Reincarnation Part Two
Nathan
Harold couldn’t see across the lake, the sun low in the western sky and reflecting off the water in a golden-blue shimmer. He raised a hand to his eyes, blocking the late afternoon rays, to watch a sailboat pass. Further on to see the tree-lined far shore. This was Green Lake.
Nathan and he hadn’t been here in years. Finch, he’d only been Wren back then, recalled the times they’d spent together at the lake as if it were yesterday. The images were no longer distorted from the passage of time but fresh and alive, the sounds of the lapping water and of laughter echoing across the lake were no longer muted.
Harold looked about him; he was standing on the short wooden dock where they kept their old blue and silver Evinrude. Harold turned around and shook his head disbelievingly. It just couldn’t be! There on the shore not two hundred feet away stood their old cabin nestled amongst the pines, a thin line of smoke extending from the chimney skyward.
It had been razed decades ago, a new one built in it’s place before they had sold the property. The money from the sale sunk into their fledgling IFT, both of them too busy to take time off anymore to go fishing.
Yet, there it was before him. Harold was drawn toward it like a moth attracted to the light and started walking in its direction.
Finch had only taken a few steps when he noticed. His limp and the barely tolerable discomfort of just putting one foot in front of the other were gone. In disbelief he dropped his chin to look down; his hand immediately flew to the back of his neck. The scarring, the protrusions of metal just under his skin were gone too. Harold experimentally rotated his head side to side without having to twist his upper body. It was as if...he stepped close to the edge of the pier and stared at his reflection in the water below. It bent and twisted with the rippling of the water’s surface, but gazing back at him was twenty-two year old Harold Wren.
This just couldn’t be! His all too analytical mind screamed at him. He was middle-aged Harold Finch now and Nathan was gone. Harold turned once more to study the cabin. He didn’t understand it but he sensed somehow an explanation for why this was happening would be found in the old cottage.
Harold advanced cautiously, half expecting what he beheld before him to waver and disappear like a mirage in the desert. He really didn’t anticipate feeling firm ground beneath his feet or hearing the crunch his footfalls made on the gravel covered walkway. It was the same as he climbed the steps; the wooden handrail was worn smooth through years of use but solid in his grasp.
Finch debated with himself if he should knock or just go on in. Opting for the latter he pulled open the screened door, its hinges protesting with a loud screech. He turned the knob of the unlocked entryway and pushed it open gradually, then stepped inside.
There was a man standing at an old wood stove tending something frying in a cast iron skillet. Harold’s jaw dropped with shock when the man turned to look at him. The face smiling a welcome was his friend Nathan Ingram, a young Nathan Ingram.
“Hello, my friend. I’ve been waiting for you. Come in, sit down over here,” the Nathan of their youth waved him towards the old butcher block table. “Food’ll be ready in a minute. That is if I don’t burn it.” The blonde man chuckled in that low bass rumble Harold remembered so well. “Come on and sit down. I know you have questions, but please, sit first.”
Finch did as requested, sitting at his old spot at the table. Harold waited while Nathan dished up two plates of pan fried trout and golden fried potato and then sat down pushing one of the plates in front of him.
“Nathan where are we?” Harold couldn’t remain silent another moment. “You’re…” Finch paused not wanting to say the words.
“Dead? Yes I am and this place is kind of like a waiting area. I know you are thinking none of this can be real. It’s not real in an earthly, physical sense. It’s just this place is special. The best things that happened in your earthly life can be recreated here. And they can be just as real as they were when you were alive.”
“Nathan...am I...did the gunshot...kill me?” Harold didn’t think he wanted to hear the answer. He hadn’t expected to live, hadn’t really cared if he did, but still the finality of his life frightened him.
“No Harry, you’re not dead yet.” Finch smiled at the nickname, Nathan hadn’t called him that since college. “That’s why we are here in this place; things were different, better then. Our future was ahead of us; before both of us had messed things up.”
Harold was taken aback and thought to protest but Nathan raised a hand to silence him. “I’m not talking about starting IFT and making it the success it was, or building your machine and what happened because of it.” Young Nathan lifted his head to look directly at Harold, a sadness now filling his eyes. “I’m talking about us, what we did with our personal lives and what we did to ruin them.”
Nathan took a deep breath and let all the love and restrained longing show clearly in his eyes. “Harold, I wished you had said something, anything to let me know how you felt. Maybe we might have had a chance together, you and I. But I didn’t know. Maybe I wouldn’t have wasted all those years married to Olivia and cheating on her with any woman who took an interest in me. I was denying to myself what I really wanted and thought I could never have.”
Harold blinked in surprise, “But...but Nathan it was obvious. I was a pathetic, lovesick fool. Everyone on campus knew. They called me Ingram’s Faggot behind my back.”
Nathan shook his head. “It might have been obvious to you or the frat boys, but you never said anything to me. I thought it was one sided. You never told me they called you that. How was I to know you returned my love? I had never even known a gay person at that time much less how to recognize a man interested in me.”
Nathan’s face then radiated with hope for a brief moment. “I can’t lie to you. I want you to stay here in this place, with me. We have a chance to be together now.” Sadness filled Nathan’s eyes as if he accepted that it would never be.
“You have a decision to make Harold. I have to tell you everything. That’s the rules. I know someone’s replaced me in your heart and I have to tell you he needs you too, maybe more. He loves you.”
“John?” Harold's voice quivered sadly, remembering what happened between Reese and Detective Carter. “John doesn’t love me.”
“Harold, I know what you believe. But you’re wrong. Like what happened with us, John doesn’t know how you feel. He’s looking for something that he’ll never find anywhere else. Trust me.”
“How could he not know? We were...intimate.” Harold’s words were soured with the heartbreak. “We were, together, that morning. Then everything happened with Carter. I understood, I offered to be there for him, I loved him that much. Instead he just left me without a word.”
Nathan smiled ruefully, “Intimate? You had sex but never told him you loved him. How intimate is that? How many times did I have sex with someone I barely knew much less cared for? Harold, do you understand now? Just having sex with a person doesn’t mean you love or even care for them.”
“No Nathan.” Harold protested nodding his head negatively. “John knew. I did everything I could, even risked my life for him, to show him how much I loved him. It didn’t matter. He chose Detective Carter over me.”
Nathan grabbed Finch’s arm and shook it. “Same old Harry, keeping your feelings locked and hidden away from the ones who matter most. Haven’t you been listening?
Actions don’t always speak louder than words, dear friend.”
Harold pulled away from Nathan’s grasp and looked around the cozy room. “Maybe I should just stay here with you Nathan.” Harold choked out. “John never told me he loved me either. Maybe I fooled myself into believing he did. I know now that you do. I can’t go back Nathan, to someone who may never truly be mine, when everything I wanted with you I can have.”
Nathan reached out and held Harold's hand between his two larger ones. “There’s nothing I want more. It’s just...it’s not what you want. I won’t let you settle. You need to at least tell John how you feel. Tell him. He knows you would never lie to him.”
Harold looked at Nathan’s strong, elegant fingers with their slight tan. John always managed to keep his tan year round. Harold looked up, realizing he was thinking of John even as his mouth was promising to stay with Nathan. “I love him. I tried to show it like when I romanced Grace but men are different aren't they?”
Nathan smiled with shining eyes, “Men can be dense, especially your type: tall, handsome, fabulous hair, but not real bright.”
Harold smiled then frowned. “How can you be so sure John still feels anything for me? He kissed Carter. Maybe he got tired of waiting for me?”
Nathan tilted his head as if he heard something off in the distance. “I think I know someone who can answer that for you.”
~*~
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue