Reese had to squint to make out the tags on the morgue drawers. Bleary eyes and lack of sleep didn't make focusing easy. The flashlight illumination in a pitch-black room didn't help, either.
Bottom row, third from the left. John Doe. I never found out what your real name was, Harold. How strange that you're now another John.
The metal door swung open with minimal effort, revealing feet covered by the white body bag. John swallowed back the ache in his throat and pulled the platform drawer out to its fullest extent.
Flashlight gripped in his teeth, hands gingerly holding the zipper-pull and the surrounding material, he paused to prepare himself to open the bag and see what remained of his friend, every mark, every wound testimony to the myriad ways that Finch had suffered horribly.
Fusco's words echoed in his mind. Hot coal. Burning till the day you die.
No, he owed Finch. He hadn't been able to find him in time, and the least he could do was to know.
Flashes of past horrors invaded his thoughts. People being tortured. Broken. Sobbing, shaking wrecks of people, every shred of humanity torn from them as they screamed until their voices were hollow whistles. Beaten, skinned, shocked, burned until they didn't try to scream anymore, souls crushed beyond even having the will to react to pain. And often until no more breath left their miserable, shattered bodies.
That had been Finch for a time- too long- but it was over now.
Finch wasn't in pain any more.
John stopped fighting the tears and let them flow, releasing a shuddering breath that he didn't know he'd been holding. He realized that he couldn't bear to make that ghost of Finch that still existed in his mind suffer like he'd suffered at the end of his life, over and over, in agony, for as long as John lived.
No, the Finch in John's mind should forever be writing code, reading his beloved books and being the quiet hero that he was.
His hands fell from the white Tyvek shroud, still closed. The unbroken barrier would keep the soul-searing details apart from his cherished memories of the brilliant, brave and selfless Harold Finch.
The ex-op took the flashlight from his mouth and pointed it upward, beam bouncing off the institutional drop-ceiling to illuminate his immediate surroundings in a soft glow. He gently placed a hand, palm flat, on the chest of the covered figure.
"Goodbye, Harold," he whispered, his voice breaking with sorrow. "And thanks for everything."