Harold and Zoe have an unspoken agreement that they don't discuss work. When they return to either Finch's townhouse or her appartment and the door shuts behind them then they manage to do a decent facsimile of a normal nine to five couple. It doesn't really work if either of them take the time to think about it of course. They never come home at the same time for one thing. Harold can and does track her movements, something Zoe chooses to ignore. She knows that he won't use the knowledge against her, and of them both he has the most to lose if it came to a breach of trust. She's also pretty sure that if a job goes south there'll be a man in a suit taking out anyone who dares to threaten her physically faster than she could call 911. And of course there's the small matter that if Harold is a "white hat" then hers would be a very muddy shade of gray.

Both of them get urgent phone calls at odd hours of the evening and early hours of the morning that have to be taken; carefully prepared dinners are often left abandoned because of one emergency or another, and more irritatingly the term "coitus interruptus" should be shortened to "cellphone" Zoe has decided. Harold changed her ring tone to "Stop! In the Name of Love" by the Supremes after hearing her swearing like a sailor while trying to locate her panties, drag a brush through her hair and ignore the naked man in the bed watching her with amusement. It made her smile even though the next time her phone went off it was when she was in a meeting with a senator who did not look impressed at such silliness.

So when Harold asked her for help on a case Zoe agreed without a second thought. After her last weeks work extracting a politician from a well deserved sex scandal it was nice to think that she was helping to do some good. The research on Caroline Turing was basic stuff. The psychologist seemed to have a knack of attracting the sort of clients that spelled bad news, and the likelihood that one of them were dangerous wasn't hard to guess. Narrowing down the suspects Zoe tried not to smile when Finch set up a meeting at a bar for her and John. She knew that Harold was a little insecure and a touch jealous when it came to her and Reese; he'd heard them flirting before, and yes, were it not for the fact that both of them did it now more out of habit than any real interest he might have had cause for worry – they did after all make a good looking couple. But... John only has eyes for Carter and she only has eyes for Harold. Nonetheless she gave her myopic genius an extra lingering kiss before grabbing her coat and heading out.

"She's cute." Zoe looks down at the slender dark haired woman nibbling on a chocolate tart from her vantage point. Beside her Reese is well, Reese. Pretending as though every female isn't tracking him as he stands oh so nonchalantly by the window. He's even got the soulful angst in his eyes to go with the tall dark and handsome package. Zoe resists the urge to giggle. Give him a frilly shirt and a sword and he could have come from one of the Harlequin romances her mom read secretly. She wonders when tidy hair became a turn-off.

Zoe runs down what she knows about Ms. Turing's patients which is at once too much and not enough information. This one was obviously a case where Reese would have to actually get up close and personal with the target. A Psychologist? Oh come on that's practically begging for a quip.

"I don't think that there is a woman alive that could fix you, John." He doesn't make a retort about Detective Carter who is often sharing his bed these days and Zoe inwardly sighs. Fine. Don't play, then. Don't even bother to buy a gal a drink. One of these days she's going to get Joss nice and drunk and pump her for information. John was entirely too smug for his own good. There isn't much else to say and she leaves him to his surveillance. He nods politely and she knows that he's dying to make a comment about her and Finch but dares not since his employer is listening in to their conversation. Harold might be a seemingly mild mannered man, but John knows that when riled he's quite capable of rearranging both his and Detective Carter's schedules so that they barely see each other for a week.


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It's not difficult for Zoe to break into the psychologist's office – for a woman who apparently was so careful with her cyber security you'd think that Caroline'd have spent a little more on the lock protecting her office, she thinks. Since the ex-patient been eliminated as a threat, Harold needed a little more information of the tangible kind, and lets face it she was far better equipped at both stealth and charm than he was. The short red dress wouldn't hurt if a security guard stumbled across her either.

The advertisement masquerading as a treasured photograph provides the first stab of fear. What she finds on computer sends her into full-blown panic.

