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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[ Part of real maturity is understanding that others can have perspectives different from your own that are equally valid and legitimate, and if you can't do that yourself then it's hard to believe someone else could. Harold knows that's something every young person struggles with, so it's easy to read through here, and he doesn't want to denigrate whatever coping strategy Accelerator has come up with. Particularly not when it's one the Machine had decided on, also.

In a lot of respects, she would know better than him. Harold had made her to be more than a human could be, himself included, maybe himself especially.

Accelerator's simple statement, It's hard, seems apropos more than anything to Harold. In the tone of a confession: ] I miss her. Even if we weren't communicating directly, she could see me through every camera, hear me through every microphone.

[ Maybe no one else would find that comforting, but Harold always has. He and Root are alike in some ways he found hard to admit. ]

[Well, logically it makes perfect sense. You don't create an AI who can predict criminal activity without it having access to absolutely every kind of surveillance feed, and when you know it's got that kind of access your only options are to get used to it or somehow go off the grid.

Still, he huffs a little.]

That's Academy City levels of surveillance. Aurora can't even compare.

[It's wild to think about, having a child who knows your every move.

Then again, that's sort of how it works with him and the Sisters. They've got access to his brainwaves, and if he wants to avoid them physically he has to actively work at it. It makes him try to imagine a life where all of the Sisters were gone, where he didn't need them for his brain injury, and he could go where he wanted and do what he wanted without them knowing.]

I get what that would've been like. Kind of. It's a lot harder to imagine all of a sudden having to go without that oversight.

[ Aurora really can't compare in that sense at least, which makes Harold's prior fear of being used against her understandable. He knows how to turn an A.I. into an A.S.I., a super intelligence. The Machine and Samaritan were likened to gods, and he found that whole metaphor tedious and annoying, but there was a grain of truth behind it: they were far beyond anything a human mind could fathom. Maybe Accelerator with his full capabilities is closer to it, but Harold can't help but feel it's still not the same.

The Machine, and Aurora, are not human. Treating them as human is a mistake, and in a strange way even callous. They don't need to be human to be worth caring for. But until recently he hadn't known how to reconcile that.

Harold shrugs awkwardly, the motion stiff and lop-sided with his bad back. He doesn't know what else to say, really still doesn't talk about the Machine with others often. Right now he's finding it hard to completely follow the thread of conversation like he normally would, his mind pulled off-course again and again, like someone struggling to shore getting caught up in undertow. ]

The Machine knew me... exceptionally well. [ Dashwood. ] She and John made a deal to protect me, [ he explains, sounding hollow. ] I had no idea they even spoke.

[ He should make a joke here, play it off somehow, but it dries up into dust in his mouth, the taste acrid. ]

[Accelerator would like to say something about how of course she knew him well, she was his kid. But he can't be confident with a statement like that, kids don't always know what their parents are actually like and he certainly didn't know his own. He isn't sure if that's another quality that made the Machine exceptional, but right now it feels like it.

It's nice to hear the two of them made that deal. Regardless of what Harold thinks about it (chances he thinks he didn't deserve it), Accelerator is glad he had two powerful people actively working to keep him safe.]

Did they? [On the one hand, he can totally picture John making a deal like that. On the other, he doesn't seem all that tech-savvy. He has to wonder who was the instigator of that deal, or if they had the same idea at the same time.] Guess you know how important you are - were - to them.

[ Harold knew his father fairly well, considered them close, but that has nothing on what the Machine can predict about him. A super intelligence who's studied its favorite person for years... he really should've expected she knew the password to ICE-9 without him saying it, should've known she'd been respecting his decisions, as always. In one sense, he regrets ever distrusting her; but that very distrust had made her who she became, so can he really regret it? The Machine's very caution and deliberateness was born from Harold's.

He really doesn't know what he'd done, in sum or in part, to end up with the child he did. So he wouldn't go back and change a thing. ]

Yes, I-- [ He stops himself, huffs, scrubbing at his face and at his eyes under his glasses in a sudden release of tension. ] I'm touched, but I'm also a bit annoyed, honestly.

I'd like to have some say in who gets to die for me, [ Harold gripes. ]

[He scoffs a little at that remark. Yeah, that's completely understandable. He can't imagine being happy if someone wanted to die for him. Yoshikawa had come close, though that had been for both him and Last Order, so it's easier to assume she had mainly done it for the tiny clone.

He doesn't want to think about what it'd be like if he was in Harold's position. At least Harold is a good person.]

That's the biggest pain about having people in your life. You can't control what they do.

[God, there had been so many times where he had wished that wasn't the case.]

