Harold sits on a train from Rome toward Florence one month after he was shot, destroyed his own creation to save the world and his partner died by gunfire in New York City. He watches the green of the Italian countryside out of the window zoom by. A green tea grows colder by the minute in his hand. He shifts in his seat to ease his aching body. Fortunately, the train ride is less than two hours and something he can manage without too much discomfort. His recent gunshot wound does make things a bit more difficult in that regard however.
The loudspeaker crackles, "Firenze in un quarto d'ora," more understandable than the New York subway but still not quite loud enough.
Harold looks down at his watch then takes a sip of his tepid tea. He breathes out slowly. His hand itches to open his briefcase and pull out his laptop. He does not need to, however. He has reviewed the current information he gathered about Grace a dozen times already.
Grace Ellsworth
Occupation:
Assistant Curator and Conservator of Modern Art
2 years
Place of work:
Palazzo Pitti (Pitti Palace); museum complex
Varied hours, mostly 9-5
Volunteer work with the Centro per l'arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci (Centre for Contemporary Art Luigi Pecci) in Prato
Less than an hour drive from Florence and only fifteen minutes by train
Residence:
San Lorenzo neighborhood
No dog
Harold shuts his eyes. He keeps listing the statistics for Grace like she is a number from the Machine needing to be saved. In reality he is going to her to be saved.
When the train arrives in Florence, Harold makes his way from the train station toward the south side of the River Arno where the Palazzo Pitti is located. It is after noon now and many residents and tourists alike in Florence flood the streets for long lunch breaks and enjoyment of the sun. He checks into his hotel, one suitably not mainstream yet also not a hostel, and hacks the Pitti computer network. Grace has signed out for a midday break. During Harold's two weeks of research alone, he was unsurprised to find out Grace often painted along the river during her lunch break or after work before heading home.
Harold finds Grace painting in a small outdoor sitting area near a café with a view of the Arno. Couples with cappuccinos dot the tables around her. Grace paints a generic woodland scene with her back to the river. Her hair is longer and the easel looks new, of course it would be. The pink shirt she wears however, with a longer green shirt beneath it, is old; it is one she has worn for years while painting.
Harold turns around abruptly and sits on an open metal chair. He winces and puts his hand against his side as pain flares from his sudden movement. He breathes in and out slowly.
"Okay." He closes his eyes, sees John's face still with a smile despite the knowledge of oncoming death. Then he opens his eyes again. He did not fly to Italy to walk away from Grace all over again. "Okay."
Harold stands up and walks toward her. He wonders if he should call her name, touch her shoulder, say 'I'm sorry' before anything else? Grace decides for him, however, when she turns her head and sees him. She stares, frozen for several seconds with her hand fisted around her paintbrush and palette. Then she huffs out a surprised breath.
Harold moves closer to her. He feels strangely calm. "Hello, Grace."
The corners of her mouth turn up in a smile though her mouth still hangs half open. Her hands are stiff in front of her, so Harold reaches out and takes the paintbrush and palette away from her. He puts the paintbrush on the easel and the palette down the edge of the planter behind it. He stands up straight again in front of Grace.
"Harold," Grace says with a hoarse tone. She clears her throat and repeats, more clearly, "Harold."
"Grace," Harold repeats.
"You're in Italy?"
Harold laughs once. "Yes, and I'm alive."
Grace laughs in a nervous manner, twisting her fingers together. "Yes, that would be the more important thing, wouldn't it? I don't know why I said that."
"Should we go sit down somewhere?"
Grace nods. "Yes, I think so."
They find a table at the café, outside but still close to the shop front. (They leave the paints and canvas behind, still within sight of the café). Harold buys Grace a cappuccino and a green tea for himself. He feels Grace watching his every move at the register and through his whole walk back to the table. He sits down across from her, wide white mugs on the table between them. She touches her mug, picks it up then puts it back down again without taking a sip.
