A/N: After the final episode, this idea struck me. It takes place about seven to eight years before the series (Darius is 32 and Harris is 33.). I won't get into all of the thought processes that went into writing this (probably will later on Tumblr, though), except that for me the final ten minutes of the show had some key character moments, particularly between Harris and Darius. It does mention a couple things from "The C-Student" but these aren't critical to the understanding of the story.

TW: So this story deals with depression and has an implied suicide attempt.

Please read, relax, and enjoy.

Change the Ambience

Harris found out about the passing of Claudia Tanz not from her son, but from the news. It was little surprise, though, as he and Darius had spent the last seven years barely speaking to each other. He knew how close Darius and his mother were. It was a connection that only became deeper when she fell ill, finally doing what Nicholas couldn't in pulling Darius from his day-to-day existence in Florida with Harris, back to England. That had been the beginning of the end of their friendship. Darius had all too easily fallen in with Nicholas and hurt his relationship with Tess beyond repair.

At twenty-five, Darius became the loneliest man in DC.

Now, at thirty-two, Darius' mother dead for a week, Harris knew he needed to find the man, even if that meant arguing all day and night with his assistant and security to get inside the Treehouse. Since the funeral, there'd been few public sightings of Darius and in each, he'd lacked his usual vibrancy. Darius put up a good front for the public but Harris knew better and he knew Darius was alone. Before trying proper channels, however, he would try the back door, Darius' secret entrance known only to those with a passcode. His might not work from back when the Treehouse was first built and he was on good terms with Darius, but if he knew the man like he thought, Darius wouldn't've changed it in case Harris needed to talk with him.

He let out a sigh of relief when the door opened easily and TESS welcomed him. When the elevator opened to the main room, he expected to find Darius in the kitchen, but the man was sitting on one of the couches, the only one that was bought truly for comfort. The room was dark save for the light that came from the late afternoon sun.

"Darius," Harris said, taking a couple steps into the room. Darius was staring ahead, out of the window, slouching deep into the couch, legs spread carelessly. His clothes, a far cry from carefully fitted attire he customarily wore, were wrinkled.

"Harris." Darius' voice was hollow. He didn't alter his gaze.

"I heard about Claudia."

"Hard to miss." News of the death had made national news due to Darius' fame.

Harris stood in awkward silence.

"What're you doing here, Harris," Darius asked, turning his head finally to look at the man. The look of Darius' face took Harris back. He'd expected the younger man to be sad, teary-eyed. But Darius looked empty, lost. Gone was the fight, the challenge, the curiosity. He looked more haggard than he had over the last few years, eyes shadowed in darkness.

"I came to see how you're doing. I know you were close with your mother."

"Yeah." Darius gave a weak laugh. "I was."

"She was a wonderful woman." Harris had met her a half dozen times or more and Darius, when he spoke of his childhood, most easily spoke of her.

Darius nodded slowly.

Harris had learned years ago that a silent Darius wasn't good. He wasn't sure about a silent and empty Darius. Going on the embers of their friendship and that Darius hadn't yet told him to leave, he went to sit next to Darius. From there, he realized the situation was much worse. Darius was a meticulous man, but he'd let himself go, from showering to clean clothes.

"What's going on, Darius," Harris asked. He kept his tone light but concerned.

"Nothing." The answer was so quick that Harris knew Darius had been repeating it without thought all week.

"This is not nothing. I hardly recognize the man who set out to change the world."

"This is him now. That man is gone."

"I don't understand. Is this because of her death?"

Darius sighed, looking up at the ceiling, blinking away tears that came anyway.

"I thought you were going to change the world. That's what you told me when you decided to take Nicholas' offer and leave Tess. You said you were going to make a difference."

"How naïve I was." Darius chuckled hollowly. "I thought I could save her, Harris. I thought I could do something to stop it, but I failed."

"Is this about your mother? I thought she fell and developed pneumonia. It was an unexpected death."

"That is what the news is reporting, isn't it?"

