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John had refused to jump to conclusions.

It wasn't completely uncommon to go a day without hearing from Finch, but they tended to talk regularly and it was around six in the evening that John finally sent his friend a text, asking how the day had gone and if there was any new work for him. When no response came, John assumed Finch was busy or perhaps out walking Bear and he had left it at that. When there was still no answer by morning, he'd assumed Finch had gone to bed early and had simply forgotten to reply in the morning.

This was, of course, ignoring the fact that Harold Finch never seemed to overlook anything in his entire life.

But John had gone to work, acted like nothing was wrong, and on his lunch break, he'd gone back to their shared building, headed to Finch's apartment and jimmied the lock so he could get inside. Bear whined upon seeing him, wiggling forward with his tail wagging, but there was something off in the dog's demeanor, some source of stress that wasn't usually there. John patted him absently and began to walk through the apartment, taking notice of anything that was unusual, but there was nothing. Nothing, of course, except for the fact that his friend was nowhere to be found. In fact, there looked to be no sign of him having been home at all the night before.

Bear had no food or water, which John knows Finch would have never let happen. His cell phone was sitting on the counter, John's text message unread. The bed was made, but cold. No clothes were missing as far as John was able to tell. The toothbrush in the bathroom was dry, the towel as well, no sign at all that the room had been used at all recently.

He'd called it in as a missing person, but with no sign of a struggle or forced entry into the apartment, no one seemed all that inclined to do much of anything. They knew how things worked in Darrow and everyone John spoke to arrived at the same conclusion. The one John refused to allow himself to jump to.

And so he'd spent three days looking for Harold Finch. He'd ignored texts from Dutch, stopping only to reply to Karen twice, letting her know he was okay and that he might be out of reach for a few days. By the time he's gone through more than half of the gangs in Darrow, though, he knows what's really happened.

He's tired. With Bear by his side, he finally returns to Candlewood, but he doesn't go home. He's still wearing the same clothes he was wearing two days ago, there's stubble on his cheeks where there usually isn't, but he can't go home. Instead he goes to Karen's and knocks lightly on her door, Bear sitting patiently by his feet.

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When John texts her to say that he might be gone for a few days but that he's okay, Karen has no choice but to take him at his word. She worries, sure, a little, but she's both known and worked with him long enough that there's no doubt in her mind that he can handle whatever it is he's doing. Maybe it's some sort of last-minute job, one she hasn't been told about; maybe it's something else. Regardless, though she waits, her heart starting to race a little in anticipation every time she hears her cell phone chime, she also trusts him. Given how many secrets people have kept from her in the past, she's mostly just glad — a little relieved — that he's told her that he'll be gone at all.

It shouldn't be a lot to ask for, but having gone without that before, it really, really is.

Mostly, she tries not to let herself get hung up on what ifs and maybes. She focuses on her work instead, curled up on her couch in her pajamas with a mug of tea and finally making some progress on an article when she hears a knock at the door.

She's been distracted enough in doing so that it doesn't even occur to her until she sees him that it might be John standing there.

"You're okay," she says on a heavy exhale, instinctive and relieved, as she steps back to let him into the apartment. Then she really gets a look at him, at how much less put together than usual she is, and she frowns, resting one hand against his arm. "What happened?"

In that moment, John realizes he doesn't know how to fall apart.

There had never been cause with Jessica, not when he had been so happy. When she had died, he'd hardened a part of himself and he'd taken to drinking, hoping to end his life without having to work too hard at it. There had been no chance to break down, no reason, not when there wouldn't be anyone to help him back up. When Carter had died, he'd done everything to block off the pain and had instead thrown himself headlong into ending the life of the man who'd taken her from the world. That had seemed so much smarter than losing himself to the sadness, knowing he would never allow anyone to be there with him through it, knowing the one person who could have helped him was the one lying dead.

This is different. Finch isn't dead, but he's gone and for the first time in his life, John has someone who'll support him if he lets her, but he stands there for a moment and realizes he has no idea how.

"Harold," he says finally. It's a start. Even if he doesn't know where to go from here, he can start and see where it takes him. "He's gone."