She blows out a breath and shakes her head. "Sorry, I just… I just keep thinking I'm going to wake up. It's like being in a Hallmark movie or something."
"I'm sure the Italian scenery only adds to the surrealism."
Grace smiles. "Yes." Her eyes search his face. "And you knew that. You knew I was here."
"Yes."
"And you're, well, you're…"
"Alive."
"This." She waves a hand at the air around them. "It's all because of you, isn't it? Those men who took me, asked me those questions about you, my job here, a new name … It's all because of you."
Harold's hands clench around his mug of tea. "Yes. It was my fault."
She shakes her head. "What happened, Harold? I thought you were dead." She grips her mug then lets go again. "The ferry bombing…"
"I know."
"I found the book." She smiles quickly before the expression falls again. "'Sense and Sensibility.'"
"I know," Harold repeats. "It's because I was there."
"And instead of coming home, instead of telling me you were alive," her tone is sharp. "You let me think you were dead?"
Harold clears his throat. "What happened, I… I was afraid for you. I thought I was keeping you safe."
"Safe isn't separate, Harold," Grace says definitively, "it's together."
Harold smiles. He forgot how frank she could be, focused on the feelings as more important than the details. They sit in silence for a moment. Harold knows she deserves an explanation, reasons as to why he would leave her behind, why someone was chasing him and why she would be kidnapped to draw him out. He is not sure where to start, which parts are important enough to tell?
But once again, Grace leads the way for him. "I'm good at telling when someone is lying to me, Harold. I have some experience." She turns her coffee mug around in her hands, staring at the foam on top. Then she looks up at Harold again. "I knew you were holding back secrets then and that's not exactly lying."
"But it's not exactly the truth either," Harold admits.
Grace presses her lips together and nods. "I always told you I didn't care, that I loved you despite whatever secrets you might have and that was true."
"But it's easy to say you can accept any secrets when you don't know what they are."
Grace frowns. "That's not what I was going to say." She finally picks up her cappuccino and takes a big gulp. She puts the mug back on the table again. "I was going to say that if your secrets were big enough that you felt you had to die for me then maybe I understand needing to lie about them."
Harold stares at her in surprise.
"I'm not saying I think you were right or that I deserved that, I didn't." She gives him a pointed look. "I didn't deserve your death."
"The ferry bombing was my fault," Harold confesses in a rush. Grace's face shifts into an expression of confusion but she says nothing so Harold presses on. "The bomb was meant for my friend and I, because of something we did, something we built. I hadn't planned to leave you, Grace, or planned on dying. I was hurt." His hand twitches and he wants to touch the back of his neck but he keeps his hands on the table. "My friend died and I saw you…"
"You saw me?"
"I thought I was protecting you from dying too. I was wrong and I'm sorry." Harold wants to reach out and touch her hand but stays still instead. "Many people I care about have died because of my choices, because of the things I have done."
Grace smiles, though the expression has some sadness to it. Then she reaches out and touches his hand as if she knew what he wanted. "I'm alive, Harold. I always have been."
"But you might have…" Harold cuts off his sentence and pulls his hand away from hers. "Grace, when Decima took you and then walked you blindfolded across that bridge, I was the one they traded you for."
"Why did they want you, Harold?" Grace interrupts.
He pauses but when one returns from the dead that is the time to reveal past sins. "I built an illegal computer surveillance system for the government to spy on the country and attempt to stop terrorist acts." Grace's eyebrows raise as Harold continues. "But it became more than that. It… it became something worth killing Nathan over to hide it, worth killing all those people at the ferry, something worth kidnapping you, something more powerful, something worth starting a war over. I suppose I hoped if I kept you far away from me, from what I'd started, you would be safe." He shakes his head. "But they still used you to get to me."
"Harold." He blinks as Grace speaks and realizes his breathing is faster and his eyes are tearing. "Hey, I'm right here."
