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There was a knife at Harold’s throat. There was a knife at Harold’s throat. The world had narrowed and warped and distorted into nothing but the scene in front of him, because there was nothing else in the world that John cared about beyond the fact that there was a knife at Harold’s throat.
It wasn’t the first time he’d worried about his boss’s (acquaintance’s, associate’s, colleague’s, friend’s) life. With the way they lived their lives, he doubted it would be the last. It still felt like he couldn’t handle it, still felt like his anchor rope was fraying and the woman in front of him held the only knife capable of cutting it. John’s world – his reason for living – could shatter in an instant here. He knew it; he wasn’t sure the woman in front of him did.
No, scratch that. He knew she didn’t. He wasn’t sure anyone could understand the depth of feeling he had for Harold Finch. He knew he didn’t.
He only knew he couldn’t – wouldn’t, refused to – live without him.
The world was narrowed and warped, and John’s mind was too.
The worry didn’t matter. The fear didn’t matter. The doubts, uncertainties, distress – none of those mattered. The only thing that mattered was the clarity, the aching, crystal sharp clarity of a world that contained only this: only him, a weapon made to kill, only Harold, his savior who needed saving, and only this woman, an obstacle in his path.
John’s hands were raised. His expression was placating, appeasing, neutral and even. He hadn’t forgotten his little diplomatic training, how to negotiate, how to manipulate and influence and guide, without appearing to do so – but he knew it didn’t matter. Oh, it would get him Harold, safe. He would get Harold safe, no matter what it took, even if that wasn’t a product of the weapon he’d been honed to be. But it didn’t matter because he was going to kill this woman. Harold was the only one who could stop him, and Harold was the one with a knife at his throat.
“Let’s just breathe,” John said, hands raised, urging calm. “Let’s think things through here.”
The woman was taller than Harold. Not by much, but enough. Enough that John could see the strain in his body, see the way his head was pulled back to accommodate the knife, the lines of pain on his face, the tension in his damaged spine. He was grimacing, but his eyes were on John. There was no fear there – only calm certainty, a trust John had never earned and a trust he would never, ever betray.
In sharp contrast, the woman’s eyes were maniac. “Breathe?” she sneered, scoffing, a mocking rebuttal masking uncertainty and fear. “You think I’m the one who needs to calm down? You think I’m not the one in charge here?”
She was, but only by virtue of the precious package she held in her arms.
John took a practiced step back, careful, treading lightly on linoleum. “I’m not doing anything,” he said, shifting his posture a little. Hands still raised, he buckled his knees a little: it had the dual benefit of making him look a little shorter, a little smaller, a little less threatening, and simultaneously preparing him to spring. The space between them didn’t matter. The space between them was nothing. John was a trained killer; this woman was nothing. If she touched a single hair on Harold’s head, if the blade at his throat let loose one single drop of blood, she was done. John would snap her neck with one move, pummel her head against the plaster wall behind her, wrench the knife from her own hands and turn it on her own pale throat.
Harold was the only one who could stop him, and Harold was the one with a knife at his throat.
“Mrs. –” Harold started to say, voice strained and compassionate even still – not out of true empathy; their number this time was perpetrator, not victim – as he started to attempt a negotiation.
The woman pulled her arm tighter around his shoulder, cutting him off in an instant. The sharp gasp of pain he let out at the way his spine twisted sent fire racing through John’s veins. He saw red. It was almost, almost, enough to force him forward. He was probably fast enough, even with the distance between them.
He held back. Acceptable risks in any other circumstances weren’t acceptable when Harold was the one facing them, when it was Harold’s face twisted in pain and Harold gasping to breathe properly in front of him.
“You have nothing to gain by holding him,” John said, sharp, bitter, unable to keep the bite and the disdain from his voice. “We could stand here forever, at a standoff, or you could let him go, and leave.”
The woman was still snarling at him, face contorted by her rage and fear and hate.
“That’s what you want, right?” John continued. “No one else knows you’re here – you can just walk away.”
“Right, like you’d just let me leave,” she sneered. He caught her eyes flickering down to his waist – she couldn’t see it at the moment, but she knew he had a firearm tucked into the small of his back.
“I would,” John half-lied. “All I care about is him.” He spoke slowly, calmly, eyes locked on the woman’s no matter how much he wanted to look at Harold.
“No one else knows you’re here,” John repeated.
It was clear she was thinking things over. John knew why she had grabbed Harold – he’d been there, and she’d known she couldn’t beat John in a fight, even with her knife – but there really was no reason for her to keep him.
“You leave, then.”
That wasn’t going to happen.
“If I do that, what’s to stop me from waiting just outside the door?” Or going for help, not that he would. She wasn’t the brightest of criminals. “Just let him go, and I’ll let you go.”
She pulled back, still holding Harold, forcing a wince to his face and another short gasp of pain to leave his lips. “I’m not an idiot,” she snapped out. “I know who you are. The Man in the Suit. I leave, you’ll just run after me and shoot me in the kneecaps.”