Harold's cellphone is turned off, John's, thankfully is not. She tells him what she knows and he hangs up tries Harold's number again. No luck. She's going to have to wait until one of them managed to contact her – ringing Reese if he happened to be in the middle of a gun-fight could get him killed. But he's not it a gun-fight, they're both fine. Reese will get to Harold in time. Zoe feels itchy and hot. Her heart is thudding against her chest and there doesn't seem to be enough oxygen in the air. Dimly she wonders if the air conditioning unit is broken.

Breaking herself out of her trance Zoe takes a deep breath and looks around the small office. She can't stay here much longer; the security guards were lax but they weren't non-existent. She grabs the laptop - the files might have been deleted but she knows people who can find things on computers that should have been erased. Flicking quickly through the filing cabinets she can't find anything but patient records. There might be some that are coded, Zoe thinks, but there are too many to carry and they all look the same. She settles for taking a few at random, tucking them under her arm with the laptop and exiting the office with a confidence that would fool anyone who happened to run into her in the hallway. No-one pays her a second glance when she steps out of the elevator and makes her way past the security desk. When the first taxi she flags down stops she finds herself wanting to kiss the driver and settles on tipping him extravagantly instead.


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John had been very kind. In a John way at least – a couple of "I'm going to get him back statements" and a brief squeeze of her shoulder before leaving her be. He's got a lot to lose if Harold didn't come back too, Zoe acknowledges reluctantly. But he's not the one in love with him.

The thought makes her slightly sick.

Zoe can smooth over the CEO of a major bank's predilection for statuesque transvestites without making it look like a total farce when he poses with his wife for the New York Times. She can make or break political candidates depending on whether she wants to take on their cause or not. She's been offered diamonds by princes and had diplomats literally on their knees in-front of her.

And none of that really matters because she never told a short little man with a clever brain and sharp blue eyes that she loves him.

She sits on the edge of the bed where they had made love that morning and stares at the bottle of painkillers on the bedside table. Harold should have had one at least two hours ago. Wherever he is then he's got to be hurting, and he's not dead, not dead, because even she can't fix that.

Zoe's made too many deals with the devil to ask for any favours from God, but Harold, she thinks as she finally falls asleep shortly before dawn. Surely he's got a few to call in...

Harold has never slept well. In his younger days there didn't seem quite enough room in his brain for all the ideas that seemed to multiply within it. Although he didn't have many friends at school one of the few he did – a fellow outcast due to unfortunate acne but with better social skills than he had, compared him to a bottle rocket. "The top of your head is going to blow clean off one of these days," Toby had said wisely. "You've got to stop thinking so much." He'd tried to interest Harold in a purloined and very well thumbed Playboy magazine to no avail. While the women were certainly pretty, Harold acknowledged, Nikola Tesla's biography was a lot more interesting.

At MIT he and Nathan stayed up until the early hours debating and occasionally arguing. The sparks that they struck off each other became brief, bright hypotheses that quickly fizzled and died or debates which had them both planning. In later years Finch acknowledged that the seeds from which The Machine grew were planted in those years. Heady days when they were both a little drunk and sat in the grubby little apartment they shared. Back then it felt like they were putting the world to rights and only needed the money to put it into practice. They thought that they could change the world, and, he thinks ruefully perhaps they did.

The Machine kept him awake at night while it was in its early stages. Such a beautiful, complex, impossible dream of a thing. In the beginning Harold is now self aware enough to acknowledge that the "could we?" far outweighed the "should we?" Nathan had the money, he had the vision, and really legalities and privacy laws aside The Machine was made with the best of intentions. It was supposed to save lives. And it did. After all he had trained what had started out as a lot of wiring and ended up becoming so much more. You don't train machines, you order them to do things with a click of a mouse or a simple key-stroke. His creation apparently hadn't read that particular handbook. But it was glorious. A marvel. Sitting at a casino table while his creation watched him, advised him on his play and afterwards saved his life – perhaps that was what God felt like when he saw Adam take his first steps in the garden of Eden.

When the numbers started coming that was when the nightmares started. All those people that didn't matter in the grand scheme of things according to the government. If he hadn't clicked upon one of the numbers out of curiosity and seen the murdered woman's face in the newspaper the next day perhaps he could have kept them separate. Just numbers not people. It turned out he wasn't wired that way. Too late now. Doctor Frankenstein turned his creation loose, he at least had the chance to keep a part of it for himself and the greater good.

