The coffee was too sweet, of course, but warm and comforting nonetheless, and it helped Harold pull himself together. The diner was small, and quiet, and they had a good booth where Anthony could watch the door and Harold could watch a mirror with almost as much coverage. If he hadn't been sitting across the table from a known murderer with a distinctive face, he would have felt quite safe here. Sheltered. Pleasantly anonymous.

Before the coffee was half gone, he figured it was time to face whatever Elias would throw at him next. The kingpin had seen fit to put him off-balance, building up his lie until the idea of it overwhelmed Harold, and then sending his right-hand man in to observe the results. Dealing with a man that unpredictable was… exhausting, and at the moment he lacked the resources to meet the battle with his usual set of skills. But this day would not be over until he had tried.

He gently set his coffee mug on the saucer, hearing the rattle of a very slight tremor as he did so, and pushed it aside. "If you would be so kind as to contact your boss," he said, meeting Marconi's eyes with unwavering dignity. This much, he could do right now: He could stay calm before the firing squad.

Marconi dialed the number. "Hey, Boss. Ready for that conversation?" After a short pause, he handed the phone to Harold, who took a deep breath and put it to his ear.

"I'm here," he said, his voice thankfully steady.

"Good, good," said Elias. "I trust Anthony wasn't too rough on you?"

Thanks to Marconi's "help", he'd be having nightmares for weeks, the mobster's hands holding him down, choking him — but he pushed those thoughts aside. "Unorthodox, but surprisingly effective." Then, thinking that he hadn't quite answered the question, he followed up with, "He did me no lasting harm," and cast a glance at the man sitting across from him.

Marconi's eyebrow quirked, and he gave a half-nod as he slid out of the booth and then strolled past Harold toward the counter. As Harold watched him in the mirror, he noted the mobster's careful glances maintaining control of the environment, and keeping an eye on Harold himself.

"Excellent," Elias said, drawing Harold's attention back to the phone. "Now, to begin with, you paid me well for tonight's favor, so count this more as a… request, not a demand. But I can't bring myself to refer to you by a name as obviously false as 'Mr. Crane.' If we're going to negotiate, whether now or in the future, I would ask that you give me a name that actually belongs to you."

Harold swallowed, and considered. There was too much at risk to let Elias track down his original identity… but then again, he had brought part of it with him anyway, like a comfort blanket he was loath to let go of. It was only a matter of time before Elias learned it — and of all the things the crime lord could do to him, referring to him more casually than their relationship warranted was hardly the thing to balk at.

"Harold is the name I was born to," he said quietly. "It will suffice."

"Harold," Elias echoed, as if rolling the term around on his tongue. "Well, Harold, I wasn't sure how much you took in earlier, so I wanted to assure you that the bounty is off. There's still one or two out there who didn't get the message, but I'll deal with them when I get a chance… well, whatever John doesn't handle for himself, of course. I'm afraid I lied to you when I said I'd up the bounty; that was never my intention."

Despite the warmth of the coffee still in his system, Harold felt his blood run cold. "You… deliberately asked for something you knew we'd be unwilling to give. To see what I'd do."

"And now I know how far I can push you," Elias replied, unrepentant. "That information was well worth the trouble of calling off the bounty."

Whirling around in Harold's head were too many thoughts — too hard to grasp at any particular one long enough to examine it. He closed his eyes and rubbed at his forehead, then jumped at the unexpected rattle of Marconi laying fresh coffee mugs on the table. The mobster slid into the booth, and picked up his mug again, studied Harold for a moment, and then looked toward the street, sipping quietly.

The back of his hand showed a couple rows of bloodstains, tiny wounds from Harold's fingernails, left while Harold had been trying to escape. Would they add to Marconi's assortment of scars? Scars earned while trying to help someone, not hurt them… a strange thought, when it came to such a man. Once again, Harold was reminded of his propensity to pigeonhole: Marconi was far more complex than Harold tended to give him credit for.

The interruption had chased away even the little hints of thoughts that Harold had been considering. He let go of the possibilities and went with the obvious: "You knew you couldn't push us to commit murder. How did that give you any information at all?"

Elias's chuckle sounded warm enough. "You misunderstand me, Harold. I already had a good idea of how far I could push before you'd refuse to cooperate. What I needed to know was the other end of the equation: how far I could press you to the wall before you'd back down and finally say yes. And I wasn't able to do it.

"You wouldn't accept an act that went against your personal moral standard, even when I did my best to make it sound unethical to refuse. You upheld that standard even at tremendous cost to your team and enough stress on you, personally, that it drove you to a panic attack." His sigh held satisfaction, as well as a hint of fondness. "I put you through quite the wringer today, Harold, but I finally feel like I understand you. That's going to make a difference in negotiations; the next time you come to me for help, we'll be better able to strike an agreement that suits both our needs."

