[ A smile blooms slowly across his face. As the silence settles, the fullness of the conversation settles over him, too. They're partners and John hadn't wanted to die, or at least not to leave him. They can stay here together. It's more--
It's more than Harold's ever gotten before.
He'd felt tears earlier, tears he knew he couldn't explain to John, not because words would fail him but because he thinks John is still so far from understanding what it's like to be overwhelmed with emotion in a way that doesn't cause damage. It hurts, of course it hurts, and Harold fully believes it always will hurt to have lost him. To know there is no way they can walk back from a movie in the rain down the streets of New York, a cautious hand fluttering lightly at his back and an umbrella overhead, and there is no way to have again the refracted-crystal clarity and focus of working on the numbers. All of that which had defined them before is lost to them now.
But this is so much more than he's ever known following any previous loss. Harold suppresses the tears now, and his smile falters tremulously as he takes a shaky breath. He doesn't want to be John's savior because his heart is too full with respect and admiration, and anything that implies a power imbalance creates a distance, and--
He's here, and he won't be a coward again, and he can be selfish at least in this one way. ]
Any mystery around the corner is one we can discover together.
[ If Harold remembers Nathan by treating no one as irrelevant, then he honors Grace with this lesson, that with real love it becomes effortless to be equal. ]
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It's more than Harold's ever gotten before.
He'd felt tears earlier, tears he knew he couldn't explain to John, not because words would fail him but because he thinks John is still so far from understanding what it's like to be overwhelmed with emotion in a way that doesn't cause damage. It hurts, of course it hurts, and Harold fully believes it always will hurt to have lost him. To know there is no way they can walk back from a movie in the rain down the streets of New York, a cautious hand fluttering lightly at his back and an umbrella overhead, and there is no way to have again the refracted-crystal clarity and focus of working on the numbers. All of that which had defined them before is lost to them now.
But this is so much more than he's ever known following any previous loss. Harold suppresses the tears now, and his smile falters tremulously as he takes a shaky breath. He doesn't want to be John's savior because his heart is too full with respect and admiration, and anything that implies a power imbalance creates a distance, and--
He's here, and he won't be a coward again, and he can be selfish at least in this one way. ]
Any mystery around the corner is one we can discover together.
[ If Harold remembers Nathan by treating no one as irrelevant, then he honors Grace with this lesson, that with real love it becomes effortless to be equal. ]