"I must apologize for the inconvenience, Detective," Finch says, her lips quirking up, just for a second—a worried smile—as she stiffly gets into Joss's car.
"Look, you hardly ever ask for help," Joss shoots back as she waits for Finch to buckle in; Finch's moves are slow, much stiffer than usual, and she's wincing in a way Joss has rarely seen her wince. "For the cases, sure, but for you?"
As soon as Finch is ready, Joss pulls out into traffic, trying to keep the ride smooth as she follows GPS toward the address Finch texted her earlier. "Sometimes I swear you've got it in your head that it's a mortal sin to show a little weakness. We all need help sometimes, y'know?"
"I'm well aware," Finch replies, mildly. "Of course, self-sufficiency is a trait I was trained into quite young. Of necessity."
"Yeah, how old were you when your brothers threw you into that pool?"
Turning her whole upper body, Finch stares at Joss for a moment, and then settles back into her seat, her lips pulling back into a genuine smile.
"What?"
"Oh, it's… amusing, at times, to see which details stick around in people's brains. You've hit across one I'd almost forgotten. I've never had any brothers, Detective; I'm afraid I made up that detail to make the point both easy to explain and memorable."
Joss sighs. "Am I ever gonna know anything about you that's actually true?"
"You already know several facts about me. It's just that you don't have enough information to distinguish the truth from the… disguise."
For a long moment, Finch is silent; when Joss glances her way, she looks oddly thoughtful.
"The truth is," Finch muses, as if weighing every word, "that I… construct… each of my personas around a core thread of reality, something real about my past. A different piece each time. In this way, they're easier to remember and to maintain, and it gives me a foundation from which to extrapolate new details as necessary, without overlap or confusion."
When the ensuing silence conveys that Finch's confession is done, Joss tries to assimilate the information and any possible good it could do her. Knowing that some tiny piece of Finch's alias is real doesn't really give her any information about the woman, nothing she could trust or track down.
So Finch has given her data without giving her anything useful. Typical.
"So the only thing I know for real is that you're an only child. Unless you were lying about that, too."
"I said only that I've never had any brothers," Finch corrects, and if she is smug about Joss's slip-up then it doesn't come through in her voice. "But let me ask you this, Detective: If you were to actually track me down, my real identity, and find evidence for why I've been on the run all this time… what would you do with it?"
Joss hesitates; this time, her sigh is heavier. "Hell if I know. I can't think of a crime short of murder or treason or… or, I dunno, sex trafficking, that'd be worse than the hijinks you're up to these days, and yet… you're doing enough good for this city that all I can do is snipe at you a bit about your methods. I can't say that I'd turn you in even with a smoking gun in my hands."
When she glances over again, the expression on Finch's face holds enough mixed emotions that she can't make out anything concrete before she has to turn her attention back to the road. By the time she can risk another glance, the expression's gone, back to a slight downturn of the lips, a slight furrow of the brow.
"If I gave you even a few more concrete details, I'm sure you could find me," Finch murmurs, "if you took the time to look. Given my age, and the fact that I'm on the run… it might take a while, but it wouldn't be particularly difficult. Although I must warn you that the very act of looking into my case might raise some attention that you probably don't want to deal with. It's not merely for my own sake that I have so thoroughly buried my past.
"But these details about me are true," she says, and hesitates only briefly before concluding: "My mother died before I was old enough to remember her. My father died not knowing who I was. And my real name has never been Harriet."
"I looked that up," Joss admits. "I'm guessing you were born around, what, 1960? Harriet was on the decline, at least in the U.S. Went practically extinct within a decade; in 1960 there weren't even five hundred newborn Harriets across the country."
"It still seemed like a reasonable name to hide under," Finch says with a shrug. "Please bear in mind, Detective, that when I was forced to disappear, I had to work out the details on my own, with no training, and practically no warning. Keeping my own name would have been suicide; it was far too memorable. Trying to adjust to a name that I wasn't used to was… more difficult than I'd expected, and that's noticeable in its own way. So, I took the middle ground."
Frowning, Joss tries to work that out. "So, what, a name that's similar to your actual name, but less notable?"