"That's not the truth?"

Darius gave a shrug.

"What happened?"

"She didn't even remember me for the last couple years. Thought I was my dad sometimes or Nicholas. Other times I was a stranger she called the police on."

"Dementia?"

"Partly. I kept trying though. Kept researching. Doing anything I could."

Harris swallowed, listening to Darius. What had the man dealt with the last seven years? And done so largely alone.

"It wasn't enough though. The doctors kept saying that, for months, the last few years. I couldn't stop though." Darius' face crumbled. He moved to lean forward and Harris took the motion as a time to reach a comforting arm around Darius. The man easily, unconsciously, leaned into him.

"I'm sure you did everything you could, Darius. You were a good son to her."

Darius didn't speak and Harris let him work through his tears. When he seemed to settle, leaning back against the couch, head resting against the back, but still touching, leaning against him, Harris spoke.

"What did she die from, Darius?"

Darius waited a moment before answering, playing absently with the cuffs of his shirt.

"Huntington's," he finally said, quietly. "She didn't tell me until it became too much to deal with on her own."

"That's why you went back home."

"I had to do something. I couldn't watch her die, not my mother. I took Nicholas' money, built the company, and used the profits to fund research. But it's all come up empty."

"It may not have helped her, but maybe it will help others down the line."

"Yeah." Darius' voice was flat again. He looked up at the ceiling. "It's hereditary."

"And you…" Harris trailed off.

"No symptoms, yet." Darius picked his head up off the couch, looking down at his hands in his lap. "But I know how it'll end even though I won't."

"I can't imagine."

"I can."

"When did you find out?"

"Shortly after she told me. Few weeks before I took Nicholas' offer."

"That night in the ER." Harris remembered coming home from work to find Darius drunker than he'd ever been. He'd tried to get him to stop, but Darius kept going until he finally passed out. When he didn't wake and he discovered the other empty bottles, Harris called the ambulance. Darius never explained why he'd drunk so much, never said if the alcohol poisoning was intentional or accidental.

"I couldn't believe it."

"Why didn't you tell me."

"I don't know. Denial, I guess." Darius shrugged his shoulders.

"All of this because of that."

"All of this for nothing."

"What do you mean?"

"I gave up everything to find her a cure. To end her suffering but all I did was watch her suffer, daily."

"That's not the Darius I know."

"It's been seven years, Harris. People change."

"Not the core of them, not who they really are."

"Well, then I guess you didn't know the real Darius."

"So, that's it," Harris said after a pause.

Darius nodded.

"I don't have anything left, Harris. I tried everything. In a decade or two I'll die a worthless husk of who I was, unable to do anything, eat, breathe, or piss, for myself."

Harris paused for a moment before turning to face Darius.

"So, what you're going to wallow here for the next twenty years, waiting for your end?"

"I've seen it, Harris. I know how I'm going to die."

"No, you've seen your mother die. You don't know yet how you're going to die."

"There's no cure."

"Not now, but in a decade, maybe there will be."

"There won't be."

"You don't know. Maybe there won't be, but maybe there will be better treatments. Something that will help." Harris paused. "I know you, Darius. I know what you're capable of and that's not just sitting around. Impossible doesn't exist for you. It's just a matter of when, not if."

"Those are nice words, Harris, but…"

"No, look at me, Darius." Harris cut him off. Darius hesitated a moment before he turned to look at him. Harris made sure to keep his gaze as he spoke. "Even if there's no cure, if they never find something in your lifetime, you can change your approach."

"What are you saying?"

"This doesn't have to define you, rule you. You may die from it, but you can choose how you live with it."

"Change my stance?" Darius allowed a slight quirk of his lips.

"You won't be alone."

"I don't want pity."

"Then what are you doing now?"

"I think I'm allowed some time."

"Some, yes. But you can't let it consume you. You have too much to give to the world."

"Too much to give to the world?" Darius' eyebrows rose at Harris' confidence in him.

