Title: Counting Down The Days
Author: wildwordwomyn
Word Count: 319
Fandom/Pairing: Person of Interest gen drabble starring John Reese and Harold Finch
Rating: PG for angst
Author's Notes: None I guess...
Disclaimers/Warnings: Spoilers for "Firewall". I don't own or rent any of the people/places/things involved. I just write slash for fun. Read at your own risk.
Summary: Harold is missing and John is lost.
Five days, seven hours, thirteen minutes, fifty seconds.
That's how long it's been since Finch has gone missing. John can't help keeping count. It's torture, he knows, but it's all he has. He still goes to the library every day and sits at the other man's computers, willing them to find him. The Machine is trying. Calculation after calculation, lead after lead. Nothing pans out. John feels like he's about to crawl out of his skin. He shouldn't. They still don't know enough about each other to warrant such a visceral reaction. Logic, though, is not the same as human emotion.
When he found out Jessica was dead his first thought was to get so drunk he couldn't remember his own name, let alone the sweet quirk of her smile. Because a part of him died that day. A part he probably couldn't afford to lose. And now Finch is missing. If he loses him, too, there won't be anything left.
Five days, seven hours, fourteen minutes, seven seconds.
"Damn it, Finch," he whispers, "where are you?"
But the Machine isn't Finch. It doesn't talk back. It hits John then how much he needs the sound of the genius's voice in his ear. It's commanding and soothing and a reminder that John isn't alone anymore. Without it he has no anchor, no safety net. The monitor is blank, as it has been for the past hour. It has nothing to offer. John thinks maybe that's fitting. They're both lost until Finch's return.
Desperation reflects back at him from the screen. He recognizes the haunted eyes from the mirrors he used to shy away from when he was homeless but it's too hard to look at them for long now. Instead he lets his eyelids fall shut and fights not to imagine worse case scenarios.
"Harold?" Silence. "Come back to me..."
Five days, seven hours, thirty minutes, nine seconds.
The End