Harbor had told Harold to be at her home at nine and she did. Harold arrived a few minutes after nine with Bear at his side and a bottle in his hand; rude to arrive empty-handed, he was old fashioned like that. Finch knocked on the door and waited a few moments only to hear those heels clack louder and louder as she approached the door which quickly found itself pulled open. Finch's eyes widened because damn was she beautiful in her short green dress what with its deep but not excessive v. She looked like she'd wrapped herself in juniper green velvet. So pretty but not as put together as during the day, still Harold thought her intoxicating.

Harbor beamed at him and quickly pressed a kiss to his cheek once he was over the threshold.

"Hi, Hank." She greeted in that practically lyrical tone of hers. "Hi, Teddy Bear."

The dog let Harbor tickle his ears as Finch took his leash off but then rushed to the sofa so he could settle with his beloved elephant toy. The escort just rolled her eyes, Bear was getting predictable. When she turned back towards the elder man his brain snapped away from staring at her long, sultry legs and he thrust the wine bottle out towards her in hopes she'd not noticed him looking; he'd never ogled women before Harbor.

"Montrachet?" The escort's eyebrow's raised. "This is worth more than everything I own apart from that book, isn't it?"

Harold shrugged the comment off. "Good wine is worth spending money on."

That got a tiny smirk out of the younger woman and Harold couldn't help counting it as a win. She invited him through to the kitchen where he noticed the table set neatly for two but sat down at the breakfast bar while Harbor went back to cooking; the thought of how domestic this all was struck him but Harold pushed it away quickly.

"How's Smiles?" She asked with her back to him as she stirred a pot; he'd got no idea what she was making but it smelt divine.

"He has responded to my attempts to contact him thankfully and appears to be the best he can be. Miss Shaw is kindly distracting him by having him assist in her inventory of the armory."

"He'll just need time. I take it they were very close." Came her gentle response.

Finch nodded to himself. "Not in the way you're thinking but … I think one day they could have been."

Harbor glanced over her shoulder then to see his eyes had grown distant, if she let him stay like that too long he'd get lost deep within his thoughts and that was the last thing she wanted.

She cleared her throat. "Hank, could you open the wine for me please? I'm almost done."

Harold's mind snapped back to him and he flashed a smile across the kitchen at her before he rose to his feet then limped to where she'd set the bottle down.

"Certainly. What are we having?" He inquired with genuine curiosity.

She paused a moment as she drained a pot of pasta but soon spun around to face him, those impossible emeralds sparkled surrounded by her subtle eye-liner.

"Shrimp Linguine, there's garlic bread as well and side salad."

"You mean prawn."

Harbor shook her head like she'd had this particular conversation before. "Nope, common misconception but no. Prawns and shrimp are different species entirely."

Harold smirked when she turned back to finishing up dinner. He liked it when she taught him new things, even if they were stupid and unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Most people probably wouldn't have believed Finch – a genius – would be taught things by a hooker but those people didn't realize Harbor was a genius as well.

Without another word he poured them each a glass of wine and set them down on the dining table that Harold assumed hadn't been used until now. He offered to help Harbor with the food but she was quick to refuse stating she was finished anyway. The pair sat down to eat and the raven-haired beauty watched intently as he took his first bite.

"You're looking at me like you're expecting me to keel over dead." He teased as he took up his wine glass.

Harbor waved him off. "No, just I've not cooked for anyone in a long time. That and you're Mister dinner reservation."

Harold snorted at that, a very uncharacteristic sound, but it had been the deadpan delivery. Harbor shared his dry humor for which he was grateful.

The pair chatted while they ate as they had so many times before. Turned out that cooking was a secret hobby of Harbor's and Finch wondered if this was the world's way of telling him to learn to cook or at least eat less take out; Reese could cook and now so could Harbor.

"... I had to learn. When I started working for Fowler I quickly realized I couldn't survive on instant Ramen my entire life and I couldn't exactly warrant eating take out and diner food constantly either, so I bought a cook book and taught myself as best I could." The raven-haired beauty had another sip of wine. "There's no way I'll ever be like the fancy chefs at the restaurants and bistros you frequent, but I've not poisoned anyone so I'm doing well."

Harold chuckled. "I've never been able to cook and never really had the drive to learn. Just about everything I eat comes from a diner or in a box that Mister Reese has brought for me."

The escort didn't look surprised for an instant. "That's because he knows that if he doesn't feed you he'll come into The Library one day to find you dead in your chair."

