S04E16 - Incoming

"Incoming" is the sixteenth episode of Season 4 of We Can Fix Pawbert, the season's only action episode, and its only Reacher crossover. It follows "Radio Silence", with Pawbert five days into the closed-file blackout around Luther's assignment. The raid Luther went dark for plays out first, and then his team arrives at the mansion gate.

Synopsis

Three days before the present, ZSI agent Luther Pawthorne raids a concealed weapons compound with the Reacher team: leader Jack Reacher, tactical lead Frances Neagley, David O'Donnell on the exit point, and technical specialist Karla Dixon. Luther confirms crates of assault rifles and detonators, chokes out a patrolling guard, and breaches the northeast workspace, where he disables two armed hostiles. When Neagley is pinned inside the two-story command post by three attackers, among them an armored polar bear firing a belt-fed breaching weapon, Luther and Reacher break the ambush, but the weakened upper floor collapses and Luther falls into the rubble. In the present, Pawbert has gone five days without word. Reacher's team arrives at the gate of Pawthorne Mansion without Luther, and Pawbert panics until Reacher tells him Luther is alive and O'Donnell holds him steady. At the secure wing of Zootopia General Hospital, Dr. Miranda Bailey reports three broken ribs, spinal bruising, lacerations, a concussion, and two weeks of ordered bed rest. Luther refuses to stay. Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps arrive, Nick asks Bailey for the discharge paperwork, and Luther signs himself out against medical advice. Reacher tells Pawbert that Luther repeated his name in the rubble, then the team departs. At home Nick announces a laminated chart to document the recovery, and that night Pawbert sets aside Luther's hoodie, reads Luther the letter he wrote during the silence, and asks for their promise again, which Luther gives.

Plot

Three nights before the present, Luther works the tree line above a cluster of prefab buildings standing in a clearing that appeared on no aerial survey. Intel promises twelve hostiles and a weapons cache. Dixon has the perimeter cameras looped and gives the team sixty seconds before the drift is noticed, O'Donnell holds the vehicle bay, Neagley takes eyes on the northeast structure, and Jack Reacher runs the operation. Inside the storage building Luther pries open crates of disassembled assault rifles, then a second crate of detonators and timers, and confirms the cache over comms.

He chokes out a coyote patrolling the gap between buildings and leaves him zip-tied to a pipe, alive. The team splits the northeast structure three ways: Neagley on the far door, Reacher on the main entrance, Luther on the service door, which he opens with a shaped breaching charge. A wolverine fires twice and misses him. Luther breaks the grip against a table edge and puts him down with an elbow, then strips a submachine gun off a ram and pins him to the floor. Reacher comes through the main door with a hyena and a bobcat already down behind him. Then Neagley's report is cut off by gunfire that does not sound like her sidearm.

In the two-story back structure she is pinned behind an overturned table by three hostiles rather than the two intel promised. At the center of the room is an armored polar bear firing a belt-fed weapon built for breaching vehicle hulls, with a coyote and a timber wolf working the flanks. Luther shoots the coyote. Neagley's rounds find the gaps in the timber wolf's vest. Reacher crosses the floor, wrenches the breaching weapon out of the polar bear's paws and swings it like a club, and the two of them collide into a support pillar hard enough to crack it. Reacher finishes the fight with a headbutt and a short series of strikes. Then the upper floor, already stressed by the breaching rounds and the broken pillar, gives way. Luther catches a beam on the way down, debris hits his ribs, and his grip fails.

In the present, Pawbert is alone in the mansion kitchen on the fifth morning of Luther's silence, still in the hoodie he has slept and worked in since Luther left. Nick and Judy have gone to an early shift. His bag is packed for class by the door and he cannot make himself walk to it. A text from Maya about the group meeting is not the message he is waiting for. Then the main-gate intercom buzzes, and the voice on it gives its name as Jack Reacher and tells him to open the gate.

A government SUV and Luther's own sedan pull into the roundabout, and four mammals get out: Reacher, Neagley, Dixon and O'Donnell. Pawbert is through the front door and onto the steps demanding to know where Luther is, his breathing coming apart while his mind supplies a body bag and a grave. O'Donnell closes the distance slowly with his paws open and visible, and Reacher cuts in with the fact: Luther is alive. Pawbert's legs give out and O'Donnell catches him. He is another gray wolf, near enough in size and warmth that the panicking part of Pawbert can pretend for a moment, and he holds on until the sobbing stops. Luther is hurt but stable, and he asked the team to tell Pawbert before anything else. Pawbert wipes his face and asks to be taken to him.

The secure wing at Zootopia General Hospital runs on keypad access and cameras, a ward for ZSI operatives and protected witnesses whose records never reach the standard system. Dr. Miranda Bailey, a honey badger, reads out the damage: three broken ribs, extensive bruising along the spine, lacerations requiring sutures, a Grade 2 concussion, and blood lost and replaced. She orders two weeks of bed rest at minimum. Luther has already tried to discharge himself twice, and the next attempt will get him sedated. Her assessment is that he has been difficult, and Reacher's translation is that he has been Luther. Pawbert stalls at the door until Neagley tells him what Luther said in the car, which was his name, every time he was conscious, and then tells him to go in.

Luther's eyes find him at once. Pawbert takes his paw around the wires and bandages, Luther apologizes for frightening him and for the silence he could not break, and Pawbert tells him the file was closed and there is nothing to forgive. Luther says he was thinking about him under the rubble, for every second he could think at all. Then he announces he is going home that day and tries to sit up, and Bailey's voice through the door counts it as attempt three. Nick and Judy arrive still in uniform, and Nick reads the room and asks Bailey for the paperwork rather than fight a battle nobody will win. Luther signs himself out against medical advice. Bailey sends Pawbert home with a protocol: check his breathing every four hours, and come straight back on fever, shortness of breath or coughed blood.

