etrayalogs | I won't run, the guilt is mine

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I won't run, the guilt is mine

WHO: Harold Finch & established CR
WHEN: Forward dated post-mission
WHERE: Around Etraya
WHAT: Harold canon updates to post-series and has a bit of a time. Closed starters below. There will be an open post for him after these are sorted through!
NOTES\WARNINGS: This whole post and all threads are full of descriptions of grieving and suicidal thoughts & ideation.

After it happens, after he recovers his memories of how everything fell apart, Harold questions his grip on reality. It would be appropriate if after all this time he finally met his limit. John is dead and Root is dead and Elias is dead and-- the Machine is dead-- and Grace is alive, but what right does he have to see her, how can he get a happy ending when he's the one who deserves it the least--

He's in the library they abandoned long ago and there's traces of his life here with John all around him. Rationally, intellectually, he knows where he is. This is Etraya. He can reread their text conversations, few though they were, and reassure himself that this is real and that this is happening. But there's no one here. It's eerie, everyone away on the mission; it's like Harold is in some kind of bizarre tortuous stasis. He's here but no one else is, survivor's guilt made manifest in its natural apotheosis.

He finds the remnants of all the projects he'd been working on so steadily what must've been a day ago, electronic pieces strewn around and multiple computers chugging test code, and stares at them. They seem so pointless now. Meaningless. Harold struggles to find an ounce of caring in his soul, for anyone, for anything. Surveillance? A covert encrypted network?

What does it matter? He's utterly alone.

Harold can't stay there. The numbness is getting increasingly punctured every time he finds something John left behind: washed dishes from making him dinner, a suit jacket left over the back of a chair, and then Bear himself. He has to leave the library or risk feeling things again and that's a tidal wave whose potential aftermath frightens him.

Mutely, he leashes Bear and heads out, and for hours he wanders the empty streets of Etraya, wondering how much longer he has to endure existence.

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[And there it is. Suddenly, she's not the only one who knows anymore, and she's surprised at how much of a relief that is.

Shaw ends up being the one to take the couch after all, slowly lowering herself onto a corner cushion. Belatedly, she remembers what he'd come here to say; despite how she'd barely responded, the grief and guilt on his face hadn't gone unnoticed.]

I, uh--

[She swallows.]

I have a lot of her stuff, actually. If there's anything you want.

[People like mementos; Harold, in particular, seems like the nostalgic sort.]

[ There's a lot of tells in Shaw's demeanor that makes it clear she's affected, and Harold accordingly relents, joining her on the couch an appropriate distance away and watching her quietly. ]

Do you? [ he muses, wondering even more bitterly in a private corner of his mind what, if anything, he would ever have to save of John's. He really owned very little. But they're talking about Root right now, small mercies. ]

... The slippers, I suppose, if you have them. We were practically roommates while we rebuilt the Machine together.

[Those ridiculous slippers. Of course she has them.]

Sure. I want keep her jacket, but everything else--

[Everything else, she wants kept - not thrown out or left behind or portioned out to strangers in need, if they can possibly help it. But she doesn't feel the urge to hoard it all for herself.]

[ Harold doesn't know yet the subway base is here so he isn't clear how or where from Shaw got Root's things. It doesn't seem important to ask. ]

Of course, [ he acknowledges immediately, reflecting that for all the people he's lost he's never stuck around to parcel out their things before. How strange. Of course, the Machine took the most important thing Root left behind of all: her voice. ]

... She tried to tell me before she died that we all lived on in the Machine's memories of us now. I admit I didn't find that very comforting.

[ It was a very Root sort of conversation. ]

She told me that it didn't matter whether or not I was in a simulation, because the real world was basically just a simulation, too.

[So yeah, talking about living on in the Machine's memories sounds pretty on brand for her.

The mention of the two of them lived together in close contact, building experiences and memories during the time that Shaw had been away, hasn't escaped her notice - and it occurs to her that Harold, more than anyone, can go beyond just commiserating with her: he can tell her about the time with Root that she'd missed out on. And while commiserating can only go so far with her (she appreciates the spirit of it, it doesn't mean nothing, but she's also well aware of it not meaning as much as it should), sharing new information has a much more concrete purpose to her.

