Chapter Text
One moment, he was standing in a hotel room, explaining -- in a somewhat dramatic fashion -- what it was like to listen to someone die and know that you couldn’t do anything about it.
The next, he was lying on a bed, and dealing with a pounding headache. Covered by a sheet up to his shoulders, somewhat uncomfortable from the chill. He opened his eyes to sunlight and an off-white blur above him, and took in the fact that he was almost certainly… naked.
Harold only ever disrobed completely for showers, so this detail was far more alarming than the rest. He stiffened, and felt around frantically, futilely, for his glasses. The sheet was tight, as if tucked in at the corners, and wouldn’t give when he tried to pull part of it loose so he could sit up without exposing himself.
His breath was coming faster, edging up toward panic. Where was he? Who had brought him here? Who had taken off his clothes, and why? He tried to piece together his memories, but they stopped short right after he held out a newspaper and mentioned Jessica. After that, as far as his brain was concerned, he’d blinked and he was… here.
His neck hurt, though. That wasn’t unusual -- he’d had to train himself to ignore chronic neck pain as best as he could -- but it seemed more severe than it usually did. Had Mr. Reese hurt him? Knocked him out? A blow to the head could cause short-term memory loss, but--
“It’s funny, Harold,” came a voice, mildly amused, “but you told me to call you Mr. Finch, and here your ID says Harold Wren. Couple credit cards, too -- same name. Dry cleaning receipt. Got me wondering what your real name is.”
Drawing in a shaky breath, Harold shut his eyes. One data point established: Mr. Reese was the type of person who could knock out and kidnap someone, strip off their clothes, and effectively tie them to a bed without even having access to rope. Harold wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that information.
“Mr. Reese,” he said finally, stammering only a little, “I remember being considerably more dressed than this.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Reese said, not sounding particularly concerned.
“Dare I ask why you saw fit to--”
“Seemed like the easiest way to keep you from running off,” Reese said, as if patiently explaining the most obvious thing in the world. “Don’t worry, the brain damage shouldn’t be any worse than getting drunk enough for a hangover.”
Harold’s eyes shot open. “Brain... damage?”
“Sleeper holds don’t last very long. I just reapplied one every half-minute or so. Eight seconds on, thirty seconds off; doesn’t let you wake up but doesn’t interrupt the oxygen flow too badly. Kept you out long enough to switch floors, find an empty room, and stick you in that bed.” He paused. “I would have just put you in the bed I woke up in, but you obviously didn’t move me there yourself, and I don’t know how soon your associates'll be back.”
That explained the headache. Suddenly dizzy, Harold took a deep, shuddering breath. “I can see I’ve made a grievous error in judgment,” he said, trying -- failing -- to keep his voice steady and calm. “I don’t think we’ll be working together after all. Please give me my clothes back and you can be on your way.”
“Now, Harold,” Reese said, patiently, “you put this much effort into getting my attention, and you’re just gonna throw me away?”
“You did just kidnap me, Mr. Reese.”
“You started it.” Reese’s tone was laced with amusement.
Harold swallowed heavily. Just a few hours ago, he’d been staring at Reese through a fuzzy video feed, watching the whiskey seep into the carpet and recalling, too vividly, those months of his own life when it made more sense to drown in self-destruction than to deal with the reality of what he’d done. In the wake of Nathan’s death, he’d come so close -- not to taking his own life, but to taking the life of another, deliberately, his wounded heart set on nothing but vengeance. As if he could get rid of his own pain and guilt by passing it on to another. If he had gone through with it, the Harold who came out the other side would have been unrecognizable.
Reese was stumbling down a similar path, toward its inevitable conclusion. The signs were obvious enough; it wasn’t the most pressing reason Harold had focused his attention on Reese, but it certainly factored in. He couldn’t just let the man kill himself, not when he could see it coming and step in, give him a better option -- not just for a day or a week, but possibly for a lifetime.
But after Reese had turned down his offer the first time, Harold had been at a loss. If words had failed -- and if Harold couldn’t yet trust him with a secret as portentous as the Machine (even if Reese already had some hints of it to build on) -- what other options remained? Perhaps something could get through to him on a visceral level, bypass his conscious objections long enough for him to give the idea a fair hearing. At the time, the drama of waking up zip-tied to a bed with the sounds of murder in the next room had seemed… not entirely unreasonable.
Knowing now firsthand what it felt like to wake up tied to a bed, not knowing what your captor’s plans were… Harold was stunned by just how monumentally stupid the idea had always been.
And for Reese -- how much worse? Harold could imagine scenarios, but Reese had lived them: Pain, fear, deprivation, violent deaths -- even torture, active torture, Harold hadn’t found the evidence for it but he wasn’t that naive. A PTSD-inducing service record’s worth of memories to dredge up as possible outcomes when you wake up bound to an unknown bed. That panic in his eyes... Harold had subjected him to that.
