Chapter Text
Harold isn't sure what he was expecting, he only knows that this isn't it. Maybe that John would come back injured and wild, or maybe that he would have regressed all the way back to his old self, lost in alcohol and untrusting. Instead what he gets back is still John, somehow - only clothed in a stinking, matted skeleton with resigned hollows around eyes that still spark life and a worn out and tired voice that still expresses him perfectly.
Harold thinks it would almost be kinder if John could have lost himself until he recovered - simply woken up tired and whole in the care of someone he trusted. Harold isn't even sure he believes they trust each other anyway, but it's a nice thought. Right now they were so close to danger - a real, quiet danger and not the violent and sudden sort they were both capable of dealing with by now
He's not prepared when, before anything else in his kitchen-
"You'll have to go slow, John," Harold finds himself saying before he can stop the worry from entering his tone and his hand from going out as if he had any power in the world that could make John stop against his will.
John is going through the drawers of utensils instead of the food, rattling through them until he comes up with scissors, which he puts closed and blade first into Harold's hand before he gets down onto the floor, exhausted. He puts his back against Finch's legs, thin skin and thin fabric over prominent bones that seem to find all of Harold's pressure points and he has to lean against the cabinets behind him.
"Take it off," John says, and Harold realizes that John means his hair - what matted and greasy parts seem left of it, anyway.
"I- certainly." Harold says, because even though he doesn't want to touch it - doesn't want the tactile input that will make this all real, he can do this for John at least. If he hesitates, it's to school himself not to approach this like a necessary-but-disgusting task such as unclogging the drain.
There is after all a human at the bottom of this mess. A friend. So he takes the hair off with scissors, cutting it brutally short where it hasn't simply fallen out, and for lack of a better option leaves it on the floor telling himself he will sweep it later.
The cut is far from even, and Harold avoids the sore, red looking areas on the scalp. The result is more flattering than it had been, but rough and uneven. It has the result of accentuating how emaciated Reese really is - Harold has seen very similar pictures in old war documentaries.
But when the last of it falls away into a dark pile scattered over the kitchen floor, Reese seems relieved. He gets carefully to his feet and Harold has no idea what to expect. He doesn't know if Reese should be in a hospital or even upright, but every slow, deliberate, painful motion serves to further convince Harold he might be in over his head.
Reese is halfway up the hall when Finch realizes he is headed to the bathroom and not the most logical destination.
"Aren't you going to eat anything?" He says, because he's not sure what else to say and he's springing forward from the counter ignoring the spark of pain from his hip.
"If I eat I'm going to be sick," John explains, and he leaves the bathroom door hanging open so he doesn't have to stop and finish his explanation. Harold takes the invitation after a moment of internal debate, and then slides inside and pushes the door mostly closed but not all the way.
"I'm too exhausted to be sick," John is still saying, discarding his filthy clothes in the tiny bathroom trash can. "I want to be clean - a luxury you taught me to enjoy - and I want to sleep."
"Mr. Reese, I really think-" Finch starts, his eyes frozen on the sallow skin pulled tight as a drum head over the unhealthy jut of ribs, the flesh of the arms gone slack and deprived of their usual power, and the sickly yellow cast of all that skin.
"Just two hours, Harold." John says, placating him in a familiar tone, and then he's in the shower, running the water so hot the bathroom steams up even in the middle of summer.
He can't force John to do as he wants, but thoughts of him laying down to sleep now are chased quickly by that stillness slipping naturally and unexcitingly into a permanent state.
Finch sits down on the closed toilet lid - it's a long way down for him, he finds, and he knows getting up again will be difficult. He doesn't want to leave John totally unattended.
And he waits, watching the tile and listening to the changes in the flow of water hitting the floor, because that means John is still moving. He itches to do some more research, because he has no idea what John will need to get through this, and he feels woefully unprepared. He doesn't know, either, the extent of what happened. He feels like it must be important to know that, but as if there's no possible way to ask.