So. She clears her throat.]

I, uh-- what was it like, being roomies?

That's along the lines of what she was saying to me, [ Harold agrees, glancing up and quirking a bittersweet half-smile. He understands the metaphysics behind it, knows where Root's argument is coming from, it just lacks emotional weight to him.

But he doesn't dismiss it. Root was right more often than she was wrong, but especially about the things Harold didn't want to look at. ]

Frankly, terrible, [ he says with a glint of humor. ] We became close, but neither of us got very much sleep. We had to restore the Machine from an extremely... shall we say, fragile and narrow backup. We were debugging, defragging, coding together --

[ Quietly: ] There's no one else I could have trusted to do that with me. [ It's not the same as Shaw's loss in character or in quality, but Harold feels Root's absence, too, at a magnitude that caused him to break his own rules. ]

Was she annoying? Did she play loud music, drink all the orange juice, and embarrass you by wearing those ridiculous slippers everywhere?

[The tinge of fondness in Shaw's voice is mute, as ever - but it's still very much there, even as her face remains impassive.]

I went on a relevant mission with her once. She got up at three in the morning for no goddamned reason.

I wish I could tell you humorous anecdotes, but truthfully, mostly things were dire.

[ Harold can find some room for fond nostalgia about his time with Root, but it's thickly overshadowed with how tenuous their grasp on survival had felt the whole time. How close they'd been teetering to crossing lines that couldn't be walked back.

Just recalling it makes Harold look tired, someone who ran a marathon for the past year and now wants to collapse. ]

She was relentless, [ he says like a confession, a trace of admiration present for a champion marathon runner who'd put him to shame. ] Challenging me constantly -- and the Machine, for that matter. Ms. Groves did not go quietly into that good night.

Yeah. I know.

[And she does: as much as she doubts that Root had regrets about the choices leading up to her death, she's just as sure that she'd fought to the end. She exhales, hunching her shoulders awkwardly.]

I'm, uh-- I'm glad you know everything now, I guess. Maybe that's selfish, but it was weird being the only one.

Not selfish at all, [ he says quietly. He's always been prone to and acutely aware of loneliness.

The truth is, Harold knows far more than Shaw in a lot of respects. That he'd survived is one thing, but there's far more. If he's really respecting Root's wishes, the idea that being remembered is its own form of being alive, then he should share what he can with Shaw. ]

... There is one thing I think you should know, Sameen. [ He uses her first name to make sure she knows he means it in every nuance when he says, ] She went to tremendous lengths to find you. She took every chance, followed every lead. She never gave up.

I won't forget her.

[There's certainty to the way she says it, and an understated intensity, like she thinks she needs to convince or reassure Harold of that fact. She's the sort of person who nearly always lands on her feet, moving forward immediately after a crisis event - which isn't at all the same as moving on and forgetting, but she's well aware of how similar they look. She honors her dead in her own private way: by getting a tattoo, by keeping a memento, by letting them persist as a little voice in the back of her head that guides her actions going forward. And speaking of.

She stands and leaves the room, moving into the back bedroom - not to rebuff Harold, but to pull out the box she has tucked away in the back of her closet, unearthing the ridiculous bunny slippers.]

She loved us both.

[She says, holding out the slippers for him to take.]

And the Machine.

[ In some ways Shaw is the bravest of them all, the way she says She loved us both, and the Machine, without hesitation. Harold still has to work up his nerve to be that honest and direct. In retrospect, it's no surprise Ms. Groves had been drawn to her so much; she was always trying to get Harold to face the things he wanted to ignore.

