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jedibuttercupPG-13, Dresden Files/Person of Interest; 1500 words. Part 3 of Someone With The Skills to Intervene.
The day Mr. Dresden appeared on the front steps of the Library, it had been more than a decade since my last overt involvement in the supernatural world.
Title: Someone With The Skills To Intervene - Part 3
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: PG-13/T
Spoilers: Dresden Files circa but pre-"Changes"; Person of Interest 1.19 - "Flesh and Blood"
Notes: Because I was rewatching some Season 1 for something else; and more headcanon for this 'verse revealed itself.
Summary: The day Mr. Dresden appeared on the front steps of the Library, it had been more than a decade since my last overt involvement in the supernatural world. 1500 words.
The day Mr. Dresden appeared on the front steps of the Library, it had been more than a decade since my last overt involvement in the supernatural world.
I have always led something of a partitioned life, separating identity from purpose as thoroughly as I can, the better to preserve both. That is undoubtedly why I first came to the attention of the Archive; it is certainly the reason I ended up serving four generations of its avatars in one capacity or another.
The Archive has, over the course of its existence, learned to keep its hosts-- including future hosts, when possible-- distanced from excesses of feeling; to do otherwise is dangerous for an extremely powerful entity with thousands of years' worth of memories, augmented by the emotions of each successive life it has lived. The first avatar of the Archive I encountered was a coolly remote individual, eminently logical, endlessly observant; her abilities enabled her to know more about me than any other being in existence, but rather than experiencing fear at that revelation, I was awed by it. I had spent many years imagining a thinking, learning machine; in meeting the Archive, I knew that I would only be creating a poor copy of what magic had done before me. But that did not discourage me; if anything, it made me more determined to build an Archive for the mundane world.
The idea of using its information to act... came somewhat later. The Archive, after all, is bound to neutrality; the Machine, as it evolved, developed quite another purpose. But the bulk of its design, the comprehensiveness of its learning algorithms, its uncrackable integrity, can be traced back to that inspiration.
I took her offer of employment gladly. Her heir, then my age, was the closest I have ever come to a sister of the mind. The arrangement the Archive proposed between us was perhaps inevitable; in any case, it did not interfere with my duties as a Master Archivist, nor my alternate existence as Harold Wren, even when the Archive passed and said heir inherited the mantle in her turn. Not until her daughter-- never mine, though I do occasionally wonder if that would have made a difference-- fell in love, rebelling against the lack of passion she perceived in her mother's life.
On its own, that might not have proved a significant problem... but for the untimely car accident that followed, leaving a young woman of seventeen, pregnant and alone, to bear the weight of the Archive. Having met Grace, and John, and having lost Nathan, I understand her emotional state rather better now than I had at the time; but I fear I will never understand her reaction. Rather than watch her own daughter live the freedoms she had only just begun to grasp for herself, she chose to abdicate: to pass her burden to an infant not yet born. One whose first memory would necessarily be of her mother's last resentful breath.
I would have intervened then, if I could have. The newborn great-granddaughter of my first supernatural employer, the granddaughter of a woman I admired, in part my own flesh and blood: she was more than just the Archive to me, and my ability to compartmentalize had its limits even then. But I was not allowed. I was not even permitted to give her a name. And not even her bodyguard dared defy the White Council in the matter.
I shifted my identity to my primary alias the following day, and never once looked back.
...Or so I had told myself. The case of Leila Cruz had proved that a lie, digging deeply into old wounds. And to hear Mr. Dresden speak of the precious life I had been forced to abandon... to hear that at least two people in her life treated her like a human being, despite the White Council's best efforts to prevent that eventuality... I did not care what my face looked like, what I might be betraying by my reaction. I welcomed the gray-cloaked wizard into my sanctuary without further hesitation.
Mr. Dresden had been vetted by Kincaid, and introduced Ivy-- Ivy-- to his pet; whatever complications a Warden's interference might bring would be little enough to pay for such priceless intelligence. No matter how personal those complications might also become.
