[ A beat of silence before he points out, tentative, ]
I don't actually know how he hurt you. But I doubt it.
[ He doesn't know. He's only made inferences about any of Pope's behavior, which have been damning enough on their own. Harold's not sure he really wants to know. ]
[ This is a longer silence. Harold wasn't looking for Bossie to fill in those blanks, but this is a blank he doesn't fill in himself much. Almost never.
In this circumstance, he thinks it's warranted, but he still has to find the words. There's so many ways to explain it, all of them deeply personal, and painful like the cut of a fine-edged knife: silent at first and then you look down and see the blood flowing, and it won't stop. ]
There was a bomb, [ is all he can say at the moment, ] and my oldest friend died.
[ Because of me, is what he can't say. Because I make mistakes. ]
[The silence is just long enough that he almost speaks up to change the subject. Let Harold off the hook. Maybe Harold doesn't trust him like that. Trusts him with weapons, yes, but not with words. Not with anything personal.]
I'm sorry. [Meaning it. Thinking of Michael Turner, the person he loved more than he's ever loved anyone, with half a wine bottle jammed into his head. With his skull staved in, leaking grey matter and blood as Bossie tried to hurry him home.]
...You still dream about it? I- you don't have to answer that. I just. I dream. A lot. And I dont' know what to do about it. I'd be less fucked up, maybe, if I could stop dreaming.
Not lately, [ Harold admits softly. ] I have other things to dream about now.
[ New nightmares, new tragedies. That's the only reason he can talk about what happened to Nathan to this extent; it's become faded compared to more recent horrors.
Harold watches Bossie with concern. ] Did the potions from Auriel help? I may have found a way to create more, or something similar.
[ Pope killed him. He goes still for a moment, processing that, gaze frozen and piercing.
It's only a moment, but it's palpable when it passes and Harold seems to sink back into his skin. ] It might be more than he deserves, [ Harold says a shade coolly, ] but it's not messed up. He's an incredibly important figure in your life. It's natural he'd appear in your dreams, positive or negative.
[ The amount of dreams he has about the Machine still... ]
Mr. Carver has been respectful of your right to tell your own story.
[ It's something Harold appreciated, and never pushed for more. Everyone gets a chance from him, and so far Carver hasn't wasted it. There's no practical reason for Harold to distrust his judgment. If he didn't think Harold needed to know the details, then Harold didn't ask for them. ]
Whether you want to defend him is one thing, [ he goes on, regaining some equanimity, ] but if you need practice not doing it, you don't need to defend him to me of all people. I asked Ms. Shaw to acquire a long-range rifle in the event that he ever shows up.
[ Harold asking someone else to get a specific weapon is, notably, unprecedented. But losing so many people in such quick succession recently has changed him. ]
[ Harold wouldn't ask Ms. Shaw to kill anyone, including Pope. As he'd said to her a while back, that man isn't going to be the one to make him break that rule, especially not when it's pointless here. He'd just return to life, madder than ever, probably.
Ms. Shaw is more than capable of taking out a knee. And Harold is sure he could convince Dr. Romano not to help him fix it.
Bossie laughs, but Harold is completely serious and perfectly calm, gaze almost flat. ] Not anymore, no. Not about this.
You didn't have to do anything, [ he says gently. ] I'd like to protect anyone I can.
[ Without qualifications, just about. The exceptions are so vanishingly rare that Harold wouldn't know how to articulate them. ]
But I do, [ he admits a beat later, ] want to protect you especially. [ Something he's no longer ashamed to admit the way he used to be, before he lost Elias, Root, John, the Machine in quick succession, within the span of days. ]
[That is Harold: protecting the masses. The nameless masses, the ones Bossie was once sent to massacre.
But then Harold goes on and Bossie looks up at him, ears red.]
Especially?
[He asks it softly, bewildered, hopeful. Don't be fucking greedy, he can hear Pope say and he flinches because it's just that vivid in his head. The disgust Pope would feel if he could see him now.]
[ There's a moment of silence as Harold takes in Bossie's demeanor, the fragility behind it. He isn't thinking about him being greedy, or about how many people he's killed, how many children. He's thinking about how long it took him to reach the point that he could see this preference as a good thing.
Something the Machine taught him, rather than the other way around. The most important thing she could have taught him. ]
You've agreed to trust my leadership in some respect, [ he points out, ] which I take very seriously. And...
