Epilogue

Dawn splits the sky in streaks of green, blue, white, and gold as a young man lets himself out the door of the ER of a downtown LA hospital. He holds the door open for an ER doctor just coming on shift, smiles at her, and then continues on down the sidewalk.

The black car idles at the other side of the road, and its single passenger watches the young man walk along the sidewalk.

A word to the driver and the car pulls off from the kerb, trails behind the young man. The young man keeps walking, though the sole passenger has no doubt that he knows that they are following him. 'Exceptional spatial awareness', he had seen that phrase pop up again recently in a report that had landed across his desk.

He had commissioned the report anonymously from a private headhunting firm, which he had asked to assess fifteen candidates for a particular position.

He rolls down the window. "Scott."

"I didn't think you'd be back until tomorrow." Scott doesn't stop walking.

One of the few cons on Scott's assessment had been, 'Hard-nosed, mega-rich industrialist father. Over-manages all five of his sons. Likely to make trouble if he doesn't approve of your project.' This had made Jeff wince.

There had been other, uglier notes in the report too. 'High levels of responsibility but corresponding high levels of self-recrimination. Has been minimising his own symptoms of PTSD for the sake of others under his command.'

"Got an earlier flight."

"What about Hong Kong?"

"What about it?"

Scott stops. He tugs at the collar of his jacket and says, "He's going to be okay."

"I know."

"He just doesn't know it yet, but he will be. You should be proud of him, Dad."

"Yes."

"He's a good person."

"Yes."

And suddenly he's struck by a memory of a little boy, no older than twelve, fists clenched at the injustice of his younger brother being expelled from the science fair for being too brilliant. He remembers a second little boy, his arm fastened around his brother's wrist, calm down, it doesn't matter, there's always next year.

He remembers two heads, one red, one chestnut, bent in serious conversation as the discussed their next project.

He remembers how strongly he had sworn that he would make the world a better place for them.

"How are you, Scott?"

He sees the tension in Scott wind tighter, like the coiling of a spring; then he sees the tension drop away without a fight. "Pretty crappy, I guess. Yeah, pretty crappy." He glances towards his dad and then quickly away.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Scott dips his head. "Yeah, but not right now. John's sleeping. I'm going to grab some food while he's down and pick up Gordon from the airport." He sighs. "I guess he's going to yell at me some more. I've got to make some changes, Dad. We all do. We'll talk about it later." He starts walking again.

Jeff rolls up the window, has another word with his driver, and then cracks open the door. He has to trot to catch up with his son's long strides and fall into step beside him. Scott looks puzzled but doesn't say anything.

The report he had had commissioned had been 200 pages of in-depth analysis on fifteen of the best young field commanders out there and had ranked them in terms of suitability for his post.

He had been gratified when the young man beside him had come back as the top candidate, particularly as he would have offered him the job anyway.

"Walk with me, a little," he says. "It's a nice morning and we could both use the fresh air. And I want to tell you about an idea I had, about what comes next."

Editor's Note: Hey, PreludeInZ here! This piece was written by SwallowAndAmazon over a year ago, and originally it was sort of written as a gift for me and SarahCoury, after The Harvard Hypocrite had wrapped up. It remains one of my very favourite stories in the entire fandom. I remain just so deeply grateful to Swallow for having written such a thoughtful and powerful story about two of my favourite characters, and especially about one of my favourite incarnations of John.

This is the last completed standalone installment in what we refer to as The Harvard AU, but there's not to say that there won't ever be more to come, just that it's a bit low on the priority list.

And, actually, if you trust me enough to follow a link offsite, then I can tell you that there's a very special piece of interactive fiction that goes along with Shared Spaces.

(textingfree dot netlify dot com / access)

Texting Free on Evenings and Weekends is a series of 13 text conversations between various members of the Tracy family, written by Swallow and I, regarding the events at the climax of Shared Spaces. As to the subject matter, I got to thinking about families, and the way they talk to one another, and the way information moves from person to person. Removing /access from the above link will play each text on a time delay and advance each conversation in real time, while leaving it in will load a static version of each exchange.

It's also available to read as straight dialogue on Ao3, though the site rules prohibit fics of its type from being posted to ffnet.

archiveofourown dot org / works / 7943227 will bring you to that page, as well as more information about how to read the work in question.

Sincere thanks to everyone who's read and enjoyed the Harvard series and especially to those who took the time to comment.