ornithologist: (006)
Harold Finch ([personal profile] ornithologist) wrote in [community profile] etrayalogs2025-03-22 10:05 am

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.
aimsforknees: (159)

[personal profile] aimsforknees 2025-05-31 12:28 am (UTC)(link)
[ He takes a bite of pancake while he considers that, not meeting Harold's eyes and instead watching the syrup soak into the porous surface. What he's said... is true. The skills he developed in the CIA have served him well in doing the numbers. He wouldn't be capable of them without going through the program, without doing the job and all it entailed. And he gets to do so much good now. As Harold said, he gets to help people, which is all he's ever really wanted to do.

But it doesn't change the rest of it. It doesn't mean that he doesn't wake from nightmares in the night, it doesn't mean that he hasn't held others away for so long, it doesn't mean that he doesn't struggle through some days when it feels like the specter of his past is weighing down his every heartbeat. Even with Joss, even with Iris, he didn't really let them get to know him. He's not even sure Harold can see that part of him, however close they are; he sees so much good in people that sometimes is too charitable.

He finishes slowly chewing and pushes around the eggs with his fork before stabbing a few pieces, looking at the motion like it means more than just his wariness of the topic. ]


There's a difference between strength and capability.

[ And John has, for the past week, not demonstrated any strength. It feels in some ways that he's barely taken one step forward from when Harold first found him. Surely someone like Harold can see that difference, surely it's close to mind just how deficient John has been. ]
aimsforknees: (136)

[personal profile] aimsforknees 2025-06-03 02:38 am (UTC)(link)
[ John gets up when asked and goes into the bedroom to fetch it. He came to his senses somewhere along the way and decided to stop hiding it in obscure places; it's in the nightstand next to his bed now.

It gives him time to think, too, about Harold's words. About strength being using capabilities for good. About his nightmares. About staring down Alonzo Quinn in a motel room and pulling the trigger. About offering Daniel Casey a pair of pliers.

Is it remarkable when he's strong? He doesn't think so. He doesn't feel so. It just feels like something he should be doing. Rather than it being remarkable, it feels like the baseline, and all his failures are just that. Does it look remarkable to Harold? Does Harold paint him in such different light? It wouldn't be a portrait John can recognize himself in.

He returns with the paper, folded in half so the personal message and poem are separated by a crease, but it's in otherwise pristine condition; John would never treat something like this carelessly despite the number of times he's read and reread it. Wordlessly, he hands it over. ]
Edited 2025-06-03 02:41 (UTC)
aimsforknees: (118)

[personal profile] aimsforknees 2025-06-08 09:38 pm (UTC)(link)
[ It's so like Harold, reading the new words. Over and over choosing to see beauty and submit to love. Isn't that Harold in short? Always seeing the best in people, always believing in them even when he's seen all the numbers they need to stop, not save. It's no wonder that he chose this poem, that he sets store by it.

But together? John doesn't know what he's implying with "together". Is he asking something of John? He doesn't think so. Harold doesn't push him down a path in that way. He might see the best in John but he doesn't force that on him, always lets him make his own choices, take his own steps. But he said at the top of the page he wants to walk together, he ended his thoughts on the poem with "together".

What path is he asking John to walk with him? What destination? To what end? ]


It's a nice poem, [ he replies after reading Harold's writing a few times, feeling the emptiness of his words.

He doesn't have any adequate thoughts to share that match the effort Harold has given him here. He opens his mouth to try again. ]


I can see why you like it, it's hopeful.

[ Harold would pick something hopeful, would want to share that hope. His belief, his hope, all of it. John doesn't always see it, doesn't understand where it comes from, but he has always followed Harold like walking in footsteps in the snow, even when he doesn't know where they lead.

What if, this time, Harold is asking for them to walk side by side? What then? Where does that leave John? ]
aimsforknees: (60)

[personal profile] aimsforknees 2025-06-12 03:40 am (UTC)(link)
[ It had felt like an incentive when Harold had first said it to him. They had repeated it over the years, each time with less conviction. It had been a race to that finish line in the end, one that John had won, but one without a real winner. A race that John didn't truly understood the consequences of until it was over.

And just earlier, hadn't Harold told him that he didn't want to outlive the numbers? Are they really so different on that count? He won't put words in Harold's mouth, but John won't pretend to be something he isn't. ]


We did help each other, [ he agrees. That's undeniable. They did. They found something together. ] But Harold, you know who I was when you recruited me. For all the times it almost ended, I didn't really think about it until after it was over. Not for either of us.

[ He pauses for just a moment before continuing, not looking at Harold but at the poem instead. It's not entirely true that he didn't think about Harold's death, he just was so confident in his ability to prevent it, so unthinkingly sure in his plan. And how did that serve him? ]

When I think of strength I think of all those numbers who we saved. People like Megan Tillman. Or Sarah Jennings. They kept trying, they figured out how to live even after their lives fell apart.

[ John's been doing a lot of running up until now. It's not to say that he won't again, but he's here with Harold, trying at least to slow his pace. Etraya had frustrated him before because it made him stop, took away the pavement from beneath his feet, but now he's going to have live in that space. He's going to have to learn the shape of what's around him, his life.

It's a little terrifying. He doesn't know how to be a bell, let alone ring. ]
aimsforknees: (154)

[personal profile] aimsforknees 2025-06-14 03:37 am (UTC)(link)
[ What does Harold mean when he says he knew who John was? What is he implying? John is aware that Harold sees him differently than he sees himself, but they've never talked about. He doesn't know how to ask what he looks like in Harold's eyes, if he even wants to know.

But he has done good. He knows that. He knows the numbers were good. That's why he didn't let Harold quit, that's why he came back. The numbers were good. They helped so many people. It was all worth it.

His death saved Harold. It was all worth it.

Now though he does look up, directly at Harold. ]


Thank you. For giving me that chance. [ There's a hesitation where he almost leaves this unsaid, but he wants Harold to know. ] You saved me.

[ He's not talking about his death, he's talking about everything that happened before then. The person he became. The person he is now, sitting at this table with their food gone cold. He wouldn't have had that chance without Harold. ]
aimsforknees: (60)

[personal profile] aimsforknees 2025-06-25 11:13 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Then you should have thought about that five years ago, is John's immediate thought. He also recognizes it as what Harold doesn't want to hear, so he holds it silently but doesn't shy away from Harold's gaze. No matter how much Harold doesn't want it to be true, it is. It always will be. It's not something that can be taken back now that it's been given.

Harold is just— he's there, he's part of John's life, not the reason for it, but one of the foundations. Again, not what he thinks Harold wants to hear, so he keeps that to himself as well. It's fine if he keeps these secrets. It's fine if Harold never truly understands what he means to John, his feelings are things he's kept to himself for a long, long time now; swallowing those words from Kara and Mark felt like shards of glass, and these feelings are smooth and warm, they go down easily.

But it doesn't preclude Harold's desired relationship, at least not in John's mind. They are equals, they are partners. How many times have they stood shoulder to shoulder? Like puzzle pieces, matching curves, the ebb and flow filling out the gaps they each have. The work they have done has long since been on equal footing, even if John will always follow his direction. That's built on history, a large body of evidence John has gathered over the years; not one sole event, no matter how significant it was. In John's mind that's part of their partnership, even if he's not sure Harold would see it that way; Harold has his domain and John has his own. ]


We are partners.

[ As simple as that. They are partners. There's no doubt in that for John, he can say it with honesty, with conviction. ]