He wonders if there are any other periods of John's life that he knows nothing about. He supposes there must be, but no gaps he feels as acutely as the newest. It feels as hollow and worn out, as scraped and sensitive as John's voice sounds in the silence that Harold finally finds himself. in.
"Wake me up in two hours please, Finch." John says, to break Harold's spell of introversion. It's a reassurance, and Harold looks up at John, at his eyes which are still his at least, and nods. He begins the difficult process of getting up, and John is halfway down the hall when Harold steps into it and finds himself unable not to ask.
"John?" and his voice sound weak and unsure, trembling a little before he gets it under control. "You will be okay, won't you?"
The question is embarrassingly juvenile sounding, needy and closer than Harold had let himself be to needing another person in a very long time. John isn't offended, and for once he does not reach into the tender space Harold has shown him with a testing jab to remind him to close his defenses again.
"Yes, Harold." He says, and that's the truth John wants - even if it's going to take a while, even if things might get worse still before they get better, they will get better.
When the door closes behind John, Finch checks his watch and allows exactly five extra minutes for John to fall asleep in his calculation of when to wake him.
-
The next week is an unquestionable agony. Harold is so careful to go slow, even though it's agony for both of them, and he admits John's restraint in those first days when he alternates drinking a glucose solution, milk, and laying down to suffer the crippling agony of digesting. How John refrained from emptying his cabinets despite the pain, Harold doesn't guess. Experience, perhaps.
Harold takes infrequent meals and always eats outside the apartment. Otherwise he doesn't leave, except to meet Fusco once when the man offers to deliver some supplies - what turns out to be a convenience store's worth of sports drink, electrolyte powder, and whey mix. Finch is ridiculously grateful, even if John looks at what Finch can manage to carry in almost warily.
He tries to hid how much recovery hurts him, but Harold recognizes it in his stoicism and the tightness in his features and shoulders, the constant quiet that Harold tries to fill with facts and information on the progress of the rest of the world.
He delivers the first number to Carter's voicemail as a carefully anonymous tip and she scrapes a victory out carefully. He doesn't mention it to John, because when he enters the apartment that morning and begins to speak, John's expression goes distant and he slowly descends to sit on the floor dizzily and Finch forgets in a torrent of worry.
He has acquired several specific medical texts, but it does not make Finch a doctor, or give him the lab equipment to appropriately test John's blood for phosphates ore measure the fluctuations in electrolytes as his body learns how to properly function again.
What he does know is that at this stage, this is more imminently dangerous than the initial starvation was. It's a helplessness that Harold should have known he would absolutely hate. There are no plans he can come up with to fix this, and he wonders if perhaps he should consider having a doctor permanently on the payroll, even if it meant further risk and more questions.
Having to work remotely via laptop outside of any of his usual bases of operations is slowly winding Harold's nerves up into an unintelligible mess that his self-reminders to be patient cannot fully abate.
So when a muted attention notice flashes in the lower corner of his window behind the half-dozen other processes he is trying to pay attention to around looking up at John's curled form on the couch - maybe sleeping or maybe just holding very still and breathing deeply. He dreads the number's arrival. He cannot go back to Carter, because she'd arouse suspicion if she had too many anonymous tips, and when Reese had consolidated his assets into a partnership on the task force, he had left Finch without a diversity of options.
Granted, Finch hadn't originally wanted as much as they now had, perhaps lacking foresight into how much this would take out of both of them. He hadn't counted on a point coming when he couldn't bring himself to force John to work a case. He'd idealized, he admits to himself, in absolutes. He had imagined that John would either be able or dead.
John is neither at the moment, and the thought of telling him there is a number is - well. Harold knows John would pursue it, irregardless, and then very likely he would be dead. Harold can't ignore the number, either.
So Finch gets up, without much of a plan, and leaves a note before he lets himself out.