“I must apologize,” he said, his throat tight. “I didn’t... think through… the implications. I was a little desperate at the time, but that’s certainly no excuse.”
Reese didn’t answer right away. Harold’s heart was racing.
“You have any idea how dangerous that was, Harold?”
“I… believe I’m starting to get the idea, yes.”
“I don’t think you are.” Reese’s voice was soft, almost gentle, yet conveyed no emotion. The contrast made Harold’s blood run cold. “You’ve managed to get details about my life, my service, maybe my preferences for this or that. You know I’m a trained killer and very good at it. But the thing is, you clearly didn’t manage to put together the details to understand it all. Could’ve gotten you killed.”
“I… didn’t imagine you’d actually hurt me, Mr. Reese,” Harold stammered, even as his stomach clenched at the thought of what Reese was conveying: How disastrous this meeting could have gone. Could still go -- by this point he’d given up trying to predict what Reese might do to him. If he were sitting up, if he had his glasses, he could at least have tried to glean some hint from Reese’s expression... but surely Reese could disguise his intentions visually as easily as he hid them in his voice.
“Haven’t run across many violent people, have you, Harold?”
If only you knew, Harold thought, as his internalized poker face was already pushing down thoughts to the contrary. But the jibe was a fair one: For all that Harold spent a decade teaching computer programs to pick out terrorists, and nearly a year coming face to face with the worst of humanity in all its stomach-churning permutations, he still didn’t have it in him to think that way -- to truly put himself in their shoes. He knew enough not to trust the government or, well, bodies of people in general (it wasn’t for nothing that he’d been in hiding most of his life), but the idealistic side of his nature still won out, still wanted to believe the best of people, see them as rational agents.
What had he even been thinking at the time? That surely even a trained assassin wouldn’t harm an obvious cripple? Hopeless.
It was, of course, why he needed someone like Reese: A balancing force, someone to make the kind of judgment calls that required a different kind of mindset. That thought brought him back to one of the other reasons he’d selected the man.
“I’m well aware of your capabilities, Mr. Reese,” he said firmly. “I admit I didn’t put enough thought into how you might respond, and that was foolishness on my part. But I think -- that is, I thought -- that all you’ve ever wanted to do was protect people.”
He’d planned those exact words, but now, hanging in the silence between them, the assertion sounded hollow. Harold closed his eyes again, and waited.
Eventually, Reese let out a breath. “If I’d realized the neck damage was so severe, I would’ve thought twice before slamming you into the wall like that.” He sounded slightly hoarse. “That’s the part that could’ve killed you. You’re lucky it only knocked you out.”
What could he say to that? He didn’t even remember the moment of impact.
He heard footsteps cross the carpet, go out of the room. Reese was leaving? But before Harold could properly begin to panic, the footsteps came back again.
“Kinda surprised your henchmen haven’t caught up with us,” Reese said. “Here I’ve managed to attack you, knock you out, drag you up the stairs, break into a room, take off all your clothes, set you up on that bed, and go through your personal effects, and still no interruptions. Granted, it’s only been five minutes, but if they were competent bodyguards--”
“They’re not bodyguards,” Harold said heavily, wondering what the admission was going to cost him. “No one’s monitoring this situation, Mr. Reese. It’s just you and me.”
Reese paused. “You trust me that much?”
“I… did,” Harold said.
“A trained assassin on the run, judgment and impulse control impaired by alcohol. And you, in no condition to withstand a little roughing up, let alone defend yourself. Frankly, Harold, I’m having trouble grasping your reasoning.”
“My reasoning?” It sounded stupid the second he said it.
“Why would you put yourself at the mercy of a guy like me?” This time, Harold caught an undercurrent to the nearly toneless words. Curiosity, yes, but also… shame. Self-disgust.
Before this whole encounter went south, Harold had had a speech in mind. One line caught his memory now: They lied to you; I never will. Whatever he might say here, it had to be the truth. And he knew, all too well, the honest answer to Reese’s curiosity… but he hadn’t wanted to admit to how long they’d been crossing paths. Not yet -- because the admission came with its own dangers, and raised even more questions he couldn’t afford to have Reese digging into.
The truth, though, was a specific point in time, the point at which he’d understood that whatever else Reese might be, he wasn’t merely a killer. Now, as Harold lay there, pinned down naked and helpless under a sheet -- as the implications of the man’s shame rolled over him -- he suddenly wanted nothing more than to remind Reese of that fact.
“I saw you spare Mr. Casey,” he said, surprised at how calm it sounded as the walls between their worlds came crashing down.