After both he and Nathan died, on paper at least, Harold hobbled out of the ashes of what they had done; a fragile phoenix with only one wing and a thirst for flight. Recruiting John Reese was both easy and difficult. The man was a gun-dog. He needed salvation, needed a cause and needed to be needed. John could do what he could not both physically and ethically. Harold had not anticipated actually growing to care for the man however. When he was shot he didn't even question the lunacy of racing to rescue his friend despite the fact that if he too was killed the machine would continue to churn of the numbers of victims with no-one to even acknowledge them.

And then there was Zoe.

Beautiful, clever, devious Zoe.

Zoe who took him to breakfast once, stole his every morning since then and kept him awake because sometimes it was nice just to wake up and make sure that she was real.


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Harold blinks dry eyes and concentrates on Root. He's already seen her kill two people; he can only guess at the true body count in her wake. The house that she has essentially stolen from the woman in the restaurant is really rather beautiful. If he hadn't been sharing it with a mad woman and there wasn't a dead man in the hallway he might have enjoyed the view. His hand throbs where she had cut him but its nothing compared to the pain in his neck and back. The psychopath formally known as Caroline Turing is faster than him at the best of times. There is no way that he's going to get the drop on her without divine intervention, and even though he knows that she won't kill him he's fairly certain that she'd take a page out of Reese's handbook when it came to incapacitating him. Since he likes his kneecaps in one piece Harold looks out of the window and lets his mind wander for a moment.

Zoe has a dress a few shades lighter than the sea below, he thinks. She wore it on the first time they went out in public as a proper couple together. Of course it wasn't really "public" per se. A dark little Italian restaurant followed by a comedy club meant that not many people noticed them. Zoe was definitely overdressed but he told her truthfully that she was beautiful and her eyes shone. When she laughed out loud at the female comedienne in the grubby theatre it was hard not to stop smiling himself even though he thought the jokes were terrible.

Zoe is a fixer – that was the reason that he first let her take him to breakfast. Let her pay whatever debt she thought she owed and she'd be less likely to keep digging around in an effort to find him. The last thing he needed was her uncovering something she shouldn't; it was difficult enough juggling Carter and Fusco. Meeting Zoe Morgan in the flesh was a lot different from seeing a grainy image on a computer screen though. It wasn't that she was beautiful, it was the way in which she tried to get a handle on him. He watched her try flirtation and a tiny furrow appear between her brows when he feigned indifference. With every angle she tried he remained stoically impassive until she obviously just gave up any pretence and was just herself. When he offered to take her for a walk she looked a little dubious, and why wouldn't she have been? She turned heads, he barely merited a second glance.

They were both ambivalent about the art gallery. She argued passionately in defence of Rossetti's art and the poetry of William Blake when Harold was dismissive of them both of being overly dramatic. After seeing the way her cheeks coloured and her eyes flashed he made up arguments against them just to rile her up further. When she invited him to go home with her he almost asked her if she was mad.

Sex had been the last thing on his mind when he had joined her for breakfast, and had he known it was on the menu then he wouldn't have gone. After dinner Zoe had asked him to stay and led him out of the kitchen and up the stairs. In her beautiful bedroom with its cherry wood sleigh bed and simple furnishings Harold sat upon the bed and fumbled with his waistcoat. The lighting was dim, but even so he could see his reflection on the big mirror by the door. When Zoe stepped beside him clad only in peach lingerie, her skin glowing opalescent in the faint light, all long sleek lines and dark eyes he couldn't help thinking of "Beauty and the Beast". She didn't say anything, stripped him of his clothing and climbed on top of him. He didn't last long the first time. It had been too long and she was so sweet, hot and tight. Zoe didn't seem to mind; she yawned contentedly and went to sleep beside him for a couple of hours. When Harold woke her later she was eager enough, curling one leg around his hip and letting him inside her. This time he waited until she was close, pulled her up until her body was flush against the headboard and made her come with his mouth before letting her back down. When she clenched around his cock he knew that she wasn't faking anything. That was the first night. Harold remembered the last when after a long day he'd run Zoe a bath and she'd practically dragged him into the tub with her after he'd spent a sinfully long time washing her.

