A/N: Thanks to Bookwyrm52 for leaving ideas in my "Challenges, Drabbles, and Prompts" collection... what originally would have been a one-shot coda evolved into a three-part story because of the plot bunnies left for me.

Coda to episode 4x18 "Skip". Each part will be a different POV.

"It was a brilliant plan, Harold... the Trojan horse. But it would've gotten Professor Whistler killed."

He watches her leave; then, when she disappears from sight, he listens as her echoing steps fade away until the only sounds left in the Subway are cold silence and his own shaky breathing.

He stands like this for several long seconds, then lets out a weary sigh and all but collapses in his chair. His chest feels tight, his heartbeat a rapid flutter. He places a hand on his chest and focuses on his breathing, trying to calm himself down. It's a disconcerting feeling, being this worried about his heart rate. For the first time in his life, he feels old.

Then again, he reminds himself, he has nobody to blame for that but himself.

He slowly spins the chair toward his computer screens, staring numbly at them without truly seeing them. His fingers twitch as if to reach for the keyboard, but he doesn't want to have anything to do with the computer right now. Much like he doesn't want to have anything to do with Ms. Groves for the time being either.

He wants nothing to do with either, yet both are taking up the majority of his thoughts.

What he wants is to scream. He wants to scream, break down and cry, throw something, break something. He wants to hurl the keyboard across the Subway. He wants to smash his fist through the monitors. He wants to break free of the calm façade that he's maintained for years, to let out every bit of hurt and frustration and anger and despair that he's feeling, to be someone other than the quietly sophisticated persona that he's hidden himself within for so long that he no longer knows how to be anything else.

He doesn't do any of it. For one thing, he doesn't want to risk aggravating his newly-diagnosed heart condition; one trip to the emergency room is more than enough for him for a while. But most of all, he's simply too tired.

He settles for carelessly shoving his keyboard aside to make room for him to cross his arms on the desk. He rests his head on his crossed arms, not even bothering to take off his glasses first. He's beyond caring at this point. He's fighting a losing battle against an AI he can't defeat, taking friendly fire for what little progress he can make; he's watched two good friends get gunned down in the space of a year, and just had a falling out with another. Even Mr. Reese seems more distant than he once was. In comparison, bending his glasses or hurting his neck by sleeping at his desk no longer rank anywhere on his "Things That Harold Finch Cares About" list.

He wants to hate Ms. Groves for what she's done. But for some reason that he doesn't quite understand, he can't.

If he felt like making the effort to analyze the core of his feelings, it would probably be defeat that he's feeling.

He lets out a weary sigh, and closes his eyes. No, at the heart of it all, he's simply tired. It's an emotional tired, though right now it's translating into physical weariness.

He wants to stop fighting.

He knows he can't.