When Nathan woke from his coma he cycled through emotions too quickly to keep track but ended somewhere around furious. Maybe it wasn't the right place to end up but he'd just found out he'd been the target of an assassination attempt, his best friend had faked his death, and he'd never see or speak to his son again. It was a lot to take in, even if Harold acted like it was all perfectly reasonable.
Sometimes Harold baffled him and Nathan wondered if, when he looked at people, he just saw a package of data and a series of if-then statements. It wasn’t fair, and Nathan always hated himself a bit whenever the thought crossed his mind, but in the weeks after waking in a condo he didn’t recognize being called by a name he’d never heard he thought he was entitled to forgive himself for that particular lapse.
As the weeks passed and he calmed down, he could admit that being fake dead was still better than being real dead. Harold had made the right call, and maybe Nathan would have made that call too. It made the days pass easier to believe that. Though it didn't make the nights he spent alone sitting in a stranger's loft scrolling through his son's sparse Twitter feed any easier. But the anger was fading.
It wasn’t Harold’s fault that Nathan hadn’t been the father he wished he'd been. It wasn’t Harold’s fault that the government had tried to kill him. And it certainly wasn’t Harold’s fault that they would try again given half a chance.
Just because Harold could still call Will didn’t mean that he hadn’t left anyone behind. Harold had had to leave Grace to protect her, just like he’d had to leave his father. And then there were the people that Nathan had watched float in and out of Harold’s life, never letting himself make a connection in case they saw too much, dug too deep. Harold left people, especially the ones he loved, and he carried them with him like dead weights.
Nathan was working himself into a full sulk for the night when his phone rang. It was late and the only person who had that number was Harold.
“Nathan,” Harold said as soon as he picked up. He sounded winded and tense.
Nathan sat up on the couch. “Harold? Are you okay? What happened?”
“I’ll be fine. I could use your assistance, though. There’s been a problem with Mr. Dillinger,” Harold explained, he was clearly in pain and it sent Nathan's heart racing.
Nathan got off the couch and went to his room to get dressed, already thinking through the fastest route to the Library that wouldn’t leave them exposed. “Where are you? What happened? Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m in Central Park.”
That brought him up short. “What the hell are you doing in Central Park at this hour?”
“As I said there has been a problem with Mr. Dillinger. I can take care of it myself but I would appreciate the assistance.”
“What kind of problem, Harold?”
“A physical problem. One that would be done much faster and therefore with less of a risk to both of us if you were to help me,” Harold said, quietly hissing the word "faster". Nathan was pretty sure it was him wincing again, though he might have just been irritated with Nathan.
“Text me the exact location. I’m on my way.”
"Bring a shovel."
Nathan followed the coordinates Harold sent him to a dark corner of the park, surrounded by woods. “Harold?” he asked the dark, the sparse street lamps didn't do much to illuminate the area and he couldn't see a thing.
There was a sound of a breath being let out loudly. “Over here,” Harold said from somewhere just beyond the treeline. Nathan found him braced against a tree holding a shovel and next to Dillinger’s dead body.
For a while, they both just stared at the body. “Well, this would constitute a physical problem,” Nathan said, trying to break the tension. He looked back up at Harold who was frowning at him. No doubt disappointed in Nathan for making a joke over a corpse. “What happened?” Nathan asked, starting to dig.
“The number we received involved The Machine.”
Nathan sighed; that explained the shovel. “Which is why we can’t just strip him of anything connected to us and call the cops?”
“We just need to delay the finding of the body,” Harold said. Nathan continued to dig the hole he’d started. The ground was almost frozen and Harold had only gotten a few inches deep in the vague outline of a grave. “The agency that was sent after our number will be waiting for his body to appear but I’d rather not have the police look into the murder the day after he was spotted with our number in an alleyway shoot-out in the middle of the day.”
“He got into a shootout in the middle of town during the day?” Nathan asked, shaking his head. Nathan hadn’t been great at saving the numbers but he’d at least been more subtle than that.
“Yes.”
“You always were worse at hiring. Next time I pick the goon,” Nathan said, trying not to look at the body.
“That would mean that you were involved,” Harold said.
“I died, Harold. Excuse me for needing a little time to deal with it,” Nathan said, laughing.
Harold laughed too, quietly and like he wasn’t sure he was allowed. Nathan smiled at him.
It was nearly dawn when he finished and he was frozen to the bone. They stumbled back to the car together, covered in dirt and looking as if they had spent their night digging a grave. Thankfully, they didn’t run into anyone.
“Where are you staying?” Nathan asked as he relaxed into the driver's seat, holding his fingers to the vents in hopes of thawing out. He could already feel his muscles stiffening from the work and Harold couldn’t have been much better.
“Just take me back to the Library.”
“Are you staying at the Library these days?”
“No, but-”
“But nothing. You can’t go back to work li-”
“That’s where my chair is.”
Nathan sighed. If he took Harold back to the Library he knew he’d go back to wrapping up the work that needed to be done to keep them secret and safe. Maintaining a work-life balance had never been one of Harold’s skills. “Fine. We’ll go to the Library and we’ll get your chair and then I’m taking you home.”
“There’s work-”
“Yes. But you need to rest. I need to rest. We’re not twenty anymore. All-nighters aren’t something we can do and be of any use the next day.” Nathan pulled out onto the street. “You said yourself that they think they took care of it with Dillinger. We both need a few hours of sleep, preferably in beds, and then we can tackle dodging the US government again.”
Harold sighed, though it was his ramping up for an argument sigh.
“How many times have you told me that rest was essential to the human body? Hm?"
"Likely as many times as you said it to me."