John resisted the urge to straighten, to pace, to express his agitation in any physical manner that could set her off. (He wouldn’t be aiming for the knees. Not with her.) This was a stalemate, then, good and proper. She knew he’d track her down if she left. She knew he wouldn’t attack her while she had Harold. And she knew that killing Harold would only bring her death all the quicker.
There was no good option here. If it had been him, if, somehow, she’d gotten the knife to his throat, John might have suggested going with her, letting her keep her leverage until she was outside tracking range. But it was Harold. Acceptable risks in any other circumstances weren’t acceptable when Harold was the one facing them.
“Alright,” he said. “Alright. You’re in charge here. What do you want to do?”
“I want you to leave me alone!” Agitation burst out of her, the opposite of John’s careful suppression of his own. “You don’t understand –”
It was John’s turn to snarl, to cut her off. No. No, she was the perpetrator, and not a perpetrator who had been a victim, who was seeking revenge for a wrong. There were excuses, explanations, for what she had planned to do, but none John would accept.
“No,” he snapped, loud and sharp. “No. You don’t get to play that card. All this – this situation? This is on you. Not me. Not us. You.” It wasn’t the most diplomatic response, but John was tired of being diplomatic.
The woman’s agitation grew, her anger, her frustration (her fear) mounting. Her left hand tightened on Harold’s bicep, but her right hand… her right hand gestured, wild and expressive, knife flying about.
John wasn’t even listening to what she was saying. He didn’t care about her excuses. His eyes were on that knife. On the way it dipped down, brushing Harold’s vest. On the way it gleamed in the fluorescent lighting, glinting and menacing.
On the way it left Harold’s throat.
There was no thought, no intention, only clarity, sharp and piercing. John hadn’t known he was about to move, but Harold must have, because he tensed for a moment as John sprang, then relaxed as John made contact. Looming over the both of them, Harold sandwiched between John and the woman, John grabbed for the hand holding the knife first, wrenching it down some more, twisting her wrist, bending, squeezing, cold and merciless.
The knife fell. John heard the clatter as it hit the ground, heard the woman’s rant cut off in a gasp of pain, heard Harold’s grunt as the shift of her arm around him pulled at his spine. He stepped to the side where the woman still held Harold’s bicep, freeing Harold’s path away from her. In one fluid movement, his hand found her throat. It was easy to squeeze. Easy to squeeze and squeeze, until her hands left Harold, until she was backing up with the force of his push, gasping under his one-handed grasp.
They were away from Harold now, John only tangentially aware of him out of the corner of his eye. Safe. Whole. His world was righted, but he still saw red. This woman wasn’t the first to try and take Harold from the world, probably wouldn’t be the last. John didn’t care.
He pushed until her back hit the wall, her hands scrabbling against his. Her nails scratched his skin. Her eyes grew wide and frightened.
John didn’t care.
“Mr. Reese.”
There was pain, in the careful tone. Pain and exhaustion, old and new. Caution. Relief.
There were a thousand things in Harold’s voice. Most of all, there was a request. Harold was the only one who could stop him, maybe, but John didn’t want to stop. Letting this woman go was a risk – she’d seen their faces, seen Harold’s face – and acceptable risks in any other circumstances weren’t acceptable when Harold was the one facing them.
“Mr. Reese.” A little sharper. A little more pleading.
Harold hated to see people die, and that was what stopped John. That was what stayed his hand, even as the woman slumped into unconsciousness. Not that John would be a murderer not once more; not the thought of needing to hide the body, or risk the police connecting the dots. Just Harold. Harold, being there.
John wouldn’t make him watch. Not this.
He let go. “She’s seen our faces,” he said, not turning to Harold despite his desperate need to check on the other man.
“Need I remind you, the police are already searching her apartment. She won’t have time for any thoughts of revenge.”
Still John didn’t move. “And if she runs?” He knew Harold had already thought of these things. Knew that if Harold was asking John to do something, he already had a plan, and three back-up plans besides. But she’d hurt Harold. John needed to hear the answers aloud.
“A call to our friends in the department wouldn’t be remiss,” Harold admitted.
John relaxed ever so slightly, finally glancing away from the stirring woman to look his employer in the eye. Harold had straightened out his suit, fussed with his sleeves and his tie, adjusted his vest, trying to look the picture of professionalism, but it was easy to see that he was still rattled. Suddenly, John didn’t care about the woman. Harold was right – she was too dumb to come after them, too ill-equipped, even if she didn’t somehow manage to evade the police. All John wanted in that moment was to get Harold out of here.
He stared into Harold’s eyes, and Harold stared back. There was no fear there. John reveled in that, sometimes, the lack of fear there when their eyes met. “Alright,” he said. “Alright.”
Harold was safe now. That was really the only thing that mattered.