For Bear Part Four
The Dumb Things People Do
John tried to get Leon to talk to him, but the other man seemed to be in a hurry to get out of the apartment.
“Hey man, I got a date; this one is really hot; so I really can’t stay and chat.”
John really didn’t want to chat; he just needed to know how Finch was. And since he wasn’t really in the mood to make Leon talk, he just waved him towards the door.
Leon stopped just as he was about to leave, turned back and gave John a worried frown. “I really can’t talk about Finchy, he asked me not to. But, I gotta tell ya Bear’s not the only one not eating.” Then Leon bolted out the door.
By the time Reese reached the still partially open doorway, Leon was long gone. That brought a smile to his face, ‘I didn’t know that little accountant could move so fast.’ But Tau’s parting words quickly wiped the smile from John’s face.
Since that night he had walked out on Harold, John hadn’t felt much like eating but had forced himself to, food tasted worse than the MRs he and Kara used to survive on undercover, but still he ate. But Harold?
Harold would get so caught up in their cases, hacking away at his computers for information, or sometimes just coding for hours on end, never breaking to eat. John had brought tea and donuts and takeout, setting them on the desk, next to Finch. He’d absentmindedly eat what was set by his elbow, but at least he’d eat.
Then when things had gotten personal between them, they’d go out to eat together, John talking away about anything at all, not letting Harold away from their table until he’d eaten what he’d ordered. Or he’d cook something for them the nights Harold spent at the loft. When things weren’t crazy at work and Falcone’s apartment had become theirs, John would fix something they’d share in their bed.
One of those nights, after John had fed Harold a small meal in the bed they had just made love in, Harold had joked he was getting paunchy doing nothing but eating after sitting all day.
“You just don’t sit all day. Besides you burned off plenty of calories about thirty minutes ago. You damn near wore me out. Besides…” John moved the bed tray to the nightstand…”I love your little pot belly.” He cuddled up to Harold, kissing the other man’s stomach before resting his head there.
Neither men were sleepy from the sex or from the meal they’d just shared, so both of them just lay there, relaxed, enjoying the quiet normalcy of the moment, two people passionately in love, lost in each other’s company.
“John? I want this for us for the rest of our lives, however long that may be.” Harold spoke softly while caressing John’s hair. “Would you marry me?”
John sat up looking in Harold’s face for any doubts or reservations but all he saw was love and hope there. “Yes, Yes” was all he could say between the kisses he rained all over his partner’s face.
John was so excited he couldn’t lay still. He slid out of bed and walked to the open windows. “I want to live here. In our place.”
Harold was looking at him with so much happiness, it made John’s heart skip. “Um, who am I marrying?” John was merely teasing. Harold only answered with a “Who do you want to marry, I thought you said yes to me.”
John’s teasing stopped, “I did say yes to you, but the real you. We can marry under our aliases to live here of course, you can make all that appear legal on paper. But I want to marry the real Harold, my real name and yours, on a marriage certificate, even if it’s for our eyes only.”
John watched Harold’s fences rising up complete with barbed wire in the guarded look that replaced the look of love and hope. “I can’t do that, I’m sorry. John come back to bed, we’ll talk about it, please.”
John couldn’t help saying the hurtful things that started coming out his mouth. “Why? So you can fuck me into ignoring the fact after all we’ve been through, after everything thing I have done to earn it, you still don’t trust me enough to even share your real name. You never will. It’s not in you to trust anyone, not Nathan, not Grace, not me, no one. If there is no trust, this marriage is doomed from the start. Fuck you! Keep your damn secrets.”
John then scooped up his clothes and went into the bath slamming the door behind him.
Once dressed John stormed into the living room grabbing the confused Bear’s leash and snapping it on the dog’s collar. “Come on! Let’s go!”
He turned back to look at Harold standing in their bedroom door pants hastily pulled on, undone, “John? Please don’t go.” John had heard Harold’s tone of voice from anxiously worried to downright steel, but never plaintively begging. Still John’s anger controlled him.
“Goodbye FINCH! I think its best we end this, all of it.”
“All right, whatever you want John.” Harold didn’t say another word just watched John leave, his face now devoid of any emotion.
John spent the next week drunk most of the time, passed out the rest. When he finally had allowed himself to sober up, he took a good long look in the mirror at himself and realized Harold wasn’t the only one with issues. Again he’d ran away from the best thing that had ever happened to him. This time he wasn’t going to throw it all away.
John called Finch’s cell, heard the blips of the call transfer, then just the voicemail of the Wren number, “Call me please, Harold, I’m sorry.”
John cleaned himself up and drove to The Library, thinking he would get down on his knees and beg Harold to forgive him if he had to. He loved the paranoid man, secrets and all.
His heart almost fell out of his chest when he saw the new fencing around the building and a flurry of construction workers in and outside of it. Harold had given him what John wanted. He had ended everything.
It wasn’t even on hour after he’d been back at the loft a currier dropped off an envelope. He took it over to the small desk near the windows, sat down and opened it. Inside was a note…. - As we agreed, if you ever wanted out, new ID and enough funds to start over anywhere. H.F. - Inside were new identification; birth certificate, social security card, driver’s license, credit cards, bank books with amounts in the millions. He took them all and dumped them in the waste basket.
For the first time in 30 years John lay down on his bed and wept himself to sleep.
John felt a clenching in his gut. He’d been with Harold long enough to know what medications he took, and even the side effects of taking them and not eating. Enough to know that it could kill him eventually.
Just as surely as the booze would have eventually killed him, Harold was going down that same suicidal road and it was all John’s fault. He had to right this somehow.
Walking over to the bed to grab the cellphone out of the jacket he’d tossed there he remembered the box lying next to it.
It was an old wooden curio box, probably 50 years old at least. When he opened it there was an envelope in a tray with an old and tarnished man’s pocketwatch and some even older costume jewelry.
John took the letter out of the envelope.
John,
You were right I should trust you with everything.
I burned my real identity so long ago I sometimes forget I wasn’t always a Harold Wren or Finch or the hundreds of aliases I’ve used through the years. After 40 years it’s become second nature to keep that a secret to myself even if it means losing those I hold dear.
I have shared so much more of myself with you than anyone in my life, believe that if nothing else.
In this box is all that’s left of who I was before I became Harold Wren. I’m giving this to you John, like I should have done the day I fell in love with you. Seems I am always doomed to repeat past mistakes.
I wished I could go back in time, fix things, but I can’t.
Harold
P.S. I could never hate you John.
~*~
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
For Bear
Chapter Five