"Exactly, let's not dig up old arguments. I need to sleep and then we can go fix Dillinger's mess."
Harold quietly hummed and when Nathan glanced over his eyes were shut. Nathan rolled his eyes but he was smiling. That was what best friends did. They looked out for you, they took care of you, they faked your death, and they helped you dig graves.
When they got to the Library Harold only put up a token protest before settling back into his seat while Nathan ran upstairs to get the wheelchair.
Harold gave him directions to an apartment that had a locked building door and a desk for a doorman but no doorman in sight. “Don’t tell me you fired the doorman when you bought this place just for the privacy,” Nathan said, only half-joking. There was a distinct possibility that Harold owned the building. He had an odd love of real estate.
“He received a generous severance package,” Harold said as they got into the elevator. “Retired early to spend more time with his grandkids.”
“Oh, well isn’t that nice for him.”
Harold was only on the second floor so it was a short ride up. The apartment itself wasn’t huge, not by the standards that Nathan was used to, but it was spacious enough that Harold could move around in his chair easily and all the furniture looked comfortable. Nathan eyed the long couch in front of the TV. He’d wanted a shower before he slept but the couch was tempting him.
Harold waved his hand at the kitchen telling Nathan to help himself and then disappeared into what Nathan assumed was the bathroom. A part of Nathan wanted to poke around the apartment and see how much of it was standard pre-furnished apartment things and how much was the real Harold. He knew Harold had been living with Grace for a while and he couldn’t very well go back and get his things. The parts of Harold that were in this place were either new or they’d been held back from Grace.
The selfish part of Nathan had wanted to know how much of the real Harold had been held back since he’d found out about her.
Instead of snooping, Nathan finished off a carton of vermicelli noodles that was in the fridge and downed three glasses of water before he slumped down on the couch. He had to fight to stay awake. There was a good chance if he fell asleep now Harold would take the car back to the Library by himself and never get any rest.
When the bathroom door opened he shot up straight again, immediately regretting it. He was already sore; he should really work out more.
“If you’re going to sleep here at least take a shower," Harold said from one end of the couch.
“Do you have a pair of sweats I can borrower?”
Harold motioned at a closet and Nathan forced himself up to go investigate. Inside was a duffle bag with a large N on the tag. He opened it and there was a pair of sweats, a change of clothes, and a toiletries bag. There was another bag with a RD on it that almost made Nathan cringe. He couldn’t imagine a version of tonight where Harold would trust Dillinger enough to bring him back there. Even if it had been a hotel Nathan couldn’t imagine it. It took over a month of sharing a dorm room before Nathan saw Harold sleep.
“Your contingencies have contingencies,” Nathan grumbled.
“That used to be something you liked about me,” Harold said, already wheeling towards the other side of the apartment where the bedroom was.
“Still is,” Nathan said brightly. “Does this place have a guest room?”
Harold pivoted his chair back towards him. “No. But you’re welcome to share the bed if the couch will be too uncomfortable.”
Nathan considered it. They hadn’t shared a bed since going to his mom’s for Christmas and having to stay in Nathan’s old room. The awkwardness of the night hit him in full force even from thirty years on.
“Or you can go home.”
“I'm not going to force myself into rush hour if I don't have to.”
“Goodnight.”
Nathan shut the bathroom door and for the first time all night got a good look at himself. His hair was sticking up at odd angles from sweat and dirt, his face streaked with it and when he looked down there was more dirt under his fingernails. He looked awful. No wonder Harold wanted him to shower before he stained everything he got within ten feet of.
Nathan got into the large shower and slowly his muscles started to relax as the dirt came off, layer after layer. The shampoo bottle was half empty and Nathan was a little more confident that this was where Harold had been staying the last few weeks. It hit him suddenly how odd it was that he was trying to figure these things out about his best friend. They were all each other had in the world and Nathan had spent weeks pouting in his apartment like a teenager. Hopefully burying a body helped make up for it.
Redressed in his emergency pajamas, he folded up his dirty clothes and set them aside to take home later. For a few minutes, he stood in the middle of the dark apartment. The door to Harold’s room was cracked, a clear statement that he stood by his offer but also understood if Nathan would rather not.
The thing was Nathan rather would he just wasn't sure he could. There was an intimacy in letting someone else’s breathing lull you to sleep, feeling their warmth under the blanket even if you weren't touching and Nathan didn’t know if he could take it, not with Harold. Thirty years ago he hadn’t been able to and he wasn’t sure he was much better now.
Instead, he went back to the closet, grabbed a blanket and a pillow that were on the top shelf, and set himself up on the couch. It was actually pretty comfortable, he told himself as he laid with his eyes closed, listing to the unfamiliar traffic patterns outside and the people starting to wake up in the apartment above them. He didn’t think about why it had been so awkward in his childhood bedroom all those years ago. He didn’t think about how he’d spent the whole night wide awake wishing he could just ask what had happened between them, why that moment was the first time they had been alone in months.
“Oh dear,” Harold said quietly. It was past midnight and Nathan’s eyes had been burning for hours. Diane Hansen was in trouble and they needed hard data on her life if they were going to save it. The newly hired help were good at what they did but they weren't exactly investigative geniuses and it was best to know what the threat was precisely before they sent anyone out to deal with it.
“What?”
“The man we’ve been considering, John Reese, his fingerprints have just been flagged by the police system,” Harold said, frowning at the screen.
Nathan grabbed his phone and started to dial a lawyer who didn’t mind shady clients that he kept on retainer for such problems. “Sounds like we just found our way in. What station is he at?” The line picked up as Harold told him and Nathan explained the situation to the lawyer’s assistant. They’d been sending the lawyer out right away.