No not last. That would imply that they would never see each other again.

He's going to see her cry at that stupid advertisement with the kitten in it again, he's going to feel her cuddle up to him at night and try to cheat at scrabble. He's going to watch her go out to some ridiculously over the top party while on the job and do it with style, out foxing those that underestimate her and then come back to him because she wants to not because he asks her to.

He's also not going to make the same mistake he did with Grace. He's not going to die before Zoe knows that he loves her.

He looks over at Root. She's humming away while tapping on her laptop. How could such potential have been led so terribly astray? Harold wonders. The knowledge that there are some that would say the exact same thing about him doesn't go unrecognised.

"Sorry. Whoever wiped this really knew what they were doing; I'm not even getting data fragments." Wesley's tone is apologetic and Zoe does her best to smile at him. It's not his fault that whoever had kidnapped Harold was some sort of computer genius, and giving him the laptop she'd taken from Caroline Turing's office was a long shot at best. Root was clever, probably smarter than she was, Zoe acknowledges. After all Root had stayed off the machine's radar until she wanted to be found and that's not something she herself could claim.

"I could... Shit." The young man runs a hand through long dirty blond hair and shrugs in defeat. "Really Zoe I wish I could help but there's nothing here to work with."

"It's alright, thanks for trying." Zoe shifts a little on the bed she and Wesley are sat on. The kid definitely needs to get to the laundromat, she thinks. Most of the floor of his tiny bedroom is covered in t-shirts with eighties band logos and Manga comics featuring cartoon women with gravity defying breasts. It definitely didn't look like the home of a college student with a terrifyingly high IQ and an unfortunate propensity for hacking into government data bases. "How's school?"

The blond shrugs and offers her the laptop. "Easy. Boring. Since you got me out of hacking you took a lot of the fun out of things."

Zoe gives him the side-eye and doesn't take the proffered computer.

"But since I don't want to spend the rest of my life wearing an orange jumpsuit and I'm into women rather than scary men in prison who want to make me their bitch I'm living crime free," Wesley adds. He waggles the computer at her. "Don't you want it?" There's the unmistakable hint of flirtation in his voice. At any other time Zoe would put him in his place with a single sharp quip. It's a familiar dance they do and her lack of interest in sparring obviously concerns the young man that she considers a friend. Albeit a friend who could be a serious threat if he was allowed a couple of spliffs and an incentive to crack the nation's security codes.

"You really want to find this guy?" Wesley's brow furrows. " Are you two, Y'know?"

No, she didn't know. Didn't know where Harold was, didn't know how to define their relationship, didn't even know if he was alive.

"He's a friend. You can keep the laptop." Zoe rises from the bed and picks her way over the detritus strewn over the floor. "I'm amending our agreement. If you want me to keep paying your tuition then there's a mandatory once a week laundry stipulation. This place is a pig-sty."

"The laundrette is like half a mile away," Wesley whines.

"It's in the next block," Zoe says firmly before shutting the door behind her. Getting the last word in with a twenty-one year old isn't something to be proud of, but at the moment she'll take any distraction she can get. The files she had taken were a bust; essentially photocopies from a template with the names changed before they were given new numbers and tucked into the filing cabinet. John and Carter were off to Texas on a lead and not answering their phones.

There are thousands of square miles in Texas alone and apparently somewhere within them is Harold. The thought that she is the one sitting passively and waiting for news does not sit well, but she's run out of options.

When Fusco shows up at her door with a dog in tow Zoe raises an eyebrow and takes it so that he can get back to his job. Apparently "Wonder Boy", Lionel's words not hers ( there is nothing boyish about John, either physically, or mentally, but Reese's history and problems are Carter's to unravel now. And good luck to her) has acquired a dog.

A dog called Bear.

