The Test
Title: The Test
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: G
Characters: Nate, Hardison, Parker, Sam.
Word Count: 1,000
Spoilers: If you know anything about the show, you're golden.
Warnings: Not really, unless you have issues surrounding swimming lessons at the Y. (Yeah, don't even get me started on my own experiences with that. :))
Disclaimer: I own nothing here and am just doing this for fun.
Notes: Written for whimoffate, as a result of a Guess the Story meme. Her prompt was “swimming.”
Looking through his binoculars, Nate watches Hardison. The way the hacker is standing on the edge of the building, fidgeting uncomfortably in the tight harness, reminds Nate of Sam’s first swimming test. Hardison shakes his head, eyes wide and mouth pressed into a thin line, and this simple gesture peels back the years for Nate until he’s standing in the YMCA, breathing in humid, over-chlorinated air.
Sam’s five and even though he’s taken to the water like he’s part fish, jumping into the deep end still gives him pause. He can do it if Nate’s already in the water; he just hates jumping into the emptiness alone. But it’s the last part of the swimming test, the final hurdle standing between Sam and graduation from Tadpoles to Polliwogs.
Nate stands off to the side with the other parents, mothers mostly. But Maggie insists that he go whenever he’s in town, so here is, watching his son and trying not to feel the anxiety that is building in the boy’s face. Sam hangs back reluctantly, as if hoping the teacher might forget he needs to complete the last part of the test.
Sam’s arms are crossed over his chest and he’s shivering slightly. Nate is close enough to see the blue tinge to his lip and the slight chatter to his teeth. He wishes that Sam would look over, so he could flash a smile or a reassuring thumbs-up, but the boy keeps his eyes focused on the ground.
After an excruciating wait, it’s finally Sam’s turn. He steps up slowly, like an inmate on the way to isolation. When he runs out of concrete, he hooks his toes over the lip of the pool and drops his arms to the side. Nate watches as the boy contemplates the gently rippling water, 12 feet deep at that point. He thinks it should be easy, since it’s not like there’s a diving board involved, but Sam’s face tells a different story.
The swim instructor, a perky blonde who is an Elementary Education major at UCLA, tucks her clipboard under her arm and squats next to Sam. Nate can’t hear her words, but he can read her face, kind and encouraging. Sam nods several time, even cracks half a smile, but he stays resolutely earth-bound. The instructor looks over to the parents’ waiting area, her eyes searching out Nate.
He sighs and walks over, nearly as slowly as Sam himself approached the pool. It’s not that he does’t want to help his son. It’s that his upbringing has left him utterly unprepared for this. What would Jimmy Ford do? He’d push the kid into the damn pool and not feel a drop of sympathy for him.
But Nate understands Sam’s reluctance. It’s a huge leap of faith, an enormous stride into the land of independence for a child who’s only had a few years of knowing that he’s a separate entity, his own person. Nate wants to be a different kind of father, but with the pressures of his job and his driven personality, it’s sometimes hard to relax and let the kid just be what he’s going to be.
Soon, Nate’s standing next to Sam, who refuses to make eye contact. Nate pushes his hands into his pocket to remove the overwhelming impulse to just push the boy. Instead, he carefully lowers himself to the pool deck, nearly genuflecting, not carrying that his left knee is pressed into a puddle of water.
“What’s up, buddy? You seem a little stuck.”
Sam gives a half-shrug, but doesn’t lift his eyes from the water. It’s like he’s hypnotized and Nate wonders what his little imagination is conjuring up right now.
“You’ve done this a million times, Sam.”
“I know.” The boy’s bottom lip wobbles and Nate wonders if he’s just cold or if he’s trying not to cry. Nate doesn’t care if his son fails the swim test, but he suddenly finds that it’s important to him that the boy not cry.
“Hey, Sam. Look at me,” says Nate, dropping his voice half an octave and waiting until the Sam reluctantly turns his head and makes eye contact. “It’s okay. If you want to walk away right now, that’s perfectly fine. But it would be a real shame, because I know you can do this. You’ve done it before.”
“But that was different.”
“Different how?”
“You were waiting to catch me.”
“Ah, but did I ever have to catch you, after the first few times?”
Sam is silent for a minute, considering the question. Finally, he shakes his head.
“That’s right. You don’t need me to catch you. But I’ll be right here, watching. I’ll always be right here, but the more you grow up, the less you’re going to need me.”
The look of skepticism that crosses Sam’s face reminds Nate so much of Maggie, he nearly laughs. Instead, he covers it with a half-cough and then stands up.
“You can do this, Sam. It’s your choice,” says Nate, before fading back into the parents’ waiting area.
The boy takes half a step back from the edge, then another full step. He pauses and takes a deep breath. Nate just keeps watching, his face neutral. The placid picture belies the scene in his head, where Jimmy Ford is railing against his sissy nature and his instinct to coddle the boy.
Sam suddenly steps forward, walking right into the abyss as calmly as he’d walk into his room at the end of a long day. Nate’s breath catches in his throat and doesn’t release until he sees Sam’s head bob to the surface, his smile ecstatic and triumphant.
Parker’s insistent voice brings Nate back to the present. “Should I push him?”
Nate lowers his binoculars and shakes his head. “No, it has to be his decision. Hardison, I know you can do this.”
Nate knows if he raises his binoculars, he can watch the effect his words have. He can talk Hardison through this moment of terror. But he’s feeling drained and he knows Hardison doesn’t need him, doesn’t need his encouragement. The hacker is a grown man, capable of facing up to his own fears.
Nate settles into a chair and pulls out his flask, not even realizing he’s holding his breath until he hears Hardison’s excited shout as the man plummets down the side of the building.