The machine delivers the number into his ear as a series of tonal beeps, like a digital dialing service mimicking the old analog sounds of phone keys, but Harold has memorized the sounds by now. He thinks faintly that the tune the sounds make is almost familiar, but he doesn't immediately recognize the number as a repeat when he scribbles the digits down in code.
But at the library, when he's typing it in, he hits the last two digits instinctively and stops himself before hitting 'enter' to initiate the search because now he remembers.
Finch leans back suddenly and tries to decide if there is ever a point where he can just walk away without looking. There's every chance, however, that this number is out to hurt others rather than being in any danger. And time - which Finch very badly wants right now so that he can think this through - is working against him.
He sighs and wishes John were whole. It's the only way to salvage this situation. Harold hits enter and calls up Elias' information anyway, because even safely in jail the man has far-reaching ability to cause harm.
Elias looks as mildly un-antagonistic as he always had in his prison intake photo, as if he were a model citizen just waiting for the system to work and send him on his unguilty way.
"Alright, Mr. Elias. Let's see what you've been up to in maximum security..." Finch tells the image, and begins hacking into the prison's inmate records.
An hour and a half later he has nothing - no visitors, no phone calls except the first he was allowed. He had only seen his lawyer twice, and he had had no correspondence either. It was clear that he was somehow communicating - their encounter with and subsequent brief alliance with his unknown and scar faced right hand might be evidence of that. Had his number come up sooner, Harold would have expected a direct threat to himself or Mr. Reese. But 'Mr. Stray' had made good on his word and if John was in worse condition on his return it wasn't Elias' fault.
The problem with under the table, shady prison communications was that they were recordless - risky and impersonal by design. But not usually totally unobserved by the guards and possibly the security cameras.
Finch downloads the database for the last month and keys up the facial recognition software to run. It will take some time, however. Before he can worry about leaving John alone that long - and before he can call him and explain why, he wants to be able to say he's handling the situation on his own. That John doesn't have to help. So he calls Carter.
"You think with how much you watch you'd be a little more careful about calling me," she answers, and he sees her get up from her desk and head outside, sees Detective Fusco lift his head as she passes and Finch tries to reassure himself that it's only because Fusco knows what to look for.
"I do time my calls so no one is near your desk, detective," Finch responds, somewhere between affection and efficiency.
"Yeah okay." She answers, not reassured. "How is he?"
Finch wonders what it is about John that endears him to people around him - most especially his enemies. It isn't his sparkling personality.
"Not as well as I'd like," Harold admits, and then decides that's as much as she needs to know. "Detective, I have a problem."
"Another anonymous tip? People are going to get suspicious - I'll tell you the truth. They already are."
The sound around her changes and Harold realizes she's probably shut herself into a bathroom for privacy.
"It's not as simple as that, I'm afraid." Harold says, as his computer indicates that it's done combing the first week of footage. "What can you tell me about what Elias has been up to?"
"Elias?" Carter spits her disbelief into the phone, and then answers angrily. "He's in jail where we put him. Why?"
"I have reason to believe he's planning something." Harold says,a nd sighs. He can almost hear her starting to rub irritated circles on her forehead. "You know what he's capable of."
"I know what he was capable of," she answers quickly. "But after that last stunt he has no communication privileges, the guy can barely even see his lawyer without someone typing up a transcript for review."
Finch is watching hours of footage in minutes and all he sees is Elias sitting mostly still. The man reads a lot, sits a lot in thought. Often he stares directly at the camera and Finch feels a little satisfaction that he had not checked back sooner - obviously Elias had expected him to.
"There's no chance he could accidentally have been incarcerated with someone he knows? Someone who could do his communicating for him?"
"The guy's in solitary. He can't get any more locked up and cut off without a lobotomy," Carter answers, sounding exasperated. She doesn't know what Finch expects her to say, which is funny because he has no idea either.
"Very well, detective," Finch says, knowing there's no easy victory in this. "I'll get back in touch when I know more."
"Good luck, Finch," she says, and he understands it to mean 'with John as well'
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