In the waiting area, while O'Donnell arranges the discharge and Luther glares at the wheelchair hospital policy requires, Pawbert texts his group project team that a family emergency will keep him from the meeting. Maya, Hector and Jun all cover for him without asking for details. O'Donnell tells Nick about Luther's working theory that injuries cannot catch a mammal who keeps moving, and the two of them agree it nearly failed this time. Reacher says the team has to leave for the debrief, and when Pawbert thanks him he answers that Luther is one of theirs. Pawbert tells him the pack works the same way. At the door Reacher turns back to say that when they pulled Luther out of the rubble he repeated Pawbert's name and nothing else, apparently without knowing he was doing it. Pawbert cries again, this time from relief.

Getting Luther home takes the whole pack. Nick drives, Judy stops Luther giving directions, and Pawbert rides in the back watching his face for pain he will not admit to. Luther ends up on the living room couch under blankets Judy insisted on, telling them he is glad to be home. When he says they could have had a normal evening instead, Judy answers that this is what normal mammals do when someone they love gets hurt. Nick then announces a documentation system for the recovery: a chart, with categories for escape attempts, complaints about rest, times Pawbert has to stop him getting up, and buildings collapsed on Luther, which already stands at one. Luther threatens to destroy it. Nick tells him it will be laminated.

Getting him up the stairs takes all three of them, with Nick and Pawbert as supports and Judy clearing the path. In the bedroom the hoodie comes off for the first time in five days and goes over the back of a chair. Pawbert eases in beside Luther with the STAY notebook open and reads him the letter he wrote in the dark, not knowing whether Luther was alive: the hoodie that stopped smelling like him, the empty fourth chair at breakfast, the night Lane dragged him out and he met an artist named Mika, and the admission that he can have a life even when Luther is not in it. Luther tells him he is proud of him, and that he came back because he always comes back. Pawbert asks him never to do it again, Luther says he cannot promise that, and Pawbert asks to be allowed to say it anyway. The night closes on the promise the two of them keep returning to.

Key Moments

• Dixon loops the compound's perimeter cameras, buying the team sixty seconds before the drift is noticed
• Luther confirms the cache in the storage building: disassembled assault rifles, detonators, and timers
• Luther blood-chokes a patrolling coyote guard unconscious and leaves him zip-tied and alive
• Luther breaches the northeast workspace with a shaped charge and puts down a wolverine and a ram
• Neagley is pinned in the back structure by three hostiles instead of the two intel promised
• Reacher strips the breaching weapon from the armored polar bear and knocks him out; their collision cracks a support pillar
• The upper floor collapses, debris breaks Luther's grip on a beam, and he falls
• Reacher's team arrives at the mansion gate in Luther's own sedan, without Luther
• Pawbert's panic attack on the front steps; O'Donnell catches him when his legs give out and Reacher tells him Luther is alive
• Dr. Bailey reports three broken ribs, spinal bruising, lacerations and a Grade 2 concussion, and orders two weeks of bed rest
• Neagley tells Pawbert what Luther said in the car before sending him into the room
• Luther's attempt to sit up and go home counts as his third self-discharge attempt
• Nick asks Bailey for the AMA paperwork rather than argue, and Luther signs himself out
• Pawbert's group project team covers for him after he texts about a family emergency
• Reacher reveals at the door that Luther repeated Pawbert's name while they pulled him from the rubble
• Nick drives Luther home and the pack installs him on the living room couch
• Nick announces The Chart, laminated, with one category already standing at one
• Pawbert hangs the hoodie on the bedroom chair, no longer needing it
• Pawbert reads Luther the STAY notebook letter he wrote during the silence, and Luther tells him he is proud of him

Key Lines

Characters Introduced

Crossover Characters

• Jack Reacher (kodiak bear) — Team leader; "You're slow" / "Scratch"
• Frances Neagley (caracal) — Haptephobia; precise; "He kept saying your name"
• David O'Donnell (gray wolf) — Calm, grounding; holds Pawbert during breakdown
• Karla Dixon (cheetah) — Tech specialist; stays with vehicles

Recurring Characters

• Maya Chen-Reyes (ocelot) — Text only; understanding about family emergency
• Hector (capybara) — Text only; "Hope everyone's alright"
• Jun Tanaka (tanuki) — Text only; "Family first"

Locations

• Compound (undisclosed location) — Three days earlier; storage building, northeast workspace, two-story back structure
• Pawthorne Mansion — Kitchen, foyer, front steps, living room, master bedroom
• Zootopia General Hospital — Secure wing; Room 3 and the waiting area
• Luther's car — Driven back from the compound by the team; the driver is never named

Items

• Luther's hoodie — Pawbert has worn it for five days; it comes off in the bedroom and hangs on the chair, no longer needed
• STAY notebook — Pawbert reads his letter aloud to Luther in the bedroom
• AMA paperwork — Luther signs out Against Medical Advice over Dr. Bailey's objections
• The Chart — Announced verbally by Nick; categories include Escape Attempts, Complaints About Rest, and Buildings Collapsed On Luther, already at one; lamination promised, with no physical chart yet
• Wheelchair — Hospital policy for discharge; Luther glares at it

Notes

• Dr. Miranda Bailey is a Grey's Anatomy Easter egg, matching the no-nonsense personality of the original character.