"I've made choices, Grace, and I don't know how many of them were the right choices and how many were wrong but they set us both on a path from the moment I first said hello to you."
Grace shakes her head. "It wasn't a mistake that we ever met, Harold. I would rather have those four years then none at all."
"I lied to you, Grace," Harold says bluntly. "I let you believe I was dead."
"And don't think I'm not upset about that, Harold, but if you really thought I wouldn't forgive you or still love you why did you come back at all?"
Harold looks down at his tea, cooling again just like the train. He remembers John bringing him green tea, using Harold's habit to find out about Grace. Why didn't Harold ever bring John coffee? He bought John apartments instead. Harold wonders which gesture really counts for more.
He looks up at Grace again. "I came back because it's over now." The Machine – the daughter – he built is destroyed along with Her adversary; Root is dead; he must allow Detective Fusco and Ms. Shaw to live their lives; and John is dead too, sacrificed for Harold. "You are all I have left, Grace," Harold tells her honestly.
Grace smiles. "Well, I'm here."
Harold stares at her for a moment then picks up his tea and takes a sip. The liquid is still somewhat warm. Grace sips her cappuccino and watches him like he is centuries old and brand new. Her expression is oddly serene, as if she had been waiting for this moment, that she knew it would come.
"I wish you would be angry with me," Harold says quietly. "You should be angry with me."
"I'm not angry, Harold." She presses her lips tightly together then puts her mug down again. "I'm… I'm sad. I'm sad we lost those five years."
Harold nods. "Then I can try to make up for that time."
Harold and Grace walk the streets of Florence together. Grace takes the rest of the day off. They walk outside, up and down narrow streets, Italian words swirling around then and less spoken between them. They hold hands on and off as they remember what 'us' feels like.
Grace's eyes keep darting to Harold, his limping gait. She often has to stop herself from walking quicker but she makes no remark. Harold knows she has a many questions about how he was hurt – what the explosion at the ferry really did to him – but somehow the time is too soon for a conversation of more pain.
Grace takes Harold back to her apartment, small and white and sparsely furnished as if she knew Italy would not remain permanent. The walls, however, are full of her paintings – Central Park, shops in Soho, a restaurant Harold recognizes from Brooklyn, a little girl looking up in Times Square, Washington Square Park, and the Brooklyn Bridge; New York City everywhere. Harold stares at the Brooklyn Bridge, the painting's angle just a foot to the left of the photograph in Harold Raven's apartment. Did Harold condemn her to a beautiful medieval prison in Italy when Decima used her as ransom? Does she long to return home but fear the mystery that captured her once might strike again? Or has she really begun a new life and her paintings are merely happy memories on canvas? After all, why would she need to paint Florence when she walks it every day?
"I suppose I wanted to remember home a bit while I was here," Grace says as Harold looks at the paintings. "I have others up as well." She gestures to some landscapes near the window.
"You've been painting more than you used to."
She nods. "It makes me happy." Harold wonders if that is a rebuke or simply a fact.
Grace cooks dinner in her kitchen. Copper pots hang over the sink and bottles with dried herbs line the counters on one side, jars with different types of pasta on the other. It seems entirely Grace and entirely different at the same time.
"I remember us going out to eat more than cooking," Harold says as she adds spices to sauce in a small pot.
She smiles at him. "Maybe." Then shrugs. "Maybe we didn't get that far."
After dinner, when it nears ten o'clock, the question starts to arise of how far they can go at this point. Harold kept his hotel room, left his bag there but he is in no rush to be away from Grace nor does she seem inclined to let him go. Perhaps she fears the day really is a dream and when she wakes up in the morning the apartment will be empty. Yet five years apart still lie between them. They've only touched hands so far.
They stand awkwardly in the hallway between Grace's bedroom and the bathroom.