If there's anything Karen could have expected, it isn't that. In a way, she wonders if maybe it shouldn't be so surprising. After all, things like this happen here all the time, or so she's been told, lucky enough to have little experience with it herself. Even so, for a moment, she's speechless. She'd assumed he was off doing something for work, something he couldn't tell her about, at least not until after the fact. She couldn't have guessed that someone would be gone, or that it would be Harold, who's become so important to her in the time she's been here, part of what's given her a real purpose, one of the few people she can be honest with, inasmuch as she's ever honest with anyone.

For John, she knows that's even more the case, remembers too well what he told her the day she found that newspaper in the other Darrow. Her face falls, then, the weight of it hitting her at once, and her hand slides down so she can lace her fingers through his. She doesn't ask if he's sure. He wouldn't be here, wouldn't be telling her this, if he weren't.

"Come on," she says, soft, "come sit down. I'll — Can I get you anything?"

It's easy to let himself simply be led into the apartment and he moves almost mechanically, Bear coming inside with him. The dog whines softly, circling around them once and then he goes to the couch where he curls up in a ball on the floor, waiting for them to join him. As he walks, John wonders if Bear is going to suffer because of this, too, if he's going to slip into some kind of depression. He's heard of dogs who do that, who die from broken hearts when their masters are gone.

"I'm alright," he says when she asks if she can get anything for him. He'd like to drink, but he knows himself well enough to understand why that's a bad idea right now. John would never think to describe himself as being depressed, but more than one psychologist has commented on his lack of self preservation.

"No, I'm not," he adds as he sits down. "I'm so tired."

She probably shouldn't be, but Karen is almost relieved when he says he isn't alright. If he hadn't, she'd have had to call him out on how far from true that must be, and she doubts he needs that from her right about now. What he does need, she doesn't know, but a look at him alone would be enough for her to know that he isn't alright, and it shakes her more than she'd care to admit. She'd liked Harold, too, cared about him deeply, but she knows that there's a depth to the bond John has with him that she'll likely never understand. That's fine with her. It may leave her a little clueless now, but she's navigated tricker situations than this.

"You should rest," she says gently, taking a seat beside him and lacing her fingers through his. "You can stay here tonight, if you want."

He's nodding before he even realizes he's answering her, giving in to the offer she's just made. But it shouldn't be looked at as that, as having given in to something, because he wants to stay here, he wants to be with her and not have to think about anything for just a little while. He's so tired.

"I looked for him," he says. "For three days. I thought one of the gangs might have information. Harold was always digging into things that would have gotten him into trouble had anyone ever been able to trace him." And no one ever had, no one was as good as Finch was, but John was unwilling to accept that Finch could simply be gone. It was better to assume someone smarter existed in Darrow, someone who could track down a man as brilliant as Harold Finch and then make him disappear.

Because then John would have stood a chance at finding him and making those who took him suffer more than they'd ever suffered before.

Though it's probably awful, under the circumstances, there's a small part of Karen that's relieved to hear that. It would be preferable, of course, if Harold were still here, no matter what it took to get him back, but there's an odd sort of reassurance in knowing he looked for that long, that he had to be sure. Given her own tendency to get in over her head, to stumble into trouble at every possible turn, it's nice to think that he might do the same for her if she ever went missing. It's one of the things she's liked best about working with John and Harold, in fact, knowing that there are people who'll have her back without trying to talk her out of whatever she might have gotten herself into.

"Of course you did," she says, soft, resting her chin against his shoulder for a moment. He doesn't seem hurt, at least, not seriously and not that she can see, which comes as a relief. "And there was nothing?"

Shaking his head, he struggles with something to say again, although he knows Karen won't push him if he can't find the right words. There aren't many people in Darrow who know him as he truly is and while he's able to fake John Riley's personality to a certain extent, while he's able to convince most of his fellow detectives that he's more than just a reserved, impossible to read man, it's not the same when he's with the people who really know him. Those who know his name -- his chosen name, but still his name -- and his true personality, they're few and far between, but he's let them in like he hasn't often in the past and because of that, he knows they won't push. Karen won't.