"You make it sound as though John is babysitting me." Harold pointed out.

She was quick to shoot back a comment. "Maybe he is."

The pair went back to eating with that comment and soon shifted to another subject, then another and yet another one after that. Finch adored how easy it was to talk to Harbor, she kept up for the most part with his mind that constantly flitted back and forth between thoughts and theories; it was refreshing.

Soon though the thought of how domestic this whole evening was returned to him, he'd sat and eaten with Grace like this. Wine, good food, a relaxed atmosphere. Harold cursed himself, he hated how he incessantly compared the two women. How he couldn't ever get Grace out of his head when he was with Harbor; he had a good night if he could banish the thoughts to the back of his mind but he'd not got rid of them. The twenty-two year old didn't deserve that, taking second place to a woman who wasn't even in the room and thought him dead. Still, Grace was the only real relationship Finch had ever had and – while he wasn't in a relationship with Harbor – Grace was the only person he had to liken whatever this was to. The tech genius cursed himself further because he was fully aware that Harbor knew he did all of this as well, saw everything his his blue-eyes. It was one thing for him to do it but quite another for the woman across from him to know he did it and have to sit there anyway. It just added another layer of hating himself to the pot, he'd never meant to meet Harbor, never meant to end up seeing her for breakfast most days. Never meant to befriend her let alone sleep with her. He'd had few friends in his life and only ever loved Grace so Harold wasn't really sure how Harbor Caldwell fitted into things. People now days would call it friends with benefits, yes?

"Hank, are you alright?"

Fuck! She'd noticed again; he shook himself mentally. "Fine, fine."

They finished their meals and Harbor cleared the plates away while Harold poured more wine. Didn't take long for them to end up sat on her sofa – being banished to the floor Bear hadn't been pleased about – Harbor kicked her heels off so she could tuck her feet under herself. She looked so cosy and settled while Harold sat there stiffly, to anyone else he'd appear resistant to be there but Harbor could tell his relaxed stiffness from his uncomfortable stiffness.

His blue-eyes flicked up to Harbor's bookshelves then, they'd been empty when he'd given her the apartment and he'd honestly not noticed them when Miss Shaw had kicked her door down. Now he took a moment to rake his eyes over them though he saw just how many novels she'd managed to cram onto the shelves, there was even the start of a stack beside one. He'd have rolled his eyes but frankly he should have seen this coming.

"I take it you have indulged in some more books." He said with a soft smile.

Harbor glanced over a second before she turned her dazzling green-eyes back to the mystery man and shrugged a little.

"Oh that's nothing, as long as you don't see the inside of my DVD cupboard we're okay."

That got a grin out of him. "My Lord, you're a geek, aren't you?"

Harbor nodded. "Guilty. I'm a Trekkie."

Finch would have been embarrassed to admit how much Star Trek and Star Wars he, Nathan and Arthur had watched when they'd been at MIT. While he wasn't hiding a uniform in the back of his closet, Harold had desperately wanted a Tribble.

She noticed the look he was giving her and it got a questioning smile out of her. "What?"

"I'm waiting for the inevitable complaints and the stories of why your favourite character is whoever it is."

"Oh, no complaints really." A momentary pause. "Okay, there are a lot of complaints like have you ever noticed how much shit they make up? Seriously, someone says 'the Romulans are attacking', they all look at Data and Wesley who make some shit up about needing a pack of gum and Geordi's Visor and boom, no more Romulans." Another pause. "Sorry, this is why you don't ask me to criticise Star Trek. Favourite character though is Data and I won't hear a bad word said about him, after Data it's Bones. I'm going to stop talking now because you're getting that glazed over look most people who listen to Trekkies get."

Harold pushed his glasses up his nose to hid a grin – for a second he'd been back at MIT but instead of three very bored tech guys there had been a stunning young woman sat with them.

"You're passionate, it is to be admired."

"Yeah, and controlled." She teased before having another sip of her wine.

Silence lingered then, not awkwardly just a natural pause in the conversation.

"I must admit I have been known to do the same, especially if people start talking about how much they love Daphne Du Maurier. We understood that the curtains were blue four paragraphs ago."

That pair found themselves laughing, joking and teasing one another rather quickly after that comment and Harold was … happy. Something he hadn't genuinely been since … he refused to start thinking of Grace again, it wasn't fair on Harbor.

Later when Harold had once again refilled their glasses the talk of sci-fi and novels had worn down and come to a natural end and Bear had fallen asleep, for a moment his snores were the only sound to fill the room. Harold was quick though and didn't miss a beat.