I had long known that John was aware of the supernatural; that had been part of the screening process the CIA used for those agents involved on the relevant end of the Machine's data, such awareness rendering them both more credulous regarding mysterious information sources and more able to follow the anonymous data to its conclusion. I had even suspected that he knew I had some connection to that world as well; abilities such as I have, however meager, are difficult to conceal entirely, and I had not always been careful in their use around him. But I had not spoken of my role in that world in all the months we'd worked together. Would he perceive that omission as a violation of my promise never to lie to him?
"Mr. Reese...." I began, eyeing him carefully as we headed for the Covenant Club, as previously planned, to observe the meeting of the heads of the Five Families. Mr. Dresden had his own contacts in the city to tap; it had not taken long to brief him on the threat posed by Elias and send him on his way with the intention of pursuing the problem from the less technological end, leaving John and I alone together once more.
"A Warden, Finch?" John cut me off, a note of warm amusement in his voice. "I knew there was more to you than met the eye, but I was under the impression that your, shall we say, less than explicable contacts were largely in the same line of work we are."
My eyebrows lifted. "I cannot imagine what may have given you that impression," I replied, taken aback. I had not maintained any contacts from my Archivist days, and had consistently brushed off the advances of the city's population of minor practitioners and inhuman residents. But he must have had some reason to make the connection.
"Oh? Then tall, blonde and deadly who stalked me for several days wasn't a friend of yours?" he replied, his tone still light and unconcerned.
A cube of ice formed in my gut; I nearly stumbled, and was not mollified by the careful hand immediately at my elbow. "Kincaid?" I blurted, horrified. Not by the fact of the man's presence in New York; but by the fact that he'd been stalking John. When not in the immediate service of the Archive-- a 'day job' he occasionally referred to, oddly enough, as 'paying the Rent'-- the man known as the Hellhound was one of the world's deadliest assassins.
"So you do know him," John replied, nodding calmly. "I thought as much, especially when your wizard mentioned him, too. Kind of a strange connection for a gray-cloak, though, as I said."
I gaped at him. "Mr. Dresden is hardly my wizard," I objected. I'd entirely missed the fact that he had mentioned Kincaid's name, in fact, as stunned as I had been by his other news. "And it isn't so much that I know him, as that...." I trailed off, unsure how to explain.
"Hmmm," John mused, considering. He was enjoying my discomposure, I could tell by the crinkled lines around his eyes. "He did say that you meant something to someone very important to him? Someone named Ivy, perhaps?"
"You spoke with him?" I stopped walking, feeling slightly faint. Kincaid had threatened John on my behalf? No-- he'd threatened John about me, on her behalf? It was almost too much to grasp. "And... if I may ask, what did you reply?"
The corner of John's mouth tucked up. "That I have nothing left to lose that you haven't given me," he shrugged.
I swallowed, and chose to address his earlier question. "When I was a part of that world, I worked for one of its neutral powers. Kincaid was... is, I suppose... her bodyguard. The current Archive... her grandmother was a very dear friend."
Something softened in John's face at that. "I see."
...I was beginning to believe that he did.
Whatever Kincaid reported to Ivy, whatever Mr. Dresden would tell her after this adventure... I wouldn't be able to maintain my distance any longer. The future trembled with magic, and with unexpected possibility; things I had thought left far behind by my own choices. I doubted I was ready to face the two halves of my existence finally colliding... but at least, it appeared, I would not be picking up the pieces alone.
"And John... nothing I had left had any meaning until I had someone else to give it to," I replied, gently.
Then we turned back to our mission. The Numbers-- especially these Numbers-- would not save themselves, after all.
(x-posted at AO3)
The day Mr. Dresden appeared on the front steps of the Library, it had been more than a decade since my last overt involvement in the supernatural world.
Title: Someone With The Skills To Intervene - Part 3
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: PG-13/T
Spoilers: Dresden Files circa but pre-"Changes"; Person of Interest 1.19 - "Flesh and Blood"
Notes: Because I was rewatching some Season 1 for something else; and more headcanon for this 'verse revealed itself.
Summary: The day Mr. Dresden appeared on the front steps of the Library, it had been more than a decade since my last overt involvement in the supernatural world. 1500 words.
