In Bed with Miss Groves
"Oh dear" thought Harold Finch "I'm not sure how I ended up in bed with Miss Groves". Still, he realised with relief, they weren't actually in bed – they were ON the bed under a blanket and he was fully dressed. Well, he had taken off his tie, he didn't think that counted.
Harold and Root had started the nth run of the Machine's self-diagnostics which they calculated would take at least 6 hours. Root had suggested tea "at her place", which was just a curtained alcove in their subway headquarters. Both of them led a subterranean life while they rebuilt and tested the Machine although Harold's day job as Professor Whistler had to be maintained so at least he saw the sun sometimes while Root focussed on the Machine. To make it more comfortable for her, Harold had brought in normal things with John's help like a bed, chairs, and a dressing table which they'd put in one of the alcoves. Harold hoped that, with the curtain pulled, Root would feel as if she was in a normal home and it would help her relax.
Root had put the kettle on and changed into her blue pyjamas. Miss Groves really did look very fetching in those, Harold sighed, and he had sat on the bed, drinking the tea and discussing with Root the next stages in getting the Machine back in working order. The eyes of both of them were drooping and they'd leant back and closed them which had been a mistake as they fell asleep immediately. He could see that the screens were scrolling the Machine's output so the test run was still going and, looking at his watch, he saw with surprise that only 2 hours had passed. He thought about getting up to see if any errors had been detected but decided that lying next to Root was a better choice, especially as she was clinging to his arm and had thrown a leg over his. He rationalised that letting her sleep was the best option.
It had been a long while since he had been in a similar situation, not since Grace really. He reddened and stirred guiltily as his conscience reminded him that wasn't true – there'd been that time in Hong Kong at the conference with Dr. Bridges. Harold wondered if Root knew about it from the Machine, was that why she had wanted to kill Beth, apart from the Samaritan angle? She was quite jealous of Harold's friendships, with John especially. Mind you he was a bit envious of her relationship with the Machine too. Alright, he admitted, I am very envious of that. He reached over and stroked Root's hair, suddenly filled with melancholy that none of them – himself, Root, Reese, and Shaw (before she… went away) – could have a normal life and things like love and family. He supposed they were a little family (a very unusual little family) and there was real affection between them so maybe that would have to do.
He knew that he was sort of in love with Miss Groves, one of the few women (few people even) that could match his intellect. When she kidnapped him the first time they had stayed in several motels around Maryland while she zeroed-in on Denton Weeks and she hadn't been shy about showing her body to him. As he was drugged most of the time and strapped in a wheel chair it didn't matter so he supposed it was some sort of game or power thing to her. Oddly she didn't provoke desire or lust in him so much as compassion, she looked so young and vulnerable especially as she did not have much of a womanly figure (rather scrawny really, very different from Grace). After he got home and Mr. Reese had told him her background (as much as they could find out) he wondered if her friend Hanna's disappearance had somehow stunted her emotional and physical development. When she kidnapped him the second time and had a mental breakdown after they found that the Machine had moved itself to an unknown location, he'd arranged for her treatment at Stoneridge Hospital. It had torn him apart to see her shuffling blank-eyed around the corridors; that had been one of the low points in his life, worse than Nathan's death even.
The wedding dress incident still disturbed him. He remembered the hot anger that ripped through him when she had shown up in it. "I'm the father of a god and she's its High Priestess" he had raged silently "The faithless bitch, I'll…". He had choked those thoughts down with a lifetime's control but for several weeks he fought the urge to find the name of the "other man" and pass his number to Miss Shaw mixed in with genuine ones provided by the Machine. If he was involved with Samaritan it was odds-on that he was a perpetrator and, with luck, Miss Shaw would have to kill him which, admittedly, wouldn't bother her much. Mr. Reese was more compassionate and would just wound him, which Harold didn't want. After all, if they had got as far as the altar it was likely that Mr. X (as he named him) and Miss Groves had been more than "just good friends". The intensity of his reaction and eager willingness to contemplate, to all intents and purposes, murder had shocked and frightened him. He had come a long way since he had baulked at killing Congressman McCourt a few years ago.
His mind had always tip-toed around the subject of Miss Groves and sex; it did not seem to like to think of her doing that sort of thing. Rationally he assumed that she had probably used sex to further her nefarious schemes in her previous life as a killer/hacker and maybe in her current life too, with or without the Machine's blessing. He fervently hoped and prayed that the Machine had never asked Miss Groves to prostitute herself. Not that she would mind, he reflected gloomily, she'd do anything for it.
Lately his mind had decided to stop tip-toeing and wade right in, a consequence of prolonged periods of working together (and probably sleep deprivation). On the rare occasions lately that he had a free evening he found that he went to bed early so that tomorrow would come more quickly and he could see her again. He got a lot of pleasure from watching her lips move as she spoke or even ate a sandwich, wondering how she tasted when kissed, and even more from watching her move about the subway. He decided that she was still scrawny but she did have nice legs - long and slim – usually covered in jeans unfortunately.
Harold knew that he would have to say something soon – once the Machine was active again Miss Groves would revert to her worship of it and his chance would be gone. They'd be busy fighting Samaritan again too. She had flung an arm across his chest and he reached over and entwined his fingers with hers.
Maybe this is as good as it gets, he thought sadly and his eyes closed.