"Nothing," he says finally. There's really nothing more to be said in that regard. Except there is one thing, a small thing, something Karen will appreciate and something he's sure would have pleased Finch.

"I did break up small human trafficking ring," he says with a small, pained smile. "I'm not sure where they imagined they were trafficking them to, but six girls are home now who weren't last week."

Despite the circumstances, despite what his doing so must have involved, Karen can't help the ghost of a smile that flits across her face. Of course he would have gone out of his way to rescue those girls regardless of what else might have been happening. Something like that — well, it's enough to remind her why she's pretty sure she's at least half in love with him, though she knows better than to say anything to that effect at a time like this. That's not the point, not right now. It's enough to know, a quiet sort of certainty, nothing requiring any major revelation but rather something that simply makes sense.

Maybe they were always going to wind up here. Maybe she should have seen it coming from the moment she lied to protect a stranger and said she was his wife. At least they're here — at least they've figured things out — now.

"The same old shit even in the middle of nowhere," she says with a sigh, still tucked close against his side. "I'm glad you were able to help them, at least."

"So am I," John answers and then he's quiet for a moment, for longer than he'd like, really, but what he wants to say next takes some time to form fully in his mind. Karen understands him well enough that he thinks she'll let him collect his words without pressing him.

He's thinking of Carter right now. The day he had arrived in Darrow he'd almost died and she had been there with him, talking to him, reminding him of all the things he has to regret and all the ways in which he can change if he really wants to. And he does want to, he really does, especially in the face of this loss, because Finch had never wanted him to be alone either. Finch is the one who had brought him out of his self inflicted solitude and even if he's gone now, John knows he needs to respect what he'd done enough to not give it up.

"When I was dying, I imagined Carter was with me," he says. "The detective I worked with, the one who was shot by another cop. I know she was a hallucination, but she told me I didn't have to be alone, that I could have someone again, but I was choosing to keep myself apart from others and she was right. But then you found me." He reaches down, closing his hands over one of Karen's. "You found me and if you weren't here, I'm not sure what I would be doing now that Harold is gone."

He pauses again, then says, "I'm sorry if that's a lot of pressure. I don't expect you to do anything different, but I think now more than ever it's important that I say how much you mean to me."

"It's not," Karen says, quick and soft and instinctive, shaking her head. "Too much pressure, I mean. It's not." It's practically what she'd just been thinking herself, if from a different point of view. Back in New York, she'd lost nearly everything, despite her own best efforts to salvage what she could. Nelson and Murdock had collapsed, Foggy and Matt gone their separate ways with it, the latter effectively cutting her out, and Frank really became the Punisher, killing the one man who could have given them answers. She had her newfound job at the Bulletin, but that's about all she had going for her.

Here, it's different. Even when she feels so spread thin that she could drop from exhaustion, it's like she has a purpose, and that's all the more reason for her not to give up any of the things she's doing. They all mean too much to her for that. More than that, she has people she cares about again, who care about her in turn. Where everything with Matt crashed and burned, it's been the opposite with John, simple and steady and building up to what seems only like its obvious conclusion. He has secrets, but so does she, and there aren't lies and excuses, nothing getting in the way of what they're trying to be to each other.

Every once in a while, she catches herself thinking that she could tell him everything and he would understand. The odds are good that she won't, but there's an odd sort of comfort in the notion of being with someone who'd get where she's coming from, with whom she wouldn't have to hide everything if she didn't want to. It's what drew her to Frank a little, too, but it's made all the more difference with John. It isn't just some inexplicable, circumstantial bond here. It's something deeper than that, something like she's never really had before.

"I..." She leans towards him, forward against his, but decides again that it isn't worth putting such significant words to it at a time like this. "I don't really know what I'd be doing here, either. And not just because you gave me a job."

It's more than he deserves and he knows it. Far more.

And yet he's not strong enough to refuse any of it. Maybe a few years ago he would have still been closed off enough, his walls still sturdy enough to walk away -- Carter would have been able to attest to that -- but no longer. While maybe he doesn't deserve any of what Karen is offering him, it's just as true she doesn't deserve his inability to deal with an emotional connection. Out of respect for what Finch has done with him, he has to be smart enough not to go drown himself in a bottle, but out of respect for Karen, he has to be a better man than he's been in the past.