For a long moment, Harold sat there with the phone pressed to his ear, processing. At length, he gathered himself enough to draw in a shaky breath, raise his eyebrows, and say, voice trembling, "After today… how could we ever trust you?"

"Did you trust me before today? That wasn't my impression."

And, of course, the crime lord was right. They hadn't come to Elias because they could trust him; they'd been out of options, and had some slim hope that he could make matters easier on them, turn an impossible situation into one they might be able to survive. And he had done exactly that — while toying with Harold to get information that was worth the trouble. A less manipulative tactic would have left Elias wondering, but this… now he was sure of Harold's character.

Whether this meant that he'd refrain from asking Harold to break his standards, or that he'd use those standards against him when arranging situations in the future… time would tell. Dealing with a man as crafty as Elias meant accepting that you were going to be blindsided by his tactics. But, as today had shown, the discomfort didn't outweigh the benefit of having Elias as an asset.

The waitress came by, and Harold gave her a probably unconvincing smile as she laid out a plate of whole-wheat toast with little packets of jam, a little bowl of oatmeal with blueberries to the side, and two small smoothies, one off-white, the other tan.

Once she'd gone, Harold looked questioningly at Marconi, who indicated the smoothies.

"Peanut butter and banana, or just banana. I know peanuts are a common allergen, but it's good protein." He gave a half-shrug and kept sipping his coffee.

Harold frowned. "Mr. Elias, have you had panic attacks before?"

"What? Oh," Elias said, and once again there was an unexpected fondness in his voice. "No, ah, an associate of ours — a close friend, growing up — had to deal with them sometimes. Anthony and I, we both learned a few tricks to help him through them. I take it he's trying to feed you, now? You needn't eat if you don't care to, but sometimes it helps to restore your energy a bit. Adrenaline can take a lot out of you."

Harold blinked. The words were a reminder of something all too easy to forget: For all that Elias had done, all that he might do in the future, for all the threat he represented, he was still just a man, like so many others. Not a supervillain — and even as a criminal mastermind, he didn't lack for those who followed him not out of fear, but out of loyalty. You didn't secure loyalty that strong by accident.

His thoughts flew to Massey, a leader who built on fear, the shakiest of foundations. And Riley, trying to break free of that world. Riley, the hitman he'd so easily written off this morning. Bad code, said Root's voice in his mind — and then his own voice: I'm just saying you might not want to put yourself and her at risk for a man like that. He's a killer, Mr. Reese.

Suddenly, he saw himself staring down at a chessboard, at the end of a very long day. I don't think that anyone is worth more than anyone else, he'd said to the Machine. Real people aren't pieces, and you can't assign more value to some of them than to others. People are not a thing you can sacrifice.

This morning, he'd assigned a value to Riley: disposable. When had he let himself start thinking that way? Even killers were still human beings. Harold had bent a decade of his life to the task of protecting humanity, and the last two and a half years to protecting the numbers. It wasn't for him to determine which numbers deserved to be saved; the Machine directed them at the targets, and they simply worked out where the threat was coming from and neutralized it.

Last year, when the heads of the five families had been on the chopping block, it had been John arguing to just walk away; despite the risk, Harold had enjoined him to save their lives. Ultimately futile, given that four out of the five had been killed anyway, but Harold had tried his best to change the course of their destinies. And they had been unrepentant killers; Riley was actually trying to get out of that life. He wasn't less deserving of a chance than Reese had been.

Harold swallowed, staring at the smoothies. Right now, Elias and Marconi were doing more to help Harold than Harold had been willing to do to help Riley.

"Harold?" came Elias's voice in his ear. "Doing okay, there?"

"You've… reminded me of an important principle," Harold said slowly. "And… thank you. For calling off the bounty, and for explaining to me what you did and why. I can't say that I appreciate being the subject of your little experiment, but I understand what you hoped to learn from it."

"I've learned a great deal. You know, I've no shortage of assets; there are countless people whose buttons I know how to press. But you, you are a rare find. There might come a time when it's useful to have someone who can actually say no to me."

"An odd compliment… but I'll accept it."

"The question is, what's the next move? Do we simply go our separate ways until the next time you need help badly enough to knock at my cell door?"

Assuming that they'd be dealing with each other in the future, it seemed sub-optimal to connect with Elias only during a crisis. "Do you have a counter-proposal?"

"Well, as I mentioned, it's difficult to enjoy chess without a worthy opponent. You strike me as the type who might be skilled enough to challenge me. And, of course, a little table talk could help us get to know each other… or, at least, the parts we're willing to bring to the surface. I'd consider that a valuable exchange; wouldn't you?"