Didn't we just establish that, apart from any sort of authoritative hierarchy, we're friends?
Yeah I just- ah, I haven't really had friends besides the Reapers.
[Maybe not since high school, but even those friends don't really count. He didn't miss any of them when he was deployed. He never went back to visit them.]
...But I never made a scarf for anyone before. Wouldn't have done it if we weren't friends.
I would've been your friend in your world. If we'd met.
[He smiles at Harold--a shy smile, an earnest one. He'd liked making that scarf. He'd found a kind of peace in considering the colors to use, in researching how to make the wren figure.]
[ If they'd met. That's a big if, considering Harold deliberately tried to keep people from meeting him, much less knowing him.
Saying that would be pointless cruelty, so he only stands there, takes this in soberly. He looks at Bossie with the full weight of knowing how little surety he can offer him. But he can offer him something. ]
Aurora has assured me we don't need to go back if we don't want to. And I intend, [ he says without explaining his reasoning, a tiny note of steel resolve in his voice like a glimpse at just the tip of an iceberg, ] to stay here.
[ That would be too simple. Harold had tried so many times, if passively, to let himself die. Whatever value he brought to the world had long since become outweighed by the risks he presents, and although he doesn't feel like he actively wants to die, it just seems appropriate. It seems like his story should come to an end.
But it hasn't. Instead, others keep flinging themselves on swords specifically to keep him going, and Harold finds himself in the position of holding the precious, incalculable gifts of their lives in his hands and needing to go on. ]
No, [ he says evenly, tone quieting and the steel vanishing into faint echoes of sadness like currents of air moving across the surface of water. ] John is.
[ He would rather go on here, with John, than back home, without him. Without Root, without the Machine, without so much else. What he has left there is Grace -- and she is painfully and indisputably better off without him. Harold's presence does nothing but endanger her. That won't change with the downfall of Samaritan; if anything, it might even get worse, and going to see her in Italy had been the product of severe shock, not a reasoned decision.
Staying in Etraya is at once the most selfish and most selfless decision he's ever made. Whether or not it's the right decision by any metric, it's one he's committed to. ]
[ Survival hasn't been a priority for Harold for a very long time. He's not sure when, but at some point it was like he crossed the Rubicon without noticing, come out the other side with other motives.
It wasn't happiness and it wasn't survival -- it was doing something that mattered before he died. ]
Like knitting? [ Harold prompts, a wry twist of his mouth accompanying it, eyes soft with understanding. ]
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I don't actually know how he hurt you. But I doubt it.
[ He doesn't know. He's only made inferences about any of Pope's behavior, which have been damning enough on their own. Harold's not sure he really wants to know. ]
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Can I ask how you got hurt? [Motioning, very slightly, at Harold to indicate his back injury.]
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In this circumstance, he thinks it's warranted, but he still has to find the words. There's so many ways to explain it, all of them deeply personal, and painful like the cut of a fine-edged knife: silent at first and then you look down and see the blood flowing, and it won't stop. ]
There was a bomb, [ is all he can say at the moment, ] and my oldest friend died.
[ Because of me, is what he can't say. Because I make mistakes. ]
I didn't.
cw gore
I'm sorry. [Meaning it. Thinking of Michael Turner, the person he loved more than he's ever loved anyone, with half a wine bottle jammed into his head. With his skull staved in, leaking grey matter and blood as Bossie tried to hurry him home.]
...You still dream about it? I- you don't have to answer that. I just. I dream. A lot. And I dont' know what to do about it. I'd be less fucked up, maybe, if I could stop dreaming.
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[ New nightmares, new tragedies. That's the only reason he can talk about what happened to Nathan to this extent; it's become faded compared to more recent horrors.
Harold watches Bossie with concern. ] Did the potions from Auriel help? I may have found a way to create more, or something similar.
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I had nice dreams about Pope though. That's messed up, right? Dreaming good things about the guy who killed me.
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It's only a moment, but it's palpable when it passes and Harold seems to sink back into his skin. ] It might be more than he deserves, [ Harold says a shade coolly, ] but it's not messed up. He's an incredibly important figure in your life. It's natural he'd appear in your dreams, positive or negative.
[ The amount of dreams he has about the Machine still... ]
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I guess Carver didn't tell you what he did to me, huh?