“I’ve sent Mr. Brown and Mr. Nelson to pick him up in the car,” Harold said, as Nathan got off the phone.
“Excellent. Where are we meeting him?”
“Under the Queensboro Bridge.”
“I do love your flair for the dramatic, Harold. I didn’t quite get my fill of shady meetings in random parts of the city working with the government.”
Harold gave him an unimpressed look as he grabbed his coat.
Nathan laughed and followed him out the door, feeling as if he’d gotten a second wind. He had a good feeling about John Reese. From what Harold had told him John had been the one to let Daniel Casey go which meant he wasn’t a blind follower of orders and was capable of a little critical thinking. Harold had hesitated at the length of time John had spent working for the government but Nathan had shrugged and called it loyalty. Plus he’d defected eventually, and it wasn’t as if they had any room to talk about having done morally questionable things for the government.
Harold and Nathan arrived first, just as the first few rays of sunlight were breaking over the city. “At least we have some information of our number to start from,” Nathan said.
“If he agrees.”
“He’ll agree.”
“You’re awfully confident.”
“Sales is most of what I did at IFT, I think I can get someone with an obvious hero complex to play hero,” Nathan said.
“We don’t need a hero,” Harold argued. Probably just for the sake of it.
“Hero, martyr, whatever.”
Harold opened his mouth to continue arguing but the car pulled up behind them.
Brown, Nelson, and John all got out of the car. Brown and Nelson took their places next to the front of the car, not quite watching them as John came towards them. “Do I owe you money?” he asked, flapping around his dirty coat. “Cuz I’m running...a little short at the moment.”
Oh, he was funny. Nathan liked him more already. “No, you don’t owe us money. Or anything else, Mr. Reese,” Nathan said with a smile. John stopped short, the easy smile gone from his face. “Or can I call you John?”
When John didn’t answer Nathan shrugged. "I know you’ve had a few names but that seemed to be your favorite.”
John continued to watch them carefully, his eyes flicking back and forth between Nathan and Harold.
“You don’t need to look so worried. We’re not going to tell anyone about you.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
Nathan made a face that it was clear he disagreed.
“We know exactly everything about you, Mr. Reese,” Harold said, turning away to look across the bridge. “We know about the work you used to do for the government. We know about the doubts you came to have about that work. We know that the government along with everyone else thinks you’re dead.”
John took a step towards them, sharp and with intent. Brown and Nelson started to follow, ready to do their jobs but Nathan waved them off. John stopped short of them anyway, his eyes fixed on Harold.
“I know you’ve spent the last couple of months trying to drink yourself to death,” Harold continued. “I know you’re contemplating more efficient ways to do it.”
Harold let it hang in the air for a moment.
“See? Knowing isn’t really our problem,” Nathan said. “Doing something is. But you’re a man of action, John. Just the man we’re looking for. You can call me Nate. This is Mr. Finch.”
John just continued to watch them, clearly wary but intrigued. Like he couldn’t quite help himself when presented with a puzzle.
“You see, I think we can all help each other,” Nathan said.
“I don’t think you need a support group, or pills, or a therapist,” Harold said.
“Those things don’t tend to help when you have to lie about everything up to and including your name,” Nathan chimed in.
“Then what do I need?” John asked, all but spitting out the words. So the man didn’t like to be lectured. Nathan could understand that.
“You need a purpose,” Harold said at the same time Nathan said “A job.”
John looked like he almost cracked a smile but it was hard to tell under all that facial hair. “What kind of job?”
Nathan started towards the car. “We’ll show you.”
They pulled up on the street in front of Diane Hansen’s office. They all piled out of the car like a very odd clown show. “Eight million people,” Harold said. “You know what they all have in common? None of them know what happens next. Someone is murdered in New York City every eighteen hours. At the end of the day, one of these people will be gone.”
“Bad things happen to people every day,” John said, shaking his head. “Can’t stop it.”
“But what if you could,” Nathan said. “Not the heat of the moment, random acts of violence. There’s nothing to be done about those. But a lot of violent crime is planned, and what if you could stop that.”
John eyed him carefully.
“We have a list,” Harold said. “A list of people who are about to be involved in very bad situations. Murders. Kidnappings. Most of the people on our list don’t even know that anything is going to happen to them. Most of them are just ordinary people.” He gestured towards Diane who was getting a cup of coffee. “People like her. Her name is Diane Hansen and this week she’s at the top of the list.”
“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” Nathan said. “Or if she’s the victim or if she’s the one about to do something terrible, but we know something’s going to happen. I want you to follow her, figure out what’s going to happen, and stop it before anyone gets hurt. What do you think?”
“I think you’re bored rich men. I think that woman’s probably your ex-wife,” he said looking at Harold. He turned to Nathan. “Or someone you rode in an elevator with once. Either way, I think I’m done.” He gave them each a sharp smile and started to walk off. Nelson stepped in front of him, matching his moves when he tried to go around.
John smacked the side of his neck hard enough that Nelson stumbled right into Brown, their heads knocking together with a loud thud, and then he was gone.
Harold looked up at him, clearly upset that things hadn’t gone quite so smoothly. For a moment Nathan wondered how exactly the conversation with Dillinger went when Harold hired him. “Why are you so pleased?”
“He won’t stalk your ex-wife,” Nathan said, grinning.
Nathan wasn’t proud of what they did next but they’d certainly done worse. As it was, he didn't think he’d be losing any sleep that night as he listened to a mirror shatter, and then John break through the door.
“You’re too late,” Harold said as John realized that it was just a tape. “Four years too late.”
