Content Warning: More first aid, and it's a bit painful. Harsh language, but I think it's warranted. Allusion to drug abuse.
After Shaw helps you figure out the can opener—which, it turns out, has a magnet to hold the can in place, although it doesn't work with a can this heavy, though you really only need to punch a hole in either side so you can pour it out—you warm the juice up in the microwave. The first batch is way too hot (maybe that's because pineapple juice is so sweet?), but the second's about right, so you bring it her way. Only Finch is still passed out, so he's in no condition to be drinking anything right now.
You get the towels going in the dryer before you head for Daichi's bedroom. The dresser moves easily, and there they are, a little baggie hanging on a nail. Lots of pills; you don't recognize any illegal substances, though. At least, none of the most common ones, but you guess it's up to Shaw to sort them all out.
There's something niggling in the back of your mind about Daichi keeping pills like this. Keeping them secret from his brother. But you shake it off, not caring to put much thought into those two assholes. Not after what they did.
You head back to the garage; if Finch isn't aware enough to swallow juice, then the pills can wait for a few minutes. The towels are slightly warm, but you decide to give them another few minutes, get them nice and hot if you can.
In the meantime, you glance around the place. Not much here, really, just the car and a bit of junk on a shelf, a few things piled in a corner. It fits with the rest of the house: enough detail to be personal, but not enough to really feel lived-in. The normal stuff that fills up space, the accumulated crud of a lifetime in consumer culture, that's all but absent here.
Well, as long as you're waiting… you phone in a request for more information on the Okamotos, info you didn't get from just the license plate lookup.
What comes back is… odd. Outside your expectations. These guys spent twenty-eight years in Lucasville, but they don't appear to be violent. Got involved in a few fights, sure, and two escape attempts, bit of contraband… could've been out in half the time if they hadn't screwed around like that. But the original conviction, the reason they were in there to begin with, was for scams and… "phone phreaking," that's a phrase you haven't heard before. Back in '81.
Phones were a lot different, back then. You wonder what they would've thought of the idea of carrying a phone around in your pocket and using it to look up information stored in magic boxes around the world.
There's not much else you can glean from the police database. They haven't screwed up since leaving prison; in four years, the most they've been accused of is a few parking violations. You might think of them as properly reformed—if not for today.
What the hell made them come down on Finch like this, anyway? Doesn't make sense. Unless he crossed them, somehow, within the past couple of years. Or… if he knew them, back before they got arrested.
If they harbored a grudge this long, then whatever he did to earn their ire must've been… well, worse than anything the Finch you know now is capable of doing.
No… you'd like to believe that, but it's not true. You've seen something dark in Finch sometimes, some little hint of what he might be willing to do if he thought it was justified, and it wouldn't be pretty. He's not some angelic creature up above it all; he's as much prone to evil as the rest of you, just better at holding himself back. Like how you got, after Carter got to work on you—focused on doing the right thing, and remembering why you want to be the good sort of cop instead of the bad sort of cop. Why you're willing to accept greater hardship than you have to, because taking the easy route leads somewhere you don't want to go.
You didn't start out being a bad cop. You got dragged into it. Maybe if you'd put more effort into resisting… but then, you'd had to choose between doing the right thing, and standing by your friends. And you chose to stand by your friends.
It's hard to think of Finch, a younger Finch, being at the stage where he was choosing to do the wrong thing. Except… that's what he's doing now, isn't it? Been doing ever since you met him. He's chosen to break the law, in order to accomplish a greater good. Just like you chose to break the law, in order to avoid doing harm to your friends.
Only, that's doing wrong things in order to do right things. Like Finch planning to break Reese out of jail. That's a noble motive. You can't see these guys getting this mad at Finch over noble motives… unless, maybe, they simply aren't aware of why he did whatever it is that he did.
No, this seems more like Finch doing something very wrong. And it's beyond you to imagine what sort of crime that could be.
You check the dryer, pull out an armful of warm towels, and head back inside.
When you open the door, you hear Finch talking—and even before you make out the words, you feel a rush of relief run through you. He's sitting up, too, though he's not exactly steady yet. Shaw gets out from behind him and grabs some towels, and soon Finch is tucked into the corner of the sofa, surrounded by warmth, but his face troubled, and he keeps wincing like he's fighting back pain.
Small wonder.
Shaw mentions that the pain's a good thing, and you can see that, but you're still glad when she asks you for the painkillers. Glasses shouldn't have to put up with more pain than he gets from those injuries he tries so hard to hide.
After checking her phone for who knows what exactly, Shaw asks about allergies and drug interactions and you watch Finch's face growing a little more sour (and more resigned) with each question he has to answer. It's an unavoidable breach of privacy, if she's gonna make sure not to do him more harm than good, but you're still glad when the questions are over and she's helping him get a couple pills down.