"I can't even imagine what you're dealing with, but I guarantee that whenever, wherever you need help, I will be here to help, to listen."

Darius was silent for a few moments.

"What about…" Darius trailed off, voice thick with emotion.

"You won't be alone, not now nor in the end, if it comes to that."

"Thank you," Darius said, the simple sentence coming out raspy and breathless. "That is a great comfort. I wouldn't want some stranger there."

There was a pause between them.

"It's already set up actually. I signed the DNR." Darius paused. "I don't want to… linger."

"You won't. But it won't come to that. I have confidence that there'll be something to help you."

"You can have all the confidence you want, I'll be realistic."

"That's a start. The confidence will come back. Nothing can keep the great Darius Tanz down."

Darius chuckled, the smile lingering for a few seconds. Then he fell back into his all too quiet silence.

"What have you been working on," Harris asked after a pause.

"Not much." Darius' answer was plain.

"Then the world must be coming to an end because the day you aren't toying with an idea or tinkering with some prototype is a dark day."

Darius smiled, giving a half chuckle. Harris knew him well.

"What's on your mind then." Harris tried a different tactic.

"Mortality," Darius answered easily.

That was hardly a surprise.

"Your own," Harris ventured.

"Yes," Darius said. "And no." The room was nearly dark, the sun setting on the other side of Tanz Industries. Darius preferred the light of a new day over the last dregs of an old one.

Harris waited for Darius to continue. He didn't.

"What about mortality? Are you going into the cryogenic business?"

"No, Harris," Darius said with a smile. "My own mortality has been on my mind since I found out. From only imagining it from my research to intimately witnessing it, I haven't been able to escape it." Darius paused. "My mother told me exactly what you said, more eloquently, of course."

"Naturally," Harris agreed with an easy smile.

"She accepted it all. It was a rare moment that she broke down. Not me. I was a mess more often than not it felt. It was a lonely seven years, especially at the end." Darius swallowed, sniffing back a fresh round of tears. "But my mother, she went bravely into the unknown, as strong as she had ever been. She said we all have to die sometime. Her last coherent words to me, when she remembered me still, were not to wallow. That I had to keep on living, inventing, changing the world."

"She was never wrong."

"No, she wasn't. But, Harris." Darius turned to him. "How am I supposed to do that? Your words, her words, they're nice sentiments, but living them? Living always knowing?"

"It won't be easy. But I know you. You don't like easy. If you did, you'd have been the good little intern at NASA and done the expected at MIT. But you, you see something that needs to change and you find a solution, no matter how unorthodox."

"So, I keep going, keep working like nothing is different?"

"Is anything really different? We all die at some point."

"Always so practical." Darius scoffed lightly.

"Not unlike yourself. If not for yourself, then for your mother. Honor her by living. Change the world in her memory."

"In her memory," Darius said quietly, testing the idea. He sank back into the couch, looking at the ceiling. Harris watched the final rays of light leave the room and the pale backlighting turn on, highlighting the constellations on the ceiling. He was prepared to speak again, to make a suggestion for some food while they continued the conversation when Darius spoke.

"TESS, turn on some music."

"Yes, Darius. Any particular song?"

"No, your choice."

A second later, "Fly Me to The Moon" began flowing through the room.

Harris looked at Darius. He knew about the man's love for music, his guitar being among his most prized possessions, so he wasn't surprised by the music. It was more the sudden switch.

"You said, I can't change what happens, but I can change the ambience." Darius allowed a slight smile, one that eased some of the emptiness clouding his features.

Harris smiled and nodded. Darius leaned back into the couch again, eyes closing. After a few long moments, he started talking, about the past, his plans, goals, tech he was dreaming of building. At times Harris didn't understand more than a word here or there, but he heard the life slowly returning to Darius. He was under no false impression that this was a quick or simple turn around. Darius would struggle with this and they would argue as they always had, but he was determined to do everything in his power to help him. Darius would never have to worry about being alone.