"Well, it's certainly what Harold wanted," he says with a soft laugh, reaching up to stroke his fingers through her hair. He tugs gently on the ends, enjoying how soft the strands feel against his fingers and then he tips his head forward slightly, pressing his mouth to hers. It's a soft kiss, not with the usual heat he feels for her, but it's no less meaningful.

Edited 2017-10-12 15:21 (UTC)

For a few moments, Karen just stays close, leaning gently into the kiss, one hand soft against his jaw where she rests her hand. It's all she can do, really. She can't change what's happened, she can't bring Harold back or lessen the weight of his disappearance, but while she's here, she can be here, not about to start counting down to an end that might or might not come. That would only be wasting whatever time they have here, and while she can't say that the months that it took them to wind up where they are would fit the same description, she waited too long for this not to make the most of it while she has it. Even if this is all she can do, at least it's something.

"Yeah, he wasn't exactly subtle about that, was he?" she asks with a quiet laugh of her own once she's drawn back, though not by enough to put any real distance between them. "Who knows how long it would've taken us to get over ourselves without his intervening."

John smiles slightly and says, "Harold..." Then he pauses for a moment, considering his voice of words, what he might say next. Harold Finch himself had said more times than John could count that he was a very private person and while John had learned plenty of things about him, there are certain things he knows he'll never tell anyone. They're Finch's secrets to tell, not his, and even if he's no longer here, John will respect that, too.

"I think he understood loss," he says. "And feeling as if something must be given up in order to save it. I also think he regretted many of the decisions he's made in his life, even if they were for a greater good. I think Harold, for all he was closed off from most of us, knew how important love could be to someone's life."

And he had taught John how to accept it. Not on his own, it's not a lesson he thinks he would have learned without Carter, but he's here now. In the end, he'd gone to Karen instead of a bar, and that means more than he knows how to say.

"He's not wrong," Karen says, her voice soft and her small smile bittersweet. She can't claim to have known Harold even a fraction as well as John — and it's strange to start thinking about him in the past tense, though the fact of the matter is that he's not here anymore — but she thinks he was right about a lot of things, really. He sure as hell had the right idea with the team he put together; she wouldn't have been so quick to agree to join in otherwise, even while trying to keep up another job as a front. Besides, as it was told to her, he quite probably saved John's life. That, to her, goes a long way.

His phrasing echoes in her head, and Karen tries not to latch onto that, not to give it too much meaning. This isn't the time, even if she knows it must be true and has been for a while. She could say it, it would be so easy to say it, but she doubts he'd want something like that attributed to a time like this.

There are enough ways that she can show him, anyway. She's here, and she doesn't intend to go anywhere, leaning in close, her lips brushing his cheek. "It makes all the difference."

It means so much, just that she's here with him, and for what feels like the first time in days, John's shoulders begin to relax. He shifts on the couch, sitting back, letting out a long, weary breath and he knows the best course of action for him at this point is to just let himself rest. He hadn't found Finch and he isn't going to find Finch by running himself into the ground and allowing himself rest and comfort isn't going to bring the world to an end.

"Thank you," he says, taking Karen's hand and squeezing gently. "If it's alright... can I stay here tonight?"

Before Karen it's been a long time since he's slept in the same bed with anyone and he's gotten used to his space, but right now he can't imagine going home alone to his bed. Bear would be there, but it's not the same, of course.

"Of course," Karen says, not needing to stop to consider that for a moment, her hand still curled around his. "Whatever you need. You're always welcome here." The words come easily, without thought, but they're true, too. While she can't claim to have been completely honest with a single person here, keeping as much hidden as she has for a long time, she's come closer to it with John than anyone else, and she thinks he would understand that. He has secrets, too. It seems to be an unspoken agreement — she won't ask about his if he won't ask about hers, and as far as she can tell, it suits them well enough.

Right now, it means there's nothing here that she would need to keep from him, no part of her life in Darrow that she would try to keep closed off to him. If being here with her will help him even the slightest bit, then she wouldn't want him to be anywhere else.

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