When she goes to put her clothes back on, you crouch down by Finch, searching his face. "You feeling better, Professor?"
He frowns. "I am feeling… underdressed, to begin with. I realize that it might have been necessary, given the circumstances, and that I appear to have been too out of it to have given proper consent, but I shall be infinitely more comfortable once I am back in my own suit."
You grin, wondering just how often you use words of more than three syllables. Guy must be great at Scrabble—not that you think he ever makes time to play it. "Guess you're back, then," you say with a grin.
Then, remembering that his suit is lying in shredded pieces on the living room carpet: "Uh… sorry 'bout the suit."
Alarm flashes across Finch's face. "…What?"
"Well, uh, I mean," you flounder. "When we got here, they'd already cut the sleeves off, and then Shaw decided to—"
"Wait… who?" He gasps, face shifting to panic. "Oh my god, they're—are they all right? Did they get hurt? He—he didn't kill them, did he?"
"What?"
"Mr. Reese—he's going to—you have to stop him."
When he tries to get to his feet, Shaw stops him cold. "We can call Reese," she says. And then she's got her phone out and she's typing away.
"He's not here?" Finch is panting, brows drawn together, something desperate about his eyes.
"Nah, he's not even back from Long Island yet. And he don't know about any of this. Yet." You glance at Shaw's thumbs, typing away. "Unless she's telling him."
"Please don't tell him. I don't want him to know."
"Gonna be hard to hide frostbite," Shaw gripes.
"If he finds out that they hurt me…" And then he's begging you to "keep the Okamotos out of this."
You're seeing red. "After what they did to you?"
You don't even know how bad it is, yet. Shaw doesn't even know. You've seen frostbite cases before; they're nasty. And Glasses hates hospitals to begin with; you don't want to think about him undergoing amputations, getting prosthetic feet.
"Those men were my friends once," Finch asserts, his voice a bit firmer but with a tremor of fear underneath. "I do not wish to see them harmed. Or jailed. At all."
You can't help but gape. Finch is… well, he's not always merciful, and harm done to innocents can drive him to a quiet fury that you've only seen a couple times in your life and hope to never see again, but he's far too forgiving for his own good. If trying to physically harm him isn't enough to sever ties with old friends, then what does it take?
It falls to Shaw to point out the obvious problem: What do you do with a couple of violent criminals without killing them or jailing them? Just let them go, after they already kidnapped him once? No wonder Finch doesn't want you telling him: Reese would come unglued.
Then Finch says that he wants to talk with them. The men who could've killed him.
Makes you want to come unglued.
Luckily, Shaw deflects it, for the moment, with thoughts of getting him into a warm bath. So the only question is how to get him upstairs.
It was weird enough when Finch was out of it; trying to carrying him up through a too-narrow stairway while he's awake enough to object is almost painful, even though he seems to be taking it well. He's wrapped in the fuzzy blanket, warm towels still around his hands and feet; you're aware of every bump, every time you jostle him without meaning to, every suppressed wince when his neck bends a little the wrong way.
It's a relief to finally put him down, carefully, on the carpet-covered toilet lid, while Shaw heads over to draw a bath. There's not much you can do at this point, other than arrange the towels around his feet a little better, noting that they're not even hot anymore. Makes you feel even more useless.
"It's gonna hurt," Shaw throws over her shoulder. "Sensation coming back… not gonna be pleasant. I'm not sure those pills will even take the edge off. You prepared for that?"
Finch raises his chin. "It does not appear that I have much choice."
"Well, not if you want to keep your feet." She swishes her arm around in the water. "Hey, Lionel, go grab that juice and heat it up again, will you?"
You check to make sure that Finch isn't gonna fall over, and head downstairs.
Eventually, the water's right, and Finch has finally gotten a glass of warm pineapple juice in him, so you're no longer worried about core temperature or the possibility of shock if cold blood hits his heart right now. Fusco strips off his jacket and rolls up his shirt sleeves, and, with his help, you get Finch sat on the edge of the tub, keep him supported while he trembles and gasps through the first touch of barely-over-lukewarm water on his feet. As you lower his body into the water, you're glad for the larger tub, since it allows Fusco to help you support him the whole way, without too much crowding—keeping the pressure of his body off his feet.
Once he's fully submerged—with your arm keeping his head from going under—you let out a sigh of relief. He's still trembling, his face screwed up with pain, but you've done everything you can to get him through this. His body's working overtime to help him get back to normal temperature; you're just helping it along.
"Just gotta get through this," you murmur, when he's hit by what looks like a pretty strong wave of pain. "You're good at that."
"Good at what?" he asks, through nearly clenched teeth.
"Bearing up under hardship. Taking pain and not letting the rest of us know about it. Sometimes I think your pain tolerance might be higher than mine."
