Timeline / Forever (2014)

44 B.C.E.

March 15: A man later known as "Adam" is killed by a Roman pugio (dagger) while attempting to prevent the assassination of Julius Cesar. Stabbed in the gut, it takes two days for him to die. He resurrects afterward, beginning what will eventually be over 2,000 years of immortality.

1779

September 19: Henry Morgan, son of Robert Morgan of the Morgan shipping empire, is born.

1812

• Henry learns that Morgan Shipping has been engaging in the slave trade. He confronts his father about it, learning the company had hit hard times and his father had mortgaged not just the company but their home and possessions, too. Needing to make a lot of money fast, he sacrificed his morals. Henry condemns him for it.

1814

• Henry's father asks to see him. Henry has made arrangements to move to America immediately, his wife Nora to join him there in the spring, in order to cut all ties with his father. His father is clearly dying, and wants to give Henry something. Henry wants nothing that came from profits from slavery, but his father reveals the gift is his pocketwatch, handed down through many generations from father to son, and thus nothing to do with recent ill-gotten gains. Henry accepts the watch, and his father tells him how proud he is that his son is a better man than he was. Before Henry can reply, he dies.
• April 7: Henry takes passage on a slave ship, The Empress of Africa, the last of his father's misdeeds for Henry to correct. He finds an African captive who speaks English, and tells him he's going to steal the key to the shackles and cell door and bring it to him, urging him to wait until dark, then unlock all the shackles, escape the cells, and make their way to the armory. Henry steals the key, but is confronted by the ship's captain before he can get it to the cells. They are both called away for a sick prisoner; Henry declares he's not contagious and will be fine, but the captain fears cholera and would rather just throw the man overboard than take any chances. When Henry refuses to stand aside, the captain shoots him with a flintlock pistol and has him thrown overboard. The key falls from Henry's hand just as they drag him past the cells, and the man he spoke to earlier picks it up. Henry sinks into the sea; his pocketwatch, having slipped out of his pocket, spirals down just above him. That night the Africans take over the ship and manage to pilot it to free waters to the north before it sinks, but Henry doesn't learn of this.
• Nora is told that Henry fell overboard during the trip and was lost at sea. She has a headstone made with April 7 1814 as his date of death, and goes there to mourn her husband.

1815

• Henry finally makes it home, finding Nora still in mourning visiting his grave. He apologizes for taking more than a year to return to her. She is overjoyed and declares his return a miracle.
• Henry has been refusing to tell Nora what happened on the ship and how he survived, saying only she wouldn't believe him. Nora insists he tell her, that he can trust her with anything, and implying that he must not love her as much as she loves him if he won't tell her.
• As Henry predicted, Nora does not believe him. In what appears to be the last of many arguments, Henry becomes desperate for her to believe him, ready to slit his wrists and kill himself so that she can see that he's telling the truth, that he's not insane. Nora is terrified she's about to lose her husband all over again, and declares that she does believe him, embracing him but also taking the knife away from him.
• Henry is captured and forced into a straightjacket by handlers from Charing Cross Asylum, begging all the while for Nora to call them off, tell them it was a mistake. She refuses, saying she just doesn't want him to hurt himself, and the doctors will be able to help him get better. Henry is hauled away still screaming to Nora.
• Nora visits Henry in the asylum. Calm now, he again asks her to tell them she was mistaken, he isn't insane, but she refuses, saying they can help him get better.
• The man in charge of Henry's case (never identified on-screen) tells Henry he appears to be of sound mind, and asks why would he tell his wife he was immortal, which is clearly impossible? Henry claims he wasn't in his right mind then, but is sane now and no longer believes it. The man is encouraging but says they must make sure it's not going to happen again, must be scientific about things.
• Henry's "treatment" under this man turns out to be punishing him for his belief he's immortal by waterboarding him. (There was a real theory in this era that punishing insane behavior and rewarding sane behavior could cure insanity.) Henry begs them to stop, pleading that he no longer believes he's immortal, but the man says he's lying and carries on.

