[ Earlier on, Harold would have left it at that, wouldn't have explained himself. But now he trusts John on such a deep level that he takes the time to explain his perspective. At the same time, John saying that makes his heart wring into a knot, love and loss indistinguishable. This is why he doesn't know how to go on without him; John feels on an intrinsic level what Harold has been trying to pin down his whole life. ]

They're intrinsically linked, but they're not the same, [ he pushes, something in him catching fire in a slow, banked smolder. ] I don't trust anyone but the Machine to make those kinds of bigger decisions. Certainly not us.

[ That he does trust the Machine to do that -- it's a monumental shift, the movement of a planet, but Harold doesn't want to focus on that. Doesn't want to talk about how his distrust and doubt in her had turned out to be completely unfounded. She'd called him father... ]

And not Echo. We can't know what's really happening here, but for as long as we're present, I want to focus on saving those that are in front of us.

We won't get numbers, but the idea that no one is irrelevant... [ He breathes, feeling the absence of Nathan expanding inside his ribs, before he finishes. ] That's never led us astray. Has it?