"Yes. The connection isn't obvious enough to track. In some strange way, it's like a form of CAPTCHA, only, instead of blocking computers, it prevents people from reverse-engineering the switch."
"So, if I knew your original name, the move to Harriet would be obvious, but it's not obvious in reverse?"
"Precisely."
"Not Henrietta, then. Because I'd been meaning to look that up as well. Heather? Hester?"
Joss can count on one hand—with half the fingers left over—the number of times she's heard Finch laugh. So the sudden chuckling startles her, but she can't spare another look because she's turning the corner.
"I'm that far off, huh?"
Another chuckle, before Finch says, still amused, "I'm just trying to imagine my mother being that… ordinary. That's what I have left of her, you see: her eccentricities. My father would tell me stories of all the outlandish things she got up to while they were dating, and even after they married. I, ah… sometimes I would… comfort myself, with thoughts of the wonderfully unorthodox fun that we would have had together, had she been able to stay with us just a while longer."
It'd be easier to feel sympathy if Joss weren't picking up on more clues that Finch is, quite possibly, making things up again. She sucks in her cheeks and bites them, lightly, her eyes narrowed, and goes for the one possible truth she can see. "So, you were adopted?"
A pause. "I don't believe that any of the information I've told you would lead to that conclusion."
"You just described a relationship with your father—enough to build up multiple stories for you to remember—and yet, earlier, you said that he died not even knowing who you were. You even claimed that it was one of three completely true facts about you. So which is it, Finch? Did your father have a relationship with you or not? Did you have more than one father? Are you just spinning out yarns again?"
The sigh that comes from Finch is tired, or… more like she doesn't have the energy to be truly tired right now. "Spinning out tales is the way I've learned to keep myself safe… and to keep the ones around me, the ones I care about, from getting pulled into matters that could harm them for something as simple as knowing the truth. But I haven't lied to you, Detective. Not today, not while in this car. I have been very carefully and conscientiously determining which pieces of truth I can pass along without endangering you too badly, and it has been quite the stimulating exercise. I don't usually feel free to let out even this much about my past."
"So you're telling me that you had a close relationship with your father, who died before he knew you. What, did he record messages on tapes or something? Write you a lot of letters?"
"I never said that he died before he knew me. I said that he died not knowing who I was." A slight tremble to her voice highlights some strong emotion, but Joss can't look for it right now; the traffic's tight.
She tries to piece it together, the clues that Finch is giving her, but it's not adding up. "So he knew you, and then he didn't know you? How would that even—"
It hits her hard, and she's almost afraid to give it voice. "Brain damage. Was he—"
"Well," Finch says, voice calm with decades of acceptance, "the ordinary, commonplace, non-violent form of brain damage. My father developed Alzheimer's while I was very young. All of the wonderful stories that he used to tell me slowly melted away, along with his skills, and his thoughts, and the ability to manage the most basic tasks and keep track of what he was doing. By the time that I was forced to leave him, he'd forgotten not only me but even the fact that he had ever been married. It's… not quite the fairy-tale ending that one might hope for, starting off with that much love."
"I'm so sorry," Joss murmurs, when she finds her voice again. She resolutely keeps her eyes on the road.
"But the love was there, you see." There's nothing particularly sad about her voice, now; a little wistful, maybe. "And it's not diminished just because it faded. My father's love created a mother for me. His memories became the memories that I never had the chance to develop for myself. When his memories started to disappear, I tried to make a… a machine that could save them for him. But what I didn't understand at the time was that he'd already saved them—the most important ones. He'd given them to me."
Not knowing what she could possibly say to that, Joss continues driving; they're close, now, the conversation almost at its end. Perhaps it will be the only time in her life when Finch opens up to her this way, and she tries to treasure it for what it is: a window into a woman who's spent more time being other people than she has being herself, and yet—if indeed she's telling the truth today—has somehow maintained a sense of who she was, where she came from, and why that even matters.
On the run that way, for so many decades, hiding in plain sight by carefully cultivating what others thought of her… Joss can't even imagine what that might be like; she's too used to being herself, trying daily to be the best Joss Carter that she can possibly be. And yet, Finch didn't seem to have ever had that choice. It's astounding that she can balance all those aliases and still make room for the memories of a mother she never even got to know.