It's not remotely bear-like; neither shaggy nor badly behaved. Zoe has seen dogs like him before and wonders why it is so happy to be around her. Either security or military trained, she thinks. It wags its tail when she gives it the steak that is almost past its sell by date from the refrigerator and lets her pet him tentatively, but she's not stupid enough to dismiss it as a cute, cuddly new friend. Neither John nor Fusco would have kept it if the dog had been truly dangerous though. When she takes him to the library she lets him run around and get excited about all the different smells. It rips up a couple of books obviously chancing it's luck but she stops him with a firm "no"before the dog can destroy the encyclopedias.

There's nothing to do, no way to bring Harold back. Every avenue of investigation has been exhausted. All she can do is wait for John or Joss to contact her. Curling up in the worn leather chair in the library, Zoe pushes away the memories of the last time she felt so helpless. Bear brings her a slightly chewed first edition and she smooths his ears and ignores the drool. Harold would be pissed but she can live with that. Better him saying something snarky about her letting a dog turn his precious library into a chew toy than saying nothing at all.

It's sort of nice that the dog leaps up and growls when the door downstairs opens. Reaching for her purse Zoe checks the chamber of her Glock and takes the safety off. Marilyn Monroe might have thought that diamonds were a girl's best friend but Zoe knows better – calibre is better than carats, at least in her line of work and she can buy her own damn jewellery.

The two people entering the library are familiar; Bear wags his tail, if she had one then she'd probably do the same.

Mr Tall Dark and Handsome and Him.

She's fairly certain that she said something to John and he said something back to her but really all that matters is that Harold is there. Alive, perhaps not particularly well, but there.

Bear trots off behind John when he makes his excuses and leaves, but that's alright; they were both substitutes for the company they really wanted. Zoe makes a mental note to keep some spare beef in the freezer and she's pretty sure that the dog will be friendly the next time that they meet.

"I see you've turned my library into a petting zoo in my absence. One with expensive tastes." Finch eyes the half chewed book that Bear had abandoned. "Should I be prepared for goats in the bathroom or Llamas in the.."

"Shut up." It only takes Zoe three steps before her arms are around his neck and her cheek is against his. He smells a bit. Sweat and fear, she knows the fragrance. His jawline is scratchy but she rubs her cheek against it anyway. "Are you okay?" Tears threaten to escape and she bites her lip to stop herself from crying.

"I am now." He nuzzles her neck and one hand comes up to smooth her hair. "I missed you."

"Missed you too." The words come out in a choked sob and Zoe gives up trying not to cry. Harold is going to have to change anyway so it probably doesn't matter if she gets snot and tears all over his jacket. Actually if she hides all his clothes then he wouldn't be able to go anywhere at all ever again. She dismisses the thought as soon as it occurs. Might make things a bit awkward when John or Fusco visit. Wiping her face with her sleeve she's pretty sure that her mascara is smeared over her cheeks and she looks ridiculous.

"Hey." Harold's voice is so soft that she wouldn't have heard him if she wasn't so close. When he gently pushes her back it takes Zoe a moment to remember to untangle her hands from the fabric clutched in her hands. When she looks at him there's something in his eyes that makes it impossible for her to breathe. "I love you Zoe."

Well there you go,woman, Zoe thinks. You're completely and totally fucked. It feels pretty wonderful.

"I love you too." The words are trite – if this had been a movie scene she wouldn't have much respect for the writers, but it's the only thing that seems honest to say. Playing hard to get seems a bit pointless when she's trying not to collapse at Harold's feet in a puddle of emotion. "You need a shower." It's a half hearted attempt at being snarky, but he smiles nonetheless.

"I might need a hand with that."

She laughs and pulls him forward for a kiss. "I'll give you more than just a hand."

Zoe gives up on the idea of giving Harold a shower. He's obviously in pain and too tired to stand up for long; a bath would be ideal but she's pretty sure that he'd either fall asleep or be unable to get out of the small tub afterwards. Slight of build he might be, but Zoe knows that she's not strong enough to pick him up by herself even if he'd let her, and if she had to ring John for help it would cross a line all three of them had become comfortable with by not acknowledging to each other. Instead she gives him his pain pills, helps him to the bathroom and wads a towel up before placing both it and Harold on the toilet seat.