...Fuck I just want to get to a point where I don't want to defend Pope anymore.
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[ It's something Harold appreciated, and never pushed for more. Everyone gets a chance from him, and so far Carver hasn't wasted it. There's no practical reason for Harold to distrust his judgment. If he didn't think Harold needed to know the details, then Harold didn't ask for them. ]
Whether you want to defend him is one thing, [ he goes on, regaining some equanimity, ] but if you need practice not doing it, you don't need to defend him to me of all people. I asked Ms. Shaw to acquire a long-range rifle in the event that he ever shows up.
[ Harold asking someone else to get a specific weapon is, notably, unprecedented. But losing so many people in such quick succession recently has changed him. ]
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You don't fuck around, do you?
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Ms. Shaw is more than capable of taking out a knee. And Harold is sure he could convince Dr. Romano not to help him fix it.
Bossie laughs, but Harold is completely serious and perfectly calm, gaze almost flat. ] Not anymore, no. Not about this.
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I don't know what I did to earn that from you.
[He's not a good person. Hasn't been in a long, long time now.]
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[ Without qualifications, just about. The exceptions are so vanishingly rare that Harold wouldn't know how to articulate them. ]
But I do, [ he admits a beat later, ] want to protect you especially. [ Something he's no longer ashamed to admit the way he used to be, before he lost Elias, Root, John, the Machine in quick succession, within the span of days. ]
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But then Harold goes on and Bossie looks up at him, ears red.]
Especially?
[He asks it softly, bewildered, hopeful. Don't be fucking greedy, he can hear Pope say and he flinches because it's just that vivid in his head. The disgust Pope would feel if he could see him now.]
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Something the Machine taught him, rather than the other way around. The most important thing she could have taught him. ]
You've agreed to trust my leadership in some respect, [ he points out, ] which I take very seriously. And...
Didn't we just establish that, apart from any sort of authoritative hierarchy, we're friends?
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[Maybe not since high school, but even those friends don't really count. He didn't miss any of them when he was deployed. He never went back to visit them.]
...But I never made a scarf for anyone before. Wouldn't have done it if we weren't friends.
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[ A beat of silence. ]
So I appreciate the scarf very much.
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[He smiles at Harold--a shy smile, an earnest one. He'd liked making that scarf. He'd found a kind of peace in considering the colors to use, in researching how to make the wren figure.]
Carver says all our family are dead back home.
...I don't want to go back, Harold.
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Saying that would be pointless cruelty, so he only stands there, takes this in soberly. He looks at Bossie with the full weight of knowing how little surety he can offer him. But he can offer him something. ]
Aurora has assured me we don't need to go back if we don't want to. And I intend, [ he says without explaining his reasoning, a tiny note of steel resolve in his voice like a glimpse at just the tip of an iceberg, ] to stay here.
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Why? Are you dead back home, too?
CW: suicidal ideation
But it hasn't. Instead, others keep flinging themselves on swords specifically to keep him going, and Harold finds himself in the position of holding the precious, incalculable gifts of their lives in his hands and needing to go on. ]
No, [ he says evenly, tone quieting and the steel vanishing into faint echoes of sadness like currents of air moving across the surface of water. ] John is.
[ He would rather go on here, with John, than back home, without him. Without Root, without the Machine, without so much else. What he has left there is Grace -- and she is painfully and indisputably better off without him. Harold's presence does nothing but endanger her. That won't change with the downfall of Samaritan; if anything, it might even get worse, and going to see her in Italy had been the product of severe shock, not a reasoned decision.
Staying in Etraya is at once the most selfish and most selfless decision he's ever made. Whether or not it's the right decision by any metric, it's one he's committed to. ]
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I get it. I just want to be wherever Carver goes.
You gonna be happy here?
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What a question, [ he huffs mildly, lips quirking in amusement as he deflects for a moment. ] I'm sure I don't know. I could be.
Happiness has never been my foremost priority.
[ And isn't that the truth? ]
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Brandon says this place can be different. We can be different here. Maybe we get to pick things that make us happy, sometimes.
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It wasn't happiness and it wasn't survival -- it was doing something that mattered before he died. ]
Like knitting? [ Harold prompts, a wry twist of his mouth accompanying it, eyes soft with understanding. ]
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