1816

• Henry is transferred from Charing Cross Asylum to Southwark Prison. His cellmate is a priest, imprisoned because he slept with the magistrate's wife. He asks Henry his story; Henry thinks he won't believe him, but the priest tell him Catholics believe things even when they know they're not true.
• Three months later, Henry and the priest have become friends, and Henry has finally told him his story. The priest not only believes him, but believes Henry's immortality must be for a higher purpose, and offers to help Henry escape the prison by helping him die. He's calculated that the ceiling is too low for Henry to hang himself without a slow, agonizing death by choking, but if he drops with both their weights, it should snap his neck cleanly. Henry protests that they'll think the priest helped him escape, and he'll be punished, but the priest replies it's worth it to him, to get Henry free. He makes Henry promise to go far away and start a new life. They proceed with the priest's plan, and for a second we see a shadow of Henry's body hanging from the noose, then a flash of light, then the noose swinging empty.

1842

• Henry is hanged for heresy.

1843

• Henry dies in a powder keg explosion on a Hudson's Bay Company ship.

1857

• Henry dies in an avalanche (his second) in the Klondike.

1865

• Henry is working in a hospital in London when he saves a young boy from a burning building, and his picture appears in the newspaper. His new love interest, a nurse named Anne, informs him there is a woman there to see him who claims to be his wife. When he goes to find out who she is, to his surprise it is his wife, Nora, who he hasn't seen since she had him taken to an asylum fifty years ago. Now elderly, she apologizes for not believing him before, and wants to tell the whole world about the "miracle" of his immortality. Henry is adamantly against this, hissing that she ruined his life once before, she is not going to do so again. He passes her off as mildly hysterical and sends her on her way.
• Nora returns, demanding to see Henry. Anne tells him they're going to be sending her to the asylum, which Henry is horrified by, despite what Nora did to him in the past, and he's about to try to stop this when she appears in the doorway to the ward he's in. She has brought a gun this time, intending to shoot Henry in front of witnesses and prove to all that he's immortal. Anne steps in front of him, taking the bullet, and Nora is hauled away to the asylum while Henry is left cradling Anne's dead body.

1888

• November 9: Henry is called to the scene of a grisly murder by Frederick Abberline, the lead detective on the Jack the Ripper case. A prostitute named Mary Kelly has been badly mutilated in her home at 13 Miller's Court on Dorset Street. Abberline mainly wants Henry to tell them if any body parts are missing, but Henry points out numerous medical clues on the body and in the room, taking copious notes in a small notebook.

1906

• Henry and good friend James discuss the new Hudson Valley Sanitarium, which promises all manner of pseudoscientific "cures". Henry is skeptical, while James is more open-minded.
• Henry finds James at the Sanitarium undergoing an electroshock treatment which looks painful (and plainly useless to modern eyes). James tries to pass it off as just trying to stay healthy, but a coughing fit leads Henry to the heartbreaking realization that James has tuberculosis.
• An unknown amount of time later, Henry is draining bloody fluid from around a collapsed lung, trying to encourage James by bringing up new treatments being tried in Europe. James tells Henry they should have stopped a long time ago, and he just wants to go outside. A clearly dying James takes in the skyline of turn-of-the-century New York and the rivers around it, and marvels at how beautiful it all is, giving Henry a new appreciation for it as well.

1929

• While in Paris, Henry Morgan discovers that a sculptor friend has been abusing heroin. He later finds her overdosed.

1944

• Adam is a prisoner at Auschwitz concentration camp and his death and rebirth in a nearby river are discovered by the Nazis. He is experimented on by Josef Mengele, attempting to discover a way to make Hitler immortal, but they have no success. The experiments are recorded in a notebook. Adam later states that the Nazis took his pugio from him and he was unable to recover it.