Nathan held up a paper. “A woman murdered in this room by her husband for the insurance. You were too late for her. Just like you were too late for Jessica Ardnt. You were on the other side of the planet when she was killed.”
John stood stalk still for a second before lunging at Nathan, pressing him against a wall with his forearm to Nathan’s neck. He couldn’t breathe, maybe bringing up the dead ex-girlfriend was a bad idea. “What do you know about it?”
“It’s the truth,” Harold said, staring at them wide-eyed from behind John’s back. “You left the government because they lied to you. We never will. I think all you ever wanted to do was protect people.”
John backed off half a step, but let go of Nathan so he could take a gasping breath. His head swam as he was suddenly able to get oxygen to his brain again. When he’d settled down John was staring at the tape player.
“That’s wiretap recording. Government. But you’re not government.”
“What gave us away?” Nathan asked, his voice thick and rough. Damn, that’d hurt.
Harold glared at him. “I suppose you could call us a concerned third party.” There was a heavy silence, Harold waiting for John to look up at him again. “You couldn’t have saved this woman. Or your friend. But you could have if you had known in time. That’s what we’re offering you; a chance to be there in time.” Harold took out the surveillance picture of Diane and handed it to him. “It’s not too late for her.”
“You can stop what’s about to happen,” Nathan said. “But only if choose to.”
It didn’t take long for things to get complicated. Cops had never been something Nathan was overly fond of, being friends with a man who was technically wanted by every law enforcement agency in the country will do that to you, so he certainly didn’t mind seeing a few dirty cops get knocked down. But he had been hoping for something a little more pedestrian for their first outing with John. Maybe a lovers quarrel or a large insurance payout.
“What exactly did you two get me into?” John asked when they met in the park.
“We don’t know. That’s kind of the point,” Nathan said with a shrug. “We know a lot. But sometimes knowing just brings more questions.”
John grimaced but seemed to accept that. He handed Harold a stack of photos. “I think we’re up against a gang of corrupt cops. Stills is narcotics. He and his crew make a bust, steal all the drugs, and murder all the witnesses.”
“And they get Fusco to frame up people like Lawrence Pope for the murders,” Harold said as he passed a photo of the cops to Nathan.
“That will make Hansen their next target,” Nathan said.
“Exactly,” John agreed, looking off into the distance; maybe checking for a tail, maybe just being dramatic. “But I can’t know for sure. Because we don’t know anything for sure. Because you won’t tell me where the hell you’re getting your information.” His tone had taken a sharp frustrated edge.
Harold looked to Nathan, asking silently not for permission but for confirmation of what he already knew they needed to do.
“When the towers came down you were in Mexico. We were here, working. Harold and I spent most of our adult lives making ourselves very rich. All of a sudden that money didn’t mean so much,” Nathan explained. It was a bit of a lie. Harold had been working, but Nathan had been traveling from a conference in London and had been in the air when the towers had been hit. He’d landed at a private airstrip that evening, found out then, and gone straight to the office to see Harold.
“After the attacks,” Harold continued. “the government gave itself the right to read every email, listen to every cell phone. But they needed something to sort through it all. Something that could pick the terrorists out of the general population before they could act. The public wanted to be protected but they didn’t want to know how they were being protected. So when they finally got a system that worked. They kept it secret.”
“So how do you know about it?”
“He built it,” Nathan said.
Harold shot him an irritated look, but it was the truth. Harold did most of the heavy lifting on the project and they both knew it. There was a reason The Machine liked him better.
“And you?” John asked.
“I sold it.”
Before John could say anything to that Harold continued. “But there was a problem with the Machine. It was built to stop the next 9/11 but it was seeing all sorts of crimes. So I had to teach The Machine to divide the crimes into two lists. Relevant and Irrelevant. Events that would cause a massive loss of life were relevant and passed along to the NSA, CIA, FBI.”
“And the irreverent information?”
“Every night, at midnight, The Machine erases it. It was only later that I realized my mistake. The irreverent list was eating away at me.”
“So where is it?”
“The drives? Who knows.”
“My bet has always been that they built a facility under one of the great lakes,” Nathan chimed in.
Harold fixed him with a flat look. John almost smiled.
“The Machine is everywhere,” Harold said “Watching with ten thousand eyes. Listening with a million ears.”
“You gave yourself a way of communicating with it?”
“I was giving the government a tool of unimaginable power. I thought maybe an off switch would come in handy,” Harold said. “So I built myself a back door into it.”
One of us did. Nathan thought.
“That’s the irrelevant list."
“Just a social security number. If anyone were ever to find out I’d lose access so nine digits that’s all we get.”
“And we have no idea why it picked Diane Hansen.”
“The Machine is never wrong,” Nathan said. “It wouldn’t have picked her if it wasn’t seeing something.”
“I don’t know if I can protect Hansen. I can’t see the whole picture.”
And you saw the whole picture with the CIA?
“We offered you a job, Mr. Reese,” Harold said. “We never said it would be easy.”
“John’s been offline a while,” Nathan said as he set down tea next to Harold’s keyboard. It’d been hours and to be honest, he hadn’t even noticed until he'd been waiting in line at the coffee cart, he'd been too busy digging up what he could about the cops in the photos that John had given them.
“Yes. I’m starting to worry, but his phone has already been disabled. Short of chipping him I assume these little blackouts will be something we have to get used to.”
“Now, Harold. You really shouldn’t chip someone until after the third date.”
The phone rang. Only one person outside this room with that number. “Where have yo-”
“No time,” John said. “We were wrong. Hansen’s in on it. They’re going after Wheeler tonight.”