She kneels down and undoes the laces of his shoes before removing both of them and his socks. He brushes a hand lightly over her hair, and Zoe nuzzles his knee with her cheek.

Don't try and run your hands through my hair unless you want to get your fingers stuck though, mister. She smiles at the idea and kind of wants to find a brush. Or a comb. Or an appointment with Marion at the hair salon who only has to look at her hair to subdue it into silky submission.

He settles for resting his hand on the nape of her neck, however. When she looks up his eyes are half closed. Those clever blue eyes watching her blearily from beneath dark lashes. Removing the rest of his clothing is easy, although Harold grunts with pain when he has to lift his hips for her to get his pants and boxer shorts off. Zoe resists the urge to dump the armful of clothing in the trash and puts it in the laundry bag instead.

Bear watches her curiously but that's alright, he's only halfway through demolishing "Breaking Dawn" and so isn't likely to start on the rest of the young adult section of the library before Reese gets back. He's got food, he's got water in what is probably a fake Ming Dynasty era bowl. She gives him a scratch behind the ears before hunting through the drawers in Harold's little bedroom and finding a t-shirt and boxer shorts. Zoe doesn't really care about Harold's scars, but he does, and while she prefers to sleep naked it's an anathema to him.

The little bedroom in what was probably a storage room isn't much. A big bed with an ancient frame and a bespoke mattress. No books, no trinkets. There's a little side table made of dark wood but nothing is upon it. Zoe turns up the sheet and blanket, smoothing down the material. Expensive Egyptian cotton and a quilt that could have either been inherited or bought at a craft fair. The room is warm, the light through the window golden and softening the edges of the sturdy but not elegant bed.

Despite the ancient plumbing in the library it doesn't take long before the water runs hot into the sink. Zoe strips down to her underwear, partly because Gucci is Gucci even if it is wrinkled and the dog has drooled on it, but mostly because she wants skin against skin when it comes to Harold.

"Zoe, don't." He tries to take the washcloth from her hand when she starts to clean him up. "I can do it."

For a moment she wavers between wanting to help him and acknowledging that the last thing he needs is to have is his control taken away again. Zoe gives him the cloth and doesn't watch while he cleans and dries himself. He doesn't need her help to get dressed.

The tiles on the bathroom floor are cold beneath her bottom when she sits down, the reflection of the top of her head in the mirror above the sink just that little bit so skewed that she shakes her head slightly to make sure that this isn't a dream.

But maybe it is.

Nope.

When she lifts her head and looks again at the mirror she's got dark circles under her eyes and her hair is a mess. She wouldn't dream that. She wouldn't dream Harold watching her from a toilet seat with quietly amused patience either.

"Zoe." His voice is soft, kind. "I'm tired and I'm sure you are too."She takes his hand when he holds it out to her and leads her hesitantly to the bedroom. Bear doesn't take much notice, but then unless there was an immediate threat he wouldn't. Once they're tucked beneath the covers Zoe curls up behind him and lets Harold take her hand and press it against his chest. His skin is cool to the touch, his short hair tickles her cheek and is a little abrasive, but she nuzzles her cheek against the nape of his neck anyway.

"Don't go." His voice is so quiet that she wouldn't have heard it if she hadn't been so close.

With the light fading from the window with the curtains she hadn't bothered to pull and Harold's heart a steady pulse beneath her palm, Zoe has the sad, awful feeling that just her being here was a miracle to him.

And oh, he deserved so much more.

"I love you," she whispers quietly, kissing his shoulder. "I'll be here in the morning."

He doesn't say anything but he doesn't let go of her hand either.


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When Carter takes her up on her offer for breakfast Zoe is a little surprised but also intrigued. She picks a little diner that does decent coffee and amazing blueberry pancakes and orders for the both of them, mostly because she knows that Joss likes coffee and won't order a proper breakfast unless she's given it on a plate literally speaking.