At the direction of the GPS, Joss pulls into a parking spot outside an unassuming apartment complex. The moment, she supposes, is almost gone.
Finch sits still for a moment, as if deciding. "I'm afraid that I must impose upon you a little longer," she says finally. "I'm not entirely sure that I could make it in there without collapsing."
Wordlessly, Joss turns off the engine. Finch asking for this much help is… unprecedented. The woman's a determinator, with the kind of willpower and pain resistance that Joss envies, so her being on the ropes like this is a little bit unnerving.
When Joss opens Finch's door, Finch smiles up at her dismally, without turning her head. "I'd ask if you had any pain medication, but I'm afraid that I surpassed the over-the-counter varieties a couple of years ago."
"Did you run out, or are you avoiding temptation?"
"The latter. And, well, being perhaps a bit too careful with my aliases." She lifts her aqua paisley clutch ruefully. "Miss Kittiwake is, regrettably, not on any medications at the moment."
Joss hesitates. "Would you like me to go get your meds?"
Letting out a sigh, Finch shakes her head just the slightest bit. "Not that I don't trust your discretion, Detective, but…"
"Too much of a security risk, right."
Finch's answering huff is amused. "It's a burner house. There's nothing in there that I'm concerned about. Still… let's just get this over with." Slowly, she turns her body, swinging her aqua-and-purple Chelseas out onto the curb. It's a good thing, Joss thinks, that, even at her most stylish, Finch avoids any more than the hint of a heel.
Taking Joss's offered hand, Finch winces her way up and out of the car, face pale beneath her sweat-dampened bangs. Once she's on her feet, she stands there for a long moment, swaying, eyes closed, knuckles white as she grips the door for stability; her other hand, gripping Joss's hand, is tense but not painfully tight.
A few breaths later—each a little longer, a little calmer than the last—and Finch's eyes open, and her grip relaxes a little. "It appears," she says tightly, "that it would be best to take this slowly."
"You're not giving me a glowing recommendation of that chiropractor," Joss rejoins.
"Osteopath," Finch graciously corrects her, "and I can recommend the field, though I don't imagine I'll be going back to this particular practitioner." Gingerly, she moves herself out of the way so that Joss can close the door, then accepts Joss's steady arm and takes in a deep breath. Then, with a decisive nod, she starts walking—her steps overly cautious, the grip on Joss's arm quite tense. "I suppose," she says, tightly, "that it would be fair to note that the damage I did to myself is to blame for most of my current… incapacity. Not that they didn't make it a bit worse."
As they walk up the front ramp, Joss lets her curiosity get the better of her. "So is John on a case, then?"
"If we were working a case, I'd hardly be taking time out to get physically incapacitated by inadequately trained osteopaths," Finch snipes.
"So you just don't want him to know?"
Finch sighs. "Mr. Reese is an admirable man, who has performed many roles while under my employ. But he is neither my doctor nor my physical therapist, and he does have a particularly troubling penchant for overreacting to anything that exacerbates my injuries."
The ramp may be new, but the door is old; Joss pushes it open, and they enter the building.
"I do, occasionally, require assistance," Finch continues, her tone and her steps turning clipped and bitter, "but I am hardly an invalid, or a-a maiden to be sheltered from all possible risk. And I see no reason to give him yet another opportunity to lecture me about the dangers I face in the field." She jabs at the elevator button and pauses to take a few deep breaths, leaning a little more heavily on Joss's arm. "That man," she says finally, "shrugs off bruises and bullet wounds and outright torture, and… and no matter how fervently I express to him that he is vital to my operations, it seems he can only ever see himself as disposable."
Joss refrains from pointing out the hypocrisy: John may discount his own safety, but Finch just as readily sacrifices her own comfort to the cause, and Joss is certain that Finch, like John, wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice her life, if she thought it would do enough good. Each of them, it seems, is more concerned with the safety of the other than with their own. Both their perspectives make sense to Joss, but then, she's seen far too many rookies get caught up in some sort of martyr mindset. And while there's always another rookie, she can't see Finch—or John—being so easily replaced.