“We’ll send you his address to this new number,” Nathan said as Harold sat down to do just that. John hung up and Nathan sat back down at his computer. Okay, they needed to deal with Hansen.
John must have heard something, or seen something. Nathan found the tape from the cloud recording of the tap they’d put on Hansen and rolled it back to when John had gone offline. At least they could start there, and they’d have to take a second look at all of her finances if they were going to put the nail in the coffin.
He listened to her calling out to someone until she saw Stills. Bingo. Now to get it to the right people.
Harold and Nathan were waiting under the Queensboro Bridge for John again. This time Nathan stayed silent. It had been a hard few months without any real help. They lost as many as they helped and seeing it was even worse than when Nathan had just known that the list was there. Every loss wasn’t just a hypothetical stranger he’d had the potential to save, it was someone who he’d investigated and learned and tried to save only to fail. Even when they did save people it was hard to feel like it was a true win because they knew it was just luck.
This time felt different. This time felt like a proper win.
John came up behind them and they turned to look up at him from the bench. “You have a decision to make,” Harold said.
“The Machine gave you another number.”
“The numbers never stop,” Nathan said.
“Why me?” John asked.
Nathan smiled. He really did like John.
“We’ve been watching you a long time, John,” Harold said. “We have more in common than you might think.”
“Yeah,” Nathan said. “All three of us are dead.”
John didn’t look at Nathan, just kept watching Harold. “You programmed The Machine to delete the irrelevant numbers and now you’re trying to save them. What changed your mind?”
Harold was quiet and Nathan wondered what he would say. Nathan had wondered about it himself but wasn’t brave enough to ask. There was too much between them, too much history about the numbers themselves to ask what had changed his mind. Was it the ferry? Was it Nathan’s own conviction? Was it losing Grace? Was it the total loss of control in his life and he was just grasping for any piece of control where he could find it?
“Let’s just say the number of someone dear to me came up and I wasn’t able to stop it,” Harold said.
Nathan’s heart picked up and he kept his eyes fixed across the water. Maybe it had been the ferry. But then, Harold was a very good liar. “If you want to leave we’ll give you as much as you need to get as far as you need to disappear”
“And if I stay?”
“Sooner or later we’ll probably wind up dead. Actually dead this time,” Nathan said.
“Said we’d tell you the truth. Not that you’d like it.”
John nodded. "Okay."
Things did go okay. The three of them found a footing together that worked most of the time. John gathered more guns and more assets, and more than a few enemies.
They made a friend or two along the way.
A doctor,
”Mr. Reese been offline for hours,” Harold said, glaring at his screen like he could force John to make contact through sheer force of will.
“Megan Tillman just got back to her apartment,” Nathan responded. They all knew why John hadn’t made contact. It was better not to think about it. Sometimes protecting people was a messy business. He turned his screen so that Harold could see her walk through the lobby of her building from the security cameras he’d hacked.
“At least there’s that.”
a judge,
They were in the park watching the judge play catch with his kid. The sun was shining and people were laughing and the kid was smiling like he hadn’t been kidnapped earlier that day. Harold, John, and Nathan walked along the paved path, none of them watching too long or at the same time but all of them watching.
“Think he’d let us off with a warning if we got caught?” Nathan asked just to break the tension. The ones with kids were the worst.
“Maybe some community service,” John said with a smirk.
Harold shook his head. “I think it’s best that we don’t find out.”
Zoe Morgan.
”Zoe Morgan?” Nathan asked as he came into the Library as Harold was taping up her photo.
“You know her?” Harold asked.
“She... helped with my divorce.” Nathan took a sip of coffee and sat down at his desk. “They’ll be no shortage of people who want her dead. I’ll get the client list, but John's going to need to get close to her. She has more security precautions than most senators.”
All in all, things were working out much better.
Nathan came in with a cup of coffee and a bagel for himself and a cup of tea for Harold just as Harold was hanging up the phone. “How’s it going with Carter?” he asked, sitting down at his desk and handing Harold his tea.
“Oh." Harold stopped, looking almost surprised that Nathan was there. "I’m not sure. That wasn’t Mr. Reese,” Harold said, standing and putting his phone in his pocket. “It was...Will. He was arrested and needs me to bail him out.”
Nathan's blood went cold and a knot formed in his stomach. Arrested was bad, but Harold and a good lawyer could take care of that. Will was in town. Last Nathan had known he hadn’t even been on the continent. “Where?"
Harold didn't say anything, just stared back at him.
"I just want to see him,” Nathan said, blinking back tears.
Harold opened his mouth to argue but stopped short when he looked at Nathan.
“I won’t do anything, I’ll stay back just...let me see him through something other than a Twitter feed,” Nathan said. He was going whether Harold “let” him or not. It was more a matter of how difficult Harold was going to make it on both of them.
“Very well,” Harold said with a sigh. “But at least a half a block away at all times. We don’t need him seeing a ghost on the street.”
“I can do that. Now, what did he get arrested for?”
“Underground gambling.”
Nathan scoffed. “He’s a billionaire now. If he wants to gamble he can fly to Monte Carlo.”
“I’ll tell him the ghost of his father said that.”
Nathan waited outside of the police station for Harold and Will to come back out. He was anxious, though he didn’t know why. It wasn’t like he could talk to him, but he couldn't help worrying that he didn't know what to say. Sorry about missing your birthday your uncle Harold who you think is just an insurance guy faked my death to escape government hitmen? Yeah, not likely.
Harold came out first and then Will. He still had the long shaggy hair and a few days of stubble which he somehow managed to pull off. Must have inherited it from Olivia’s side of the family; facial hair was never something that Nathan could pull off.