[ At least Harold is a good person. Is he? That definition seems so frightfully malleable. Like an optical illusion, you don't quite realize you're seeing something different from the person beside you until you actually start talking about it. Harold has tried so hard and for so long to be a good person by his own definition, and then he'd broken that, to keep a bigger, higher promise.

He doesn't regret doing that, but he still doesn't know what to put in its place. Doesn't he need some new definition? Harold doesn't know how to live without that kind of certainty behind his actions. ]

I do keep trying to avoid having people in my life, [ he retorts in a long-suffering tone, ] but that doesn't seem to be working either.

[ He really does keep trying to just be alone. But whatever being a good person means, it must be incompatible with abandoning those that care for you. Harold is certain of that much. (It's why when he thinks of his father--) No. Not the time. ]

[Oh boy, Accelerator can relate. He had the benefit of Academy City facilitating his isolation for years, but people still managed to worm their way into his life. And now that he's actually allowing people in, sometimes he wishes he could go back to how things used to be. Not because it was better, but because it was easier.]

In my experience, the only way to do that is to completely isolate yourself from everything. Even the tiny stuff.

[No friends, no family, no classmates, nothing.]

[He pauses, curling his fingers again. Of course, him sitting here means Harold isn't alone. Harold had tried to downplay that text, he was the one who had insisted on talking to him about it. Accelerator is acutely aware this is probably the opposite of what he wants.

He should probably feel guilty about being here because of that, but he doesn't. Awkwardly, he looks away.]

... Anyways, I'm glad it isn't working.

[That's probably about as close as he can get to saying, 'I like having you around.']

[ Being isolated wasn't better, but it was tremendously easier -- Harold agrees with that sentiment completely.

He smiles ruefully at Accelerator at that last comment, reading through it and unashamed of his human weaknesses now. ] I've only myself to blame in that regard, [ he comments. ] If I must keep on living, the only way to make it bearable is to care.

[ About specific people and about ideals both. ]

Living without caring -- that's the worst fate of all, I think.

[It isn't really surprising given Accelerator's nature, but he can't meet Harold's gaze anymore and has to look away. Opening up this much would be a lot for any teenager, and for someone as emotionally stunted as he is it's amazing he isn't just shutting down or changing the subject.]

... Right. [He nods slowly.] I think so, too.

[ He lets the conversation lapse into silence, comfortable on his end, for long moments. Being able to vent some of his feelings, even in the carefully measured way he's sure to speak to a teenager, has surprisingly helped. Just a bit.

Maybe moreso, the reminder that there are people here who still care about him has helped. It's orienting in all his disorientation, like he's brought down to Earth from where before he was staring up at the endless sky. There's something for Harold to focus on, to remember as important. People have always operated as that for him. Though he's not a highly social person -- not like Nathan, or Root -- those connections he does make are incredibly precious to him. ]

... Thank you for checking on me, [ he says quietly. ] I promise I won't do anything rash.

[ Like set himself on fire. That really was just a morbid joke. ]

[Silence is a lot easier than any extended discussions about feelings, especially his own feelings, so he's comfortable with it. The whole conversation has gone a lot better than Accelerator expected; he's never considered himself any good at talking to people, and when it comes to sensitive subjects like all of this he figured that even though he cares, he likely would have made things worse. Somehow.

But it seems like he didn't, so that's good. That's probably all he can ask for.

He shifts a little awkwardly at being thanked, for once not trying to dismiss it.]

Okay. I'm gonna trust you on that.

[ Harold climbs laboriously to his feet, back stiff from sitting too long and his gut aching from where he's still healing from a gunshot wound. But he feels just a bit lighter than he did when he sat down. Just being able to share some of his bleakness makes it spread thinner over him. ]

Mr. Carver has reminded me that I like bird watching, so I think I'll do that.

[ It's partly a joke about how much of an old man he is in his tastes and partly reassurance. ]

[Accelerator is a little unsure whether he should let Harold go off on his own, but he seems to be doing better and he wouldn't exactly be good bird watching company. Traipsing around in the trees with a crutch doesn't sound like fun.]

That's not a bad idea.

[He extends his crutch and gets to his feet after Harold.]

I'm exhausted from the mission. I need a nap. [Because the six hours he took before coming out here wasn't enough, obviously.] But if you wanna talk some more, you can call me.

[He's saying that a bit awkwardly, looking away again.]

[ Harold waits politely for Accelerator to work with his crutch and stand. He hears the tiredness in his voice and the offer to call regardless, the awkwardness in expressing it, and he reaches out to touch his shoulder just briefly in acknowledgement and support. The contact is testament to how much he's changed since they last saw each other; Harold no longer holds himself completely at a remove. He makes little gestures on purpose now, short forays out of his shell. ]

Get some sleep, [ he assures him, and hobbles off without waiting for a reply. A small mercy in itself, he thinks. ]

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