She's halfway through her first cup of tea and has finished her own plate of pancakes before the detective enters the establishment. The pretty woman frowns when she enters, surveying the cheap linoleum and grubby windows before she spots Zoe, sliding into the seat opposite her.

"Not exactly what I'd think would be your scene."

Zoe pushes a plate of pancakes towards her guest and watches while Carter drenches them in maple syrup from the dispenser on the table before swallowing a carefully cut triangle of sinfully sweet batter.

"Get it now?"

"You're evil." Joss pokes her fork towards Zoe. "Taylor is on a healthy eating kick. Getting addicted to pancakes isn't going to help." It doesn't stop her from finishing the rest of them though. "So..." Carter raises a perfectly arched eyebrow and takes a sip of her latte. "How's Harold doin'?"

Zoe pours another cup of tea. The question might be innocuous enough but the woman sat opposite her is a detective and so every question she asks is well thought out and every answer she gives will be ruthlessly analysed.

"Fine." She gives Joss a quick smile before taking a sip of her drink. It's too hot to actually swallow but it's a brilliant delaying tactic. Zoe can almost see the wheels turning behind the other woman's large dark eyes.

"Fine." Joss echoes. Her tone is one of scepticism and she slumps backwards into the overly padded booth with a sigh. "You two make a really weird couple y'know."

"There's a saying about people who live in glass houses," Zoe retorts mildly.

Joss gives up after that. She rolls her eyes but the corners of her mouth twitch upwards in a smile. "Is Harold keeping the dog?"

"Bear." Zoe gives an elegant shrug. "So long as it doesn't chew through his signed first edition of "Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone" then I think so. I'm surprised John didn't try and give it to you – he's somewhat overprotective towards you and your son."

"Overprotective?" Joss gives a small snort of irritation. "He tried to give me an AK-47 the other day. Seriously. Because when you are are a cop and have a teenaged son, illegally obtained high calibre firepower is what you need in your house."

"I take it you refused his generous offer." Zoe doesn't bother trying to hide her grin. An argument between Carter and Reese would be so entertaining that she'd probably buy tickets for it. They're both too professional to be anything but cool together in public usually, but it's quite nice listening to Joss vent a little to someone who understands.

"Damn right I did. I'm a cop, he can take that vigilante shit elsewhere."

"Bending the rules is different to breaking them." Zoe holds up a hand when Joss opens her mouth to argue. "Hey I'm not judging, I'm with you on this. John's an alpha male; a few thousand years ago he'd probably have given you a really big stick for protection instead."

"And Harold?" Carter's eyes dance with amusement. "What would he do for you?"

"Probably create some sort of complicated contraption out of stones and vines to protect our cave." Zoe sips her tea. "This conversation is ridiculous."

"Yeah." Carter picks up a sugar packet, shakes it and puts it back into the bowl on the table. Her eyes are dark and sly when she meets Zoe's. " Harold's into Harry Potter? Really?"

"Skinny guy with glasses saving the world. I can get the appeal." The blonde tries not to smile. "John would make a pretty good Sirius Black."

"Better than Gary Oldman. Anyway you're stuck with an actual dog."

"True. And the genius millionaire who saves the world and happens to be quite spectacular in bed." One of the waitresses obviously overhears her and spills half a cup of coffee on the floor while walking past, giving her a startled look. Zoe responds with a genial smile and doesn't look at Joss who is obviously trying not to burst out laughing.

"It's a TV show." Zoe picks up the napkins that the young brunette dropped and hands them back to her. "I guess you don't watch it."

The waitress laughs and heads back to the kitchen. "I wish I had time for TV. " her brown eyes are amused and innocent. "It's a nice idea though isn't it? The whole Robin Hood, Batman thing."

"It is." Zoe tucks two twenties under her empty plate and says goodbye to Carter. They aren't friends, not yet, but give it time and she thinks that they might be.

The sky is a pretty peach yellow behind the skyscrapers and she gives a nod to the traffic camera at the junction at the end of the street. Harold probably isn't watching, but she kind of gets a kick out of playing with the machine if he is. Maybe there's a God watching, maybe there isn't. At least she knows that there's someone out there who cares.