I thought it was Finch as ficus too! As for the below, a prompt within a prompt?
Kara was exactly the same.
She looked the same, talked the same. Was the same. Inescapable agency same. Same as all of them had always been. The crash and the melodrama, the drugs and the bomb and the bus. Then she locked them in a basement, left them to stew in their bombs and their anger.
But that wasn’t all. The physical threat was never all, with Kara. She’d locked them in with her games, too.
The thing about Harold was that he was different. From the very beginning, it was the difference that made Harold interesting. Alluring. Harold was kind and he was wise. Weak in body, twisted physically, but strong everywhere else. Healthy and whole where it mattered.
There were files in that basement room. Tons of paper. Kara’s work over the years John had been drifting in a sea of alcohol, or lately, sheltering under Harold’s redemption. Of course John recognized the game, but he went through the files anyway. Because intel was intel, even in a game, and intel was always an advantage, a route to power. Kara taught him that. But Harold drove it home.
Most important, most obvious, Harold was nothing like Kara and nothing like John. The slightest violence disgusted Harold. John’s weapons, faithful allies so many dark years, so many cold nights . . . John’s weapons made Harold nervous. When John let the old, cold breath of calculation creep into his work, the effortless manipulation into his smile, or the easy, teasing indifference into his words, he could feel Harold’s hesitation. John had seen it, stood by and watched it. Harold’s recoil.
By the time Kara reappeared John was different – or thought he was - while Kara was exactly as he remembered her. Insane.
He’d seen the psychotic gleam from the beginning. Recognized it as it gathered force all around him, like a tide, pulling at him every moment he spent at her side. Sweeping him away from anything solid, from anyone real. But John also knew, had known from the start, that Kara was a good agent.
No, more. She was gifted. Sometimes he thought the frenzy of her mind was just a symptom of her ridiculous talent. Necessary to all the things she got right – played better, smarter, cooler than seemed possible, for a normal person. A whole person. She saw people, for one thing. Really looked into them and saw them. Understood where they were strong and where they were weak, understood the depths of them in a way John never would. She dug up leads, cultivated sources, found answers where no one else would even dream to look. She taught John a lot of what he knew. More than that, more profound, she’d torn down so much of what he’d thought he’d known.
There were a lot of surveillance papers in her files, old documents and photographs. Meaningless images and words, of John and Mark and other agents, men he’d known only by their faces. And there was their handler, and their supervisor, a man he’d only met once.
And there was Harold. Harold and their supervisor. Harold and John’s handler. A younger Harold and John’s old life, walking, meeting, talking together. Working together.
It was only one folder, a few images.
When he met Kara again, in New York, when he opened his eyes and saw her sitting across from him on the bus, John thought he was strong. Stronger than he’d been the last time, at least. Strong enough to withstand her and keep himself. Keep his new world. After all, he had Harold behind him now. Harold, so logical and reasonable and good. An intellect like a Michaelangelo, beautiful, almost too perfect. A mind like a constellation, vast and remote, guiding John true.
On the roof, bomb strapped to his chest, no weapon to save him and no friend at his side, there was a brief moment of being alone again. Truly alone. And it felt like relief.
Then John heard Harold’s voice and all that slipped away. There was nothing solid anymore, nothing real. The tide had come again and swept away everything good.
He wasn’t sure he could gather up the will to care, now. Not again. Harold had tied him up, body and soul, past and future. He put his gun on Harold. He let Harold come close. They would die in the blast, in the wake of Kara, and that would be fine.
In that basement, on the roof, she tore down Harold. She tore down John. Even after she was dead, the bomb diffused, Kara tore them down.
John smiled his goodbyes, waved to Carter and Fusco, and left in the direction of the apartment Harold had given him, moving stiff and slow, body battered as everything else about him. He hadn’t felt that way in a long time; somehow the ache was worse than he remembered.
He went to one of his cash caches and then to a motel, one he’d never been to before.
Harold bustled into the library at 0700, clean clothes, fresh morning, friendly shuffle. John sat in a chair in the corner and watched. Watched him as he hadn’t, really, since the first moment he met him. When Harold finally saw John he jumped, so startled he almost seemed to fall. John studied the movement with interest.
“Mr. Reese,” Harold breathed, “I didn’t – see you.” He wavered visibly between scolding and concern, then turned back to his bank of monitors and pressed a series of buttons, switches and codes. “Did you sleep well?”
John looked at Harold and wondered what Kara saw when she watched him, this strange, brilliant man. What Kara knew when she scanned those photographs.
Harold busied himself with his morning routine. A minute of silence passed unnoticed, before he sensed it, and turned sharply, eying John critically.
“John?” He took a swift half-step in John’s direction. “Everything alright?”
Was everything alright? Everything was the same as it had always been, wasn’t it? It was all the same.
“Of course. Harold. Everything is fine.” John smiled, teasing. Indifferent.