Harold hasn't seen her outwardly grieving or not grieving -- hadn't seen her at all after Root's death at home, not really -- and hadn't known to look for it while they were here, so he doesn't have any preconceived notion about how Shaw should be performing her grief. If anything, he assumes it would be private. He understands that instinct and he can see that Shaw would be the same way. Something about airing it out publicly feels disrespectful, even demeaning. The impact isn't lessened because it's kept to oneself. ]

She did, [ he echoes softly in agreement, taking the slippers and smiling a little despite himself. It's bittersweet, edged in sadness. ] And the Machine loved her, too, in the way that she could.

[ Yes, Root finally got to him on the pronouns. Harold suddenly notices the frayed edges on the slippers. ]

... I think these were Bear's, actually. She had a pair for him.

-- Crap. Really?

[Something like concern flits across her face, and she leans in for a better look.]

I only found one pair. Where are hers?

She didn't stay at the subway forever, [ Harold answers, bemused, looking down at them with Shaw. ]

She must have taken them with her. I really never had any idea what she was doing when I wasn't with her.

[Shaw's jaw works as she stares down at the slippers, suddenly perturbed and upset for reasons she can't quite pin down - and, as it usually does, that manifests itself as anger.]

Probably got left in some hotel room and ended up in a dumpster.

[ It doesn't manifest as anger for Harold, but he understands the loss that provokes it intimately. His eyes soften. ]

I do have one humorous anecdote, [ he offers, quite deliberately. ] If you're interested.

[ Their memories won't go into any dumpster. ]

Okay.

[Her voice is tight and her eyes are hard, but that doesn't mean she's not interested. Do tell, Harold.]

[ He can't take away her mourning, isn't sure he'd even want to with how much he himself is defined by it sometimes, but -- he can add something to it, maybe. Give it more dimensions than just loss. ]

We got a number for a marriage certificate -- the Machine was feeling whimsical that day, apparently -- and we all had to go undercover to the wedding. Ms. Groves wasn't originally going to attend, but she surprised us by showing up as the caterer.

[ There's more to this story, but this is the set up. And he chooses not to say that he thinks Root showed up because she was prone to feeling lonely. ]

Figures.

[Shaw says, combining a derisive snort with a softening facial expression. No more angry eyes here.]

Can she actually cook?

[A pause.]

Could she, I mean?

[ Harold notices the tense correction and feels it keenly as someone still finding himself struggling with the same thing. Not just for Root, who he's had a bit more time to get accustomed to losing, but for John and the Machine. ]

I really haven't the faintest idea, [ he says frankly, mouth quirking with a hint of humor. ] She said something about soup, but I was a bit distracted by the fact that she'd drugged the wedding photographer.

[Shaw groans, the way she might if Root were doing something spectacularly ridiculous right in front of her at this very moment, and dramatically drops her head into her hands. Please continue, Finch.]

Edited (oops, forgot they were on the couch) 2025-04-07 00:34 (UTC)

[ His whole demeanor softens subtly, something coiled up and harsh in him relaxing just a bit. He's never gotten to do this kind of shared mourning before, has he? Not with any of the lives who'd mattered to him. Harold had made things that way himself, purposefully -- no one else knew about his father's death; Grace never knew Nathan, and so forth -- so he really has no one else to blame, but it feels remarkable, a fresh discovery.

Encouraged, he goes on readily. ] We did actually need the photographer's pictures, [ Harold acknowledges, ] though how this devolved into her rescuing the woman on horseback and me badly singing in an Irish accent, I'll never know.

Did you have to sing to distract a bad guy? Was it a last-ditch effort to let her get away on the horse?

[She's just barely stopping herself from requesting that he badly sing for her in an Irish accent; please appreciate her restraint, Harold.]

[ Disgruntled, ] I had to sing because I obtained an invitation by pretending to be a long-estranged Irish uncle to the groom. It was a rather exclusive event.

Unbeknownst to me, he had a family reputation as a remarkable singer.

[ There is no chance on this planet that Harold would be indulging such a request, so it's just as well. ]

No wonder you never come out on missions. Sounds like the Machine was playing jokes on you; she's never made me sing once.

[The "she" isn't really consistent, especially not without Root's all-too-human, all-too-feminine voice in her ear. But when it does slip out, it's completely natural.]

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