Will smiled at Harold, saying something that Nathan couldn’t hear, and then wrapped him in a hug. A knife went through his heart. He really should have hugged Will more as a kid, should have been around more for hugs. But he was out of time now.
Which was stupid. He shouldn’t have been out of time. There should have been time. He was alive, he was half a block away. He wasn’t a ghost, not really. He could walk up to him right now and tell him all the things he should have said every day. It wasn’t that far, it wasn’t that many steps. Will was smart, he could keep a secret, and he didn’t make a show of himself like his father. He kept his head down, donated his money, and worked in Sudan trying to save the lives of innocent people. No one was looking at him, right?
Nathan just needed one conversation, one more chance to say it all, set things right.
But Will and Harold turned away from him and started walking down the street. A text came through from Harold. Going to lunch.
Nathan forced himself back to the Library. Someone needed to be there in case John needed them. Harold didn’t come back to the Library that night and Nathan tried not to think about it. He tried not to wonder if Harold was having to pretend to mourn a man he knew was alive, he tried not to think about if Will was still mourning him.
Harold went to “work” at the insurance company the next day and Nathan continued to dig through Andrea Gutierrez’s files and what exactly Dominic Galuska had to do with it. When Harold returned to the Library that evening Nathan was sorting through foster records trying to find every kid that’d been moved around because of this dirtbag.
“How’s Will?” he asked, trying not to sound as desperate as he was.
“Good. Though he inherited his father’s curiosity and bad luck,” Harold said, sitting down to look through everything and see what he'd missed.
Nathan laughed; of all the things Will had to inherit. “Really?”
“He found the champagne cork and napkin from the night we turned on The Machine.” Harold looked worried.
“Always was too sentimental,” Nathan said with a sigh.
“He’s asking about it. Looking into the audit done when he inherited your shares of IFT. He mentioned Alicia Corwin at lunch today,” Harold said.
Nathan’s blood went cold. Why couldn't he have a normal rich kid with daddy issues who spent money in nightclubs and pretended the rest of the world didn’t exist? “What did you say?”
“What could I say? I had to play ignorant. Harold Wren doesn’t know anything about the inner workings of IFT.”
“You could tell him not to trust random government employees. Where’s that patented paranoid Harold charm?” Nathan said, sinking back into his chair.
“To him she doesn’t appear random. She appears to be your friend,” Harold said. Sometimes Nathan hated it when he had a point.
Nathan sighed and leaned back into his chair. Only one thing left to do. Showing up like Jacob Marley to warn about the dangers of trusting the government wasn’t exactly how he’d wanted to do it or the reason he wanted to but it had to be done.
“He’s cleaning out my old loft?”
Harold nodded, narrowing his eyes. Nathan knew he could see what he was planning. “You’ll be putting him in more danger.”
“He’s already talking to Alicia,” Nathan said, standing up and grabbing his coat.
Harold grabbed his hand as Nathan walked by. Nathan stopped and looked down, holding Harold’s hand. “If they get any hint that you’re still alive they will find him and then they will find you,” Harold said. “It’s only a matter of time.”
Nathan squeezed his hand. “Doing nothing isn’t an option, Harold.” He let go and kept walking, half expecting Harold to follow him and try to stop him again. “Have a little faith. Maybe if he inherited my curiosity and bad luck he also inherited my ability to keep a secret.”
“Your inability to keep a secret got us into this mess,” Harold yelled after him, sounding exasperated and a little bit fond.
Nathan smiled. A little bit exasperated and a little bit fond was their whole relationship in a nutshell.
The door of the loft opened quietly and the lights turned on, followed by a sigh. “Will, don’t freak out,” Nathan said before coming around the corner.
Will’s eyes were wide and he took a stumbling step back. A few non-verbal sounds made it out of his mouth before he pointed at Nathan and said, “No.”
“Yes. You know they never recovered my body,” Nathan said slowly as he came closer.
“Just because a body isn’t recovered doesn’t mean it's alive!”
“Will. It’s me and I’m sorry.”
Will continued to shake his head. “Sleep. I need to sleep.” He turned around and Nathan lunged forward, grabbing his wrist before he could open the door.
For a moment the world stopped as Will stared down at his wrist, and Nathan’s hand holding him tightly. He looked back up at Nathan, tears already welling in his eyes before it twisted into something angry and he shoved Nathan away, making him stumble back into the railing.
“I had that coming.”
“No shit! I mourned for you! Mom mourned for you! Uncle Harold, Aunt Jen, everyone!”
“Sit, I’ll explain.”
For a second Will looked ready to argue, or shove Nathan again. But eventually, he went down the steps and to the couch, sitting down and crossing his arms over his chest.
“The project you’re looking into,” Nathan said as he sat next to him, ignoring the pang in his chest when Will scooted away from him. “The government changed its mind about some things and...it became very dangerous to be involved in it. A friend of mine helped me disappear but the cost was that you couldn't know. No one could know or they would be in danger too. I knew it would be hard on you, but… if I didn’t disappear then you would be in danger and I couldn’t let that happen.”
Will hugged his arms tighter around himself. “So what? The ferry explosion was staged? All the people are alive?”
“No, no. I was just in the area when it happened so it was easy to make it look like I was on it. It was a terrible tragedy that happened to be very convenient,” Nathan said, trying to get Will to look at him.
Will sighed rubbing a hand over his face. “What did you get into?”
“Surveillance,” Nathan said.
Will opened his mouth but hesitated. “That tracks, actually.”
“It does?”
“The only thing this country likes more than war is spying on people,” Will said, sinking back into the couch. “Why risk it now? How’d you even know I was looking into it?”
“Digging always makes noise.”
