Title: I Carry Your Heart With Me
Author: wildwordwomyn
Word Count: 528
Rating: PG for some angst
Fandom/Pairing: Person of Interest gen starring John Reese/Harold Finch, Jessica Arndt
Disclaimers/Warnings: Spoilers for everything through season 1. Also, I own nothing. Not even this story's title. (I stole it from the E. E. Cummings poem.) More's the pity...
Author's Notes: I originally started writing this little fic on July 9th. I know, I know...
Summary: Finch is there when John needs him.
John Reese stands off to the side of the window opposite the bank of monitors. Finch isn't certain of what he sees but he's staring out at something. An air of melancholy surrounds him, weighing him down.
"Why don't you go home, Mr. Reese? You need your rest."
It's pointless to say. John may catnap in the loft he gave to him but he doesn't sleep there. Not really. At night, once each number is wrapped up he walks until he finds cheap, rent-by-the-hour motels, checks in under different names and stays six hours. Never more, never less, never visitors coming or going. Finch understands conditioning. John feels safer in the heart of darkness than in the blinding glare of light. The Agency, his training, beat that into him. It doesn't mean Finch has to like it.
"Are you alright, John?" Finch asks as gently as he can, deliberately using John's first name in order to elicit a response.
For a long second Finch assumes it didn't work. Then John's head swivels slightly. His eyes are the only thing the oder man notices because they're a dark blue, as if bruised. Haunted.
"It's Jessica's anniversary. I'd forgotten until now," he says in a soft, flat tone.
Finch successfully fights off the flinch. He himself had forgotten. He shouldn't have. Seeing her in the morgue, running into John for the first time, learning the Irrelevants weren't just numbers listed on computer printouts, changed everything. Became everything.
He will not forget again.
"I'm sorry," Finch replies. "...Is there anything I can do for you?"
John smiles a little. "No. But thank you for asking."
When he faces the window again Finch is simultaneously relieved and disappointed. He's not very good at this, at human interaction, particularly with people in pain. He tends to say the wrong thing more often than not and affection, when he's able to give or receive it without resistance, leaves him usually confused these days. Until now Will and Grace have been the only people he can naturally be around.
"Finch?" John calls, watching him through their reflection in the glass.
"Yes?" The ex-operative must notice how eager he sounds to be of assistance but it's too late. The word is already out there and adding to it would just draw more attention to his awkwardness.
"Would it be alright if we didn't work for a minute?"
He may not be much of a hugger. Silence, however, he has in abundance. Giving some of it to John is not a problem. "Of course," he tells him reflexively as the disappointment dissipates.
John nods in acknowledgment, his gaze shifting back to whatever he spies beyond the library and its immediate vicinity. Finch limps across the floor to stand beside him while his sore hip and leg throb in protest. When John looks over at him and smiles again he knows it was the right thing to do, especially when the darkness in his eyes lightens.
It doesn't occur to him to mind that John reaches out to lay a gentle hand on his shoulder. Isn't that what friends are for?
The End