Harold eyed him warily. But then he nodded and turned back to his machine. “No new number yet today. Perhaps we’ve earned a vacation.”
John had always thought of it as Harold’s machine. But it was really their machine, wasn’t it. It was surprising how easily he’d forgotten that. Or maybe it wasn’t.
“I didn’t expect you to be able to diffuse her bomb,” John noted idly.
“Yes.” Harold's tone was dry, distracted. “I sensed your underwhelming confidence.”
“Bombs like that are made to be impenetrable. That’s what they told us, at the Agency.”
Harold glanced at him, posture upright, eyebrow raised, arch and mysterious. Then he went back to his screens without a word, secure in his position. The mysterious boss, all powerful, all knowing.
John the trusting, the loyal, the happy employee.
It was impressive, John could admit that to himself. He’d been played so perfectly, right back into the same place he’d been before.
They’d always played him easily. He shouldn’t be surprised. He’d gotten a little better at the game? They’d taken it to another level. Kara would laugh. Maybe she had.
“How did you find out my real name, Finch?”
John’s tone was ordinary, innocent. But even from the back he could see Finch’s shoulders tense. Watched them climb into his neck, one millimeter, first. Then two.
Harold’s reply was easy, though. Dismissive. “I beg your pardon?”
John got up, movement slow, and walked around to the front of the desk. It wasn’t deliberately menacing. But he was aware now, on guard, and he knew what that looked like. He’d seen it make people shake. Make them run.
Harold froze.
“I said, how did you find my real name. You’ve known it from the beginning, Harold. But that name was erased.”
Harold blinked up at him like a rabbit in a snare. If Kara was here she would know, like a sixth sense, just how much of that was real. Just how much calculation.
John remembered thinking his calculations made Harold nervous, and he smiled.
Harold stuttered. “What – well, there are many – as you know there are always – ”
John didn't particularly want to watch him huff and squirm. He'd seen all that before. He pulled the rolled up photographs from the inside of his coat and set them gently on the table.
Harold stopped talking, but he didn’t break eye contact as he reached for them. He only looked down to study them when he’d pulled them back into his chest.
And then he stood, shaky and grim. “Kara?”
John cocked his head and suppressed a smile. It was liberating, really, to have the weight of gratitude lifted so cleanly from his shoulders.
Harold glanced down at the photos again and raised his eyes uneasily to John. “What . . . what are you going to do?”
FILL: We All Fall Down [no warnings] [Reese/Finch or gen]
As for the below, a prompt within a prompt?
Kara was exactly the same.
She looked the same, talked the same. Was the same. Inescapable agency same. Same as all of them had always been. The crash and the melodrama, the drugs and the bomb and the bus. Then she locked them in a basement, left them to stew in their bombs and their anger.
But that wasn’t all. The physical threat was never all, with Kara. She’d locked them in with her games, too.
The thing about Harold was that he was different. From the very beginning, it was the difference that made Harold interesting. Alluring. Harold was kind and he was wise. Weak in body, twisted physically, but strong everywhere else. Healthy and whole where it mattered.
There were files in that basement room. Tons of paper. Kara’s work over the years John had been drifting in a sea of alcohol, or lately, sheltering under Harold’s redemption. Of course John recognized the game, but he went through the files anyway. Because intel was intel, even in a game, and intel was always an advantage, a route to power. Kara taught him that. But Harold drove it home.
Most important, most obvious, Harold was nothing like Kara and nothing like John. The slightest violence disgusted Harold. John’s weapons, faithful allies so many dark years, so many cold nights . . . John’s weapons made Harold nervous. When John let the old, cold breath of calculation creep into his work, the effortless manipulation into his smile, or the easy, teasing indifference into his words, he could feel Harold’s hesitation. John had seen it, stood by and watched it. Harold’s recoil.
By the time Kara reappeared John was different – or thought he was - while Kara was exactly as he remembered her. Insane.
He’d seen the psychotic gleam from the beginning. Recognized it as it gathered force all around him, like a tide, pulling at him every moment he spent at her side. Sweeping him away from anything solid, from anyone real. But John also knew, had known from the start, that Kara was a good agent.
No, more. She was gifted. Sometimes he thought the frenzy of her mind was just a symptom of her ridiculous talent. Necessary to all the things she got right – played better, smarter, cooler than seemed possible, for a normal person. A whole person. She saw people, for one thing. Really looked into them and saw them. Understood where they were strong and where they were weak, understood the depths of them in a way John never would. She dug up leads, cultivated sources, found answers where no one else would even dream to look. She taught John a lot of what he knew. More than that, more profound, she’d torn down so much of what he’d thought he’d known.
There were a lot of surveillance papers in her files, old documents and photographs. Meaningless images and words, of John and Mark and other agents, men he’d known only by their faces. And there was their handler, and their supervisor, a man he’d only met once.