"Harold, I…" She glances at her bedroom doorway then back again. "It's not that I don't still love you, it's just that…" She folds her hands together and pulls them apart again. "You've been more of an idea, a memory for so long, not a real person. I don't know if I could." She holds up a hand quickly. "Not right now, but I…" She laughs once. "I also don't want you to leave."
Harold nods. "You have a couch. I'll be fine." He probably won't be. His back and neck and even his more recent wound will likely keep him awake at least half the night but he won't tell Grace that, not yet.
She nods back at him. "All right."
Grace turns toward her bedroom then stops. She turns back and looks at him. He smiles once and wonders what she sees, the man he is now or the one he used to be? Then she slowly reaches out and touches his face.
"You're real," she whispers.
"I am," Harold whispers back. "I promise."
Grace stares at him for a long moment then she leans in and kisses him. Harold remembers walking along the Hudson, the Guggenheim Museum, the couch in Grace's first apartment, dinner near Times Square to act like tourists, shopping in Soho and he kisses her back. She tastes just the same and feels even warmer, like Europe has infused her with some new energy. He runs his hand though her hair, her one arm sliding around his uninjured side. A part of him wants to cry because he has not felt this sort of happiness in so long. Grace deepens the kiss, presses closer. Then she pushes him back, her kisses more insistent until his back hits the wall. Harold hisses in pain, breaking off the kiss.
"I'm sorry!" Grace says suddenly, stepping back from him. "I didn't… I don't know what…"
"It's fine," Harold says, his hand at his side. It has been a month but gunshot wounds do not heal quickly.
"You have a limp now," She states, "From the ferry bombing?"
"Yes." Harold smiles in a grim way. "But it's not that." She frowns. "The reason I hid from you, that I died, it was something of a war and it was not without cost."
"Can I help with –"
"We should sleep," Harold interrupts. "It's been a lot in one day."
She eyes him up and down then nods again. "Good night, Harold."
So they live in Florence. Grace continues her museum job, giving tours, aiding with art conservation. She shows Harold the Palazzo Pitti, grand as the palace it used to be. They talk about art together and marvel at so many master works available in just one city – Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Botticelli, Raphael. They move around each other slowly; Harold working to regain Grace's trust and Grace giving him time.
Harold easily finds freelance work because, even in the old cities of the world, computers reign. The works is simple programing, data analysis, security reinforcement, wholly boring. However, it keeps him busy when Grace works. He finds himself idly coding, using functions from the Machine because, yes, he misses Her too. He deletes it every time.
Grace asks him careful questions about their missing time. "This system you built, that looked for terrorist threats, it was sort of a watch dog?"
"It saved a lot of lives."
"But anyone can watch video feeds, if you had to build a program…" Harold knows that she knows. "Could it think?"
Harold smiles. "And much more."
They live day by day, learning each other all over again around the Duomo and the statue of David and the Ponte Vecchio and the Apennine Mountains and cobblestone streets. Harold only spends a week on the couch before he can no longer hide his new infirmities and Grace slides over to one side of the bed for him. Intimacy between them is slow but they remember each other and Harold can forget those five years in Grace's embrace.
They whisper to each other about the spaces between their years together, new friends Grace made, relearning Italian, Harold building the Machine that turned from a what into a who; about Harold losing Nathan and Grace losing Harold. Harold cannot mention Root, and certainly cannot say John's name yet, cannot bear that pain out loud. (In the drawer of his bedside table, Harold keeps an envelope containing blood blotched pages).
"How did you go on after me?" Harold asks her in the dark.
"I lived," she says as she stares back at him.
"Can you forgive me? I don't expect you to."
"I forgave you for dying, Harold; I suppose I can forgive you for being alive."
They travel around Italy for a month. They visit Rome, Naples, Milan, smaller towns like Deruta, Volterra, Este.
"I haven't actually been outside of Florence often," Grace admits. "I go Prato for the Contemporary art museum; it can get rather dated in Florence after a while. But I haven't done much beyond that. I suppose I always kept thinking I'd get to it some time."
