Title: Chasing Ghosts
Fandom: Person of Interest
Rating: G
Length: ~300 words
Content notes: Finch introspection. Mostly, extrapolation from this quote: "Before I... found you, the numbers haunted me." - Finch, POI 1x06.
Author notes: none
Summary: Finding the right person, even when you have all the knowledge in the world, is a tricky job.


Sometimes Finch wishes he could go back to the days before the machine. The days when he could have an unbroken night’s sleep, not haunted by numbers, columns of digits glaring at him in the darkness. They’re like words in a language he doesn’t understand, but the message behind each and every one of them is crystal clear.

He knows he can’t afford to feel every time a light goes out, but nonetheless, he needs to do something. He has a responsibility, a duty; if not to the world, then to the names and faces behind the numbers.

All the knowledge he has is useless if he doesn’t have someone who can go out there, help make sense of the numbers, help the lights stay on. He can’t do it alone, it’s too much.

He needs a person like him—except, better. Different in all the important ways. Unfortunately, he also already knows there isn’t another man like him in the world, let alone the city.
He stares at the computer sometimes, frustrated by knowing he has all the tools but no means of making them work together the way he needs them to. The machine’s a piece of modern magic, the best there is; but finding the man he needs is like trying to raise a ghost without a spellbook.

It’s September 2011, not a month or a year to inspire anything but gloom in him, so he doesn’t hope for much when the machine gives him another man’s name. He’s done this too many times, and he never believed in miracles in the first place.

Nevertheless, he makes the calls that need to be made, puts on his best shirt and tie, and goes out into the cold city. He finds himself turning his head in anticipation in spite of himself as the car approaches his quiet spot under the bridge.

Maybe Mr. Reese will be the one.