“You don’t have to be cryptic about everything. You can just say Alicia Corwin told you, ” Will said, rolling his eyes.
Nathan grabbed his shoulder tightly. “Alicia is not my friend. She is not a safe person to talk to. Do not contact her again. Do you understand me?”
Will nodded.
Nathan relaxed a bit and let go of his shoulder, taking a second to tuck a bit of hair behind his ear.
“Was she the one who was after you?”
Nathan shrugged. “I can’t know for sure but... she didn’t make things better.”
Will nodded slowly. They stayed silent for a long time just sitting on the couch next to each other. Will broke the silence. “There were all these things that I thought I’d say if I ever got the chance again. There was so much that I thought if I just had one more chance I’d tell him this or that and now I have the chance and I can’t remember any of it.”
Nathan laughed. “I understand. I thought about it too. I didn’t think I'd get this chance and I regretted not telling you this every day. I love you and I’m so proud of you. There are days where I wonder if there was a mix-up at the hospital because you’re too smart and too kind and too generous and too good to be my kid. I am just so proud of you and I want you to know that every day. I know I worked a lot but I shouldn’t have because IFT is nothing compared to you.” Nathan realized suddenly that he was crying and Will hugged him, tucking his face into Nathan’s neck. "I love you so much."
Nathan held tight as he felt tears on his shirt. He had so much to make up for and not enough time. There was never enough time.
Nathan opened the door to Harold’s apartment and ushered him in, resisting the urge to grab him and check for injuries again. He’d already done it, and so had John. If Nathan tried again Harold was likely to hit him for worrying too much, kidnapping or no.
He searched the house quickly, it was the same one that Harold had taken him to the night they buried Dillinger and it wasn’t any more homey than it had been a year ago. Nathan wondered if it was the apartment he kept just for when things went bad, but there wasn’t dust anywhere either. Bear followed Nathan closely, nosing around and familiarizing himself with the place. Nathan would need to run down to the bodega to get some food for him.
After a search both Bear and Nathan were satisfied that they were the only ones in the apartment and went back to the kitchen. Harold was setting a bowl of water on the floor for Bear who lapped it up.
“I’m going to go shower,” Harold said, after grabbing a change of clothes from his bedroom.
“Okay.”
“Most of the food I had went bad while…”
“I’ll go get something. Indian sound good? Or I could go get sushi from that place we used to go to over on...what street? Doesn’t matter I remember the way. Or there’s the Cuban place you like a few blocks over. Or-”
“Nathan,” Harold cut in. He looked so tired that Nathan shut up. “There’s a deli across the street that has a very good Reuben and is open late.”
Nathan nodded.
“Okay. I’ll be back as soon as I can. And Bear here will stay with you.” He turned to Bear and knelt to pet him. “And you’ll eat anyone who gets anywhere near this place won’t you. Because you're a good boy.” Nathan stood, grabbed the keys and his phone again. “Call if you need anything, I’ll be just across the street.”
“I’m fine.”
A lump formed in his throat. He nodded instead of trying to talk around it.
He jogged down the stairs, skittish and antsy at the same time. He texted John to let him know that they had gotten in safe and sound and that Bear was keeping watch over Harold.
Nathan ordered for him and Harold, he also got a few slices of meat without anything on it for Bear, he was a very good boy after all. Nathan was headed back to the apartment before he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. When he set everything down at the table John's text just said, “thank you”.
Bear sat patiently next to the table as Nathan set up the sandwiches on plates and chips to the side and drinks in proper cups. Harold had always appreciated a properly set table and Nathan doubted he’d had much of that in the past few days.
Nathan sat at the table heavily and stared at his sandwich. Now that it was in front of him he wasn’t hungry. He could hear the water running in the other room and listened carefully for any other sounds of life. He knew Harold was safe now, he was home, and yet Nathan couldn't settle.
Instead, he sat and drank his flat soda and stared at the bathroom door. Eventually, the water shut off and a few minutes later Harold came out, his face flushed from the heat and hair wet, wearing sweatpants and a hoodie. He looked so small.
“That smells good, thank you,” Harold said as he came to the table and sat down. He ate and Nathan continued to stare.
Three-quarters of the sandwich and all of the chips were gone before Harold spoke again. “You’re staring.”
“Am I?” Nathan said without making any move to stop. He couldn’t stop replaying the last few days in his mind. Over and over again it was John telling him that Harold was gone. Over and over again it was them getting somewhere too late. Over and over again it was getting a useless number. Over and over again it was the thought that they’d almost missed them again. Over and over again it was Root with a gun.
Harold sighed. “I’m alright.”
“Yeah? I’m not.” And just like that, the flood gates were open. “You were take, Harold. Gone. What...we almost lost you. I almost lost you.” Nathan finally looked away from Harold and buried his face in his hands. “I can’t lose you.”
“You’d be fine,” Harold said softly. “Eventually.”
Nathan didn’t look up, talking into his hands. “Maybe. Maybe not. But I don’t want to find out.”
“You might have to, someday. You should prepare yourself for that eventuality.”
Nathan looked up at him to glare. “Like you prepared by setting up the Machine to give us unrelated numbers. Just random people that needed help.”
“People don’t stop being in trouble just because I’m also in trouble. You can’t ignore them just because I was sloppy enough to get captured.”
“Harold, you know that’s not true. You must know,” Nathan said, feeling like he was begging. Begging Harold to understand that none of this was negotiable for Nathan. He was too far gone, always had been.
Harold looked away, to the other side of the room. That was confirmation enough for Nathan.