1945

• Abraham, a few months old, is recovered from a concentration camp. Abigail, a British nurse, is tending him when Henry, a British army surgeon, meets them and is immediately taken with both.
• A few days later Abigail explains to Henry that they know only that the baby's name is Abraham, and no one has been able to find any relatives for him to go to, so he'll likely wind up in an orphanage somewhere. Abigail suggests adopting Abraham.
• Henry and Abigail are in bed together. Abigail asks Henry about the scar on his chest, which Henry claims was from being shot by a sniper early in the war. Henry in turn notices a scar on the back of Abigail's neck, from a deliberate burn from a cigarette. Abigail tries to pass it off as an accident but Henry won't be put off, urging her to tell him who did this to her so he can protect her. Later Henry confronts another soldier in a bar, and the other man suggests taking the disagreement outside; when he rises from his barstool he is at least a head taller than Henry. Despite this, Henry seems to be holding his own against him as they trade punches, but when Abigail arrives, the other man pulls a switchblade and stabs Henry. As the crowd melts away, Abigail is left cradling a dying Henry, who apologizes repeatedly that "You won't understand, I'm sorry…" Henry dies, and Abigail is left kneeling empty-handed and very confused, with no sign Henry was ever there.
• Henry makes a late-night visit to their home to say a quiet goodbye to baby Abraham. Abigail wakes and walks in on them. Hearing her gasp of shock, Henry tries to make excuses, but she shushes him, whispering only, "You poor man" as she takes him into her arms.
• Some time later in the year, Henry and Abigail are staying at the Hotel Montoliogne in Milan. Henry writes Abigail a goodbye letter and tries to leave while she's asleep, but she wakes and catches up to him. Henry doesn't think their relationship can end well, but Abigail insists life is about the journey, no matter how long it lasts, not the ending. They kiss and stay together.
• Henry and Abigail take the Queen Mary across the Atlantic to New York, where they take a small apartment in Manhattan. Abigail is dubious at first, but Henry surprises her with a potted hellebore flower he managed to keep alive through the crossing, and Abigail begins to warm to New York.

1955

• On finding a museum is closed for a private function, Abigail and Henry bluff their way in. The fabulously wealthy hostess Gloria Carlyle questions why a couple so obviously in love aren't married; Henry feels he isn't good enough for Abigail, but Gloria urges them to embrace their love while they can. She mentions that she has someone special, too, but he couldn't be there, just before her husband sends word it's time for them to leave. Abigail and Henry worry about ending up like the Carlyles. Henry gets down on one knee and proposes to Abigail.
• March 18: Henry and Abigail dance together at the Stork club. A photographer takes their picture, which we later see captioned "Dr. and Mrs. Henry Morgan." Abigail tells Henry she believes his immortality has a higher purpose.
• Honeymooning on the Orient Express, Henry and Abigail are asked to help save the life of the young prince of Urkesh as the only doctors available. Henry bonds with the king over their duties as fathers, and he and Abigail agree to at least try and have a child of their own.

1957

• Henry is dying his temples grey. He and Abigail have been in an apartment on 69th and 2nd for seven years, and Henry worries people will notice he's not aging. Abigail likes the greys, reminding Henry she likes older men. Later, Henry and Abigail are enjoying a stroll and she notices his "grey hair" is flaking off onto his coat. She leaves to pick up Abraham from school. Henry is approached by a man who loudly declares he saw Henry hit by a shell at Normandy, and he's seen a lot of ghosts but none as real as Henry. Henry's face crumples as he realizes what this means, and his attempts to put the man off with a fake American accent fail.
• Later that day, Henry and Abigail are packing to move in a hurry, Abigail insisting on bringing the photos and photo album because they can't be replaced. Abe hasn't been told yet because he has a friend over, Lyle; they overhear the boys discussing how Abe just had his first kiss with a girl named Fawn Mahoney, and Abe declares he's going to marry her someday. Henry and Abigail exchange sad looks.

1978

• The last time Henry drove a car, according to Abe.

1982

• Abigail is now visibly older than Henry, and is becoming uncomfortable about the reactions they get when they go out. Henry takes her out for their anniversary, but she returns to the apartment crying because people assumed Henry was her son rather than her husband.