One of the games Harold felt the most antipathy toward… and yet, a pressing reminder of a principle he'd unthinkingly abandoned just this morning. Evidently, the reminder could do him some good. And if it meant revealing a little of himself to Elias, it also meant a chance to better understand the kingpin as well — the kind of information that could turn out to be vital.

"Are you proposing a single match, or regular sessions?"

"By this point, I doubt a single match would satisfy either of us."

Harold couldn't help letting out a chuckle at that one. "I do get the feeling that we'll be playing against each other for a long time to come."

"Then let us meet next time across the chessboard. Perhaps in two weeks?"

"Acceptable. Shall I contact you, or…?"

"I'll look forward to the call." There was a short pause, and then, "Is Anthony still there?"

"Yes, he's here." Marconi looked up, and Harold took in a breath. "Elias… thank you."

If silence could convey surprise, Harold couldn't imagine what it would sound like over the phone. But it was a moment before Elias responded. "Well. A first time for everything. If you would be so good as to hand him the phone—"

When Harold handed it over, Marconi gave a short nod, and motioned at the smoothies with his eyes. He put the phone to his ear with an immediate, "Yes, Boss."

With a sigh, Harold picked up a piece of toast and hunted through the jam packets, selecting a bitter orange marmalade. He spread it over the toast and took a bite, savoring the mixed flavors. Released from its former tension, his stomach began clamoring for more, and he had finished half the peanut-banana smoothie and almost all of the toast by the time his attention got pulled back to Marconi — who was saying, "Sure thing, Boss. See you then," and then paused, hung up, and slipped the phone into his pocket.

During any other encounter with the man, Harold would have stayed wary, but the afternoon's events had stripped him of the fear that Marconi might try to harm him. Today, at any rate, there was no direct threat; it didn't leave him relaxed, exactly, but certainly more at ease.

Marconi regarded him. "Boss says to see you to a safe place, if you want."

"That… won't be necessary."

"He didn't think so. If I leave you now, will you be all right?"

Harold considered, then nodded firmly.

After getting to his feet, Marconi gestured at the food. "I took care of the bill. Don't eat too fast."

Not knowing what else he could possibly say, Harold said, "Thank you."

Marconi's answering smirk was gentler than his norm, and he nodded before heading out. In the mirror, Harold watched until he was out the door and out of sight.

After a few more sips of the smoothie, and a few blueberries popped into his mouth, Harold got up, slid into Marconi's side of the booth, and felt around under the table for possible bugs. When his fingers failed to find any, he lay down on the bench and did a visual search — nothing.

Of course, not being able to spot it didn't mean it wasn't there. There was little reason to suspect a bug at this point, but he couldn't help that little level of paranoia. Recalling the way Marconi had helped him to his feet, he checked his pockets, too, and his bag.

He headed into the restroom before calling John. Only the paranoid survive.

"Finch, you okay?"

Never had Harold been so glad to hear John's voice. "The bounty's off," he said. "I'll explain later, but Elias called it off — you should be good."

"Seems a couple people didn't get the message. Annie's been taken."

Harold swallowed, hoping his earlier callousness hadn't convinced Reese to abandon his other charge. "Is Riley all right?"

A short pause. "Yeah. We're heading for a place called the Pearl. I'll text you the address; can you run surveillance?"

"Certainly. How soon do you need it?"

"Traffic's a nightmare, and there's a manhunt going on — might take us a while to get anywhere near the place."

"Should give me enough time to get to a safe house and get set up. I'll let you know as soon as I have anything."

There was so much more that he wanted to say: that he'd been wrong about Riley, and John had been right; that he needed John to remind him if he ever made such a mistake again. He wanted to tell him about the bargain he'd struck with Elias, and how Elias had manipulated him, but that would wait. Perhaps tonight, when the case had been closed out and they were safely back at the library, he could finally level with John about his time in captivity, and how strongly it had affected him — to the point where he found himself spouting Root's mantras, even when they ran counter to every principle he'd ever held himself accountable to.

But, for now, it was enough to know that John was safe, and that Harold could help him stay that way — as much as could be expected, given their line of work.

Shouldering his laptop bag, Harold limped back out through the diner — double-checking that the bill had been covered, with a generous tip — and headed toward the car. He'd made it through one ordeal, but the day wasn't over yet.

°l||l°l||l°

Author's Note: This is the end of this fic, and there are no planned sequels. In case the last line is confusing to anyone: It's merely implying that Harold's work is never-ending, and that he can't let a little trauma get in the way of doing what he needs to do.