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“I should have just let you die.” His voice seems to echo through the room, quiet as it is, but clear and sharp like a shard of glass cutting through the space between them. “If I had known… I would have.”His eyes are dry, though perhaps they shouldn’t be. On the other side of the room, John Reese flinches like the words physically struck him and something cold and sharp slices through Harold’s chest like his voice through the air. A taste of ash is in his mouth when he continues to speak.“I should have deleted your file and left you to drink yourself to death. Or shoot yourself, or any of the other methods you were contemplating.”A faint, barely visible tremor runs through the figure at the end of the room. Tall as he is, he seems diminished somehow under the onslaught of Harold’s cruelty, but he doesn’t move an inch. The gun feels heavy in Harold’s hand and he briefly wonders if John would move if Harold were to raise his arm and aim it at him. Unlikely, he thinks and there is a hysterical laugh lodged somewhere deep behind the lump in his throat.“Harold...” Low and gentle and full of pain and Harold has missed his voice in a marrow-deep, visceral way.He is reeling, he knows, lost and untethered in a way he hasn’t been since MIT, since the second anniversary of his father’s death. Then it had been Nathan he had spewed poison at, Nathan who had known him and had weathered the storm twice before, had let Harold push daggers through every crack in his emotional armour, right down to his heart and hadn’t admitted any of it had hurt until years, decades later. The bitterness of guilt still follows that thought and he knows it will only be all the stronger after today, but something inside himself has shattered and John just stands there, silent.“You were never supposed to become essential.” He spits the last word out like it is responsible for the taste of bitter ash on his tongue. “I never meant you for you to become anything other than another disposable tool, more than just the weapon I needed.”It’s meant to hurt, but he cannot bear to see the jab strike home and averts his eyes, tells another lie, breaks his first promise to John even more. “The other people I hired were more efficient, but more importantly they were interchangeable. And I of all people should really have known better than to change a running system.”Sometimes he still has the phantom sensation of weals and sores covering his hands from the rough, wooden handle of the shovel, from digging Dillinger’s shallow grave into the frozen winter soil. He remembers every file, every case, everyone who worked for him. Their faces, their names, their strengths and weaknesses and regrets, their reasons for moving on to the next highest bidder. Remembers which of them died while under someone else’ employ and his own regret. Wondering if he could have prevented it.And he remembers working with John at the very beginning, constant pleasant surprise, compassion and perfect efficiency interlocking like clockwork. The perfect partnership, a growing friendship. Falling for him.“Please look at me, Harold.”He doesn’t. Cannot bring himself to, not when he knows he’ll see the hurt in John’s eyes, the one he just inflicted. He stares at his side of the room instead, at the large desk of polished pinewood, the monitor on one end and the perfectly organised office supplies at the other. The window behind it with a stunning view of the city. And in between, a real leather office chair and the slumped figure of Congressman McCourt in it, a tranquilliser dart in his neck.A lost chance, the linchpin they hadn’t dared remove years ago, he hadn’t dared. McCourt’s death as per the Machine’s recommendation could have prevented everything, or perhaps nothing at all. But this time… He grips the gun tighter, and it’s weighed down now with the knowledge that this time, it contains real bullets, but he doesn’t raise it to the Congressman’s head. Hasn’t, in fact, moved that hand at all since John found him minutes or perhaps aeons ago.“They’re making a new attempt again, now that Samaritan is destroyed. There are six independent teams working on breaking into the Machine’s code so they can use her like they would have used Samaritan hadn’t Mr Greer had his own plans for it, right as we speak. And who knows how many they have working on creating a new system. After his previous work, running interference with Decima, Congressman McCourt is once again responsible, and now even more directly than the last time, which I surely do not need to remind you of.”Harold swallows, and now his eyes do sting, though with helpless frustration rather than the turmoil raging inside him from the moment he saw John’s face. Or perhaps for much longer. Across the room, he hears John’s intake of breath and doesn’t allow him a chance to speak, even if his own voice is starting to shake now.“After everything we’ve lost, everything we’ve knowingly sacrificed. All the time we spent afraid and in hiding. All the people who lost their lives due to Samaritan, due to us, and yet the people in charge haven’t learned a thing. They are only going to do it all over again, and even if w- if I were to stop it this time, and the next, and perhaps the one after assuming I somehow live long enough, they are just going to try again after that.”Footsteps now, light but audible since he learned to listen for them so long ago, moving towards him. Against his better judgement, his eyes flicker to the side, catch a glance of him and he looks wary, as though he thinks Harold might point the gun at him every second now after all – like he ever could. As if nearing a monster like the one Harold knows he accuses himself of being in his darker moments when the memories catch up.