"How has your work been?" He asked without any judgement whatsoever. "Any bookings for tomorrow?"

The escort flashed him that smile, the one that came with a head tilt and a sparkle of teasing; the one Finch always found infectious.

"Why?" She questioned oh so innocently. "Are you making requests?"

Finch flushed pink; she adored the way she could do that so easily.

"No, no, I was just making conversation I assure you."

The young woman took pity on him. "I know, Hank. And yeah, I'll be seeing The Honest One at two but nothing else. It's nothing major." She took another drink of the – frankly fantastic – wine Harold had brought with him. "I haven't decided what to wear yet though. I've got a pink dress he likes, you've seen it, but I really don't like pink. I could wear my favourite white one, it's got this lace overlay, don't know if it'll be quite little girl enough for him though."

It took him a second but Harold finally figured out she'd started musing aloud rather than continued talking to him.

"You should wear the white one, it'll show your green-eyes off more than all pink." He told her abruptly but it got an instant and genuine grin; a grin Harold realized he loved and adored.

"You always know just what to say, don't you." Harold beamed with pride; within reason of course. "Speaking of work, how did your alias' day go?"

"The Numbers keep coming, today's absence of one won't be repeated for some time, I'm sure."

"Numbers?" Her brow furrowed.

I'm saying too much again, a voice in the back of his mind muttered.

"It's what we call the people we protect."

The conversation went on for a while until the wine was gone and Harbor started to yawn. And why was this young woman yawning so beautiful? Her green dress had bunched up where she's settled with her feet tucked under her showing him her long legs and the way her head had gone to rest on the back of the couch reminded him of when he'd woken up on the floor with her half behind him. She'd slept the entire night on the floor because of him and not complained once.

"I should leave." He said softly but before he could get to his feet Harbor had shuffled closer and snuggled into his side.

"You don't have to."

He could feel her delightful warmth bleed into his body, past his suit and deep to sooth his bones. She still smelt like coconuts. Oh how his body yearned to touch her; Harold couldn't though.

"It's late and you're tired, I should go and you should sleep."

"Yeah, but you could always wake me up." The younger woman teased in that way of hers.

Oh he wanted to cave but no, he insisted that he held fast.

"You need sleep."

With that he leant in and pressed a gentle kiss to her soft lips then pushed himself to his feet so he could get his things. Despite the slumber building in her eyes she followed him to the door. Harold slipped his coat on only to be surprised when she grabbed him by his blue tie and tugged him towards her. Before Hank's mind had chance to catch up with him he'd pressed the young woman against the door and had a firm grip on her as they kissed deeply. Finch braised himself with one hand up by her head while the other kept hold of her tiny waist.

When the urge for air became much too strong the pair broke apart and Harold tucked his tie back into place under his gray waistcoat as longed for air filled his lungs. With another kiss he opened the door and stepped out into the hall, Bear followed and Harold quickly clipped his leash on.

"Good evening, Harbor, Darling. Please get some sleep, you have work in the morning, remember?"

With that he was gone off into the night and Harbor was left alone. She just stood there a moment in quiet as she delighted in the memory of Hank's touch. She knew Finch didn't mean to but he'd slightly made her feel as though he didn't want to sleep with her knowing she'd be fucking a different guy the next day.

When Harold left the escort's apartment – well, technically it was his apartment – he'd made fairly quick work of limping down to the elevator and then out onto the street. The sudden bang of cold night air hit him from nowhere and actually managed to startle the middle-aged man, he wasn't a big fan of snow and ice what with the limp and everything. Though he felt weighed down with dinner that his body hadn't quite finished digesting, spending his evening with young Harbor had lifted the usual Atlas-like heaviness from his shoulder; he had no doubt she'd have been able to wash away a guilty man's sins if so inclined.

He pretty much had the street to himself as he headed for his Lincoln Town car, the hour was late and most people were asleep. He probably should have been asleep as well if the sting in his eyes was anything to go by but then something halted him halfway across the street, just stopped him dead in his tracks. The chime of a nearby payphone sounded, they were always audible no matter the time of day but this was the night when no one was around so the ringing seemed to scream and yell up and down the street. Slowly Finch approached the payphone eyeing it as he went, ever the suspicious man. Instantaneously the weight of Atlas settled on his shoulders once more. Carefully he lifted the phone off the hook and held it up to his ear. Looked like he'd be waking John up after all, they had a new Number.