When the elevator arrives, she helps Finch inside, but Finch detaches from her and takes up station on the handrails. She doesn't seem to be offended, just loath to take even a fraction more help than she actually needs.
Being a detective, you end up poking into every nook and cranny of the city, including the ones that got grandfathered in despite not quite being up to code. Didn't take Joss long to lose her fear of the weirder elevators; with all the dangers she encounters on a regular basis, she can't see 'death by elevator malfunction' on her M.E. report. Even so, the clunky machinery sounds very loud in the silence between them.
Eventually—and it can only have been half a minute, if that—Finch says firmly, "I apologize for the outburst."
Joss isn't sure what to say to that.
"Regardless, you were right," Finch continues. "I would prefer that Mr. Reese stay out of the loop when it comes to my medical care… even something as routine as a hip adjustment."
"Duly noted," Joss says, as the doors open and Finch takes her arm again.
There's silence, again, as they walk down the hall, but it's a more comfortable silence; not a gulf between them, but a sort of ease, a shared calm where words might be unwelcome.
After Finch unlocks her door, she hobbles forward and braces herself against the counter between the living room and what Joss assumes is the kitchen. Not looking back, she says, a little strained, "Come in, please, and lock the door behind you."
Joss does, while mulling over what more Finch wants from her. To help her over to the sofa? To fetch her meds, now that she won't have to wait in the car? Help her get undressed, maybe? (Joss has to suppress a grin at the thought of Finch letting anyone, let alone her, see underneath the stylish layers that cover her from wrist to ankle. Kittiwake is perhaps the most outlandish of the woman's aliases, but Finch still isn't about to show off even a hint of skin.)
Turns out that the other guesses were right, though. First step, because Finch insists: Carefully helping her out of her Chelseas, and placing them by the door; Joss leaves her tac boots there as well, out of courtesy. Next step: Getting Finch settled on the sofa, her scrunched expression speaking more than the suppressed groans. Then she follows Finch's directions to find the drug stash in the bathroom, and returns with the pills and a glass of water.
She's a little surprised when Finch goes for the Percocet instead of the Dilaudid. "That," Finch explains, arching an eyebrow before she pauses to swallow the pill, "is for emergencies."
"And this isn't?"
"I'm still upright, and, if necessary, I could get back on my feet. That's not always the case." She huffs. "By the by, if you ever wonder why you don't see me drinking alcohol very often… I can't risk the combination. And it's hard to predict when I'll need them."
"Prudent."
"Indeed. Now, if I could impose upon you to bring me the blanket over there…"
It's a thin woolen piece laid over a nearby chair, hints of a classical painting showing through the folds; Joss fetches it, and unfurls it with a quick flip, then presents it to Finch, who tucks it in around herself.
Now the design is apparent: that one pointillism masterpiece, the women enjoying a day on the grass near some body of water, somehow managing, despite their floor-length dresses and large bustles, to show more skin than Finch does. A Seurat, Joss thinks, and she's sure of that answer, even though she doesn't know a lot of paintings by name and even fewer by artist. She probably didn't pronounce the name right, even in her head, and she's never before noticed that one of the women has a pet monkey.
"If you have somewhere to be," Finch says, "I believe that I no longer require your assistance. However, if you would like to sit and talk for a while, I would not mind the company; it would give me something to focus on until the medication kicks in."
Joss shrugs, and pulls over the chair she just cleared, so that Finch doesn't have to change angles to look at her. The small smile that tweaks up the corner of Finch's mouth says it was a good choice.
"I've some drinks in the fridge, in case you'd like anything. I'm afraid I'm unable to be a better host tonight, but—"
"I don't need anything," Joss replies. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"
Finch's lips twitch again; she shakes her head lightly, winces, and then pulls in a breath. "I thought I might go so far as to offer you one additional tidbit about my past."
"Probably better not to," Joss counters. "You're on pain meds now; you might say things that you didn't really want to let slip."
"I've been dealing with these medications for several years," Finch says with a frown, though she doesn't look too upset. "I know my limitations. And it will take a good fifteen minutes before it even begins to affect me, so, for the moment, consider me to be in my right mind. Although I do appreciate the concern."