And there was Harold. Harold and their supervisor. Harold and John’s handler. A younger Harold and John’s old life, walking, meeting, talking together. Working together.
It was only one folder, a few images.
When he met Kara again, in New York, when he opened his eyes and saw her sitting across from him on the bus, John thought he was strong. Stronger than he’d been the last time, at least. Strong enough to withstand her and keep himself. Keep his new world. After all, he had Harold behind him now. Harold, so logical and reasonable and good. An intellect like a Michaelangelo, beautiful, almost too perfect. A mind like a constellation, vast and remote, guiding John true.
On the roof, bomb strapped to his chest, no weapon to save him and no friend at his side, there was a brief moment of being alone again. Truly alone. And it felt like relief.
Then John heard Harold’s voice and all that slipped away. There was nothing solid anymore, nothing real. The tide had come again and swept away everything good.
He wasn’t sure he could gather up the will to care, now. Not again. Harold had tied him up, body and soul, past and future. He put his gun on Harold. He let Harold come close. They would die in the blast, in the wake of Kara, and that would be fine.
In that basement, on the roof, she tore down Harold. She tore down John. Even after she was dead, the bomb diffused, Kara tore them down.
John smiled his goodbyes, waved to Carter and Fusco, and left in the direction of the apartment Harold had given him, moving stiff and slow, body battered as everything else about him. He hadn’t felt that way in a long time; somehow the ache was worse than he remembered.
He went to one of his cash caches and then to a motel, one he’d never been to before.
Harold bustled into the library at 0700, clean clothes, fresh morning, friendly shuffle. John sat in a chair in the corner and watched. Watched him as he hadn’t, really, since the first moment he met him. When Harold finally saw John he jumped, so startled he almost seemed to fall. John studied the movement with interest.
“Mr. Reese,” Harold breathed, “I didn’t – see you.” He wavered visibly between scolding and concern, then turned back to his bank of monitors and pressed a series of buttons, switches and codes. “Did you sleep well?”
John looked at Harold and wondered what Kara saw when she watched him, this strange, brilliant man. What Kara knew when she scanned those photographs.
Harold busied himself with his morning routine. A minute of silence passed unnoticed, before he sensed it, and turned sharply, eying John critically.
“John?” He took a swift half-step in John’s direction. “Everything alright?”
Was everything alright? Everything was the same as it had always been, wasn’t it? It was all the same.
“Of course. Harold. Everything is fine.” John smiled, teasing. Indifferent.
Harold eyed him warily. But then he nodded and turned back to his machine. “No new number yet today. Perhaps we’ve earned a vacation.”
John had always thought of it as Harold’s machine. But it was really their machine, wasn’t it. It was surprising how easily he’d forgotten that. Or maybe it wasn’t.
“I didn’t expect you to be able to diffuse her bomb,” John noted idly.
“Yes.” Harold's tone was dry, distracted. “I sensed your underwhelming confidence.”
“Bombs like that are made to be impenetrable. That’s what they told us, at the Agency.”
Harold glanced at him, posture upright, eyebrow raised, arch and mysterious. Then he went back to his screens without a word, secure in his position. The mysterious boss, all powerful, all knowing.
John the trusting, the loyal, the happy employee.
It was impressive, John could admit that to himself. He’d been played so perfectly, right back into the same place he’d been before.
They’d always played him easily. He shouldn’t be surprised. He’d gotten a little better at the game? They’d taken it to another level. Kara would laugh. Maybe she had.
“How did you find out my real name, Finch?”
John’s tone was ordinary, innocent. But even from the back he could see Finch’s shoulders tense. Watched them climb into his neck, one millimeter, first. Then two.
Harold’s reply was easy, though. Dismissive. “I beg your pardon?”
John got up, movement slow, and walked around to the front of the desk. It wasn’t deliberately menacing. But he was aware now, on guard, and he knew what that looked like. He’d seen it make people shake. Make them run.
Harold froze.
“I said, how did you find my real name. You’ve known it from the beginning, Harold. But that name was erased.”
Harold blinked up at him like a rabbit in a snare. If Kara was here she would know, like a sixth sense, just how much of that was real. Just how much calculation.
John remembered thinking his calculations made Harold nervous, and he smiled.
Harold stuttered. “What – well, there are many – as you know there are always – ”
John didn't particularly want to watch him huff and squirm. He'd seen all that before. He pulled the rolled up photographs from the inside of his coat and set them gently on the table.
Harold stopped talking, but he didn’t break eye contact as he reached for them. He only looked down to study them when he’d pulled them back into his chest.
And then he stood, shaky and grim. “Kara?”
John cocked his head and suppressed a smile. It was liberating, really, to have the weight of gratitude lifted so cleanly from his shoulders.
Harold glanced down at the photos again and raised his eyes uneasily to John. “What . . . what are you going to do?”