The day Mr. Dresden appeared on the front steps of the Library, it had been more than a decade since my last overt involvement in the supernatural world.
I have always led something of a partitioned life, separating identity from purpose as thoroughly as I can, the better to preserve both. That is undoubtedly why I first came to the attention of the Archive; it is certainly the reason I ended up serving four generations of its avatars in one capacity or another.
The Archive has, over the course of its existence, learned to keep its hosts-- including future hosts, when possible-- distanced from excesses of feeling; to do otherwise is dangerous for an extremely powerful entity with thousands of years' worth of memories, augmented by the emotions of each successive life it has lived. The first avatar of the Archive I encountered was a coolly remote individual, eminently logical, endlessly observant; her abilities enabled her to know more about me than any other being in existence, but rather than experiencing fear at that revelation, I was awed by it. I had spent many years imagining a thinking, learning machine; in meeting the Archive, I knew that I would only be creating a poor copy of what magic had done before me. But that did not discourage me; if anything, it made me more determined to build an Archive for the mundane world.
The idea of using its information to act... came somewhat later. The Archive, after all, is bound to neutrality; the Machine, as it evolved, developed quite another purpose. But the bulk of its design, the comprehensiveness of its learning algorithms, its uncrackable integrity, can be traced back to that inspiration.
I took her offer of employment gladly. Her heir, then my age, was the closest I have ever come to a sister of the mind. The arrangement the Archive proposed between us was perhaps inevitable; in any case, it did not interfere with my duties as a Master Archivist, nor my alternate existence as Harold Wren, even when the Archive passed and said heir inherited the mantle in her turn. Not until her daughter-- never mine, though I do occasionally wonder if that would have made a difference-- fell in love, rebelling against the lack of passion she perceived in her mother's life.
On its own, that might not have proved a significant problem... but for the untimely car accident that followed, leaving a young woman of seventeen, pregnant and alone, to bear the weight of the Archive. Having met Grace, and John, and having lost Nathan, I understand her emotional state rather better now than I had at the time; but I fear I will never understand her reaction. Rather than watch her own daughter live the freedoms she had only just begun to grasp for herself, she chose to abdicate: to pass her burden to an infant not yet born. One whose first memory would necessarily be of her mother's last resentful breath.
I would have intervened then, if I could have. The newborn great-granddaughter of my first supernatural employer, the granddaughter of a woman I admired, in part my own flesh and blood: she was more than just the Archive to me, and my ability to compartmentalize had its limits even then. But I was not allowed. I was not even permitted to give her a name. And not even her bodyguard dared defy the White Council in the matter.
I shifted my identity to my primary alias the following day, and never once looked back.
...Or so I had told myself. The case of Leila Cruz had proved that a lie, digging deeply into old wounds. And to hear Mr. Dresden speak of the precious life I had been forced to abandon... to hear that at least two people in her life treated her like a human being, despite the White Council's best efforts to prevent that eventuality... I did not care what my face looked like, what I might be betraying by my reaction. I welcomed the gray-cloaked wizard into my sanctuary without further hesitation.
Mr. Dresden had been vetted by Kincaid, and introduced Ivy-- Ivy-- to his pet; whatever complications a Warden's interference might bring would be little enough to pay for such priceless intelligence. No matter how personal those complications might also become.
I had long known that John was aware of the supernatural; that had been part of the screening process the CIA used for those agents involved on the relevant end of the Machine's data, such awareness rendering them both more credulous regarding mysterious information sources and more able to follow the anonymous data to its conclusion. I had even suspected that he knew I had some connection to that world as well; abilities such as I have, however meager, are difficult to conceal entirely, and I had not always been careful in their use around him. But I had not spoken of my role in that world in all the months we'd worked together. Would he perceive that omission as a violation of my promise never to lie to him?
"Mr. Reese...." I began, eyeing him carefully as we headed for the Covenant Club, as previously planned, to observe the meeting of the heads of the Five Families. Mr. Dresden had his own contacts in the city to tap; it had not taken long to brief him on the threat posed by Elias and send him on his way with the intention of pursuing the problem from the less technological end, leaving John and I alone together once more.