“I’m not asking you to love me back, that ship sailed a long time ago, but please just...don’t think that I’m ever going to leave you like that. And don’t get kidnapped,” Nathan said, shooting for levity but ending up somewhere in desperate.
Harold didn't say anything, just kept staring across the room.
Nathan picked a piece of chicken off of his sandwich. It was pretty good, maybe he would be able to eat something tonight after all.
“What do you mean that that ship sailed a long time ago?” Harold asked suddenly.
There went Nathan’s apatite, replaced again by a nauseous knot in his stomach. “Thirty years is generally considered a long time.”
“Not the timeline," Harold said. "You married Olivia."
Nathan just stared for a moment, totally lost in the conversation and where Olivia fit into it. “You wouldn’t be in the same room as me for weeks after we slept together. The first time I saw you after that was for an exam and you sat on the opposite side of the room where we used to sit. And then you took a separate car to Christmas, though considering you hadn’t said a word to me weeks I was surprised you showed up to Christmas at all!”
“Things were a little complicated at the time,” Harold said.
“They were and you made sure to un-complicate them quickly by pretending I didn’t exist and then pretending that nothing had happened,” Nathan said, surprised by the bitterness in his tone. He’d never actually talked about this, never aired it out even to his therapist he’d started seeing at Olivia’s behest before their divorce. He'd done a lot of lying in therapy, though.
“You responded to me telling you that I was a wanted criminal and that Harold Wren wasn’t my real name by kissing me!”
“You didn’t seem overly opposed to it at the time!”
“Of course not I was in love with you!”
Nathan’s heart stopped for a second. Harold had loved him, once upon a time. Somehow it didn’t matter that it was been thirty years it still left him speechless and hopeful for a moment. “Why are we arguing about this?” he asked when he found his voice again. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“You said just a few minutes ago that it did. That you…”
Nathan sighed. “It’s been an off and on situation for the last three decades. You don’t need to worry about it.”
“Off and on?”
“Every time it dies and I think ‘Finally, Nathan, you’re respecting Harold’s boundaries by being his friend and only his friend’ you go and rekindle it again somehow. I don’t know how you do it. Doesn’t make any sense,” Nathan said with a laugh.
“No, it doesn’t,” Harold said and they lapsed back into silence.
Nathan took a drink of his soda again and wished he’d spiked it with something. It was going to be an awkward couple of days, probably weeks. But they’d get over it. They’d gotten over worse.
“But you don’t get to blame the phenomenon purely on me because you’ve done the same thing to me repeatedly over the years,” Harold said, looking at his plate.
Nathan stared at Harold, feeling a panicked laugh build up in his throat. What was going on? “That so?”
“Yes. Most recently when you disregarded all of my concerns of safety to see Will. All over again, like the first time and the tenth time and all the other times. Every time is the same but different.” Harold looked up at him and gave him a tentative smile.
Nathan stood up slowly, taking a deep breath and hoping that he was reading this right. He went to stand next to Harold, looking down and hoping. “Are you saying…?”
Harold stood, their bodies just inches from each other. Nathan could smell his shampoo and feel the heat coming off of him. “I don’t care that you aren’t asking me to love you back because I already do.”
The whole world disappeared and there was only this moment and this happiness that filled Nathan from his head to his toe. He brought a hand up, cupping Harold’s cheek and leaning down to finally, finally kiss again, but stopped himself short, able to feel Harold’s breath against his lips and the bandage that ran across Harold’s hand on his cheek where Harold had mirrored his movement.
He started to pull back but Harold held him in place and Nathan didn’t want to move anyway. “You were just kidnapped. Emotions are probably all over the place.”
“Probably. I might not have admitted it without those emotions running rampant. And neither would you,” Harold whispered. His eyes were nearly closed and he was staring at Nathan’s lips.
“Maybe we should wait until y-”
Harold cut him off by pulling him down and kissing him. It was different than it had been before, but so much better. Nathan leaned into it, wrapping his arms around Harold and pulling them close until they were flush against each other. Harold’s fingers tangled in his hair and the bandage pulled oddly and Nathan wouldn’t have changed a thing.
When they broke apart a long time later, Nathan dissolved into laughter, resting his head gently against Harold’s. “I love you,” he said just because he could.
“I love you, too.”
John watched the delivery truck drive away after leaving the large stack of magazines on the steps of the walk-up. He quickly patted his pocket to make sure he had his Detective Stills badge and made his way to the door. He knocked sharply twice and a few seconds later the door was opened by a middle-aged redhead who was smiling at him, though wary.
“Can I help you?”
John held up his badge. “Detective Stills. I’m just responding to a domestic disturbance call we received for this address.” He gave her a polite smile, trying to embody the polite and friendly but disinterested police officer.
“Oh,” she said frowning. “Well, it’s just me here. Maybe they heard me moving around the boxes and furniture. I’m packing to move so…”
“I’m sure that was it but I have to take a look around,” he lied. She was nice but he was curious.
She let him in and he carried in the magazines for her. The place was filled with boxes, all of them clearly labeled. She must be leaving soon. It seemed like the last thing she was doing was wrapping picture frames. One rested on the table with her and Finch smiling at the camera. “Does he live here with you?” he asked.
“Oh,” she said, carefully taking the picture from him. “He used to. He was my fiancé but um… he died in the ferry attack last year,” she said. It looked hard for her to say. “It’s part of why I’m moving. I’m going to Paris for work but… a part of me thinks maybe it’ll be good to get a fresh start. A city without so many memories, you know.”
John smiled at her, nodding. “Of course. Well, I think I can safely say that the only thing going on here is moving some furniture to make room for boxes.” She laughed. He started towards the door. “I’ll get out of your way. Enjoy Paris.”