Kill them all. Kill them all. Kill them-
The words ricocheted around John’s mind like a stray bullet that wouldn’t lose momentum. The same man who had asked John and Shaw not to kill so often, sometimes to their detriment, had thrown all his own rules out the window as soon as it was Grace on the line.
It was one thing for John to abandon his principles and run off to Colorado and then hop on a plane going anywhere else. After all John had just picked up those principles recently, from Finch. It was something tragic for Finch to abandon his.
But that’s what people did for love. What good people did. And despite all the time that had passed Harold loved Grace just as much as he always had. Even if it broke John’s heart a little and made him just a little resentful of her. Not that he managed to hold onto that resentment because as long as Harold loved Grace, John had to love Grace.
So John ran from behind the barriers to help her walk across, he watched Fusco’s car drive her away and back home, and then he handed her a package with her new life in it. He told her not to look back, he couldn’t have her risking herself so far out of reach and when he needed to focus on getting Harold back, and he hoped she listened.
But then she asked if he knew Harold and the words that sprang to his lips were a betrayal. I thought I did. He couldn’t say that. He was hurt and angry and still working on forcing those emotions into something that he could use, but she didn’t deserve that. She was scared and confused and getting kidnapped wasn’t something that happened to nice illustrators.
So he said something else, something that he had forced himself to face over and over again. “All I know is that you loved him and he loved you back.” He wanted to smile at her, offer her what comfort he had, but there wasn’t much in him. She had mourned him for four years. To her Harold was dead and Finch had never existed. To him there was a real danger, that he wasn’t sure he was going to defeat. The only thing he knew was that he was either going to find Harold and get him back safe, or he would die trying.