"A Warden, Finch?" John cut me off, a note of warm amusement in his voice. "I knew there was more to you than met the eye, but I was under the impression that your, shall we say, less than explicable contacts were largely in the same line of work we are."
My eyebrows lifted. "I cannot imagine what may have given you that impression," I replied, taken aback. I had not maintained any contacts from my Archivist days, and had consistently brushed off the advances of the city's population of minor practitioners and inhuman residents. But he must have had some reason to make the connection.
"Oh? Then tall, blonde and deadly who stalked me for several days wasn't a friend of yours?" he replied, his tone still light and unconcerned.
A cube of ice formed in my gut; I nearly stumbled, and was not mollified by the careful hand immediately at my elbow. "Kincaid?" I blurted, horrified. Not by the fact of the man's presence in New York; but by the fact that he'd been stalking John. When not in the immediate service of the Archive-- a 'day job' he occasionally referred to, oddly enough, as 'paying the Rent'-- the man known as the Hellhound was one of the world's deadliest assassins.
"So you do know him," John replied, nodding calmly. "I thought as much, especially when your wizard mentioned him, too. Kind of a strange connection for a gray-cloak, though, as I said."
I gaped at him. "Mr. Dresden is hardly my wizard," I objected. I'd entirely missed the fact that he had mentioned Kincaid's name, in fact, as stunned as I had been by his other news. "And it isn't so much that I know him, as that...." I trailed off, unsure how to explain.
"Hmmm," John mused, considering. He was enjoying my discomposure, I could tell by the crinkled lines around his eyes. "He did say that you meant something to someone very important to him? Someone named Ivy, perhaps?"
"You spoke with him?" I stopped walking, feeling slightly faint. Kincaid had threatened John on my behalf? No-- he'd threatened John about me, on her behalf? It was almost too much to grasp. "And... if I may ask, what did you reply?"
The corner of John's mouth tucked up. "That I have nothing left to lose that you haven't given me," he shrugged.
I swallowed, and chose to address his earlier question. "When I was a part of that world, I worked for one of its neutral powers. Kincaid was... is, I suppose... her bodyguard. The current Archive... her grandmother was a very dear friend."
Something softened in John's face at that. "I see."
...I was beginning to believe that he did.
Whatever Kincaid reported to Ivy, whatever Mr. Dresden would tell her after this adventure... I wouldn't be able to maintain my distance any longer. The future trembled with magic, and with unexpected possibility; things I had thought left far behind by my own choices. I doubted I was ready to face the two halves of my existence finally colliding... but at least, it appeared, I would not be picking up the pieces alone.
"And John... nothing I had left had any meaning until I had someone else to give it to," I replied, gently.
Then we turned back to our mission. The Numbers-- especially these Numbers-- would not save themselves, after all.
(x-posted at AO3)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-09-06 01:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-08 09:44 pm (UTC)(For all that the characters' backgrounds are still full of mystery, the Person of Interest crew have very distinct voices, and so does Harry Dresden. Writing the eventual fourth, concluding chapter will be a lot more difficult if I go with the original plan of Kincaid; I might end up having to concede and go back to Harry.)
no subject
Date: 2014-09-09 11:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-12 05:44 pm (UTC)I have some ideas about the next bit, but the POV will be tricky, so I'm not sure when it'll happen. But this definitely isn't the end of it.
no subject
Date: 2015-11-02 05:06 am (UTC)Just re-read this series of POV vignettes. Now that I know what's up with PoI, I want to grab Finch and Reese both and hug them until they squeak.
And now I know how Reese knows what goes bump, at least in the Dresden 'verse.
Again, thank you so much for writing and sharing! And for getting me hooked on TV series I had no intention of watching (Leverage, Sleepy Hollow, Person of Interest).
no subject
Date: 2015-11-03 08:46 am (UTC)I've had trouble writing part 4 of this, because it begs to be Kincaid's part and I don't have a firm grasp on his POV. But I am really, really in love with this universe, as hard as it is on Finch and Reese by extension. *hugs them both* BUT HARRY MAKES EVERYTHING BETTER.