Finch gives a wan smile. "Unlikely, Miss Shaw." Then he winces again, eyes squeezing shut. "Thank you," he gets out. "For finding me. As a teammate, you are…" He pants for a moment. "Exemplary."
There's an unexpected rush of pleasure at the words, at the approval they convey. It's kinda weird, because you don't usually care so much what others think of you. Finch isn't even an exception, in that regard, not under normal circumstances.
Huh.
"Teammate?" you muse. "Not just an employee anymore?" With your free hand, you scoop up a little water and pour it over his scalp, the part not covered by the bath itself. That elicits an expression that's part discomfort, part pleasure.
"I have… never thought of myself as… as merely your employer. You and Mr. Reese are… every bit as vital to this mission as I am." He pauses for a moment, to suck in a few quick breaths. "I hope that the… the money I provide… doesn't hold undue power over any of you."
You think about that bank account he set up for you, the one that keeps refilling at midnight, providing for everything from incidental expenses to fancy dinners to spa days to Manhattan luxury apartments. It's certainly a nice perk, but, for the most part, the kind of money he's providing has seemed… unreal. You got yourself a decent loft (though you had to buff up the security features after Root kidnapped you that one time) and scrounged the black market to kit out your arsenal, but other than that… it's always seemed a danger, to start relying on a steady stream of income that way.
Even though you expect that Finch's preparations have made these accounts nearly untraceable and that they'll likely continue to be filled for years after he's dead. It's still not something you should get used to.
"Nah," you reassure him, finally, as a tremor runs through his body and up your arm. "Think I'd sass you this much if I cared about any of that?"
Frowning, he swallows, eyes still closed. "Miss Shaw… I know that you don't understand… why I care about the welfare of the men who captured me."
You hesitate. "You said they used to be your friends. I can understand that much."
"Yes. I can't say that we were ever all that close, but… when you know someone, at a key point in your life… when they help form the person you become… that can be a… a tie between you, a bond that can last for decades. In much the same way, I'd imagine, as you or Mr. Reese might mean to me, if fate separated us for twenty or thirty years."
"Yeah, well, I can't imagine Reese coming after you with the intent of chopping off your fingers," Fusco gripes from behind you; you shoot him a mild look, and see that he's claimed the toilet as a seat for now.
"He's been angry at me before," Finch counters. "Furious. Not enough to hurt me directly, even though his… leaving was a far greater wound than he… than he understood it to be."
The water's getting a little cooler than you'd like it to be right now; you think Finch can take it a little higher. At your call, Fusco takes over the job of keeping Finch's head out of the water. You pull the plug up and move it to the side a little—letting some water flow out, but slowly—and then replace it, and add some warmer water.
Then you take Finch's foot in your hand and ask him to wiggle his toes, to flex his ankle; it's still not a lot of movement, still stiff, but it's an improvement. The foot's still purple, and blotchy, but turning more toward red, which you hope is a good sign.
"You haven't asked me… what I did to make them hate me so," Finch observes, his face drawn with pain.
Fusco huffs. "If it's the kind of thing that actually merits frostbite as payback, I'm not sure I wanna know."
"You said it was 'all your fault,'" you recall. "So, whatever it was, you still blame yourself."
Brows drawn together, he looks away. "I do."
When he doesn't elaborate, you take one of his hands in yours; he startles, and glances over at you.
"Bright red's a good sign," you say. "I take it you're still experiencing tingling, maybe some burning?"
He nods.
"Any remaining numbness in your hands?"
"No."
"Can you gently squeeze my hand?"
His grip is weak, and he shudders when he does it, but all four fingers are functional. The other hand is progressing at the same rate; you let out a breath of relief. Most likely there's no permanent damage to his hands.
The feet, they're more questionable. A few tiny blisters mean at least Stage 2, and there are some odd burns, like large raised welts, on both hands and feet.
"Did they use anything other than ice and vodka?"
He shudders. "Salt. They poured salt on the ice." Suddenly he jerks and gives a yelp.
"Sorry!" Fusco says, jerking his hand out from under Finch's neck. Then shoves it back under before Finch goes under too. "Sorry. I just— sorry. It's just— jeez."
"Know something about this, Lionel?"
"Well… yeah. I mean, it's one of those stupid things the kids dare each other to do. Been a few 911 calls about it, kids getting burned and stuff. Hell, last year there was this gal in Virginia, got criminal charges for doing it to the little girl she was babysitting."
"Basic chemistry," Finch observes shakily. "It pulls heat out of the skin quite rapidly; hence, the ice burns."
"Yeah," Fusco breathes. "Look, if I had any say over this, those guys would not be seeing the light of day for a long, long time."
"Unfortunately, Detective… if you're talking prison… they've already been through that. It made them what they are today. And I'm afraid that… that I'm the one who sent them there." He takes in a deep breath, wincing at some new jolt of pain. "And it is my intention to ensure that they never see prison bars again."
