but more specifically your relationship with the Detective is what kept my interest in her." Elias contemplatively steeples his fingers at his chin and finished speaking. "After you had killed her CI, no knee capping for him eh John," Elias says with a small smile playing at his lips. "You issued that peremptory dictate to HR, me and I assume, the whole world that it was hands off Det. Carter. That's when I knew that she was your focus, that she was important to you. So I decided to keep an eye on her John. I wanted to really get to know who this woman was that had a delightfully skilled monster such as you so devoted to her that you were willing to start a war with everyone to protect her and her boy. It was only logical John if, say, I found myself desperately in need of your services again I would use her to control you."

A chill ran up John's spine at the thought that he could be responsible for possibly putting Joss in danger or getting her hurt because Elias would seek to manipulate him. He had no doubt about the "would". If Joss was still al....here and just continued to be the good cop she was he knew that at some time or other she, he and Elias would cross paths again. At that second John had a terrifying thought. Taylor! Elias would go after Taylor if he thought it would make John fall in line for him. So Elias was still a threat. But not for long, John thought. Whatever it took John would make sure Taylor was safe from Elias before the day was over. It was the least he could do before his body would be put in an unmarked grave. Elias droned on while John's mind started to formulate how he was going to make sure Elias did not leave here alive and John was sure neither would he.

A dark look crossed Elias' face as he recalled his abduction and subsequent walk towards death in the woods not so long ago. "However, when that time came and I was in need of your services you were beyond my reach John. Those HR lackeys had me bound, hooded and on my knees like some common thug." John could hear the disgust in Elias' voice when he said ‘lackeys'. "I heard the gun cock and knew it was at my head. The next thing I expected to hear was a bullet meeting my skull ending my life." A huge genuine grin split Elias' face as he told John the one thing John didn't know about his Detective Carter. "Can you imagine my surprise John at hearing gunshots but feeling no pain? I was very happy when I heard that HR goon beg for his life and then go silent. I was hustled away from there and rather urgently shoved into the backseat of a vehicle. As the driver sped away I removed my hood. And who was my savior John?" A smug little smile has graced Elias' face. He's eagerly awaiting John's reaction as he tells him, "None other than Detective Carter herself." But the smile slips from his face and is replaced with indignation as he looks at John. "Where were you John? How could you have allowed her to do that by herself? You knew as well as I did that HR had a vested interest in eliminating her!"

Elias' tale made John realize Joss could have been lost to him that night in the woods. She had called to tell him about the impending hit and that she didn't think anyone, even Elias, deserved to be murdered in cold blood. That extraordinary moral compass of hers had put her life in danger trying to and saving Elias - without him- because he had been too busy to help her. He had dismissed Elias' life and her concerns during their phone conversation about the hit and by doing so forced her to go it on her own. He had forced her to save the man who had made two attempts on her life and kidnapped her son. John had made her save her enemy alone. He had promised her she was no longer alone, that he was there for her; another broken promise to come back and haunt him.

Elias didn't see the intense look of regret that flickered on John's face before he rambled on with his story. "After things had calmed down I realized of course Detective Carter came by herself. You could care less if I died John since I had tried to hurt her before and I understand that. But imagine my second surprise when she put me in hiding née protection, if you will." True surprise showed in John's eyes at this new piece of information and this time Elias saw it and smiled at John. "So I see John you didn't know your Detective as well as you thought." With a self satisfied grin Elias seemed happy he had one up on the vigilante.

However this information answered a question that had been bothering John concerning Joss for the last month or so before her.....he lost her. She had been keeping something from him he was sure of it. Something besides the war she was trying to start between HR and the Russians. The numbers kept coming fast and frequently and left John with little time to talk to Joss about it. She had kept this from him, why? Why? He knew the answer, because she was afraid the monster in him would kill Elias if it found out where Elias was. It shocked and saddened John that Joss was possibly afraid of him. Even when she told him she did, she still didn't trust him. She couldn't trust him to help her with HR; she couldn't trust him to help her with Elias. John scoffs to himself and thinks why would she trust him? She knew what he was.

"He's a good man." John hears Joss' voice echo those words from a million years ago. And now, like that night in the back of agent Donnelly's car, John can't understand how Joss could think that, feel that, truly believe that about him.

At John's scoff Elias' face grows cloudy. He's mistaken John's scoff as being directed at him. With a bit of indignation in his voice Elias addresses John. "I assure you John I am recounting my experiences with Detective Carter with the utmost veracity. If you'd like, I can show you the warehouse where she sequestered me and Tony for the past month or so. Granted it wasn't a five star accommodation but it served its purpose to keep me safe and when the Detective would visit for our little chats it keep prying eyes out. Oh, it had a really nice kitchen though." Elias finishes with a grin and then reminisces out loud, "We shared some very nice meals there." The statement got somewhat of a rise from John as he'd hope it would. Elias couldn't resist that small dig to John's ego. Even though the ‘we' in his last remark was he and Tony, John didn't have to know that.

"You're a liar." John spat at Elias. "Joss would never protect you much less work with you."

Scarface who had been standing quietly at the ready spoke softly to John. "Look man, I was there. My boss, he ain't lying. For a cop, your lady love, she was really good people." John looks up at Scarface's remark with an odd expression. "She wasn't gonna' let anything happen to my boss, well that wasn't legal, and she was gonna' get him back to jail safe and sound. Not ‘cause she liked him, but ‘cause that's the kinda' person she was. She had honor, ya know. She saved my bosses life so she saved mine too. If there was ever anything, anything she wanted me to do - needed me to do for her - at any time, all she had to do was ask." John now has an unreadable look on his face. Scarface's reply to John's expression is heartfelt however. "You can get that worried look out ya eyes John - she never asked. You know she would never ask."

"Tony is quite right John.", Elias says as he shakes his head with regret. "Multiple times I offered to take care of Simmons for Detective Carter. She refused every time John. So I felt that his death at my hands was fitting retribution for her death at his. Well", Elias says with a small chuckle, "not really at my hands John. I just watched. Very satisfying that - watching Simmons take his last breath." Elias and Scarface give each other a small smile at the memory of that night and that last breath. "And no she wouldn't work with me. As I said she refused my offer." Elias says with some disappointment. "But I was a resource for her from time to time during my forced ‘vacation' shall we say."

My lady, my lady, my lady. The words set up in John's mind and become a kind of mantra that he starts to repeat over and over myladymyladymyladymylady...... He only hears snippets of what Elias is saying to him. John thought how could Elias and Scarface, of all people know that he loved Joss when it took him so long to realize it himself. But they were right. He loved her, had loved her for the last two years. In the morgue she had returned his kiss and with the mantra underlying his thoughts John thinks about all of the times she was there for him, how she had saved him, how she had put herself, her career, and her moral compass, everything on the line for him. Ultimately how she gave her life for his. He now had the answer to the questions that had been dogging him for the last two years. Did Joss have feelings for him? Could she love someone so unworthy of her love? Could she love a monster like him? In his grief stricken soul, at that moment John finally knew she had loved him too. So much wasted time when she could have been myladymayladymyladymyladymyladymylady .... Those words become a focus to the noise and confusion that had been steadily building in John's mind since Tony shot him. John knows what he must do to be with his love, with Joss and looks up at Elias with suddenly very clear, blue eyes.

Elias had just finished speaking when the air around them seemed to change. He looked, this time really looked, at John and was worried by what he saw on his face. What Elias saw shining back at him from John's eyes made him fear he had arrived too late to help him.