“What happened to you, Harold?” He sounds as broken as Harold feels.The poison laces his voice one last time, pushing all his rage and regrets and agony and now useless grief into it like the bile attempting to push itself up his throat. “You happened, Mr Reese.”Another lie, or perhaps a half truth, because what happened hadn’t been the man himself, not entirely. What happened were the volleys of gunfire sounding from the other rooftop, what happened was the last time the connection between them had been cut, was the silence in his earpiece following gratitude and goodbye Harold. What happened was a numbness he knew the blood loss wasn’t responsible for even when he could barely feel his legs as he stumbled into the emergency room. The moment something shattered inside of him, leaving him hollowed out and filled with regrets and unspoken confessions and guilt and rage and grief.Finally, his right hand moves, forces the weapon to overcome gravity – or maybe more its gravitas – and pulls it upwards, inexpertly aimed but at this short distance, there is no doubt that the bullet will pierce anything other than Congressman McCourt’s head if he pulls the trigger. But already the rage is fading, ebbing away and then hot tears are running over his expressionless face as his hand begins to shake.And there are two, three, four more footsteps, now hurried and slightly louder and a hand wraps around his. Warm and gentle and less calloused than he knows it once was, but alive. It wraps around his own and engages the safety of the gun before pulling it oh so gently from his grasp. A mirror of what he had once done, for a hand drenched in blood and Alonzo Quinn at the other end of the muzzle. The moment it clatters to the floor, a painful sob works itself out of Harold’s chest.His tears flow freely now, leaving the world around him blurry as arms wind around him, pull him close against a warm chest and the heartbeat in it, alive, alive, alive. John’s frame is narrower than it used to be, muscle tone not entirely rebuilt, but his hold is firm around him when Harold falls apart.“I’m here.” John murmurs into his hair as he pulls him even closer. “Shh, it’s okay. I’m here.” and “You’re okay. You’ll be okay.” and “I’m with you.” and lies “Always.”Harold turns his head further than is comfortable but he doesn’t care so long as he can just listen to that heartbeat. He feels raw, the rage still boils somewhere inside him, the fruit of despair and knowing that all his grief has been for nothing. His chest feels like his heart is made of broken glass and his lungs are filled with razor blades, but his mind is blissfully devoid of anything other than John’s murmured sweet nothings and comforting lies, until he stops speaking and starts humming. Low and soft, interrupted by Harold’s sobs while John rocks him. A familiar tune that brings memories of Root’s sad smiles barely concealing her loneliness, of music and joy surrounding them, of dances and a fake Irish accent.“Why...” his voice is hoarse now and interrupted by another sob. “Sixteen months, John! Why didn’t you ever tell me you were alive?”It’s nigh impossible to make himself pull back, to look into John’s anguished eyes, searching for answers he doesn’t understand. His hands remain tangled in John’s shirt, gripping it tight, putting creases into it he knows even the best dry cleaner won’t be able to remove.“I didn’t want you to see me like that. I wasn’t… I couldn’t stand, couldn’t even sit at first or go to the bathroom alone, much less do any of the things I used to. I just… I was useless. To you. I couldn’t stand the thought of you seeing me like that.”Harold stares at him until the hysterical laugh that has somehow remained lodged in his throat finally frees itself, raw and humourless and sounding far too much like only more sobbing. “Haven’t you realised, John? I need you. I shouldn’t, because what we do, what we used to do is of far greater importance than my feelings for you! But what’s even worse is that eventually, I stopped caring, because you mattered more. Not to the world, but to me. I didn’t think about the world when I locked you in the vault, because in doing so, I locked my whole world away to keep it safe, but even then… Even then, you just had to try and protect me and pay me back when I never asked for it. And then you died, John. And I was left trying to figure out why you would think you’d owe me anything at all, why you would be so cruel to break me and leave me to pick up the pieces alone. You know, there were moments when I truly wished I had just left you to die by your own hand, because if I hadn’t known you, I... And all this time, you never even knew that I need you. Not your skills, not your service, you.”It’s John who stares now, still in anguish but with something almost like wonder and now that Harold has begun, the words won’t stop coming.“So I hope that you now understand that I can’t lose you again. I cannot go through this again, because this time, I could scrape a semblance of myself back together, but no matter how well a thing is fixed, the underlying cracks are still there and the structural integrity is forever compromised.”“You won’t.” he promises, but judging by the expression he wears, by the tension in the voice Harold has come to know so well over the years, even John knows that this isn’t a promise he can keep.“We both know neither of us can promise that.”For a moment, John seems to search for words, for a reassurance or a reply that Harold isn’t certain he wants to hear, but he remains silent and then there are large, still slightly calloused hands cupping his face and John’s lips on his and what he is fairly certain of is that it isn’t his own sob he feels in the contact.It would be a lie to claim he hasn’t imagined this, but it has never entered his mind as a probable scenario and his mind is scrambling to process this new development, to re-examine five years of interactions, to force emotion into pathways of predictability and rationality. Re-examine his own words mere moments ago and what they revealed and oh. And John merely keeps his lips pressed tenderly to Harold’s, lets him process until finally, he finds himself in the reality of the present moment. And finally, Harold remembers to kiss him back, softly, then stepping close and coaxing the lips on his open, lips that respond easily, eagerly, and then there is nothing but the kiss and John’s speeding pulse against his palm where Harold cups his neck.It lasts until they run out of air, and once they pull apart John throws a quick glance behind Harold, at the unconscious Congressman, now slightly reddened lips quirking into something between bitterness and amusement.“Come on.” John murmurs softly and quickly bends to pick up the fallen gun, tucking it out of sight. Harold lets himself be pulled close once more, lets himself be led out of the room while John presses kisses into his hair, whispering assurances and promises that do nothing to dull the shards in between Harold’s ribs, don’t erase the lingering taste of ash and guilt and grief. Not yet.