They drive past fields of sunflowers in Umbria. They drink wine on porches in Chianti. They buy pottery in small towns with more dirt roads than paved. They ride up the tourists routes in the Alps but stop short of skiing. Harold sees cathedrals and bell towers and side streets only locals care about. He visits sights he has seen before, shops in Rome he frequented years ago when 'billionaire' was something he did not need to think about. He stares out at the beautiful countryside, green and yellow hills with short, twisting trees, purple flowers and a feeling of the old world one never finds in America.
Yet when Harold sits with Grace at a restaurant in Siena along the Piazza del Campo, he thinks of John. Harold imagines John standing at the top of the Torre del Mangia, above the clock face, telling Harold not to worry, to live, as men come to shoot John dead.
When you came to me, you gave me a job, a purpose.
They walk around the half-moon shaped piazza, watching the teenagers sitting by the small square Fonte Gaia, absent of water this time of year. He thinks John would be uncomfortable in the open space, narrow buildings with too many windows on one side and a tall tower on the other. He thinks of John's last moment, still a gun in his hand, still the hero; the expression on his face – like his purpose had been Harold all along.
Goodbye, Harold.
Harold tries. He tries every day with Grace in Florence. They shop together, laughing over the difference in European produce and American. Harold learns to cook pasta better than just the time told on the box. Grace paints him sitting beside the Arno. They drink wine by the window, read Charles Dickens together, do mundane things like laundry and changing light bulbs.
But Grace still finds him staring silently out of windows. "Harold, where are you?"
He thinks of Root driving a car with her boots and telling him, they're not really dead. He thinks of Sameen's face when she returned to them again after nine months with the enemy. He thinks of Detective Fusco in his hospital bed while Harold was forced to sit vigil outside.
"I'm here," Harold tells Grace.
"You can tell me if you want," Grace replies. "I know there is more and I know it is hurting you."
"I want to," Harold says but he cannot form the words, not yet.
"You can't leave me again," and her tone is hurt, "you just came back."
"I know."
How can he explain what it is like to be a commander in a war no one knows about; how it feels to be the source of death because of what you made; How his own blood covers words of love from two beings – two people – who cared enough to die for him? It is safe now, the war is done, but Harold still feels lost being so far from those he lost.
Harold thinks about the Machine with Root's voice.
You know I've made some mistakes. Many mistakes. But, we helped some people, didn't we?
Harold thinks about John when he first met him, when John was still suspicious of him, when Harold still refused to let him in. He thinks of John smiling when he learned something new about Harold, surprising Harold in his IT cubicle or the first time he handed Harold a green tea. He thinks of John bleeding, wounded, moving anyway, shooting anyway, then sleeping through the recovery with Harold by his beside.
When Harold goes shopping for a copy of Dante, he thinks of John in the Library,
So why the first editions, Finch? Do you just like leather bound that much?
When Harold and Grace take the train out to Prato, he thinks of John in the subway.
I think maybe your calling in life should have been making secret hideouts, Finch.
When Harold sits alone in their apartment, a worn envelope unopened in his hands, Harold thinks about those very last moments over and over – John too far away, John smiling at him, John taking the bullet for him once again.
Sometimes one life, if it's the right life, is enough.
Then one day, four months after Harold walked up to Grace and flipped her life on end, Grace sits down beside Harold on their firm white couch. "Do you want to go home, Harold?"
Harold frowns at her, glances at the living room around them. "Home?"
"New York." He raises his eyebrows and she nods. "Florence is beautiful but it is not our home Harold; it's not my home, it never was."
"But, your job, your life here…"
"I had a life in New York too, one I'd like to get back to." She touches his face. "And I think you need to be back there too."
Harold still forgets, despite their years together and learning each other all over again, Grace knows him better than he knows himself.
"Yes," he replies.
Grace grins "Then let's go home."
