[ Harold is nervous. Extremely nervous. It's completely foreign for him to reach out at all, for support or alliance or even to make enemies, frankly. He's a frightfully reserved person who hasn't used his real name since he was seventeen. He's lost-- is everything an exaggeration? It doesn't feel like it.
He can't see Grace again, Nathan is dead, and he can't bear to communicate with the Machine. It had pushed him not to go through with his awful revenge plan on Alicia Corwin, who truly didn't deserve it, was the messenger and not the author... and still Harold couldn't face what he'd made. Not really. He got the output, the irrelevant numbers, and he stared at them stymied from his wheelchair as he tried to muster up the courage to do something, anything, about them.
It's some months later from that point, and he has found some courage. He's done things; he's tried. But he's still so frightfully alone. He's worried that he'll fall back into that same dark place he'd been in when he'd decided to suffocate Alicia Corwin in her own vehicle. Harold hadn't ever thought he had that in himself, and confronting that made him also confront that he was responsible for preventing it from happening again. How close was he to repeating that with some offender he runs across while working the irrelevant numbers? How close was he really? He needs a safe outlet to be sure.
A registered Companion seemed the lesser of all possible evils for spilling his guts. They were famously and notoriously discreet, and the idea of therapy made him feel ill. Harold supports psychotherapy as a practice, of course. He'd encourage anyone else to go. But he knows that counseling will want to have the end goal of him moving on, and...
He doesn't want to.
So he finds himself meeting Inara Serra, someone he'd meticulously researched before choosing, on a mid-tier planet on a ramshackle ship. He's not about to chance anyone too connected to the establishment, so this choice is deliberate. He's dressed immaculately as Harold Crane, higher brow than usual, and he has a cane that he doesn't use for support despite his limp as he makes his way on board. He has a remote expression, distant, the best coping mechanism he knows.
Despite his air of aloofness, he's impeccably courteous as he greets Inara at her door, inclining his head respectfully. ]
Ms. Serra, thank you for agreeing to this engagement. I'm sure your time is precious.
no subject
He can't see Grace again, Nathan is dead, and he can't bear to communicate with the Machine. It had pushed him not to go through with his awful revenge plan on Alicia Corwin, who truly didn't deserve it, was the messenger and not the author... and still Harold couldn't face what he'd made. Not really. He got the output, the irrelevant numbers, and he stared at them stymied from his wheelchair as he tried to muster up the courage to do something, anything, about them.
It's some months later from that point, and he has found some courage. He's done things; he's tried. But he's still so frightfully alone. He's worried that he'll fall back into that same dark place he'd been in when he'd decided to suffocate Alicia Corwin in her own vehicle. Harold hadn't ever thought he had that in himself, and confronting that made him also confront that he was responsible for preventing it from happening again. How close was he to repeating that with some offender he runs across while working the irrelevant numbers? How close was he really? He needs a safe outlet to be sure.
A registered Companion seemed the lesser of all possible evils for spilling his guts. They were famously and notoriously discreet, and the idea of therapy made him feel ill. Harold supports psychotherapy as a practice, of course. He'd encourage anyone else to go. But he knows that counseling will want to have the end goal of him moving on, and...
He doesn't want to.
So he finds himself meeting Inara Serra, someone he'd meticulously researched before choosing, on a mid-tier planet on a ramshackle ship. He's not about to chance anyone too connected to the establishment, so this choice is deliberate. He's dressed immaculately as Harold Crane, higher brow than usual, and he has a cane that he doesn't use for support despite his limp as he makes his way on board. He has a remote expression, distant, the best coping mechanism he knows.
Despite his air of aloofness, he's impeccably courteous as he greets Inara at her door, inclining his head respectfully. ]
Ms. Serra, thank you for agreeing to this engagement. I'm sure your time is precious.