1985

• Abigail abruptly departs from Henry's life, sending him a letter a week later saying she needs a little time to think and asking him not to look for her while she does.
• Abigail takes a room in a guest house in rural Tarrytown and gets a job as a nurse in the local hospital under the name Sylvia Blake. She decides this is a location she and Henry can live together discreetly and writes a letter asking him to come join her, but never gets the chance to send it.
• April 7: Abigail attends to the survivor of a motorcycle accident who asks her to kill him, telling her he is immortal, only for her reaction to give away that she knows another immortal. After killing himself and coming back to life, Adam tracks Abigail to her home and confronts her, questioning her about this other immortal. He threatens to harm a young woman if Abigail doesn't cooperate. Recognising the danger Adam could pose to Henry and Abe, Abigail crashes her car and then slits her own throat to stop Adam forcing the information out of her.
• After three months go by with no word, Henry attempts to report Abigail missing to the police but is met with minimal response. He spends months trying to track her down; Abe ultimately forces Henry to give up this effort as he is becoming obsessive and his life is falling apart, although Abe secretly moves Henry's research to storage rather than destroying it. Around this time, Abe also proposes opening an antique store to deal with some of Henry's accumulated possessions over the years.

2011

• Henry Morgan and Lucas Wahl begin working together at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York.

2013

• District Attorney Sean Moore has an argument with his wife Detective Jo Martinez before going to Washington for a deposition. He suffers a heart attack while running on a hotel treadmill and she never sees him alive again.

2014

• Henry is now working in the New York medical examiner's office when he is caught in a train crash. He meets Detective Jo Martinez while investigating the matter, and once Henry is cleared of suspicion in the crash, the two form a good working relationship beyond his role as medical examiner. Henry is also contacted directly by Adam for the first time, albeit over the phone at first.
• A copycat killer recreates the murder of Mary Kelley by Jack the Ripper, as well as the Black Dahlia murder. Henry suffers a broken neck trying to stop the killer from recreating a Boston Strangler homage. Jo arrives and when the killer tries to draw a gun in her, he is shot dead. To prevent Jo finding Henry paralyzed and seeing him die, Adam slits Henry's throat to speed his death and disappearance.
• After months calling Henry over the phone and leaving him presents and notes, Adam kills himself in front of Henry to prove he really is immortal, although Henry never sees his face, an encounter which ends in Henry drowning in the back of a sinking cab and then getting arrested for skinny dipping. Henry is ordered to see a therapist and Adam gets himself assigned as Henry's psychiatrist under the name Dr. Lewis Farber. He then manipulates Henry into a confrontation with a mental patient who attacks Henry, and Henry, believing the man to be Adam, stabs and kills his attacker. While Jo and the rest of the team assure Henry that it was a legitimate case of self-defence, Henry is shaken at having killed someone for the first time.

2015

• The exiled king of Urkesh - the same person whose life Henry saved as a child on the Orient Express - is found dead. It is initially diagnosed as lung cancer, but Henry's examination reveals that he was poisoned with radiation. Henry and Jo are able to save the king's wife and his long-separated illegitimate daughter from the same killer, as well as her infant son.
• After a year of Adam stalking Henry, Henry and Abe find evidence confirming that Adam was involved in Abigail's death. Adam attempts to provoke a confrontation with Henry where he is wielding the pistol that was used to kill Henry while Henry has the dagger that first killed Adam, as a means of testing Adam's theory that only the weapon that originally killed an immortal can kill them for good. Henry refuses to fight, tossing the dagger to Adam's feet and walking away. Adam shoots Henry with the gun, but a dying Henry delivers an injection of air into Adam's brainstem. This leaves Adam with Locked-In Syndrome, his mind still active but his body unable to move and on life support, while Henry resurrects as normal. Jo finds Henry's watch at the scene of the crime and goes to confront him about a photograph she also found of him, Abigail, and the infant Abe.