Dubiously, Joss nods. "All right."
"Perhaps it would put your mind at ease to know that I've been debating about this since before you helped me out of the car. It's hardly a spur-of-the-moment revelation; I do wish to share it with you. Truly." Closing her eyes, she takes in another breath. "There's this children's book that came out in 1952. A bunch of little people, a few inches tall, who live under the floorboards and steal things to survive. Only they don't call it 'stealing'; they say they're simply 'borrowing' things from us. From humans."
"The Borrowers," Joss cuts in. "I liked that when I was little, too. Taylor likes the movies."
Finch raises an appreciative eyebrow. "And do you happen to recall the names of the Borrowers?"
"Pod, uh… Hominy?"
"Homily," Finch graciously corrects her.
"And Spiller… he was my sister's favorite. Eggletina, that was Arrietty's cousin—" She shoots Finch a startled look. "Arrietty."
"I'm sure I wasn't the only girl to get named after that adventurous scamp," Finch says, her lips quirking up again. "But you can see how it wasn't the safest choice for a girl on the run."
"So you went for Harriet—"
"Still common enough to go unnoticed, for girls my age."
"—because when people called you Harriet—"
"I'd respond quite naturally, yes. And, eventually, it suited me… or, I grew into it, I suppose. I take it you approve?"
Joss bows her head into one hand, shoulders shaking with laughter. "Arrietty Finch," she manages.
"Well, not Finch at the time."
"Arrietty Clock?"
"Not that, either." From Finch's tone, Joss gets the impression that she just missed a tongue darting out in disgust. "And, while I do honestly believe that you could find me now, I'm not about to make it that easy for you. Remember, Detective," she says, her voice turning serious, "there are some areas of inquiry best left untouched."
It's not enough to dampen Joss's amusement. She gets to her feet. "I think I'll take you up on that drink. Want me to grab you anything?"
Finch relaxes back against the sofa, only a degree or so, but still noticeable. "Would you be willing to brew up some tea?"
"Sure. What kind do you want?"
Finch sighs. "Miss Kittiwake has been drinking her abominable herbal concoctions all day. I would be ever so grateful if you could brew Miss Finch a cup of Sencha Green."
Question: Is it cheating to pass the Bechdel Test with a genderswapped character?
Blanket Permission: If my version of Miss Finch strikes your fancy, go ahead and take her for a test drive in your own writing—just let readers know where you got the character, and send me a link so I can enjoy it too! (It'd be nice if you also link back to this story, or to the one on AO3.)
Arrietty has fun with the concept of identity; she isn't using it just to hide, as canon Finch does, and she has taken acting courses. Mostly, she goes by Harriet, though sometimes by Gwyn (of "penguin"). Besides Miss Kittiwake (trendy and colorful), she also goes by: Ms. Tanager (darker colors, more obviously observant), Miss Piper (nervous energy), Mrs. Ibis (sharp, disapproving), Ms. Moa (calm, relaxed, ostentatiously generous; wears big fluffy coats; made to be noticed), Mrs. Bunting (friendly schoolteacher sort), Miss Dove (unassuming and kind), or Dr. Siskin (no-nonsense, likely a psychiatrist type).
Specialty Identities: Dr. Skua (eccentric though harmless scientist type; also the one with a pilot's license) and Mrs. Tinamou or Ms. Passerine or even Ms. Tinamou-Passerine (if she wants people to have trouble remembering her name; Passerine is the one she uses inconsistently—making up whatever she needs for the moment, like rewriting the identity as needed). Her dark identities are Dr. Nightjar (analogous to Mr. Egret, only somewhat more mad-scientisty) and Ms. Vidua (a more tricky/sneaky evil type), but she pulls them out rarely.
Most of her identities are conservative of dress and they generally try to be less noticed; however, Ms. Moa was specifically designed to be noticed, Miss Kittiwake is the more modern-stylish type, and Dr. Skua exists for her to indulge in more unusual hobbies. Ibis, Bunting, and Tinamou/Passerine either have husbands that exist only in the paperwork, or are widows.
By the by, if you have suggestions for other bird-based identities that sound more like they'd suit a female Finch than a male Finch, please do point them out!